No, Never sexually harass a dragon.

Paternity suits are a bitch..

I love that picture.

Every runner should get at least one enema per day, in case they hid something up your butt while you were asleep.

...and this is why I prefer pink.

LOL!

I have this awesome visual of some too-paranoid-for-a-disposable-asset shadowrunner running around in some meet wiping his fingerprints off everything (while wearing gloves), and using his sissy 'no way is it real time'commlink to hide/conceal everything real about him in full face mask glory while the other runners get their uploaded info on thier commlinks and enjoy their 'free' meal and conversation with mr J, who promptly wipes his mouth and shoots the unprofessional freakO in the face. There's a certain threshold between 'clever ways to minimize backlash' and 'slow things down to a completely dull crawl due to unneccesary precautions,embarrassing all people involved'. How professional and serious should any employer be of someone who can't keep paranoia in check during the most basic of activities? Most of that stuff doesn't scream 'professional' to me, it screams 'I don't want you tracing me when I screw you over'.
A little paranoia is healthy, covering your ass acceptable. Going to such excrutiating measures unprompted as part of a routine just makes you stick out. You may as well have two mages assensing you and your target of conversation at all times, a ward set up around wherever you intend to buy ammo, and two mute homeless guys with emery boards and tinfoil hats attempting to file non existant serial numbers off caseless ammo. Oh, and two doses of Laes for them after they are finished doing it. And a third dose for the guy you bought the Laes from.

If Lone Star meticulously digs bullets out of victims, datamines broadcasted SINs and RFID tags, and if security is prompt with analysis of astral signatures, I’d say these measures become less paranoid.
If we’re playing this way, PCs get sent to prison. The AAAs you’re facing run dedicated security and forensic AIs. You wipe your datatrail at all the buildings you past on the way to the job, not just the installation itself (and hope that a random passersby doesn't post you in their MeFeed). Heck, that KE SWAT team might one day take it personally that you killed one of their own. Or perhaps that friendly meal from the Johnson is a test; either you find the antidote in time, or you’re the carrier for a GreenWar bioweapon; either way, you’re of potential useful to the cause.
If the GM steps up the realism, evilness, or whatever, I have no qualms as a player about stepping up my countermeasures. I figure PCs follow these tricks of the trade on the Jackpoint or ShadowSEA forums.
To me, it depends all on your group’s style. If you’re playing fast and loose, with guns blazing, minimal consequences, and no worries, sure, these measures would be excessive and unnecessary. But in the games I play, actions come back to haunt you, security is smart, vindictive and aggressive, and the Johnson doesn’t always play by the rules.

This is the type of play I'm used to as well a healthy dose of reality and consequences with your fantasy is sometimes the only way to not end up shooting everyone that see's your face.

Yes, it depends on your groups style. But it's not because one way of playing is "real" and another is not. You don't know what would really happen in this world. If you think you're being more real by developing a detailed plan to avoid detection, you're kidding yourself. You are just being more detailed, which is great because it's what you like.

It all depends on what your group has fun with.

Some groups love to get into all this detail. The GM has fun finding minute elements that the PCs overlooked and the PCs have fun picking apart every encounter looking for the smallest clues.

Some groups would rather roll a few relevant skills or abilities to erase traces of their presence from the scene of the meet, detect bugs or poisons on their persons or whatever. This lets them move on with the plot, which is what they find fun.

Neither group is being more real than the other, they just have different styles of play.

How 'real' is to assume that every employer is out to screw over it's deniable assets?
Exploit? Sure. Use without consequence of their safety and well being? Absolutely within the realm of reason. But the whole reason the runner/johnson relationship is a staple of the game is based on a somewhat stable level of mutual dependence and trust. Sure,both sides can and often do stretch it a little, and its generally a given that somebody is occasionally going to violate a rule, but I wouldn't personally replace 'professional caution' with 'unchecked paranoia'.
But if Mr J wants patsies, he can probably go about it easier and cheaper then wreaking havoc in the shadow community just because he can. As a GM, I've killed plenty of PC's with no remorse due to whims of the dice or stupidity in situations, combat or social. Life's pretty cheap post 2050, That's what seperates this game from many others, there's no reset button or get out of jail free rez. How does the 'man with no trace' actually get a rep? How does the man with no rep get away with potentially excessive breaches of ettitquette (depending on the locale, Im sure some measures are more extreme then others)? I'd offer that it's no less 'realistic' for a J acting above board to show some guy the door because the working relationship isn't quite right then it is to fret over fingerprints or food at your typical meet. Paranoia doesn't generally lend itself to trust in new contacts, and old ones can find the behavior outright offensive- and the ones that don't probably have an even better plan to screw you over anyways.
Playstyles vary, but a chem analyzer or sniffer could be utilized discretely without the faux paus of 'not eating' in certain cultural establishments for example.Or Tox filters, or broad spectrum antidotes preingested. And Im not saying the ultra paranoid cover all bases spend XXXX hours of game as 'prep time' is 'wrong' or 'lame' or any sort of value judgement on the fun factor, I just know how my johnsons would react to extreme social stigmas piled up on top of each other for a meet and offering a counterpoint. For the run itself, I welcome and advocate nearly any level of preparation, it just heightens my players paranoia. for the meets, I like the cautious professional attitude unless there's a suitable reason, complication or backstory.

These both are situatins where data balkanization and theer amount of data, are really you friends.
99% of the time the corp you hit won't risk the possibly heavy consequences of hacking other corporations nodes to get those camera feeds that might be there or might not.

Heh, I'm picturing the runners weighing all their gear after every run. Secretly roll a d6 for each item and randomly make it over or under by that many milligrams. Y'know, due to wear and tear or picking up a bit of extra carbon dust or sweat. See if they're willing to trash all their expensive kit because it the weight is wrong.

Or if they all go around everywhere in breathing apparatus, Lonestar marks them as potential bioterrorists.

I mean, you gotta keep the players from being overconfident about predicting where the threats come from. Otherwise how're they gonna stay paranoid?

Anyway, some of the ideas on the list are badass. I'm new to SR, but I like the spare comlink slaved to your real one that's in hidden mode. And the hardwired cyber with a physical cutoff switch to the commlink. And the ABCDEF mission ranking.

To me, they're good tips for various characters. Just sayin' that it's not like every group has to develop a detailed SOP for every situation, to be real. And the SOP can definitely vary between groups, so I'd say it's less of best practices and more like tips to avoiding getting screwed in SR. With the first one being "stay in control of the situation, but don't make the Johnson think you're insane."

Which, coincidentally, is the same first rule Mr. Johnson should follow

You don't have to hack. Everybody knows people who owe them favors, and you owe them favors.

I agree if you're talking about a full gas mask, but look at modern-day Mexico City - the pollution is going to look a lot like that in most major cities in the 2070's. I imagine respirators would be pretty common in more polluted areas, esp. LA and Tenochititlan.

Required in Tenochititlan, actually. The smog there is so bad no-one can go outside without one. And also, look at modern-day Japan/China. Same thing there as in Meheeko.

G is for God(s) help you. Almost no one is going to make it out alive. Forget salvaging anything, just pray you make it out with your own skin and most of your internal organs. A miracle is your only hope now.

H is for Hell. This is where you're going. Everyone is going to die, probably in a very painful and gruesome manner. You're all going to hell for botching the run this badly.

Argh, kill it with fire, kill it with fire.
Don't let the shedim loose.

I is for Idiot, specifically the stupid person who resurrects a dead thread.

**

Ok, lets just acknowledge that the powers that be in Shadowrun do technically have the facilities to track you down, and rape you up the ass with a stun baton.

However I would argue that the point of Shadowrun is for a few friends to get together on a Saturday evening and drink a few beers while pretending that they are elves with submachine guns who shoot people in the face for cash money. Having the GM kill your character because you forgot to check your intestinal tract for RFID tags is not conducive to the former.

Now I'll throw a few things out there that might encourage you to ease up on your PC's.

1) The world is balkanized. You can't drive across town without crossing borders, nevermind jurisdictions. Lone Star isn't going to give a good god damn if you commit a crime on Ares turf.
2) The world is corrupt. Anything short of the public execution of a major figure should be solvable by slipping some nuyen to the offended party real quiet like.
3) The powers that be realize that deniable assets are an important part of business. If you start offing every deniable asset that works against you, soon there will be no deniable assets left when you want some dirty work done.
4) There is a lot of crime... everywhere. Investigative departments are swamped with cases. It might take them six months to finally work their way through to the crimescene that your PC's left behind.

or You use seperately inflatable soles in combination with 1 (or 2) inflatable Hunchbacks
(complete it with a downloaded Personality Chip of Igor ; Frankensteins Assistant)

He who dances in a Thunderstorm(Its alive,ALIVE)
Medicineman

(This thread is) Still Alive?

With bookmarks or search-fu, even death may die..

Some good ideas in the thread, but overall a lot of overkill.

Overkill and overcomplication.
Also, to some of the paranoids in the business their teammates are probably saving some to pay for their street shrink (I'm sure there's an unexploited market for this. Street name, is, obviously, "Dr.Freud").

On the other hand, being careful is good. Specially with your electronics and your communications.
Learn a bit about the matrix, buy some knowsofts on the subject (matrix security procedures), or learn the knowledge skills yourself, and follow oyur Gm's advice. This a metagaming thing, but a good one:

Player: "My character has a matrix security procedures chip at rating 3. That is a professional's knowledge and pretty standard, but helps. Any advice on how should I set my commlink, so it is fucntional and secure?"
Gm: (Explains more or less, according to his campaign, what he should do)

Now that I think about this, you could do this to cover a lot of things. Just don't get obsessive with it. It just fattens Dr.Freud's pockets to the detriment of your sammies new delta move-by-wire.

On the other hand: Using an internal commlink, with a physical switch hidden in the finger compartment is just awesome.

Also, keep your main home free of wireless. Use switches -old kind- and avoid t.v. Own books, or buy e-books, its more educating and you can't be hacked. Avoid drones at home, pay some one to do the cleaning -It'll improve some poor family's life and it'll avoid your vaccum from shooting you in the face- or do it yourself. Also, switch homes every so often (once or twice a year).

Limiting accounts is almost useless: Hackers can -and should- use spoof to create another account of the kind they want to use in the node they are hacking.

Now that this is back from the dead once again, i gotta ask:
Why did you quote me for that comment, i'm not the one who summoned the shedim.

I is for Idiot. This is the guy that thinks fighting everyone and everything is how running is done.

J is for Justice. Lone Star or KE will make you life miserable if you kill one of their own. Just like a street gang, they will take it personally.

K is for Kill. Only do so when necessary.

L is for larceny. Petty larceny and theft are easy ways to make money. Stealing cars is easier to make money at than running the shadows. Just remember to bring the pornomancer.

M is for money. Like the song says"Go on take the money and run".

N is for Never. Never trust an elf and never make deals with dragons.

You can't use Spoof to create an account. That requires either a Computer+Edit or Hacking+Exploit test, once you have access to that node.

Encryption is the key to a good matrix defense. Encrypt everything. Unwired's "Strong Encryption" preferably. You can't be hacked in a fight if it takes the hacker 1+ hours per Decrypt test just to have the chance to hack your commlink.

a) Thanks for clearing that out. Actually I made the hacker spoof an account /then/ hack on the fly or probe to gain access.

b) Can you strong encrypt conversations as they happen? I think no... you can however communicate through text messages (edit 1) and send them with attached data bombs (rating x). Not as fast as actual voice communication, but with DNI you should be able to think and have it translate to text.
Its quite safe.

No, you can't use Strong Encryption for comms encryption, but standard encryption should be pretty good (it'll slow up a hacker for a few turns, at least). Text messages with a databomb attachment is a good idea.

Sorry if my post offends. I was agreeing with you, hence the quote. On hindsight, it might have been wiser to state that in my previous post.

No harm, no foul. I actually assumed you just quoted the wrong post originally, just desided to ask as the topic rose from the grave once again.

Smart shoes that dynamically adjust their thickness and internal angles to force you to walk differently.

Or you could be like the down-and-out actor Lawrence Smith in Robert A. Heinlein's Double Star and use some pebbles in the shoe and some tape across the back to change the gait of a companion so he wouldn't be recognized.

I was about to post something like that, and then read the other half of your post.

A is for Airborne
I is for In the sky
R is for Ready to go
B is for Bonafide
O is for On the move
R is for Rock & roll
N is for Never quit
E is for Everyday
R is for Rough and tough
A is for All the way
N is for Never quit
G is for Gung-ho
E is for Excellence
R is for Ranger

What? I couldn't resist

Both will work.

Course with your smart shoes ((including Dynamic Footprint tm) have your foot prints change with your sin!) will change with your active sin.

That's the essentials right there. Classics to live by.

Couple rules I've found useful, from simple to extreme.

1. Stay off the grid. No paranoid measures you take will match living in a crappy part of town like glow city where there's no cops and no cameras. Yeah, the locals might be nasty but you can deal with them a lot easier than a Firewatch team. Keep everything offline, simple, and generic.

2. Stun, don't kill. There's absolutely no reason to kill someone unless you're forced; you gain nothing and it can cause innumerable problems.

3. Know somebody crazy. You're going to face retaliation at some point, people will try to track you down or screw you, it just happens. It's very tempting to try to avoid this by having someone powerful on your side, a powerful contact with the Yaks, police, or a corp. All of those people, however, suffer from rationality, they won't fight a helpless battle against someone more powerful than them because they suffer from rationality. Whoever is tracking you can anticipate that these people will back down so usually a powerful patron only protects you against threats you could handle on your own while being powerless against something you can't handle. Crazy people, however, will fight hopeless battles and this alters your pursuers calculus because there's now an unavoidable cost to tracking you down, no matter how nasty they are, which means a crazy serves as a constant deterrent.
For example, say Renraku is hunting you down after a run gone bad. If you're depending on the Yakuza for protection you're in trouble, the Yaks are no match for Red Samurai and so the Yak boss will, rationally, probably cut his losses and stand down. Renraku knows this so when they look you up and see you're tied to the Yaks, they'll assume the Yaks will abandon you and probably go after you. If they see you're hanging with the Halloweeners, even though the Halloweeners are weaker than the Yaks, Renraku knows the Halloweeners will happily blast it out with them and Renraku will take losses, which makes hunting you more expensive.

4. Move fast and leave a crater. Do your best to keep the run professional but if you end up in combat with security forces don't fiddle with tricks or try a drawn-out shoot out. Go straight to demolitions, knock them off their feet, and then get out of there within five minutes. Yes, excess damage causes long-term problems but once combat begins the amount of time you spend there is more dangerous to your survival, in both the short term and the long term, than the amount of damage you cause. Plan C leads directly to Plan D and don't try to pretend otherwise, just whip out your minigun, run as fast as you can, and murder everything with extreme prejudice.

QFT. Well done, well done indeed!

During the preps before every mission..

Kidnap one of more street-beggars, children, women, street prostitutes, old grannies, barren sinless refugees.. aka weak human prey who would not be missed, who would not put up (too much) resistance at being kidnapped and whom the police would not waste resources at tracking them...

Summon up one or more ally spirits with inhabitation...

Inhabit the kidnapped street-beggar, children, women, street prostitutes, old grannies, barren sinless refugees with the summoned ally spirit..

Use the summoned ally spirit as decoy in more than one situations.. including the 2-room hacker situation listed above.. only I would use a van where the real hacker would hide in.. when the room with the decoy got busted.. the hacker would not have to waste time finding a getaway vehicle..

Use the kidnapped victim to draw away security while your team penetrates corp compound..

Use the kidnapped victim to spy and meet with mr johnson, prisoner swaps, etc...

Use the kidnapped victim to deliver a kamizake 100 pound c4 explosive hidden in cavities..

After the victims died every mission, you can recycle the same ally spirits by kidnapping new victims without spending more exp on new ally spirits.. It is an extremely cheap method of creating decoys and manpower..

Straight from the manual of bug spirit tactics.. If you can't beat them, join them...

Yep, I am back..

I think the total sum of Best Practices can be distilled down to one necessary thing : Know Your Enemy

Do your damn legwork. Know what kind of response is going to come from the work you're accepting, and make sure you can handle it before you go in guns blazing. If someone is offering you 20,000 to extract someone's secretary, find out their boss' reputation for for holding a grudge before the Red Samurai come knocking.

Half of surviving in the shadows is taking calculated risks.

Back when he was starting in the business, one of Hulk Hogan's jobs was to count the number of empty beer cans bounced off his head to ensure that Andre the Giant never ran out of beer.

Not all of it fits but it is still apropos..

"In an ally, considerations of house, clan, planet, race are insignificant beside two prime questions, which are:
1. Can he shoot?
2. Will he aim at your enemy?

From Cantra yos'Phelium's Log Book"

From the Liaden Universe by Sharon Lee and Steven Miller

Apropos indeed. Concise and to the point.