Greets,

I was thinking about licenses and SINs, I am still unsure on how to play them. The way I play them is like this:




From a game mechanics side I would see the winning hand always being with security. How do fake licenses help? I mean obviously if you are at the stuffer shack and you want to buy a fag and you flash your electronic equivalent of a cardboard and stick figure photo ID drivers license that would be a License 1 and a hand wave by the GM.

However, what about airports, hospitals, and government buildings? Customs officials have special training to identify forgeries. Wouldn't this involve a similar four point system of verification (biometrics, checking the international system of SINs, interrogatory mathematical verification system, and old Mark I eyeball).

What about spells? Magecuffs have bacteria that glows when spells are to be cast. It is a simple, mostly fool-proof system. I would see the same technology incorporated in scanners in the sixth world. A little bar on the side which sets off an alarm when a mage walks through the scanner.

What about identity theft? What's to stop a character from mugging a person who is of roughly the equivalent size and gender, steal their commlink and go on an identity theft shopping spree? As technomancers are the new Al Qaeda, commlinks are rarely cranial.

Wouldn't that only work if the mage was casting a spell while walking through the scanner?

Or an active spell.

Really, it all comes down to how important you want them to be versus how fast-and-loose an action movie sort of game you want to play. The tools are out there to make security checkpoints nigh-impossible to fool, to make building security invincible, and there are enough canon hoops to make characters jump through that you can make it really, really, tough to "make it" as a Shadowrunner.

Or, alternately, you can let them roll up an appropriate contact, pay enough nuyen for a maguffin/fake ID that will pass scanners, and just call it a day, so they can get through the checkpoint and on to whereever they need to be to get into their next gunfight.

It all depends on what sort of game you're out to play.

Rules As Written, fake SINs and fake licenses are damned near useless for anything but going to the grocery store. In a scanner rating vs SIN/license rating test, straight up, with no modifiers, the scanner wins a significant amount of the time, even with a r3 scanner vs a r6 SIN. That's only 1 vs 2 "expected" hits, and don't forget that the scanner effectively wins ties thanks to the "suspicion" rules!

Frankly, the only way to make them viable is to use a house rule such as "SINs and licenses automatically win checks vs scanners of less than their rating". Even then, however, you're going to have a hellacious SIN turnover rate if you go anywhere near a decently high security area with any frequency ... like a megacorp site, a high-class area of town, etc. It's just completely mathematically unsound. It's one of the worst ideas in the book.

The issue I see is that they are trying to cover a huge range of verification.

At one level, you want to buy a syntha-burito at stuffer shack. Well, stuff shack doesn't really care WHO you are, they care care a lot that you have money. They might care a little bit about who you are so they can send you ads for the "new long-pig flavored syntha-burito" when you are walking near one, but they really don't care enough to put any money into it.

At the other level you are trying to get a security clearance or join the equivalent of the Mongols motorcycle gang. And they start out by getting your fingerprints and DNA, and get a list of everywhere you lived, every school you attended, every job you ever had and a list of people at each of these who can vouch for you. Then they run your biometrics and look for duplicates and pull your criminal history. Then they have people call or visit everything on your list and see what other leads turn up.

A MasterCard gift card can pass the first "ID check", but nearly all fake IDs will crash and burn on the second unless it's backed by a major national or megacorp agency. But the second is hugely expensive and time consuming.

There are even odds that the Rating 3 Scanner will Penetrate/Not Penetrate, the Rating 3 Fake SIN...
With a Rating 5 Fake SIN, your standard Rating 3 System will generally lose, all things being equal (0 Hits vs 1 Hit on the Autosuccess rule), and don't forget that the "suspicion" of an equal test only prompts more inclusive verification... They start to ask you relevant information included on the SIN, or ask for a different source of verification (Biometric), which SHOULD be included with your SIN anyways... it is kind of counter-productive to set up a SIN that does not include your Biometric data, or a way to bypass that data with relevant scans.

At Rating 6, with a 2 to 1 dice advantage your SIN will generally always defeat the "Standard" rating 3 Scanner... At Security Levels of Equipment (rating 4-5) the Fake SIN still has the advantage at Rating 6...

Now, I will say that a Rating 1 and Rating 2 Sin are pretty useless, but you get what you pay for... I would say invest the 6k Nuyen into the Rating 6 Fake SIN...

As for the Turnover of SINS... this is exactly the case, and what I believe that the develpopers wanted to protray with the system... You need to peneetrate a Megacorp facility as one of the people authorized to enter, you gotta shell out the bucks for the access ID, and you damn well are (or should) going to Burn that ID the second that you have completed the Run... That is the whole point of the Fake SIN situation...

I cannot tell you how many Fake SIN's/Licenses that I have burned over the year or so that I have played my current character... Just part of doing business in the Shadows...

Anyway, My Two Cents

As the GM, I only "check" ID's for game critical points, and mainly for drama. It's pretty ludicrous to think the local stuffer shack is going to check your ID every time you buy some nuke it burritos, they just want your cred. Even in high security public zones most drones and scanners are mainly seeing if you have a SIN, not really running a background check on every Tomas, Ricardo, and Enrique that walks the plex. Critias is dead on with the fact that you can make it as challenging as you want. There is no "fool proof" way to defeat all ID checks every time, but even a good fast talker might be able to get around any inconsistencies with the ID. I would suggest avoiding ID checks unless the players draw attention to themselves in some way or there is a reason for the scrutiny. If Lone Star thinks they look suspicious, run their ID. If they are impersonating a sarariman to get into MCT's offices in downtown Seattle, check their ID's. If they are crossing a "hot" border, check their ID's. Otherwise, let it sliiiiiide .

Well, you're just paranoid, that's all

Perhaps, But I have not been "Caught" yet... ewven though you are an evil, manipulative, backstabbing, dictator of a GM...

Hey... No-one would ever impersonate an MCT Sarariman to gain access to their high security facilities for any reason that I could think of... why would you want to gain the equivalent of a "Day-Job", even for a week or so, just to perform some highly-illegal run; seems kind of dangerous to me...

Not even remotely close to being true. With 3 dice to throw, you have a 31.25% chance to get at least 2 hits.

Hey, I'm just trying to foster those qualities in my players

Sure, and what are the odds of getting at least 2 hits or more with six dice? One does not need to be a mathematician to see that 6 is bigger than 3, and generally will be reliable enough. But I agree that Ty's "always" is a bit strong as it is connotative with certainty where there is not any.

That's what I was referring to. I wasn't saying that 3 dice is going to beat 6 dice most of the time -- just that it WILL tie or beat 6 dice a significant fraction of the time.

And here I thought you were just being mean .

With 6 dice that chance to beat the 3 dice is significantly better as well... do not discount the averages for 6 dice as well...

And I bend to the wisdom (becasue it does indeed happen) that ocassionally, the 3 dice will succeed over the 6 dice... just not a significant amount of the time...


And Te0dio... Paranoia keeps us alive...

This is the mindset behind the current rules. But it is terribly wrong.

Every time you roll the dice on your rating 3 ID you have a 1:216 chance of getting all ones. So about 99.5% of the time you do not get all ones. If you use that ID 20 time you have a significantly higher than 9% chance of a critical glitch in one or more of those tries. (Sorry, I can't remember how to do the math for a critical glitch , but all ones is clearly one of the many results that is a critical glitch)

However... (IIRC) you have about a 67% chance that any given die is a failure, so you have about a 30% chance on any given roll that you get no successes. If you use this ID 20 times you have a 0.09% chance of it not failing at least once.

With a rating 6 fake you have about a 9% chance per roll of getting no successes. Over 20 rolls you have a 16% chance that it doesn't fail at least once.

However your chance of getting all ones per roll is down to 0.002%, so your chance of getting an all ones roll at least once over 20 attempts is 0.05%. The odds of a critical glitch are significantly higher, but I can't remember how to calculate this.

With Dice probablilities, you will always have this problem, but do not forget, that the opposing verification system ALSO suffers this problem... so in the end, it is a wash...

Which is why, ideally, you are constantly changing your SIN's... and hopefully for the better ones at that...

The problem is that it isn't. If you fail it doesn't matter how the device did, you lose. If you succeed it starts to matter the relative success levels. And that is a lot more complex to calculate, but the numbers just get WORSE, as it is only reducing your probability of success.

You walk into a Stuffer Shack and wave your fake idea. The Stuffer Shack has no reason to care whether your ID is legitimate or not. They benefit from keeping the bums out, but a fake ID means you have money, so they'll happily sell to you either way. You're a criminal, but you can want to grab a bite too. And the same is probably true for most stores. Want clothes? The department store has very little interest in turning away your tainted nuyen.

ID checks only make sense in places where there is genuine interest in keeping the SINless out. Not the general, faceless, swarming mobs are dirty and disgusting street trash, who can be ejected by eye, but everyone who isn't entirely upright and who may have some shadiness to his character. Where is that? Likely shadowrun targets like corps, anywhere with police or military presence, and possibly the poshest of the posh establishments.

There may be more scanners around, but it does the bottom line no good for the employees to toss out paying but SINless customers out. They'll take your money and smile. Maybe they'll report you to Lone Star, but probably not; they'd rather have you come back and buy again.

The stuffer shack has every reason to care that when whatever you are using to pay says you have money that you really do. Other then that, they don't really care. They care a tiny bit because it means that stuffershack can't add useful data to the AR spam database, but that is typically a minor issue.

But that isn't how the rules work. It's easier to just handwave the whole thing and assume that as long as the PCs are doing whatever the GM thinks is appropriate to avoid having IDs blow the IDs are not blown. And when they obviously are blown the players do the correct thing.

If you fail your roll and the verification fails it's roll, it is a wash (tie) and additional verification is called for... for verification, all you need is a single net over the system, and you are golden...

Unless, of course, I am missing something...

Hmm that does seem to be the case. Cleverly the game doesn't provide a mechanism to actually do the additional verification "based on the bearers history" that is supposed to result. The default in an opposed test is that on a tie the defender wins if stalemate isn't an acceptable result.

I have always read it that if you tie, then you retest again... Seems to fit the fluff...

No, what they should do is throw detailed questions at the character, which means the character with a new SIN every 2 days is screwed when they ask him what Junior High he graduated from and where his mother was born. The character with a stable fake ID that he doesn't burn and instead studies it can probably answer it.

Except that in SR option 2 is dumb.

Agreed, but for the "rules" of interpretation, that would be resolved as either another test agains the Fake ID, or as a Judge Intentions Test vs. a Con (Possibly Fast Talking) Social Test...

It boils down to that fact that Players/GM's do not put that much into the Fake SIN process in my experience... Which is odd... I always liked putting together some background info, such as you are hinting at, to flesh out the data a little bit... Sadly, most Players/GM's don't care enough about it to put forth that kind of effort... so the Retest or Social Test is the way to handle it...

Either way works...

I prefer to use the following method for higher security purposes. To me such a check comes down to an item (ID) being verified using another item (computer databases). A fake ID is only useful until it is flagged at which point the player will have to pay the penalties along with getting a possible replacement ID. High security systems rely on things beyond just an ID check though so the following system only covers that aspect of it. A player best be prepared to pass any other method that may be employed.

ID rating > SIN Scan rating: Free pass
ID = SIN Scan rating: Even roll opposing test. Failure results in a 30 minute detention period per opposing test failure, max of 3 tests. Success leads to immediate release.
ID 1 < SIN Scan rating: Detained for questioning. 1 hour detention per opposing test failure. 3 opposing tests max. Success leads to immediate release.
ID 2 < SIN Scan rating: Detained for further interrogation. 1 hour detention minimum. 3 opposing tests max. Success leads to release. 3 failures results in 1 week detention +1 SIN Scan rating is added to future tests against that specific ID only.
ID 3+ < SIN Scan rating: Not good!

These methods are mostly passes with the occasional test leading to varied detention periods which may impede on some time sensitive things down the road. The more extreme types should rarely occur as long as the player owns a decent rated fake SIN. If the players are willing to take the chance against a SIN Scan in a known hot spot they must be willing to deal with the results.

If you have to have hard and fast rules, I like this...

I've always liked the idea of making the Fake SIN's rating a threshold for the verification system to beat. Even if you give the system 2xrating in dice, odds are very good that you will get through all right, but it is not automatic.

It sounds possible, but I'd want to see someone do the math first before saying it was good. A lot of these don't work the way it looks to the casual observer. And I'd probably want to go to something akin to the SR3 pricing on really good fakes,

That actually sounds like a reasonable system. It'd need a rating+rating roll for the scanner, but that's easy to ad hoc. It at least makes rating 6 SINs live up to their 18 availability code.

GM decides if and when to bother with SIN verification.
SIN Verification is a multi step process. If the initial test fails, then there may be subsequent checks.

I typically allow the PC to come up with whatever inventive thing they want to try for the second verification. I've had Intimidation used, the security checkpoint really didn't want to ask that troll about his mamma, bribes made, hacking on the fly, violent distractions, seductions, cons, fast talk, and all the way to the start of a really big firefight.

It's also possible for the SIN checker to skip the second verification and go straight to whatever their planned response is.

SIN checks are a tool. It's up to the GM to use them well.

Under the assumption that the characters actually looked at their new SIN information when they received it, I call a Memory test here.

It seems like in the business of selling fake SINs, it would just be good business sense to have common verification Q&A included with the package.

Couldn't have said it better myself. Use em when you want to, how you want to. The rules are there to use or ignore. Plus, I see a lot of people obsessed with the dice. Too much rolling dice. I love mechanics too but a time and place for dice rolls is always needed.

I can't speak for everybody of course, but I have fifteen current active IDs. Each has diferent biometrics (Including fingerprints, and as soon as I can get my hands on it, retina prints). Each has full name, citizenship, place of birth, date of birth, employer (if any), clothing styles, language, food preferences, speech mannerisms, physical mannerisms, sexual orientation preferences, comlink type (you DID get a different comlink to RUN the fake ID, right?) and OS, firearm(s) with permit(s), and basic nuclear family information and marital status. (My GM says he's thankful I'm the one keeping track of them, but my best friend just insists I'm schitzo so it's not a problem. I can role play each of them, and most people can tell who I am playing just by watching and listening.)

I think this part of the game is at the heart of what makes Shadowrun what it is, especially in 2070.

As to tests, here is what our group has essentially settled on:

Level 1 = It's a bus pass. Stuffer Shack^TM probably won't quibble.
Level 2 = Minimum casual use.
Level 3 = Sufficient to pass a police traffic stop, assuming no other suspicion from the cop.
Level 4 = Enough to legitimately buy property (a house).
Level 5 = Will pass almost all "immediate" scrutiny.
Level 6 = Potentially enough to pass a security background check, but not in person.

For "immediate" security checks, we handle it with the ID level as a threshold for the "Scanner".

For an in depth check, duration varies by level. Initiative Pass for Level 1. Minutes for Level 2. Hours for Level 3. Days for Level 4. Weeks for Level 5. Months for Level 6. (At level 6, the details and data are so in depth, it takes real people real time to comb the mountain of data to find the tiny discrepancies and put them together.) The threshold there would be level*level. All fakes can be broken eventually. But imagine a flesh and blood investigator looking into a Level 6 (6k/18F) ID, if they just SUSPECT it's false, if the person is convincing in interviews (can you say: role play? Social skills to suplement?) they might give up after a while and say it seems legit? If they KNOW it's fake, it's only a matter of time.

If you haven't read it in depth, the Runner's Companion spends a LOT of time talking about this stuff and what a fake ID really entails and involves. Level 3 and higher IDs are putting full and legitimate information into governmental databases.

Please bear in mind these are just for baseline IDs. You want a faked access card for the Sader Krupp research facility to go with that fake SiN that claims you belong there as an employee? NOW we're up to a straight-up rating to rating roll off. And when the guard raises an eyebrow, that's when those sleaze skills come in handy to glide you right past him. "Oh, I just transfered in from the Ohio facility, and Mr. Tanaka said he was SURE they would get my paperwork straightened out by the end of the week, but I'm already running late, and you know how he is, don't you?" *Dazling smile and a dice roll*

Any thoughts?

It means IDs are important to put time into, but not really to take time to DEAL with in play once you set them up and as long as you actually adhere to them. Forget you're supposed to be a meek submissive Japanese wageslave and start sassing the guard with a Southern accent... well, you get the picture.

Ths is the level of detail that I have used in the past, but honestly, my current group does not worry about it as much...

The drawback is that if you have lots of IDs with the same biometrics is that when you get stopped at the security checkpoint at the airport your prints get run against the central data base and are going to return 15 different people. These also match your retinal patterns and also look remarkably like you. Which means you are not making the 5:15 to NYC.

*sassy grin*
Now who said they all have the same biometrics?
*checks her list*
Nano palm (and finger) print adjustment, check.
Nano retinal adjusters, coming... soon.
Facial Sculpt adept power, check.
Voice Control adept power, check.
Makeover spell, check.
Fashion spell, check.
Con / Impersonation at 4 with a high Charisma, check.

The only thing that could be tricky would be DNA, and in-utero Genewipe at least means trace evidence won't lead back.

So, we've got aparent height (the diference in preceived height between posture and heel height adjustments is amazing).
We've got apparent weight (and again clothing and posture can do a lot).
We've got fingerprints.
We've got retinaprints.
We've got facial recgnition.
We've got voice print.
We've got clothes and makeup.
And we've got a silver tongue with a disarming personality.

As I said in another post: there are always other ways, omae.

My main point was that I have a tremendous amount of detail for each ID, and that my CHARACTER is prepared to BE one of those for day at a time, at need. And if you've read Runner's Companion, high rating fake IDs eventually become a reality of their own if used for long enough and with enough consistency in shopping, reading, travel and so forth. The fact that it was originally a fake doesn't mean it lacks reality. First thing a flesh and blood investigator looks for is behavior patterns. "Why hasn't Ms. Parker bought anything at all for 23 days, then suddenly surfaced 2300 km away going on a shopping spree for clothes that don't seem to be her style?" That's why it's worth paying a cartel to KEEP your IDs updated with information like that over time. THAT is a large measure of what sets a Level 4 ID from a Level 6 ID.

Which'd all be fine and dandy if a level 6 ID was worth that amount of trouble, hassle, and financial expenditure. By RAW, it really isn't.

But it all comes down to a game by game basis -- if that level of effort is enough for your GM, the "happy medium" where the player works at having something cool and the GM rewards them by ignoring the way the rules work a bit, more power to ya.

*considers that for a moment*

Critias:: you have a very good point. I guess I simply wouldn't put up with a GM who didn't. By the RAW, Shadowrunners shouldn't be able to order a pizza more than about a dozen times even with the very best of IDs, which would effectively put them out of business as a group, and that just doesn't seem to make a lot of sense if it's still going to be Shadowrun.

There are multiple third party SIN authentication systems, so part of the SIN checking is checking against the system the SIN is associated with. A Renraku SIN and Aztechnology SIN could contain the same biometric data, but that won't be revealed unless those two systems check against each other, and why would they? When you present your Aztech SIN, the SIN checker checks against Aztechnology SIN database.

If the players pay for it, the SIN is worth it. If you weren't getting value from it, then why would anyone buy it?

You can't authenticate with an ID that can't be checked. So you can't actually buy anything (or do anything at all) using a Renraku ID that Renraku won't authenticate. You might as well have drawn it in crayon on the back of a napkin.

It works fine the first time the character shows up at Renraku. But storage space is free. So the second time they show up with a different ID they match the first ID too, if the system does a check against the back end DB.

Are you then assuming there is a local reference copy of all ID information that is used for checking SINs all the time? You'd still need to authenticate the SIN for the purposes of authorizing the nuyen exchange for the fiscal account transfers? That isn't going to happen without a trusted third party authentication.

Not much of a news piece, but I went and did the math.

Rating 6 fake SIN vs rating 1 authentication system.


odds of fake SIN getting no successes, (2/3)^6
odds of rating 1 authentication getting 1 success 1/3

1/3*(2/3)^6=0.0292638317

That means that using a rating 6 fake SIN to, as someone said, "Order a pizza" has a 2.9% chance of failing and leaving the SIN burned. So, continuing with their example, ordering a pizza twelve times has a 30% chance of destroying the SIN.

24 uses is where the probability of the SIN lasting that long drops below 50% (this is against rating 1 verification. natch?)

a rating 6 fake SIN has less than a 5% chance of surviving 101 rating 1 tests. (at 5/day that's less than a month)

I'm the one who mentioned the Pizza, and those odds are assuming you sat at home on your couch and just ordered pizza. Every time you board a bus, take a cab, try to enter a building with security medium or higher, you're going to get checked, and the latter is not a rating 1 scanner. If Stuffer Shack is 1, serious private security is 2; Cops carry a 3 on their belt, have a 4 in their cruiser and a back 5 back at the station. Domestic airports would probably have a 4 while international airports / spaceports would be rating 6, as would a major corporate background screening. That would mean a rating 6 ID would be burned within days of day-to-day use, whereas the fluff would seem to suggest ordinary use day-to-day adds depth to an ID making it more legit to low level checks in the first place.
I don't remember enough of my old statistics courses to agree or disagree with yout math, but it seems to make sense. Probably too late to have them address this in the dead tree release of SR4A but maybe one of their little electronic books like Digital Grimoire? The fluff in the BBB and Runner's Companion both seem to suggest a rating 6 ID is darned near bulletproof. And as I mentioned above, I can see a world of diference between a basic SiN / ID and a specific corporate ID / access to a facility. There I can see the high probability of failure being more appropriate.

Yup.

Which is why I've long been of the opinion that it's fine for some GMs to make players jump through the hopes the RAW requires of them (if that's the sort of paranoid, always on the go, nothing last forever, this life is hard, game they want)...and just as fine with GMs that fix it with a little handwavium, and just require players invest in a solid rating 4 fake SIN or two and leave it alone (for a more casual game that focuses on different aspects of the shadows, like combat or whatever).

It's not the first time, and not the first game, in which the fluff and the numbers just don't come to the same conclusion.

*sighs sadly*
Too true, I'm afraid. I guess if you played by the RAW on IDs you probably would use the optional rules for magic / essence loss from major injury and play with the deadlier combat options, because they are all VERY gritty.

See Making Tests

"Th e gamemaster should not
require a player to make a test when the action is something
that the character should be expected to do without difficulty."

This should apply to SIN checks as much as Pilot Groundcraft checks