/signed

I think the OP makes very valid points, but I do not share his opinion. I have never played SR1, but from what I vaguely remember in SR2 and SR3 (back in high school) and what I see in SR4, crime-themed campaigns is at least partially the name of the game. Of course, other campaign concepts were introduced at some point, such as DocWagon HTR teams, news reporters, etc., but the default setting was about criminal elements in a society both futuristic and high fantasy. However, the game is not just about your average criminal. No, in my opinion, it was about a new kind of criminal: the Neo-Anarchist. Other posters have very aptly summarized the major changes from, say, the 1990s to the 2070s: magic, cybertech, megacorps, Z-zones, etc., and I believe one of the natural consequences of those changes would be a change in the kind of people you find in the underworld. To make a long story short, I think the OP should just play a "Godfather 2070" campaign and his problem would be solved!

Of course, I also realize that the game could be a lot grimmer and grittier, but to a certain degree, I think it's ultimately a lost cause. Not because of the game: I believe Shadowrun is one of those games where any and all story ideas can work, bar none. No, the problem is a lot of us, the gamers. As a gamemaster, I have spent the last 10 years running campaigns with White Wolf's überserious, "playing make-believe and rolling dice while eating pretzels and drinking beer/Mountain Dew really is a form of High Art" World of Darkness games* and to a certain extent, I have partly dropped the "theme and mood" idea because my players are just like any other gamer: if they decide they just want to have some light-hearted fun this week, I can't really keep them from enjoying themselves. If the group's physical adept decides he wants to scream "Killing Hand!" à la Street Fighter 2** when he uses said power tonight, I can join the fun or I can switch from GM to Drill Sergeant (which would ruin everybody's fun, including mine.) If a table wants to tell the grim story of the rise and fall of a crime syndicate, I strongly urge them to do so, but not every table is like that. Some people will always prefer hot-pink mohawks, cowboy hats and cat-girls, and in my opinion, it's just as good.

*Don't get me wrong, I really enjoy the World of Darkness games, especially Mage: the Ascension. I just think the gamemaster (... er, I mean storyteller) sections of White Wolf's core books are extremely pretentious.
**This has really happened in a one-shot SR game I ran a few months ago. One player wanted to play a physical adept with Killing Hands, however, instead of just saying something boring like "I punch him using Killing Hands", he would designate an enemy, mime his attack and, with his best "Ken/Ryu" impression, scream "Killing Hands!" for a karate chop, "Killing Feet!" for a kick, or even "Jumping Killing Feet!" for a flying kick. He was hilarious!

edit:
Are you complaining because I used the word 'motorcycle bum', or are you somehow saying that they have other significant job options, and show long-term loyalty because they're just badasses?

You have it backwards. You don't join an OMG and suddenly find you are a criminal. Instead you ARE a criminal, usually with some serious prison time, who joins an OMG. And after a testing, weeding out and extensive background verification process (and I mean extensive) you might be allowed to become an actual member. It's isn't teens looking for a father that they want, they are looking for guys who are in their late 20s and 30s who want to belong and have shown they can be trusted.

People always have other choices. You can become a fry cook. Hell, there was the guy who became chairman of Smith and Wesson despite his decade+ inside after a bank robbery conviction (though that didn't work out...). I know of a guy who spent time at Club Fed who runs his own business making and selling very high quality tactical gear. And if you didn't notice that absolutely NONE of the images of his gear show real guns, ordinance or ammunition you wouldn't be able to tell.

OMGs look for guys who WANT to be criminals and are capable of being very effective criminals.

The people you named are really the exception to the rule. The vast, vast majority of people with a felony conviction are never going to get a legal job paying more than $50k, and even that is if they're very lucky, very hard working, and pretty smart. Generally being a criminal is not a good long-term career choice. If you have a felony, though, the only real, money-making option is to continue criminal activity - there is money in crime, if you're good enough to get it.

And that's my point - someone currently in Hell's Angels (as in, deep enough to actually be a criminal, a character someone might play in Shadowrun) HAS NO OTHER OPTIONS aside from crime. Drug running pays. Pimping pays. Shooting dudes pays. Legal work does not. And should he ever be caught without his gang, the neighboring gangs are going to tear him up, so if he's in crime, he's in crime with the guys he's with right now, forever. He has no other viable options.

Shadowrunners almost always have significant viable options available. Until you take away those other viable options, and penalize back-stabbing, the idea of the hard-core criminal shadowrun group for a long campaign becomes difficult at best.

Speeding is an infraction, not a misdemeanour. The difference is rather important in that infractions aren't crimes, though the accused has the same legal protections regardless.




No, no. You're doing it wrong. Try like this.

THIS! IS! SHADOWRUN!



You can also get a felony conviction expunged (in which case it legally didn't happen) or sealed (in which case it happened, but no one would know about it), get your civil rights restored (in which case the conviction is still on the record but you can vote and own guns), or get a pardon from the appropriate Chief Executive.

Fail. You forgot to kick someone

You could also get bitten by a radioactive spider and get super powers. That doesn't mean it happens for most criminals, especially the vast majority who are fresh out of prison and realize they can't get a job RIGHT NOW that will cover rent and food.

There's always that "don't commit a felony in the first place, if you don't want to fuck up your life" option, too. I hear that works for a few people.

Most of them have NEVER had a job that will cover rent and food. Part of the deal with being a criminal is that that is what you do and you have contempt for the sheep who actually work.

IMO...a lot of them think that they are owed something because life for them wasn't the ideal. The people in the burbs had it given to them, or they had all the breaks, while I was stuck with the short straw. FFL attitude...it wasn't my fault, I was a victim.

According to a book I read recently that is pretty much universal. Pretty much nobody is the villain in their own life story. He gave an example of guy in for many rapes, who explained that he had asked them nicely for sex, and only attacked them if they turned him down. So it wasn't his fault, it was their fault as they had no right to turn down a guy like him.

True, but makes for an extremely boring Shadowrun character, doesn't it?

It is definitely a different style of Shadowrun if you are the SINner trying to do the right thing... Like cops, paramedics, reporters, or even the Rocker type of Archetypes...

Ahh okay. Wasn't sure where speeding rated but I was darn sure it wasn't on the same scale as everything else a runner does. Misdemeanour was the lowest one I knew short of by-laws and didn't think that speeding was on that low a level. (I don't drive at all so I don't know how all those laws work -- shocking for someone my age )

This all brings up an interesting point. Why don't runners have legal SINs (especially after Crash 2.0)? If they conduct most of their business with fake SINs that should give them some degree of anonymity (sp?) while still letting them have legal protection. At least in the UCAS that'd be a pretty good thing: no arbitrary search and seizure, can't be detained without charges being pressed, right to legal representation, habeus corpus, righ to file suit against unlawful arrest. Sure they'd still be in deep trouble for the crimes they committed (including using fake IDs) but at least they can't be as poorly treated as a SINless (forced implantation, torture, abuse, blackmail, entrapment, etc).

Governments don't have bylaws, those are for corporations and clubs



Having a legal SIN means they know who you are. And having legal rights doesn't mean squat when you're actually breaking the law. Sure, they can't search you for no reason, but they can if they catch you in crime. Random searches are not a Shadowrunner's biggest worry, since the most they'll probably do is confiscate your contraband if you're SINless. Who wants to do all that paperwork? Just take the loot and leave.

And sure, you can sue to get out of jail, and they can't summarily execute you. That would be nice if you were a real person, but not so much for a character. In practice it would take you years to get out of jail, and that's if you didn't actually do it, which you probably did. Even if you did get out, you would have already gone on to another character, unless the entire team was apprehended. The legal protections afforded by the Constitution actually suck pretty hard if you're guilty. Courts bend over backwards to admit evidence of guilt, and once it's in, you're gone. You've got a slim chance to get off if they do an unreasonable search or seizure, but the vast majority of warrantless searches are reasonable, so there you go. Not likely to matter.

IMO, it's better to be SINless, because that means the cops don't have to put you in jail and process you and such. If they catch you, you can bribe them, or agree to do them a favor, and they'll let you go. As long as you haven't made a big deal about it where the media knows about you and the cops would get in trouble if they let you go, they've got no real incentive to put you away. You don't exist, and catching nonexistent people isn't good for their bottom line.

I guess this comes down to our play differences again Larme. I have had character go up for their term and then be released before the campaign ends. It's not that uncommon espeically if you do use stuff like the training rules. A couple of months can go by pretty fast. Also if they are caught doing the crime then yes they are hooped. However, they're not very good if they get caught doing it. Usually their problems are in the follow up investigations. I can think of a few times where the cops having to wait for a warrant would have given the group time to ditch some incriminating evidence. (and even sealed warrants if such a thing exists should be easy for a hacker to spot)

Also who says someone with a SIN can't do a favour for the Star? "Let me go and I'll bring in the Mayan Cutter." Or giving them a scrap of info on some syndicate you don't like that'll help them make arrests. Sure you'll get a point of Notoriety but them's the breaks. I guess again this is where I have more of a Crime genre than you -- people do rat others out frequently and while your rep will take a hit it doesn't spell the end of your career (lay low for a while, skip town, beat up anyone who calls you a rat, etc). This can lead to some pretty interesting role-playing.

Again we seem to play with a little more attachment to our characters than your group. I'm of the opinion that it is a bigger deterrent to crime if you know that you can be tortured and killed on a whim. This means that when I play a character I play him as if he doesn't want this to happen to him (unless I am playing a character that wouldn't be bothered by it). If the choice is a prison term or torture they'll choose prison -- it always give me the option of playing him again when 2080 rolls around (and probably with a TON of contacts afterwards)! I'd rather know that my character is alive while I play a different one than go down in a blaze of glory.

PS: This isn't meant as an attack on your playstyle. I'm just trying to contrast the differences. I've never played at your table so I don't know how you guys play. I apologize in advance if I offended you.

It depends on how you view the world.

For example, a SINless person can't open an bank account, which is needed to do much of anything involving electronic money. So if the bank that has your money were to discover (via the wonderful spotting a fake ID rules) that you used a fake ID they can just confiscate your money "pending investigation". "Please visit the corporate offices of Banko Securitad en Medellín in Columbia in person so we can examine your ID and attempt to resolve this. Have a Nice Day."

If they've found out where you live and you're getting a warrant, you're fucked anyway. Pay someone to burn your real SIN and disappear. Which is exactly what you'd do if you had no SIN. Except that they'd never find where you live if you live in the Barrens, because they can't safely do any investigation in a Z-zone. Not unless you had a SIN which left a paper trail. Which is basically like painting a bullseye on your head.



The cops keep records. They find a suspect, they scan him. There's a record of that scan. They interrogate him. There's a record of that interrogation. There's a file, where they put all the evidence. They can't just erase it all, not without a very high level coverup. Chances are, if you're SINNed and they nab you, they're not letting go. Their contract with the jurisdiction is probably quite clear about what happens if corruption is too rampant, and if they're caught letting valid investigatory targets go, that's going to cost them dearly. SINless, on the other hand, are not valid investigatory targets. They're not in the system. You don't bother with them unless they're part of some really high profile incident. If you catch them, there's no record, you could kill them or let them go or take a bribe, and nobody cares.



Bah, rather live in jail than die in a blaze of glory? That's just sad



I'm sure there are banks that welcome suspect IDs. After all, where else would corporate robber barons stash their ill gotten gains? Just like there's a huge economy in hiring Shadowrunners, there's a huge infrastructure to support shadow biz. Shadow banks don't get taken down because the ones in charge of taking them down would probably have money hidden in similar shady places. If you took down those banks, where would you keep your stuff? Don't make the mistake of thinking of Shadowrun as a future vision of today. That's the OP's entire fallacy. Shadowrun is a different world, one in which "law and order" is a joke people tell. Law and order is nothing more than the means by which the police contractors make money. There are no more underlying principles of truth and justice. Social stability is a means to an end, not an end in itself, and it loses out whenever enough money is at stake.

Well, if you are using a bank in Medellin and don't live down the street that should be a clue...

And you are right, but it goes further. Any bank that welcomes suspect money will have drawbacks. Essentially you are banking with the Mafia or the Yakuza, not a Swiss banker. There are certain options they have to increase profits that might not be utilized by the Swiss. And like dealing with any arm of organized crime, you can't file a complaint with the better business bureau or the police. Well, you can, but it isn't likely to result in anything other then your demise.

Actually everything you said about a SINner applies to a SINless. According to the fluff as soon as the catch you they give you a Criminal SIN. Now they are in the system and all those files still exist. Of course none of that happens until they've beaten whatever info they want out of you or blackmailed you into doing whatever they want. The only thing standing beside you and whatever the arresting authority wants to do to you are the human rights watchdogs. Whereas with a SIN you are guaranteed basic human rights and maybe more depending on your country of registration. I'm not saying that being a SINner is the only way to go but it seems to afford you more protection than being SINless.

Yeah, I'd rather leave that blaze of glory stuff for D&D or Earthdawn (I'd say Exalted too but you don't really die in that one).

It is not a given that you ALWAYS acquire a Criminal Sin when caught... depends upon who catches you , and whether they actually want to go tot he trouble of processing you... the aforementioned bribes/favors could circumvent that entirely...

Just Saying...

Right, that's what I was going to say. They're supposed to give you a criminal SIN, but if they don't, who's to know? There's no record of them catching you because there was no SIN to scan when they chucked you into the squad car. You're a non-person until they decide you're more valuable in their hands than not. Now, maybe the norm is that they give you a criminal SIN, but maybe if you've got influential friends, or are more valuable free than in prison, they might forget to. Not that they couldn't let you go if you had a real SIN, it would just be harder and take a lot more work and be a lot riskier, so they're less likely to do it.

But seriously, don't get caught I've never had a shadowrunner caught by the police because I always flee into the Barrens and they give up. You have to fuck up bigtime to get pinched. Or be a major weakling... If you look at the "grunts" in the book, standard beat cops are absolute wussies, a good streetsam could take down a dozen of them in one turn--an "arrest" for any team with a good sammy should immediately turn into a bunch of unconscious cops and the team fleeing the scene. You either have to be weak, or get caught unprepared, or do something so dumb that the FRT or SWAT come in. So, even if a SIN was an advantage with the law, once you're within the law's grasp you should get "DUMBASS" tatoo'd on your forehead anyway

Yeah realized while out grocery shopping that my language was a bit strong on that last post. What I was meaning is that being SINless doesn' mean that they can't keep files on you. I was refuting the earlier claim that SINners are easier to track than SINless once someone is looking for you.

Usually my groups tend to get caught by the police as a result of trying to get away from the corporate security forces. Normally they are too worried about the heavily armed corp squads to worry about the cops until a couple cars show up then they pack it in. Again, more likely to get better treatment from the Star (and easier for human rights watchdogs to track) than get picked up by whoever they just hit. Although there was that one time where another runner team attacked them first in a public park so the group just went quietly when the cops showed up. Let the TM handle the SIN verification. In that case they were in the "right." Guy who got arrested for explosives possession was caught because a corp sec hacker flagged the van as stolen so the cops pulled him over for a regular check and went "OMG!"

How the hell does your group get to the Barrens? As soon as mine hits the highway in a chase with the Star they know it is over. At the very least all it takes is some squad cars to clear up a section of the highway and then a sniper blimp to take out their tires. Car chase through the side streets doesn't usually go so well either since higher numbers wins that battle even faster than on the highway. (And in case you are wondering I play my NPCs the same as I would my characters -- they don't go as all out in car chases as the PCs do because they have more to lose)

Assaulting cops isn't always the best way to go either. Especially with the biofiber underwear now. You will get heavier stuff coming down on you toute suite. At the very least a high-threat medical response team (yay DocWagon!) if not more cops trying to figure out what happened to their buddies. Cops get very angry and vengeful when people start messing with them.

If you're operating in a zone with any real cop presence, you're crazy not to have a getaway driver. A properly kitted out getaway vehicle has smoke projectors, and an oil slick sprayer or road strip ejector. You can't escape if there are enough pursuers, but a skilled driver will quickly crash a great many of the opposition and skip off. Of course, you've also got your morphing license plate and spoof chip so you appear to be a different vehicle. Best to also have a chameleon coating to change your paintjob too.



Combat turns are fast. You can take out a squad car's worth of cops (i.e. 2 cops) in under 3 seconds. You can be gone in another 3 seconds. High security areas have response times on the order of minutes, but that's a really long time compared to how long it takes to knock out 2 cops. And with proper stealth options on your vehicle and a good Infiltration roll, they won't catch you. If you're thick enough to assume the position for the cops, you deserve what you get. There might be hell to pay if you kill them, but if you just stun them then nobody's going to get their panties in a knot.

Ahh...here's one of our disconnects. I'm still using the New Seattle response times. My group doesn't get anywhere near that much time to run away. Usually there is s drone and/or astral mage in the area first monitoring it then the squad cars show up. So even if they do deal with the squad cars odds are that the Roto- or Blimp-drone just caught them in the act.

As for oil slicks and smoke screens I'll have to refresh myself on the rules and how they relate to the SR4A chase rules.

Yeah, LS is really big on drones. And they should be. They are cheap, fairly reliable and easily replaced.

Ugh...the chase rules hurt my brain. It's a Vehicle test! No wait it's an Opposed test!!! Backwards is forwards, left is right, and twirling always twirling!

So let's make this as extreme as possible. Let's say the entire runner team fits into a Eurocar Westwind that has Smoke Projector, Oil Slick Sprayer, Engine Customization (Speed) and a Multilaunch Drone Rack with 20 microdrones of your choosing. It is going 288 down an empty highway with 21 vehicles on its side.

Let's say the cops have 6 cars, a helicopter, and 6 drones. The helicopter is an Ares Dragon going 260 and the drones are Ford LEBDs. They have 13 on their side.

So we have a Drone Rigger in an LEBD and a Rigger in an Ares Dragon against a Rigger in a Westwind. The tests are -16, -17, and +19 respectively.

Actually your Smoke Projector and Oil Slick Sprayer are irrelevant on 2 points: 1) they don't affect the air vehicles, but more importantly 2) the main factor affecting success in the rules is the number of participants. You are better off flooding the chase with drones than anything else. As far as I can tell there are no rules against what I've done. Common sense dictates otherwise and I sincerely hope there's been an errata on this. If we apply common sense here's what we get: (I give the runners 1 drone from their rack adjust the numbers according to your group)

LEBD +1 (+0 Handling, +22 vehicle advantage, -21 speed penalty), Dragon +18 (-1 Handling, +22 vehicle advantage, -3 speed penalty), Westwind -19 (+3 handling, -22 vehicle disadvantage, speed measured relative to it). Not so hot for your runners.

n.b. I feel it is okay for the Cops to have 6 drones since in the description for the LEBD it indicates so in the fluff:

I wasn't suggesting that the smoke projector would help you with chase combat, that would be pretty retarded because it does nothing for the chase rolls. What it does is provide vision mods so they can't shoot you while you try to run away.

And, the way you win chase combat is you Cut Off your opponents or hit them with oil slicks and road strips until a bunch of them crash. Also shoot their vehicles. Once you disable enough of them, you can bust out to long range and Break Off. You're right that the number of vehicles is what makes or breaks chase combat, but you're not thinking strategically. If they win by numbers, then you have to win by thinning them out.

That isn't how cops with air support chase people. They hang back and contain by blocking the road ahead and alternates before, while most of the supporting vehicles approach on parallel routes.

No getaway driver is going to outrun a police radio. Depending on if and how ECM/ECCM comes into play, a police drone loaded with tracking rounds could make leaving the neighborhood of your crime impossible without extensive pre-planning.

GridGuide isn't on your side, either. Pretty much going to have cameras on every corner in AAA through B rated areas.

If you've got the gear, the skills and the luck it might even seem like you got away for a while, but if you caused enough damage and/or messed with the wrong people, the security footage and other data attached to your flight will get the CSI treatment.

IMO (informed by 3rd Ed. RAW), any runs in A or higher areas should really break down to 90% footwork and 10% execution to have any shot at success.

Getting away...

Lets say you got a hacker, he has set it up so that an automated call is going to go into 911 announcing that there are multiple bombs in three elementary schools...this takes place three minutes after a flashy pyrotechnic explosion goes off. The explosion gets their attention the call pulls them out of position to pursue you and yours. Throw in a silent alarm from something high end, jewelry store (etc.) within six blocks as you are leaving and you shouldn't even have to go over the speed limit.

Already in a high speed pursuit? Drive to the nearest public parking garage, if your hacker isn't able to take control of a parking garage security system shoot him now. Drive to the basement, the hacker trips the sprinkler system on all levels. Witnesses won't be witnessing...they are going to get out of the cold water ASAP, reduces visibility and impedes hearing. Cops are going to setup a perimeter around the garage (takes at least three minutes). While they look to cordon off foot traffic and vehicles you get out of the van sterilize it and go down the storm drain and run away. Don't use this one a lot...like do it once and then figure something else out.

Best use of the smoke screen is going into a turn in conjunction with an oil slick.

Radios cut both ways...your team did manage to steal one of the LEO's just before the run...right? Then you know where they are planning to cut you off.

Interesting thing about those cameras...they are hardwired. Pulling the plug is just a matter of putting in a fail safe (i.e. explosive) at the right location.

Sprinklers are mechanical. Actually heat activated. I really hate how movies show this....

I concur 100%.

- J.

You think that with all of the automation that has taken place that somebody wouldn't include a system for matrix control of the sprinklers?

No, you wouldn't. It's an emergency system that has to work when the building has no power. Putting control of the sprinklers on the matrix makes them less effective, and would be a serious safety hazard.

Who says I'm not thinking strategically? Sure you can take out their vehicles but again you've just forced cop cars to crash and potentially killed cops. Not a very wise decision. (Because even if you took out all the drones there is still 7 vehicles including a chopper to your 1-4)

I'll also point out that police tend to start sending more and bigger stuff at you the more of them you take out. Sure you whittled them down to 4 cop cars and the chopper but now you have armed drones and SWAT vehicles on your ass. Gets even worse when you hit the Barrens because then they can actually use their heavy artillery. AV Assault Cannon round wrecks you pretty fast.

Your best bet actually is to hope that you took something from the target corporation, tell them you have it, and tell them that you are involved in a high speed chase with the Star. If they value their asset enough they'll likely tell the Star to back off. On the other hand you just let your target know who you are... but at least you ain't going to jail!

What is this assumption that a violent criminal caught in a car chase who doesn't happen to have killed any cops yet is somehow better than one where cops did crash? If you're a violent criminal flying through B-rated areas, the SWAT will be on your butt one way or another. Killing cops just makes sure they give you a little more space until then.

At my table the cops actually try to arrest the runners first and try to not endanger the public or public goods (doing either isn't good for PR/contract renenwal). This means that they tend to have "kid gloves" at first. Unless they can 100% guarantee no innocents are harmed and minimal property damage they hang back more. Once you potentially killed a cop the kid gloves come off. So yes at my table the runner who hasn't killed a cop yet is better off than one who has.

The exception to this is your comment of violent criminal. If they've just been publicly caught in the act of conducting a fire fight or blowing up a building or some such thing then there are no kid gloves to begin with.

Most of this is obviously going to depend on the table. I don't let my runners get away with this crap. My reading of the rules and the fluff supports my view. But fluff and rules can be changed to make the game whatever you want (and hence why I'm changing my rules to SR D&D4).

Interesting OP.

To say that professional criminals are necessarily and specifically not ostentatious is true only for the most professional criminals around. The HEAT-esque criminals.

Many criminals are specifically quite ostentatious. They exist, as you put it, outside of traditional society in a world defined by predatory dominance by violence. Nearly all apex predators are highly conspicuous in some fashion. The cyberpunk is often identified by their mohawk and the 1930s gangster had their pinstriped zoot suits and the contemporary housing projects gangland dope-king has his bling and pimped out escalade. All of these things serve to further distinguish the criminal from the 'normal' world and also serve a purpose like the lion's mane, the wolf's howl or the eagle's screach. It lets everybody know who is the man up in this piece. It throws the power and confidence of being a predator into the face of the public while also calling out any would be challengers saying "Hey, I am here. Come and get me if you can. I don't think you have the stones."

It is not in the best interest of a professional criminal to avoid offending The Man but it is in the best interest of the professional criminal to firmly, and at times loudly, declare their position in their criminal hierarchy. These two things exist in a weird ouroboros kind of way; a state of complete paradox.

Spotting the Yakuza in Japan is legendarily easy - they literally drive around in antique / ultra expensive sports cars, wear the most gaudy suits, wear absurd jewelry and are covered in tattoos. They also work with The Establishment in a great many ways, integrating themselves into a very real market niche that the legitimate world recognizes as both valid and unavailable to Legitimate business and the rule of Law - ie vice. People want to gamble. They want whores. They also want drugs. The Establishment understands that it can't relieve or abate those desires and instead lets the Yaks handle those aspects of life.

From what I understand it is not unheard of for parents of problem children who are repeat offenders to give their kid to the cops who then drop the kid off with the yaks. Essentially the kid has left the legitimate world forever, having repeatedly turned their back on the rules of civic and public life, and now resides firmly in the 'underworld' where the Yaks run things and you play by their rules.

Character concept, here I come!

Don't do it! You'll get cancer!

But yeah. I can't remember a game where we ever ran into to cops, other then us seeing them scream by as we sedately drove away....

Yeah my groups tend to try and not raise a ruckuss in the first place.

And too late! I already have cancer. My Earthdawn game just started the crossover phase with them landing in Sigil and us switching to D&D. They will soon be making their stop in the 6th world to see how badly they f*ed up in the 4th world before going back to fix it. Temple of Time for the win baby!

Ugh. Ditching the Earthdawn system for plain old D&D rules? I just threw up in my mouth a little.

A good rigger can wipe out 3-4 opponents every turn. And you're not potentially killing anyone -- as stated in Arsenal, normal safety equipment on vehicles, i.e. seat belts and air bags, protects the passengers from any harm in a crash. People usually don't die in a crash. The ramming rules confuse the issue because they state that people resist ramming damage with 1/2 impact (and a crash is considered a self-ram), but what it's saying, in light of the Arsenal note, is that when the people themselves get rammed (i.e. run over by a car), that's how they resist. It's not saying that the people inside the vehicle take ramming damage when they get rammed or crash. The cops don't like having their cars wrekced, but if you don't shoot at them, they probably won't get killed. Not unless there's some dangerous terrain, like you're on a bridge and they go over the side or something. Of course, if they're in a copter and you shoot it down, that crash would probably be fatal or at least dangerous... But not so much for cars.



The cops don't have instant teleportation. It takes quite a number of combat turns for SWAT or FRT to show up, plenty of time to crash the opposition and get the hell out of there. What you're describing is an absolute "players can't win" scenario, as in any police chase leads to apprehension. That's now how GMing is done, IMO. Police are not an automatic "you lose" button. You can't stand up and fight them, but you can evade them, as long as you've got a good rigger on your side.



Um... really? "Hey I took your stuff and need help" is the best plan? That's an interesting suggestion. IMO there are a million better ways to get out of hot water other than begging the people you hit for backup. The corp you hit could probably recover their macguffin from the police using legal process, why should they help you? The better alternative would be to call the Johnson and see if he can't help you out. He won't be pleased, but he probably has connections that could be useful, and he's not going to want to kill you when you call him (or at least he's vastly less likely to). You could also pull out a jammer and disrupt police communications, so that they don't get backup as fast and you have time to get away. You could call your contacts too. Maybe your ganger friends would set up a nice barricade for you, or your smuggler friend could show up and distract a bunch of them and lead them away. Maybe your hacker friend could shut off all their vehicles, or put out a false "stop chasing" order.

It sounds to me like you're just saying, "nuh uh, you can't do that!" to every suggestion about beating the cops. Not that I think you're being stupid, you're just inventing reasons why resisting arrest can't work. I don't think any of those reasons are mandated by the books, especially in light of the fact that wrecking someone's car is really unlikely to kill them in Shadowrun's system. The simpliest solution is the best -- ram them or cut them off, see them crash, then escape. If a good getaway rigger is surrounded by 7 cars, it's going to be an average 2 turns to crash almost all of them, then an average 2 turns to escape (move to medium [1st turn], move to long, break off, break off, break off [2nd turn]). If the backup in your world shows up in 4 combat turns, then I think you're being a little unfair to your players, unless they're inside a AAA zone.

For interest's sake how do your run regular character actions in a Chase Combat? Do you let them take 20 Combat Rounds in between each Chase Round?

It was a sanity move for me. Choice was to either play Planescape with ED rules and convert everything on my side of the table or have them convert their characters and not have to bother. Makes for some interesting role-playing as they are now in a place that has Scourge levels of magical power. Wizard and Nethermancer are freaking out.

Reason for the crossover is that I always planned to eventually send them into SR but they had the silly idea to follow the one-eyed dragon (thanks to the now dead Archer) through the portal into the Horror Netherworld. So instead of condemning them to that uncertain future I had the dragon disrupt the dweller on the threshold and send the party spiralling off into astral space -- eventually landing in the basement of an inn in Sigil.


@Larme: I don't want to say that it is impossible to get away from the cops just that it should be damn hard and blasting your way out is the worst solution I can think of. Here's another one to add to Bob's idea (this is stolen from 24 btw):

Drive into a tunnel or somewhere under cover to hide from the helicopters. Have several other vans of the same type all with morphing plates and chameleon paint parked under there. Quickly play some musical chairs then all drive out at once. Split up at first opportunity and go different ways. Now the cops have more of a problem catching you.

Here's another one that I liked to use in SR3. Take a long drive off a short pier in Puget Sound. Cops don't know that I have environmental seal and water propulsion so I can quickly submarine out of there long before they can mount a response. Neutralizes most all forms of pursuit.

Trid phantasm plus physical mask can work wonders. Make your vehicle look like a different model then conjure a phantasm of your vehicle racing along before losing control and slamming into a concrete barricade. Should give you a few minutes to get away before they realize the ruse (only recommended for Initiates with Masking).

I think that's an important clarification. When my party is getting chased by cops, it's with rocket launchers and monofilament chainsaws, and generally a nice body count (of, at minimum, security guards). Hence, not much of a line.

The single greatest addition to a car during a chase is a good spirit. Concealment power + speed power make just about any vehicle near unbeatable.

Confusion and Fear are pretty damn funny too.

Um... what? 20? Everyone gets their normal actions. That means passengers who don't suck at combat are shooting down drones 3x per turn. Riggers who don't suck are running VR with a simsense accelerator, with 4 passes. That means 3 cut offs or rams every turn, 4 if they spend an Edge. If you're being chased by 7 cars, two turns later, you should have 1 remaining car chasing you, or you deserve to be pilloried as a crappy rigger, barring really unlucky dice.