So that throws that theory out the window, drat.

Really, I can understand the kill the guards method of doing things. Is wholesale slaughters, and saying that there is no other way at all that things can be done that I object to. Everything else comes down to playing styles.

Ronin, by the way, was an awesome movie which includes a part where the group realizes that things have gotten ugly and one guard has died, so they quickly kill the other guard to avoid witnesses seeing anything (since they know that once one guy is dead, the penalty is just as bad for two). In a Shadowrun style dystopia, this makes sense... if you steal millions of nuyen worth of stuff from a megacorp, you're screwed anyway if caught, so you might as well take out anyone else watching.

No one is saying kill everyone no mater what in a wholesale slaughter... but rather that lethal violence is simply more effective at removing potential problems. If you can do the run without the mark ever knowing they were hit, awesome... but if battle starts, taking the enemy out is often the best play.

JaronK

Aye, I can see where you're coming from, but I figure that the Sixth World has decayed to the point where even wholesale slaughters are second to the profit loss of stealing some prototype or paydata, after all, there are always more SINless just waiting for the chance to sell their body and souls to the corps to replace any number of grunts.

Important people on the other hand is a different story, although even they witness three rapes, two murders, and dozim muggings on their commute every morning even in the "good" section of town, helps explain why Arcs and other corp housing are so popular.

Heck, even right now some companies take out life insurance policies on their employees. Why wouldn't Ares or Aztechnology? They might actually make money off their guards dying... while they have to pay the medical bills if they just get injured.

JaronK

What makes you think that the corps have to pay the medical bills as opposed to simply offering "low interest" ( Only 86% this month! ) loans to the employee?

I respectfully disagree with the way you paint the 6th world, but again, that just comes down to GM styles.

Although as I understand it the reason that runners aren't gone after for stealing the expensive whoozists is they blame the person hiring, and they might want to hire you themselves, unless you make it personal, by say killing and looting indiscriminantly.

YMMV

Double post, pardon.

Not to quibble too much, but that's Heat. You can view the scene here.



That's not always false, but certainly not always true. Think about your own reactions to various crimes committed against you. Would you treat a robber the same as a rapist? Business is business, so you can expect people to try and lift goods, employees and even cash from you-but when they cross the line and make it personal, say by mass murdering everyone in the warehouse to get that widget then yeah maybe the Company might be a little more anxious to discuss your munitions suppliers than say with the guy who just robbed them.



Seriously? Use of Force can vary in it's effectiveness, at every level. I've always viewed as the right tool for the right job, and all of the options are tools in the tool box.

Aye, The Dragon Girl, but the problem is that the corps have no way of knowing whether or not the "killing and looting" was part of the job to shake things up in the aftermath and buy the Johnson more time on his end or if it was the Runners "making it personal", and no matter how you paint the Sixth World the cost of replacing a secguard or other lowend employee ( Or even an entire floor of them. ) simply doesn't mean squat when compared to whatever the object of the mission was, especially when you have the rampant unemployment and corruption that has to exist for the entire setting to exist without imploding on itself.

I am sorry if my ignoring your irrelevent statements didnt clue you on to the fact they have nothing to do with what I am talking about. If your games go on with your characters telling everyone everything they do, that is your business. Shadowrun is about the shadows, not the limelight.
I would suggest you take the time to read the section of the book you are refering to

Street Cred is formed from your karma, which you gain from doing runs. It has nothing to do with public knowledge of the specific runs you do, it has to do with you being a successful/long time runner.

Notoriety is something the gamemaster awards based on actions taken by the character. If your GM is awarding notoriety for actions that are not known by anyone but yourself and your team, your GM is being an ass. It is to represent what people know about you, not what they dont know.

Personally, I don't see killing a guard as 'making it personal' for the corp regardless. The world population is still 6.5 BILLION people, a MASSIVE portion of which are SINless and low level wageslaves. The corp has no real reason to care about these people because they are a dime a dozen, and it only takes some skillwires and activesofts (loaned from the company of course) to replace a security guard (Or, you know, like a week of training).

If I was in charge of a multi-trillion multi-nantional business empire, I really wouldn't take the news "Your recent multi-billion project got stolen and a couple guards were killed" any worse than "Your recent multi-billion project got stolen."

Kind of like you wouldn't care much more if you lost $1,000,000.02 than if you lost $1,000,000.00

Oh, and I really really wouldn't go any more off the handle if the report also included "And they took the guards' ipods."

So yeah, objectively I don't think that the killing/robbing of guards is going to affect the response of a corp even slightly when compared to the actual run objective. Even if you're talking about the manager of a particular sight, he likely didn't know joe the security guard personally, and even if he did, joe the security guard's death would likely weigh in very little one way or the other when he has to go to his superiors to request funds to go after the guys who did this. The superiors (and their superiors and so on) will be much more interested in the value of what was stolen, the chance of getting what was stolen back, and the odds that going after them will be successful and thus perhaps prevent future thefts of this kind via deterrent. They are unlikely to go "Oh, but they left joe alone, so they must be okay guys, we shouldn't hunt them down." or "They killed joe too?!?! We must avenge joe!!!"

All that said, the whole killing v not killing thing depends on my character. I have one who I went out of the way to get gel rounds for so as to be non-lethal. I also have a character that only has non-lethal as an option on her least used weapon, and only then because it makes the weapon more effective (Holdouts with SnS FTW!)

People are talking about looting the people they have killed as part of a run, not going into some random building, killing everyone and taking their stuff...

Something I always hate in video games like elder scrolls... how the guards always know whenever you've killed someone or stolen something, even if no one saw you (and survived).

That said, the presumption of street cred being based on karma is that someone knows that you preformed the run, and thus if someone also knows that 35 guards and a kitten died during that run, then the notoriety for that run can also be linked to you. The game doesn't really support it, but it should be entirely possible to have a thousand karma and no street cred by virtue of being a complete unknown (I'm currently running a character with something along these lines). If no one -knows- that you can shoot through a tank with a handgun because you're just that darn good, then you won't have any street cred along those lines.

No one has said that, you are reading things that are not in this thread it appears.

You also seem to be treating shadowrun as some sort of "hero" game where the characters should be some sort of role model sorts. While some runners may be like that... others will shoot you in the face and steal your money. The world setting does not imply that shadowrunners are any sort of heros, in fact it pretty much implies they are scum. Scum that is good at what it does.

Actually I think it implies that they are criminals.

With the way the system works, the karma for doing a run is about the same if it was a cakewalk or a run through the gauntlet, so simply the knowledge that a run was done explains the cred. A runner that has done 20 calk walk runs by the system would only be like 1-2 cred behind a runner that did a mix of runs including hard ones... but them at the same note with the bonus stuff, the guy doing all calk walks could have more karma and thus a higher cred

true, my error. I am pretty sure it is listed somewhere that a common opinion of runners is they are scum, but that would be explained by the fact it only take a few bad eggs to ruin the image of everyone.

Yeah, well I was basically pointing out the fact that the way the game handles street cred is kinda silly for the exact reason that you stated. Someone who has survived 20 cakewalks has only slightly less cred than someone who has gone through 20 hell's gauntlets. Someone who has had a complete identity change, changed their name, and everything else, still somehow retains all their previous cred. Someone who does other things to gain karma (Not run related) that no one knows about, still somehow gains cred.

It is an oversimplification, and my point is that if the shadows somehow learn that you have karma, they should also somehow learn that you make sure to kill 5 kittens on every run even if you have to steal them from a loving family on the way.

..No, they're people who, for one reason or another, are professionals in the world of crime. There can be any -number- of reasons for this. They can be Terrorists, humanitarians, victems, sociopathic rapists, kleptomaniacs, freedom fighters, gangers, anything you want.

And yeah, check out what Karoline said about street cred.

Pretty much I just want you to stop telling me that all shadowrunners are 'people who shoot other people in the face for money' they simply aren't. There are a bazillion and one different ways for runners to be. They -can- be people who shoot other people in the face for money. They -can- be other things.

The thing is that Notoriety is something that has to be given specifically by the GM for events he/she deems appropriate for the character to gain the points.

And even if everyone knows you kill 5 kittens every run you go on, its only 1 Notoriety point funny thing is with the system, you spend 2 street cred and then suddenly everyone forget you kill those 5 kittens, even if you keep doing it

And I would very much like for you to take the god damned time to read what I wrote instead of making stuff up. I have never said that "all" shadow runners are anything but criminals, and have corrected you on that multiple times already.

Either you are just ignoring what I write or you have poor understanding of the english language.

Which just continues to prove my point that the system does a really poor job of handling such things. Also it says 'should never' not 'can never', so I'd imagine most GMs would hit you with it multiple times if you kept doing it.

Also, just a small weigh in from the devs on the subject

Emphasis mine of course.

Now, what is meant by outrageous is up to the GM, and is actually one of the things that the OP might consider, since this was originally all about what to do to get a character to stop looting. Tell the player that he will get hit with notoriety because (In his world) looting the corpses as thoroughly as this character is doing is frowned upon.

Sorry, I missed this one before.

What corp worth its salt is going to let out the information for a reporter to get the story? Do you think corps want bad reps? Do you think a corp wouldnt pay to shut a reporter up? News is only as free as the corps let it be, you dont try to piss off corps that wouldnt hessitate to hire a runner to shut you up for good. Remembers, corps have big PR budgets and it wouldnt cost much to hire a runner to shut up a reporter that doesnt know how to downplay bad PR.

Assuming the bodies are relatively fresh they're ripe for some experimentation too. Pay off the families, offer some fake cremation or burial as they wish, and use the corpses for whatever nefarious deeds you want. Biological research needs some dead guys too.

Like RoboCop.


Don't loot the body, it's just not cool. Unless of course you're guttertrash then literally "loot the body" so you can sell them to organleggers.

Very good point (both parts). For the kitten part, you could keep killing kittens and hope your GM keeps giving you Notoriety to help keep your public awareness down but at the same note, if you killed kittens on every run it would serve as a calling card pinning you to runs, and would allow for other people to get runs pinned on you by doing the same.

And I'm out. When it degrades to name calling and cussing, its time to step away.

Noterioty( I know I spelled it wrong) can be a good thing. If people know you do some messed up stuff to people who anger you or those who oppose you the vast majority will not. If you know the person in front of you is willing to do horrible things to you if you don't do what they want what are you going to do? You as in you not Razorblade Chainsaw McHackem your street sam.

At which point a smart Johnson can take advantage of that. He could set you up by making it look like someone else messed with you.
Don't you just love how the shadows work .

Somewhat OT response:

"I just can't do it. I just can't cut through a kitten's head with a hacksaw."
"Grenade?"
"Deal."

Thank you, Sluggy Freelance.


Back on topic:
The team I'm on has a minor rep for wetwork and similar fairly dark stuff, but we more or less have an unspoken agreement with the GM. If the players don't go crazy, the GM doesn't drop the hammer in game-world response. Hell, we get paid enough for what we do and go through, most of what we'd snag is pocket change with the current exception of a swiped Halloweeners' bike, which simplified group transportation. Also, the characters haven't been in a situation where there was enough time to strip the bodies of anything useful.