I just noticed an interesting part about the rules that might make a looter take pause.

From SR4 page 303


So, to sell a 1,000 item you would make 1,000*.3*.8*.8 = 192 on it (For Stolen and used and 30% reduction), with a 10 threshold and with a 8 Dicepool (most are lower) = 5 rolls (Buying success 1 for 4 dice)

19.2% of the items cost not bad.

You made 6.4 per hour.... which is really low and should not be worth the effort... go work at the stuffer shack for 8 per hour.

Makes most commlinks and standard weapons not worth the effort. You can added flooded market to standard low end commlinks and guns for another 2% overall loss.

Now lets add a Swag to the mix.

Connection 3 fence.... thats another 15% loss so....192*.85 = 163 but you don't have to spend the time...just go and do the drop.

Is 16.3% of an items cost worth the time to loot? Typically not, especially if the item is under 1,000 since the risk vs. reward should make you think twice.

Is this too far off form reality?

I love posts like this. My math-fu isn't so hot, honestly, but it sounds solid to me.

-milk.

iirc, there are also reductions for "hot" items, and items that have been used in a crime. most items you steal from your target will either be "hot" (ie the target noticed and is at least keeping an ear to the ground, all the RFIDs broadcast it's stolen, needs a forged serial number to be usable in non-Z zones etc) or so common the market is flooded, or simply not worth much in the first place. additionally, many of the useful items will have been used in a crime; if the team picked up a gun and shot someone with it, and now wants to sell it, it was used in a crime. if a team picked up a commlink and used the access given to it's owner for anything... used in a crime. if they used it to empty out the target's bank account... used in a crime.

really, they won't be getting an awful lot. and personally, if i was that contact... i'm not sure i'd be interested in fencing that stuff for them. i mean, if they're making only 6.4 per hour for doing it themselves, the contact is only earning 15% of that for fencing it. worth the risk of it being a setup? i don't think so.

That's where economy of scale comes into play! Don't shoot that guard and take his assault rifle... grenade ALL the guards and take 20!

I think that is the point of Shadowrun (defiantly over D&D). Looting the bodies is a BAD thing to do in SR. It raises your notoriety, the stuff is hard to sell, and if you do manage to find a buyer then your going to get crap from him as his only buyers are likely Street Gangers with very little cash and he has to make his margins. Throw in the fact that most CorpSec equipment has RFID tags all over it, and suddenly your more likely to hide any bodies instead of looting the body and leaving it to rot.

Edit:
That being said it is still worth your while to hit weapon trucks that are either on their way to the incinerator or the black market. Getting untraceable weapons in bulk will pay off (even if your only selling each weapon for 1 each).

Yeah, I'm sure those extra 60 to 80 kg of cumbersome stuff will be a breeze to carry away...

Just be sure not to hide the "new" stolen guns with your stash of other stolen items...

stealth security tags could lead to unpleasant results.

Psh, items don't have weights, and besides, you can just have the troll carry them.

(I had expected people to be able to tell my initial response was tongue-in-cheek, but I guess not.)

I think I would have a hard time convincing the troll in my group to become a pack mule.

Trolls don't have feelings.

-milk.

Or you could keep those 30 Ares Preds and decorate your hideout with them. Or have a guns for gangs drive, or donate them to your nearest green runner team.

Now THAT'S community service!

Don't tell me all you loot is guns and commlinks?

When you end up with a GMC Banshee full with the bodies of their former HTR users and their valuable ware, you can start thinking about fencing the loot.

at that point, the problem is that it gets financially viable for whatever corp owned that banshee to send something worse after you. something that you *won't* win against.

That's why it's called hot gear. Sell it for any price to whoever has the infrastructure to make it swiftly disappear. Even at 5% of the price, the banshee alone still makes more than 100000Y.

Let's not forget that all those spiffy little corp RFIDs might just make your fence nervous (or greedy) enough to roll over on you for the original owner of the property.

"Hello, Renraku? May I speak to someone in charge of security, I found something you might be interested in..."

You are mixing terms. You sell items at 30% their original price and the chart you referenced is the street cost. The question you should be asking is that if you buy a used, stolen market flooded good at 50% its original price, why do you only get 30% when you sell one that you just bought yourself at the store that is still in its original packaging?

The game is pretty much trying to prevent players from getting a lot of cash from selling goods as a balance act as the system for selling and buying dont even come close to matching each other. By the selling system, you should be able to get used goods consistantly for about 50% their original price.

Why wouldnt you wipe out any tags first? Does your party not have a hacker and tag eraser?

Yeah, but if your runners aren't getting paid enough in the first place, then they're gonna loot even if it's not a great value for their time. Pay your runners well enough and it won't be a problem. Then, they'll only loot something particularly shiny that catches their eye instead of looting EVERYTHING.

err... no. you don't have the resources to sell for the same price as an actual merchant (legal or otherwise) does. sure, you can get a better price... how long are you willing to wait, though? i mean, sure, if you're going to hold on to that gun for a few months until you find a buyer, i guess you'll get better value. but then again, odds are good you aren't playing shadowrun so that you can set up a shop called "Bob's discount previously owned guns 'n' commlinks potentially used in crimes, stolen, damaged, or otherwise compromised in value".

Hooo boy, market economics and the people that try to use them to justify the way they think groups of hired criminals to perform.

If your using the rules as written (including the ones highlighted by the OP) runners are STILL looting every gun and comlink they come across then your not paying them enough or not putting the proper sense of urgency into them. If you are using one of the above methods and your still not having any luck I would recommend 5 minuetes of setting expectations with them over trying to find a rules based cudgel.

Now a few rules of thumb that have served me well not just in shadowrun but pretty much every game i've ever ran.

Never send somethinga t your runners that you arn't prepared to have fall into their hands, this includes the amount of cash what your throwing at them could be turned into.
If you are not prepared to have them get something but sitll want to use it on them come up with some plausible reason for them not to be able to recover it. Sometimes this is as simple as having the people using such rare/restricted/gear to either be skilled and talented enough to make the runners run for it or have the good sense to run away with their expensive toy when it becomes aparent they have lost the momentum in the fight.
Remember that at all times you are not in an adversarial relationship with your players. It's ok for them to get rich (so long as their not getting so far ahead it starts to be suspension of disbelief snaping that they would retire) it's ok for them to have cool toys. it's ok for them to make out like bandits. YOU CAN BLOW IT ALL UP LATER>

Explosives.... the great equalizer.

Anyway, I think the OP has a good point, stolen/looted stuff is going to sell for such a pittance that it isn't really worth all the risks and time. I mean the players have to take the time to actually loot the body, then they have to run a tag eraser over it, then they still have to be worried about stealth/security tags, then they have to find a buyer, then they get hardly anything.

One thing that most people likely don't think about though? Most people have their banking accounts stored on their commlinks, and most people are non-security minded enough to leave the password on their commlink as well, or just set up their bank account to automatically accept the connection from their commlink without asking for a password. Not that most wageslaves have a ton of cash, but it could be a fairly decent means of getting a bit of extra cash.

Ignoring any logistics of hauling those twenty assault rifles to your getaway vehicle, it's a solid plan.

Would assault rifle survive the grenade? It works in video games, but I wonder if it does in the real world?

where can I get the extremely Cheap Contraband in the first Post.
Something that costs Normaly 1000 for 200 ,Hell even if I pay the Fence double (400 ¥) its a Bargain for Me

No,You got it Wrong 30% is the end Value you get für those things

HokaHey
Medicineman

China.
Sure it's an Aress Predater VI, but it's one third the price of the real thing! And it has a karaoke function built-in!

Made my day....
But if we go back to the Shadowrun world.One of the biggest illegal Weapons Market is in HongKong and from there they transfer Weapons ans Ammo all over the World ,so its (in SR) the other way round

with a laughing dance
Medicineman

Actual, the way I read it. You are always selling to a Fence. The extra market adjustments are not required all the time but was more for additional deterrent. They are doing a prettying good cost of selling questionable goods...the show Pawn Stars on History channel is a good example of who you are selling to its a company that's looking for a 40 to 50% profit. Questionable (not Pawn Stars but game reference) they are looking for double the cost of what they payed. No one pays new price for used items. (noncollectable)

The 30% is always assuming you use a safe middle man that you are not going to get caught...

If you use your swag contact you can set a asking price yourself if you like just expect the GM to modify the roll and time.

page 301 SR4


Use Availability modifier such as R adds 20% to price (Distribution channels monopolized) and F adds 50% (Law Enforcement crackdown on item). Anything with a high availability is another 20% adder (Market Dry), where low availability is -10% (Market Flooded)

I usually tell my players starting out that REAL runners use a quality fence so that the loot doesn't come back to haunt them.
He will be stripping it down, using middle men, and not selling it locally except as spare parts and ammo. He deals in bulk.
That means he goes to a lot of extra expenses so he won't offer much. The flip side is he will take almost any thing as long as it is not red hot.

So if you want to use a quality fence that will make sure the loot disappears as far as they are concerned then it costs.
Adds some nice pocket change to pay for ammo and medkit refills.


Also don't forget squatters looting the bodies to get enough for a bottle or a chip and the wonderful effects of a police siren on runners.



Course the Fence could gather some serious data on the runners based on what they were and when.

My players usually tag erase the loot, clean it up, break it down, split it up, and then leave it in a few storage units for a couple of months.

Works wonders on tag problems and while it still might have been used in a crime, by then it won't be so hot.



On packing the loot,

20 AK47 at under ten pounds each weigh less than 200 pounds.

The weapon is less then 3 feet long and less then a foot high even with the clip in (thanks Wiki)

At 2 inches in width that is 20 inches high if you make two stacks. That would fit in to the trunk of most subcompacts.

Just make sure the safeties are on and the trunk has anti wireless paint.

All those dimensions are great, but unless they are packaged in a crate, 20 assault rifles can be cumbersome. Start slinging them over your shoulder. One is easy, two is balanced, ten you start wondering where this is going. At Twenty, it becomes a joke for anything other than just walking. Screw running, jumping, dodging or trying to be sneaky. Just my 2

show them the part about 2:25 into the video here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=353fORsD5oI

True but I was figuring that 20 rifles would be a team effort.

Plus a fit orc, troll, or street samurai has at least double the average man's strength.

True, but carrying an armful of rifles is less about mass and more about volume. ie it is really hard to physically carry that much stuff regardless of weight. You know, unless you just bring a giant canvas sack on your runs to chuck loot into.

A body bag not only keeps your car clean and reduces the smell, but it can double as a quick carry all for when you need that extra some thing to make the rent.

It just looks like a troll size duffel bag with a liner and a zipper down the front.

don't forget to make it wifi-inhibiting.

this still leaves the fact that you're not getting particularly good value for your time, though, plus the fact that this is only going to work in situations where killing 20 guards somehow leaves you enough time to loot them all before the HTR team(s) arrive(s).

unless you're just saying this is for selling the body, which has it's own problems.

Don't you? In the SR3 days we used to carry a collapsed metalized inflatable crate. Stand it up, inflate the tubes, seal the seals and it was a double Faraday cage with a F6 ward on it. Worked pretty darn well to screw over the whole "they mystically track" or "the implanted radio tracer" plot BS.

If you fill it with argon, does it become a time machine?

Too bad you can't move wards any more. And a crate still suffers from that whole volume issue I was talking about, moving around a giant crate is going to be fairly unwieldy.



I'm sure it did

If you haven't, you should watch the movie (though the wikipedia entry is quite spoilery, to the extent that reading it actually explained the movie after watching it).

Thanks for naming what movie you're talking about ;P

The first post had* a link to the wiki article.
Anyway, it's called Primer.

*I don't blame you for not seeing it. The link text color is almost indistinguishable from normal post text (yet, no one else seems to mind...).