I've been thinking lately about starting up a Shadowrun game again, after a few months of not playing, and longer than that of not running (I decided to boycott 4A after they caved in to pressure from fanboys are gutted the changes to Object Resistance to magic, but I digress).

I'd like to make things a bit more interesting and dynamic. For example, even today, fake IDs are not a static thing. You have to dump them eventually. In the future, where SINs contain biometric info and the entire city is wired (or unwired, if you prefer), detecting fakes should be even easier...should SINs have an expiration date?

Possible effects of this are an increase in Shadowrunner overhead, but this can be compensated for with higher pay. Realistically, operating at the level of most Shadowrunners should incur fairly high business expenses, rather than just having to buy bullets and the occasional gear upgrade.

Social modifiers: should clothing be an issue? Even a charismatic person is going to have trouble fitting in with a Barrens gang if they're dressed in a tuxedo or, more likely, a special forces commando. Possible effects here are, again, higher overhead costs for social characters, who will need a variety of clothes for fitting in with different groups. After all, what's fashionable in L.A. will get you laughed at in N.Y. I like this idea a lot though, since it makes being a face more fun...you have to scout the local scene, get a feel for how people are dressed, etc. A related idea might be a penalty to fitting into a scene that you're unfamiliar with. For example, attending a conference full of physicists without any knowledge of physics...yes, you're a great con artist, but these people are here to talk science, and you literally know nothing about the subject. I like this idea because it makes knowledge skills more useful.

These are just a couple of ideas; I might add more later, and I'm definitely interested in hearing ideas from other people.

Do you really need a house rule? I mean you could just have the IDs expire when it feels right and for clothing it could be an equipment bonus (nWOD).

SIN expiration... well, fake SINs aren't permanent. When they are uncovered, they are gone. But why should that happen automatically? If that was the case, a fake SIN wouldn't work at all.

Clothing... that's what dice pool mods are for. They cannot have every possible option in the tables. Some stuff is just do be determined by the GM.

Similar as using inappropriate tools for a technical task.

Bye
Thanee

Avoid house rules as much as possible. All of these problems can be addressed by the game world.

If someone doesn't like your clothing, and that really matters to them, then they probably are less inclined to deal with you. You probably won't get into certain clubs and yes, gang members may eat your face (literally in some cases).

IDs don't last in Shadowrun (though IRL they can last for quite a while). If you are making checks every time they use their IDs then they will lose them. I don't make these checks often; if someone is sporting a L4 ID then I only care in high sec situations (borders, airports, etc). I'm not stopping my game because the Stuffer Shack's ID Recog software got lucky. And SR has a crapy system for dealing with fake IDs anyways.

Just stay away from house rules. As the GM just work on making the world realistic, the rest will fall into place.

Fake IDs:
Runner's Companion has a whole SECTION talking about how to utilize them and the things that go into making fake "real" when scanned, including creating a "false" data trail. If you let an ID sit unused for a while then suddenly pull the thing out and start using it, any kind of deep check is going to twig to the big hole. In the late 21st Century, EVERYTHING you do leaves a data trail. Not having a trail is a sure sign of a fake. Now, if you're LIVING under a fake ID day-to-day, you're essentially INCREASING the "legitimacy" by leaving a very REAL data trail. On the other hand, if the thing was never put into the right databases, that will still cause bumps, but with so much real data, since it's what you really did, under questioning you wind up being you and it's just another "glitch" in the system. This shouldn't be an issue too often, but it's VERY worth discussing with your players ahead of time. If somebody (*cough* Kerenshara *cough*) has a BUNCH of IDs and can't possibly live them "currently" all the time, then the 'runner should probably spend SOME effort (read: money) getting them updated periodically.

Clothing:
You are absolutely right, and there is plenty of room in the system for miscelaneous modifiers to social situations as you deem fit. But you can just skip the Crunchy Bits^TM by having the Bad Guys respond initially more or less favorably before you even pick up a die. Essentially, increase or decrease the incline of the hill the players are facing if they really look the part or completely seem to not belong or not be able to walk the walk. For example, walking into a rough gang zone wearing a frilly pink evening gown - even if it's the latest Zoé - is going to have them thinking you're a pushover and not take your demeanor anywhere nearly as seriously as they might. If you want Crunchy Bits^TM, here's my suggestion: Negate any positive modifiers as you see fit, leaving them only with their talent and skill [Attribute + Skill], but don't penalize them further than that. THEN toss the normal book modifiers. Having a powerful computer making you able to read the other guy isn't going to help if all it tells you is that they don't take you seriously at all and are planning to shank you and take your purse.

That help at all?

Free Contacts:
I'm not sure who thought the idea up originally but I really like the idea of each character getting free build points (equal to 1.5 x their Charisma) for contacts.

We receive a number of 0 Loyalty/1 Connection rated Contacts equal to twice our Charisma rating for Free... to be developed and fleshed out in game... it has worked out well for us...

Personally I think that if you want Fake SINs to expire I'd look at the program patching rules as a starting point.

Contacts are expensive (pointwise), make that 2x or even 3x CHA in BP. These two are commonly used figures.



Connection 1 means the contacts know basically noone, though, like a squatter contact. There is, for example, no such thing as a Connection 1 fixer. Even a lowly street-level fixer has a Connection Rating of 3.

Bye
Thanee

I would think that all clothing choices would include the cheaper options as well.
I mean, you know how much the kids are spending on "pre-distressed" clothes and such these days? It takes a lot of effort to make bad look good.

I was thinking about keeping it in line with Knowledge Skills. Rereading the Knowledge Skill rules, they have the number of points equal to your Logic + Intuition x3. So I agree with you that the number of free points should be Cha x3.

Yep, that's pretty much the reason why I use CHAx3 as well.

I really like that rule and think it should be official. In fact, I have no idea, why it isn't. I just makes so much sense.

Bye
Thanee

I think it isn't because of SR history. In the past (with the exception of the 2 free contacts) you had to pay for extra contacts. This is fine in the pre face oriented SR group. But now with more of an emphasis on faces in the group, I agree CGL should errata the rules to add this in. Since Cha is a dump attribute, I don't see this rule getting munchkined much (maybe for a min max face but then that person would be useless in combat and that wouldn't make for a good character to RPG).

If I was looking to make a houserule for Fake SINs the one change I would make is rolling when system != SIN rating.

Personally, I like the idea better that a Rating 4 SIN automatically wins against a Rating 1-3 Scanner... but a Rating 5 Scanner automatically beats a Rating 1-4 SIN.

The only time a roll would be used is if the ratings were equal. I've seen far too many rating 5/6 SINs be burned the first time they were used through a low rating scanner.

All that said, I avoid house rules like the plague... learned my lessons with D&D. Once you make one house rule you end up making more to level out something else... and it keeps snowballing. Then some expansion comes out that conflicts with one of your house rules... and you change/remove it... but then all the other house rules are unbalanced now because of it.

Best to let mediocre rules be... only change something if it is REALLY B0rk3n

Connection 1 fixer: see Bubbles from the Wire. "Whitees, I got whitees for sale!"

They are rated as Connection 1 until we have groomed them, they could in actuality have much higher connection ratings, but we do not have access to that information until the contact has been actually developed... before that, they are simply someone that we have run into from time to time...

Works out really well for us... it gives an incentive to develop contacts and network a bit... The last character that I played had over 150 rating points worth of contacts... close to thirty actual indiciduals or so...


Keep the Faith