Actually, most people tend to look around when they hear gunshots. Then they panic and flee, not dive for cover. That's instinctive. Freezing is also a natural reaction.

As for privately purchased firearms or cyberware, possibly. But then again, how regulated are individually contracted security guards? Right now, in the US, security guards usually have a fair degree of regulation - you must have so many hours of firearm safety, your weapon must fit within these specific parameters of caliber and a specific type of action. You must pass a background check and be licensed by the State in which you operate. There is also a distinction between my "individual right to bear arms" and "carrying a weapon for professional reasons."

This isn't to say you don't have the "I always wanted to be a cop but couldn't hack it" groupies or the "John J. Rambo" fanboys lurking in the wings, but they can't, fortunately, act on their fantasies beyond strutting around with delusions of self-importance.

An additional consideration is company liability - your privately contracted security guard goes nuts with his weapon and kills three people. The companies directly or indirectly involved are looking at lawsuits from the surviving families, lawsuits from innocent bystanders and the cost to their PR.

Before I enlisted, I worked for a private security company part-time. My job involved giving directions, filling out an incident log and walking around at night with a flashlight. If I'd been stopped by a cop while I was in possession of a personal firearm, I and the company that hired me would have been in all sorts of deep crap.

Back to the SR world - what visual or auditory cues accompany a Stun Ball? Besides guards passing out and hitting the floor, I mean.

-Siege

Why would they be taking higher paying jobs against better opposition unless they cannot get by on the lower paying jobs? Even if they do take the better opposition jobs, there can be only so many HTR teams around, I mean, there are only so many Red Samurai/Jaguar Guards/Firewatch teams. How many top flight shadowrun teams are there in the world? One of the strange things that I have not been able to fathom is the frequency at which better opposition keep popping up in some other games when the GM has informed you that you were facing the best of the best the previous time and you killed them all.

The runners do not need to take the higher paying jobs. If they are comfortable in their Medium lifestyle, when should they take the riskier jobs when they don't need to? Assuming that the players managed to keep you from burning their Medium lifestyles(or whatever lifestyle they are comfortable at) by doing the job cleanly, not biting off more than they can chew, etc, and they do not want to take the more difficult jobs and willing to that the slight hit to their rep, why should the GM scale the encounter to match the PCs?

The key is that you'd never develop the rep for being that good in the first place. You get a rep for being good at what you do but you are not or have not demonstrated the ability to make it to the big leagues. Unless you are saying that the PCs cannot be good enough to handle the sticks that come looking and keep a profile low enough that the sticks that they can't handle won't come looking.

It is rare to have a very good skill, true. But how does someone know you are that good? Reputation. And rep can be manipulated if you know how and given the rep mechanics of SR4, you can certainly manipulate it such that your rep is low enough to avoid scrutiny. The whole point is that if the PCs manage their rep well/keep a low profile/etc, why should anything big (sticks or carrots) come their way, especially if they do not particularly want those sticks or carrots?

Lowfyr thinks you are just right - sure, the GM is forcing us to do it, we can't really do anything but go along, because anything else will be just risking a Orbital Cow Strike or something similar.

If you're earning Karma, you're Rep should be going up. There's a weird little thing where you can buy down your Public Awareness by buying off Notoriety with Rep, but if you think about it, that means that in order to keep a low profile every few months you have to do something unprofessional and crazy. ("Whoops, my name is getting a little too well known in this city, better go throw the mayor under a bus on live tv, and rack up 2 or 3 Notoriety points and be a nobody again.")

Characters seeking out challenges appropriate to their skill level is based on two things. One, pc's tend to like to make as much money and karma as possible and two, the game is only fun if its challenging. (Those are my assumptions going into it, anyway.) So one rationale is in-game, one is meta-game, and of the two the second is really more important. If the players are bored, it doesn't really matter how the characters are doing.

To put another way, a Major League baseball player could quit the majors and become the most awesome softball player in his church league, but relatively few seem to take that option. In SR, a certain number of runners are going to not take risks and get by by doing low-paying easy jobs, but these aren't the runners the games will focus on. The games (hopefully) will focus on the people doing interesting things.

Two points -

1. Depending on how used you are to gunfire, maybe. Grow up in a rough neighborhood and hitting the deck is as natural as brushing your teeth in the morning. A buddy of mine could identify three or four different weapons by sound alone. Mind you, he was in high school at the time. Chris Rock makes the joke, "I grew up in a rough neighborhood. I didn't start walking until I was 15."

Conversely, it's one thing to know intellectually "ok, gunfire bad - I should be seeking cover before identifying the source of fire and returning fire" and the instinctive "whumph" of your chest impacting the ground before your brain catches up with "hey, was that a gunshot?"

Cops and Soldiers have more opportunities to learn that lesson compared to the average civilian from the 'burbs, but it tends to be a learned survival response, not a trained one. Just my two bits - I haven't had the opportunity to visit Brazil, but I imagine there are areas of the US just as bad.

Maybe an Edge - "combat survival: years of staying alive have drilled in you the importance of cover. At the sound of gunfire, make a Willpower Test to avoid diving for cover." to reflect life experience." No less silly than the "Common Sense" edges.

2. I had to think about your argument for virtual trainers and its a good one. There are already concerns that the more lifelike games are basically glorified combat simulators - throw a couple of "Clint Eastwood VR sims" into the mix and you've got a sim junkie with an itchy trigger finger and some skills behind that finger. In some ways, that's worse than the "Jack the Ripper" BtL junkie.

At which point, you have to decide the following:

a) How comprehensive was the company training? Would they have spent the time to expose their rank-and-file guards to VR training?

b) How did the guards take to the training? Enthusiastically? Went through the motions for a paycheck?

c) Do they leave their work at the door when they come home or do they spend their free time drilling muscle reflex as a hobby? (Don't laugh - you'd be surprised how many cops don't spend any extra time on a range.)

Just be prepared for PCs to make the same arguments for their own exposures to VR environments.

-Siege

So what about buying off Notoriety with Rep? Simply failing a run gains you a point of Notoriety. You do not need to go out of your way to be unprofessional to do that. Killing an innocent person needn't be unprofessional, sometimes shit will happen. Hell, getting arrested almost certainly will net you 2 Notoriety, since the GM would give you a Criminal SIN. And incredibly bad luck simply happens, whether you are pro or not. And when a dragon tells you to work for him, you give him what he wants.

"My name is going to be a little to well known in this city. This run isn't as advertised, I'm not finishing this run. I'd rather be a nobody again than dead."

If the players want to play a game with lower pay(karma or cred) jobs that their PCs can easily overcome, why not give it to them?

I have to say, this is not a point of view I run into a lot. Most players that I know tend to either want to optimize their advancement options (earn the most money and karma that their character can) or want to optimize their entertainment options (have fun at the table), and both of these tend to go hand-in-hand with a higher degree of challenge. Now, its possible to make the game too challenging and have the pc's have no realistic chance of success, and that is a mistake I've made as well. But either extreme tends to make for a game that isn't particularly enjoyable, either because the players feel they can't succeed, or they can't fail.

If I designed a series of runs in which the players got paid a small amount of money (marginally more than they needed to maintain their lifestyle) and had no chance of failing, I think by the third session the group would be bored out of their minds. I'd be bored out of my mind.

Except that your Rep and Notoriety together determine your Public Awareness. Let's say you've run enough that your Rep gives you a PA of 1; the cops are just starting to hear about you. Then you get arrested, pay down the Notoriety with Rep, and that lowers your PA. The cops have no idea who you are anymore because they arrested you. That doesn't make any sense. (It makes sense the other way, if you have a PA from a high Notoriety and you quietly and professionally go about your business for awhile and use that Rep to pay down the Notoriety to lower the PA, but if you do that long enough you're right back where you started with a high Rep raising your PA, and you have to throw the mayor under a bus on live tv to lower your public profile. Its wonky, is what I'm saying.)

Only if the mage is reputated to be one of the most skilled mages in the plex and the person hiring him is hiring him specifically for that skill. You can be very skilled at counterspelling, you can be very good at summoning, but even to an insider, do you think that a Johnson or a fixer is going to care if you're better at spellcasting than summoning as long as you have a rep as a good shadowrunner?

My general take: Corp security is broken into three tiers, all security having bio-monitors:

Front Door: A guy sitting at a desk, watching x-rays and metal detectors. More important, though, for me, is that I assume that every division has its own entrances, and, in the interest of security, you will not have a guy from R&D be allowed to go in through the Human Resources entrance, or the maintanence entrance or the food services entrance. You keep schedules mostly the same, and always have two security guards at the desk(so that if one is sick, the other is still knowledgable about things), and you get them to the point where they know the people coming in by face as well as ID. AND you make sure all the employees know the guards by name. And, part of the security is to greet one of the guards by name as you come in. I also do the stairwells so they are entrance like, not just fire escapes, and put a welcome desk in front of each stairwell and infront of the elevator(as well as metal detectors, X-ray scanners, and a hardwired camera), with the same know people by face and name for the security guard there. These guys have the simple job of spotting if someone doesn't belong there, and are tasked to set off an alarm if someone does not match what things say they are supposed to be(I also put Jammers at these points.) These guards are kind of receptionist and security, but are non-combat guards.

Patrols: Patrols, again, keep the set areas, and know the people in their patrol area by name and face. They also know the maintanence people who might be showing up in their area by name and face. They may have set areas, but they vary their patrol routes. These guys have heavy pistols, and stun grenades, and decent armour. They also have helmets with smart link, thermo-vision, and image links, as well as flare comp.

Objective: Objective security are the security assigned to key areas. These are built with Prime Runner rules, and are going to be at those points where sensitive materials are kept, generally, what the runners are after. These people work well together as a team, and are basicly what the runners do not want to run into. I assume there are two objective teams in a facility: one for the actual objective area, and one as a response and pursuit team. These teams always include one mage with high banishing and counterspelling skill.

My objective is to make things where one mistake can be lethal to the players. They need to always feel that they are in danger. If they are not sweating, if they are not worrying that their characters might die, then I am not doing my job right. Because, if that is not the case, then I am not challenging them. Who ever talks and brags about the milk run? Who talks about their run ending with a mage duel on a roof top, in the rain, while the hacker is fighting for his live on the net, and the samurai is holding off a platoon of corp mooks lead by near sammies? Going easy on players is not something anyone should do, though realism is always a good temper.

And my point is that given the fact that unless I'm misremembing the Character Sheet that was posted on the board the Mage is considered World Class in general spellcasting and even better at manipulation spells, has the most raw power that any non-Graded mortal Mage can possibly have, and according to the DM routinely throws magical Tac-Nukes around like candy. So yes I think it's safe to say that that kind of behavior coupled with the skills to back it up would quickly build the necessary rep to make the Mage's life living hell.

Besides, whether or not a Johnson knows or cares about the details of the Mage's skillset is moot because any Fixer worth a damn is going to care, and you can bet that the high-end Fixers always have their ears to the ground in the search of new high-end talent.

Unless the fixer himself is a mage himself or has got the low down from a mage, how is he going to verify whether this new guy is good?

You might be high end and very good but if you do not have the rep to match, then how are the fixer/s going to know if you really are that damn good? You can be the world's fastest runner but if you have never ran in a recognised competitive race, do you think that you'd be crowned as the world's fastest man?

If the mage throws magical tac-nukes around and the magical investigators that come around can assense the signature and work out that whoever threw the spell/s is very powerful, word may get around that whichever mage made that run is very strong indeed. And you'd think that the mage's fixer would be the first to put 2 and 2 together and whether the fixer to keep a lid on the thing or whether he puts the word out that he knows a top notch spellslinger is completely up to the GM since the fixer is an NPC. So no, I think that it is foolish to assume that the kind of behavior backed up with the skills would quickly build up the necessary rep unless the GM chooses to deem it so.

It is true that the sample PC has that level of skill, but if you look at the sample gangers in the NPC section, you find that they are much more in line with what we're told are typical ability scores. The sample Halloweener doesn't even have a motorbike skill and they're a motorbike gang.

PC are supposed to be exceptional. The sample PC is not just a ganger, but someone who has moved into Shadowrunning and I expect him to be better than most. Given the character's poverty of cyberware there's plenty of room for growth.

Shadowrun is a little different from a lot of other RPGs, in that personal power is not the thing that really determines how dangerous a character is, but rather cunning and preparation and contacts.

I'm not entirely certain of your point, but if it is that the Stun Master posted earlier shouldn't be considered unusually powerful, I disagree. This is a character that is highly optimised to doing what he does. Most people never come close to fulfilling their potential. I know I've never stuck to martial arts as rigorously as I could have and it isn't because I couldn't have. Most people reach a level of "good enough" and stop. Just because in theory, everyone can get their a skill up to 6, doesn't mean that most do, unlike PCs who tend to be driven or dramatic characters. We also have to ask whether we can realistically apply the simple karma rules and progressions to the whole world of NPCs. It's clear that we can't do that. Not everyone has the capacity to get to a particular level regardless of desire. I've done a fair bit of weight training and I can move a reasonable amount of weight, but I know that I could never reach the levels of the world's strongest individuals because I simply don't have the rhinocerous DNA they appear to have spliced into their DNA (I'm more the sprinter type ).

By the descriptions of ability levels in that book, the Stunball character earlier is a heavily optimised, world expert in combat spellcasting. And if that wasn't the sort of game that was wanted, the GM should have discouraged it in favour of broadening out into other areas.

You can drop Force 12 Stunballs all day long, but as long as the signature isn't assensed and it is not linked to the spellcaster, there is no one to associate the signature to.

Ergo: He does not have a rep as a badass spellslinger. His fixer may or may not know that he is that good. I look at the fixer as a handler more than an agent. This is the shadows and the way I run my fixers (at least the good ones) according to this trusim: "There are old spies and there are bold spies, but there are very few old and bold spies." If anything, the fixer will tell the spellslinger to cut down on the overkill because he is drawing unnecessary attention.

You want to be a ninja megamage? Make sure there is no evidence to link you to the deed, just like any other shadowrunner. Use the mojo, as long as you clean it up or if you know by the time the forensic mage gets here, the signature will be long gone, people won't know about your uberness.

It was.

At least I think. I'm probably still ranting over Direct Spells somewhere there as well!

But power levels are really subjective. More on that below.

Oh I agree, whole heartidly.

But that's RL.

NPCs aside for a minute, look at the sample characters. The mages have Spellcasting/Summoning of 5. And a Magic of 5.

From there, it's one step, and a handful of games worth of Karma to be the *worlds best* and lobbing force 12 spells around with impunity. So really, that Mage shouldn't be considered too above the norm (can't remember the exact build, but it's the force 12 stunballs everyone's talking about!)

Yeah you're limited (usually) to one skill at 6 or two at 5 at creation. And a normal Maximum stat costs a lot. But you're not discouraged from designing your Runner like that (GM's limiting builds for thier settigns aside... It's all subjective! ). I'd go so far as to suggest you're actually encouraged to build the best 'Runner you can, to specilaise in the field you want to take. Otherwise the competition will swallow you. And the good jobs/fixers/Johnsons will go elsewhere. Perils of a corporate society...

(That's not to say you shouldn't ever build a non optimised or even purposly 'flawed' character. It's all about the role playing, and I'm an staunch supporter that the stats should always reflect the character. But the guys that are gonna get the Rep and the good jobs are the guys at the top of thier game. Usually. )

Most npcs don't come up to this standard, but the vast majority are mooks. And expected to be mooks. And this is what the Professional Rating system is for.

PCs, and thier power levels, are the standard, or expected level for professional Runners. And the same standard should be expected of NPC runners (or Prime Runners / High Profession Grunts). Which makes it a hell of a lot harder to stand out from the crowd. (Unless it's your setting to have your Runners better than thier peers, in which case it doesn't really matter if the Stun Master is world class at casting, he'll get the Rep just by being him. )

Just being able to chuck a force 12 spell wouldn't cut it.

You would start to get Rep and recognition for actually doing things (or having things attributed to yourself, whether you were invovled or not...) that people would take note of.

But in a sea of Magic 5/6 Mages all with the ability to overclock themselves, casting overclocked high force spells won't get you noticed.



Oh god I'm just rambling on now. Time to stop!

Just want to touch on;

The Mages I know, unless they know there's a couple hours of down time coming up to rest, would much rather overcast by one or two force. Just to take Physical damage and not stun.

Larger tracks, and the ease (through Heal spells or First aid) to get rid of a couple of points of damage over a couple of points of stun makes it more attractive in a drawn out situation.

The limitation is one injury or set of injuries.

An example ...

QuikRik is cruising downtown (at full health) when he runs into a couple of Halloweeners out for some fun. Thinking quickly, he turns his bike and runs over the first ganger, getting thrown into a dumpster in the process (2P damage).

Now it's on, and the non-broken 'weener starts taking pot shots at our hero, even winging him twice (1P and 2P respectively) before Rik can blow his head off with his trusty Predator.

Rik picks up his bike, and luckily it roars to life under his shaky ministrations in time to hightail it away before the 'Star responds. A couple of blocks away, he slips into a friend Faye Talitie's pad and flops down on the couch to tend to his injuries (totaling 5P). The whole group would be treated as one set for healing purposes.

Borrowing Faye's medkit, Rik manages to heal up 3 boxes of damage (bringing his current Wound Level down to 2P). If he then falls asleep and Faye manages to inflict another wound on him with her butcher knife (she's out of practice and slips at the last minute, only doing 5P), then after he has finished her off, he could only attempt to heal the new wound (and any other subsequent wounds if applicable, regardless of source or type of injury) received since his last First Aid/Medicine (or even magical) attempt (only the 5P in this case, as the previously received 2P is considered a separate wound set).

Honestly, I don't bother with that...just because I am the GM doesn't mean I have to micromanage all the details. We have one player that has First Aid and one that is a mage. When it comes time to heal, they talk amongst themselves to figure it out...

My players are mostly honest, so I don't worry about it.

Incorrect. Someone hires him. But does he wave his high Force Stunball around as a marketing tool? You are assuming that just because someone uses something often, that something becomes associated to that someone and that someone is known for it. I could argue that his force 12 stunball is not a signature move, but just something well within his capabilities. Just because he gets his jobs from a Johnson and has a fixer does not mean that they know that he dropped the guards with just 1 spell. How do people know that there is only this 1 guy? How do you know that there is only 1 spell? Yes, you as a GM or player know that, but ask yourself if the same result can be accomplished with multiple lower Force Stunballs and if that is worth such a earthshaking reputation then. Take the result of those massive Stunballs and ask yourself how can this be accomplished? All you have is a group of security guards who wake up with massive headaches. You know the truth is that they got hit by 1 big spell.

You are mixing IC knowledge with OOC knowledge in your description. I do not know what happens at your table, but I do not let my PCs get away with using OOC knowledge IC. And I certainly will not set an example of mixing IC knowledge and OOC knowledge as a GM. I know, that does not mean that my NPCs will know. If my NPCs do not know, then where does the rep come from?

The Halloweeners are not a Go Gang, though they do on occassion clash with Go Gangs. They run around in halloween costumes and vandalize corporate property in the Downtown Seattle region.

They've also been killed almost to a man in the canon story line like 4 times since their introduction in 2050. Which means that they all die as often as Presidents are elected.

-Frank

Really? I knew all of that except that I had them fixed in my mind as being a go-gang. Probably some story about another mounted battle with the Ancients I once read. Oh well, too late for my game now. I'll keep it in mind for talking to other GMs, though. Thanks.

I've always liked the Halloweeners. They keep getting killed and they keep coming back. I think the recruiting power of being able to dress up in the outfits must just be too irresistable to a certain sort of person.

I'd say that's not exactly IC/OOC mixing. That's the power of a rumormill. "My chummer over at the azzie place down town had a drekked up day the other day. Here's what he told me..."
One person will say one thing to the wrong person, and by the time it hits general public, it could be blown way out of proportion. It'll either be one supermage, or a full legion of shock troops that only overwhelmed security by attrition. If you honestly believe this is a case of IC/OOC mixing, then you've never seen a true rumormill in action. It's scary what can come out of one with just the right words said to the right person at the right time.

True. It can be a rumor, but the rumor can just as easily be disinformation that deflects attention away from the runner or has but the vaguest of associations to him. Or the rumor could die stillborn. This rumor can happen even if he did not go around slinging Force 12 Stunballs. How is this rumor associated with the runner? It needn't be, it could be just as easily point to anyone of the Awakened population. That the rumor points to the runner is a GM choice and is a case of IC/OOC mixing.

And this is what I take issue with.

Beyond normal? Surely not for any Shadow Runner worth their salt assaulting that complex.