Hi,

I am wondering if the current focus on Street Running is viable from a historical point of view. Taking all we know about the SR world and the way it is supposed to move, how long could last the time of the Shadowrunners ?

How long before they became integrated into Corporation or basic Criminals ? The motivation of using Shadowrunner is the supposed fight between corporation and the need of deniable asset to fuel this fight.

How long could the corporation fuel this kind of passive-offensive war before they ressort to full action ? If you consider the extremely harming effect of the Shadowrunner actions, especially in the novels, wont the corporation notice they are really killing themselves by ressorting to the use of SR. Also from a legal point of view, how long before the Corporate Court rules that an action of shadowrunner that can be traced back to the initiating Corporation (something that with the Matrice 2.0 will become more and more easy to do) implicated the Corporation regardless of his denial.


How long is the shadowrunner time supposed to last ? a decade, a generation, a century ?

Basically is the Shadowrun background sound and stable enough to be here to last or should it be perceived as a kind of Wild West : a historical period that is quite small in fact in time but provide enough material for a large exploitation, but that cannot stay the way it is for ages.

Is that not already the case? That's why corps employ Johnsons, isn't it? So that the run cannot be traced back to the corp?


There is a prisoner's dilemma here: the collective interest of the corps would be to ban Shadowrunning, but the individual interest of any corp is to run others. Without a major change, it could lead to cycles: when things get sour, the corps organize a summit in Zurich orbital and all swear they will never do that again. Then things get more quiet until a corp feels it could use an extra edge, then another,...

Spies, Criminals, SpecOp, Black Ops, Mercenaries - all those can be called Shadowrunners. As long as entities like states and corps (which are the same thing in the case of extraterritorial megas) need some assets like those, there's a market for shadowrunners.

the East and the West had a shadow war going in the Cold War, if that worked, Shadowrunners can work too, at least for the game.

Yes, but even the cold war had to end.

And even at the hottest point spying effort have nothing to do with the hundred (thousands ?) of shadowrunner teams inhabiting the SR world.


"Spies, Criminals, SpecOp, Black Ops, Mercenaries - all those can be called Shadowrunners"

That's exactly my point, thoses can be called but they are not ! How long before the current Shadowrunner become assimilated into the standard venture and we are back to Shadow Ops 5.0 ?

I think the current SR world is far too much saturated with Shadow team to be able to sustain them, especially at a street level.


"That's why corps employ Johnsons, isn't it? So that the run cannot be traced back to the corp?"

A valid argument... if you cancel the fact that very often the actual M. Johnson is a cadre from the very corps and his identity is often cracked by the shadowrunners. If you can track a shadowrunner, you can track a M. Johnson. Of course it seems there is a general agreement not to do so, but how long would it last ? Did you really believe that M. Johnson system is a true warrant of anonymat ?

Shadowrunners are an integral part of the corporate feudalism depicted in cyberpunk. So the real question is how sustainable the megacorp power is, and what might rise to replace it (a resurgence of nation-states, etc.).

It will last as long as the game lasts. Remember that the mechanical focus has always been more or less
on the street level. However, in my experience, players want to feel they influence the world around them,
that their actions matter. Hence why we would get some of the old story modules like Super Tuesday,
the adventures in Dunkelzahn's Will, and, more recently, Ghost Cartels. Personally, I would love to
see more stuff like those, myself.

The Cold War ended with the collapse of USSR, not with negociations.The problem when extending that to corps is that it is a dynamic multiplayer environment. The war will not end with one corp disapearing or being bought out, and new corps can arise through time.

One possible ending could be that only 2 corps remain and the cold war gets hot.



Just because it sometimes fails does not defeat the purpose. It adds another layer of confidentiality: to get back to the corp, the runners need to get back to the Johnson AND to be caught. Those are opposite: runners good enough to crack the Johnson are less likely to get caught.

Do you have any reference to quote about the agreement you claim? I do not see any sign of it, and I am pretty sure the opposite is stated somewhere: corps do try to catch back those who run against them to gather evidence and claim compensation before the Corporate Court. In this end it is just a matter of cost/benefit analysis: how much can we claim from this (A)? How much will the enquiry cost (B)? What is the probability for it to succeed (C )?

If A > BC, then proceed. Otherwise forget about it.

In the future all corporations will be Taco Bell after they win the Franchise Wars. ROD will become a household word (Rapid Onset Diarrhea or CRODS - Chronic Rapid Onset Diarrhea Syndrome), and runners will be in greater demand than ever.

Mesh

But that would not be 'street' anymore. 'Street' games are all about angry punks who feel society owes them and who are so impoverished their idea of a feast is to suck nutrisoy remainders out of discarded vending machines (but who omehow own 200 grand in cybersystems, or are a mage who would gladly be hired by any number of different people for upper class wages).

Of course, these most 'true' Street games never were very valid to begin with, nor the basic idea of SR.


*chuckles*

Yeah. Like the gangers with cyberware worth combined well over a million back in the 1st Edition Food Fight module.

Shadowrun always had this dilemma. Personally, I am very much in favour of a more Roninrun type of game (which would make the characters and their proficiencies more plausible), and to leave the street campaign as an optional, low level 200 BP sort of option for those who are into this stuff.

I would consider "Ronin" street level too.

And Shadowrunners in SR4 are in my opinion by definition above the level of punks. They are professionals, experts in their field.

I would consider Ronin mercenary level. They are professional,skilled, connected and exceptionally well armed. Barring the mage, Ronin also contains all character archetypes. Furthermore, all but two of the characters have a background in agency/mercenary business. But okay, if that's your idea of street level games, then it has substantially more validity.

To me, street level is angry punks who lick grease off the sidewalk for food and knock over johns and slumming teens for money. Kind of like the first few chapters of Neuromancer with a lower lifestyle and even less perspective. And most characters have to be orcs and trolls and there has to be a lot of angst and lambasting about social injustice.

Maybe a common definition of 'street level' play would be helpful.

I think we agree in that the basic SR4 archetype is supposed to be on the Ronin-level, not the "brainless gutterpunk".

Yes, that we do.

Yes, and we all can see today how that brought that whole espionage thing to an end for good, can't we?

As long as there are organisations like megacorpartions, governments or whatever running the world, there will be a demand for "deniable assets". And there's a whole lot of spying going on done by people with no official affiliation whatsoever with the agency they're spying for, even today.

Yes but that have nothing with a street level shadowrunning...

People living in the fringe of society, at unregistered and outlaw status. Individual or small team assembled for a few missions without months of planning of formation.

How long could a trully street level shadowrun environnement work before they got either : 1- crushed, 2- got tottally outlaw/Criminal/Syndicatised Mob, 3- legallized or transformed into stealth corps asset, 4- Syndicalised into Mercenary Unit.

I think the background describe how the Shadowrunner developped in the 2050+ years, nowadays 20+ years later thoses teams should'nt be in the street anymore. The bad are dead, the low profile are integrated in gang and crimes, the good are inCorporated or running their own business.

The whole M. Johnson call to a fixer who happen to know someone that could do the job dont really feel like something set to last. It could work for a bit, but how long before the Corps realise it is as much efficient or even cheaper to create their own 'independent' special ops mercenary unit and have them contracted....

The denial is just as easy as with denying the M. Johnson was their : they were working for other contractor, sure thoses are assets that are linked to our corps, but we dont control what mission they take, as ARES doesnt control who they sell weapons too...

And sorry but if you can track the runner then you can track their contact and where and when they meet M. Johnson then who he is. The only reason why Corps dont do that it's because of a weird honor system meaning they dont put the M. Johnson identity on the courts but could retaliate with a reciprocated strike.

And this systema will eventually crumble the day a AA or AAA feel hurt enough or manage to actually have proof strong enough to try to brought the case public in an attempt to agressively size control of an opponent. Let's figure it out : making the use of SR public will mean losing them as an asset (or unregulated asset) but the first corporation that feel convicted of such action will be dismembered in public place as an example and for show of good faith by the others (that will greedily take as much of their prey as they can).


I am convinced that the whole street level lasted perhaps a few years 10-20, then it become regulated to the Ronin-Level you were talking about. But that's something the book doesnt shows and a evolutionnary path they should envision, IMDNSHO.

Ronin-level is exactly what the SR4 book shows,

Yes, exactly, the bad teams get crushed, the really good ones will get "incorporated" or get rich enough to get out in time. And that's where the cycle begins anew because there are more than enough lowlifes on the fringe of society willing to do anything for money. The way you envision it, there's a set "pool" of runners that will run out one day, but that's not the way it works.

As long as there's demand and people willing to pay, there will be people willing to deliver.

If you define street level as gutter punk, then you're talking optional/alternate rules. A starting character (400 BP) is not by definition also starting runner.

This game is so open ended, you can run any type of campaign you want from techless gangers to uber-pros. I have fun with them all.

Arguing which one you prefer makes for an interesting thread. Arguing SR is all about one or the other seems silly, but I'm all about letting participants post whatever they want so go for it if you enjoy it.

Mesh

A fun game we played once was where we built a DocWagon Black Membership extraction team.
It was fun, the GM was our 'dispatcher' and we would get sent out to rescue all sort of people whose biometrics were flatlining, or in serious trouble. And since we worked for the We'll come get you no matter where you are Membership, we saw some crazy stuff.

You are right (except that the really good ones are now in their island in the Caribean sipping margaritas served by naked elf chicas), but those ones have been replaced by young blood.

This defense does not hold. The corp would still be guilty of accepting the contract to perform illegal deeds. All it could do is bargain a lower fine in exchange for cooperation.

So we are back to step 1: corporate SINners cannot afford to get caught, so the corp needs deniable assets. SINless runners working exclusively for one corp are still runners.

Because Mr Johnson always shows his true face, broadcasts his true SIN, never cleans up after the encounter, the fixer never runs away when he hears his runners got caught,... If the cops always win in your world, then yes, there is no point in running, I guess

Once again, do you have any reference for that?

This would require a major screwup: compensation is proportional to damage. It can only be enough to drag a corp to the ground on a major operation. If you plan on using street thugs to conduct such a major operation, yes you will have a problem. But this has little to do with the SR setting and everything with this particular Johnson being a stingy moron. If you want the best, then hire the best.

There is a place for all levels, if they are used right.

QFT

In fact, I'd add that you don't even have to restrict it to Running. The older books especially emphasized that you could just as easily run a DocWagon or Mercenaries or even news reporter campaign.

Missions (the book, not the official campaign) was about running a DocWagon, Lone Star, military, reporter, and a few other campaigns. Fields of Fire had rules for a mercenary campaign, and there was at least one other book but I can't remember what it was.

Shadowbeat had rules for reporters, rock stars and blood sports. Attitude has some big shoes to fill

Fields of Fire was awesome.
Especially for the Rigger in all of us