Last session the players wanted to celebrate a Run well done and wanted real food rather than the usual soya products. They did a Matrix search to find a moderately high class place (this stemmed largely from one of the characters taking a hamburger as payment).

They found Ares Authentic All American In-N-Out Burger^™. I pulled up the menu to make sure it seemed fairly authentic and proceeded to play a snooty waiter bringing them their burgers surrounded by small neat lines of decorative ketchup and a side of lettuce after an initial course of (soya) salad, ending with classy desserts and bottles of wine. The players were laughing it up (though there was one tense moment when they paid and the biometric scanner came out to check the rating 2 SIN the guy covering the bill had).

Anyone else use current companies to set the mood or show how much things have changed? Any similar humorous stories? I remember seeing CanRay use Disney for a Run.

Super 8 will always be there...watching

I was working on a project at one time tracing the biggest companies of today into 2060 (this is how long ago I was playing with it)...some of them remain independent A and AAs, but most got rolled up during conglomeration fever. The big one was Walmart and 7-11 both getting bought by Aztechnology in 2037 and 2039 respectively and being slowly dismantled/rebranded into Stuffer Shack. Seriously, check out that map in Food Fight...it's bigger than a convenience store, but much smaller than a Walmart-type big box store.

Snooty waiters at In & Out?! It is a dark future, indeed...

I wonder if McDonald's has extraterritoriality...

This is important because by USDA regulations, if you label food product as a "hamburger", it must contain real beef for the "patty" portion. This is why, when you buy those soy-padded burgers in convenience stores, they're never called "hamburgers". It's also why Dairy Queen's burger is called the Hunger Buster and not a hamburger (they use 100% beef now, but in the 80s they used soy and other fillers).

So if they do have extraterritoriality, they can keep claiming the Big Mac is 100% All-Beef Patties while in fact selling beef-flavored soy because there's no regulation keeping them from doing so.

my world's history had mcdonalds lose steam. The company deflated under the poor decisions of a new CEO as quality soy became affordable while they stuck to their 100% beef guns in the mid 21st century and the whole shebang was divided, sold, and basically phased out of existence

at the very least, it warms my heart that my table is interested enough in the state of the world to make me fabricate this on the spot

what was the name of that high security fast food restaurant in NAGRL? I dont know if it stands the test of time, but i remember it being hilarious when i first read it.

shadowrun is unusual in that the most basic asumptions about how people live and what the game world is like vary widly from writer to writer and from group to group. not to mention editions and publishers.

McHugh's? I can't remember and I'm too lazy to go to the next room and dig my copy up...

McDonalds doesn't sell food. They sell restaurants to people who want to manage a small business. Pretty successful business model that is incredibly good at adapting to the times. Still viable if the CEO completely screwed up of course, and I think the idea is funny. "We refuse to back down from our beef! ...ah Hell."

I do like the idea of it either going Extraterritorial or being grabbed up. Also, Walmart being grabbed by Aztechnology is awesome as well as fitting. "Now you really will never get a union"

I recall two: McHugh's and Nuke-It Burger.

i'm pretty sure it was McHugh's. complete with armed guards prepared for chemical warefare.

it makes you wonder what their revenue must be like to justify that kind of expendedure on security. so many of the fundamental setting elements of the game fail to stand up to basic accounting.

As far as I can tell McDonalds changed to McHugh's at some point. Reasons lost to the crash of 29. But one guess was that it di so cause to many people named McDOnald started opening up burger joints. Leading to constant litigation. In the end the BoD said drek this. Rebrand ourselves McHugh's no body is named McHugh.


Side note:Most of what I recall there was about 4 unaugmented guards and about 8 employees (on two 12 hour shifts of 2 guards and 4 employees).

So if we figure 1K a month for each employee and 5K for the manager (16K in salaries).
Rental space is another 2K
And assume the cost of materials is 1/2 sales price.

Based on that the break even point is $36,000 in sales. If your average meal is 5 Nuyen that means that means that 7200 meals need to be served per month, or 240 meals per day.

Which it would hit pretty easily, depending on location.

Btw, traditionally in food service, food cost is somewhere between 25 and 30 percent of the retail price.

For me, it was the fact that Aztechnology's biggest profit sector (other than PR) is consumer goods. The current world leader in that market is Wal-mart. Aztechnology would either have to put them out of business or take over. I figured a hostile takeover would be more likely. And since Stuffer Shacks are owned by Aztechology and are pretty much half convenience store, half big-box store; it'd make sense to get one of the largest chains of those (7-11) bought out too. With real estate more valuable than the actual stores in many cases, I figure Aztechnology would merge the two in a massive rebranding attempting to bring them both into the Sixth World using the slang at the time ("stuffer" being a slang for pre-packaged fast food). So they spent about a decade and a half slowly rebranding and consolidating the two chains into one national brand, demolishing the larger stores (selling or, more likely, releasing the spare land) and aggressively expanding the size of the smaller ones until the store pretty much share a layout across the board. I figured the model Wal-mart was using to change all their non-grocery Wal-mart stores into "Super Wal-marts" was a good model for this sort of expansion.

A lot of other companies can be hand-waved away during the Microsecond Buyout and Crash of '29...either gobbled up in the wake of the massive trades done to secure Ares for Damien Knight or bankrupted when the old internet went bye-bye (Apple being the latter IMO...they were so invested in the previous standards of the internet that when the Matrix came online in the early 30s, they stuck with the old format believing brand loyalty would save them...and went down in flames, the scraps picked up by the Villars camp in Fuchi).

That's in 20th/early 21st century terms though, where you have to worry about things like spoilage and waste. McHughs products are shipped cryovac sealed and par-cooked, so there's no waste whatsoever. Nothing is actually cooked on-site, it's just re-heated in combo microwave and convection ovens (think those ovens in 7-11s and Subways)

He was saying the cost of materials was 1/2
I was implying it was probably WAY less than that.
Probably about 15%

Those expenses are...low.

They won't keep a store open if it breaks even. Assume they have to pull at least $10k profit monthly. Minimum wage laws still exist (haven't heard they've been repealed) and McHugh's is a multinational but not a AA-rated corp, so assuming $5 an hour is the minimum wage (lol), then you're talking $1,680 an employee per month if those shifts are working seven days a week with no days off or sick time. The corporate 80-hour work week are 5 16-hour shifts. Add part timers to cover SLA's during lunch and dinner rushes and you may as well up the salary costs to the midrange Day Job flaw -2500 a month per employee. 4 guards and 8 drones isn't enough to cover the SLA's I know that corp has.

Rental space is also low. If we're including utilities, then you may as well bump it to a Medium lifestyle to cover everything. So we've got...

5k in overhead + 30,000 in salary +5k for the GM = 40k you need to pull before you factor in food costs. Even if everything is flash-frozen and prepackaged, you'll still have spoilage from the factory.

in an urban area, restaurant space goes for about $10-$30 psf. so you're not far off, but there is a lot that is missing.

for example, the total cost of an employee is 2x-3x their pre-tax gross. and their take-home needs to cover lifestyle expenses after taxes. and some of the other basic assumptions are flawed: you cant have two shifts of security guards covering a 24 hour restaurant. thats 12 hour shifts every day. You can make someone work a 12 hour shift 2 or 3 days a week, but not every day.

figure its all part time work, that way you only have to cover maybe half each employees lifestyle, after taxes. each employee covers one 8 hour shift 3.5 days a week, with three shifts a day. two security guards at any time x3 shifts x2 rotations during the week is 12 security guards. we'll ignore the markup that would be on top of their basic living expenses, even though you're probalby renting them from McGuard-co or something. you're going to need at least a day and a night manager for each rotation, maybe you dont put one on swing. or maybe the managers work full time, and the night manager covers weekends or something. still, youre not getting away with having just one, and the costs add up.

and thats not even thinking about equipment leases or maintenance, whatever fees you're paying out to your franchise for advertising and marketing and centralized HR or whatever.

you're going to have to flip way more than 240 meals a day. its not impossible to make work, but having every minute part of the world being so heavily militarized becomes a little perposterous after a while. maybe its not the McHugh's guards that break the things back, maybe its the spirits and wards and mages and security spiders and combat deckers covering every minor docwagon clinic.

I think the problem is that so many countermeasures have had to be slathered on top of the game world to pose a credible threat to overpowered PCs, that the thing just isnt believable anymore. maybe it never really was.

For what its' worth btw. I suspect that Combat Deckers and spiders work completely differently these days.

in your regional headquarters you have a staff of 7-10 deckers (at any one time), and 5-6 spiders.
They have direct access to every docwagon clinic, or stuffer shack store, what ever.

On site, what you have are security guards, and security drones, as well as security cameras, etc.
There is a "Security System 9000 Agent" that runs on the nexus that coordinates the basic security.
It has subroutines for basic everyday scenarios and it has a couple of "call for help" options.

The regional headquarters IT staff 'checks in' on the system every so often. Maybe once every couple of hours they do a quick log in, check systems, log out. Honestly, they probably have Agents that do that for them.
If a "call for help" goes out, 1 to 3 combat deckers, or a pair of spiders hop into the system and check things out.

if the call for help is about physical security issues, then you'll get more spiders, depending.

There are no spiders on site at your average local store. it just doesn't make sense.

All good points. Just pointing out that assistant managers will generally run the swing/night shifts and only get paid marginally more than their minimum-wage counterparts.

well, thats a different discussion and probalby already has a few threads somewhere else. local stores probably shouldnt have armed drones at all. places that require that kind of protection, having an off-site rigger just increases liability.

telecommunications will be the first things that go down during a raid, and then the spider isnt driving anymore. are you going to rely on the drone for target identification? are you going to trust it not to be spoofed, not to mistakenly shoot your staff or your customers? is it even worth the risk, or do you just have the armed drones go into shutdown when they lose the connection to HQ?

what you describe is certainly how we handle managed technology services RIGHT NOW, but i'm not so sure its a good idea for things with guns on them.

Shadowrun is wierd. its got the "this is cyberpunk, life is cheap" thing going, but it also has the "VITAS wiped out the world and nature awakening forced us to reconcentrate the population into ultra-cities where everyone works for megacorps and is an educated professional wageslave" and its sort of contradictory. so why are there these suburban style franchise restaurants, in the first place? if theyre for the SINless masses living in the barrens and working in factories, why are you providing them such great security in the first place? it isnt security for the restaurant; what are they going to do, steal your frozen burger-like patties? its not like there is any cash in the till, or even a till to have cash in.

but i derail.

this death of cash thing, definitely causes issues.
I think this is why people are dissatisfied with the 4E fluff in some ways.

The 4E fluff makes perfect sense for New Tokyo, but it falls apart.

cutting all of the remote access to the 'stuffer shack' is actually hard though.
underground wired lines, possibly redundant repeaters to carry matrix wireless signal. The Drones are subscription slaved to the Nexus.

Is it beyond the ability of a shadowrunner team? No.. but it IS beyond the ability of most gangers to deal with.
Add in a Lone Star or Errant Knight, or Local PD response contract, and I think you're covered for most /everyday/ issues. Sometimes security isn't about the 'what if' and more of the "fix problem X"

At one of our local semi-upper scale burger joints in my neck of the woods, your reciept has the order number on it. Past noon or lunchtime, getting tickets numbered over 400 is pretty common. Then again, its a pretty popular place.

not really. Cable and DSL installers are pretty nearly minimum wage employees, and there isnt a shitload of experience required. a gang could pretty easily pick one member to go spend a month working as a wireing technician, and then have knowledge to pass on about exactly how data lines come into a building through its single MPOE, and what to blow up or cut through to make everything go dark. or where the CO is that will make the whole block go dark. it isnt rocket science.

in 2070 or whatever it is, there might be wireless backups or somesuch. but then it comes down to jamming and EW, or where the nexus is for that wireless signal, and what else it serves. maybe bringing a flash mob of 20 people into the neighborhood and having them all start streaming simsense will be enough to degrade the performance of the local nexus, thus hosing up the drone's wireless backup. theres ways around anything.

shit, im still derailing.

back on topic: we had a shadowrun against Orangina about a year ago. i've never run against them in real life, so i'm not sure how accurate it was. it was funny as all hell though, and involved genetically tailored bio-hacking and prostitutes with flatulance. you had to be there.

First 'Run I ever ran for my group involved Jiffy-Pop...

First run I ever did back in High School a response team from Coca-Cola Enterprises got involved as they were making their getaway. Whats funny is that the entirety of the team was new to Shadowrun and they were more hung up on the idea of corporate strike teams then they were about it being Coca-Cola. I guess they didn't spend enough time reading the material.

I'm sure a lot of these companies are still around. Some of them still putting out similar products under the same name. Just a matter of figuring out what company owns that company, and what company owns that one, and that one, and that one, and that one, and that one, and which of the bigger corps is (eventually) in control of the whole chain.

You know, with Coke and Pepsi, "Red Versus Blue" takes on a whole new meaning...

In some of the fluff, weren't there mentions of "the Cola Wars" and the guy working for Red, but Blue had taken over the airport so he couldn't leave or something?

Might be where I got the idea... My mind is not exactly in good shape right now...

I don't recall where it was, but I could swear I saw Walmart mentioned once in canon, in precisely this capacity. Not sure what date (if any) was given in the book but I'm positive AZT bought out Walmart because of it's position in consumer retail.

I'm almost positive. Like 99%.

...or it was a hallucination. Cocaine is a hell of a drug.

Kong-Wal-Mart is in the AR-Perception example. It's also an example of a department store.

It may have been me in a thread years ago saying it when I was working on the list.

SR4A Page 40, Department Stores, No Frills: "Kong-Wal Mart".

Note my figure were in Nuyen and includes mor than the price of the food. The 1/2 price on materials also includes equipment, the containers, the utilities, and such.

I based my salary figures on life style costs: 1,000 nuyen is a low lifestyle and 5,000 is middle. So the guards and all but the manager are minimum wage. With automation and drones (assumed to be in the equipment), 4 employees would be enough to run the returant per shift.

I actually agree with your salary figures.

1k/month for employees and guards
Though I think the manager has 2k/month

As for employees, you actually need very few employees.

Cooking:
The "McHughs" Cooking drone, produced and designed exclusively for McHughs restaurants by Bifrost Manufacturing, Industrial Drones division.

Cleaning:
The "Hoover" all purpose cleaning drone.
The "Hoover Night Shift" all purpose heavy cleaner for after hours deep cleaning

If it's a counter+seat yourself place then there's probably 2 people working the morning shift, 2 people during the mid shift, and 2 people at night shift.
There's a Manager from say 7-4, and an Assistant manager for say 2-closing

Most of the ordering is done via AR, the people are there as a backup, and for the folks with no AR for what ever reason.

the "kitchen" is almost certainly fully automated.

Even with the "packaging" the food is probably only about 30% of the retail price.

The real problem is the "guards everywhere" Most places should have very few guards, just enough to keep the gangs mostly on the up and up.

>Anyone else use current companies to set the mood or show how much things have changed? Any similar humorous stories? I remember seeing CanRay use Disney for a Run.<

GlaxoSmithKline was mentioned in a Shadowrun novel years ago (The tiger shifter assassin one) and I used to be an actual wageslave in R&D. Oh there are so many possibilities! Sapiient lab critters anyone?

or the real secret behind Aztechnology is that Walmart created them. Dissatified with the underground criminal element maintaining a monopoly on illicit drugs, Walmart makes a bold move and buys out the drug cartels. Then unifies their distribution structure into a more effcient, profit driven model. Delivery schedules are streamlined, costs are lowered, end prices for the users are driven downwards to crush any competition.

And then you get enforcers with the blue vests and smiley-face badge. "Can I 'elp you wif sumthin?"

and the old guy, all cyberzombied out. "YOU WILL SHOW YOUR RECEIPT OR YOU WILL DIE!"

The Customer service desk could be at the top of a small pyramid, to make a complaint, just bend forward and place your head on the nice stone table.

I run a Milwaukee game and Harley-Davidson prides itself on using "Real Bug City Steel".
KRAFT and Foremost Foods are still in business and employing runners to steal food industry trade secrets every day.

Most of my locations and mom-and pops come from existing companies that have been thrown 60 years into the future.


Ohh! My runners shop at Blades, Bullets & Beyond too!