so i was thinking about the awful shadowrun cliche of being doublecrossed by Mr J., and how all the modules are written such that anyone who isnt suspicious of their employer before they take a job is a fool. And I was thinking of this one throwaway adventure we played low level thugs hired to do a job, but were really taking the fall for a more experienced shadowrun team. One Stage Before was pretty much the quintesential example of that, but i'm hard pressed to think of one of the old modules where you werent being double-dealed in some way.

And I got to thinking, does it ever work the other way? Once you have an experienced team of runners (which is basically starting level characters in Shadowrun...) how often does Mr. J. say something like "and dont wory, the cleanup is all planed for you and we are hireing a second team of thugs to be the patseys for anything that goes wrong".

If it is really such a common practice, shouldnt there be some kind of tipping point where it starts to work in your favor? has anyone ever done this for their party, or had their GM set up a run that way for them?

My players tend to form meaningful bonds with their employers, so frequently runs are not just secretive Mr. J's hiring them for some duplicitous errand. In one particular situation, this trust building worked in their favor, as a powerful person who was once a Mr. J helped the group clean up after a bad run turned bloodbath (he called a friend at the CDC and they burned a lot of bodies who had become 'infected' with something nasty). So, in a sense, I imagine that anytime a Johnson is doing you a favor, it's because he thinks you're worth the effort (he either likes you personally or respects your reputation).

First of all, I think the treacherous Johnson is a bit overused. They should all have their own agendas, omit some information, and honestly not know other information, but for a Johnson to actively set up a team of runners should be something that happens, maybe, once every ten runs or so, give or take.

I think that the tipping point comes when "a" Johnson becomes "your" Johnson - when that Johnson has actually used you, successfully, for delicate, dangerous work in the past. Look at it from the Johnson's point of view. Sure, they hire runners for plausible deniability, and want to do so as cheaply as possible. But dealing with runners is fraught with peril. They might try to blackmail you, or even physically threaten you. They might turn what you want to be a sneaky run into a bloodbath, or they might just take the advance, hit the nearest bar, and blow off the run.

Shadowrunners are punks, gangers, and wannabes, liberally mixed in with eco-terrorists, neo-anarchists, and people who have burned out, or washed out, of corporate employment. If, in this gaggle of low-brow thuggery, you can actually find a group that is reliable and relatively professional, then you have a tangible asset. You can maybe throw some more money their way, and use them as long-term associates rather than expendable assets. Because even the most selfish and treacherous Johnson will usually be able to see that having people who are reliable in a traditionally unreliable business are very useful to him.

My Mr. Johnson (The one I write about, Jonathan Jonah Johnson) has what he calls "The Code of the Professional". Do professional work, act like a professional, and get treated like one. That includes being paid even when the 'Run didn't go off due to problems that were outside the scope of the 'Run in question, and legal representation if caught.

Do anything that is unprofessional, and he'll cut you off at the knees.

Literally.

With a straight razor.

Personally.

So why exactly is a prime runner hiring runners?

Honestly? Boredom.

He was retired with a wife and a kid just concieved when a bomb went off during an All-Ork presentation of Swan Lake that was being funded by the Mothers of Metahumanity.

The way I see it, before you've built up a reputation and a relationship with your Johnson/Fixer, most of them will try to screw you over to one extent or another. There's little risk and your Johnson is probably low level and eager to climb the corporate ladder, meaning he'll take more risks. By the time you've built your rep and relationship a bit, your Johnson is much less likely to screw you. You're a valuable and fairly dependable asset (for the right money) and he's probably climbed the corporate ladder a bit, meaning he's likely more cautious. This doesn't mean he won't screw you over. It means when it finally comes time to screw you over, maybe after months or years of a comfortable working relationship, he's going to make sure you're dead and probably that it can't be traced back to him. And in the end, the Johnson always screws you (or offers you a job as a company man).


I've never GM'd but I imagine it would work pretty well in game. The team learns to check out the Johnson early on, then settles into 1-2 regular relationships where the Johnson play pretty straight. The smart teams keep checking, even after the 10th mission where the Johnson was straight, and see the double cross coming. The dumb teams get lazy and get screwed.

Look at it from the Johnson's point of view. His job is if very simple: Have some action taken which cannot be traced back to him or his corporation*. This means deceiving the runners at the first meet by making them think you're from a different corp or obfuscating your real goals. The reason for this is so that if the runners get caught, either by the rival corp's security or by Lone Star/Knight Errant, if they're weak and attempt to roll over on their Johnson to save their own skin, it will blow up in their face or point the finger at a third party.

Also, the run in question may be part of a bigger scheme. Maybe the run's a distraction or they're hired to get the prototype while another team extracts the lead developer or something else the Johnson's not even aware of. It doesn't matter, his goal is simply to have the action he wants to happen happen. If he has to lie to the team, distract them, completely screw them over...who cares? They're not Ares/Renraku/Fuchi/Saeder-Krupp/whatever. They're not Corporate Citizens, therefore they are just assets to be used and discarded...just the same as a hammer or screwdriver.

Plus, the double-cross makes for an entertaining story because it's easy to get the player's more emotionally involved when they get screwed over.

* Please note that "corporation" can stand in for anything from Urban Brawl team (A Killing Glare) to an individual (Missing Blood, Harlequin, Dawn of the Artifacts)

It's common practice whenever you decide you want to make it common practice. Unless you have a Johnson that you work for exclusively, and you're basically working directly for him, it's unlikely that he'll be volunteering to set up other teams to take the fall for you. On the other hand, once your team knows the shadows, it would be pretty easy to arrange that type of thing yourself. The thing is, as your treacherous Johnsons (presumably) found out, it's not a super effective tactic, and unless it goes off perfectly, you probably have one or more angry criminals gunning for your hoop.

I guess my answer is more "you could be that guy, sure, but didn't you learn better?"

On the other hand, you still want to be professionally paranoid, because you never know when a pissed off former enemy is going to get some blackmail on your Johnson and force the set up^^ Sure it shouldn't happen often, but let's face it, dirty dealing and cons are part of what make the game so much fun =)

I haven't really even played a game where they Johnson set up some other folks to be our fall guys, but I've been in games where the runners on their own decided to set up fall guys "in case things go bad".






-karma

Yeah, why should the J have to set up fall guys? Go spend some of your pay on a less skilled group of runners, or offer a gang some incentive to cause trouble at the right time/place.

More importantly, if Johnson is saying things like "We have a team of patsies lined up to take the fall for you," shouldn't that be setting off alarm bells in your head? No matter how good your relationship with your Johnson is, can you ever be sure that on some future run you won't be the patsies for another pet team?

Yes, the idea of a double-crossing Johnson can be overused. (Although as Abstruse pointed out, it is a great way to get the players and characters emotionally involved.) And the converse--building up a relationship with a particular J and learning to work well with one another--can be great for campaigns. But trust in the shadows can* be very tenuous. If Johnson is willing to take the risk to create patsies for your op, there's a chance he's willing to take the risk to put you in that position someday.

*Note I said can, not should--I'm only speaking generally. Your mileage may vary.

The really funny thing is the dissonance between the two tropes of

1) The Johnson will doublecross you
2) Try not to kill people, you'll make enemies of them

So, runners are scared of civilian blowback, but Johnsons aren't scared of runners coming for revenge?


I often have the Johnson conceal things from the runners or misinform them - his affiliation, the real motives behind the job, etc. But screwing them over, that's rare. Not only is it unrealistic for it to happen regularly, it also means you can't pull it as an interesting twist once in a while.


Besides, there is plenty of options to throw in twists on the missions. Here they face lots of people that lie and try to screw them over and manipulate them.

Corporate Johnsons, no. They'll be protected by their beloved Corp! All those nice security guards in fancy and calming body armour everywhere in their nice Corp Homes.

Other Johnsons are usually drekking themselves when meeting real Shadowrunners.

You mean the same sort of security the rival corp has, that the runners just penetrated as he hired them to do?

Although I don't put numbers on frequency of things like this, your assessment is well-written, Glyph.

Mesh

Exactly

Hey, after their brainwashing... Er, "Corporate Educational Academy", they'll believe that their Corporate Security is superior to that of the Other Corps, and thus will protect them.

Of course, perhaps the run was against his own Corps Security. A test/analysis to see how well a group of shadow runners would do, and shore up any issues

I've always liked a 1/1 patsy contact. Every bastard gunner should have a "friend" whom he can burn in time of need.

I mentioned it in another thread, but i like the way fixer relationships are described in the Neo-Tokyo context. In the Neo-Tokyo runner world, for the most part runners never meet johnsons (tanakas), they do their business through their fixer, who negotiates services with the Johnsons. A NT fixer has the obligation to maintain their own honor and reputation, so work hard to link good teams with johnsons goals, but also to make sure the runners are appropriately compensated and wish to continue good relations/business.

In such a way, you're given a degree of protection from regular screwing, as if you turn around and let everyone know your fixer set you up, their honor and rep takes a nosedive and they suddenly become worthless to both Js and Runners. Note I said a degree of protection. If a fixer's higher obligations (corporate, syndicate, whatever) trump their relationship with you, you're in drek. Then in a way it becomes the runner's folly. What? You didn't think your YAKUZA fixer would sell you out to the yaks after you blew up one of their homes?

The trope that the deniable assets needs to be personally introduced to the guy who doesn't want anyone to know about him if things go bad, who then personally solicits them to commit a crime has always been kind of dumb. This means the "deniable asset" knows enough about who hires them to be able to roll over on him if caught, and it means that the target has motivation to find the "deniable assets" and use power tools and electricity to refresh their memories of the Johnson.

Intelligent people hiring deniable assets hire them through cutouts and don't meet them or personally solicited them to commit felonies. The fixer arranges all that, probably via his own cutouts.

Definitely. Rarely, if ever should the runners be meeting with Mr. Johnson. The classic Johnson has gotten where he is in life (being high enough in the corporate food chain to be hiring runners and disbursing corporate assets) by being ambitious, smart, and savvy. He's going to use proxies and other such to communicate with the runners. Maybe through a fixer, maybe through his own guy.

And I agree the Johnsons aren't going to be as ruthless and prone to double crossing as they seem to be represented. Just like in the thread about monetary compensation, the shadow business has to be profitable for all sides. If runners can't be reasonably sure they'll get paid, then the pool of talent is going to thin out. The Johnsons want these jobs accomplished. There's incentive for them to deal reasonably straight most of the time. That's not to say there won't be Johnsons greedy enough or stupid enough to double-cross the runners, and that the runners shouldn't be wary, but I agree, when it gets over-used as a plot device, it makes no sense, and becomes cliche. There should rarely, if ever be trust. However, there should be an understanding of a common goal. Runners who get the job done and done well will be generally treated well.

For one of my games (I wasn't GMing...I was playing) we were double crossed by our Mr. J after a particularly harrowing run. Eventually, we were able to find out that it was NeoNet we were working for. Suffice to say, we took on EVERY job working against NeoNet and occasionally did some of our own corporate terrorism. Let's just say that in the contingency of OUR SR games, NeoNet's stocks have taken quite a dive.

Our group is pretty well known (Our runner aliases at least) so when people hire us now, they tend to do so with the knowledge that double crossing us is a very, VERY bad business plan.

Of course, there have been plenty of attempts at our lives, so its not to say that this kind of notoriety is necessarily good all the time...

I've had players go out of their way to frag a Johnson who tried to screw them.

Rule 35: "That which does not kill you has made a tactical error."

When you screw Shadowrunners, make damn sure you kill them. All of them. They're like Cockroaches. In fact, they're like the Cockroaches that come out of Chicago.

Actually, they're worse than that. They HUNT Cockroaches in Chicago!

I've had a run where the fixer paid me out of his personal money and made me promise not to destroy the client. We did a run so well that the client thought they could get away with not paying.

And that's the sign of a good Fixer. He anticipates problems and fixes them before hand.

Oh, and is that Johnson ever going to pay through the nose when he tries to use that Fixer again!

Or any fixer! Got to imagine that its not just one fixer but more likely at least a loose network. Word's gonna get around about a Johnsons who's stingy.