Hi Dumpshock, I've just recently began posting here but I've been lurking for a while now. I love some of the responses I see other GMs get and have stolen too many to name. So thank you guys for what you've already added to my games.

I currently run two games, both 4th edition. I've been running my first campaign for about 3 years now, it tends to be more of a character-driven/meta-plot type game. I actually converted a group of friends who were into DnD at the time, of course after playing SR for a short while they quit DnD altogether. (lol) And more recently I've started what I call my stand-alone campaign where we do a more Seattle-based, traditional style, usually involving a run per session with downtime for character development in between. I love both games and the weekly style change helps keep me fresh I think. The only real problem I've had is the back pain from carrying around my backpack full of nine books at a time.

In my first game I actually have two players creating their own "associations".

I have a bit of a power gamer PhysAd who now has a 50 man strong ninja clan based in Hong Kong. (Anti-corp hooder sort of group.)

And a mage face who is developing his own Corporation, (He plans to use subterfuge to bring a world corporate war that he'll profit from and hopes to reach AAA status eventually.) both were developed in game over time.

I love the idea of the characters being able to amass people around their causes making them more important in the SR world. I think it brings new roles and options to the players. It really gives a feel of variety to the story overall. The only problem is I worry if kept unchecked without some hard rules it could get out of control. I'm currently using and expanding on the advanced lifestyle rules and making checks for overall development of the groups. Even rolling social checks for Important members and such.

Anyone have any ideas on how I could knock their associations down a peg every now and then?

Just curious, but does the PhysAd have a SIN? An actual one?

Nope, he uses fake ones.

Hm... Haven't had that happen that much... once i had a player who earned (and cheated) his way through a lot of crap and ended up with a small import-export business. He had some Chesna's and Helicopters... also a slave. But he retired after he could live off of it. He just wanted to have a nice life, no AA-ambitions or such *g*

Well: To "peg them down a bit": They were (are?) illegal scum, or not? Easy to threaten to destroy everything they built, if someone knows that. Also: Being a "small" corporation is not easy. All who are bigger and see you have some growth will try to destroy you (or just buy it - but that would mean spending money). And for those "hooding ninjas" SOMEONE always squeals. The more people know a secret the less itSTAYS a secret. They will get betrayed.

All right, one thing he will run into in the corp world is high end scanners for board meetings and the like. Until he gets AA he won't have a real SIN to bypass them if he needs to meet with someone else. A legit business will need legit faces, which carries risks: he better have people he trusts, or his 'friend' will suddenly be a CEO of a potent company and leave him behind. Mitsuhama is a good example: the Yakuza have managed to keep some links, but Mitsuhama is far from beholden to a criminal organization that makes a fraction of what the Megacorp does.

So figure out who is loyal to him, watch what he does and how he wishes to insert himself, and go from there. If he just wants to own stocks, he'll need a real SIN when the money comes pouring in. While he'd technically be able to buy one, it is possible that a competitor would pull the carpet from under his feet as it were.

Otherwise, keep in mind that the moment his corp jumps into the game, he might have to deal with Shadowrun teams sent by competitors. If he perseveres, he may have a money-making machine. The game shifts focus, but can still be fun if you take examples from a lot of the old books and competitions you see between board members. Pretty much any book that details Damien Knight's feuds is good inspiration.

Make sure it takes a Hell of a lot of time, effort, and rebuilding though. If he edges in on another corp, they will try to smash him. Make sure he understands hostile stock takeover too, because a company that is extremely threatened will threaten shareholders.

What kind of company is he thinking? What products/services will they sell initially?

Well, as they get bigger, it's going to be impossible to avoid making enemies (actually, it's pretty much impossible to avoid that at any level in SR^^), so that's always a good tool to use; major orgs hiring shadowrunners against them, etc. But really, you're likely going to have to be writing your own rules for things as you go. (unless there's something on player-owned corps in the Corp Book, which I haven't read yet). Ruling on treacherous managers, hackers stealing important research, all that jazz.

What my group does, is if they're wanting to expand business, it's time for some roleplaying and some major dice rolling. If they want to sit and coast for a bit, I'll have them roll some Logic + Business (Professional skill) rolls and determine profitability and growth from that. Glitches on these rolls are generally really bad news though^^

Mind that this will also be a sacrifice: businesses are virtually never profitable in their first year (at the least) and so he'd be pouring a lot of money into it as the business tries to match and then exceed its expenses. This means less money spent on running the shadows, so he'd be gambling. Sounds like he has a fair team to take care of things, of course: that many ninja sounds like a small company already.

Some good points, thanks. Loyalty and the "human error" will play a constant role as he deals with more and more people.

Well at the moment the mage face has managed to get an arms manufacturing plant running in Shreveport, LA (The game started in our home town.) The plant was obtained when a local gang owed the team a favor and they orchestrated a hostile takeover of an illegal arms factory held by an opposing gang. After an invasion and alot of legal legwork he managed to get it authorized and established as a legal manufacturer, supplying arms to the local Lone Star. Also funneling a large majority into the black market with the help of fore mentioned gang. From this he plans to launch a mother company and then new subsidiaries. From what he's said he plans to sell a little bit of everything eventually.

His main focus after sealing an arms deal with the Tir Tairngire government is to start his own brand of Desert Wars. Basicly he's designing exo-skeleton "mechs" and starting a league of "Mech" Fighting. (No none of us play battletech, lol.) Obviously they won't be as advanced as a battletech or mechwarrior mechs but would lean more towards the Exo-skeletons in Ghost in the Shell. (Runner Havens also mentions Ares testing exo-skeletons in Hong Kong.) His plan is to eventually have multiple arenas, one set in the jungle, one in space, one under the ocean, etc. Using capita from this he hopes to develop all his subsidiaries before executing his plan to gain AAA.

That means he is square in Ares' targeting reticles right out the door. They're not fans of Lonestar. He might find some assistance from opponents to Ares, but then they'd likely be interested in snatching such a contract up.

He put some thought into it, which is good. Depending on the route he takes for the exo-skeletons, Evo might take note as well. Pretty much all the corps like smashing each others unusual habitats.

A side note, in SR, it may be more profitable to just form your own gang No silly paperwork.

Competition. The world is full of people and corporations that want success, power and wealth. Is your PC and his associates the shrewdest, smartest, best connected, luckiest of them all? He isn't operationg in a vacuum, others will do to him too. Can he keep everyone in the corp motivated and driven, can he avoid inefficiency to creep in, internal conflicts and power struggles from causing problems? Can he recruit the best people, can he keep his best people from jumping ship to competitors - someone who does their job well might be offered a better position elsewhere, which in your PCs corp is filled by someone else. Can he fill the rank-and-file with people that will do their jobs at a reasonable wage so costs doesn't spiral out of control?

Also, take into consideration Organized (Mobs) and Disorganized Crime (Government). They're also going to want a cut of a Corporation, and lacking AA-Status (Extraterritorial Corporation), they can't fight off city hall.

Also, what type of Corporation did he found? What's their product/service?

Mind you, to get recognized by the Corporate Court (A-AA-AAA ratings), you need to be a multinational at least, have substantial assets and basically show that extraterritoriality is necessary for your corporation to do business. Minimum for extraterritoriality is AA rating. You'll also be under a lot of scruitiny from the megas, other small corps looking to become bigger fish and up their rating from A to AA, and governments looking for taxes, taxes, taxes.

I had an idea for a completely Racisr Corp of my own once . . but the Corp. was supposed to be all Trolls and some Orks, maybe some Dwarves too ^^
One of the biggest Corps in the Books, i think Mitsuhama, was once the public face for the Yakuza or the Triads or someting like that.
So i figured: why not?
Small gang, made up of strong- and some con-men, get some turf, Connections to the Spike-Wheels and other such Gangs, start some business with drugs and weapon smuggling. Try and aquire a legal face.
Invest into and sponsor a Combat-Biker and/or Urban Brawl team made up of, you guessed it, members of the Gang basically.
You can now use this setup to launder money to your liking.
Use the facilities and the traveling to further spread drug and weapon smuggling. And then when they get known, have some of the other Gang members become their body guard staff. And Expand your business model into the guard business too.
Get some good troll and ork Combat medics for the Games in Combat Biking and Urban Brawl. Then Start up a combination of Guard and Medical business. Bingo, you are now doing your own little Doc Waggon/Crash-cart thing, with very Strong and Tough trained medical personal that can and will fight and kill anythging in it's way to the Client. And you have now more facilities to further get drugs and by now cyber and maybe Bioware too. You just need an legit face for it all.
And you can still use the facilites and equipment for drugs and weapon smuggling and you can treat your own wounded in the guarding business and in the sports teams. And you can hire your own men to guard your own facilites. Basically, you gather around the Trolls and Orks without SIN.
Big strong men who should be loyal to your cause. And once you get your business far enough up, you can issue your own SIN's. So now you're in the fake SIN-Business too. And from there on, you are pretty much open for anything else too, as long as you have the right SIN's around.
And who would want to mess with a gang made up of Trolls and Orks? Not many people.
See my Signature?
TROGCORP: JOIN US WHILE IT IS STILL VOLOUNTARY!

This is the small gist of it. i had a more complete writeup and business plan worked out and written up on the Shadowrun Online MMORPG Board, but i lost that when they got the Cease and Desist Order from Micro$ucks.

Want to take this further?
Start a corporate War. Probably against Crashcart first and maybe Doc-Waggon later on.
Get bigger. And then use some Ork/Troll Decker/Otaku/Technomancer/*shudders* Hackers to make it look as if two of the AAA corps started another corp war against other AAA corps and lay the Blame on Microdeck. Get rich with investing into ares and other such corporations beforehand.
Use this as the explanation for the step from SR3 to SR4, instead of the OMGWTF GERMANAZI TERRORISTS WITH MAGICAL WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION!

So, just so I make sure I have this right...

You want to make a corporation of Goblinized, Azzie/MCT style. All right.

Then you want them to go legit. Okay.

Then you want them to go to war against CrashCart. An EVO subsidiary. What?

*shrugs*
i don't know who crashcart belongs to.

Evo.

I think Trogcorp would have problems from Alamos 20k and Humanis while trying to go legit, and it'd muck up a lot of the permits that the corp would be applying for.

OK, so not Crashcart. They are just the smaller between them and DocWaggong and would have been the easier target to take out as competition.

Yah, but when you're fighting Humanis and Alamos 20k on a more or less regular basis, aren't you by default the People's Champion?
Also, There's O.R.C. and M.O.M. who could and maybe would support TrogCorp. too . . Maybe even Evo itself, seeing how we're basically their complete target demographic O.o
Yeah, the Permits would be a mayor Problem. But then, that's what Deckers and Dwarves are there for. To use as a public Face for such things.
Furthermore: Seeing how they start out as a group of Runners and Gangers, they would and could use the same not legal ways the other corps do to accomplish stuff.

Honestly, Ares and Evo essentially have unlimited resources and have the sixth world's best and brightest in their R&D teams. They likely have a whole research team of people with 5 logic and 6 mechanics/armorer/software, who are all likely to have cerebral boosters as well assleep regulators (Making them able to work for 1.4 times as long), courtesy of the company. They also have bleeding edge supercomputers for number crunching, and probably a UV node for running simulations. They may even have an adept with Improved Ability (Mechanics), as well as various magic aides (Improve logic at a high force).

So unless you have a logic 6, Mechanics 7, Improved Ability: Mechanics 6, who also has a sleep regulator and cerebral boosters as well as a balls-high force increase logic spell cast on him working for you, you wouldn't even put a dent in Ares' bottom line. Hell, even if you did have the king of minmaxed mechanics working for you, Ares wouldn't likely even care that you exist, since they have a whole squad of uuber-mechanics working for them.

R&D is the hardest part of a business to break into, as it requires millions and/or billions of dollars of input, today. Let's not even talk about what kind of money it would be after 60 years of inflation.

Hence, do service(maybe a bit of sales/reselling stuff), not R&D

Well, if you ignore they way the world actually works you can do all sorts of things, like have Damon Knight adopt you.

LS buys things like guns centrally. They buy them from large corps that supply all of the LS offices and divisions with the same guns. They have teams of people who work really hard to get the best possible prices. They have teams of people who evaluate guns to determine which ones to even look at. They also have lawyers who verify that their suppliers have all the licenses and permits needed to sell them stuff. They have people who purchase guns who have a long working relationship with the fairly small number of people that seriously try to sell them weapons.

People who want licenses to make things like machine guns get various LE types that crawl up their ass before the license gets granted. If the owner or key people have a criminal record or an ID that doesn't hold up under investigation (in other words, if they are not all people with legitimate SINs) things won't go so good. If the property was owned by a gang this will tend to run up red flags and lots of questions will be asked.

People who have made a good living selling guns to LS are going to be kind of irate to have someone kick over their feed bowl and are likely to do things about this. They will, among other things, go look for reasons to have people with badges and guns make their competitor a non-competitor. If that doesn't work it's possible that some sort of "terrible accident" might befall the owner, the employees, or the property.

Make him open up a Music Lable, get Damon? Or Perianwyr? That one fun to hang around with music loving dragon to help him.

He's developing exoskeletons? Holy crap. How many hundreds of millions is he making for the R&D on this?

But, like it was said, there are a pile of problems you can throw at him. Legitimacy is the first thing. Without a real identity to front the organization, he'll never be able to truly operate in legitimate markets. Second, his resources are going to be absurdly limited. Anything he can develop on a manufacturing side of business, the megacorps will already be able to do. And if by some chance he manages to accomplish something they can't...

Well, he'll get to experience happily and first hand the joys of the very corporate sabotage he used to partake in when shadowrunners are hitting his holdings on behalf of whomever he has irked.

The bottom line is he needs a lot of venture capital (almost impossible to get legitimately without a legitimate face and absurdly dangerous to get illegitimately from sources like organized crime, and even then, they aren't going to have the cash flow to invest in the kinds of things he's trying to build), skilled laborers (who again aren't going to want to work for cheap, and harder to get to work for an illegal employer, and whome are already probably working for another megacorp who won't be pleased if their employees start defecting), and security (from everyone else who wants to steal or ruin what you have).

The question isn't how you knock them down. It's how they convince you they haven't already been knocked down.

Also, shadowrunners. Other corporations won't just buy out the PCs' companies and restrict their sales, they'll send in shadowrunners to take them out or damage their facilities.

"OK, we have to pull a demolition's 'run against a small Corporation in order to get the rest of the payroll this month, and it is... Oh drek." "What?" "We gotta blow ourselves up."

Well a group I used to be in a long time ago did essentially that; we'd made enough money and assets from runs that we started our own security corp, ASAP Incorporated. Actually ASAP did provide for some interesting runs after that, with it being the focus we would go out and do things like liberating slaves and hiring them on as a secretary pool, gathering up weapons from groups that we'd taken down and reselling them ("only dropped once!") banking nasty artifacts for storage so other corps couldn't get a hold on them, and things like that. I think by the end of the group we had enough assets for a single-A corporation (We'd set up a "branch office" in Germany just to get the whole multinational rating).

Was kinda interesting, though we kept joking about our R&D department coming out with things like monofilament weed-whackers and lounge chairs that launched missiles (The Barca-launcher).

The fun question also becomes, "Why should we pay this guy to support his corp, while we could just kill him and assume control over his corp?" In the SR world, having a good idea is kinda a dangerous prospect, especially if someone thinks they'd do better in marketing that good idea.

Personal preference, I'd choose against being seen as an innovator or cutting edge type, as those are historically targets for runs. Sometimes they wanna kidnap you, other times they want to bury you (in perhaps more than 1 fashion). That's why crime is more fun. Consequences are a bit more direct, no murky legalities, etc.

Easy, once the corp gets to a certain size, being discrete becomes very important. Most corps don't go after shadowrunners because, among other things, they don't have anything worth taking. Say I'm a manager at Ares at we just got hit by a shadowrunner team with your mage in it. For an ordinary shadowrunner team it ends there because if I sent an Ares team to "recoup our losses" all I'd get is a nice gun, a pile of bloody cyberware, old pizza, and a car full of C12. On the other hand, if I know it was your mage that hit me, now I can take his factory and potentially make back more than I lost. You can't hide the factory, you can't take it out of the country, it's a giant multi-million target and if I megacorp (or mafia family) gets mad at you even the nastiest shadowrunner can't protect it.

I actually think that shadowrunners are an ideal group of future businessmen, they're dangerous people with connections to many other dangerous people and vast amounts of other people's money. Up to a certain size, that's a pretty good setup. If a shadowrunner opens up a private store, bar, or something like that I just can't see there being too many problems. Who's gonna knock over the local liquor store if the owner is a cybered troll with a machine gun, deep seated emotional problems, and a friend who can hack every camera in the city? And what Ares strike team is gonna knock over a liquor store and steal a crate of booze because the owner hit their facility? Sure, they could leave a bomb there but they probably already left one under your bed. As you get bigger, however, your shadowrunner's company becomes both a more lucrative target and the shadowrunner's personal protection becomes less impressive.

Fixed.

I get the point you're trying to make, but being able to provide your own security doesn't mean you're cut out to create a business plan and compete.

From a role playing point of view, my main question is "How do you challenge the players?" (It's pretty clear how you reward the players, but what, exactly, is the challenge?)

On the other hand, making a corporation as a tax dodge and legitimate way to launder your money is a good thing.

Hell, that's how Aztechnology formed.

"Aztechnology! Aren't you glad we're not Nacro-Terrorists any more?"

"Wait, we aren't? Who the hell fixed that?!"

"Damnit, Miguel, your mic is on!"

I would think of a player owned small-business would be a great cover and false ID. Owning your own plumbing company is a good way for runners to infiltrate a facility for some B&E scouting.

Security company.

Alternately I liked the 'secure courier' company, not as obvious as a security company, but still allows you to carry restricted gear. Since you can always claim you're carrying something small and still 'be on business time'.

I believe with the proper fake sin, or a real one, and some extra special care to not get caught, this could really work.

We've (the players and I) have done it, set up an "security specialist" company.

1: You need a valid SIN and a clean company "face" (The CEO - they're on the hook for most of this)
2: Money. As in Millions of NuYen. Tracable sums help the IRS Audit.
3: Income. It's not 9-5, but you're got to get out there and EARN stuff
4: Taxes. 30% of all earnings. Yes, it's a hit - it's called "obey the law"
5: Investors. You might have a backer, you might have several, but you're not going to be an IPO unless you've cornered a market as a AA on _something_. Some shadowfriends might be interested in staying as "Silent partners"
6: Accountant! That data-trail can remain descreet, but when the G-Man comith, you want more than a shoebox with reciepts for ammunition and booze.
7: Legality. Lawyers and licenses.
8: Location! You need a physical address, just don't make it "Starbucks, 2nd table to the right" or some such crap.
9: Profit - you're not going to make any for a few years, so don't expect to.

But the thing is, starting your own business is an amazingly-good way to get stuff you couldn't before.

1: Legal ID's. "Why yes, I'm a representative for Red 7 Security. My Data? Certainly Officer."
2: Legal toys. "Yes, this is a security vehicle necessary for the work I perform for the company. Why, I think everyone should be allowed to drive a Ferrai Appaloosa LS, it'd make the roads safer." And Cyberdecks, software...all the good stuff.
3: Legal hooks. Ever want a big hunk of fixed-wing skill training? Rock on up to the local aerodrome with the valid credstick and away you go.
4: Self-defense. "No, the mugger tried to attack the man I was guarding, here's my security license, sir."
5: Contacts in unusual places.
6: Storage.
7: Transport. International Export was a good cover for many reasons....
8: Ownership. It makes it easy as a GM to have the players enjoy something...it also gives them a big incentive to stop things screwing in their investment.
9: Hooks. As a GM tool, it's like you mugged an old guy carrying a sack then realised, as his blood pools at your feet, that Santa's shuffled off of the mortal coil and you're the proud owner of all the hopes and dreams of the world.


-Tir.

Remember, the corps don't much like someone else cutting into their profits. You thought the streets were cutthroat? Try corporations which will literally poison a million people to shave have a nuyen off the production costs of their product. Whatever these guys are doing, there's probably someone else who is already doing it, and they won't be very happy. And not only do these other guys already have the advantage of already being established, having preference with suppliers and buyers, having a surplus of cash and credit to fall back on, a stable of trained employees, and have almost certainly fought off competing companies previously.

So the PCs bought themselves a firearms plant. Well was it an ILLEGAL firearms facility? So it hasn't been, you know, inspected prior to operation? Have back-taxes been paid? Have title fees been paid? Have you paid union dues? No? A shame. You better believe your competitor won't let you get away without, and you had BETTER believe that that inspector is going to keep missing appointments and losing paperwork.

Ok, so you saved the governor's daughter and made a deal with the IRS.

Hey, the mafia just noticed you opened up your doors. Funny thing is, they already have a deal with the other guy and, well... they're not sure they like your management style. Nothing personal, you understand. We just wanted to check in and make sure everything is alright. Wouldn't want anything unfortunate to happen...

Ok, so you buy the don a few dozen nice dinners and provide him a few truckloads of 'blemished' goods.

Now you look for buyers. Same deal. No matter who you're with, they already have someone, someone they like better, someone who sends flowers on anniversaries, has a nice resort out in Tahiti they're invited to every summer. You're not going to be competitive just supporting your local Stop & Shop, so you'd better start making a lot of friends very fast. But let's say you have a huge bankroll, throw some fun parties, the face does his thing, and you get *extremely* lucky in setting up some contracts.

Hey! You're making money. Not enough to cover those huge bills you have, but it's money. Sure hope you didn't do it on credit, or you'll belong to Chase Ciudad de Atzlan for the rest of your effective career.

NOW you're starting to attract some attention. They don't really like the corporation. For a few thousand nuyen, they modify one of your guns into huge failure (or send someone in to sabotage your facility), and bring you to court for it. Now you've got a few hundred thousand in legal fees you'll have to swallow - plus the giant PR mess to clean up. But let's say you have a favor owed by Lofwyr and you manage to wipe that away.

Oh yeah, and a worker strike, even though you're paying better than everyone else in the area (you're paying better than everyone else in the area?? How are you making a profit?)

And a report of environmental violations requiring you shut down the facility for investigation.

Well, you've survived all the easy traps, and it's been a few years since you first invested. Still haven't made up that seed capital (and it's looking less likely as time goes on). But you're actually making and selling a product.

One of your management team gets an offer to buy out. Quite substantial. Oh, don't just buy out. Destroy as much of the corp as possible first.

Oh, hope your company didn't go public. If so, someone is messing with your stock prices, bouncing them up and down (mostly down).

Around now is when Shadowrunners start coming in. One hacker team to cancel your insurance, another with a load of C12 to blow your facility into shrapnel.

You managed to survive all this AND actually make a profit? (Pretty amazing!) Now is when you catch the attention of the REAL players, the A-level corps. And get ready, because they play a much, much meaner game.

As i used to work in the anti-money laundering dep. of a major bank, there is one thing i have to remind you is that issue : bringing some "dirty" money into the "legit" business is not something easy, and especially it costs a lot.
You could detail the whole process of money laundering to your players, but it'd be boring, so just go for a simple rule : it'll cost you 50% of your assets, assuming you have the right contacts.
Anything less than 30% would be plain stupid. Money is something very easy to keep track of.
In order to clean up your money, you'll need to go through various banks, and at some point some criminal organisation, unless you yourself own a bank (but to be recognised as a legit bank, doing legit business while laundering money, you need at least billions of cash, contacts in multiple corps and governments etc ...) you'll have to pay huge amounts of comissions to get your money cleaned.
So, lets assume it's 50%.
Now, lets see what you can gain.
A good business could get you a net profit from 5 to 30%. 30% would be clearly exceptional, while 5 to 10% would be a very good profit.
Again, as you're sinless, you'd need to be able to get the profit in your pocket, meaning a new money laundering process.

So, lets imagine you have 1 milion newyen.
You need to launder it. That makes 500K left
You invest it.
You get a yearly 20% profit (runners are great at running business ...) that makes 100K profit
Now you need to pay taxes, that's 30%
Leaves you with 70K
Then laundery again for 50%
That makes you a net profit of 35K. Oh and by the way, you have a capital of 500K now, and should you sell it back to get the money, you'd get only 250K left.

So, having a revenue of 35K yearly for 1 milion invested, do you really think it's worth it ?

That double money laundering tax is huge, but for people that have no true SIN, it's mandatory, unless you want a real SIN, or use a fake SIN to be the legit owner of a business ?
Imho, runners cant be legit investors, cant run and own business. The only thing they can own is themselves and their tools.
They are anti-capitalists by nature, as the current trend of the law forbid them to own anything. (this is why the original shadowrun was full of neo anarchists, but this trend has vanished).

Why do you need to launder it twice? Isn't it clean the first time round, so you have 500K legit, and so you can take it with you, invest it legally and the returns are still clean, etc.?

Argh everything was deleted.
Ok, to sum up, you cant just take money from a legit business and use it for shadowruning. You need to make it disapear first, that means money laundering again.
Imagine the IRS checking the accounts of the corp, and seeing that they are transfering all their profit to "John Smith", who owns a bank account in the caiman island but has no medical records, never had a single trafic fine, had no job previously and thus never paid any tax ...
I'll write an article about money laundering later, its something that could be usefull i guess for those interested in such affairs. The mechanisms are really interesting and could make some great SR stories, but clearly it's a difficult business and a dangerous one. Anyway, it's not a business a Hacker could run alone for large amounts of money especially if you need to tie it to legit business.

Put simply, for the same reason you can't have dirty money tied to your legitimate business, the legitimate business can't have its clean money tied to illegal activities, so any funds you want to pull back out of the business to use for your shadow dealings has to be re-laundered to clean it of any ties to the business.

It would seem like you could just transfer it to a numbered account some place like Zurich Orbital, but any significant amounts of cash (significant based on the total worth of the business) disappearing into numbered accounts is going to raise red flags. Megacorps get away with this because they have extraterritoriality and they have bajillions in various currencies floating around to "lose".

Reading through Vice finally. Really, assuming EVERYTHING works perfectly, I think it should be impossible for the PC corp to have prices competitive with the existing corps. No matter what the PCs do, as long as they're just trying to make money by selling a product, they should find their competitors produce the same product for less, and make more money. Why? Because their competitors make a hefty margin on dirty stuff like manipulating stock prices, getting pay-offs, selling to illegal buyers and so on which, presumably, the PCs don't do.

That. And they own their own banks ...

I wouldn't be that affirmative - there are still ways to make money, but you'll need to aim at the niche markets - things where the big boys lack the reactivity/personnal touch. Forget selling guns to the Lone Star, they're already buying them by the thousands, if not tens of thousands, and you small scale factory can't compete on price. Unless you're willing to screw the Lone Star up by cutting corners on materials and construction.

What you should do is aim for the special purpose, five-legged-sheep sort of gns. Guns you make in small batches, presonalized to order, up to one-of-a-kind jobs. You won't compete on prices, but on giving the customer what he wants. Even if it's a dildo-shpaed, gold-plated gun firng marshamallow-filled .75 hollowpoint bullets in full auto mode.

Also keep in mind that there's not much mony to be made with small guns. At 2K a copy, even selling ten thousand guns to the Lone Star will net you 20 millions - and maybe 1 million in profit. Pocket change by megacorp standards.

Largest small-arms maker in the West is FNH, and they employ about 10,000 people. Most of the other gun companies employ 1,000 or less. There really isn't any big money in small arms.

Interesting question; it does require a good judgment call as GM. Because on the one side it shouldn't be too easy, but on the other hand you don't want to rain on your players' parade so much that is isn't any fun anymore.

It's kind of cool to think you could, eventually, as a Runner, become owner of an AAA. And there's some historical precedent; Damien Knight was a sort of runner-ish guy. Runners get into odd places, learn secrets that provide leverage later on and so forth.

But it shouldn't be too easy; there are some hurdles to consider:

The difficulty of R&D
NPCs need hundreds of people to do R&D, and insanely expensive gear. So should PCs; set Thresholds to the kind of levels where only large-scale Teamwork has a chance of getting anywhere. Test intervals of about 3 months (4 tests per fiscal year!), thresholds of 50+, and the time limit is how long it'll take the competition to complete it before you (or steal your hard work.)
NPC corps will be looking to steal your R&D and your top scientists. If a character is the top scientist, the guy may be targeted for assassination if he can't be recruited. (Shadowrunners make poor involuntary recruits.)

The difficulty of profit margins
NPC corps devote a lot of time and effort to buying cheap and selling dear. This requires an extensive network of contacts, social skills, leverage and so on. NPC corps can try to prevent the PCs from buying supplies at competitive prices (by using their superior size/intimidation to pressure suppliers.)
NPC corps can also deliberately sell at a loss, just to undercut your prices and make it impossible for you to make a profit.

The difficulty of marketing
You need a reputation to sell; everyone else is constantly working on brand recognition and market share; if you don't devote nearly as much time, you'll be left behind lost and forgotten. This can become quite expensive.
NPC corps will of course be trying to smear your good name, while anything you say will result in an expensive libel trial.

The difficulty of licensing
Anything that gets invented gets patented, and at some point you'll need to use a product/component that you'll need a license for. The The Corporate Court really dislikes it when license laws are violated.
NPC corps can deny selling a license to you for something you need.
NPC corps can bury you in frivolous lawsuits alleging you illegally used something they may or may not own the intellectual rights to.
NPC corps can buy up licenses you need.

Matrix Security
Running a business requires that you have a stable matrix site, it should look nice, and you need computer systems to do accounting and order parts. It's impossible to do all this off-line. And as you know, any online network can be hacked.
NPC corps of course simply have more hackers. They could insert malware into your accounting or logistics software that will cause frightening losses.

Human Resources
Good help is hard to find. And good help can be offered a better job at NPC-Corp, mind-controlled, given a nasty chemical or digital habit, blackmailed, killed, family held hostage etcetera.
Until you achieve extraterritoriality, you depend on the local police contractor for the serious security work; if your security staff kills an intruder, that means a long and painful trial (prosecutors financed by you rivals).
If you can't protect your employees, they may try to leave...

Sabotage
Rivals could simply blow up your factory. Or hack the machines so faulty products are produced. Poison the soda. Kill important employees. Try to kill you.



To succeed and grow, they're going to need corporate allies. The Pacific Prosperity Group was an example of an alliance of corporations for mutual support and protection (until Wuxing back-stabbed them.)

Growing into a big corporation will either require great unconventional power (it helps if you can blackmail a Corporate Court judge, or a dragon likes you), or extreme skill, luck and full-time work.

Seriously. I think nearly all corporations at this point violate "never deal with a dragon". Perhaps they just tell shadowrunners not to deal with dragons because it can work out so very well, and they don't want to give potential competition any ideas?

No, you "never cut a deal with a dragon" because you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.