I have a player with the edge of "Erased" and I find it very broken. Is it just me? Has Catalyst ever offered a better explanation of how this works rather than treating is as a "Hand of God?" The fact that it wipes out all records any where makes it way over powered and while the text says "all but the most secure systems" that just leads to more arguments. Rather than just banish it from the game I wanted to see if anyone had come up with a reasonable fix.


Erased
Cost: 5BP or10BP
Better than SINless—the character with this quality officially
doesn’t exist and never did; someone or something actively works to
remove her traces from the system. Maybe it’s an elite hacker who owes
her a favor or an AI she befriended, but the end result is that her data
trail and records vanish from all but the most secure systems shortly
after being entered. For 5 BP, criminal SINs and unwanted data disappear
within a week. For 10 BP, any SIN, undesirable credit history, or
personal information on the Matrix that she wishes is burnt after 24
hours. Obviously, the eraser will preserve any data the character wishes
preserved and that is vital for her to function in society. Note that vanishing
data may prove an unwanted complication if the character is
in custody or doing prison time (the Man may “forget” she is there).

I do have a reasonable fix for Erased.

Make it cost 15/25BP
Make it so that the person cannot take Criminal SiNer with it.
If the person does not take the flaw SiNer to go along with it, then they don't exist, period. This causes background checks to fail horribly, all the time. But, luckily even wanted posters of you don't stay around for very long.
If you take SiNer than your 'legit' SiN is pretty much protected, up to a point.

I never use it without an appropriate contact and background story.
For my current char, a face, the "Eraser" is a nerdy guy and a very good friend who I occasionally set up with ladies he would be to shy to talk to. Barney-Wingman style.

One way I like to look at it, the 10 bp version of erased: is it anything a 5/5 Hacker contact WOULDN'T be able to do for you?

Interesting point, but a hacker two levels above 'professional' will charge handsomely and not as a one-time purchase. Also, they will quite likely have many and much more interesting offers compared to tidying up after you, making the 24-hour response time in the quality quite special.

I suppose you could buy a Loyalty 6 contact and actually save a few BP, but without the contact getting anything for their efforts the rating should soon drop.

Not that I think the quality is over-powered, but it's of more than trivial interest.

Oh I agree normally a contact would charge for services, and even a loyalty 6 one would probably not run it indefinitely for free. HOWEVER, I still look at it as giving a 10 point contact (5/5, 4/6 whatever) without actually gaining any other contact abilities except for erasure. In my mind that makes it pretty balanced, and even more realistic if you actually take the contact on top of that. I figure the erasure isn't just an "I owe you" but also a "this is in my interests. Possibly even my best interests."

Well, if you take into consideration (As I would) that the PC doesn't know who is erasing him...

Double Posts seem to be the theme for me today.

The quality strikes me as a kind of escape clause for players who'd rather play loose and fast instead of Minority Report style.

It appeals to me because I like pink mohawk and because it's powerful. It repulses me because it looks like rather shoddy game design. It just feels kind of fuzzy magical somehow. Ugly. But powerful.

I took the 10 pt Erased positive quality and a Loyalty 6/Connections 4 Technomancer as a contact. That's the way that I think that you take this quality. Otherwise it's like Canray said:



Just imagine the look on your Runner's face when he finds out that the person who is doing this for him is associated with Insect Spirits... or worse

"Dude, the person that was erasing your criminal history was YOUR MOM?" "Shut up..."

How about an AI who likes eating your SIN info?

"Om-nom-nom!" "Let me in, house! It's me! You know me, I've owned you for ten years!"

I would personally have it become a pet project of some newshound out to make it big... great quality until one day they are rejected by their
"hero" then all of the sudden that quality will become really really nasty.

Don't forget that sometimes info you don't want erased just might be erased after all. Just like it's suggested in RC & SR4a, if the shadowrunner is in prison or doing time, the Man might 'forget' he/she is there (the Eraser burns away all of your criminal records, but you're still in jail?).

In theory, Erased is an incredibly powerful Quality that any runner would love to have.

In practice, generally falls somewhere between mildly useful at best and a pointless waste of BP at worst.

Shadowrun assumes that the PCs will be shadowrunners. Let's remember what shadowrunners are, for a moment. You're the faceless anonymous gun-whores who megacorps hire because no one knows who you are and because no one gives a rats ass who you are. Not a single person who actually matters would trade the amputated hindquarters of a rodent for information about you.

This is a major assumption of the setting and it is necessary for continued fun gameplay. If the opposition actually tried to mine data on the runners in game then your campaign would be a single failed run followed by several sessions of doing nothing but hiding in a hole and then being dragged out of that hole of police and going out in a blaze of glory.

In practice, GMs are going to ignore the little shit like datatrails because if they didn't then their game would crash and burn. The developers know (?) this and so this fact has been accommodated since SR1 was first published. It really doesn't matter how much data is out there about you, unless you do something incredibly stupid that puts you on someone's better off dead list or your GM needs a plot hook.

In practice, Erased is a plothook deterrent, nothing more. It works in that regard about as well as you expect. If your GM is wants to railroad you, it doesn't matter that you have the trait. If your GM doesn't want to railroad you he'll think of a different plothook, possibly one that is better and more sadistic.

In setting, Erased is absurdly useful if you want to maintain a life in the burbs with two point three children PTA, homeowners association, and all that jazz. It lets you be a runner by night and soccer dad by day and no one would be the wiser (unless they dig up your basement and find that you've stashed three tenths of a child down there, then the police will be grilling you about where the other seven tenths of him are).

In practice, it won't stop a GM who sees a plot hook and if you're vested in your character's family then you shouldn't play with a GM who will revel is butchering them like so much meat.

In setting, it should be helpful when running in areas known for tighter security, less corrupt police, and having giant sicks up their asses, like London or Portland. In practice, no sane GMs is going to charge you a 10 BP for the right to do exactly what they want you to do in the first place no GM they aren't going to pick an obscure high-security setting unless that's what he really wants. In shuch a campaign, data trail elimination should be part of general and miscellaneous expenses if the GM bothers with it at all.



As a Quality, its really only useful if your PC wants to become a big player. It would let him do shit that should put him the the must die list of several megas and government and get away with it, for a while. Most GMs would shut that down for being too munchkin. It would also let him run for office, assuming that he has a valid SIN (or a decent fake). Most GMs would shut that down on account of that fact that they're trying to run a game of Shadowrun, not a mock parliament. In that vein it is the Quality you take if you want to be able to do world-changing things that don't involve blowing people up, but it really only works if your GM lets it. And even then it sort of amounts to a 10 BP surcharge for what your GM was going to let you do anyway, because there is enough wiggle room in Erased to really screw you over if that was your GM intends, and most good GMs won't let Erased stop plothooks.


Erased can be a safety net if you get caught doing a run. But if you get caught then it is likely the entire team is compromised, in which case Erased is pretty much useless unless they all have it. Few GMs would split the team up and run their flights from justice separately , after all, and fewer still would allow major plot-relevant firefights to happen in downtime. Erased might save you a little money when the shit hits the fan, if the GM decides to charge you extra for emergency data trail elimination. But it is not likely to save you 10 BP worth of money, unless you get caught far too often, or have a GM who charges too much for such services.

That being said, it's something cool to have. If you're willing to pay the BP for the cool, then go for it. It'll make you like Jason Borne, or something. The price is about right for that.

QED.

Reminds me of why I don't take Common Sense. Common Sense is that quality for players who have never played before or are unfamiliar with the system and allows the GM to go, "a little voice inside you tells you that's FUCKING DUMB. Care to rethink?"

Though I did play a character who could have used it, but hey, I was playing the pampered college kid with no street sense. Its my own damn fault I assumed that all of the dead bodies meant that all the hostiles were already gone and got myself shot.

Admittedly I didn't do it intentionally, it just kind of happened.

But hey. That's the character I was playing, so I rolled with it. Did it again about a session later too, again, by accident (there was something keeping to the shadows and I had another task on my mind, so I ignored it, got pounced on by a rabid awakened kangaroo).

Just think of the fun you can inflict on the PC's, if have them have to track some target with this quality. Everything they log something in their commlink about their mark...poof, it mysteriously disappears. And they can't find anything with a data search, forcing them to go old school.

Actually, talking about Erased has given me one hell of a good idea for a character.

Just in time for a Shadowrun GM to contact me, as he's starting to try and get a group together. Hopefully it happens, as I like this character concept.

Hyzmarca has already hit why this quality is mostly flavor when you look at it from a metagame standpoint. Generally, I would get this either for a chameleon face or infiltration expert (as part of their overall sneakiness), or for one of the more pink mohawk options (SURGE with glamour, etc.), to make such a character's continued existence slightly more plausible.

It is already fairly balanced. One, it has the clarifying exception for the "most secure" systems, meaning that the GM has some recourse if he doesn't want for some particular bit of data to completely disappear. Two, it mentions that, even though the character has some control over what gets erased or not, it can still be a complication. So there really isn't anything game-breaking in it.

Another way to balance "Erased" is to take inconsideration that it only refers to Datatrails... Dead Tree Format files are still very useful in a lot of ways!

Also, it does nothing for memories. That cop you mooned last week is still going to remember your Hoop a week from now.

And, as Hardison put it once, "I can't hack a Hillbilly!"

I don't agree.

Runners are expected to take care not to leave data trails behind. And yes, we as GMs let them get away with that, if they put some effort into it and exercise some constraint on what they can and can't do.

Erased chars don't have that problem. They can be all sorts of obvious about their mayhem.

Erased isn't just about not getting caught. It is much more about freedom of action.

Erased is good for those characters that don't have any computer skills. Of course, you'd expect those folks to have Hacker contacts, or to pay their Fixer to erase embarrassing things...

But I came up with, what I hope, is one hell of a character based on the Quality.

It's impossible for runners not to leave data trails behind. I don't mean that it is very difficult, I mean impossible in the same sense that I'd say it was impossible for your PC to eat the sun. It simply cannot be done in setting. It never could be done, not even in SR1. Balkanization and extraterritoriality simply meant that it was harder for people to connect the dots.

But in SR4, where everybody and his mom has an active comlink 24/7, there is no way in hell. You might be able to avoid leaving Data trails if you go run exclusively in Angkor Watt and even then that's iffy (I wouldn't be surprised if the Naga liked their MTV).



Characters who play Pink Mohawk in a Black Suit game are going to get headshotted by a sniper no matter what qualities they have. As has been stated, you can't hack a hillbilly. Erased doesn't destroy physical records or human memories.

Yea, the goal's not to not leave *any* data trails. The goal is to not leave any *obvious* data trails. As long as yours is just another line of noise in the stream, you're alright. With cybereyes (with cameras) so ubiquitous, you're bound to be picked up on someone's MoSoSo blog from time to time just walking down the street. But then, so is every other person out there. It's like a criminal lineup, except with the entire population to choose from. Don't stand out.

Frag seven gangers while the bar's security feed is watching and you're wearing a pink frilly bathrobe? You'll be on the 10 o'clock news. Gank a few lowlifes in a dark alley in a bad part of town? Ho hum.

Not as hard as you might think... Multiple Identities, with multiple comlinks... If you , as a runner, are running with the same comlink, 24/7/365, and same Identity, then yes, you will eventually leave a trail that a Zugmachine can navigate... constant changing of Identities, SIN,s and Licenses, and constant vigilence against leaving a coherent trail, along with the stripping and burning of old SIN's and whatnot, will allow you to operate under that Identification Radar. Only real problem is that it is not a cheap process to maintain. Having the Erased Quality makes it a bit more palatable, and slightly easier to do.

Though there's a complication with that : many legals activities suppose that you have a coherent datatrail. If you're going a pile of identities none of which is genuine, you're going to have troubles interacting with the high quality services. Granted most of those are way beyond the average shadowrunner's income, but that's going to be a problem if they get a crapload of money and whant to do something with it.

There are backchannels to get those sort of services without interacting with the legitimate businesses and the associated controls, but they're usually controled by organized crimes factions who will have their own verifications and can bring all sort of unpleasant complications, unless you're willing to fork a lot of cash.

Unless you change your face whenever you change IDs it will be fairly trivial to tie them together. Cameras are everywhere and in everything. Unless you've spend essence or PP on the ability to do massive facial alterations on the fly, it really should be impossible to avoid being IDed.

And even if you can resculpt your faceal bone structure on the fly, lets not forget that they could just analyze and cross reference local Matrix traffic and figure out that ID A stopped broadcasting at the same time and place ID B started broadcasting.

Which is why I made tha comment that it would have significant costs attached to it...

And even if your Identity is supposed to have legal activities attached to it (they generally do), those activities are rarely checked to verify that you are who you say you are. Last tiem I spent money on my credit card, they did not perform a background check to see if I attended the Middle School I said I did. All tehy wasnt to verify is will the transaction succeed. That is usually the extent of verification that goes on today. I do not really see it changing in 60 years. Yes, you will leave a trail, but who cares. As long as you can avoif any Legal Entanglements, you should be okay... If you encounter the entanglement, then you just Strip/Burn the Identiy, purchase a new one, and move along. Erased is a great help in this regard...

Which is why you use alternate ID's to establish those small trails, so that it does not appear as if they JUST appeared... in addition, The higher rated ID's are assumed to come with some history attached to them. No different, really, than the Witness Protection program in the US. False identities created with a complete backtrail....

Current Character I play has 10 Completely different ID's, with a mix of genders (Male and Female, obviously) and mix of Metatypes (Human, Elf, and Orc)... they all have completely different backgrounds and different spending habits. They all have places to call their own, and their own contacts and friends. And their Aura's are even different (Magic helps here a great deal). Does it take an exceptional amount of Time, Resources and Influence to keep them all valid? Indeed, but it can be done if you want it bad enough... On the chance that the character needs to generate a new identity and burn an old one, he does it, and spends the money to make it work.

Anyways...

You seem to be under the impression that Shadowrun is an Orwellian world, rather than a distopian one.

If there isn't a way to avoid being traced by the man, then there would be no Shadowrunners. Unwired gives some great examples of how things like Data Balkanization and Data overload can make it very hard to track someone down.
Don't forget that, much like in the real world, people are bad at their jobs, machines break and some wage slave rarely cares enough about his meager paycheck to contradict the computer.

Inability to track folk through computers isn't a pie in the sky idea. I know tons of people who avoid it every day.

Not sure if this is directed at me there Fortinbras, but I completely agree with you. But, there is never any harm in covering your bases. I tend to go to extreme lengths to cover my bases if I can do so. Has kept me ahead of the LS/KE/CC Goons for a long time... Of course, some characters are better at it than others... *shrug*

Not directed toward any one person directly, save the OP.
Shadowrun should breed a little paranoia, but not so much that if your face is caught on camera you feel the need to blow up all your cars, kill everyone you know and change your DNA.

I believe you're taking a grayscale issue and looking at it in black and white.

If you look at the following categories, I'm sure you can come up with actions that fit in each of them, making it obvious to you what the advantages of Erased are:

Things any runner can get away with
Things only an Erased runner can get away with
Things no runner can get away with

The boundaries between them will of course vary from table to table, but in everything but the most extreme pink mohawk games, there are things only Erased runners can get away with.

Do you really not see the difference between the authorities having a recording of you killing someone, and only a few witnesses or cops who reviewed the footage before it got erased remembering what your face looks like? In the latter case, nothing can be released to the media, photos can't be circulated, there's nothing for facial recognition software to use. The same goes for prints and DNA and financial trails and whatnot. You're left pretty much only worrying about witnesses.

You seem to be under the impression that Erased somehow magically destroys all the non digital files too, which it certainly doesn't do.

And ofcource if someone wants it bad enought, all those destroyed digital files can be gotten back.

Asssumming that a Technomancer really wanted to Quest for that Data, sure...
Of course, Data could have been transferred to Offline Cold Storage prior to Erasure as well...

What do you mean by non digital files?

He's of the crazy opinion that non-digital files exist. Ridiculous.

In any case, Erased works *as written*, regardless of cleverness. Unwanted data is gone within 7 days/24 hours, that's the crunch.

Dead Tree Format. Cannot be hacked. There will always be paper files.

Nah. And maybe there are robot file handlers to hack, or document retrieval orders to hack. Anyway, I'm not saying Erased is OP or not, just commenting.

*shrug* I doubt there'd be paper trails of anything but really important stuff. With the ubiquitousness of AR and thing like electronic paper, distribution of files to personell is far easier through digital than paper means.
Unless someone discovers data going missing. That would be plenty valid argument to hook up a printer.

Let's sau Johnny Erased goes on a run against Corp A and does a mess in there territory. The Corp uses every resource they have to catch Johnny Erased and after a week their records are gone without a trail. Now, someone in middle management of the security department, Middle Johnson, probably lost its job or was demoted because of the disaperance of those files and such.

Three months later, Johnny Erased goes on a run against Corp A again and does another mess, AGAIN. Middle Johnson is assigned to the operation and recognizes Johnny Erased, remembering what happened months ago, he makes offline copies AND hardcopies of the files to prevent Johnny Erased of disappearing again. Ok, it is just one guy, trying to prove the boss that the guy can hack into their "unhackable" system and erase his prints but the bosses don't believe in him, until a week later, the data trail is erased again and Middle Johnson is the sole owner of any copy of these files, that he can't put back online or they will be erased again.

Erased can take care of a lot of problems, but it also gives excellent plot hooks.

Heck, Grid Guide can do that too.

Yeah, and Grid Guide is so unhackable.

Any mage with Flexible Signature to recreate your Aura exactly upon viewing it once. Then anyone who sees him doing so, can do likewise.

Oh, and additionally, they can do this for the benefit of a Spirit, which can then use its Search power to find you no matter what.


Hay! You know what's really broken? ^That^

Or put them online again, to discover them magically dissapearing after an exact week again.

If you piss him off enough, a simple dedicated One-Way Transmission of data records can be done from a Datastore that's set to Read-Only. In 2070, you can set a TOASTER to do this and then hook it up in some hard to find place.

I suggest an old age home for Veterans. Having to run a Shadowrun against a bunch of old soldiers would be... Interesting: "OK, I checked up on the histories of these people, and this is the person we absolutely have to worry about." *Brings up holo of a 70-year old man* "What the frag can he do to us?" "Well, five Spikes decided his wallet would be nice last week, and they're still in the hospital unable to speak. He was UCAS Marine Force Recon, their Special Forces. I can't even bring up the rest of his file, aside from his medals. Which are, well, exceptional. And not a single 'Forgot To Duck' Purple Heart in the lot." "Oh, yeah, we stay away from this slot for sure!"

A RED campaign?

As long as I'm not going against Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman and John Malkovich, I think I would be fine.

Its "within a week" not "after 10,080 minutes."

Ah. You're right. I thought that was written as "after a week", like the 24 hour version is.
It appears the 5 bp hacker or other mysterious plot device is a lot less punctual than his 10 bp equivalent.