No, I cannot see that. I get along perfectly fine with my 10-12 Dice in Firearms. If they are Dodging, they are not Shooting back at me.

I have yet to see Armor as causing a major problem. Of course, we do not see crazy levels of Armor at our table, either. As you said, the Armor Jacket is the most popular for a reason (I actually think the Long Coat takes that distinction at our table, however).

Damned Double Post...

Licenses exist to regulate who has what. Just saying you want somewthing makes the authorities look at you and say 'why' but a lot depends on what the locals want to control. For example when I lived in NY it was easy to get a liquor license and very hard to get permission for a hand gun. By comparrison in PA where I live now liquor is heavily regulated and hand guns are much easier to get. i'm fond of saying new york wants you drunk not armed, PA wants you armed not drunk, I'm a New Yorker.

In general the permits do not make it easier to catch you BUT failure to have them creates other reasons for the authortities to look into you after the caxt hyou for some little thing.

For example if any of my guns were invovled in a shooting no one would know. There isn't a record of them but if I was taken into custody and my guns could be matched up- standard police work, but the permitt does nothing to help them find the criminal BUT the gang bangers who feel they don't need a permitt or can't qualify just by carrying they give the police a case against them.

Like driving with a suspended license. The guy getting into a car at Stuff Shack- there's no idea if he's got al icesnes or insurance but when you pull him over for reckless driving it adds to the charge sheet and gives them an excuse to give him more grief.

Lastly in financial matters anything done with $10k or higher in CASH must be reported to the government looking for money laundering BUT if an investigation of your finances after osmething else comes up- shows a bunch of transaction just UNDER the 10k threshold can lead to other charges of trying to avoid Federal regulators. Likewise securities cannot be purchased with cash. At least once am onth I have to explain to a lcient that I cannot accept cash/money order/bank checks. to open qan acocunt due to federal money laundering laws.

In addition, characteristics are far too cheap compared to skills. I think Franks was right that skills should be at least 50% cheaper, or characteristics at least twice as expensive.

Thats why you buy a LASER rifle legally.

Where did you hear that tripe about firearms manufacturers being required to give a 'gun fingerprint' for each weapon they manufacture?

There are such things that are required by some localities (who want to trample over basic rights) but nothing like that on a nationwide scale. Each locality that has such a gun registry is also mulling pulling the plug because they cost millions of dollars to run/maintain and the 'fingerprint' changes over time / use / replacement parts and there is no requirement to update said firearm's entry by the owner...

Now part of the sale (from an FFL) requires serial numbers and such along with a background check. But even there, there is no requirement to provide a 'gun fingerprint' to the FBI or BATFE.

Oh man, I would think that would break Shadowrun, the restrictions on higher numbers are already enough, by pushing the boundary of rule of cool: In this case, sometimes for a player its just cool to throw a comparatively ridiculous number of D6, IMHO.

Does not break it at all, in my opinion. It actually allows one to make a well-rounded character than makes sense, in comparison to the characters I have seen in the past who just try for the biggest dice pool, BECAUSE THEY CAN, with no rationale to their background. It gets very annoying.

Why do you think it would break the game to have stricter limits? I am curious.

It makes characteristics far more important than they already are. Currently they are much cheaper way to raise skills than buying skill levels, you'd turn them into the only way.

I think you are missing the point.

I disagree...
And like Lantzer indicated. You are apparently missing the Point.
No Worries.

Pfft, I don't think he was. I think he was bang on in his own way, my way of describing it was a bit more verbose as you know Tym. Heck, I stopped PMing ya because I thought you totally missed the point as well.

Fancy that, we have different ideas / opinions on restrictions, oh well...

Wait, licenses, restrictions - maybe this can be on topic after all. Somehow.

Heh... I thought we quit PMing becasue we had discussed our opinions and moved on. *shrug*
Of course we differ in implementation a bit. No worries, though.

if we dont regulate it, soon...there will be Cows with Guns!....and you dont want to see THEIR DP's.....

Too late ...

According to Running Wild, cows have 3 Agility and their only combat skill is 1 Unarmed. But that's before you add the power of technology!

The cost and availability of a CAST kind of rules that out but an Orientation Goad will at least steer the bovine in the general direction you want. Next, a cyber torso allows you to add either an External Mount or an Articulated Weapon Arm, both very cheap, but tricky to find.

With the External Mount, slap on an AK-97 modified with a Gas-Vent 3 and an Auto-Adjusting Underbarrel Weight. With the Articulated Weapon Arm, go with the Ingram White Knight. Slap an external smartgun system on either one, and voila. Your future hamburger is now a mobile weapons platform. Pricetag of around 25,000 nuyen.

~Umi

Better make it a Brahmin....2 heads are better than one...right? hehe

Dang it, now I wanna build a bovine cyberzombie for an A.I. to take control of...

......

To err is human, to forgive is bovine

Sad... So Very, Very Sad... *Hangs Head*

Ahem, back to the topic at hand.

IRL, the cost of a licence varies depending on what it is - common stuff like drivers licences are cheap, but pilot licences are expensive to maintain as you generally need so many hours of flight time per year for your licence to remain valid. Medical licences don't come cheap either, I hear.

The way I run it, I handwave stuff like real drivers licences, but for game balance reasons charge 600 (the same as a R6 fake, but Availability 2) for more exotic licences such as Concealed Carry, Private Investigator, Medical, Pilot etc. There is nothing about the cost of legit licences in the RAW as far as I know, so I guess this is a house rule ...

On the second point, instead of 'for balance', which is erroneous as it wouldn't affect "balance" at all for all real licenses to be rolled into lifestyle of low or higher, why don't you just say what it is which is 'for yet another nuyen sink'?

Non-SINners have to pay for fake licences. I don't see why SINners (it IS a Negative Quality, remember) should be able to get licences for anything under the sun free of charge "just because".

I already said will handwave stuff such as Drivers Licences (which should be fairly common and cheap to get hold of), but if they want something exotic like that Concealed Carry permit (and their skills and background logically allow for it), the licensing body is still going to want to run a background check which costs spondoolies which, in the dystopian world of SR, someone has to pay for ... so why shouldn't that someone be Joe SINner who wants the damn licence in the first place?

Most everyone in SRworld carries a gun. It's why there are holsters noted even in the high fashion clothing descriptions.

Because there's the level of realism that is part of the game rules as a base that is just enough to keep things moderately sane while still maintaining the fun of the game, and then there's that which is 'super-duper-hyper-deluxe-ultra-realism' which does nothing but siphon the fun out and drain more money out of the characters' pockets (and there are enough things which do that as it is--really too many to be able to effectively save up for the good stuff with the pay levels a lot of people on the forums, both of them, advocate).

Believe me, I know plenty of people in IRL who "default" on driving, and still managed to get a license.



Thank you, now I've got this song stuck in my head!

If you get a real license, then the Government and Corporations know about it.

$20 to $50 U.S., real world, as of two years ago. (g/f had to have a background check for some of her volunteer work with afterschool programs.) That's for the full monty check, Federal level and everything.

Depends on where you live, most countries in Europe are pretty strict with driving licenses. In Austria, obtaining one costs ~1000€ and includes at least 12hrs of training with a certified instructor or 6 hrs with an instructor and driving 1000km under the supervision of an experienced driver (3000km if you are under 18).

It's like getting a hunting license. I can get a hunting license at Walmart for some trivial amount of money in a few minutes. Ah, but you want a German Hunting License? That's just a little bit more involved...

Concealed Carry or private healthcare and policing is an exotic license? What kind of cyberpunk do you play?

Has nothing to do with Private Healthcare. Nor is it an exotic license. If you want to be a Doctor (and actually have a business as such), you MUST be licensed, at least here in America. I assume that it is the same pretty much around the world. Same for Engineers, Pilots, and Private Investigators for that matter. There are a LOT of Professions that actually require a License to work in the profession. And not all licenses are Expensive.

I guess Concealed Carry is not the best example, and would be specific to locations such as NY where gun control is much tighter ... Either way the point of Concealed Carry is that you can carry a hidden gun in a juristiction where you might be legally bound to carry any firearms you have openly. Bad example though ...

In the U.S., the license cost itself isn't that high (the insurance is though), but there is a requirement of a drivers' training course, hours with an instructor, and hours with an experienced driver.

That still doesn't stop a large number of people who don't know what they're doing from getting on the road - they learn enough to get through the tests, then promptly forget it all once the license is in hand.

If you handwave Licences for fake SINs at your table because you consider it "ultra-realism", then that is your perogative. There is no more book-keeping for buying and noting down a real licence for your real SIN as there is for buying and noting down a fake licence for your fake SIN. I really don't see a problem here.

As for taking money out of character's pockets, the real licence is a one-time deal, and unless you screw up royally and have to burn your real SIN you are good to go. It is periodically having to burn those fake SINs (with all their associated licences) that take much more out of characters pockets. Just the price of doing business, chummer.

Yes they do. So what?

I agree that the majority of real licences (and associated background checks) would probably not cost as much as 600 newyen and would in reality vary greatly depending what the licence is for. Some (such as Medical or Legal) might conecivably cost more.

The reason I just charge 600 and have done with it is, as I stated earlier, for game balance reasons, and I freely admit it is an abstraction. 600 newyen would get a non-SINner a R6 fake licence (availability notwithstanding), and even then might be prone to detection (please, let's not reopen that old DS can-of-worms), so the low availability and bullet-proofness of the real licence is still a better deal than for the R6 fake licence that the unfortunate non-SINner has to make do with if he can get one in the first place, but there you go.

This is the house rule I use, so you are free to handwave real licences (like All4) or write up a list of different licences and costs at your table, whatever floats your boat.

My old driving instructor told me that you start learning how to drive once you have the licence ... and yeah, don't get me started about idiots on the road!

You don't have to tell me I went to the US a few years back and 99.9% of people were driving on the wrong side of the road

I meant healthcare not as the insurance, but as the actual care for one's health...which seems to be mostly deregulated, or at least nobody enforces those regulations for the gazillion of street docs.
And private investigators are not even regulated right now, "investigators" or "detectives" do not have any privileges or duties above those of a normal citizen and accordingly everybody can call himself that.

So I'd handle many of these licenses more like certifications: Sure everybody can practice medicine, but having an actual degree or other certification of skills might draw more customers...

Actually, Most (it not all) licensed professionals have to renew their license periodically. Some have a 1 Yerar Re-licensing, others are longer. *shrug*

In the US, it the remaining 0.1% that you have to worry about.

I know here that Doctors in Oz have ongoing training they have to do to keep their license so the cost is mainly time - so a day job quality would be appropriate to roll your training in with a little street doctoring.

I take it that 0.1% was you!

Yes, I believe they do. Saying that, renewal of a licence is probably a far more automatic process than receiving one in the first place (they're probably just checking that you have fullfilled any requirements such as minimum hours of work, haven't killed anybody etc) so any licence renewal fee is probably pretty nominal. Given that SR4's licence system is pretty abstracted anyway, I would handwave any licence renewal fees as included in lifestyle costs.

I would imagine some street docs would be "legal", as in licenced, practices, while others would be backstreet "illegal" operations. SINless can't be choosers, although I am sure that most runners would look into rumours about a shadow clinic before sucking on that general anaesthetic ...

Interesting that you say there is no such thing as a PI licence IRL, although I suspect it may depend on which country you are talking about. For the game, I will pretty much let my PCs purchase licences for anything they decide to ask for; it may just be window dressing, but in my game showing a licence along with a plausible excuse can help legitimize their reason for being somewhere they normally shouldn't (+2DP for supporting evidence, social skills table).

Somebody upthread was asking about the rules for licenses found in older editions. SR3 handled weapon permits as:

To represent dealing with the bureaucracy, make an Etiquette test vs. the weapon's normal Availability, +2. (Remember that SR3 has variable target numbers, so this is changing the TNs.) Base time to get the permit is the same as the base time to find the weapon. Cost is 5% of the weapon's cost for a permit to own, and 10% for a permit to own and carry. You must provide an ID, and if it's fake it has to pass a normal ID check. Finally, having a permit gives you more options when looking for the weapon itself, and give a -2 modifier to the Availabiity of the weapon. Permits are only available for weapons with the not in the Legality Code. (Basically, plain-jane pistols (heavy or light) and hunting rifles or shotguns. No SMGs, MPs, assault weapons, sniper weapons, and certainly no heavy weapons of any kind.)

Honestly, that never made much sense to me. Why would a license for, let's say, the Fichetti Security 500 (400¥) cost more than a license for the Colt American L36 (350¥) with almost the same game stats (one round difference in mag capacity)? Or a license for a custom gunsmith-handtuned hardchromed 1500¥ Ruger Super Warhawk vs a license for the 300¥ basic model?

When I ran SR3 we agreed to pretty much handwave that into non-military weapons (that is handguns, rifles and shotguns without burstfire or fully-automatic modes) being available to anyone with a clean SIN (rating test for fake SINs). Same for CCW licenses. Cost subsumed under lifestyle.

It makes sense to me; it basically means they're taxing the weapons at 5% or 10%.

But seriously, only those weapons are legal? Harsh.

(Where is that info from, by the way?)

For the same reason that one extra round in the mag costs an extra 50¥? I don't even bother with that; Generic Light Pistols that all have the same stats also have the same price, and I use the names solely for verisimilitude. Though I can't recall ever having to make a decision on a weapon permit...




It's from the SR3 main book. Amusingly, all the melee weapons you might expect to be legal, like a simple knife, have legality codes - which means they're not, actually, though the TNs are fairly high so a cop isn't likely to decide to hassle you about it; but there's no way to get a permit for them. You can get licensed to carry an 11mm magnum pistol with a cybernetic targeting system (ie, smartlink), but you can't carry a simple folding knife.

Which is pretty true to life.

Here in Connecticut, I can (and do) own quite large knives, even swords. However, if I carry one even one step over my own property line? I'm at risk of being arrested, charged with possessionof an unlawful deadly weapon, and given a "vacation" that involves orange jumpsuits, soap-on-a-rope, and "special playtime" with Bubba the Love Troll.

(Actual law: any knife over 4" long is prohibited for carry, concealed or otherwise. No permits exist. Tough luck.)

There were rules for this in 1E (in the Shadowtech book) and the licenses scaled in price based on the Legality category and class or cost of the weapon/ware/equipment. Categories also varied based on legal jurisdiction.

Some examples from the Shadowtech book: