Here is the setup:
The Johnson wants you find a decker that hacked a system. He can give you three pieces of info. A description of the decker's custom icon. The time of the attack. And, the address of the matrix café the attack was traced to.

How would you go about finding this decker?
and
What other info could the Johnson give you that could help you out? If he had it.

Watch the cafe (physically and in the matrix) and try to get ahold of any video recordings that would show the cafe's customers in that time frame.
If the guy in the matrix spots the icon appearing, then have the physical watch note who arrived recently. If you can get the tape, find out who they are and start eliminating possibilities (not that kind of eliminating, well you could, but it doesn't really help).

hire an otaku with the Traceroute echo.

failing that, hack the cafe's system and do a Dump Log op. unless the decker cleared it (which most deckers should, though i've never seen it done in any game i've run), it should give some more info. if the cafe has sec cams or actual, living employees who watch the floor, you can interrogate the sec system or the employees and get a picture or description of the decker. you can also go online and use your Etiquette (Matrix) skill to ask around about the icon, match it to a street name.

your Johnson couldhelp you out by telling you what was done on the hacked system, as well as who might have wanted to have that job done. knowing the decker's probable employers will help you find the decker easier.

Make sure he's a decker and not an otaku first.

If the attack was traced, what the hell is the Johnson doing asking you to find the decker? He could have the cops there the second the trace was completed!

well, it might have been an indirect trace. pretty simple you just look over your logs, find the originating address of your hacker, and go to that address. check the logs on that host, find the next address, and so on until you find the point of origin. or until you find the point where the decker wised up and cleared the logs.

I was being purposely vague in my description. The decker in this case happens to be a 15 year old girl who lucked out and found a small piece of information on a VPs laptop where it never should have been. This was discovered by a corp decker who traced her path back to the café. The VP is paid off the corp decker and is now trying to cover his tracks. The girl was just goofing around following a rumor and got lucky

The run pay out is 20,000 for the deck 16,000 for the decker 6 member party. It just a little morality test to see what kind of PCs I am going to be dealing with.

Erm, why would this be a test of morality?

They have just been hired to find someone who broke into a computer system. The run description didn't include what the runners were supposed to do the the decker, other than (presumably) call Mr Johnson and it's not like what the decker did is any 'less bad' because they are a kid.

Also, you might want to break into the place at night and be sure that the wiring is all 'kosher', a decker could have added and extra tap that they use to deck 'from' the cafe while actually being somewhere else. Don't forget to check the installed software in the cafe to look for similar things, but in software instead.

Depends on your character. I know my street sam would have a hard time giving up a kid to a corp who is likely to cause very bad things to happen to said kid. If he wants the data recovered and the kid's deck wrecked, he'd go along with that. A more nebulous "let me deal with them" type thing would make him very nervous. Some people are in the game to help the corps blast each other, not get some poor kid "dealt with".

It is pretty much just to see if they are willing to trade a kid for 16,000:nuyen: or not.

For the most part we are one of those groups that use npc deckers. I was just seeing what types of things they might try. So that I had a head start and maybe a clue to feed them if it came down to that .

16,000Y split up betwee 6 runners? Dang you're stingy with your payouts.

I you are going after a decker, you can try to loot their deck an programs, which are worth something, and there are always internal organs... At around ~2500 Y, ok for a 2-7 day long job with 'no danger'. But why hire 6 people to tracksoome one down (beyond metagame reasons)? You could hire the private detective archtype for around 200 a day and probably get the job done.

AH, I missed the part about wanting the deck. Kinda neat thing to keep the pcs from keeping it.

Don't laugh they did that once. FUBARed a plot line of mine. Now I check to make sure the sell value of things thing they are suppose to get isn't higher then what they are getting paid.

I also got cute one time and put one of those laser guns in a run. Said the head of security managed to some how get the corp to pick up the tab. After that is when they started carrying the sack.

From previous converstations here, the consensus was that the loot sack should never 'make up' for a low run payment, but instead be more of a 'bonus' (just like the Johnson might offer bonus pay if the run is done in a certain way). Otherwise the PCs wise up and stop going on 'runs' alltogether and just concentrate on filling the loot sack. Why rick betrayal be ye old Johnson when he only provides 10% of your final compensation anyway?

Managing what happens to large ticket loot like decks, vehicles, and foci can take some doing.

I agree with you Crusher Bob. Lets just say I am a little more careful know that the idea is in their heads. I did punish them by the way for turning on their Johnson.

Even good runners will fail every now and then, the world will not fall on you if you screw something up you'll just take a hit to your reputation.

Some people might find it unprofessional to loot bodies...

I'd prefer to work with someone who concentrates on the job at hand rather than picking up everything that's not nailed down.

Shouldn't that be the difference between gangers and runners? Otherwise wouldn't every runner team just boost cars for a living (see SRComp)?

If I'm a J wanting a bunch of professional criminals to do a job I'd want them to concentrate on that job and pay accordingly. Likewise, if I'm a runner I'll only accept jobs that pay more than I could earn doing something else, unless it's a favour or there's a damn good reason for it.

Every single SR character should have an alternative form of income (whether straight or illegal) and one of the questions that should be asked is "why are they running?" - how many people answer "for the money" without considering alternative income streams first?

IMO payouts should be balanced to stop characters from having to loot.

that seems amazingly silly, to me. sure, if you screw around and mess up the job your on because you're too busy looting, that's unprofessional. but an SR's entire job is doing illegal stuff for money--why would any runner with a single lick of sense turn up his nose at free stuff, if there's the time and opportunity to obtain it? if my character grabs some dead guard's Ares Alpha, it's not because he has to, it's because doing that is good business practice.

No - I actually meant to use the example of something cool/fun/difficult to obtain (like the Alpha) that's found lying around (in the dead guy's hands) where that would be OK, but in my haste to post (hmm, is that post haste?) forgot...

What I'm saying is that characters shouldn't feel the need to loot to make money per se, although a bit of opportunism is fine and I see an obvious philosophical difference between the two.

Even in a low end campaign I'd prefer the looting to be kept to a minimum, otherwise you will end up with players who become nothing more than freelance theives.

Even newbie-runners should be better than that...

(unless of course the campaign is set around that).

YMMV

Funny, my group just had a discussion about looting. THe group I run with has actually been really straight about stuff like that, though we were playing LoneStar cops until recently.

I find it an interesting switch of mentally coming from recent DnD games where the whole point seems to be to grab everything that isn't nailed down. I just adventure seeker is just another name for grave robber.

Wonder what Mr. Jones would have to say about that.


-Wolf

They didn't fail they chose they chose to change sides when they had they had a better offer. There reps took a big hit and they had to leave Seattle. I wasn't being mean. I Even gave them a reality check before they did it. They did it they took there nuyen and they did some runs in Hawaii. The game gos on.

As for the looting the body it has vary little to do with the party, more to do with a mistake I made. At this point the sack is more of a running gag. "Hay, O'Shea, think there might find something good for the sack this run." "Never can tell, me boy, never can tell."

Word to the wise, just because you are the GM and you see a toy in the books that would be fun to use in a run; remember your PC might think it would be fun to use or sell. So think it over, or make sure it takes a round or two, gets consumed in the explosion, or .....

So anyway how bout those decker?

When players set out for TOO long, I tend to have contacts get lost.

"I need you to help me with this"

"Who the hell are you again?"

I also tend to have reps take a hit.

"Why am I doing kiddy runs?"

"Why should I give runs to people who retired?"

And the every popular SOTA rules.