QUOTE (Tanegar @ Nov 24 2012, 11:15 PM)

Hideki and Mike want to found a security company. I have advised them that they will need someone with a real SIN to be the owner of record, on the grounds that background checks for a business license are more in-depth than the random "SIN, please" checks runners normally encounter. Beyond this, I'm not sure how to handle it. They want to start out as a penetration-testing firm, then branch out into security contracting. They also want the business to be legitimate, as far as it goes, while still doing runs on the side.
A Rating 6 fake SIN should do the trick. Alternatively, there are probably ways to get a
real SIN for a SINless person. I wouldn't reccomend finding a front man without like, installing a cranial bomb in him, less he decide that since the records are all in
his name, he can just take the money, close up shop and leave town.
Anyway, running a legitimate business is going to be very difficult, especially in an era when it is considered acceptable for one small business to pay some deniable felons some cash to go and murder the employees of the other small business. Finding work would likely be difficult, but not impossible: they might consider starting out by supplying legitimate neighborhood security on the cheap to a neighborhood that can't afford Lone Star or Knight Errant but is wealthy enough to pay for security.
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Random, for his part, wants to found a magical society to serve as his own private initiatory group. He plans to offer various spirit pacts to entice recruits, including a Life Pact, wherein a mortal pays him karma to heal damage; he also plans to offer immortality to the head of the society through the pact that turns the recipient into a copy of Random's spirit formula, thereby conferring immunity to age.
This is actually a pretty clever damn idea on Random's part. But remember that if a person becomes a copy of your formula, they can be used against you. So he might want to consider the cranial bomb option, too.
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I'm perfectly fine with the players succeeding at these goals; I just don't want either of them to be easy. I particularly don't want the security firm to be a source of free money and gear to Hideki and Mike, or the magical group to be a karma farm for Random. I would appreciate suggestions as to how I can best handle these situations.
How often do magicians find themselves with an urgent, desperate need to heal two boxes of damage? Not very often. I'd say that basically, once a session, roll 1d6. If it turns up 6, give Random a Karma as one of his buddies pays for health. If that's still too often for your tastes, roll 1d6. If it's a hit, roll again, and if that die is also a hit, award a Karma.
For the security company, their biggest threat, early on, is going to be a lack of work and competition. Most big clients would rather hire deniable assets to do security penetration testing rather than a legitimate business; hiring a legitimate business means there will be a paper trail, which will be inconvenient if the penetration testers stumble upon some atrocity or black lab and need to be discretely murderated. Also, it's hard to stiff a legitimate business by paying them in bullets instead of nuyen. The competition won't like there being competition, and hiring some deniable assets to wipe the competition out altogether is probably a pretty common thing when dealing with companies with less than ten employees. You may also have to worry about the fact that Knight Errant or Lone Star or whomever is in charge might just offer the owner-of-record a sizable cash incentive to just sell them the business lock, stock, and barrel - it would be a kick in the ass to set up your business only to find out one day that some contractors are installing Lone Star's sign out front of the franchise, there's a bunch of Lone Star goons moving into your offices, and the owner of record - that front man SINner you found - has skipped town in possession of a cool million nuyen, having sold "his" (your) business.