I have never seen this come up, and I was curious. Does the Johnson ever give a name out? Prob not real one most the time, but are they all just deferred to as Mr. or Mrs. Johnson? How do you guys as GMs handle this aspect?

O. Long Johnson

They do sometimes, but not often. I mean, that's why you call them "Johnson" in the first place -- the entire POINT is for them to, by default, remain anonymous.

Some PCs insist on their Johnsons calling themselves Johnson! (No, this is not a dick reference)

I have a Johnson whose name really IS Johnson! Does that count?

It's up to them to introduce themselves. Whether it's Mr. Sato, Steve, Mr. Johnson or Ms Brown, they will have a handle other then "hey you".

Sometimes they give a (probably false) first name as well, sometimes legwork reveals who you're working for (in which case, it's courteous not to mention it to your employer, unless it's for the purposes of persuading them not to backstab you, or blackmail)

Depends on the GM too. My prior one gave his johnsons names, while my current one goes by the whole Mr. Johnson(s) thing.

The comments on that video.
http://xkcd.com/301/
http://xkcd.com/202/

Someone I work with actually made "gunpistolman's" argument not long ago. I was utterly gobsmacked.

Heh.

'Gravity is only a theory!'
'You're standing on the ground, aren't you?'
'Yeah, but that doesn't mean gravity is doing it!'
*Facepalm*

Author's notes: The conversation was going to go for a bit longer but then I realized that it would quickly enter strawman territory as I'm not familiar with the arguments people use against the existence of gravity.
The conversation may magically restart downthread once I've read up on the subject a bit. As to why I bothered at all... Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time.

The confusion likely arises from the fact that there is a theory of gravitation, and a law of gravity. The differences being in the why it's happening, and what is happening.

A rose by any other name would still smell the same.
He can call it whatever he bloody well pleases doesn't change the facts of gravity a bit...
I think scientific curriculum might need a new word instead of theory although...

Thinking about it...
The common man on the street definition of gravity makes it sound a bit far fetched
"So a invisible force pulls objects down?"
Knowing about general relativity makes it even weirder
"Time space continuum?!"

All my Johnsons go by the name "Dick Peter Johnson Jr".

The problem is that somehow, "Theory" in the common vernacular has come to mean what "Hypothesis" means in the scientific vernacular, and the common vernacular has no real equivalent to "Theory" which boils down to "It can't be absolutely proven 100% that it works this way, but every reputable scientific study conducted on the topic agrees that this is the best explanation for how it works, because this explanation agrees with experimentation."

Which is rather a bit of a complicated thing for a lay person to get their hand around - it's not absolute, but unless you have absolutely stunning evidence to the contrary, you'll be laughed out of the room for seriously suggesting you believe otherwise.


A good example is the theory of the age of the universe. Can science prove without a shadow of a doubt that all of creation wasn't spun into being 4-5-6,000 years ago, and all the evidence to the contrary was manufactured by a mischievous God?

No. Nobody can say, for sure, that some omnipotent force hasn't framed all the evidence in existence to make the galaxy look a stupid number of orders of magnitude older than it is. As a hypothesis, though, seriously suggesting you believe that gets you ridiculed because it's a grossly more complex explanation than that the universe really is as old as all scientific evidence points to it being. That's why the theory on the age of the universe is a theory, and the notion that all of Creation is less than ten thousand years old is a hypothesis.

Of course, try explaining this to a lay person, and, well...

I think that a part of the problem is peoples perception of what science is. I often get asked if I 'believe' in science. So I ask them if they believe they can see what's around them.

Also Young earth is not even a hypothesis, it not testable, it's not able to be falsified, it doesn't make predictions and it doesn't have any facts to support it.

As for Johnson's any common name will do, I tend to avoid Smith although...

Whatever for? It's a perfectly sufficient name.

What is truly (for me) a Mr Johnson:

It's a guy hired by a corporation to look for and to interract with shadowrunners. He might work only for one corporation or many (kinda like a fixer) (both pro and cons, IMO: exclusive Johnson=>less risks of treachery but more identifiable). A Johnson add a layer between the corporation and the runners.

If the PC takes a Johnson as contact, they know his name: e.g. it's Greg Stynes, works usually for Renraku.
He will tough call himself M.Johnson in any meeting with shadowrunners (and know several secrets, hence a valuable contact).


Sometimes however, a corp exec might meet the runners himself. Then, he might want to stay anonymous and calls himself "M.Johnson" or might as well give his name (e.g. Tee Hee president of Global Technologies in Dreamchipper).

The name they'll give depends completely on who they are and what they expect from the PC.

In one of my adventures, the employer's real name is Mr. Johnson. He needs people to help liquidate a small company and for some reasons he'd rather have it done my discreet people. So he asks his secretary to find people for this. Since his usual secretary is on leave, an unexperienced secretary receives the request.

This secretary searches into Mr Johnson's address book and calls someone filed as "very discreet": the PC's fixer, saying that "Mr Johnson is looking for a discreet team for a 'liquidation'".

The PC will realize pretty soon that there's been a misunderstanding, but the pay is good. And that's how you drop the PC in a corporate office environment for a week or so.

Okay. Well then that leads to another question. If they don't have a name what do the runners have to go on when doing a background check on the person in front of them? How do you guys handle that?

The easy way is to have the connection who set up the meet tell the character "This Johnson is fine, I've worked with him/her before". This can mean, that the connection can get the heat as well, if a job goes sideways, though.
Another possibility is to make a background check on the Johnson through pictures. Also, the 'population' of Johnsons in a certain area might not be that big, so he or her will have built a reputation which can be consulted on. Lots of possibilities, no hard rules

I'd say take some cues from the introductory story in the core book, while the rest of the group is busy making nice. The hacker is busy trying to find out who the Johnson really is. Just a name won't get you very far anyway.

The fixer is the guy they need to trust. It is really his ass if things go sideways. He should have checked the guy out.

My position is that the runners really don't want to know anything about the Johnson. They don't have a need to know and it's dangerous knowledge as it makes practical finding the Johnson by torturing the runners to death. They do need to not fully trust the info the Johnson supplies (it may simply not be right), but they should just call the fixer and bail on the run if things are looking like the Johnson is setting them up.