Due to various issue (Namely an overabundance of low-browed gunslingers in the group) I am retiring my current street sam and throwing together a hacker, as at present the role is open. I've decided to take the paranoid quality, and I was hoping for tips from those who've played paranoid characters before.

Here are some of my current ideas:
Erased (daily) and obscure positive qualities, representing the fact that I'm constantly covering my tracks.
If all goes well the group will never know me beyond my hacker alias, as I never intend to physically show up at meets (If I must be present I intend to appear as an AR object rather than actually rock up myself). I intend to see how long I can keep my character's race and gender a secret from the rest of the party.
Rating 6 encryption for all communications with the group, plus some other tricks to make intercepting messages hard.
Always communicate with a voice mask system.
Whenever possible, hack via several data-bomb-ridden proxy servers, and preferably not from anywhere I'm actually associated with.
Spoof my data-trail after each and every interaction with the outside world.
Change addresses regularly.
Use disposable commlinks when possible.
Blend in.
NEVER COME ON-SITE FOR A RUN. EVER. NOT EVEN THEN. It's better to be useless than risk my asthma-ridden ass by actually rocking up.
They are out to get me. The only question is 'Who is they?' right now.
My team-mates will betray me. have a plan to deal with each and every one of them.

What am I missing? Come on guys, this is a chance for Dumpshock to show the world exactly how paranoid runners should be.

Turn your home into a fortress, including a cleanup button (makes things go boom). Scorched earth should be your plan-B.

Get a bunch of Sat-Uplinked Repeater Drones, and be on another continet.

I thought that was standard shadowrunner behavior, and didn't warrant a mention.

Get an RV of a model that'll fit in in your area, add chameleon coating, spoof chip, morphing license plate, and maybe upgrade the amenities if you like. Change color, plate, access ID, and camp ground of your choosing whenever you change your fake SIN. Keep all your nuyen on credsticks, moving funds as necessary to your shadow account (or immediately out of it when you get your retainer and/or payment).

Actually, spoof chip every piece of electronic gear you can that you'll keep for more than a week, along with the skinlink option for everything that you can that will be your PAN so you can disable all the unnecessary wireless signals. Cabled connections should also be considered (Bull, the greatest ork decker ever, has his commlink set so it won't work unless he's actually jacked in; from one of the season 4 missions).

Invest in lots of blue goo.

Assuming you're not going awakened, or will consider the hit to Magic/Resonance, invest in the Genewipe DNA Masking treatment (Augmentation, page 89) as soon as you can. Consider persona fixes for use during your downtime. A high rating in Disguise and Con (or the Influence group) would be a plus.

I'm currently packing influence group 3, but due to the fact that I've only recently fallen to the shadows I'm still not fully invested in disguise and other vital skills yet. It's on my to-do list.

Your standard Shadowrunner is paranoid, after all

hm. The fun of SR4 is, that the hacker sometimes MUST come along, therefore the group sticks together and the problem of two separate playgrounds doesn't exist.
of course, your build makes sense. on a side note, if you take Asthma and never actually walk and breathe unfiltered air, it's not a negative quality and not worth 15 BP.

If he takes Asthma, and that's the reason why he chooses to always hack from home, it's a negative. Being on the spot has flexibility of there are rooms with anti-wireless paint, or some faraday cages around important places

Safehouses are handy for a properly paranoid 'runner.

You can also use drones, repeaters, and so forth, so that even a remote or "isolated" system can become vulnerable to yoru hacking skills. You'll just have to arrange to deliver the necessary gear to yoru team-mates.

I highly recommend a Renraku Stormcloud with an R6 signal repeater. Maybe two. With a Signal 5 or 6 commlink, you n be hundreds of kilometers away, and use only YOUR OWN networking hardware to get A-to-B for hacking purposes. Give each stormcloud Improved economy, Additional Fuel tanks, and Suncell, andyou've got effectively infinite loiter time (until actual parts wear out).


Make CanRay happy - buy "Safehouses". Then have 2+ of them available and paid-in-full, at all times.

Go through R1 fake SINs like they're candy.

If you DO ever need to shwo up on-site, GO IN DISGUISE. Not as a particular person, but simplwearing a convincing wig and false facial hair, maybe with contacts designed to display a false color and retinal pattern. And gloves, under which you've got false prints.

When holding any face-to-face, never leave DNA traces; provide your own glassware, or filch the stuff provided, or wipe them down with a cloth soaked in C-squared when you're done. Same for forks, spoons, etc. Also, if you want to be a smoker, use a pipe or a filter, never put a ciarette directly in yoru mouth - because the discarded butt has yoru DNA in it.

Be habitually, even obsessively, neat/clean. Think "Monk" (the TV series). This ties into the DNA thing above.

Buy Cleaner-Cleaner in bulk. Have a grenade launcher that launches gas grenades filled with the stuff.

.... maybe, SPLASH grenades would be a better choice, CanRay?

How long you can actually keep it hidden or how long until your character suspects they know and just want to lull him into a false sense of security?


Hard, but not impossible...and who said that it's hard, anyway? Didn't some guy on some BBS post...


They see through your masquerade. They know who you are. They are everywhere.


Paranoid Schizophrenia does not mean somebody is overzealous with his privacy, it is the absolutely sincere (if delusional) conviction that the world is out to get him. Regularly switching addresses does not nearly cut it, the character would additionally suffer from spontaneous bouts of "that desk lamp looked different today, I must get away". And if that means setting fire to the house and shooting a passerby who looked out of place...well, for him it's self defense...

Paranoid schizophrenia is something very different from the paranoia you subscribe to most tinfoil hats. Your description would most likely be described as Hollywood paranoia however
I haven't studied very much psychology, but the thing about schizophrenics is that do not just "think" they hear voices in their heads, that people are out to get them or whatever other symptoms they're suffering from. They experience it as vivid reality. Like my friend who suffers from dissociative schizophrenia. He personally describes it as "hovering just outside your body and witnessing yourself in third person", luckily the medicine alleviates that.
Sorry for the rant. I got an irk for the public perception of schizophrenia.
Pst... Multiple personalities (DID) Is not a form of schizophrenia.

No problem, you haven't seen me go for a rant on a similar topic...

That is the problem: Schizophrenics are totally rational people and act no less inadequate to a situation than anybody else, however they act on crooked "inputs". And these "inputs" are totally real and consistent to them.

So there is very little positive about the Paranoid Quality if you play it realistically...especially for the rest of the team.

A surprising example of this is Lynch, of the Kane and Lynch video games. He's "Player Two" if you're playing Co-Op, and he has an out-and-out breakdown when he sees a bunch of unarmed hostages as armed police officers SHOOTING AT HIM.

The person on "Player One" (Kane) does not see this!

Although, I'll freely admit that neither one of these people are totally rational or such, but it's a damned good example of how one small perception change (for a degree of "small") can make all the difference.

I now feel sorry for Richie Gecko ("From Dusk 'Til Dawn") if he was Schizophrenic, and actually was trying to help his brother out as much as possible until the Vampires showed up. (There's a small bit of evidence that he sees/hears things wrong.).

Doing some wikia'ing there's something called Paranoid personality disorder, which is paranoid without the delusions/hallucinations frequently experienced by paranoid schizophreniacs. Left it out earlier as I couldn't recall the proper name and didn't want to get called on bullshit. I think it used to be known as Paranoia hysteria, before the concept of hysteria fell out of favour.
Long story short, there's your tinfoil hat that thinks people is out to get him.

Why don't you just plug it in your signature. Save some time.

But just being required to play a Paulbot and to do stuff like switching addresses, which does nothing at worst and is beneficial at best, sounds a tiny bit too easy for 10 BP

You also get -3 to all social interactions, except to connections with a loyalty of 4+. If your GM is nasty, you have to switch your SIN every run or more.

Yeah, that -3 is a bit of a killer, but with a couple of smart investments it's not the end of the world (In this instance chatty mitigates most of the damage, which is fine for a non-face.)

Chatty and paranoid?
"Did I tell you about the reptilians! Look I can show you convincing evidence that Damien Knight is really a flesh eating alien, what? You don't believe me! You're one of them! Graaaagh" *runs away*
I see that working out splendidly

Knowledge (Conspiracy Theories): 5.
Knowledge (Matrix Chatrooms): 3.
Media Addict (Mild).

Spends downtime sifting through media looking for evidence supporting their insane conspiracy theories and discussing them in secret conspiracy-theory hangouts on the matrix.

Sixth world conspiracy theories...
Given the actual conspiracies, I'd love to see what the tinfoil hats come up with that's worse.

Did you know that the dragons are actually renegade horrors that split off during the last invasion? They're trying to stop their brethren because they want the world all to themselves.
Also, Damien Knight is possessed by a powerful insect spirit which has been manipulating Ares affairs from day 1. All their smartguns contain a hidden piece of code that'll disable them at some predetermined date.
Ghoul Cabs are actually a front for Aztechnology. Those drivers aren't really Ghouls at all, they're just pretending so that when people start disappearing no-one suspects they've been taken to fuel blood magic rituals.

Man on the street responses:
"What on earth is a horror?"
"Uh huh... and Chicago?"
"Aztechnology? You serious? Those guys like restore rain forests and grow natural foods! The hell is blood magic anyway?"

AZ got very good PR

... which only makes the tinfoil-hatters more convinced that their theories are right ... AzTech is hiding lotsof things, after all.

Well if conspiracy nuts says there's something wrong with you, people are less inclined to believe that something is up (or so claim conspiracy nuts), heck maybe Aztech started the rumour to begin with... To put a big hamper in any public mistrust.

Someone's been reading Plan-9's character sheet?

...

Or mine?

That is subsumed under being a Paulbot, few people get along with them