DeathStrobe
Jul 21 2013, 07:28 PM
I was kind of wondering if there were any source books that go a bit more in detail about Lone Star or Knight Errant.
Procedures, policies, corporate hierarchy, corporate culture, etc.
I know there is a source book from SR2 dedicated to Lone Star, but it seems to be a bit difficult to find, and its not on RPGdrivethru.
So are there any books from SR4 that cover security companies? Or maybe a new one in production for SR5...? Yeah...you know...**wink wink hint hint**
Sunshine
Jul 21 2013, 07:49 PM
The only ressource I know of is the sr2 Lone Star Sourcebook. If you are looking for a ressource on police work I'd recomend GURPS Cops for it gives a good baseline for how policing can work in a roleplaying game and extrapolate into your shadowrun game universe.
love,
Sunshine
Slide
Jul 21 2013, 07:54 PM
I know a bit about law enforcement are you looking for anything in particular?
DeathStrobe
Jul 21 2013, 08:04 PM
QUOTE (Slide @ Jul 21 2013, 12:54 PM)

I know a bit about law enforcement are you looking for anything in particular?
I was actually just wondering mostly about the corporate structure of these companies more than anything.
I was also thinking about how many awakened would they have in their ranks. I have to assume they'd at least have a few, or even a small division dedicated to awakened threats.
Which now has me also thinking, they'd have to have a Matrix division to, to handle cyber crimes.
While normally runners will probably have to mostly interact with the beat cop, and probably bribing their way out of his good graces.
Anyway, I was mostly just trying to find some fluff to help flesh out an adept idea I had for a former Lone Star turned Shadowrunner.
Slide
Jul 21 2013, 08:23 PM
Ok, well coperate structure, this is pretty basic knowledge on my part but LS originated from texas and as far as I remember is still an independent corp. KE is whole owned by Ares and was where Damian Knight got his start. Both of them you can expect psudo military rankings. Officer, Corpral, Sargent, Lt, Major, Capt. Detectives fit into the comand structure but tend to be more atonomus. I would expect seperate divisions of for HTR, Matrix Security, Astral Security, and Accounting. Most of the leadership would of worked its way up through the ranks from beat cop, with a few profesional managers inserted by the corp.
Magic. Alright so here is the thing there is about 1% of the population that is awakended. Today the Seattle PD is at 1800 men. So if they have the same cross section of awakened the rest of seattle has that would put them at around 18. But then again KE is probably bigger (with the rise in Seattle pop, and extra funds) and they would seek out extra mages, so lets say 2500 men with 2% Awakened. thats 50 across the city. I would expect a higher number of adepts than mages because, well... mages can make a living doing non-physical things. Of these 50 you probably would have a few who are leadership roles, a few attached to HTR, and Asteral security. Maybe some of the Jrs are attached to normal precencts and still getting that on the job training. I mean not every mage is cut out for HTR.
Hope this helps give you some ideas.
GiraffeShaman
Jul 21 2013, 08:32 PM
Lonestar had a division of forensic magicians. I'm sure Knight Errant would have the same. I'm not sure how large it was though. The street name for them was "Dips." I think this was because the name was DIPS or some such. I think they are mentioned in the novel 2Xs, among other places.
Ah, I forgot the Division of Air Patrol. My Giraffe shaman character had one of those as a contact, since he's a pilot.
http://shadowrun.wikia.com/wiki/Lone_Star_Security_Services
kzt
Jul 21 2013, 08:43 PM
KE has a much deeper pool of bad asses. They run magical operations on orbital platforms in something like a -8 mana ebb. Their Firewatch teams appear to be run a corporate level, but are very, very serious people.
Plus they not only set off a nuke in the center of the 3rd largest city in UCAS, killing a huge number of people and got away with it, they then got PAID to resolve it.
GloriousRuse
Jul 22 2013, 03:01 AM
Generally speaking, I tend to view them as general capability and mindsets rather than specific organizational functions. Note that these do not represent Firewatch, KE Military, or LS HTR. You can extrapolate from there:
LS
Has a proud culture of being a cop's cop. They're professional enough to realize the value of drones, matrix activities, and magic but they Know that the beat cop, the lone ranger on the case, the detective who gets nice and personal with the witness are the key's to success. This creates an atmosphere where a degree of initiative is taken by even the lowest members, at the cost of higher rates of personal mishaps by their officers (corruption being the prime one, but PR incidents can be a close second), and a weaker bureaucracy.
Pros: They walk the beat, talk the beat, and know the beat and may have for years. The Ranger attitude encourages more individual initiative, they are all and all better at man to man sleuth work from beta cops building up informants to detectives running down metahuman leads..
Neutral: Equipping is adequate. Drone coverage is decent, but not prevalent, same for magic and matrix capabilities.
Cons: Analytically weak compared to similar size firms since no cop on the ground wants to embrace FBI-esque numbers crunching, veteran cops can be extremely prone to bribery if they're too valuable to move form their beat but not good/connected enough to move on up in the organization, the range of freedom exhibited by their ground pounders can lead to bureaucratic sloppiness and information loss.
KE
Embrace the Ares edge; gain overmatch on the criminal scum - and keep personnel costs reasonable - through the extensive used of technology, provided by Ares, of course. Combine these assets with processing power and intelligence specialists, and any case can be brought down by careful analysis and organizational acumen. Street cops are really just traditional sensors for the analytical machine and to provide the boots on the ground needed to deter criminals and secure the population. Your choice of God forbid someone tries to f*** with them in a firefight though.The touchy feely stuff can wait, right?
Pros: Very well equipped - both for a firefight and for providing streaming information for posterity. Excellent drone and sensory apparatus. A tight organization ensures rapid response times by coordinated elements. Strong central analytical teams can and will bring fine minds and the power of a AAA database and processors to bear on cracking evidence and disseminating information to street level units.
Neutral: there's a magical department - of course - and it does magic things, competently, but it isn't what makes KE. Despite the shock and awe of technology KE officers are still average combatants when it comes to training. Matrix activities are good at defending their drones and data- there's a lotta money in them- , but otherwise average with a focus on agents for most things rather than maintaining a huge fleet of spiders to cover all their wireless. Their people are flexible but not overly self-starting at the lower and inexperienced grades. Can leverage a AAA set of resources, but with a AAA's political limitations.
Cons: KE officers get trained on all sorts of toys, gadgets, organizational processes, legalese and just how to make that newest doo-dad they stuck in the squad car work. Which leaves precious little time for any training for actually, you know, dealing with people. That's OJT and is largely just left to the natural talents of the officers with some mandatory "how not say things that will PR smear the firm" classes. Your average KE officer is almost overloaded with technology and has both a trusting confidence in it, over reliance on it at times and has actual knowledge of it that is perhaps powerpoint deep beyond making it work. Finally, the strong central analysis teams tend to prioritize assets against a few cases so minor issues will be left to man on the ground (well, really the local precinct) to figure out with little more than the toys they may or may not know and a few detectives (but god forbid you make it onto the list of cases to be prioritized)
Wakshaani
Jul 22 2013, 01:43 PM
QUOTE (DeathStrobe @ Jul 21 2013, 01:28 PM)

I was kind of wondering if there were any source books that go a bit more in detail about Lone Star or Knight Errant.
Procedures, policies, corporate hierarchy, corporate culture, etc.
I know there is a source book from SR2 dedicated to Lone Star, but it seems to be a bit difficult to find, and its not on RPGdrivethru.
So are there any books from SR4 that cover security companies? Or maybe a new one in production for SR5...? Yeah...you know...**wink wink hint hint**

The 2nd edition Lone Star Handbook is the holy grail of this stuff and, as noted, has been hibernating for nearly twenty years now. Not too far behind it is the Corporate Security Handbook. Both of these would be something rather good to update, I'd say.