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Da9iel
I've been wondering exactly how much sense the shadowrunning profession makes. I know, don't mess with the system--it's fun and it works, but wouldn't it actually make a lot more sense especially for the big corps to raise their own covert teams in-house and off the books using plausible deniability. (I've always wanted to say plausible deniability.) Hiring outsiders just doesn't seem to make sense unless the corp is too small to have its own force, but I've seen tons of runs hired out by Renraku, Aztechnology, etc. What say you?
Zazen
How plausible do you want your deniability?

When you hire runners the right way, they don't know they're working for you. That makes it pretty easy to deny. When one of those in-house guys gets caught, gets greedy, or gets tracked down, that's less easy to deny.
Connor
unless those in-house guys don't know who they 'really' work for.
Da9iel
I guess you're right Zazen. I was just thinking about the old Mission Impossible shows. "US Gov't denies any knowledge yadda yadda self destruct in 10 seconds." Something like that anyway.

Connor might have a good point, but it might just be easier with the current system.
Xirces
I think there's some room for both, but the SR community will be very small to the point where it doesn't exist. Certainly nobody would advertise the fact and media coverage, shoe deals etc would not happen for runners (but I'm not going to start on that here).

In-house agents would be assigned more routine jobs - where utmost secrecy is not required. No matter how good they are and how unknown they are there is a link back to your corp. The jobs are also likely to be intermittent - having highly skilled operatives sitting around playing cards is not cost-efficient.

As a runner you don't know who you're working for unless they tell you or you snoop around to find out (which should be the first thing any runner does). Since there's another thread about Harlequin that shows some great examples of this.

There's also the issue of risk - if an employee is injured or killed you as the corp have to take some responsibility for it - a corp employee will have life insurance, death benefits, pensions etc. If a runner dies on the job nobody cares - it doesn't cost the corp anything and Mr J just hands over a bundle of cred at the end.

I think the best comparison is to look at modern day consultants (I actually work for an IT security consultancy). The skill levels required are high as are salaries, but a typical client will not have constant need for someone of that calibre so it makes sense to come to us when there's a specific job to do. Sure the payments might seem high (if you're paying a couple of grand a day it stacks up), but the alternative is to have someone on staff (costing maybe 100k+ a year (salary is only a part of the cost of emplying someone)). Then what happens when that person is ill or on holiday? Are they spending their whole time utilising the skills you're paying for?

Just from a purely financial aspect consultants and thus shadowrunners make sense to corps.
Siege
It seems unlikely that Mitsuhama would subcontract their spec ops people out to Ares given

1) cost of training
2) political ramifications if identified

Not to start the endless cycle of "yes, runners could exist" and "no, they couldn't" debate.

Although with memory wipes, it's possible mega-corps might hire soldiers who sell their bodies to the Company and agree to have a complete memory wipe upon mustering out, provided they survive.

-Siege
toturi
There are in-house forces, they are called company men. The problem with company men are that they are not as deniable as regular runners. Company men take jobs almost exclusively from the company they are allied with and never against that company. So unless they are really good at covering their jobs, they can be traced and the probability that they will be traced to you is higher. It might not be something they can take to court with, but now they know.
Eyeless Blond
Okay, so is anyone going to play devil's advocate and say that shadowrunners (perhaps better called "supplemental security/informational contractors" biggrin.gif) could not possibly exist, particularly in the world as presented in the SR sourcebooks? Right now all I see is a bunch of people agreeing with each other. smile.gif
Siege
Wait until Bit shows up. He makes good points for the "shadowrunners are polite fiction" faction.

-Siege
BitBasher
You must be thinking of someone else unless I was just playing devil's advocate some day. I don't remember ever saying that, but that doesn't mean I didn't! biggrin.gif

I think that SR's in the context of the game world are a necessity because of the draconian consequences of what happens of a Mega is hit and can prove who did it to the Corporate Court. Direct action that affects another corp's bottom line is expressly forbidden by the CC.

---------------------------------
Now, to argue the other side, realistically, the amount of Nyuen spent on security alone to thwart SR's is probably FAR greater than the cash any company makes from the results of those runs. The corps lose tons of cash every year because of the SR mentality. It is a losing proposition. Furthermore the shadow community only exists because they corps allow them to. There is no such thing as the "good SR against the evil corps" because the "evil corps" foor the bill for pretty much the entire shadow community.
Phaeton
All this further adds to my belief that half of the cyberpunk writers of the '80s were needlessly pessimistic dorks... :/
Siege
I don't know about dorks, but they were pessimistic. That defines the genre.

And I don't know I'll buy needless, either. Besides defining the genre, suspense is a lot easier to develop with an oppressive atmosphere than a more "sunshine and flowers" feeling.

-Siege
Phaeton
Yeah. Still...Sometimes there are times when the cables of my suspension of disbelief are snapped because to me it just dant make no sense...Even fiction can seem absurd at times. Ah well. I'm nitpicking.

...As usual. nyahnyah.gif


~Phaeton

EDIT: Hey, "Neuromancer" wasn't necessarily pessimistic---just gritty. So the genre isn't ALWAYS pessimistic...
Siege
I used to think that until I had brief access to the uncensored police files.

Absurd has been redefined since then. grinbig.gif

I always have to look at fiction with the thought "ok, supposing this and this, then this happens...alright, run with it."

But yes, I do know what you mean about suspending disbelief, not hanging it from the neck until dead.

-Siege
Eyeless Blond
QUOTE (BitBasher @ May 30 2004, 12:03 PM)
Now, to argue the other side, realistically, the amount of Nyuen spent on security alone to thwart SR's is probably FAR greater than the cash any company makes from the results of those runs. The corps lose tons of cash every year because of the SR mentality. It is a losing proposition. Furthermore the shadow community only exists because they corps allow them to. There is no such thing as the "good SR against the evil corps" because the "evil corps" foor the bill for pretty much the entire shadow community.

Actually I'd say this *is* why Shadowrunners make sense. It's also why we've had antitrust laws for the past hundred years, and why the Guilded Age of the late 19th century--the ultimate result of any pure capitalist system--is looked upon as such a problem. Whenever a corporation becomes very large, it becomes independent of economic forces like competition. Such corporations act in their own self-interest, just as before, but now their own self-interest is no longer inherently tied to the welfare of the market as a whole, merely their own well-being. In that economic context, it makes sense to hire shadowrunners, because it forces all the other corps to spend even more money on security than that corp ever would on the runners themselves.

This is also the main reson that some people are so nervous about the increasing number of free trade agreements. Free trade means that larger corps can move their main offices to places that have fewer laws, in particular antitrust laws. This increases the potential for true extranationality for large corporations.
Phaeton
...Um...No habla Legalese? question.gif Sorry. I think that went over my head. Economics is far from being my forte...
Sahandrian
QUOTE (Phaeton)
...Um...No habla Legalese? question.gif Sorry. I think that went over my head. Economics is far from being my forte...

That basically boils down to: very big companies have so much power over their field that competition isn't an issue for them. Thus they have no need to look better than other companies, and have no reason to care about what they do to the market / their consumers.
FlakJacket
I generally thought that Shadowrunners were used for their ultiate deniability whicl company men were used for jobs where the corp didn't want anyone outside the corporation to know about it.
Phaeton
@ Sahandrian: Ahhhhhhh...Got it.

@ FlakJacket: That makes sense. Seems like a logical rationale to me, at any rate.
Abstruse
Translation: When a company gets big, it doesn't have to worry about the economy. 10,000 people get laid off, the value of the dollar drops to 1/10 what it was before, whatever. Doesn't matter. They're still there and they still have the market share. As far as they're concerned, they ARE the market. Ares isn't going out of business and doesn't have to worry about going out of business. They're so spread out and control so much of the market, they have a solid base that's going to support them no matter what the economy does. Luxury clothing stores having a bad year because of recession? The cheapo place in the mall is making up for it. No one's flying because of terrorist scares? They build cars, they own the trains, they make up the losses there.

Therefore, the only real thing the megas have to worry about are the other megas. You want your competition to waste money? Start hitting them so they spend money upgrading security (Oh, you happen to own a security company like Knight Errant? Lucky you!). This applies across the board, from the MCT North American HQ in Seattle (who I believe uses KE for security as well as in-house forces) to the small subsidiary owned through 5 holding companies. You hit the HQ or the subsidiary (either one), you're taking money from the pockets of the corporation on two levels -- the loss of whatever you take as well as the budget they have to allocate to security instead of R&D or whatever.

The point of the matter is, though, why use shadow assets instead of in-house forces? In-house forces can be extracted, killed and ID'd, bribed, captured, leave a stand of hair for DNA identification, etc. You think MCT's going to pay Knight Errant to run their security when KE's parent company Ares is the reason they need to up security in the first place? Nope. So you hire deniable assets. If a shadowrunner gets killed or any of those things, doesn't matter. They ID the runner, and they don't find ties to Ares. Even if they capture the runners and get that their employer was Ares (if the runners even knew in the first place), all Ares has to do is say "Wasn't us. Maybe Renraku hired them claiming to be us." No proof, no reprocussions or reparations via the Corporate Court.

"But what if the corp gets the runners and they ID the Mr. J, and the corp connects HIM to Ares?" Easy. "Renraku must have disgused their man as one of ours. That guy was found dead -- wait, hang on...*BLAM BLAM* -- found dead three days ago."

The Abstruse One
Fresno Bob
Eeeeeexactly.
Glyph
Also remember that even the most repressive governments still have rebels, reformers, and revolutionaries. Not every shadowrunner exists solely at the capricious whim of the megacorps. I don't buy the "megacorps are all-powerful" mentality. They are monolithic entities that collectively control most of the world, either directly or indirectly, but they are not all-seeing and all-knowing. Don't get me wrong, I like the main internal conflict of Shadowrun (idealism versus realizing you are only part of the system you think you are "fighting" against).

But runners don't exist because the megacorporations smugly and compacently allow them to... they exist because of their paranoia, short-sightedness, and vicious internal battles. In a way, they are a symbol of how greed and the use of violence can cause things to escalate beyond your control. You will have runners who can eventually influence the megacorporations by their actions (think Hardwired by Walter Jon Williams). You will also have runners who are either idealists, crazies, or genuine rebels, who will choose their own targets.
BitBasher
Actually glyph, my statement of "SR's exist only because corps allow them to" is taken directly fromt he corp download where it's explicitly stated that should they so decide, the Megas could destoy the entire shadow market. That's a canon viewpoint.
Phaeton
Shadowrun is quickly beginning to have about as much logic behind it as why the Machines use the humans for fuel in the Matrix films when they really don't have to...
Eyeless Blond
QUOTE (BitBasher)
Actually glyph, my statement of "SR's exist only because corps allow them to" is taken directly fromt he corp download where it's explicitly stated that should they so decide, the Megas could destoy the entire shadow market. That's a canon viewpoint.

Actually that's the corp's viewpoint. In the same way, it's the US's viewpoint that the rest of the world wants to be "free," that is, exactly like they are.

Shadowrunners exist because the economics of extranational megacorporate monopolies make them a clear and necessary result. In the same way, such monopolies serve to widen the gap between the very rich and the very poor, decrease the overall quality of life for everyone for the sake of the few rich people in charge of it all, cause environmental degradation, and encourage economic and social stagnation. It's just how that kind of world works.
Siege
QUOTE (BitBasher)
Actually glyph, my statement of "SR's exist only because corps allow them to" is taken directly fromt he corp download where it's explicitly stated that should they so decide, the Megas could destoy the entire shadow market. That's a canon viewpoint.

I would suggest that the corporate viewpoint might be more wishful thinking than have any real basis in fact.

-Siege
Cain
QUOTE (BitBasher)
Actually glyph, my statement of "SR's exist only because corps allow them to" is taken directly fromt he corp download where it's explicitly stated that should they so decide, the Megas could destoy the entire shadow market. That's a canon viewpoint.

Translation: You can cut off your nose to spite your face.
booklord
QUOTE
When a company gets big, it doesn't have to worry about the economy. 10,000 people get laid off, the value of the dollar drops to 1/10 what it was before, whatever. Doesn't matter. They're still there and they still have the market share. As far as they're concerned, they ARE the market. Ares isn't going out of business and doesn't have to worry about going out of business. They're so spread out and control so much of the market, they have a solid base that's going to support them no matter what the economy does. Luxury clothing stores having a bad year because of recession? The cheapo place in the mall is making up for it. No one's flying because of terrorist scares? They build cars, they own the trains, they make up the losses there.


This only holds true if you think of megacorps as big, singular entities. They're not. Megacorps consist of hundreds if not thousands of executives and managers who have the authority and resources to hire shadowrunners and are striving to make sure there own separate divisions are profitable and scucessful. It may not harm Ares to have a bad year on luxury clothes, but somewhere within Ares there is a mid-level manager whose job is on the line and he will do what it takes even hire shadowrunners to get the job done.

So lets say that an Ares manager in charge of luxury clothes sales in Milwaukee needs to boost his sales and knock the competition down a few pegs by sabotaging his competition's facilities. Is he going to go to the Ares head office and request some in-house forces for this operation? Absolutely not. He'd be laughed at. So he goes into his budget and gets a little money from miscellanious expenses and hires himself some low-level shadowrunners.

This is how Shadowrunners got started. From low-level operations. But as time went on a number of shadowrunners got stronger and more skilled. A new resource unveiled itself to the megacorps. Skilled shadowrunners who could perform as well as in-house company men, were more deniable, and were expendable. ( After all the megacorp didn't front the expense of their training ) Obviously a megacorp would be foolish to ignore this resource. And so shadowrunners became used in more critical operations.

Shev
Yes, but in this case, a canon viewpoint need not be entirely correct. Sure, if all the megas just stopped using shadowrunner and turned on them all, they could feasibly wipe out most of them. However, that has about as much chance as today's companies completely stopping outsourcing jobs (and for some of the same reasons).

So I have to agree with Glyph: The Megas own paranoia and greed keep the shadows alive and healthy.
Crimsondude 2.0
Besides, the Big Ten don't control the entire economy, hire all people, or pervade ALL manner of society everywhere and every time. There is a myriad collection of other actors from governments to smaller corps to radical nutjobs to ordinary people.

People who can steal, kill, or prevent the latter two will always be necessary and in demand.

But the thing is, there are different uses for clandestine and covert operatives. The governments have long used clandestine forces for their own purposes, and covert activity when they really need deniability. In some cases they will go in-house (and the U.S., for example, has a lot of people it can use in-house) for clandestine or covert operations, or it may have to go offsite and hire someone as an agent for the government, preferably with sufficient subterfuge to create plausible deniability with the target and with itself.

Same thing still applies with SRs. The only difference is that SRs are generally freelance deniable assets (which is to say a long-term deniable asset {such as a deep cover intelligence agent who's been working with a CSO for years} can still be on a lot of people's payrolls).

And to use a current life analogy, there has been in the last ten years a tenfold increase in private military service providers. In this case a government (say, the U.S.) can hire a firm run by retired British military personnel, which also hires former military/intelligence personnel from countries such, say, South Africa, to have the South Africans deployed to, say, Iraq, and have the SAs operating on behalf of the USG through an intermediary which may create various levels of plausible deniability from the firm concealing the client's identity to the SAs to simply saying that they do not talk about their clients if the SAs squeal on Sandline.

That's pretty simple (and not very covert, relatively speaking), but the point is whether the USG wants to hire some former South African commandos to engage in some manner of clandestine activity (which is a given in this equation that, above all, no one should get CAUGHT) where if they are caught or killed there is some deniability, or they can use Army Special Forces, who, if compromised, might make a little bit harder to deny their presence and the op.
mfb
indeed. hire--oops, contract some mercs--oops, contractors to secure a certain area in an unfriendly zone. when the secure the fuck out of everything that moves--men, women, children, cats, and wind-blown curtains--well, it's not our fault our contractors overstepped the bounds of their contract.
Kagetenshi
QUOTE (Abstruse)
Therefore, the only real thing the megas have to worry about are the other megas. You want your competition to waste money? Start hitting them so they spend money upgrading security (Oh, you happen to own a security company like Knight Errant? Lucky you!).

If I remember correctly, in the Shadowrun timeline some of the first Shadowruns happened in a corporate war between two large insurance companies. One of the things that made me fall in love with the world.

Shadowrunners make a damn sight more sense than the humans being the Matrix power source. Sure, the corps might all be better off if runs didn't happen; ever hear of the Prisoner's Dilemma?

~J
Cain
To a certain extent, Shadowrunning happens nowadays. It's called "corporate espionage". The violent sabotage runs haven't been common, but those used to happen around the early 1900's. And yes, they used deniable assets then, too.
kevyn668
QUOTE (Kagetenshi)
QUOTE (Abstruse @ May 30 2004, 01:44 PM)
Therefore, the only real thing the megas have to worry about are the other megas.  You want your competition to waste money?  Start hitting them so they spend money upgrading security (Oh, you happen to own a security company like Knight Errant?  Lucky you!).

If I remember correctly, in the Shadowrun timeline some of the first Shadowruns happened in a corporate war between two large insurance companies. One of the things that made me fall in love with the world.

Shadowrunners make a damn sight more sense than the humans being the Matrix power source. Sure, the corps might all be better off if runs didn't happen; ever hear of the Prisoner's Dilemma?

~J

1) Wasn't that the thing in Atlanta? From The Neo-Anachists Guid to North America?

2) Prisoner's Delima...I hated that thing back in my college days. smile.gif
A Rodent of Unusual Size
Shadowrunners make a lot more sense if there's only a handful of them. Having hundreds of them in Seattle alone is just silly, even moreso when you have mainstream cyberware that starts getting named after them.

When I'm GMing, I usually assume there's maybe 50 to 60 of them worldwide (if that many), and most of them know one another by reputation if not name.
Abstruse
No way, there'd be more. From the high-level runners to the bargin basement muppets to the bored rich kid wanna-bes, there's going to be a few of them around. Plus there's so many areas in which runners are proficient (B&E, infiltration, information gathering, wetwork, etc), so many different corps of different levels, organizations other than corps hiring runners (policlubs, governments, organized crime, etc) that if there were only 50-100 runners in the world, they'd be swamped with business and charging outrageous rates and so generalized they wouldn't be as effective. It makes more sense for every major city to have a thriving shadow community, esp in cities like Seattle where you have so much going on at once. You have three or four top level teams, five to ten mid-level teams, and about twenty low-level teams. Each team will have three to five members, so that means about 100 runners just to support the bare minimum for a city like Seattle, and those crews would be working constantly. Remember, most runners only take on one run a month or so, maybe two. Then you have teams that specialize so much they cover areas other groups can't cover as well. For a city hosting regional HQs for (I believe) seven of the ten Megacorps, offices for quite a few AA-rated corps, and who knows how many A-rated or lower, not even mentioning the subsidiaries of those companies...there's a HUGE market for shadowrunners in Seattle all over the spectrum. Where there's a demand for a service, esp. in an area like this, someone's going to be there to provide those services.

The Abstruse One
A Rodent of Unusual Size
The lower end of the spectrum are just gangers in my opinion; snatch-and-grab, intimidation jobs, and stuff like that isn't what the pros get paid for. Posers are just that and either become real runners or die. Beyond that, you have either real runners which are rare or out-and-out mercs.

My problem is that the demand isn't that high, despite what the game wants us to believe. There would have to be runs in operation 24/7 in every city and every town of every state of every country to maintain the level of work they protray. I don't much care for that.
Kagetenshi
Honestly, I find the concept of runner "teams" to be rather silly, an artifact created by the RPG group. It seems a lot more likely to me that people would be, for the most part, hired individually for a given job rather than as a group. The J needs a Streetsam and a Rigger? He hires them. They decide they need a Face and two Deckers? They subcontract.

~J
Abstruse
With a market that large, there probably would be. Like I said, look at the numbers of corporations (both large and small), the number of policlubs, the number of governments all bordering right there...FASA and FanPro have made sure there's a large enough market in Seattle for runs to be going on all the time.

One thing you also need to remember is the level of turn-over in the shadows. Those low-level teams are much more likely to take losses, the top-tier people get enough money to retire, people step up to take their places. All those random people posting on Shadowland in the books? 3/4 of them are probably dead. That's why names that keep popping up are legends in the game world (Fastjack, Argent, Hatchetman, Smiling Bandit, etc). They're good enough they can stay alive for a decade still running the shadows.

The Abstruse One
Crimsondude 2.0
QUOTE (kevyn668 @ May 31 2004, 12:01 AM)
QUOTE (Kagetenshi @ May 31 2004, 12:13 AM)

If I remember correctly, in the Shadowrun timeline some of the first Shadowruns happened in a corporate war between two large insurance companies. One of the things that made me fall in love with the world.
~J

1) Wasn't that the thing in Atlanta? From The Neo-Anachists Guid to North America?

Yes, the Insurance Wars in Atlanta between Cord Mutual and North American Eagle Insurance.
QUOTE (Timeline Explorer)

2035 - In Atlanta, Georgia, CAS, The Insurance War. Cord Mutual Insurance and North American Eagle Life Insurance wage a semi-covert war over the insurance contract for all employees of the CAS government. On June 8, six Geas jets explode simultaneously in flight from their Atlanta departure point. Geas Airline is insured by North American Eagle Life Insurance which pays out huge sums both for the jets and the relatives of slain passengers. No connection is made with Cord Mutual. A sweep of assassinations of vidstars and entertainment personalities across the continent, especially in Atlanta, follows. Eventually North American Eagle's corporate investigators make a connection between one of the assassinations and Cord Mutual. North American Eagle begins funding a terrorist organization known as the Medusa Sisterhood to retaliate against Cord Mutual. The Medusa Sisterhood makes a series of vandalous attacks on Cord Mutual-Insured corporations and individuals. Cord Mutual responds with attacks against the Medusa Sisterhood as well as North American Eagle. What began as a clandestine corporate power struggle becomes a bloody war, claiming the lives of hundreds of insured. (Neo-Anarchist's Guide to North America)


According to SR canon, shadowrunning more or less began during the Industrial Revolution in the late 19th century, involving the oil and railroad industries, Pinkteron and Well Fargo, and the proto-union movement.

Also, TT puts the number of real SRs in Seattle at ~150. It puts that same figure as the total for all of TT. But that was before the Rinelle came around...
Crimsondude 2.0
QUOTE (Kagetenshi @ May 31 2004, 01:06 AM)
Honestly, I find the concept of runner "teams" to be rather silly, an artifact created by the RPG group. It seems a lot more likely to me that people would be, for the most part, hired individually for a given job rather than as a group. The J needs a Streetsam and a Rigger? He hires them. They decide they need a Face and two Deckers? They subcontract.

~J

Meh.

Some groups specialize. Some just bring a history of cohesion and teamwork when they join the shadows.

Others... just get comfortable with a couple of people.

Or there's always my favorite example, from Heat, where the crew buys into what might be considered a run in a SR setting.


OTOH, calling it a fictional device doesn't really deprive it of validity anymore than, say, Plato's Noble Lie, or any ideology or dogma, any legal fiction which exists under the law, or even something we just lie to ourselves about. It's actually in pretty good company insofar as it's a fiction construct which is manifested in the way we play the game.

kevyn668
Rinelle?
Crimsondude 2.0
Rebels of the Spire. They're a revolutionary group in TT that arose sometime around 2059.

Check the timeline.
Atrox
QUOTE (Kagetenshi)
Honestly, I find the concept of runner "teams" to be rather silly, an artifact created by the RPG group. It seems a lot more likely to me that people would be, for the most part, hired individually for a given job rather than as a group. The J needs a Streetsam and a Rigger? He hires them. They decide they need a Face and two Deckers? They subcontract.

~J

Not necessarily.

Sure, if the op is largely above-board (like that happens often), people will hire extras, just like the corps do. The sole criterion in that case would be that the person hired know their job.
But this isn't the normal economy. You need to have a good deal of trust to work with someone on a run, and not just in his technical skill as a gunsel/decker/spellslinger/whatever. There are a number of unknowns with a stranger that wouldn't exist with someone I've worked with before. Rep offsets that, to a degree, but not entirely, because rep can be wrong, and may, in any case, hide a LE operative. The guy I've worked with for five years is a known quantity.
The movie Heist suggested a crew of thieves working together for a considerable number of jobs simply because they could rely on each other, and shows what happens when that trust is broken.
Atrox
QUOTE (Crimsondude 2.0 @ May 31 2004, 08:17 AM)
Also, TT puts the number of real SRs in Seattle at ~150. It puts that same figure as the total for all of TT. But that was before the Rinelle came around...

True, but that's full-time professional runners. Plenty of gangers and/or OC hoods supplement their income by doing the occasional shadow job. For some kinds of work, it's more cost-effective for the corp to hire the Stilettos than a runner team.

You're a Stuffer Shack exec and want to drive down McHugh's. Which is better, a team of SRs cracking their HQ, or a bunch of gangers just hanging out in their restaurants for a few weeks?
Backgammon
Commenting on a few points:

QUOTE

Whenever a corporation becomes very large, it becomes independent of economic forces like competition


But NOT political forces, as witnessed by the Fall of Fuchi. Shadowrunners can be tools, perhaps the greatest tools, in political battles. Sometimes delaying the time-to-market of that new fighter plane control system doesn't just mean loss of revenue. Due to the corporate/shareholder short-sighted mentality of having to find who is responsible for a fuck-up, and punishing him, it means someone ass. So a successful shadowrun can often have far more political ramifications that any other manoeuvre that a rival corp can do.

QUOTE

Honestly, I find the concept of runner "teams" to be rather silly, an artifact created by the RPG group. It seems a lot more likely to me that people would be, for the most part, hired individually for a given job rather than as a group. The J needs a Streetsam and a Rigger? He hires them. They decide they need a Face and two Deckers? They subcontract.


While I generally agree with that, the need to having to trust who you work with will eventually become very important. Why take a chance with someone you don't know? Will he perform well? Will he keep his mouth shut? Will he betray you? When you're working with people you know, many of those concerns fade. Sure, you'll never know if they'll betray you at some point, but you will know what their capable of, and you'll be able to read them somewhat. That peace of mind is worth a lot. That's from a runner's perspective, of course, but a wise J will recognise that hiring a team, as opposed to a bunch of random people, is going to be more effective.

On a side note, I think many people here would find The Corporation, now in theatres (trailers here), or the book that spawned it very interesting.
Kagetenshi
A J will also know that the more time the runners spend watching their backs against each other, the less time they'll be spending tracking the J's identity and connections down.

~J
Backgammon
Which comes down somewhat to the in-house team VS runner team. It's a tradeoff between one thing and another, being in this case Secrecy VS Performance.

Depends what the Johnson wants. But my point is, you can see why a runner team isn't improbable.
Kagetenshi
I can see why a group of runners that frequently work together isn't improbable. I don't see how the "even-the-Otaku-shows-up-when-the-J-hires-us-to-intimidate-gangers" style of cohesive runner team (the kind that actually considers themselves a team) is probable in more than a very few cases. I'd say out of 150 runners there'd probably be maybe five actual teams.

~J
Glyph
In that case, it's a matter of realism versus letting the players who have showed up to game play their characters. The primary purpose of Shadowrun is to have fun, and it's not fun to drive to the weekly game, then have to sit there watching everybody else play because they don't need your character's specialty for the current run.

If contriving something for everyone to do all of the time messes up the realism for you, though, there is a possible solution. Have the players each make two or three characters, say that everyone knows each other reasonably well, and then have the player use the character that fits the mission parameters for each run.
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