Help - Search - Members - Calendar
Full Version: Criminal Record
Dumpshock Forums > Discussion > Shadowrun
toturi
A Criminal Record can theorectically be applied to anyone who spent time in the joint. But what happens if your Criminal Record was from another country? Say a spy was caught by country A and convicted(like the usually fraudulent charges North Korea levels at foreigners) and he is sent back to Seattle, what happens?
Siege
Probably nothing - a criminal record in another country hardly matters unless there is a warrant for your arrest and the host country has an extradition treaty.

Having a criminal record is grounds to be denied entry to a country, but not from being deported to the country if it's your place of birth.

-Siege
toturi
Yes, but he still has that Criminal SIN right? So the corp cops can still give him a hard time, yes?

The reason for this thread is that I was reading about the various Presidents and other big shots who spent time in jail and thus have a Criminal Record IRL but are still big shots after they get out. So are the German cops giving Anwar Ibrahim a hard time (no pun intended)?
mfb
i would say your criminal SIN follows you. realistically, ever 'runner should have been arrested at least once, and should have done at least a little jail time, unless they're just starting out. the Criminal SIN flaw, to me, means that either you got pinned with something really, really big (murder 1 or other major felony), or you just have a face that cops love to pick on. if the SIN only applied to one country, people would make characters with criminal SINs in the NAN, and then do all their running in Seattle. sure, once in a while, the GM could send 'em on an NAN run, but for the most part, the flaw wouldn't be worth 6 points.
Siege
If they can be bothered to care, I suppose so.

In reality, odds are the cops won't know about the particular subject's crimes (if any) abroad unless they have a specific reason to do a thorough background check on him.

In SR - yes, a criminal SIN. Although if he immigrated legally, he'd probably also have a legitimate SIN with a couple of colorful footnotes. At least a visitor's SIN or a new SIN for Country B, although in Country A he'd still have the criminal SIN.

That's my take on it anyway - there wouldn't be anything to enforce as he hasn't broken any laws in Country B, provided, of course, he's there legally.

-Siege
RedmondLarry
If someone trys to design their Flaw so it has no game effect, then it shouldn't count as a Flaw. It should just count as character background.
Ol' Scratch
Then again there's already plenty of Flaws in the game that have no game effect such as Vindictive or Compulsion, A GM can take advantage of them, sure, but they still have no actual game effect.

That said, Police Record isn't one of those types of flaws. It doesn't matter where you were imprisoned -- you now have a record and your prints, DNA, implants, face, and history are on file and accessable to security and police forces (including Lone Star even if Lone Star wasn't the one who arrested you to begin with). If he somehow manages to ditch the record or render it a moot point (by changing his face, getting DNA masking, hacking in and erasing all the files somehow, etc.), he no longer has a Police Record and the flaw is replaced with other Flaws equal to the its 6-point value. I believe that's even explicitly written into the Police Record flaw.
Kagetenshi
If someone goes through extensive DNA alterations to evade the record, Borrowed Time wouldn't be unreasonable.

~J
toturi
QUOTE (Doctor Funkenstein)
If he somehow manages to ditch the record or render it a moot point (by changing his face, getting DNA masking, hacking in and erasing all the files somehow, etc.), he no longer has a Police Record and the flaw is replaced with other Flaws equal to the its 6-point value. I believe that's even explicitly written into the Police Record flaw.

No, the exact quote is:

QUOTE
If the character's record is expunged or the character successfully ditches his/her past life, the gamemaster may replace the Police Record Flaw with Hung Out to Dry...


The GM may choose to replace it with another Flaw/s of equivalent value, it is not a requirement.
Luke Hardison
The question of international criminal records came up in my police department training recently. Right now, if you were trying to get into an extradition-treaty country as a US citizen, they would run your name and any applicable ID's (DL, ID, or SSN) through a federal organization. (my trainer wasn't exactly sure which one would do the check, possible through the embassy) The fed. org. would run your info through NCIC, the national criminal database, to see if you were reported wanted by any organization in the US. If you weren't, welcome to the country. They don't care what you've done, so long as you've done your time. Same goes with immigrants coming into the US from another country ... they'll check the national database, and if you're not a criminal then it doesn't matter.

It happened to our department recently. Ours is the city PD over a large college town. A south Korean student was given several traffic tickets. The next day he left to return to Korea. He thumbed his nose at the officer a bit and wound up just this side of arrested, with 4 citations and a warning. He wasn't wanted yet by the time he left the country, and wouldn't become wanted for over a month, as his Failure to Appear citations piled up and he eventually got a warrent issued. It didn't come back to bite him in the ass until he had to return to the country about six months later. By that time he had warrants out of our county for FTA, and he was picked up by another state agency for us. I think his fine total was over $4k.
GrinderTheTroll
Personally, I won't let my runners take flaws that let them escape consequences. If nothing more than them getting nervous around cops, or getting worried some Interpol detective comes snooping around looking for them.

Edges and Flaws are great role-playing mechanisms IMO. They don't add huge gameplay bonuses, but I don't like to give away the goodies for free either.
SimpleRunner
I have a character that has a Police Record and I play it just as that. I walk into a Casino I expect Security to say "Sorry but you shouldn't be here" or "Get the Frell out of here". I also expect that if I am walking down the street and a cop drives by that I expect to get questioned about anything that happened in the 2 miles surrounding the area I may be in. I play this way as my character did do the crime and the time.

The player seriously needs to understand the role of that Flaw. The GM does need to give a little and not make it so hindering as to not take it but should make it part of the on-going story.
Siege
4k? 4k?

Eat that, you obnoxious college brat. grinbig.gif

-Siege
This is a "lo-fi" version of our main content. To view the full version with more information, formatting and images, please click here.
Dumpshock Forums © 2001-2012