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Message no. 1
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Jane van Roekel)
Subject: How do they get away with it?
Date: Sun Jun 17 23:55:01 2001
Hi,
I am new to Shadowrun, I have played a couple of times, and now I want to
run a game. IRL, I am a very law-abiding person and what I don't really
understand is how do Shadowrunners not get arrested or beat up all the time
for what they do? If they kill security guards and steal something from a
corporation, then isn't that corp going to be mad and hunt them down? If the
runners got wounded and bled anywhere, then the corp has DNA sample for a
ritual sending, or for Lone Star to match to a SIN.
And then the SIN thing, how does that work? I have read lots of explanations
and descriptions on the 'net, but I am still confused. Your credstick
contains your SIN and your account details? So you can do on-paper
transactions and not carry any cash? And registered credsticks are
registered as being worth a certain amount of money, so they act as cash?
And your keys? Does that mean you can't lend your keys to anyone? If you
copy them, does the copy have to be attached to a SIN in a credstick to
work? Also, if you use a fake ID, then as soon as someone checks up on that
ID (say by ringing the supposed phone number, or contacting the supposed
employer), then the ID is blown, because the person doesn't exist? Or is a
fake ID actually someone else's ID and some poor harmless factory worker
somewhere is getting the blame for what the runners do with his ID?

Thanks for any help

Jane

_________________________________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com.
Message no. 2
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Steve Collins)
Subject: How do they get away with it?
Date: Mon Jun 18 00:55:01 2001
On 6/17/01 10:58 pm, Jane van Roekel said:

>Hi,
>I am new to Shadowrun, I have played a couple of times, and now I want to
>run a game. IRL, I am a very law-abiding person and what I don't really
>understand is how do Shadowrunners not get arrested or beat up all the time
>for what they do? If they kill security guards and steal something from a
>corporation, then isn't that corp going to be mad and hunt them down? If the
>runners got wounded and bled anywhere, then the corp has DNA sample for a
>ritual sending, or for Lone Star to match to a SIN.
>And then the SIN thing, how does that work? I have read lots of explanations
>and descriptions on the 'net, but I am still confused. Your credstick
>contains your SIN and your account details? So you can do on-paper
>transactions and not carry any cash? And registered credsticks are
>registered as being worth a certain amount of money, so they act as cash?
>And your keys? Does that mean you can't lend your keys to anyone? If you
>copy them, does the copy have to be attached to a SIN in a credstick to
>work? Also, if you use a fake ID, then as soon as someone checks up on that
>ID (say by ringing the supposed phone number, or contacting the supposed
>employer), then the ID is blown, because the person doesn't exist? Or is a
>fake ID actually someone else's ID and some poor harmless factory worker
>somewhere is getting the blame for what the runners do with his ID?
>
>Thanks for any help
>
>Jane
>

Simple cost benefit analysis, there is no profit in revenge. While the
corp might enjoy exacting it they aren't going to do anything if they
can't make it profitable.

As far as ritual sending, yeah they could do that but 99% of the time the
corp has far more important things to do with it's scarce magical
resources than to go after some criminals who hit one of their facilities
last night, usually like protecting the other facilities that havn't been
hit yet. This plus the fact that most running teams can match most mid
level corps in available magical talent and where the megacorps will have
much more magical resources at their disposal it is usually scattered all
over the globe and gathering enough together at one place to off the
group through a ritual will weaken security all over the globe.
Definately not worth it.

For the Star, remember they are a Corp as well. Yeah if you are stupid
and fall into their lap they'll bust you for whatever they can. However
they are going to expend the minimum amount of resources necessary to
capture any criminal and nor tick off their employers. You do at least a
halfway decent job of covering your tracks and they don't do more than a
cursory investigation cause it would be far too expensive to really find
you.

It is important to note however that Runners who always leave multi
million nuyen in damage and body counts in the dozens will quickly rise
to the status of public enemy #1 and yes it will all of a sudden be
worthwhile for the Star to bring all of it's resources to bear to find
and eliminate you. Also if a team has a habbit of always hitting the same
corp then that corp may decide it is indeed worth the considerable cost
of finding and eliminating the team as a way of cutting down on expenses
in the future.

For the SIN, think of it as being like a Social Security Number but tied
to everything you do in life. From you Drivers License, to your Credit
Card number, to your Health Club Membership, to your Library Card. It is
the electronic record of your life. Yes it is almost certain that there
is a DNA sample tied to it if you are issued a legal one (for your
protection of course), however remember most runners either never had a
legal SIN or if they had one paid to have it erased so the DNA Sample
tied to it is indeed likely taken from some dead person.

With fake SINS there are any number if ways of creating them. You want to
make an aitright one, the person is a freelance consultant of some sort.
Then there is no boss to call and verify employment. A cheapie quick and
low rating might not even have the data necessary in all the databases to
back it up past a cursory scan. An expensive high rating one may have
been carefully built up over the course of several years making it nearly
as airtight as a real SIN. But remember you are talking about thousands
of entries acrosss hundreds of seperate databases than need to be cross
referenced. Even finding a hole in a quickie SIN may take a database
search of several minutes and the conscious attention of the person
processing the scan. Combine this with the fact that there are always
errors in legit SINS and it is VERY easy to get through simple searches
with fake ID. Especially if you can recite the answers to a few simple
questions ("excuse me Mr Smith but can you explain why your SIN shows you
live at 2133 A St in Redmond but your car is registered at 3221 B St in
Bellveue?"...."Oh yes officer, I've been trying to get this cleared up
for months now, we moved from Redmond to Bellveue about 6 months ago and
I've sent the change of address forms into the DMV 6 times now but they
keep telling me that they don't even have a record of my car existing").
Finding a hole in an expensive high rating SIN may take a team of
financial analysts months of pouring over every element of the financial
history before anyone notices that you seem to have made purchases in 2
seperate cities thousands of miles apart within minutes of each other, or
that you paid for a weekend in a hotel in Hawaii but never bought any
transport there. Remember cost benefit analysis. If you make yourself
public enemy #1 then yeah someone might investigate you to this level but
99% of the time you're trying to get past a security guard being pad
barely above minimum wage who could really care less who you are. And
finally yes, some fake ID's are stolen from real people. They are not the
best ones to get for longterm use as you never know what that person will
do that could get you in trouble but for short term use (a few days to a
couple of weeks maybe) it will worke quite nicely.

On the credstick, think of it as being like a PDA with the encryption
keys and passwords to everything, your house, your car, your home
computer, your bank account. Lending someone your keys would simply
entail the downloading of the particular key from your credstick to
theirs (we know credsticks are capable fo transfering data between them
since they can transfer electronoic money between themselves). It is
highly likely that you could even transfer a version of your car "key"
that is only good for so many uses or until a certain date and then
expires. Or heck for parents of teen kids they could give them a passkey
that expires at a certain time to act as a curfew (ie the car will shut
off at 1:00 AM so you better be home). And no the car keys would not need
to be tied to any SIN, although I would suspect that there is a system in
cars with gridtrack installed that broadcasts both the SIN of the
registered owner and current driver (when known) to the system, and
gridtrack may actually require a drivers SIN to sign on to it but I
seriously doubt the car would.

Steve
Message no. 3
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Simon and Fiona)
Subject: How do they get away with it?
Date: Mon Jun 18 01:00:01 2001
-----Original Message-----
From: Jane van Roekel <kadjari@*******.com>
To: shadowrn@*********.com <shadowrn@*********.com>
Date: Monday, June 18, 2001 2:02 PM
Subject: How do they get away with it?


>Hi,
>I am new to Shadowrun, I have played a couple of times, and now I want to
>run a game. IRL, I am a very law-abiding person and what I don't really
>understand is how do Shadowrunners not get arrested or beat up all the time
>for what they do? If they kill security guards and steal something from a
>corporation, then isn't that corp going to be mad and hunt them down? If
the
>runners got wounded and bled anywhere, then the corp has DNA sample for a
>ritual sending, or for Lone Star to match to a SIN.

First up, not everyone has a SIN. There are hordes of homeless, jobless, or
just plain paranoid people out there without them. If you aren't born in a
hospital then you won't have a SIN, and if your parents aren't rich or work
for a megacorp, you won't be born in a hospital. It is possible to apply for
a SIN, but for the reasons you mention, a lot of shadowrunners don't.
Shadowrunners do get arrested, beaten up, shot, and hit from a distance with
ritual magic all the time. Especially since if you don't have a SIN you
don't officially exist and so can't complain that Lone Star gave you a
jackboot vascectomy. That's why the really good shadowrunners make sure they
don't get caught.

>And then the SIN thing, how does that work? I have read lots of
explanations
>and descriptions on the 'net, but I am still confused. Your credstick
>contains your SIN and your account details? So you can do on-paper
>transactions and not carry any cash? And registered credsticks are
>registered as being worth a certain amount of money, so they act as cash?
>And your keys? Does that mean you can't lend your keys to anyone? If you
>copy them, does the copy have to be attached to a SIN in a credstick to
>work?

In my games, there is absolutely no paper money, cheques, keys or credit
cards, That's all taken care of with your credstick. Some corps have what's
called Corporate Scrip, which is money that can only be spent at places
owned by that corp, it can be used as hard currency during nonofficial
transactions like on the black market, but scrip is fairly rare, it's mostly
used to pay salarymen. Credsticks themselves are cheap, and any public phone
will allow you to transfer information to another person's credstick, such
as the activation code for your front door's lock. Note that this is just
the way I personally play it, a lot of people don't believe in a cashless
society and I think the actual rulebooks talk about hard currency and the
like. Even then most transactions are done via credsticks.


>Also, if you use a fake ID, then as soon as someone checks up on that
>ID (say by ringing the supposed phone number, or contacting the supposed
>employer), then the ID is blown, because the person doesn't exist? Or is a
>fake ID actually someone else's ID and some poor harmless factory worker
>somewhere is getting the blame for what the runners do with his ID?
>

It's just like fake ID these days. You can steal someone's identity and be
safe in the knowledge that if it is done well then it will take years before
it is sorted out and that they'll probably never trace it back to you. This
is a nasty thing to do of course, in real life peoples' credit ratings,
criminal record and all sorts of things are ruined for life even after the
mess is sorted out. Easy, cheap, but it will only last you a maximum of a
month or two before the identity's real owner catches on.
Then you can just make a totally fake ID, but you get what you pay for. Any
average decker could set up a fake account for you, but the ID won't hold up
to scrutiny, like you said. If you pay top dollar (nuyen, whatever) then a
fixer could set up a fake account with a full history, realistic fake
contacts, everything, that would be practically impossible to expose as a
fake.
Message no. 4
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Allen Smith)
Subject: How do they get away with it?
Date: Mon Jun 18 01:00:04 2001
On Jun 18, 1:08am, Steve Collins wrote:
> Or heck for parents of teen kids they could give them a passkey
> that expires at a certain time to act as a curfew (ie the car will shut
> off at 1:00 AM so you better be home).

The first time a kid got killed because they were in a bad
neighborhood and lost track of time, that idea would go out the
window... and I don't think the car is going to be smart enough to get
the kid home automatically in all situations, such as grid problems.

-Allen

--
Allen Smith easmith@********.rutgers.edu
Message no. 5
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Allen Smith)
Subject: How do they get away with it?
Date: Mon Jun 18 01:05:01 2001
On Jun 18, 12:08am, Jane van Roekel wrote:
> And then the SIN thing, how does that work? I have read lots of explanations
> and descriptions on the 'net, but I am still confused. Your credstick
> contains your SIN and your account details? So you can do on-paper
> transactions and not carry any cash? And registered credsticks are
> registered as being worth a certain amount of money, so they act as cash?
> And your keys? Does that mean you can't lend your keys to anyone? If you
> copy them, does the copy have to be attached to a SIN in a credstick to
> work? Also, if you use a fake ID, then as soon as someone checks up on that
> ID (say by ringing the supposed phone number, or contacting the supposed
> employer), then the ID is blown, because the person doesn't exist? Or is a
> fake ID actually someone else's ID and some poor harmless factory worker
> somewhere is getting the blame for what the runners do with his ID?

You might want to take a look at http://www.amurgsval.org/shadowrun/
on these issues; sorry if this is one of the places you've already
looked, but its presentation is more realistic than the one in some of
the rulebooks. The default SR world is a tad bit unrealistic in some
regards, especially if you want a world where people can do things out
of control of the corps/government (as is necessary to have
shadowrunners). Another place to look is at WildSide, the CP2020
sourcebook.

-Allen

--
Allen Smith easmith@********.rutgers.edu
Message no. 6
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Strago)
Subject: How do they get away with it?
Date: Mon Jun 18 01:10:01 2001
Jane van Roekel wrote:

> <SNIP>

> And then the SIN thing, how does that work? I have read lots of explanations
> and descriptions on the 'net, but I am still confused.

Basically the SIN (System Identification Number) is the character. I'd assume
it's got the date of birth somewhere in there, plus a few other numbers as
identifiers. Imagine it as a driver's license and social security number which
are also used to interact with the banks (so when you set up an account, instead
of the bank giving you an account number, your SIN is the account number) and
which can be used to give a personal history. So when you go to a high-class
club, it checks the SIN and if there's anything it doesn't like (such as a
criminal record) it rejects the person.

> Your credstick contains your SIN and your account details? So you can do
> on-paper
> transactions and not carry any cash? And registered credsticks are
> registered as being worth a certain amount of money, so they act as cash?

There are no on-paper transactions. Everything's computerized, so I'd assume you
can do credstick-to-credstick transactions (though that's just what we do) or
you put your 'stick in a reader and it transfers the money electronically. But
yes, registered credsticks have a certain amount of money, though anyone who
cares can find out who made it.

>
> And your keys? Does that mean you can't lend your keys to anyone? If you
> copy them, does the copy have to be attached to a SIN in a credstick to
> work?

This I don't know about. I've always assumed that cars have their own keys which
you carry, and to get into a house there's either the old-fashioned locks or new
technological stuff like a numeric keypad, retinal scanner, or DNA tester.

> Also, if you use a fake ID, then as soon as someone checks up on that
> ID (say by ringing the supposed phone number, or contacting the supposed
> employer), then the ID is blown, because the person doesn't exist? Or is a
> fake ID actually someone else's ID and some poor harmless factory worker
> somewhere is getting the blame for what the runners do with his ID?
>

Fake IDs are made. Deckers do it by creating the number, and then "using" that
number in various places. Those characters of mine which have had fake IDs make
a point of doing mundane things with them a lot (buying groceries, renting
videos, riding the subway, visiting clubs, etcetera etcetera) so they've only
got one or two very good ones. The phone would be easy to fix (just a patch in
the system which routes the fake phone number to your phone). You pay more for
higher grade IDs because it takes more time and energy by the decker to create
the ID.

That makes me curious, though: can a character take, say, a rating 1 fake SIN
and turn it into a higher rating? Would it require much more than using it?

>
> Thanks for any help
>
> Jane
>
> _________________________________________________________________________
> Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com.

--
--Strago

All Hail Apathy! Or don't. Whatever. -abortion_engine

Down with the Moral Majority
-Green Day
Message no. 7
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Strago)
Subject: How do they get away with it?
Date: Mon Jun 18 01:15:01 2001
Steve Collins wrote:

> On 6/17/01 10:58 pm, Jane van Roekel said:
>
> >Hi,
> >I am new to Shadowrun, I have played a couple of times, and now I want to
> >run a game. IRL, I am a very law-abiding person and what I don't really
> >understand is how do Shadowrunners not get arrested or beat up all the time
> >for what they do?

The other question is do other shadowrunners retaliate afterwards? For instance,
the PCs are hired to rescue a kidnapped scientist. They track down the NPCs which
took said scientist, beat them down, and do the job. Do any NPCs which survive
the attack become permanent enemies of the PCs and hunt them down? Or do they
write it off as "business is business" and leave the PCs alone?
<SNIP>


--
--Strago

All Hail Apathy! Or don't. Whatever. -abortion_engine

Down with the Moral Majority
-Green Day
Message no. 8
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Allen Smith)
Subject: How do they get away with it?
Date: Mon Jun 18 01:20:01 2001
On Jun 18, 1:23am, Strago wrote:
> Fake IDs are made. Deckers do it by creating the number, and then
> "using" that number in various places. Those characters of mine
> which have had fake IDs make a point of doing mundane things with
> them a lot (buying groceries, renting videos, riding the subway,
> visiting clubs, etcetera etcetera) so they've only got one or two
> very good ones. The phone would be easy to fix (just a patch in the
> system which routes the fake phone number to your phone). You pay
> more for higher grade IDs because it takes more time and energy by
> the decker to create the ID.
>
> That makes me curious, though: can a character take, say, a rating 1 fake SIN
> and turn it into a higher rating? Would it require much more than using it?

Max's system, at http://www.amurgsval.org/shadowrun/, does allow for
this. I've got a few updates for it:

1. Physical cash does exist in SR - see Matrix pg 11-12.
2. Certified cred (anonymous ecash) can be held on normal credsticks
as well as ones specifically for this purpose. In either case, such
credsticks will have the ecash in an encrypted form. Part of the
encryption code will be on the credstick in storage that isn't
outside-accessible (and is designed to wipe if the credstick is
taken apart or otherwise tampered with); this is only available
with the proper identification information (which could, of course,
be stolen and reused, if it is depending on outside devices to get
the identity information; standard-size credsticks can contain
voiceprint readers and/or either fingerprint or retinalprint
readers at extra cost (equal to a maglock with the appropriate
reader and rating), while larger-size ones can contain more). The
other part of the encryption code will be a passcode set by the
user.
3. In regard to the fake IDs information on
http://www.amurgsval.org/shadowrun/credsticks.html, a few
things:
A. The base SIN cost is not eligible for reduction for lack of
backups, since each type has or hasn't backups due to its
type (Decked SINs don't; other types do).
B. It's possible for some portions of a data trail on a Fake
ID to be on the backups and other portions not. For
instance, a Decked SIN could have other parts of its data
trail on the backups for the simple reason that the
character (or someone else acting for the character) has
done the things in question. OTOH, records can be added to
a "Naturalized" SIN (including a legitimate one) indicating
a Work Visa even if you don't have one, and such could be
backed up or not depending on how much you're willing to
pay.
C. A "Naturalized" SIN does not include one's records in one's
home country (actual or faked). Add in the costs for an
additional SIN in that country, if desired. When evaluating
how hard it would be for someone to crack this SIN (aside
from the background check table that Max gives), GMs should
keep in mind the necessity of getting access to the
databanks of the country in question.
D. Given its current PPG connections, having a link with the
Malaysian Independent Bank counts as per a Swiss bank for
background points. (Indeed, I'm not sure if Swiss banks in
Shadowrun have numbered/etcetera accounts anymore - they're
moving away from nondisclosure even today, unfortunately.)
However, such a linkage costs a minimum of 10000, according
to Target: Matrix, no matter what the normal incremental
cost between levels would be; this is subsumed into the
increased cost between levels as long as that cost is
greater than 10000, however.
4. In regard to http://www.amurgsval.org/shadowrun/money.html and the
various minimum bank balances, decrease them to 5,000 for a Carib
League bank and 10,000 for a Swiss/Malaysian Independent Bank
account. The Zurich-Orbital cost remains the same, however.

-Allen

--
Allen Smith easmith@********.rutgers.edu
Message no. 9
From: shadowrn@*********.com (shadowrn@*********.com)
Subject: How do they get away with it?
Date: Mon Jun 18 01:30:02 2001
--part1_9a.15cc4fc3.285eed01_boundary
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

In a message dated 6/18/2001 12:02:39 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
kadjari@*******.com writes:

I am new to Shadowrun, I have played a couple of times, and now I want to
run a game. IRL, I am a very law-abiding person and what I don't really
understand is how do Shadowrunners not get arrested or beat up all the time
for what they do? If they kill security guards and steal something from a
corporation, then isn't that corp going to be mad and hunt them down? If the
runners got wounded and bled anywhere, then the corp has DNA sample for a
ritual sending, or for Lone Star to match to a SIN.
<snip>
______________

If you have ever seen the movie Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, great
movie BTW. This makes a little more sense. Cassidy and the Kid are bank
robbers/train robbers, etc... around the turn of the 19-20th century. At
first their gang isn't harrased, but they pick on one company, (read
Corporation for this example), and then Mr. E H Herman of the Union Pacific
Railroad gets fed up with them robbing him so much he hires a bunch of lawmen
(read Tells LoneStar to get there act together) and track the group down and
kill them. They end up running away to Bolivia where the same thing happens
they start robbing too many banks and the government gets at them and
eventually sends the army after em, but see the movie if you wanna know about
that. The point is until Runners start causing lots of damage, property
damage or profit damage, the corps won't worry about it. But once the
runners hit the same corp too much, or piss off the cops too often, the corps
decide to crack down and make an example outta them. Thats when you get the
hunted disads and are sleeping in different places every night, with a
panther cannon under your pillow :)

Dragon Claw

--part1_9a.15cc4fc3.285eed01_boundary
Content-Type: text/html; charset="US-ASCII"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

<HTML><FONT FACE=arial,helvetica><FONT SIZE=2>In a message dated
6/18/2001 12:02:39 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
<BR>kadjari@*******.com writes:
<BR>
<BR>I am new to Shadowrun, I have played a couple of times, and now I want to
<BR>run a game. IRL, I am a very law-abiding person and what I don't really
<BR>understand is how do Shadowrunners not get arrested or beat up all the time
<BR>for what they do? If they kill security guards and steal something from a
<BR>corporation, then isn't that corp going to be mad and hunt them down? If the
<BR>runners got wounded and bled anywhere, then the corp has DNA sample for a
<BR>ritual sending, or for Lone Star to match to a SIN.
<BR>&lt;snip&gt;
<BR>______________
<BR>
<BR>If you have ever seen the movie Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, great
<BR>movie BTW. &nbsp;This makes a little more sense. &nbsp;Cassidy and the
Kid are bank
<BR>robbers/train robbers, etc... around the turn of the 19-20th century.
&nbsp;At
<BR>first their gang isn't harrased, but they pick on one company, (read
<BR>Corporation for this example), and then Mr. E H Herman of the Union Pacific
<BR>Railroad gets fed up with them robbing him so much he hires a bunch of lawmen
<BR>(read Tells LoneStar to get there act together) and track the group down and
<BR>kill them. &nbsp;They end up running away to Bolivia where the same thing
happens
<BR>they start robbing too many banks and the government gets at them and
<BR>eventually sends the army after em, but see the movie if you wanna know about
<BR>that. &nbsp;The point is until Runners start causing lots of damage,
property
<BR>damage or profit damage, the corps won't worry about it. &nbsp;But once the
<BR>runners hit the same corp too much, or piss off the cops too often, the corps
<BR>decide to crack down and make an example outta them. &nbsp;Thats when you
get the
<BR>hunted disads and are sleeping in different places every night, with a
<BR>panther cannon under your pillow :)
<BR>
<BR>Dragon Claw</FONT></HTML>

--part1_9a.15cc4fc3.285eed01_boundary--
Message no. 10
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Gurth)
Subject: How do they get away with it?
Date: Mon Jun 18 05:35:04 2001
According to Jane van Roekel, on Mon, 18 Jun 2001 the word on the street
was...

> I am new to Shadowrun, I have played a couple of times, and now I want to
> run a game. IRL, I am a very law-abiding person and what I don't really
> understand is how do Shadowrunners not get arrested or beat up all the time
> for what they do? If they kill security guards and steal something from a
> corporation, then isn't that corp going to be mad and hunt them down? If the
> runners got wounded and bled anywhere, then the corp has DNA sample for a
> ritual sending, or for Lone Star to match to a SIN.

The basic reason is playability, IMHO. If you make police in your Shadowrun
world roughly equivalent to police today, then with the kind of crimes
shadowrunners commit, and the way they do it in (that's to say, with the
huge amounts of evidence they tend to leave behind) there wouldn't be any
fun in playing the game because PCs will spend most of their time running
from the law, and being arrested (or worse) shortly after any run they do.
The obvious solution is to only do these things if the players really mess
up; some GMs are more strict in what they consider "really messing up"
than others are, but you'll find that most work this way.

> And then the SIN thing, how does that work? I have read lots of explanations
> and descriptions on the 'net, but I am still confused. Your credstick
> contains your SIN and your account details? So you can do on-paper
> transactions and not carry any cash?

Yes; for a modern comparison, consider bank cards that you can pay with by
punching your PIN into a machine on the store's counter. Now add an extra
chip onto that bank card that holds the same information that's in your
passport or on your driver's license, and you're pretty close to a
credstick.

> And registered credsticks are registered as being worth a certain
> amount of money, so they act as cash?

Certified credsticks contain money that anyone can access -- they're
basically like giving someone a bank note, yes, except one that you can
divide up as small as you like. (A better analogy might be giving someone a
sack of coins.)

> And your keys? Does that mean you can't lend your keys to anyone?

Card-reader maglocks, as the name says, use a passcard which is separate
from your credstick, so you can give that to someone else when they need
it. I suspect most people would have the codes for multiple doors onto a
single passcard, as otherwise they'll soon end up doing a nice impression of
Frank Drebin showing his police ID to the harbor master in The Naked Gun.
It shouldn't be too hard to use programmable passcards that allow you to
program the code for a single door (or several doors) onto a blank card if
you need to only allow someone access to specific doors instead of all the
doors, too.

> Also, if you use a fake ID, then as soon as someone checks up on that
> ID (say by ringing the supposed phone number, or contacting the supposed
> employer), then the ID is blown, because the person doesn't exist? Or is a
> fake ID actually someone else's ID and some poor harmless factory worker
> somewhere is getting the blame for what the runners do with his ID?

There are all sorts of ways in which this can be done. One method in the
Lone Star sourcebook is to use the SIN of a recently-deceased person,
because it will take some time between the person being declared dead, and
the SIN being marked as such. This won't give you a false SIN for very
long, but it can be long enough.

You could set up a phone relay so that calls to the fake SIN's phone number
go to your normal one; this way, someone does answer when the phone number
is checked. It's equally possible to get around many other simple checks in
similar ways, but the problem with false SINs remains that they will prove
to be false as soon as someone starts investigating them too deeply.

--
Gurth@******.nl - http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html
Conformity is our tragedy
-> NAGEE Editor * ShadowRN GridSec * Triangle Virtuoso <-
-> The Plastic Warriors Page: http://plastic.dumpshock.com <-

GC3.12: GAT/! d-(dpu) s:- !a>? C+@ UL P L++ E W-(++) N o? K w+(--) O V?
PS+ PE(-)(+) Y PGP- t@ 5++ X(+) R+++(-)>$ tv+ b++@ DI- D+ G+ e h! !r y?
Incubated into the First Church of the Sqooshy Ball, 21-05-1998
Message no. 11
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Gurth)
Subject: How do they get away with it?
Date: Mon Jun 18 05:35:07 2001
According to DragonC147@***.com, on Mon, 18 Jun 2001 the word on the street was...

> If you have ever seen the movie Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, great
> movie BTW. This makes a little more sense.

It also has this great line suitable for many shadowruns: "You sure you
used enough dynamite there?" :)

> ----------------------------------------
> Content-Type: text/html; name="unnamed"
> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
> Content-Description:
> ----------------------------------------

Please do not post HTML to the ShadowRN list; the often-posted AOL solution
should work for you as well.

--
Gurth@******.nl - http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html
Conformity is our tragedy
-> NAGEE Editor * ShadowRN GridSec * Triangle Virtuoso <-
-> The Plastic Warriors Page: http://plastic.dumpshock.com <-

GC3.12: GAT/! d-(dpu) s:- !a>? C+@ UL P L++ E W-(++) N o? K w+(--) O V?
PS+ PE(-)(+) Y PGP- t@ 5++ X(+) R+++(-)>$ tv+ b++@ DI- D+ G+ e h! !r y?
Incubated into the First Church of the Sqooshy Ball, 21-05-1998
Message no. 12
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Iridios)
Subject: How do they get away with it?
Date: Mon Jun 18 06:10:01 2001
Jane van Roekel wrote:
>
> Hi,
> I am new to Shadowrun, I have played a couple of times, and now I want to
> run a game. IRL, I am a very law-abiding person and what I don't really
> understand is how do Shadowrunners not get arrested or beat up all the time
> for what they do? If they kill security guards and steal something from a
> corporation, then isn't that corp going to be mad and hunt them down?

It helps to remember that Corporate Extraterritoriality made a mess of an
already less than perfect justice system. If runner commit a crime on
corporate grounds and then managed to get back to UCAS territory, then the
crime was not committed in the UCAS and they may not be as aggressive in
pursuing the criminals. This would be especially true if the UCAS and the
corporation were on poor terms.

Also remember that in Seattle the police are a contract force hired out from
Lone Star. Lone Star is another corporation and their attitudes toward corp
A might affect how well they track down the criminals.

And then, as someone else pointed out, it may not be cost effective for corp
A to hunt down the runners. Of course this means that the runners get bigger
egos and try bigger runs, truly pissing of a corporation. Then they might
get tracked down. :)

Iridios
Message no. 13
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Valeu John EMFA)
Subject: How do they get away with it?
Date: Mon Jun 18 06:45:00 2001
> In a message dated 6/18/2001 12:02:39 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
> kadjari@*******.com writes:
>
> I am new to Shadowrun, I have played a couple of times, and now I want to
> run a game. IRL, I am a very law-abiding person and what I don't really
> understand is how do Shadowrunners not get arrested or beat up all the
> time
> for what they do? If they kill security guards and steal something from a
> corporation, then isn't that corp going to be mad and hunt them down? If
> the
> runners got wounded and bled anywhere, then the corp has DNA sample for a
> ritual sending, or for Lone Star to match to a SIN.
> <snip>
> ______________
>
> If you have ever seen the movie Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, great
> movie BTW. This makes a little more sense. Cassidy and the Kid are bank
> robbers/train robbers, etc... around the turn of the 19-20th century. At
> first their gang isn't harrased, but they pick on one company, (read
> Corporation for this example), and then Mr. E H Herman of the Union
> Pacific
> Railroad gets fed up with them robbing him so much he hires a bunch of
> lawmen
> (read Tells LoneStar to get there act together) and track the group down
> and
> kill them. They end up running away to Bolivia where the same thing
> happens
> they start robbing too many banks and the government gets at them and
> eventually sends the army after em, but see the movie if you wanna know
> about
> that. The point is until Runners start causing lots of damage, property
> damage or profit damage, the corps won't worry about it. But once the
> runners hit the same corp too much, or piss off the cops too often, the
> corps
> decide to crack down and make an example outta them. Thats when you get
> the
> hunted disads and are sleeping in different places every night, with a
> panther cannon under your pillow :)
>
> Dragon Claw
[Valeu John EMFA]

Or see Ronin on how to properly execute a run and take revenge on
those double-crossing you.
Oh Heck, just check out UCAS On-Line's Movie list.
Message no. 14
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Lady Jestyr)
Subject: How do they get away with it?
Date: Mon Jun 18 07:00:02 2001
> Or see Ronin on how to properly execute a run and take revenge on
>those double-crossing you.
> Oh Heck, just check out UCAS On-Line's Movie list.

Which is way out of date, but I'll be updating it asap. :)

Lady Jestyr
"If you can't be a good example, then you'll just have to be
a horrible warning." - Catherine Aird

* jestyr@*****.com | URL: http://staff.dumpshock.com/jestyr *
Message no. 15
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Graht)
Subject: How do they get away with it?
Date: Mon Jun 18 10:15:01 2001
At 03:58 AM 6/18/2001 +0000, Jane van Roekel wrote:
>Hi,
>I am new to Shadowrun, I have played a couple of times, and now I want to
>run a game. IRL, I am a very law-abiding person and what I don't really
>understand is how do Shadowrunners not get arrested or beat up all the
>time for what they do? If they kill security guards and steal something
>from a corporation, then isn't that corp going to be mad and hunt them
>down? If the runners got wounded and bled anywhere, then the corp has DNA
>sample for a ritual sending, or for Lone Star to match to a SIN.

It's a matter of whether it's worth the corp's time and money to hunt down
the shadowrunners, or whether it's easier to replace the killed guards and
redo the research.

For example, my wife's credit card number and identity were recently stolen
by someone and sold to someone in Malaysia, who used my wife's credit card
and identity to purchase about $1000 of merchandise online.

The credit card company treated us very well and covered all of the
erroneous charges. However, they won't go after the person who stole the
information, or the person who used it. It just isn't worth it to
them. It's easier to credit us with the charges, issue us a new credit
card, and issue a warning to all credit card companies.

If the runners do significant damage the a corp would probably put a price
on their head.

If the runner continue to be a thorn in a corp's side then the corp would
probably give an up and coming VP a budget to get the runners.

To Life,
-Graht
ShadowRN Assistant Fearless Leader II
--
Message no. 16
From: shadowrn@*********.com (shadowrn@*********.com)
Subject: How do they get away with it?
Date: Mon Jun 18 13:00:03 2001
--part1_111.124a335.285f8f37_boundary
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

In a message dated 6/18/2001 5:45:16 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
Gurth@******.nl writes:

According to DragonC147@***.com, on Mon, 18 Jun 2001 the word on the street
was...

> If you have ever seen the movie Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, great
> movie BTW.  This makes a little more sense.

It also has this great line suitable for many shadowruns: "You sure you
used enough dynamite there?" :)

> ----------------------------------------
> Content-Type: text/html; name="unnamed"
> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
> Content-Description:
> ----------------------------------------

Please do not post HTML to the ShadowRN list; the often-posted AOL solution
should work for you as well.

________________________________

Sorry i sent it before i changed it to normal.

DC


--part1_111.124a335.285f8f37_boundary
Content-Type: text/html; charset="ISO-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

<HTML><FONT FACE=arial,helvetica>In a message dated 6/18/2001 5:45:16 AM
Eastern Daylight Time,
<BR>Gurth@******.nl writes:
<BR>
<BR>According to DragonC147@***.com, on Mon, 18 Jun 2001 the word on the street
<BR>was...
<BR>
<BR>&gt; If you have ever seen the movie Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,
great
<BR>&gt; movie BTW.  This makes a little more sense.
<BR>
<BR>It also has this great line suitable for many shadowruns: "You sure you
<BR>used enough dynamite there?" :)
<BR>
<BR>&gt; ----------------------------------------
<BR>&gt; Content-Type: text/html; name="unnamed"
<BR>&gt; Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
<BR>&gt; Content-Description:
<BR>&gt; ----------------------------------------
<BR>
<BR>Please do not post HTML to the ShadowRN list; the often-posted AOL solution
<BR>should work for you as well.
<BR>
<BR>________________________________
<BR>
<BR>Sorry i sent it before i changed it to normal.
<BR>
<BR>DC<FONT SIZE=2>
<BR></FONT></HTML>

--part1_111.124a335.285f8f37_boundary--
Message no. 17
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Max Rible)
Subject: How do they get away with it?
Date: Mon Jun 18 14:40:01 2001
At 01:28 6/18/01 -0400, Allen Smith wrote:
>Max's system, at http://www.amurgsval.org/shadowrun/, does allow for
>this. I've got a few updates for it:

Thank you! I've been behind on my SR reading lately.

--
%% Max Rible % slothman@*********.org % http://www.amurgsval.org/~slothman/ %%
%% "Before enlightenment: sharpen claws, catch mice. %%
%% After enlightenment: sharpen claws, catch mice." %%
Message no. 18
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Brian Moore)
Subject: How do they get away with it?
Date: Mon Jun 18 22:05:01 2001
--- Jane van Roekel <kadjari@*******.com> wrote:
> Hi,
> I am new to Shadowrun, I have played a couple of times, and now I want
> to run a game. IRL, I am a very law-abiding person and what I don't
> really understand is how do Shadowrunners not get arrested or beat up
> all the time for what they do? If they kill security guards and steal
> something from a corporation, then isn't that corp going to be mad and
> hunt them down? If the runners got wounded and bled anywhere, then the
> corp has DNA sample for a ritual sending, or for Lone Star to match to
> a SIN.

Other people have talked about fake SINs, so I won't.

As for Runners getting arrested, beat up, or whatever, that depends on how
well the runner do. If the runners leave evidence of their actions, then
some corps will definitely do something about it. If the runners are
obvious when doing legwork, show their faces on security cameras, and brag
about the run in a bar afterwards, send a corp hit squad after them. Or
have Lone Star pick them up, run through a trial which points out all of
their illegal activities and how stupid they were, and send them to jail
for a few years. Tell them to make up new smarter characters. Or if you
want to go easy on them, have them pay for a high priced lawyer that gets
them off on a technicality.

Maybe have a runner get a letter delivered by courier the next day: "Dear
Mr. Runner. Last night, you and your associates stole a data chip. We
want it back. Deliver it to the information booth at the south-east
corner of the Aztechnology Pyramid by noon tomorrow or we will kill the
people on attachment A. (Attachment A lists the known members of the team
and their known associates & loved ones.)" Sending a letter by courier is
probably only 10 nuyen, and is well worth it if there's a chance it may
convince the runners to return the stolen merchandise. The corp may or
may not follow through on their threat if the runners don't do as the
letter says.

The reaction of the corp depends on the nature of the corp. As other
people have said, insurance companies don't bother tracking down small
thefts. Neither would big corps. Financial corps would likely calculate
the Return on Investment (ROI) to determine whether or not it was
worthwhile to discourage such attacks, and exactly how much should be
spent. In fact, they probably would have a budget for that sort of thing.
KE would probably be a bit more militant about tracking down runners.
Aztechnology night be more inclined to do a ritual sending. Some other
corp might anonymously contact the runners and hire them for an "easy" job
that was actually a suicide run. A corp desparate for covert operatives
may hire the team on a semi-permanent basis, due to their obvious ability.

It all boils down to the following... Known runners will likely be killed
when they piss off the wrong corp or person. A smart runner needs to do
jobs covertly. And it doesn't hurt to keep track of which corps tend to
send out hit squads, and avoid jobs against them.

If you didn't notice, I tend to prefer smart stealthy games.

====--
Brian Moore
Gamer. I play everything.

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
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Message no. 19
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Gurth)
Subject: How do they get away with it?
Date: Tue Jun 19 05:20:04 2001
According to Brian Moore, on Tue, 19 Jun 2001 the word on the street was...

> Sending a letter by courier is probably only 10 nuyen, and is well worth
> it if there's a chance it may convince the runners to return the stolen
> merchandise. The corp may or may not follow through on their threat if
> the runners don't do as the letter says.

IMHO, not following through on a threat like this would destroy the corp's
reputation, because the targeted runners will talk about it to other
shadowrunners and pretty soon nobody will take the corp's threats
seriously. Not that the corp would need to kill everyone they threatened
to, but they'd at least have to show they mean business.

--
Gurth@******.nl - http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html
Conformity is our tragedy
-> NAGEE Editor * ShadowRN GridSec * Triangle Virtuoso <-
-> The Plastic Warriors Page: http://plastic.dumpshock.com <-

GC3.12: GAT/! d-(dpu) s:- !a>? C+@ UL P L++ E W-(++) N o? K w+(--) O V?
PS+ PE(-)(+) Y PGP- t@ 5++ X(+) R+++(-)>$ tv+ b++@ DI- D+ G+ e h! !r y?
Incubated into the First Church of the Sqooshy Ball, 21-05-1998

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