Shadowrun
Shadowrun Play => Gamemasters' Lounge => Topic started by: OoSpikeoO on <04-10-14/0055:23>
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Ill try and keep this brief as the story of how this situation came to be took the better part of a year. The decker that my players have been running with has hit a wall with what he can do with his deck. He is attempting to figure out how to trade / buy / steal himself an upgraded deck. He currently has the 214k deck and is looking to upgrade to the 345k deck, strictly following the rules this is a real hard jump to make. What have other people done to help move the deckers along without dropping cash on them?
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sounds like a shadowrun to me.
YOU are mr johnson for this one, so at least your team knows you're telling em everything, eh?
Look one up, do some research on the security, make a plan, do some legwork, revise the plan, break in, and STEAL THE FUCKER!!!
This is YOUR world, dude.
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The team I have running has done a few loans to each other (they got our face Imp Pheromones 3 for example).
You could have the deck as a piece of loot from a run, maybe damaged so he'll still have to possibly pay x amount to get it up and running.
Deck could be kind of an award for a run (although that would be an insane reward, unless he stole a Johnson Decker a new deck and is able to buy the old one from the Johnson at a discount + a favor or two down the road).
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Steal it.
No, allow me to correct myself: steal a lot of them.
All the decks in SR are, essentially, decks created for the discerning consumer - of one type or another. Everyone else is right - this is a self-sourced shadowrun, which means the decker needs to do some work on this. Have him start probing into the matrix security on the many manufacturers of the grade of 'deck you want (there are multiple manufacturers for all the 'levels' of decks). Once the matrix security is sussed out, he can figure out who would be the best target for a falsified order.
For the order, he needs to put together a false front - a corporation that looks good right off the bat. He might need to get together with some other hackers, or go to a group (Hacker House!) that creates this sort of thing. Then he rents for a couple weeks a warehouse, gets it dolled up to look like a working, valid place of business. THEN he goes in and hacks an order for six, eight, a dozen decks of the caliber he's going after - one for him, some for the guys who are helping him out on the back end - gets them shipped to his Completely Valid Warehouse, and goes from there. His team plays the manager, the shipping/receiving clerk, the stevedores, whatever is necessary to take receipt of the decks. They hire a local gang - or another shadowrunning team or two, maybe teams associated with the aforementioned hacker 'friends' - to clean themselves up and play some other guys doing shipping drop-offs and pick-ups
In short, they get together with six or eight other shadowrunning teams to pull off a scam that'll net each of their deckers an improved deck, plus each team a deck they can fence. 30% of 345k is over 100k; even 20% is almost 70k. It's a good chunk of work, and it'll take them a month to pull it off, but if they do it right ...
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Yes! Create something that will give you 'Leverage'!
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Not ... sure what you mean by that, but setting up a major heist that nets you a sizeable bankroll would enable you to take a large proportion of hooding runs in the future. Used to be the Ferrari Appaloosa (sp?) was primo for that ...
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Not ... sure what you mean by that
He's referring to the fact that the plot you suggested is very similar to those that are used in the TV show Leverage.
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he needs to put together a false front - a corporation that looks good right off the bat. He might need to get together with some other hackers, or go to a group (Hacker House!) that creates this sort of thing. Then he rents for a couple weeks a warehouse, gets it dolled up to look like a working, valid place of business. THEN he goes in and hacks an order for six, eight, a dozen decks of the caliber he's going after - one for him, some for the guys who are helping him out on the back end - gets them shipped to his Completely Valid Warehouse, and goes from there. His team plays the manager, the shipping/receiving clerk, the stevedores, whatever is necessary to take receipt of the decks. They hire a local gang - or another shadowrunning team or two, maybe teams associated with the aforementioned hacker 'friends' - to clean themselves up and play some other guys doing shipping drop-offs and pick-ups
In short, they get together with six or eight other shadowrunning teams to pull off a scam that'll net each of their deckers an improved deck, plus each team a deck they can fence. 30% of 345k is over 100k; even 20% is almost 70k. It's a good chunk of work, and it'll take them a month to pull it off, but if they do it right ...
this is simply brilliant. I still tend to think too "street" and rarely come up with this sorta thing, but i admire the HELL out of it when i see it.
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Not ... sure what you mean by that
He's referring to the fact that the plot you suggested is very similar to those that are used in the TV show Leverage.
I'm not so certain, but even presuming you're right, very few of the Leverage team's plans could realistically be carried out by the team they have on-screen. My suggestion above puts at least 3, probably 5, teams together working towards the same goal. That's about as many as you'd need for most of their ... actions ....
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well you could have an epic quest to raid renraku or somebody for a new prototype deck, or there are some totally reputable people out there that would be happy to lend a SINless shadowrunner like yourself some money.
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I'm not so certain, but even presuming you're right, very few of the Leverage team's plans could realistically be carried out by the team they have on-screen.
Oh you did not just say that. >:(
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Didn't say 'all', but 'very few' is very true, from a realism standpoint. From a story standpoint, though, of course it'll only take the five of them, with occasional help from their friends/rivals.
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I'm not so certain, but even presuming you're right, very few of the Leverage team's plans could realistically be carried out by the team they have on-screen.
Oh you did not just say that. >:(
Especially since Leverage (which I loved) is a remake of The A-Team, and Hannibal, BA, Murdock and Face can do ANYTHING.
And then make everything explode.
-Chris
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Explode with cabbages.
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Steal it.
No, allow me to correct myself: steal a lot of them.
All the decks in SR are, essentially, decks created for the discerning consumer - of one type or another. Everyone else is right - this is a self-sourced shadowrun, which means the decker needs to do some work on this. Have him start probing into the matrix security on the many manufacturers of the grade of 'deck you want (there are multiple manufacturers for all the 'levels' of decks). Once the matrix security is sussed out, he can figure out who would be the best target for a falsified order.
For the order, he needs to put together a false front - a corporation that looks good right off the bat. He might need to get together with some other hackers, or go to a group (Hacker House!) that creates this sort of thing. Then he rents for a couple weeks a warehouse, gets it dolled up to look like a working, valid place of business. THEN he goes in and hacks an order for six, eight, a dozen decks of the caliber he's going after - one for him, some for the guys who are helping him out on the back end - gets them shipped to his Completely Valid Warehouse, and goes from there. His team plays the manager, the shipping/receiving clerk, the stevedores, whatever is necessary to take receipt of the decks. They hire a local gang - or another shadowrunning team or two, maybe teams associated with the aforementioned hacker 'friends' - to clean themselves up and play some other guys doing shipping drop-offs and pick-ups
In short, they get together with six or eight other shadowrunning teams to pull off a scam that'll net each of their deckers an improved deck, plus each team a deck they can fence. 30% of 345k is over 100k; even 20% is almost 70k. It's a good chunk of work, and it'll take them a month to pull it off, but if they do it right ...
Creative! As a GM I can't help but wonder "what would a PC need to do this and what would I have to make the steps require?". None of my players are deckers so I probably wouldn't ever use that plot, but it would be an awesome thing. It's seems like that would be tough to GM...
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The IC on a 2,000,000¥ order would be impressive, as would the fake SIN check, but if the players can come up with a way of pulling it off, more power to them.
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You could always use a down-on-his-luck SINner as front man - just make sure to clean up afterwards.
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I guess the other thing you could do is give him the option of making some upgrades to his current deck.
Have him buy some parts through a contact and then run the matrix searches for mods/plans, then have him run the extended build/repair tests using the right tools and plans to do it.
Perhaps you could come up with the costs for expanded cache so he can run an extra program slot or install some filtered feed-throughs that shield key components from power spikes to give him +1 dice to resist matrix damage or something similarly useful, but not game breaking.
This way they're not major overhauls and shouldn't cost the earth but will at least give some impression of improvement for the character and make sense in-world too. i mean how many people here are PC modders? i'm sure a lot of people upgrade their memory and graphics cards all the time, I can imagine that deckers in the future are no different
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The IC on a 2,000,000¥ order would be impressive, as would the fake SIN check, but if the players can come up with a way of pulling it off, more power to them.
If you're pulling off an order for only 2M¥, you ain't doing it right. 3M¥, minimum - no fewer than ten decks, and probably 15-20. And though yeah, I'd be expecting some heavy data-checking, these are not Excalibers. And if you get in to fake the order, doesn't matter if it's one or a thousand - the IC is gonna be the same. The trick is to sculpt the 'buy' order so that a human fact-checker goes 'wow, pretty impressive' and not 'waaaiiiiit, that can't be right ...' Everything else can be tweaked.
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The IC on a 2,000,000¥ order would be impressive, as would the fake SIN check, but if the players can come up with a way of pulling it off, more power to them.
If you're pulling off an order for only 2M¥, you ain't doing it right. 3M¥, minimum - no fewer than ten decks, and probably 15-20. And though yeah, I'd be expecting some heavy data-checking, these are not Excalibers. And if you get in to fake the order, doesn't matter if it's one or a thousand - the IC is gonna be the same. The trick is to sculpt the 'buy' order so that a human fact-checker goes 'wow, pretty impressive' and not 'waaaiiiiit, that can't be right ...' Everything else can be tweaked.
Actually, including one or two Excaliburs might be a good idea. If you're going to fake an order, make certain it's a mix of decks; heavier on the lower-end, with just enough high-end decks to suggest a mom-and-pop place looking to attract people who can't afford to shop at corp stores. It's a lot less likely to be questioned, and it'll make any questions about why your corp suddenly exists that may pop up potentially go away.
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The IC on a 2,000,000¥ order would be impressive, as would the fake SIN check, but if the players can come up with a way of pulling it off, more power to them.
If you're pulling off an order for only 2M¥, you ain't doing it right. 3M¥, minimum - no fewer than ten decks, and probably 15-20. And though yeah, I'd be expecting some heavy data-checking, these are not Excalibers. And if you get in to fake the order, doesn't matter if it's one or a thousand - the IC is gonna be the same. The trick is to sculpt the 'buy' order so that a human fact-checker goes 'wow, pretty impressive' and not 'waaaiiiiit, that can't be right ...' Everything else can be tweaked.
Actually, including one or two Excaliburs might be a good idea. If you're going to fake an order, make certain it's a mix of decks; heavier on the lower-end, with just enough high-end decks to suggest a mom-and-pop place looking to attract people who can't afford to shop at corp stores. It's a lot less likely to be questioned, and it'll make any questions about why your corp suddenly exists that may pop up potentially go away.
i like all of this stuff here.
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Actually, including one or two Excaliburs might be a good idea. If you're going to fake an order, make certain it's a mix of decks; heavier on the lower-end, with just enough high-end decks to suggest a mom-and-pop place looking to attract people who can't afford to shop at corp stores. It's a lot less likely to be questioned, and it'll make any questions about why your corp suddenly exists that may pop up potentially go away.
I dunno. If you're looking to re-sell cyberdecks, then sure. This is a good plan. But it sounds like Wyrm was talking about using the cyberdecks for a legitimate purpose, like Host sculpting or corporate security or some third thing you use cyberdecks for (?). In that case, you'd be safe with a gauntlet of mid-range decks, explaining that if your start-up takes off you'll upgrade later. Dangle the possibility of future business in front of the supplier, and maybe they'll get greedy and overlook some details.
As far as Wyrm's idea in particular, it's a ballsy maneuver, but I like it. Overall, though, it seems like upgrading a deck requires either months of work in character or else a run in and of itself. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, just a clear limitation for deckers.
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Actually, including one or two Excaliburs might be a good idea. If you're going to fake an order, make certain it's a mix of decks; heavier on the lower-end, with just enough high-end decks to suggest a mom-and-pop place looking to attract people who can't afford to shop at corp stores. It's a lot less likely to be questioned, and it'll make any questions about why your corp suddenly exists that may pop up potentially go away.
I dunno. If you're looking to re-sell cyberdecks, then sure. This is a good plan. But it sounds like Wyrm was talking about using the cyberdecks for a legitimate purpose, like Host sculpting or corporate security or some third thing you use cyberdecks for (?). In that case, you'd be safe with a gauntlet of mid-range decks, explaining that if your start-up takes off you'll upgrade later. Dangle the possibility of future business in front of the supplier, and maybe they'll get greedy and overlook some details.
As far as Wyrm's idea in particular, it's a ballsy maneuver, but I like it. Overall, though, it seems like upgrading a deck requires either months of work in character or else a run in and of itself. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, just a clear limitation for deckers.
Or appearing to resell, yeah. But you're not - or at least, I wouldn't be. I'd be looking to set up the order as 'an unrated local corporation with sufficient funds' who is looking to beef up their matrix security or some such other thing, for whom conformity of sorts is a requirement; you theoretically wouldn't want Shift A guy to have a significantly weaker or stronger deck than Shift B or Shift C guy, otherwise after a few probes, the bad guys (those dastardly shadowrunners!!) would know when to hit, or when to avoid. So you're upgrading overall, to the limit of what you can afford.
Side note: if you can make this a wholly legal transaction, all the better. Read your politics, and your customs work, &c. Plenty of 'low-end' corporations outside of Seattle ship through Seattle, which means that if you find some Salish-Sidhe corp that might purchase MCT decks that get shipped from Yokohama through Seattle, there's your mark. Who you want to appear to be are the slags at the transshipment warehouse just off the Seattle docks, looking at stupid-ass manifest and to/from shipment details, who appear to not be giving two craps that the four crates they're receiving are moving twenty cyberdecks worth 4,500,000¥; it's worth 4,500¥ to them to receive, verify intact and unbroken shipment of the crates, and transship in the morning.
Of course, if between 4:00 PM when they sign for the things, and 11:30 AM when they're supposed to 'go out again', they happen to disappear ... as do all records of the order 'sent by' Salish Computer Security, Inc. to Yokohama Cyberdecks ('A Subsidiary of MCT') for the aforementioned 4,500,000¥ worth of cyberdecks, in both SCS, Inc. and Yokohama Cyberdecks ... then that's pretty much a perfect heist, huh?
Though ideally, you get together with a bunch of guys from out of town somewhere else, (Denver, Los Angeles, Portland, Houston) and execute it in a third city - like, say, San Francisco. Don't Shit Where You Eat, and all.
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I'm not so certain, but even presuming you're right, very few of the Leverage team's plans could realistically be carried out by the team they have on-screen.
Oh you did not just say that. >:(
Especially since Leverage (which I loved) is a remake of The A-Team, and Hannibal, BA, Murdock and Face can do ANYTHING.
And then make everything explode.
-Chris
All while firing off thousands of rounds at the enemy, and only once ever injuring someone from the opposition! ;D
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I'm going to have to remember this idea. I like the idea of this, get a number of allied teams together, bulk buy gear...
Why not take it to a level beyond this? Why not build a fully legitimate company out of it? Bulk buy the decks, keep some of them for yourself, supply some local stores, build up a business network. If you want to stay on the quasi-legal side, start a few hackivist groups as well. Not all of them have to be white hat, or even grey hat. Get into the money laundering business is another option as well. All those hackers you could have on side, I imagine a few talented people would like a nice deck and be willing to earn it through work. You might need to through in an upgrade plan as well there.
If you have someone on the team with a SIN and they can keep his trail clean, you've got your front face. Ideally a Face type as well.
I suppose just make sure that you're not storing the results from too many runs at the warehouse. I don't imagine the staff would know what to do with a case of Raiden assault rifles if they're just providing and supplying decks.
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Because it isn't a purchase - it's a theft.
The entire premise of the thread is 'damn, this stuff is 'spensive, how do I make enough cash to upgrade???' My response is 'you don't - you do what you do with almost everything else, you steal it.' I mean, these are essentially career criminals; even if they have a guy with a legal SIN, you don't think someone is gunning for him - or he's gonna look at a setup that has him be the fall guy for 'yeah, I purchase gear and give it to criminals' and be okay with it?? Of course he ain't. I know I wouldn't be okay with it.
A deck of the caliber we're talking about is a huuuge chunk of change, even with trying to sell off your old deck for 25% + 5%/net hit. Shadowrunners may shoot people in the face for money, but what they really excel at is stealing stuff. Since purchasing it just ain't an option ... do what y'all do best.
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Stolen Souls refers to a kid that has a deck at school. Even a cheap deck is usually way outside the bounds of what can be afforded by even a corp-kiddie. Plus, it's Restricted - how did the kid get a license (assuming he has one). Also, Slamm-O! refers to using a cobbled-together deck to hack a couple of nodes. I'm expecting we'll see some addendum in Data Trails that will make the whole deck acquisition process a lot easier.
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The deck costs aren't hard to calculate... For each point of attribute and programming, multiply the square of the number by 1,000 and you come up with the basic cost of the deck. For a 4,3,2,1 deck with 1 program running (The Erika I believe), you add 1*1,2*2,3*3,4*4 (For the 4 stat) and so on through the other stats and come up with comparable price tag to the one in the book... I get 51,000 while the book cites it at 49500. I made a little excel spreadsheet to help me figure it out, and it gets fairly close on the decks in the book, allowing for a GM to cobble something together.
So, to upgrade from his 6/5/5/3-3 deck, he has to make some choices... He's got 200K? A level 4 Ram Module to allow him to run a 4th program would run him 33k if he bought it off the market. Upgrading his old one is only 16k, but what decker wants to have their deck down and out while he's working on an upgrade? So build the new module from scratch, maybe sell your old level 3 Ram module to cover a few of your expenses... I'd say the 33k purchase price could be cut down to 75% for crafting... extended test would be Hardware, Hard (18 hits), and Long (1 hour checks). He can probably build it in a day? Next day he installs it on a Hardware check, Average (12 hits), Short (10 minutes). Seems reasonable. Critical glitch building the module? Spend edge or it's fried. While installing it on your deck? Spend edge or your deck is fried. Adds some suspense to the process and the character (if successful) ends up with a 6/5/5/3-4 deck. Same process to upgrade any of the other attributes and whatnot. Of course, as the modules get higher level, the checks get harder and possibly longer.
Keep in mind that in order to conceptualize a design for a new program he'll probably need the appropriate Knowledge or a Knowsoft and a Skilljack, which really I think he should have anyways. Might be a neat run where he gets the chance to try and steal some extra paydata in the form of Shiawase deck schematics, and likely more realistic than stealing a truckload of decks.
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Interesting math, sethwms. This makes for an interesting option for a house rule until something official comes out.