[Michael Chandra]

I might end up buying a car, rather than just a bike, to be able to hide a sniper rifle properly. ^_^

[Xenon]

note that some items are not only restricted, they are forbidden.
a fake license will not help you out in that case...

[Crunch]

Also remember that the r and f ratings from the book are valid for Missions and represent a standard, but in a given jurisdiction in universe things might be completely different. Renraku might treat all guns as F and in the Sioux Tribal Council all long arms could be legal.

[The Wyrm Ouroboros]

Fancy (optional) - High class clothes, sacrificing a bit of armor for style. Weapons limited to melee if awakened, or a single pistol/machine pistol, possibly a taser as well. To blend in with classy events.

Fancy dress is never optional.

Well, not for BT games.  And in PM games, you might never get a job that'd put you there anyhow.  Or at least, not without crashing the party. 

[Mirikon]

Heh. Well, I was actually referring to optional, depending on your character type. The Face and other social-focused types should definitely have fancy dress, but the types you don't want people to see? That's more iffy. A hacker or rigger on overwatch, a covert ops type running behind the scenes, a sniper in his nest, ect. all have less need of formal dress. Well, usually.

[Reaver]

Heh. Well, I was actually referring to optional, depending on your character type. The Face and other social-focused types should definitely have fancy dress, but the types you don't want people to see? That's more iffy. A hacker or rigger on overwatch, a covert ops type running behind the scenes, a sniper in his nest, ect. all have less need of formal dress. Well, usually.

that really depends on the situation.

last thing you want to be is caught doing a guard job for a VIP... only to find out you are expected to guard him during a Posh cocktail party... and all your wardrobe consists of is synthleather jackets, and jeans with the knees ripped out of them.


a set of Fine clothing is one of the best investments any runner can get..... Nothing screams "Harass Me!!" to KE then the grubby looking guy in the AAA+ rated sector.... The Troll in the Tres chic, $10,000 suit? Not so much.... unless it is to ask him if he would like an other cup of coffee... or the name of his tailor.

[frankhlane]

On the point of practical play, obviously I don't want to burden players with minutiae. I'd like to explore the issue here and form a view, so I can present a consistent and practical approach.

Firstly, can we assume that a legal (or pretending to be) gun in 2073 has the following features:

1) Some sort of way of uniquely marking rounds fired. With that mark recorded on a database. i.e. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballistic_fingerprinting
2)  Some sort of unique ID
3) A history record of ownership from manufacture on a database

Let us explore a couple of cases:

Case A: black market gun.

The gun was brought on the black market. Imo, for the sake of practically, assume the gun has been 'cleaned' and given a fake ID. The cleaning will have removed the ballistic fingerprint and changed any physical and/or electronic serial numbers to match the new ID. Some hacker updates/inserts the ownership record, linking the gun to one of the runner's fake SINs with a licence. This deals with 1), 2) and 3). All part of the black market service.

If the SIN is burnt, he needs to get a new fake gun licence. When you buy a fake licence, re-cleaning and registering your guns is part of the service.

Case B: Gun brought retail with fake SIN with licence

This gun is perfect for issues 2) and 3), but any rounds left at crime scenes will be tracked to the SIN. The runner needs to have the ballistic fingerprinting removed. Once this is done, the gun this ready to take on a run. At that point it is effectively a black market gun.

However, in both cases, the runner cannot safety register the gun with more than one SIN. I am considering making this ruling in my game, unless someone can make a convincing case for how it could be done.

Perhaps the gun could have multiple IDs. However, I think changing a gun ID would be an extended test for a hacker.

This is a well thought-out response and makes great sense!  The big deal with fake gun licenses is not to allow the character to wave guns around in public, it is to allow them to purchase guns from places like WeaponsWorld and not play black market markup.