[SlowDeck]

Something which has come up in relation to a character design I'm working on is if a character can have a real SIN, but arrange for it to be burned so they can work in the shadows. Basically, they do the roleplay side of paying off the SINner NQ.

Edit: This is not from lack of searching for the info. This is from looking at the results and sighing when it didn't end up helpful. If this has been addressed before, I apologize.

[TormDK]

Paying off a NQ costs twice the amount of granted karma once game starts as per the core rulebooks.

So I wouldn't personally give up that amount of karma for a good background description.

[Michael Chandra]

A former SINner whose identity is entirely burned is something a GM can allow, though it wouldn't be a Negative Quality and thus wouldn't give karma, nor would it give any of the SINner benefits. It'd be mere flavor, that's all.

[ZeConster]

Basically what those two said: if a character can find a roleplayed excuse as to why their whole identity vanishes from the Global SIN Database, and they pay the Karma cost involved with losing an NQ, sure, why not.

[DarkSpade]

You could base a run around the character trying to get rid of their SIN, or more likely, doing a run for someone who will get rid of his/her SIN for them as a favor in return.  When it's done and it's time to reward the players Karma, subtract the appropriate amount for the newly SINless character.

EDIT:  Or even more fun, let them have their karma, but replace the quirk with another one that relates to the run.

[The Wyrm Ouroboros]

Many, if not most, runners used to have a SIN, and for one reason or another needed to fade, and so had it burned.  I would suggest that this take at least several runs to accomplish, with a maximum of 1/2 (or less) of karma earned going towards the karma necessary to burn the SIN.  This strongly suggests, however, that the individual - however competent they are - is only just now coming into the shadows, and has to do favors (off-camera if necessary), pay money, and all the usual things for the hacker teams who do this sort of thing to go and do it.

I would personally allow a player to swap some of the disadvantage karma - instead of paying 25 full karma for that SIN to get wiped, maybe he only pays 15, and gets a 10-karma-equivalent NQ that says he has to owe favors or allegience to a certain group - the Mafia, the Yakuza, even a tech-centric Seoulpa Ring. 

[emsquared]

Doesn't seem to me like Burning a real SIN would have to involve a team of hackers and a bunch of favors. Just fake your death.

Granted it'd have to be a really good faking (DNA placement, dental replication and of course a corpse and what not...), then again, I guess maybe they wouldn't remove you from the database just because you're dead though?

[SunRunner]

Faking a death is not that hard in the shadows, just hire a good shadow doc and have him grow a clone. Make sure the clone cant and never has sentience if your mildly moral about things and then set up a nice crime and chase where your clearly IDed and they corner you in a warehouse or something and then blow it up with your clone in a copy of all the gear you were last seen already pre staged there. Presto chango your dead. While I dont think death instantly erases you from the SIN registry It should move all that data over to an inactive dead pool that is not normally looked at without reason. You should already have pre arranged your new SIN and an appointment with another doc to do the plastic surgery and gene therapy so you can slide right into your new identity and cut all ties with the old one. Its how all smart shadow runners retire. If you have saved up the cash and maybe have some favors to burn you can then have your ID totally erased by attacking it in the dead pool which is most likely not as secure as the active registry. And by erased I mean the hacker alters that date / flips the flag that causes your SIN records to be purged so the number can be reassigned to some new born.

[ZeConster]

Many, if not most, runners used to have a SIN, and for one reason or another needed to fade, and so had it burned.

Wait, what? I thought the majority of runners were SINless (as in not having one in the first place) - after all, the book does say stuff like this:

If you have one, you’re a SINner, one of the good, normal people of the world. If you don’t have one, you’re an outsider. You’re pushed into the shadows of the world by default.

There are second-generation runners, born to the life and learning the skills of the trade from their SINless parents.

[SlowDeck]

The idea is to permanently remove the SIN itself so that, if they commit crimes, they end up not having the cops show up at their front door the next morning.

Now, to choose the fun negative quality gained for getting rid of the SIN... *evilgrin*

[The Wyrm Ouroboros]

Not really true, ZeConster. 

Wait, what? I thought the majority of runners were SINless (as in not having one in the first place) - after all, the book does say stuff like this:

If you have one, you’re a SINner, one of the good, normal people of the world. If you don’t have one, you’re an outsider. You’re pushed into the shadows of the world by default.

This says nothing about being born with one, and - as you go into the shadows - getting rid of it.

There are second-generation runners, born to the life and learning the skills of the trade from their SINless parents.

Which is one of the ways of doing it, yes - other non-SINner character concepts are doable, from 'we don't have those in my tribe' to SINless nobodies in the Barrens.  For the most part, unless your character concept is 2nd Gen or Ganger, though, you will have most likely started with a SIN.

The Wyrm?  Started with a SIN.
Hawatari?  Started with a SIN.
Old Man McKinley?  Started with a SIN, has retired on a reeeeeally good fake SIN.

Only one or two of my characters have ever not ICly had previously had a SIN.  It's assumed, though, when you start the game, you've burned it.

[ZeConster]

Only one or two of my characters have ever not ICly had previously had a SIN.  It's assumed, though, when you start the game, you've burned it.

Is that actually in the rules anywhere? Because while 4th edition does mention people who had their SINs erased, that number seems way smaller than those who lost theirs during the '64 Crash, and those who never had one in the first place; plus there's SINless communities like the Ork Underground, and considering the stuff I've read about that, I seriously doubt a significant part of the people who live there are SINless by choice.

[The Wyrm Ouroboros]

It's ... wow.  I mean, it's basically pervaded the game from 1e onwards.  Even if you 'lost it in Crash 2.0' and became a shadowrunner then, you still had a SIN.

Walk it back, though, ZeConster.  Look at your characters, or the characters of your players; look at their stated backgrounds.  If they were a merc, they probably had a SIN, because being a merc is a legal career.  If they were in the armed forces of some place, they had a SIN.  If they worked for a corporation, they had a SIN.  In essence, unless their background is specific enough to state, 'I never had a SIN', by default they had a SIN.

[Namikaze]

It's ... wow.  I mean, it's basically pervaded the game from 1e onwards.  Even if you 'lost it in Crash 2.0' and became a shadowrunner then, you still had a SIN.

Walk it back, though, ZeConster.  Look at your characters, or the characters of your players; look at their stated backgrounds.  If they were a merc, they probably had a SIN, because being a merc is a legal career.  If they were in the armed forces of some place, they had a SIN.  If they worked for a corporation, they had a SIN.  In essence, unless their background is specific enough to state, 'I never had a SIN', by default they had a SIN.

There's never a by default in Shadowrun character backgrounds.  With that said, I agree with your point.  Regardless of the character's origin story, if they don't have the SINner quality, then they don't have a SIN (either anymore, or ever).  There's a lot of games that are played with street scum rules, and never leave the Barrens.  Those guys aren't going to have SINs, generally.  And there are games with globetrotting mercenaries.  Those guys probably have had them in the past.  Point is, there's no default.

[The Wyrm Ouroboros]

In essence, unless their background is specific enough to state, 'I never had a SIN', by default they had a SIN.

There's never a by default in Shadowrun character backgrounds.

Here's the thing: unless there is a specific reason - to wit, your mother and father both didn't have a SIN - when you're born, you're issued a SIN.  This isn't 'default' for character backgrounds; this is default for the shadowrun world.

Now, whether that comes from being a poor SINless bastard in the Barrens or the Ork Underground (or other similar highly-disadvantaged area, like GeMiTo or the GlowPunks in the SOX) or being in a techno- and culture-phobic back-to-the-earth group such as a deep-woods NAN tribe or a tribe in the hyper-advancing jungles of Amazonia or living with the Abos in the Outback doesn't matter; if your mom (AND dad, if your dad is admitting to you) doesn't have a SIN and never manages to acquire one as she goes along, then yeah, you're never going to have one yourself.  If, on the other hand she gains one - like a criminal SIN, or signing her life away to a corporation that issues them - and for some reason you get hooked into the system as a child (e.g. child protective services or the corporation), then ta-da, you'll get issued a SIN.

If the game is a street-level game of 'gangers everywhere', then sure, yeah, none of your characters will have a SIN - that's default for that game.  If your character background is 'I grew up in the Barrens', yeah, you probably don't have a SIN, 'cause your parents probably don't either.  If your parents are shadowrunners, you probably don't have a SIN - again, 'cause they didn't.  But unless your character falls into those actually-pretty-darn-narrow parameters, the character is going to have had a SIN in their past - and this is something that has pretty much always been understood across the editions, and explored in a few places, such as 'Zoe', the reporter 'going into the shadows' in the 'Life on the Run' section of 3e's Sprawl Survival Guide.  (Which also shows one of the thread-aforementioned standard ways of how to burn your old SIN - fake your death.)

I'm not saying every character has to have a SIN, or has to have had a SIN; obviously, a Barrens ganger is likely to not have one (though a ganger from Renton actually is ...).  But unless your birth fits into that specific subset - '(neither of) my parent(s) didn't have one' - then the default of Shadowrun-the-game-universe is that you got stuck with a SIN when you were born.