[Marcus]

I have to disagree with you Dinedae. Turning off wireless and suffering -1 is frankly meaningless in the course of an average session of 5th. Losing your gear's wireless bonus will almost always be the far greater penalty. Regardless of whatever is intended if you consider it, the existence of the recording represents a more meaningful threat to team as a whole then such tiny penalty that will rarely arise. Any recording represents an increased risk of discovery.

It maybe possible to mange that risk to some degree, but something hidden can be found and stolen, something sold/dayjobed is an even greater risk, as it is no longer in character control.

Editing the video simply means a new variant on the old ECM vs ECCM game, as the oppo's deckers try to reconstruct the image/analyze it for intelligence/edit it themselves to achieve their objective. However you look at it this means recording the run, will be a greater potential danger then a very small penalty, in a very rare set of circumstances. 

[Dinendae]

I have to disagree with you Dinedae. Turning off wireless and suffering -1 is frankly meaningless in the course of an average session of 5th. Losing your gear's wireless bonus will almost always be the far greater penalty.

First of all, as I stated before, you can keep your wireless bonus by running silent. You either keep the recording devices on, in either normal mode or running silent, or you take the -1 penalty. Most runners worth the name will have their gear running silent while on a run anyway; who wants to give an enemy decker an easier time to mess with their gear?

Secondly, just because you turn your recording gear off doesn't mean you have to turn everything off. Third, who said you have to lose all of your wireless bonuses? The quality only applies to audio and video recording devices: Turn those off, you get that -1 penalty, but everything else with a wireless bonus is working just fine. If your build happens to be that reliant on audio and visual recording devices, that turning them off would be worse than -1 to everything you do, then keep the devices on and just run silent.

Regardless of whatever is intended if you consider it, the existence of the recording represents a more meaningful threat to team as a whole then such tiny penalty that will rarely arise. Any recording represents an increased risk of discovery.

It maybe possible to mange that risk to some degree, but something hidden can be found and stolen, something sold/dayjobed is an even greater risk, as it is no longer in character control.

You seem to still be under the impression still that the player has to record any runs or other team activities. As it says in the text of the quality, the player has the choice of recording, or not recording and taking the -1 penalty.  Also, there are going to be times when that penalty kicks in regardless of whether or not the player decides to keep recording: Wireless dead zones and high Noise areas immediayely come to mind (if noise is greater than your device rating, you lose wireless functionality (and thus bonuses) unless you can find a way to compensate for it).

Editing the video simply means a new variant on the old ECM vs ECCM game, as the oppo's deckers try to reconstruct the image/analyze it for intelligence/edit it themselves to achieve their objective. However you look at it this means recording the run, will be a greater potential danger then a very small penalty, in a very rare set of circumstances.

When I mentioned editing, I covered the basics; I guess I needed to be comprehensive. Editing refers to far more than just pixellating some faces or distorting voices; there's things you can do such as only recording evidence, making sure teammates/friends/what ever are not shown (by not recording them in the first place). All of this is irrelevant in the first place, as someone with this quality does not have to record the run. For frag's sake, it's only a five point negative quality; don't make it worse than it actually is.

[CitizenJoe]

I did electronic witness before it was a thing.  I ran with a simrig and dumped the data into a processing core.  An agent would then peruse the data for potential threats or pull up the scene for a second review like eidetic memory.

[Marcus]

I have to disagree with you Dinedae. Turning off wireless and suffering -1 is frankly meaningless in the course of an average session of 5th. Losing your gear's wireless bonus will almost always be the far greater penalty.

First of all, as I stated before, you can keep your wireless bonus by running silent. You either keep the recording devices on, in either normal mode or running silent, or you take the -1 penalty. Most runners worth the name will have their gear running silent while on a run anyway; who wants to give an enemy decker an easier time to mess with their gear?

Secondly, just because you turn your recording gear off doesn't mean you have to turn everything off. Third, who said you have to lose all of your wireless bonuses? The quality only applies to audio and video recording devices: Turn those off, you get that -1 penalty, but everything else with a wireless bonus is working just fine. If your build happens to be that reliant on audio and visual recording devices, that turning them off would be worse than -1 to everything you do, then keep the devices on and just run silent.
 

All of which simply makes my point for me concerning your contention that -1 is the real penalty.

Regardless of whatever is intended if you consider it, the existence of the recording represents a more meaningful threat to team as a whole then such tiny penalty that will rarely arise. Any recording represents an increased risk of discovery.

It maybe possible to mange that risk to some degree, but something hidden can be found and stolen, something sold/dayjobed is an even greater risk, as it is no longer in character control.

You seem to still be under the impression still that the player has to record any runs or other team activities. As it says in the text of the quality, the player has the choice of recording, or not recording and taking the -1 penalty.  Also, there are going to be times when that penalty kicks in regardless of whether or not the player decides to keep recording: Wireless dead zones and high Noise areas immediayely come to mind (if noise is greater than your device rating, you lose wireless functionality (and thus bonuses) unless you can find a way to compensate for it).

Editing the video simply means a new variant on the old ECM vs ECCM game, as the oppo's deckers try to reconstruct the image/analyze it for intelligence/edit it themselves to achieve their objective. However you look at it this means recording the run, will be a greater potential danger then a very small penalty, in a very rare set of circumstances.

When I mentioned editing, I covered the basics; I guess I needed to be comprehensive. Editing refers to far more than just pixellating some faces or distorting voices; there's things you can do such as only recording evidence, making sure teammates/friends/what ever are not shown (by not recording them in the first place). All of this is irrelevant in the first place, as someone with this quality does not have to record the run. For frag's sake, it's only a five point negative quality; don't make it worse than it actually is.

Electronic Witness
[Paragraph of fluff cut]
With this quality, the character must acquire gear to record video and sound and wear it at all time (cybereyes and cyberears would be perfect, but sensors can otherwise be mounted in gear). This gear must always be on. The character will never turn off wireless functionality on their gear. If the character takes the Day Job quality, then they meet the conditions of the job simply by being, as they then sell the recordings to specialized data brokers and make their money this way. If they opt not to take Day Job, then the character can do what they wish with the recordings.
In any situation where the character cannot record or turns off wifi on his gear, then they feel especially agitated, suffering a –1 dice pool penalty to all actions.

They do have to record everything. It is that simple. That's what the quality says. Yes it a -5 point quality, but sadly value rarely has anything to do with in game lethality of any given disad, in the same way that point value also doesn't predict the effectiveness of any positive quality. If it did RiM would be 14+ pts, but it's not. That's the reality of game balance.   

[Halinn]

Electronic Witness
[Paragraph of fluff cut]
With this quality, the character must acquire gear to record video and sound and wear it at all time (cybereyes and cyberears would be perfect, but sensors can otherwise be mounted in gear). This gear must always be on. The character will never turn off wireless functionality on their gear. If the character takes the Day Job quality, then they meet the conditions of the job simply by being, as they then sell the recordings to specialized data brokers and make their money this way. If they opt not to take Day Job, then the character can do what they wish with the recordings.
In any situation where the character cannot record or turns off wifi on his gear, then they feel especially agitated, suffering a –1 dice pool penalty to all actions.

They do have to record everything. It is that simple. That's what the quality says. Yes it a -5 point quality, but sadly value rarely has anything to do with in game lethality of any given disad, in the same way that point value also doesn't predict the effectiveness of any positive quality. If it did RiM would be 14+ pts, but it's not. That's the reality of game balance.

So record it, and save to local storage. That's hardly an actual drawback.

[ZeldaBravo]

In this particular case the Elecronic Witness is combined with the Day Job.

[Dinendae]

All of which simply makes my point for me concerning your contention that -1 is the real penalty.

No, it doesn't 'prove' your point, it contradicts it in fact. You buy a micro-sensor or two, and put audio and visual recording devices in them. You turn them off on the run, thus getting the -1 penalty to everything. None of your other gear with wireless bonuses is affected; in other words, they still get their wireless bonuses.

Electronic Witness
[Paragraph of fluff cut]
With this quality, the character must acquire gear to record video and sound and wear it at all time (cybereyes and cyberears would be perfect, but sensors can otherwise be mounted in gear). This gear must always be on. The character will never turn off wireless functionality on their gear. If the character takes the Day Job quality, then they meet the conditions of the job simply by being, as they then sell the recordings to specialized data brokers and make their money this way. If they opt not to take Day Job, then the character can do what they wish with the recordings.
In any situation where the character cannot record or turns off wifi on his gear, then they feel especially agitated, suffering a –1 dice pool penalty to all actions.

They do have to record everything. It is that simple. That's what the quality says. Yes it a -5 point quality, but sadly value rarely has anything to do with in game lethality of any given disad, in the same way that point value also doesn't predict the effectiveness of any positive quality. If it did RiM would be 14+ pts, but it's not. That's the reality of game balance.

Nope, you don't get to leave a bit of fluff in to 'prove' your point. The actual mechanics of how it works are thus:

In any situation where the character cannot record or turns off wifi on his gear, then they feel especially agitated, suffering a –1 dice pool penalty to all actions.

Right there, in the actual mechanics of the quality (the part that actually matters), the player can choose to turn off WiFi and thus get the penalty. There's nothing forcing them to screw over their entire party in the quality, with the possible exception of having the day job quality as well. Even then, the player should discuss it with their GM to see what their interpretation means.

[Dinendae]

In this particular case the Elecronic Witness is combined with the Day Job.

Even then you can talk to your GM; while the quality mentions day job being linked to this quality, many GMs aren't going to force a player to use it that way of it makes more sense for them to have an actual job of being a reporter rather than some video blogger. But let's say the GM says "No! You have to link the two!" OK, they still have to option to turn the recording devices off and eat the penalty. If a GM is going to ignore the mechanics of the quality, then they need to be upfront about that before the game starts so that the player has the opportunity to change out to a different negative quality. This reminds me of the Corporate SIN negative quality discussion, where people were fixating on the worst possible outcome of what the fluff said, and insisted that it would mean the character's death in nearly every situation (when in fact there was a wide range of reactions mentioned).

[Halinn]

All of which simply makes my point for me concerning your contention that -1 is the real penalty.

No, it doesn't 'prove' your point, it contradicts it in fact. You buy a micro-sensor or two, and put audio and visual recording devices in them. You turn them off on the run, thus getting the -1 penalty to everything. None of your other gear with wireless bonuses is affected; in other words, they still get their wireless bonuses.

Arguably, you can never voluntarily stop using your recording equipment. It does say must, and it speaks about when you cannot record, not when you choose not to.
I think most reasonable GMs would allow you to just take the penalty for runs where it's really important, though.

[Dinendae]

S
Arguably, you can never voluntarily stop using your recording equipment. It does say must, and it speaks about when you cannot record, not when you choose not to.
I think most reasonable GMs would allow you to just take the penalty for runs where it's really important, though.

Never being able to turn it off would be a house rule, as it's not supported by the actual rules list in the quality, of which there are two:

• If you take Day Job as well, this quality automatically links to that one.
• If the character enters an area without WiFi, or turns it off,they get a -1 dice penalty to all actions.

That's it; those are the only actual rules in the quality. Everything else in there is fluff. This isn't the first time 5th Edition has contradicted itself in the same topic between the fluff and the actual rules. Heck it's not even the first time the game has contradicted itself in the same paragraph, unfortunately. Unless it gets changed via errata, or the author states they intended it the other way, the actual RAW is what we need to go by, and the RAW is only those two items I just listed (one of which doesn't even come into play, unless you have Day Job).

If it helps you, think of it this way: This character has already established themselves via running some jobs already, which is why the fixer will contact them with more job offers once the game starts. The character also has a job as a reporter, most likely investigative reporting given their moonlighting as a runner (similar to Sunshine). Neither of these screams "I'm a moron!" to me, nor do they imply incompetency to me. Unless the player decides to do it differently, the character should have enough competence to not record criminal actions they are taking.

After all, their actual job is reporting news; that's what the character in the original post would be doing, selling news stories. How much of an idiot would they have to be to sell news stories of crimes committed by themselves? That doesn't mean that they can't record something they stumble across on a run, say finding one of MCT's Technomancer programs, but they don't have to be stupid about it either. They can take a moment to say "Hey guys, this is a huge story. I need to record this as evidence for a piece. Can you step outside for a minute, keep quite, and watch my back while I make a quick recording of this?" They can get their recording for a story for their day job, and still not hose over the team.

[Halinn]

Also in the rules: "the character must acquire gear to record video and sound and wear it at all time"

I do think that the following sentence "This gear must always be on" is more fluff-y than actual rules, but like I said, it's arguably actual rules.

[Glyph]

I think that is why mental flaws have such quantifiable penalties (dice pool penalties, or composure checks to not do something) - because a lot of players will stop roleplaying flaws when they will actually hinder or inconvenience the character.

[Dinendae]

Also in the rules: "the character must acquire gear to record video and sound and wear it at all time"

Or have the cyber-equivalents to let them record, but to be honest I don't see that as a an actual rule more than just a common sense prerequisite. The GM would be well within the rights to either deny the quality or have the player purchase the necessary gear before play started, if they showed up to the game without something to record on their character sheet. It's the same with other negative qualities: I wouldn't allow someone to take the Codeblock negative quality if they didn't have computer skills or otherwise had a character set up in such a way that the quality would hardly (or never) come into play.