[df_0]

Where do most people keep their money? I would assume that only people with SINs could actually keep their money in banks. The way I'm thinking is that they wouldn't know their account number, but would be tied to their SIN and probably withdraw nuyen via their commlink.

I'm thinking that SINners would keep their money on credsticks and not have an 'official' way to store it.

There is a mind mage in the group looking to mind probe (for account info) or mind control everyone and get them to drain their money (probably kidnap them and kill them after), which then poses the banking question in Shadowrun. The way I'm thinking banking would work, unless the mage gets greedy and probe's someone more powerful, it would be relatively easy to get money from others.

[Reaver]

In a way yes....

And there would be this nice big data trail for law enforcement to follow.

"Hey look, just before this guy got geeked, he transferred all his money to this account! Lets go ask/find this guy as he was the last person to see him."

Remember, in the digital age that is SR, every inch of the world worth living in is recorded, digitized, analized, and surveyed. Thanks to both drones, cameras, and RFID readers and scanners. (This is what makes technos/deckers such valuable team members! They can obfuscate or even remove this data trail from the matrix, thus keeping the 600 vending machines, light standards, drones, and stores you past from pointing an arrow to where you went!)

So unless Mr. Mage kept his hunting to the slums, he's GOING TO GET CAUGHT! (Just a question of when... not IF). And if he's hunting in the slums, he's not getting much.... after all, just how much money does people on a low lifestyle have?? These people fan barely afford flavouring for their 3 soy meals a day!

So that means hunting in a better part of town.... which means security... the higher the zone, the more intusive the security....



So yea, let the mage do it... a couple of times, then 'throw the book at him' litterally. Being a mind raping thief murderer is going to bring the heat like no ones business cause he's hitting just about every trope main stream society hates and fears...

Magic
Mind raping
Murder
Thieft


They'll come at him using 'standard Lone Star proceedures' no matter what corp they are...

(In case you don't know what standard LSP is, it goes: <Blam! Blam! Blam!> "Freeze! You're under arrest!")

[Rift_0f_Bladz]

Reaver you forgot the extra BLAM!! after the your under arrest line. Always put an extra (or three) ex-ex round into the bastard mage's brain pain.

[Fabe]

Where do most people keep their money? I would assume that only people with SINs could actually keep their money in banks. The way I'm thinking is that they wouldn't know their account number, but would be tied to their SIN and probably withdraw nuyen via their commlink.

I'm thinking that SINners would keep their money on credsticks and not have an 'official' way to store it.

There is a mind mage in the group looking to mind probe (for account info) or mind control everyone and get them to drain their money (probably kidnap them and kill them after), which then poses the banking question in Shadowrun. The way I'm thinking banking would work, unless the mage gets greedy and probe's someone more powerful, it would be relatively easy to get money from others.

  If its that easy then why is the mage even running the shadows? Maybe I'm just getting cynical  but is i just me or does it seem that the motivation for some players to play the  game is solely to make their characters a rich as possible with minimal effort?  I mean its like their not even interested in going on runs or playing out multi session adventures  . Its more like "how can I get as much money for my characters  with as few dice rolls and in as little real world time as possible?".

[CitizenJoe]

It is probably easier to manipulate the victim into changing his passcode to something you already know. 

[MijRai]

Yeah, there isn't that much of a data-trail if done right.

Unless you want to, spells in Shadowrun don't require verbal or somatic components.  You can look at someone funny and put your mind-affecting spell on them.  So walking by them on the street to do the spell is simple enough, since the chances of astral security being on-hand when you do it is minimal (and you can watch for it before doing your spell). 

If you're smart, you don't do account transfers, you do credsticks.  If you do have to send it to a specific account, you send it to one that's in an area where it can't be tracked, and then reroute the payment again a time or two to make sure. 

Another suggestion would be to not drain the people's accounts dry; take a single moderate credstick's worth.  It's less likely to cause continued trouble for you in the long-run. 

It'd probably be cheaper and less of a problem if you just Laes them afterwards instead of killing, but if you do decide to off them, that strange withdrawal they just did could as easily make law enforcement think THEY were the bad person.  If you're going to study your targets a bit, pick the kind of people who seem desperate enough to do something stupid, then hit them.  'Oh, he was about to be divorced by his wife, so he drained the account and 'disappeared'' is a viable option. 

And Fabe, maybe they need more cash to run the shadows?  They're trying to get a new focus, or a better place to live, or afford a bolt-hole?  Maybe they're getting blackmailed for money or have debts to pay, and they need to fix that as soon as possible?  You have no clue as to the motivations, so there's no reason to make it sound like they're at fault for whatever's happening. 

[Moonshine Fox]

Unless you want to, spells in Shadowrun don't require verbal or somatic components.  You can look at someone funny and put your mind-affecting spell on them.  So walking by them on the street to do the spell is simple enough, since the chances of astral security being on-hand when you do it is minimal (and you can watch for it before doing your spell). 

If you're smart, you don't do account transfers, you do credsticks.  If you do have to send it to a specific account, you send it to one that's in an area where it can't be tracked, and then reroute the payment again a time or two to make sure. 

Keep in mind though that magic is able to be spotted with a simple perception check even if you're just giving a guy a funny look (and anyone astrally perceiving will see it clearly). And with the opposed roll nature of Control Thoughts, you'll probably need a decent force. Where could you transfer the money to not be tracked? Even in this day cooking the books is a hard task, with the data trails that get left in the sixth world, it would be even harder. It's possible, but you'd have to have some really good money laundering skills, and use them quickly as I'd imagine the person would quickly call his bank and cancel the transaction when the control thoughts spell wears off.

It's a tradeoff. You probably won't get the high nuyen targets very often as they have a lot tighter security around them and their assets. You can more reliably hit the low end folks, but they don't have much to begin with.

And Fabe does have a point. If you are skilled at mind taking and stealing money like that, why would you risk yourself on runs like that? You'd be better off working with one of the syndicates as you'd have a lot more resources on hand will less risk to your own skin. Mages have a lot of other ways to make a quick buck that are perfectly legal (with the appropriate licensing, which I'm sure they'll have  ) rather then risking their necks. Brew up some refined reagents, sell warding, offer minor magic services to low end folk for (relatively) cheep, sell preparations and the list goes on.

Thankfully Fabe I think it's more cynicism. While the threads of 'how I can manipulate the rules to become rich' do pop up from time to time, it probably doesn't come out in game as often as it would seem. I'm willing to bet that a lot of them are just playing around with crazy ideas, which personally, I totally encourage!

To the OP, most people keep their money in banks. Credsticks can be linked to a SIN and account allowing money to be withdrawn in a fashion similar to a debit or credit card today (think Apple pay or Samsung pay systems). These are usually referred to as certified credsticks (or at least they used to, can't remember about this edition). There are also disposable credsticks that serve as cash/prepaid debit cards that people will sometimes have. This tends to apply to most SINners who have a normal work life. For the SINless, if they even have money, you'll probably see it mostly on disposable credsticks or in local script. The closest they'd have to a bank I would imagine is if some local crime syndicate or gang offered storage/laundering services, though those do come at a price and would probably be too hard to access to easily grab via a Thought Control spell.

[Senko]

They'd also be worse to hit than a legitimate venture. When the police come round people tend to clam up but when the local criminal organisation comes round you get something more like this. . ..

Hello Mr Can you know that protection money you owe us?
Yes.
We're prepared to wave 10% this month for any info leading us to these idiots and of course should we find out later you lied to us we'll break both your necks.
Both?
Yes yours and your five year old daughters.
Let me see those photos.