[Black]

Hi All,

Got a question on what to do with superbly skilled hackers.  My runners are paided anywhere between 10 thousand nuyen to 100 thousand nuyen, and they are not always paid.... Mr Johnsons have on occasion been a bit lax about payment due to disputes over interpretation of contracts.

Anyway, that's not an issue.  The issue is that the runners always find someway to increase their rewards.  They recently hacked a policlub and stole their slush fund of 300,000 nuyen.  They do this on a fairly regular basis.  The issue becomes that runs which don't pay well are starting to be rejected...  Not worth my time.  And before I act against them to reduce their cash, their hacker is erased, and a thousand other things which in theory make him untouchable.

Questions:
Can you just hack a system and steal their nuyen?
How to keep greedy runners motivated when they start to get too rich?
Oh, how good is Erased really?

[Jaffer]

It's easy to get them to behave, threaten to mind control the crazy melee adept they have (assuming she doesn't use all her edge to avoid it)


On a more serious note (I can't believe I'm going to give advise that will cut my groups profits), you have several options.
Make the matrix security a little stronger.
Make them keep the money on a seperate node, or in a banking institution.
Have non-electronic funds like credit chips (although, that didn't help in this case)
Have the money split across a large number of accounts and overseas holdings, make the hacker chase after every credit they can find.

The other thing you can do, is have said group have a secret reserve, and they use it to hire a hacker/shadowrunner to get their money back.

That's what I can think of at the moment, I'll post if any more ideas come to mind.

[CitizenJoe]

That is called a 'Fund Raiser'  Count your blessings that they haven't taken up roller blading.  Roller blading is where they find poor slots on the street and then slice him up for spare parts, selling him to a body shop.  Also called Organ Legging. 

Paydata has always been part of Shadowrun.  While you're in the computer grabbing what Mr. J paid for, you can always grab some other stuff to make some money on the side.  This was never intended to be straight up cash, it was data.  You had to find someone to buy it. 

I want you to imagine a world where it is that easy to rob a bank.  Now imagine the kind of people willing to put money into that kind of bank.  it pretty much doesn't work.  Now if the runners did some sort of scam where it was just throw some dice against some IC, then they earned that money and I wouldn't take it away from them. 

[Mirikon]

First, Erased doesn't mean "no datatrail out there". You still have a datatrail, and beyond that, you still exist in the meat. Even if the hacker can't be tracked back to their lair, not everyone on the team is so hard to find. Have someone trace the mage back to their home. A bit of Leas in the food, and the mage wakes up naked, in a windowless room, tied to a chair, wearing magecuffs, with a nasty guy who has a whole tray of what look like surgical knives. The man begins by saying "Do you know the writings of Shan Yu?"

[raggedhalo]

Can you just hack a system and steal their nuyen?

No.  Except in very rare circumstances, nuyen is stored either on a certified credstick or in a bank account.  Think about your online banking - even if someone hacked into your PC, using your password, they would still have to go up against your bank website and a whole other set of rotating passwords etc. to get at your money.  Even then, there'd be a datatrail of which account the money was transferred to.  I figure it works much the same in the 2070s.

Oh, and banks are almost certainly going to invest in the best Matrix security money can buy (that's how they get more custom!), which means milspec-level tech in some cases.  And they aren't going to be afraid to Trace and Burn you.

[Walks Through Walls]

Another thing you can do is make them spend the money.

In my group almost every adventure someone is having to replace some high nuyen gear. Usually through their own actions. One thing I do is if someone takes heavy damage then their armor may be damaged or destroyed. Make them leave behind or so paranoid about something they willingly leave it. If it is that expensive gun tricked out gun then they have to replace it and spend the money again.
Enforce lifestyle and drug addictions. My mage spends over half of any pay on keeping up his increasing drug habit. He now has 3 mild drug addictions after last game. If someone is using combat drugs regularly make them make the addiction rolls, and if things go bad while they are doing it give them the minuses.
These are the thoughts I have off the top of my head if I think of more I'll let you know.

[nakano]

I would suggest that when they make the "big score" of pay data, that you have the NPC's from who they have aqquired it respond harshly.  You have to figure that if Humanis lost 300k, it would likely be worth alot of nuyen to them to find out who did it, and to have them "dealt with".

As to erased, it depends on the points put into it. 

Even if he is erased, there are ways to find out, or at least to point to the runners as being the culprits.

• The Johnson knows that they were hired for the job.  A couple of ways he could respond depending on personality.  Where is my share?  Or, these idiots have screwed up my operation and now I have to clean up loose ends.  Or, he could simply let their fixer know that he will no longer be requiring that team's services, given their lack of professionalism.  Just a couple of ideas on Mr J's response.
• Their fixer might wonder where they got all the cash from.  See Mr J's possible responses.
• A robbed party might, include, or contact a technomancer to see if they can find out what happened.  And a techno could go to the resonance realms to recapture the datatrail that was "erased."

Erased is a 5 or 10 point positive quality.  It doesn't make you impossible to trace.  Just really, really hard.  And from where I am sitting, behind my GM screen, Humanis has 300,000 reasons to be really really really motivated to find out what happened to their fragging money.

Hope that helps.

[CitizenJoe]

300K for one person might be a lot, but it isn't much to an organization.  PETA brings in 24 million a year.  They pay (or should pay) 3.5 million in taxes.  300K is less than 10% of what their taxes are. 

It isn't much for a 5 man team either.  It amounts to 1 year of middle lifestyle.  Nice to know your rent is paid, but you're still not making any head way.

[nakano]

300K for one person might be a lot, but it isn't much to an organization.  PETA brings in 24 million a year.  They pay (or should pay) 3.5 million in taxes.  300K is less than 10% of what their taxes are. 

It isn't much for a 5 man team either.  It amounts to 1 year of middle lifestyle.  Nice to know your rent is paid, but you're still not making any head way.

It might not be alot to a corp/policlub etc, but it sure as frag is alot when the guy responsible for the operation of the slush fund gets called onto the carpet by his superiors. 

Superior:  "Mr B Igot, you seem to have used 100% of your operational discretionairy fund, without benefit of any sort of records.  Care to explain?"

Mr B Igot:  "Well sir, it was only 300k nuyen.  No big deal to us, right?"

Somehow I don't think that is gonna float, and Mr. B Igot will go hunting for scapegoats.  AKA the PCs.

[CitizenJoe]

300K for one person might be a lot, but it isn't much to an organization.  PETA brings in 24 million a year.  They pay (or should pay) 3.5 million in taxes.  300K is less than 10% of what their taxes are. 

It isn't much for a 5 man team either.  It amounts to 1 year of middle lifestyle.  Nice to know your rent is paid, but you're still not making any head way.

It might not be alot to a corp/policlub etc, but it sure as frag is alot when the guy responsible for the operation of the slush fund gets called onto the carpet by his superiors. 

Superior:  "Mr B Igot, you seem to have used 100% of your operational discretionairy fund, without benefit of any sort of records.  Care to explain?"

Mr B Igot:  "Well sir, it was only 300k nuyen.  No big deal to us, right?"

Somehow I don't think that is gonna float, and Mr. B Igot will go hunting for scapegoats.  AKA the PCs.

I read that as 1 man, Mr. B Igot has until his next audit, to track down who ripped him off, using his own private funds and only his most trusted associates, because if the policlub finds out, he's the one getting the axe.

[Mirikon]

Erased
Cost: 5BP or10BP
Better than SINless—the character with this quality officially doesn’t exist and never did; someone or something actively works to remove her traces from the system. Maybe it’s an elite hacker who owes her a favor or an AI she befriended, but the end result is that her data trail and records vanish from all but the most secure systems shortly after being entered. For 5 BP, criminal SINs and unwanted data disappear within a week. For 10 BP, any SIN, undesirable credit history, or personal information on the Matrix that she wishes is burnt after 24 hours. Obviously, the eraser will preserve any data the character wishes preserved and that is vital for her to function in society. Note that vanishing data may prove an unwanted complication if the character is in custody or doing prison time (the Man may “forget” she is there).

Erased is NOT foolproof, and it isn't immediate. Those datatrails don't go away immediately, and even on the 10BP level, they can be tracked if the trail is still fresh. And technomancers can still go into the Resonance Realms and find them, even then. Moreover, as has been stated, there are points in the chain that aren't datatrails that can be erased. The metahuman element is still the weakest point in any coverup.

Now, if they sit on that money and leave it in some anonymous bank account for the next ten years, then there's a decent chance they can get away with it if they have the discipline to never speak of it and never touch the account. How many runners have that kind of discipline, though?

[nakano]

I read that as 1 man, Mr. B Igot has until his next audit, to track down who ripped him off, using his own private funds and only his most trusted associates, because if the policlub finds out, he's the one getting the axe.

One desperate, highly motivated man, who is in a position of trust to a policlub.  That normally spells well connected amongst its leadership, and trusted by the rank and file to me.

Now slush fund can mean a couple of different things to me.  Emergency budget, advertising overflow, or true discretionairy(aka shadowops) funds.  In the first two cases, not as big a deal, but in scenario three, that is a TPK waiting to happen.  Someone who runs black ops for the policlub would have tremendous resources at their disposal.

Beyond that, it means that the Policlub's matrix presence or internal security in the city has been compromised, and either one of those would likely illicit an internal investigation or review.  Now that probably won't save Mr B Igot's life or reputation, but, again could lead to questions about who is responsible.  Particularly if the team decker did not lay a false trail at Mr B Igot's feet.

[Mirikon]

Remember, folks, sometimes a well connected person can just ask people for a 'favor' to be repaid later, or call in a debt owed them. Meaning that just because they don't have the budget any more, that doesn't mean they can't get people to reach out and touch you. And taking away their budget makes them REALLY want to get to know you.

[CitizenJoe]

Personally, if I were Mr. B Igot, I would make this work in my favor.  I wouldn't tag it on shadowrunners who have already demonstrated their ability to get at me, I'd target whoever my policlub was against.  Blame some trogs for the theft, have some turn up in the Green River then let the donations roll in.  You tighten the screws and keep squeezing the trogs until they fess up who actually took the money. 

300K is not that big a deal to a policlub.  At worst it is an embarrassment.  But a skilled spin artist can turn it into an investment. 

If you want to get away with it, and really make it hurt, have a brand new Toyota Elite limo show up in Mr. Igot's driveway about the time his bosses do the audit.  Better yet, have some of it pay the tuition for an ork who may or may not be his illegitimate son.

[nakano]

Agreed.  As a player I would lead a trail back to Mr. B Igot.  And prolly cast the blame to enemies of the club as well.

But...

I would sure as hell look into the folks that were truly responsible, and seal off that loose end.  Otherwise it might come back and bite me on the a$$.