[Hiddenhope]

In Shadowrun, on one hand the world is painted as a Big Brother socially where transactions are monitored, food and clothing broadcast themselves and you will get noted if you happen to visit a nice part of town without a good fake ID. On the other hand to balance this you have data overload, parts of the population being SINless and bored, underpaid security guards.

So how I am asking how do you run the Big Brother society? You to gloss it over or are you sadistic enough to have the runners get caught because one of them didn't check their latest candy bar for RFID's.

[Mirikon]

They actually talk about this in Unwired. Yes, everything is recorded. Yes, it is impossible to do anything without leaving datatrails, getting caught on camera, or picking up RFIDs. However, this means that there is simply TOO MUCH information out there. We're talking about finding a needle in a haystack the size of the Pentagon. Unless there is something to draw attention to certain datapoints, then you have nothing to worry about.

If a bomb goes off in public, you can bet that the cops will check the nearby cameras to see who placed it. Using that information, they can try and track you down, but unless you've done something MAJOR to motivate them into going above and beyond, they'll probably just run facial recognition to try and get an ID, and put out an APB. Take a potshot at Lofwyr, and you can bet that you'll have S-K goons knocking on your door within 24 hours.

As far as RFIDs go, yes, there are RFIDs in that candy bar you just ate. However, the RFIDs in most things are so ubiquitous that they are the equivalent of saying "they left in a light-colored car of some kind". In other words, it isn't that useful. Now, if you're breaking into a top secret, high security Horizon facility, and your underwear is broadcasting an Aztechnology RFID, that's going to set the guards on alert.

[Hiddenhope]

Heh, while I don't have Unwired I do have Runners Companion which pretty much says what you just said.

I was just asking about how GM's handle this stuff but thinking about it it is kind of a silly question.
If as GM you got drones clamoring to snap a SINless runners picture as soon as they enter areas that are not slums then you are taking things too seriously.....

[Black]

I think you can use it in Three ways:
a) general background to the game aka atmosphere

The runners must have at least one decent fake sin when on a job, and if the job goes sour, be able to dispose of the identity.  Game should have a background feel which encourages palyers to be discrete in most situations, but not paranoid.  Don't leave finger prints, where masks when running an operations, use code names and fake sins when on a job, keep fake licences for the small armory they are carrying around and have a good reason if KE do stop them.

b) Plot Device

Big Brother ramps up when it help drives the plot.  Mr Johnson was watched, the extracted target had hidden RFIDs, subdermal tracker etc., AI ran a profile on the runners, whatever is need to spring the next event.  Should be something that wouldn't occur all the time or 'Atmosphere' will decend into paranoia (unless that's what you want).

c) The Bad Player Hammer

Player chose a character with a distinct look and plays it up all the time despite warnings that it could attract attention.  Player used the character's real name to infiltrate a building, character's don't where masks, leave finger printers and their signature move involves a distastful but very useful dna sample.  Well, now they have attracted attention, and a former target (eg A MegaCorp) has decided to make an example of the runners.  They are very grateful that the character(s) made it easy to track them and would like to provide said thanks in a way that's bound to leave an impression (or crater)

[Mirikon]

their signature move involves a distastful but very useful ritual sample.

Emphasis/edit mine. Doing that is just begging for someone to slam you with a set of high force Influence spells, with the commands "Call in your location to this number", "Stay where you are until the corpsec guards get there", and "Do not resist the corpsec guards".

[Angelone]

In my games I don't play up the big brother is everywhere angle. I am a firm believer in data balkenization and overload. Sure there are cameras everywhere, but S-K isn't going to share with Neonet who isn't going to share with Evo. Certain megas might have info about the PCs but they will use it for their own purposes. It's also hard to sort through all the random data to find what you want.

[The Cat]

In my SR worlds, Big Brother is HUGE.  He is also suffers the worst case of Multiple Personality Disorder in history.

Everything you do in the open (on the street, in a store, in a corporate building - basically anyhting once you exit the door to your home)  is likely recorded by someone and it takes tremendous effort, luck and resource outlay to erase an appreciable fraction of that.  You're not even really safe inside your home if you have any real degree of technology, even if it's stolen using "liberated" services, you're STILL leaving a trail and still being observed and recorded.

On the up side (for runner types) is the fact that there's no centralized way to put together all that information.  Yes, you're being recorded most of the time, but it's not by a single agency or even a small group of agencies.  It's dozens, even hundreds of agencies from the government(s) to corporations to runners to your own employer to individuals to the media to the underground media.  Very few agencies work together willingly and no central authority can demand the footage from another.  Alliances between several of them to actually pin you down on much of anything are rare and you have to really upset everyone's apple cart to get that sort of cooperation against you.

Add to that, the world is so packed with survellence that everything is watched meaning nothing is really seen.  Sure, you just mowed down a dozen gangers and then broke every traffic law getting away and jay walked to your safe house, but none of that even entered onto anyone's radar.  No one saw it and gang on gang violence just wasn't important enough to bother with tracking down the footage the local cops had.

Cap that off with jurisdiction troubles.  Sure you just shot up that Ares facility and blasted your way out onto the streets, but so long as you follow the traffic laws, local cops have nothing on you since you've not broken any laws in their area of control.  They have no reason to cooperate with Ares and may have active reason to not cooperate.

On the other end, as a GM, you can use that level of constant observation to keep your runners (and players) paranoid and careful since they never know who's watching from what jurisdiction and who's going to try to make a career for themselves by flagging you as their personal "get myself promoted" project.  It can also act as story hooks with Johnsons blackmailing the team with incriminating footage or offering to "accidentally" erase or give access to their recorded evidence against the team.  I've even used it to blackmail characters with footage of them doing NICE things in order to keep their reputations as big bad hard nosed tough guys.

I find that the "have fun with it" angle is the best.  The level of survellence in your world and how it is used should be high enough and competent enough to make the characters a bit paranoid and cautious (and smart) but low enough and incompetent enough that runners can safely operate long term otherwise the job of shadowrunner wouldn't exist.  I feel the level of "Big Brother" should be in the background with a lot of "standard precautions" known to the runners and taken as "read" unless it is vital to the plot or to the drama of the game that they take specific precautions against it.

[Joush]

In my games, while huge amounts of data are collected it takes a skilled person to data-mine the information needed.

So yes, someone with access and knowledge can do a lot.

All and all though, I only use that kind of thing as a hook for play. Go for it when it's fun, ignore it when it's not. Constant paranoid avoidance of leaving a data trail isn't any more fun then having to check for traps every 5' in a dungeon.

[ArkangelWinter]

Most data is hard to sift, for above reasons. But heaven help the team that angers a Submerged Technomancer. The Resonance never forgets.

[CanRay]

Big Brother is small in my game.  His brothers, OTOH, are a lot bigger, but don't get along with each other. 

[Mercer]

I agree with the general sentiment that sheer volume of information means that finding anything is like finding the proverbial needle in a haystack.  But it also reminds me of a line from the tv show "In Plain Sight": Finding the needle in a haystack is the easiest thing in the world, if you're willing to look at every piece of straw.  (Mythbusters did this as well, although I think their solution had magnets. I also like Blackadder's take on this, when he described something as "trying to find a piece of hay in an enormous stack of needles.") 

From the runners side of it, that's what having a really high Data Search is all about.  There's a lot of information out there but they can make that work for them.  "Big Brother" makes it sound like there's one omnipresent, omniscient (possibly omnivorous) watcher, but I see it being more like a thousand eyes. 

That's the main benefit of places like the Barrens, the eyes are a lot farther away.  If you're in an A-zone or corporate habitat, there's probably more cameras and sensors on you than can be easily counted.  The closest modern day analogue would probably be a casino floor.  Somebody is always watching because if they aren't, it's costing them money.  The Barrens are where you can go to be out of sight and out of mind.  The eyes are still there, but their farther away and they're not paying as close attention.  There just isn't any money in it.

[Zilfer]

it'd be more of a "Big Brother" If there was some centralized collection where all the data was, and this place filtered so and so data to go here, suspicious data here, ect. That's not the case in shadow run as some previous posters have mentioned, a lot of data will be missing because of the unwillingness to cooperate and share data.

My question is, isn't there a Data search extended test or something that's like 24? Where it's pretty much says the most obscure data on the 'trix? I was wondering what type of information can be gleaned from a board search the whole matrix type test. (difficulty comes from as a DM not being imaginative i think, AND being the only one interested in the hacking side of the game.)

Can anyone fill that gap of knowledge there? Thanks! Seems to me if you met that threshold if there's a youtube video of it anywhere on the net you'd just happen to stumble accross it. *shrugs*

[Black]

Which brings me back to my original point.  Big Brother is a plot point, a tool for the GM to drive the story.  Unless your runners are going out of their way to draw attention, they should be able to fade into the shadows.  However, if you, the GM, needs something to happen, then Big Brother takes notice.  Because, despite the million bits of data out there, if it helps drive a story, a determined enemy can find the data they need.  A Megacorp, if it fits the story, can devote a task force to hunting down the runners, an AI is capable of a kick-arse data search, an enemy can profile the runners and narrow down the search criteria.  But only if the GM wants it to happen.  Otherwise, its just background fluff which helps define the setting.

I would never, ever, personally drive the runners to become paraniod.  Constant paranoia is a draining experience. 

[Zilfer]

Which brings me back to my original point.  Big Brother is a plot point, a tool for the GM to drive the story.  Unless your runners are going out of their way to draw attention, they should be able to fade into the shadows.  However, if you, the GM, needs something to happen, then Big Brother takes notice.  Because, despite the million bits of data out there, if it helps drive a story, a determined enemy can find the data they need.  A Megacorp, if it fits the story, can devote a task force to hunting down the runners, an AI is capable of a kick-arse data search, an enemy can profile the runners and narrow down the search criteria.  But only if the GM wants it to happen.  Otherwise, its just background fluff which helps define the setting.

I would never, ever, personally drive the runners to become paraniod.  Constant paranoia is a draining experience.

I will agree and add that constant parania doesn't add to the game for me, nor i think for my players. If they have to think of a hundred possible ways to get caught and then counter act every single one, i think it draws away from the main story, and the "fun" part of shadow run which is slinging dice, throwing slugs, getting chased. Having those heart stopping moments as you just walked into a room of armed Knight Errant Guards who are all looking away and one of which is turning to see who came through the door. (can you roll high enough to not be seen?) Or hunting down the bastard that screwed over half your contacts, only to get caught and hounded by another of his? Eh....

Anyways unless your specifically going for that type of game and there's nothing wrong with any play style as long as your having fun. It's generally plot device, and it seems most people here agree.

[CitizenJoe]

The objective is not to leave a needle in a haystack, it is to leave a specific needle in a pile of identical needles.