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Reputation: A player handout

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Fizzygoo

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« on: <01-20-11/1924:09> »
---This is a handout to my players. The PCs are John Smith, Varun Singh, Guy Noire, Corn, Sith-Luinn (all street names). I don't have a finished character sheet for Corn which is why there's the "probably's" and "maybe's" by his entries. It's a tad explicit, but I wanted to make it entertaining for them as I tend to get, ahem, 'wordy'---

Life's shit, and it only gets worse the closer you hover over the porcelain god.

However, everyone gets 3 Karma from the Food Fight run, not much but it lets you push back from the toilet a bit.

Page 265 of the SR4A (Shadowrun 4th Edition main book, Anniversary edition) has the info on Reputation.

Street Cred

Street Cred is like holding your liquor...you're a runner, so you're looking green at the party, standing near the bathroom, but you're holding it and if you loose it...well...if it's all because of Street Cred alone then you held it like a champ and you're making an entertaining youtube vid as you wrap your arms around the cold porcelain.

None of you have done enough runs to gain any Street Cred of note (for every 10 Karma earned, you get 1 point of Street Cred, so you've all got 30% of 1 point of Street Cred). You will get to use your Street Cred value as a positive dice pool modifier to social tests (Negotiations, Con, Etiquette, etc.) IF the people/person you're interacting with has reason to know who you are.

You can also gain Street Cred at the GM's discretion for stunning victories, unbelievable escapes, amazing accomplishments, etc.

Notoriety

Notoriety, on the other hand, pushes your head further in the crapper with no one to hold your hair for you.

John Smith has 3 points of Notoriety! While he's "bland" and doesn't stand out in a crowd (-1 Notoriety), he's been known to completely screw up in various situations (3 skills he's incompetent in [but these haven't been defined, as far as I know, yet]) and he was trapped in the Matrix during Crash 2.0...and no one really trusts those scorched mind-fucks.

Varun Singh has 2 points of Notoriety! While he's not as unlucky as a white lighter at a stoner circle jerk, it does seem when the chips are down and he has to push the limits he encounters more bad luck than your average runner. Add to that, he's addicted (to what again?). Sure, he's not mainlining BTLs or snorting novacoke in back alleys every ten minutes, but he's got an issue.

Guy Noire has 0 Notoriety! Sure, like Varun he's got a mild addiction, but it's too his allergy medicine...and even then...have you ever met the guy, no, well, he makes a great first impression.
 
Sith-Luinn has 1 point of Notoriety! She breaks stuff, especially electronics, cars, anything with electrical systems...she'll break it. And not like a good hacker, no, she'll break it right when you need it, and trying to have a conference call with her is like trying to strain spaghetti with a hermetically sealed freeze-dried muppet.

Corn has 3? points of Notoriety (probably more, maybe less)! But regardless; DO NOT let him handle a gun, any gun, it's like giving a loaded gun to a 3 year old, only worse. A 3 year old you can at least teach and they'll remember. He's also a drinker, it doesn't usually get in the way...but, well, you never know. An addict's an addict.

You will gain further Notoriety based on your character's actions. If you do things that make it difficult to work with you (failing a run, incredibly obnoxious behavior, killing innocents, working with dragons, exceptional bad luck, etc.) the GM will give you Notoriety points.

Notoriety acts like Street Cred for social tests, but it's a negative dice pool modifier to your dice pool when you interact with people who would know who you are. This means BOOM! right up front you're going to have negative modifiers (except Guy/Phil) when interacting with your contacts! Greasing wheels (bribes, payments, sharing info, etc.) is a great way to off set the negative modifiers with at least a +1. The flip side, for Intimidation tests, Notoriety works as bonus dice. So when intimidating someone that knows about you you get Intimidation + Charisma + Street Cred + Notoriety +/- other mods! However...using Notoriety in this fashion runs the risk of making you even more Notorious!

Once you get Street Cred, you can burn some to remove Notoriety. Burning 2 Street Cred kills off 1 Notoriety. That means you have to earn 17 more Karma in order to get rid of 1 Notoriety point (though the Karma is NOT spent, just the Street Cred that was "created" by earning that Karma). As an ad hoc rule, if you don't have Notoriety but still want to burn Street Cred (see Public Awareness below for the reason why you don't want Street Cred to high), you can do so at a rate of 2 Street Cred per 500¥ (It has to be in 2 point increments, and the money representing time and effort put in to erasing your deeds, keeping things on the down-low, etc.). But you cannot burn Street Cred with cash if you have Notoriety,,.or to put it another way...if you have Notoriety and want to burn Street Cred for 500¥ per point you can...but you'll still loose Notoriety.

Public Awareness

Public Awareness (PA) is like leaving the door open at the party for everyone to come and look at how your porcelain god prayer session is going so they can either laugh at you, run in disgust, or marvel in awe at how you're handling the situation...that situation being a 'runner's life.

Add your Street Cred + Notoriety together, then divide by 3 (round down) and that's your Public Awareness.

John Smith & (probably) Corn have a PA of 1...all due to Notoriety. The rest of you are at 0.

Now don't worry too much, a PA score that's less than 3, just means that only those in the Shadows really pay attention, nothing's really out in the public.

Once you hit 3 PA then those paying attention to the shadows will have probably heard about you, or at least someone fitting your description and skill set. It means the authorities (corporate/government/syndicates) know about you and the average beat-cop/syndicate underling knows your name or deeds. But only the section of the public that's interested in shadowrunners will know anything; fanboys reading other fanboys' blogs, media hounds looking for new talent in their Runners Reality series, etc. But once you hit 10+ PA, you're the Angelina Jolie, the Paris Hilton, the George Cloony of the shadows; you're a household name because even if you haven't agreed to travel to L.A. and star in some Urban Brawl matches, there have been exposes done about you for ShadowTV or other shadowrun related news outlets and the first Sim-flick about one of your amazing runs is about to hit virtual theaters.

PA works as a bonus to Knowledge skills made by NPCs to see if they've heard of you. If they have...then you will get to/have to use the modifiers from your Street Cred/Notoriety in social tests with that person/persons. But also, the higher the PA the more likely you're going to be targeted by the authorities and Johnsons might consider you to high-profile for a job.

But to put this in perspective;

Every 3 points of Street Cred = 1 PA
Every 3 points of Notoriety = 1 PA

You gain Street Cred by A) Total Earned Karma / 10 and B) GM awards.
You gain Notoriety by A) beginning Negative Qualities and B) GM awards.

An average run will net you 8 Karma.

10 Karma = 1 Street Cred = 1/3 PA = 1.25 Runs
20 Karma = 2 Street Cred = 2/3 PA = 2.5 Runs
30 Karma = 3 Street Cred = 1 PA = 3.75 Runs
40 Karma = 4 Street Cred = 1 1/3 PA = 5 Runs
50 Karma = 5 Street Cred = 1 2/3 PA = 6.25 Runs
60 Karma = 6 Street Cred = 2 PA = 7.5 Runs
70 Karma = 7 Street Cred = 2 1/3 PA = 8.75 Runs
80 Karma = 8 Street Cred = 2 2/3 PA = 10 Runs
90 Karma = 9 Street Cred = 3 PA = 11.25 Runs
100 Karma = 10 Street Cred = 3 1/3 PA = 12.5 Runs
200 Karma = 20 Street Cred = 6 2/3 PA = 25 Runs
300 Karma = 30 Street Cred = 10 PA = 37.5 Runs
500 Karma = 50 Street Cred = 16 2/3 PA = 62.5 Runs
1000 Karma = 100 Street Cred = 33 1/3 PA = 125 Runs

So, gaining Public Awareness by Karma/Runs alone will take you about 11 runs to start showing up on the authorities' radars and 30 (successful) runs before you become a celebrity. But GM awards (based on players' actions) can speed that up. One never knows when the hurls are actually going to start, could be on your way rushing to the toilet or it could be after hours of lying there on the freezing tiles of the bathroom as some frat boy fingers you in your half-conscious stupor, but at some point you're either going to hurl or die trying.
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« Reply #1 on: <01-20-11/2057:31> »
Guy Noire is an excellent street name and I love Prairie Home Companion too.

Oh yeah, pretty good handout too.  :D