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Shadow Runner Organizations? (Or organized shadow-runners?)

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Phoatu

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« on: <10-16-16/1719:50> »
I am setting up a game based in Seattle with a few of my online friends and I have a pretty specific idea I'd like to use to set up the team's home turf.

They will be members of a sizeable network of fixers and runners that may not even have the same goals, but they happen to set themselves up in the same part of Seattle and generally attempt to stay out of one another's way. The intent of this is to create a sort of 'ensemble cast' of NPCs that the players can interact with and have along for runs, as well as have this 'Shadow Corps' be a focus for some plot hooks and character drama.

Is there any precedent for this? Basically something just shy of a paramilitary company that's all shadowrunners, less compartmentalized than your typical sinless slum.

Longshot23

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« Reply #1 on: <10-18-16/0628:54> »
A private investigator company.

MijRai

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« Reply #2 on: <10-18-16/1253:50> »
The Smoker's Club is a known network of wetwork specialists.  Riser was a part of it before his current health issues. 
Would you want to go into a place where the resident had a drum-fed shotgun and can see in the dark?

Reaver

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« Reply #3 on: <10-18-16/1823:28> »
many runner teams like to give themselves names in both the hope of keeping the individual team members a bit safer, and to drum up work.


The smoker's club is a good example of this. It was Riser's team before he developed issues.... Johnson's don't need to know the actual group membership, they just have to know that The Smoker's Club can handle most asignments based off of what each particular run needs.
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Mirikon

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« Reply #4 on: <10-18-16/1953:55> »
Indeed. A team 'brand' can help drum up work, and having that brand also helps keep doublecrosses at bay if you're known for doing good work and getting the job done. Of course, any failures or screwups will affect the team brand as well.
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Sphinx

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« Reply #5 on: <10-19-16/1006:31> »
One of the JackPointers, OrkCE0, is a retired shadowrunner who owns/operates a security company called Dynamic Solutions. See Hard Targets, p.70.

Magnaric

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« Reply #6 on: <10-19-16/1724:44> »
I seem to recall that Ryan Mercury(and others) were part of an elite team called Assets Inc. Though I'm not sure exactly how much the sane thing this is, as they worked mostly(exclusively?) for Dunklezahn.
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The Wyrm Ouroboros

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« Reply #7 on: <10-21-16/0333:51> »
I suspect Phoatu is going for something a bit more 'expansive' than just standard runner teams, or an association of hitmen like either the Smoker's Club or Chimera; he's looking at a large segment of the shadows being brought together.  Even if they're not assembled into an actual organization, they'd at least be organized enough to say 'we can't hit that today, another one of our associated teams is working nearby'.

Phoatu, while strictly speaking in canon such things don't exist in much of the Western World, it does to an extent exist in places such as Hong Kong - the guanxi networks, complicated (and huge!) groups of people who know each other and have equally-complicated relationships (are they your social superior? financial inferior? etc.), which all tie into each other at multiple points.  How you relate to your network, your standing amongst its primary and secondary members, and how it ties into other peoples' networks, makes for very compicated situations - but, if two teams are going after the same thing, may well result in the PCs having to decide whether or not to back away from the 'higher-guanxi' team and hurt their professional relationship with the Johnson(s), or go after the thing anyhow and harm their guanxi standing.

However, this is your game; the only 'precedent' necessary is 'I want this to happen'.  It's been guesstimated that there are between 60 and 90 'professional' SR teams in Seattle at any one time.  It would be entirely possible for a notable portion of those teams, say 20 of them, to be gotten together by five or six fixers who specialize in different things.

if you have one fixer specializing in Japanacorps, one in organized crime, one in Matrix stuff, one in street-level and gang crap, one in heavy-hitter merc/force stuff, and one generalist, each of them is going to have their 'stable' of four or six teams who they can go to for work.  By getting together, they can get access to a lot wider of a client base (the Johnsons), a lot bigger a resource base (the runners), and be able to actually have a group or two (or more) on standby or helping out in some other way.

Perhaps a Johnson wants a shipment hijacked.  A Matrix team can be hired for overwatch, a standard team can be hired to actually acquire the goods, a street-level team can be hired to run interference with KE and nearby gangs, and a heavy-hitter team can be paid to be on-call and relatively nearby just in case the shit hits the fan.  Nobody is going to walk away with the 70k the Johnson is paying for one night's work, but because the work is being spread around, the runners can handle a lot MORE work.  You won't run once every couple of weeks, or once a month; you'll be in action every couple of nights, whether you're the lead, running interference, doing some tree-shaking, or just being on active standby.

This, gamewise, also lets you play around with different sorts of character sets.  Have your players come up with several characters that'll fit in different teams - everyone has a hacker, a couple of combat sorts, a rigger or street racer, that sort of thing.  Put together three or four teams for them to be, so they can pull their own fat out of the fire if it gets too hot.  ;)
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Phoatu

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« Reply #8 on: <11-13-16/1405:04> »
Ouroboros, your post was very informative! That is in-line with what I was going for and I was hoping for some reference material or a skeleton to build upon. Thank you for understanding what I was aiming for.

Sendaz

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« Reply #9 on: <11-22-16/1242:39> »
You could also use a variation of the Exchange, found in pg 98-101 & pg 130 of 3rd edition Target: Matrix

From page 130
Quote
THE EXCHANGE
The Exchange is an open-ended plot device. useful for drawing the characters into just about any
situation imaginable. The easiest way to describe the Exchange is as an anonymous barter system
coordinated through the Matrix. No one knows how many people are involved, how all the information
is coordinated, or who's behind  it.
Involvement in the Exchange starts the same for most people-they somehow (usually through
suspicious circumstances) come into possession of an unusual pocket secretary bearing a
stylized red letter X on its casing. After spying on the person's life for a short period, the
pocket secretary begins recruiting them into raking actions on behalf of the Exchange. No
explanation for these actions is given ; the secretary merely explains that the person will be
..karmically rewarded... Once people begin following the instructions. they will discover that
things are apparently being done on their behalf by others who are part of the Exchange.

For the most part, being part of the Exchange seems beneficial to the members. though the actions a person takes may not always be what
they seem. In some cases. the Exchange seems to take advantage of people,  though this may merely
be their ..karmic reward.. for turning their  backs on the Exchange or otherwise causing problems for it.
The pocket secretaries used by the Exchange are a unique design, and  carry no trace of their
manufacturer. Each of them is connected to  the Matrix (through a forged MSP account) and regularly
transmits data to the Exchange through a series of well-protected relays. The pocket secretaries
each carry a low-light video camera, an audio recorder and a Rating 6 scanner; they often incorporate other surveillance items as well.

Now we are not saying you have to use the exact model for the Exchange, but you could work it as some hidden node run by an AI or similar that certain deckers all pop into to coordinate their teams actions through and such, with the AI putting out calls for what they need when they need it and so on....
Do you believe in a greater WIRELESS, an Invisible(WiFi) All Seeing(detecting those connected- at least if within 100'), All Knowing(all online data) Presence that we can draw upon for Wisdom(downloads & updates), Strength (wifi boni) and Comfort (porn) or do you turn your back on it  (Go Offline)?