[OoSpikeoO]

Ill try and keep this brief as the story of how this situation came to be took the better part of a year.  The decker that my players have been running with has hit a wall with what he can do with his deck.  He is attempting to figure out how to trade / buy / steal himself an upgraded deck.  He currently has the 214k deck and is looking to upgrade to the 345k deck, strictly following the rules this is a real hard jump to make.  What have other people done to help move the deckers along without dropping cash on them?

[Poindexter]

sounds like a shadowrun to me.
YOU are mr johnson for this one, so at least your team knows you're telling em everything, eh?
Look one up, do some research on the security, make a plan, do some legwork, revise the plan, break in, and STEAL THE FUCKER!!!

This is YOUR world, dude.

[Reiper]

The team I have running has done a few loans to each other (they got our face Imp Pheromones 3 for example).

You could have the deck as a piece of loot from a run, maybe damaged so he'll still have to possibly pay x amount to get it up and running.

Deck could be kind of an award for a run (although that would be an insane reward, unless he stole a Johnson Decker a new deck and is able to buy the old one from the Johnson at a discount + a favor or two down the road).

[The Wyrm Ouroboros]

Steal it.

No, allow me to correct myself: steal a lot of them.

All the decks in SR are, essentially, decks created for the discerning consumer - of one type or another.  Everyone else is right - this is a self-sourced shadowrun, which means the decker needs to do some work on this.  Have him start probing into the matrix security on the many manufacturers of the grade of 'deck you want (there are multiple manufacturers for all the 'levels' of decks).  Once the matrix security is sussed out, he can figure out who would be the best target for a falsified order. 

For the order, he needs to put together a false front - a corporation that looks good right off the bat.  He might need to get together with some other hackers, or go to a group (Hacker House!) that creates this sort of thing.  Then he rents for a couple weeks a warehouse, gets it dolled up to look like a working, valid place of business.  THEN he goes in and hacks an order for six, eight, a dozen decks of the caliber he's going after - one for him, some for the guys who are helping him out on the back end - gets them shipped to his Completely Valid Warehouse, and goes from there.  His team plays the manager, the shipping/receiving clerk, the stevedores, whatever is necessary to take receipt of the decks.  They hire a local gang - or another shadowrunning team or two, maybe teams associated with the aforementioned hacker 'friends' - to clean themselves up and play some other guys doing shipping drop-offs and pick-ups

In short, they get together with six or eight other shadowrunning teams to pull off a scam that'll net each of their deckers an improved deck, plus each team a deck they can fence.  30% of 345k is over 100k; even 20% is almost 70k.  It's a good chunk of work, and it'll take them a month to pull it off, but if they do it right ...

[SirValeq]

Yes! Create something that will give you 'Leverage'!

[The Wyrm Ouroboros]

Not ... sure what you mean by that, but setting up a major heist that nets you a sizeable bankroll would enable you to take a large proportion of hooding runs in the future.  Used to be the Ferrari Appaloosa (sp?) was primo for that ...

[Namikaze]

Not ... sure what you mean by that

He's referring to the fact that the plot you suggested is very similar to those that are used in the TV show Leverage.

[Poindexter]

he needs to put together a false front - a corporation that looks good right off the bat.  He might need to get together with some other hackers, or go to a group (Hacker House!) that creates this sort of thing.  Then he rents for a couple weeks a warehouse, gets it dolled up to look like a working, valid place of business.  THEN he goes in and hacks an order for six, eight, a dozen decks of the caliber he's going after - one for him, some for the guys who are helping him out on the back end - gets them shipped to his Completely Valid Warehouse, and goes from there.  His team plays the manager, the shipping/receiving clerk, the stevedores, whatever is necessary to take receipt of the decks.  They hire a local gang - or another shadowrunning team or two, maybe teams associated with the aforementioned hacker 'friends' - to clean themselves up and play some other guys doing shipping drop-offs and pick-ups

In short, they get together with six or eight other shadowrunning teams to pull off a scam that'll net each of their deckers an improved deck, plus each team a deck they can fence.  30% of 345k is over 100k; even 20% is almost 70k.  It's a good chunk of work, and it'll take them a month to pull it off, but if they do it right ...

this is simply brilliant. I still tend to think too "street" and rarely come up with this sorta thing, but i admire the HELL out of it when i see it.

[The Wyrm Ouroboros]

Not ... sure what you mean by that

He's referring to the fact that the plot you suggested is very similar to those that are used in the TV show Leverage.

I'm not so certain, but even presuming you're right, very few of the Leverage team's plans could realistically be carried out by the team they have on-screen.  My suggestion above puts at least 3, probably 5, teams together working towards the same goal.  That's about as many as you'd need for most of their ... actions ....

[MrDrProf]

well you could have an epic quest to raid renraku or somebody for a new prototype deck, or there are some totally reputable people out there that would be happy to lend a SINless shadowrunner like yourself some money. 

[ZeConster]

I'm not so certain, but even presuming you're right, very few of the Leverage team's plans could realistically be carried out by the team they have on-screen.

Oh you did not just say that.

[The Wyrm Ouroboros]

Didn't say 'all', but 'very few' is very true, from a realism standpoint.  From a story standpoint, though, of course it'll only take the five of them, with occasional help from their friends/rivals.

[zenbubble]

I'm not so certain, but even presuming you're right, very few of the Leverage team's plans could realistically be carried out by the team they have on-screen.

Oh you did not just say that.

Especially since Leverage (which I loved) is a remake of The A-Team, and Hannibal, BA, Murdock and Face can do ANYTHING.

And then make everything explode.

-Chris

[Senko]

Explode with cabbages.

[firebug]

Steal it.

No, allow me to correct myself: steal a lot of them.

All the decks in SR are, essentially, decks created for the discerning consumer - of one type or another.  Everyone else is right - this is a self-sourced shadowrun, which means the decker needs to do some work on this.  Have him start probing into the matrix security on the many manufacturers of the grade of 'deck you want (there are multiple manufacturers for all the 'levels' of decks).  Once the matrix security is sussed out, he can figure out who would be the best target for a falsified order. 

For the order, he needs to put together a false front - a corporation that looks good right off the bat.  He might need to get together with some other hackers, or go to a group (Hacker House!) that creates this sort of thing.  Then he rents for a couple weeks a warehouse, gets it dolled up to look like a working, valid place of business.  THEN he goes in and hacks an order for six, eight, a dozen decks of the caliber he's going after - one for him, some for the guys who are helping him out on the back end - gets them shipped to his Completely Valid Warehouse, and goes from there.  His team plays the manager, the shipping/receiving clerk, the stevedores, whatever is necessary to take receipt of the decks.  They hire a local gang - or another shadowrunning team or two, maybe teams associated with the aforementioned hacker 'friends' - to clean themselves up and play some other guys doing shipping drop-offs and pick-ups

In short, they get together with six or eight other shadowrunning teams to pull off a scam that'll net each of their deckers an improved deck, plus each team a deck they can fence.  30% of 345k is over 100k; even 20% is almost 70k.  It's a good chunk of work, and it'll take them a month to pull it off, but if they do it right ...

Creative!  As a GM I can't help but wonder "what would a PC need to do this and what would I have to make the steps require?".  None of my players are deckers so I probably wouldn't ever use that plot, but it would be an awesome thing.  It's seems like that would be tough to GM...