[ChewyGranola]

So, how violent is the world for the average person? Does canon make mention of the frequency of things like go-gang skirmishes, mass shootings, gang violence harming civilians, things like that? I've been thinking about that because here in the US we have had at least one seemingly random shooting a day for the past few days, capturing media and national attention. I know there are more, but there are normally more spaces between mass shootings.

Also, terrorism. I'm thinking about this today because militants have just taken control of Mosul in Iraq from the government. The current Iraqi government is pretty weak, quite like a lot of governments in Shadowrun. So how often do governments face things like that? By that I mean large, organized anti-government militia groups. How common are things like car bombings and whatnot?

For that matter, how often do corporations face non-shadowrunner terrorism, like a militant anti-corporate group or something?

Anything in canon for this?

[Namikaze]

Nothing I'm aware of for numbers and such, but based on what you've brought up, I'd think it's probably more prevalent in Shadowrun than it is now.  Security in each district of a city is sometimes summarized as being rated between Z and AAA+.  Z would be a Barrens - a place with no security, no anything.  Crime would be rampant there, worse than in some of the third-world countries of today.  AAA+ would be a locked-down fortress, like many of the areas of Manhattan (Stolen Souls goes into this).  I'd say for the average wageslave, they probably have the bad news shut off as soon as they enter their corporate enclaves, barring themselves from the troubles of the world and pretending everything is great.  When they can't do that, they self-medicate and cheat on their spouses (kind of like today!).

[ChewyGranola]

I agree Namikaze, violence should be dialed up for the Shadowrun setting. Seems that everyone from corporations to gangs, crime bosses to neighborhood watch associations, universities to environmentalists are super quick to reach for a gun (or spell).

Here's a question: Are A, AA, and AAA security zones typically corporate enclaves, as in, are they commonly extraterritorial? Are lower rated zones extraterritorial at all?

I suppose when I talk about the "average person" I mean someone who is not a megacorporate citizen, since the way I read things is that megacorporate citizens are a minority (though a healthy one) even in corporate playgrounds like Seattle. I would assume that the enclaves are normally safer than the areas for regular folk. I always thought corporate enclaves were akin to the walled subdivisions, just small town sized. Heck, I didn't even think most corporate citizens get that kind of security.

I would imagine the Barrens to be anything from Detroit to Mogadishu. Again, I wouldn't count these people as "average".

I guess I'm looking for the SINners who don't live in enclaves, are national citizens, pay taxes and do regular people stuff. That's the majority of people in the setting, right? That's always how I have read it...

[Reaver]

2075 is a different world then today...

The Awakening, Goblinization, VITAS1,2,3 have made their mark.

That said, poverty is rampant, and with it, crime...
Most police forces have given up on stopping it, and just try to contain it away from those that pay the bills...
Meaning, violent crime in the high class parts of town is non existent,  but increases the farther away from the shiny towers you get... till you get to the barrens where you could get stabbed for your pants! (And then stripped clean by the hobos)

Eco terrorism is a very real threat (both from tree huggers and toxics), Religious conflict is still out there, has taken more of an awakened/goblinization tone then a islamic/christian one. ("Magic is the devils work!", "Orks and trolls are the spawn of Satan!")

For the most part,  if you work for a mega in an office, crime is kept away from you, and used to keep you both scared and happy ("thank God I work for Renraku! They keep me safe!") If you are a low income worker, then crime is a very real and constant threat.

[Namikaze]

Here's a question: Are A, AA, and AAA security zones typically corporate enclaves, as in, are they commonly extraterritorial?

Usually, but not always.  Bellevue has it's share of enclaves, but as a whole the district is very safe.

Are lower rated zones extraterritorial at all?

Usually not.  The threat of non-rendition disappearances is usually enough to convince moderately smart criminals to never try to commit a crime on corporate property.  I'll let you decide if shadowrunners count as above or below moderately smart. 

I suppose when I talk about the "average person" I mean someone who is not a megacorporate citizen, since the way I read things is that megacorporate citizens are a minority (though a healthy one) even in corporate playgrounds like Seattle.

Downtown Seattle is 89% corporate-affiliated.  That said, it's not all lollipops and rainbows there.  The district as a whole is less-than-likely to be enclaved.  Think of a corporate enclave as the ultimate gated community.  Even in areas with gated communities, the district as a whole might be pretty decent.  It might also be a festering hellhole, but that's rare.

I would assume that the enclaves are normally safer than the areas for regular folk. I always thought corporate enclaves were akin to the walled subdivisions, just small town sized. Heck, I didn't even think most corporate citizens get that kind of security.

Most of them don't - your average wageslave is just working to get buy, hoping to get into the enclave to keep his/her family safe and guarantee a better education.  A lot of times, once you're in you don't need to ever leave.

I would imagine the Barrens to be anything from Detroit to Mogadishu. Again, I wouldn't count these people as "average".

Statistically, they're more than average.  Granted, these aren't the people you're talking about.  And they also aren't the people that anyone will ever miss if something horrid happens in their back yard, like a volcano exploding, or a nuclear power plant going critical (Puyallup and Glow City).

I guess I'm looking for the SINners who don't live in enclaves, are national citizens, pay taxes and do regular people stuff. That's the majority of people in the setting, right? That's always how I have read it...

This is kind of an area where things get weird.  If you look at each district in Seattle 2072, you'll see that the corporate-affiliated population varies dramatically.  On average, the SINners seem to be pretty much 50/50 split, with any difference going toward the national SINs.  There have to be fewer haves than have-nots in order to stoke the jealousy of the have-nots.  And to remind the haves that there are worse things that can happen, like losing their corporate citizenship.

[ChewyGranola]

That is one stat that has never been fully clear to me: percent corporate affiliated? Does that mean how many are citizens? Dual citizens maybe (I know the...CAS, I believe, had a little blurb in a book where they revoked a bunch of dual Renraku/CAS people's citizenship, so it has to happen)? Employees of a mega, or any corp?

The whole corporate citizenship thing has always bugged me. I would think that dual citizenship is a pretty common thing, but the books have never been clear. It kind of muddies the waters on things like income taxes, jurisdiction in criminal cases, etc. Even the Corporate Guide pretty much said "It's complicated, don't worry about it".

I always figured there had to be a large chunk of the population, a majority IMO, that was not a citizen of a mega or even working for one, at least not at a high level. These are the people the corps sell their stuff too, since at the end of the day that's what the corps do. They have to have SINs, have some disposable income, and some expectation of safety in their lives. I always pegged these people as "average". Middle class I guess, though I would bet that the SR middle class is significantly less wealthy than the modern American middle class.

So when you talk about corporate enclaves, it depends on the area? Like, say downtown Seattle. A highly rated neighborhood could include workers from Federated Boeing, Microdeck, Renraku, Aztechnology, local government and Knight Errant? Are enclaves more likely to be used in less secure areas, like say to protect a group of highly skilled but not highly paid programmers?

Sorry to ramble. I'm getting back into SR for the first time since early 3rd edition and have a ton of questions.

[Crimsondude]

According to conservative estimates, an act of terrorism occurs somewhere in the UCAS every twelve hours, ranging from drive-by assassinations to heavy bombings to ritual magic attacks.

Alamos 20K bombed New Horizons, OH from the air, and rocket/missile launchers are ridiculously easy to get at chargen. Violence and terror is so fucking common in SR it's not even worth mentioning most of the time.

[Namikaze]

That is one stat that has never been fully clear to me: percent corporate affiliated? Does that mean how many are citizens? Dual citizens maybe (I know the...CAS, I believe, had a little blurb in a book where they revoked a bunch of dual Renraku/CAS people's citizenship, so it has to happen)? Employees of a mega, or any corp?

Corp-affiliated generally means these are SINners who live in the area, but either have some sort of corporate SIN, or dual citizenship.

The whole corporate citizenship thing has always bugged me. I would think that dual citizenship is a pretty common thing, but the books have never been clear. It kind of muddies the waters on things like income taxes, jurisdiction in criminal cases, etc. Even the Corporate Guide pretty much said "It's complicated, don't worry about it".

It's complicated, and it would never work in the real world as we know it.  So basically this is a case of hand waving magical changes to reality.

I always figured there had to be a large chunk of the population, a majority IMO, that was not a citizen of a mega or even working for one, at least not at a high level. These are the people the corps sell their stuff too, since at the end of the day that's what the corps do. They have to have SINs, have some disposable income, and some expectation of safety in their lives. I always pegged these people as "average". Middle class I guess, though I would bet that the SR middle class is significantly less wealthy than the modern American middle class.

The majority of the population is not corp-affiliated.  But only a small majority.  There are some areas that are corporate playgrounds, like downtown Seattle, Manhattan, etc. where the corp-affiliated population skyrockets.  But they don't make up the majority of the world's population at all.  I hate to call those non-corpers out there "average" though, since the corporate places are the areas that shadowrunners get the majority of their work.  As usual, a lot of things depend on where you're talking about, because corporate affiliation makes a huge impact on the culture of an area.

So when you talk about corporate enclaves, it depends on the area? Like, say downtown Seattle. A highly rated neighborhood could include workers from Federated Boeing, Microdeck, Renraku, Aztechnology, local government and Knight Errant? Are enclaves more likely to be used in less secure areas, like say to protect a group of highly skilled but not highly paid programmers?

Everything depends on the area.  Generally, an enclave house is a reward for a loyal drone employee of the corporation.  Someone that has put years into working for that corp.  But again, this varies by corp too.  Japanacorps, for instance, will only give these houses out rarely and they stay in the family.  Generally this is due to the Japanese philosophy that an employee of a corporation is indebted to that corp for life (and in Shiawase's case, sometimes beyond).  American corps might hand these out based on performance reviews rather than loyalty.  There's a great section on corporate culture in the Corporate Guide.  In most cases though, a highly skilled employee that isn't high in the ranks can still expect some sort of protection from their Mother Corp.  But then, that's what extraction runs are all about.  You have to extract these people before they become amazing enough to warrant attention and security, or it gets a lot harder to extract them.  This is also talked about in Corporate Guide.

[ChewyGranola]

Ok time to re-read Corporate Guide. I know the PDF is...somewhere...

That's about what I figured for corporate citizenship. I guess for my personal headcanon I will assume that corp citizens are often dual citizens so still pay taxes and that corporate citizenship doesn't apply all the time...you know what, forget about it. Hand wave, just a thing, not important. Someday my OCD would like a good explaination in-game

[ChewyGranola]

According to conservative estimates, an act of terrorism occurs somewhere in the UCAS every twelve hours, ranging from drive-by assassinations to heavy bombings to ritual magic attacks.

Alamos 20K bombed New Horizons, OH from the air, and rocket/missile launchers are ridiculously easy to get at chargen. Violence and terror is so fucking common in SR it's not even worth mentioning most of the time.

True story! I forgot about that. Ok, so the world is like Iraq now.

[Tenlaar]

You know, it never really sunk in just how loaded with explosives a chargen character can be.  Makes me want to work up a character just to use to mess with GMs that starts with two ArmTech MGL-12 grenade launchers and 50 each flash-bang, fragmentation, and high explosive...and literally nothing else.  Resources E, 20 grand from karma, 1 grand left to start play with...

[Crimsondude]

I think a character like that could otherwise talk his way into food and housing.

[The Wyrm Ouroboros]

I built a troll (giant type) for a friend whose sidearm was an MGL-6.  Ahhhh, those were the days ...

That said, while violence - gang and otherwise - is relatively common, you also need to look at the level of security in an area, i.e. its security rating.  While some crazies (the Halloweeners) will try to rampage through downtown Downtown Seattle, throwing molotovs at the Aztechnology Pyramid and causing a ruckus, they run a real and high risk of getting blown away - which is why I think they probably rampage through the B- and C-rated areas of the Downtown District.

If you want to give your players something of a taste, do this for every mile or two travelled in a vehicle - or even every few blocks if they're on foot.  Make a, let's call it a 'Tension Level' roll - I'd suggest a baseline of 10, but pick what you want - and during any event/adventure in which it says there's widespread rioting and the like, increase the number of dice.  In a Z-Zone, only if you critically glitch that test do you not have violence occur Very Nearby (i.e. you're within at least Long range, maybe less, of their weapons - usually pistols, but sometimes machine pistols, smgs, shotguns, etc.) during that part of the journey.

Use the area's Security Rating as the number of hits required for the person/group to encounter violence: 1 hit for E-rated areas, 2 for D-rated, 3 for C, 4 for B, 5 for A+.  What will differentiate the various levels of A+ rated zones is the immediacy of the response.  In an A-rated zone, a sec-team might not be involved, but at least one is sure to be on its way.  (Use the security response timetable for that.)  In a AAA-rated zone, meanwhile, as soon as a stray round hits a security team's building, they're going to 'selectively engage' in order to reduce the threat.  Whether that's going to kill the combatants or simply drive them off, the security doesn't care - they aren't here endangering 'our corporate property'.  Which can of course lead to the two groups initially involved getting in a running battle as 'border guards' keep them moving along by shooting at them ...

I am reminded of a book that is somewhat Shadowrun-like, but which especially displays the sort of near-hellhole in which people in D- and E-rated zones live - the violence that happens just as a matter of course.  Check out David Drake's 'The Sharp End' ...

[Medicineman]

I prefer to go by Movies like Judge Dredd,Robocop or Dark Angel (the Series)

For that matter, how often do corporations face non-shadowrunner terrorism, like a militant anti-corporate group or something?

one prominent Anti-Megacrop-terror Organisation is Green War (the militant Arm of Green Peace)

with a Green Dance
Medicienman

[Sendaz]

TerraFirst! is another eco group the corps and various government agencies have to watch out for.

TerraFirst makes Greenwar look like a geriatric knitting circle.
“A group of hard cases that only pay lip service to their ecological goals, TerraFirst! blows things up just to see the shrapnel fly.” (NANv2. pg 42)   

They are sometimes used as a distraction as they have no problems doing a strike on a facility that they feel is wronging Mother Earth and have the resources and tech to make it count while your team is breaking in while everyone focuses on the TF threat.