[lurkeroutthere]

So wait, his gang is omnipresent enough to know he bought a fake ID somehow missed when he went AWOL? What kind of gang was he running with?

Look up docwagon, easily found: debatable, easily geeked? Not very, not by ganger standards. Docwagon hospitals are secure facilities, limited access, armed guards. A sneak mission might work but it's a borderline shadowrun affair, an armed assault might work but that's a good way to loose half your gang.

My tone was a little strong but my point remains. You need to decide why this guy hired Shadowrunners to protect him from his gang. That decision will inform the gangs capabilities. There are a myriad of cheaper and simpler ways to hide yourself from soembody without hiring a team of Shadowrunners. You hire Shadowrunners when you expect you will be actively hunted by competent people but also expect a fight. Also what Umaro said, wards don't stop ritual casting, they just make it harder to find/cast on.

[Glorthoron]

So wait, his gang is omnipresent enough to know he bought a fake ID somehow missed when he went AWOL? What kind of gang was he running with?

Look up docwagon, easily found: debatable, easily geeked? Not very, not by ganger standards. Docwagon hospitals are secure facilities, limited access, armed guards. A sneak mission might work but it's a borderline shadowrun affair, an armed assault might work but that's a good way to loose half your gang.

My tone was a little strong but my point remains. You need to decide why this guy hired Shadowrunners to protect him from his gang. That decision will inform the gangs capabilities. There are a myriad of cheaper and simpler ways to hide yourself from soembody without hiring a team of Shadowrunners. You hire Shadowrunners when you expect you will be actively hunted by competent people but also expect a fight. Also what Umaro said, wards don't stop ritual casting, they just make it harder to find/cast on.

Docwagon contracts won't be available to anyone without a SIN (fake or real).  Within the 3 days, it would be pretty easy to find who sold the SIN, and what the new SIN was (Shadowrunners could do it in a matter of hours).  Once you have that, connection to Docwagon its pretty easy to find.  Then, waiting out in the street for him to walk out the front door would be an easy way to geek him.

[Lethe]

You make no sense at all. You don't like how the players are doing their job and seem to try finding holes in their plan, but still defend them versus any ever so reasonable objections. You are the GM, you don't need to justify your NPCs actions (as long as they are plausible). There are lots of good ideas here - pick one and be happy.

[Glorthoron]

You make no sense at all. You don't like how the players are doing their job and seem to try finding holes in their plan, but still defend them versus any ever so reasonable objections. You are the GM, you don't need to justify your NPCs actions (as long as they are plausible). There are lots of good ideas here - pick one and be happy.

I'm not defending them versus reasonable objections, just foolish ones.

[GiraffeShaman]

Sorry to interrupt, but does anyone know the rules for finding out who sold the the SIN and what the SIN was? I merely want to know for my own selfish uses. In 3rd edition there are large organizations dedicated to this and I got the impression they are very skilled, professional, and discrete.

[lurkeroutthere]

No, and i honestly doubt he does either, i'm kind of curious where he drew that conclusion. Also Docwagon does sell to sinless and sinner a like, in many ways they are the boost mobile of medicine.

[Glorthoron]

No, and i honestly doubt he does either, i'm kind of curious where he drew that conclusion. Also Docwagon does sell to sinless and sinner a like, in many ways they are the boost mobile of medicine.

No, Docwagon will not sell to SINless.  Neither will any other corp.  As soon as a SINless walks in to get a contract, Docwagon, like anyother corp would say "hey!  we own you now."

I don't know in what book, I haven't used SR3 for years, but just like anything on the street, information is for sale.  And not only to Shadowrunners.  A gang leader could use his contacts just like a runner would to get this info.  Ultimately, it comes down to the rules of "the walls have ears". I'm not sure what they call it in SR4 now, but if a runner can do things with his contacts and word will get back to his enemies, so will the knowledge that a ganger is trying to get a SIN get back to his leader.

[GiraffeShaman]

Looking in the main 3rd edition book, I don't see any specific rules for this. There are rules for buying ids of various ratings and various levels of checks that are made to detect if they are fakes.

It describes the organizations as the following: 'An average Joe working at home on his legal cyberterminal has no hope of creating a usable false ID for a credstick. Only an extremely well-connected expert possesses the resources to pull off a scam of these proportions. Entire shadowy organizations exist soley for the purpose of creating false identities and credsticks. These organizations, normally based in one of the world's data havens, maintain contact with the "real world" only through secret channels.'

This is kind of vague and unfortunately I don't have my Decker books to see if they have anything in there on this. I'd guess that it matters where the identity was bought and who exactly these groups are. I doubt say the Denver Data haven would leak customers. Maybe if the Yaks, Mafia, Seoul rings, or Triad run these operations, they might.

Also, there is the real possibility that the ganger bought a sub par identity at bargain basement prices from someone shady. People make mistakes, especially when low on nuyen and desparate. In addition, the ganger has to have contacts to find a credstick organization. Perhaps he trusted the wrong contact or used the wrong middleman.

[lurkeroutthere]

I'll look for the books for a citation for it later, i believe it's Neo-anarchists guide that first refrences it, but in short, Docwagon does do a substantial (though not a majority by any means) part of it's business model in selling services to the sinless particularly . Likewise most of the corporations of the world arn't interested in owning sinless, there's just no money in it. Easier to just offer them a corporate sin for working 80 hours for company store credits or selling sinless stuff out of the stuffer shack.

Basically you've decided that for whatever magical reason the gang or shadowrunners are going to find one fake sin out of thousands of them, and orders of magnitude more real ones. Their goin gto find that and track it. My counter point to you is in your theoretical "walls have ears" world driving people around in a car would never be enough to throw people off the scent, if every street gang and shadowrunner has CIA level information sifting and gathering technology effectively moving anonymously is impossible. Likewise I think you are confusing two things a dedicated enemy can and will put time and effort into finding things out about people via the streets. Calling people, paying bribes, and canvasing the pavement. But that's a long way from a gang leader getting a call about every illegal purchase some member of his gang makes "Hey Joe, i just thought i'd let you know, Billy came in here the other day and bought a level 2 fake ID, a streetline special, and a pack of smokes. Did you authorize that?"

Information is for sale but part of selling information is knowing who it's valuable and what it's worth. In order for the gang to know that Joe the ganger checked into the hotel or the clinic someone would have to see Joe checking in and know that that's joe the gang member and that his gang is looking for him.  "Using his contacts" isn't some magic fix for finding a non notorious/noteworthy person.

For me at least the presumed limitation on a persons ability to hide is resources and talent. A gang member is going to know or at least suspect he knows what it would take to hide from his old gang, how their going to look and who their going to go through. Likewise if he's got money and ability to reach out to a fixer and get shadowrunners hired he's got some level of resources.

Again we come down to you've got a problem that you came on here looking for a fix but you don't want to use the tools provided because they don't fit your picture of how the world works. If in your world the walls have ears strong enough to pick up Joe ganger checking into a no tell motel under an assumed name but no one would notice a stolen vehicle driving around the city for 72 hours then that's not the sort of problem anyone else is going to be equipped to fix for you. We can throw suggestions and see what sticks but some of our basic suppositions on how the world works are going to be wrong, and some of the tried and true methods for controlling action (principal wanting to exercise authority) arn't going to work because you have decided they won't.

My honest advice to you is next time you put together a job for your players first come up with the job, then throw in some complications that the PC's will have to work around, because life is seldom ideal. Maybe their bodyguard target needs see his kid one last time, maybe the object their stealing is a fish tank full of fish. If you give your players no constraints on what they can do then you have to be prepared for more and more easy fixes. But there are reasons why things are never so simple. In this case again you just need to decide why this particular gang would be able to find

[markelphoenix]

I agree on the 'have complications arise'. If they're driving around for 3 days, statistically, they're opening themselves up to accidents or being pulled over. If they're driving around in high end side of town, the advanced security is going to NOTICE a vehicle that is lingering, they'd most likely dispatch someone to investigate a vehicle driving around aimlessly through a high-security protected neighborhood. Likewise, if they're in a low quality neighborhood, exposure to gang fights, random police pull overs, or they drive over a portion of the road that causes them to get a flat because it's so run-down. You don't even have to tie the original gang into it (even though you have plenty of opportunity to do so. Hell, roll the edge of the char with highest edge rated char. If they get hits, they were lucky and avoided an 'incident', if not or they glitch, they run into the gang by happenstance), life is dangerous in the real world, even more so in Awakened Seattle.

[Cass100199]

Do the "S.W.A.T" routine. They somehow broadcast far and wode that this guys capture or death nets half a mil. Everyone becomes the enemy then.

[lurkeroutthere]

Half a mil from a 50-60 member street gang seems a bit excessive. The principal might be sound in smaller doses.

[Cass100199]

It only has to be plausible, enough to stimulate the storyline. And they're gangers. Who says they're telling the truth.

[Glorthoron]

Look for the SR3 book "Shadowrun Companion".  It has rules in there for the enemy learning about you and your location, it's called "The Walls Have Ears".  I'm still running off of SR4A core book, so I don't know about such rules in this version.  Maybe in other books, and if not, I will probably work something out for myself.

[rasmusnicolaj]

It only has to be plausible, enough to stimulate the storyline. And they're gangers. Who says they're telling the truth.

Yes if they are really desperate to get him ganked they would lie about the reward.
"Millions? No you must have heard wrong. The rewards where in thousands."
It would probably damage their reputation and thrustworthiness but hey they are gangers they don't have much of either from the start anyway 

Just by spreading the word that they are looking and ofering even a small reward say a couple of hundred nuyen will make a lot of poor street people start looking after the guy and at least in my SR there are more than enough poor people desperate to make a few bugs*.

Rasmus

*) Misunderstanding that slang term for money is kind of bad in SR