[Robert]

To be really honest... many Shadowrunners are doing the runs because they have to, to pay for their life style.
Consider someone with low life style (2k per month).
That team mate with the stolen gear is worth 5 years of free living.

If you "role play" your charakter, you HAVE to turn that guy in, to get the bounty. 

[Michael Chandra]

Only if your character is willing to backstab for it, otherwise it's just lousy 'but that's what my character would do!'. Would you give the Decker a neckshot to fence their deck? Kill the Streetsam to fence their cyberware? Kill the mage to sell their Foci?

[Robert]

Of course that would be lousy, that is why I put a winking Smiley behind the comment.

But it IS a difference if you get 200.000 bounty as cash or have to fence 450k worth of kit getting 10-15% of the value (according to rule book), thus 45-70k.

Or said the other way round. If one charakter in the group takes the "stolen gear 20" it probably would be good to align that upfront not only with the game master, but also with the other players in the group.

[Hobbes]

Yep, its a chuckle worthy thought exercise.  No GM would let it happen, or if they did they were planning on making it rain anyway.   

[0B]

If you've got a mature enough group that's RP or narrative-focused, that sort of thing might not be bad. So long as all players are in on it.

[Shinobi Killfist]

It would be pretty lame out of the gate, but I could see it happen if after the 4th time repo man showed up and in the fight trashed the deckers gear the decker said fine I'm spiking this jerks drink and collecting the bounty myself.

I have a serious distaste for negative qualities like hunted because far too often its really the teams disadvantage.

[Robert]

wait...so stolen gear:
1) Gives you karma
2) allows you to spend upto 15 karma to get 150k worth of gear
3) Taking all 20 points of karma nets you 150k Nguyen gear + 5karma to spend?

Is that correct?

By my understanding, yes.  As explained above, my understanding is hardly the only way to interpret the rules as-is.  It's still an imperfect interpretation, because under that reading, it's impossible to spend 16-20 karma and qualify for the last category of bounty hunting victimhood.  So clearly something is off.

What does that do to normal karma to nuyen conversion after that 15? is it 1 to 2k or 1 to 5k?

By my understanding, the existence of the cap means there is no more karma to nuyen conversion after 150,000.

God that quality is a mess...

Agreed.  It needs something to fix it, whether you read it my way or any other way.  Balance-wise, I have my hopes that the karma imbalance between this and In Debt (which gives 0 karma...) can also be addressed.

  Waving the hands and doing a bit of thread necromancy...

Coming back to the topic of "stolen gear" quality. I think we all had the wrong interpretation. Because it is a negative quality, we assumed that it would give Karma. However the text states otherwise: "The player and gamemaster must decide on the exact details, but the benefit is that for each point of Karma (up to 20) spent on Stolen Gear, the character gets 10,000 nuyen (see below) to spend on gear, cyberware, and/or bioware during character creation."

Also the table at the bottom shows "Karma Spend" (and not "Karma gained").

In addition consider the statement " These points are spent instead of the normal Karma for extra cash (not in addition to)". This means the normal "karma for extra cash" rule cannot be used and that also means the quality "indebt" cannot be used, as that depends on the same "karma for extra cash".

Nowhere in the description text it says that selecting a certain level of "stolen gear" results in Karma generated.

So my new interpretation of "Stolen Gear" would simply be: It is the "next up" version of "karma for extra cash" or "in debt".

• Normal Karma for extra cash: 2,000 Nuyen per Karma spend
• Quality in debt: 5,000 Nuyen per Karma spend, but you have debts and need to pay interests. If you pay back the principals, the negative quality is gone.
• Quality Stolen Gear: 10,000 Nuyen per Karma spend, but you have stolen and someone hunts you down. If you pay back the value of the stolen stuff, the negative quality is gone.

To me this sounds like the way, the quality was intended.

There are two confusing things.
1) That strange limit to 150k. I believe this is a "left over" from SR5. In SR5 you were only allowed to spend 10 Karma on "Karma for extra cash" or "in debt", meaning your maximum extra cash was 50,000. The quality "stolen gear" allows you to increase that limit by 150,000. Thus in my view "extend the possible additional funds to 150,000¥" should have read "extend the possible additional funds by 150,000¥"
2) That strange box at the top that says "Bonus: 1 to 20 Karma". My guess is that this a formatting thing, putting "Cost" on top of all positive qualities and "Bonus" on top of all negative qualities, without reading the complicated text.

@SSDR, what do you think of this interpretation?

[Stainless Steel Devil Rat]

@SSDR, what do you think of this interpretation?

Well, I think changing it from being a negative quality to being a positive quality is an idea with pretty good potential, actually.  But yes, as you say, there's the nonsensical cap that'd still be causing problems.

No matter how you come at it, I fear there's no making it "work" without changing or ignoring SOME aspect of the rules on that quality.  I haven't been smart enough to make it work completely as-written, at any rate.

[Aria]

wait...so stolen gear:
1) Gives you karma
2) allows you to spend upto 15 karma to get 150k worth of gear
3) Taking all 20 points of karma nets you 150k Nguyen gear + 5karma to spend?

Is that correct?

By my understanding, yes.  As explained above, my understanding is hardly the only way to interpret the rules as-is.  It's still an imperfect interpretation, because under that reading, it's impossible to spend 16-20 karma and qualify for the last category of bounty hunting victimhood.  So clearly something is off.

What does that do to normal karma to nuyen conversion after that 15? is it 1 to 2k or 1 to 5k?

By my understanding, the existence of the cap means there is no more karma to nuyen conversion after 150,000.

God that quality is a mess...

Agreed.  It needs something to fix it, whether you read it my way or any other way.  Balance-wise, I have my hopes that the karma imbalance between this and In Debt (which gives 0 karma...) can also be addressed.

  Waving the hands and doing a bit of thread necromancy...

Coming back to the topic of "stolen gear" quality. I think we all had the wrong interpretation. Because it is a negative quality, we assumed that it would give Karma. However the text states otherwise: "The player and gamemaster must decide on the exact details, but the benefit is that for each point of Karma (up to 20) spent on Stolen Gear, the character gets 10,000 nuyen (see below) to spend on gear, cyberware, and/or bioware during character creation."

Also the table at the bottom shows "Karma Spend" (and not "Karma gained").

In addition consider the statement " These points are spent instead of the normal Karma for extra cash (not in addition to)". This means the normal "karma for extra cash" rule cannot be used and that also means the quality "indebt" cannot be used, as that depends on the same "karma for extra cash".

Nowhere in the description text it says that selecting a certain level of "stolen gear" results in Karma generated.

So my new interpretation of "Stolen Gear" would simply be: It is the "next up" version of "karma for extra cash" or "in debt".

• Normal Karma for extra cash: 2,000 Nuyen per Karma spend
• Quality in debt: 5,000 Nuyen per Karma spend, but you have debts and need to pay interests. If you pay back the principals, the negative quality is gone.
• Quality Stolen Gear: 10,000 Nuyen per Karma spend, but you have stolen and someone hunts you down. If you pay back the value of the stolen stuff, the negative quality is gone.

To me this sounds like the way, the quality was intended.

There are two confusing things.
1) That strange limit to 150k. I believe this is a "left over" from SR5. In SR5 you were only allowed to spend 10 Karma on "Karma for extra cash" or "in debt", meaning your maximum extra cash was 50,000. The quality "stolen gear" allows you to increase that limit by 150,000. Thus in my view "extend the possible additional funds to 150,000¥" should have read "extend the possible additional funds by 150,000¥"
2) That strange box at the top that says "Bonus: 1 to 20 Karma". My guess is that this a formatting thing, putting "Cost" on top of all positive qualities and "Bonus" on top of all negative qualities, without reading the complicated text.

@SSDR, what do you think of this interpretation?

This is how I've 'programmed' it in my excel character generator... seems to work ok  

Also SRM FAQ seems to have included the pre-run damage which I adopted in one of my games (with the PC writing a suitable scene as a pbp game) and that adds some stick to the carrot

[Robert]

Well, I think changing it from being a negative quality to being a positive quality is an idea with pretty good potential, actually.

No need to change it to a positive quality. Just treat it the same as "in debt". That also is a "negative" quality and nets you 5k instead of 2k for every Karma SPEND.

Any chance you could get hold of the person who wrote that qualtiy and ask him how it was intended? 

[KarmaInferno]

I don't suppose we have any news on No Future errata release dates?

[MercilessMing]

Considering it was released before the CRB, yeah

[KarmaInferno]

Hm. Possibly another Errata issue.

The "No Future" book has expanded Audio and Visual Enhancement options that come in Ratings 4-6. (p160) This was pretty clearly modeled on the 5th Edition version of the Enhancements which had Ratings 1-3. However, No Future fails to specify how the Rating works, what bonuses you get per Rating point, etc.

For 5th Edition play, this isn't a problem, you just extend the existing Enhancement rules which give you a +1 Dice Pool bonus per Rating Point.

However, in 6th Edition, Audio and Visual Enhancements no longer have a rating, they just give you a flat +1 dice pool bonus for the relevant tests. Do the expanded enhancements still do the same thing, adding 4 to 6 dice to relevant tests? Or should they really be errata'd to give a flat bonus of some type, maybe a second +1 dice pool bonus, or possibly Edge?

[Stainless Steel Devil Rat]

We've got a No Future errata doc that should go live soon.  This issue was indeed addressed.

[KarmaInferno]

Hm. AutoVoice from No Future again.

We did get ruling for SRM on how to use it in 6th edition since it being from a pre-6E book had 5E rules references - basically in SRM it gives a bonus die per level to Singing skill test (Vocal Expansion also got errata'd for SRM into giving a Social rating bump.)

The book ALSO has a 'hacked' version that "allows for more illegal operation" that costs four times as much and has, predictably, an 'Illegal' legality rating. However, the book fails to say exactly what those illegal operations are.

What would an illegal version do?