[thalandar]

During the course of a game I recently ran, the characters where fleeing from corprate bad guys when their vehicle wrecked on the boarder of Redmonds and Bellevue.  As the characters disambarked, a homeless squatter watches them.  One player, last of the group, walks up to the squatter and kills him-supposedly so the corps can't interrogate him.
The PLAYERs are upset, however the CHARACTERS failed their preception rolls (silenced pistol).  The group is pretty divided.  I, as the game master, am thinking of assigning a point of Notority, however, no one actually saw it.  What does everyone think?

[Fizzygoo]

Can't be notorious without people knowing about the whats and whys for the notoriety. Doesn't mean the squatter's friend, who was taking a leak in the bushes at the time and trusted his gut to stay hidden, didn't see everything though...or a free spirit...or someone's drone...or...because what the player's don't know serves the GM's plot.

The squatter's friend becomes an enemy as well. Local news reported might air it as it looks like a professional hit...but why on a squatter? "Rick Rickers, Channel 10, knows why...because this poor bum saw something he shouldn't have. Could it be because of that corporate security chase last night? Or maybe they caught someone dumping something int he river that they shouldn't be? Rick Rickers to find out...news at 11." Free spirits could start whispering in the other runners' ears about what a bad bad person the notorious runner is. Etc.

The last one...that gets trickey as turning players against players can lead to real disruptions in the group. Using outside NPCs to harass the one player allows the other players to decide as info is revealed, if ever.

[Critias]

In-game, be reasonable with your response.  Sometimes a dead squatter is just a dead squatter, there's no need to contort the plot and punish the whole group for the actions of a single individual, especially when those actions were so sneaky that none of the other professional Shadowrunners around him spotted it;  what are the odds someone else did?

Out of game, have a talk with him.  If the other players don't like someone being that cold blooded, it's worth a quick discussion just to make sure everyone is on the same page.  You want everyone to be having fun and to feel -- mostly -- comfortable at your game, don't you?  A little squick factor here and there, a little fidgeting in their seats before they get a renewed ferocity against some particularly gruesome bad guy, sure...add some drama, even if it pushes the boundaries a little, as the GM.  But for the most part, you want everyone to be relaxed, to have fun slinging dice and telling stories, and not to be ostracizing one player because his character isn't "in tune" with what everyone else is after.

If most of the group is playing Leverage and one guy is playing Heat, it can be just as disruptive as if it were the other way around.

[Kot]

I'd solve that matter out-of-game. Talk it through with your players. Even if one of them feels it's justified, because their characters didn't notice, you still have to resolve that. Or it'll be a wedge between your players. Ant that is never a good thing.
And Fizzygoo's advice is as sound, as it gets. There have to be consequences in-game. And there sure are people who can connect the dots - just like in real life, crimes like that just tend to get solved. Everyone can follow their trail, up to the vehicle, and the body, and just assume they killed him.

[Nomad Zophiel]

I'd solve that matter out-of-game. Talk it through with your players. Even if one of them feels it's justified, because their characters didn't notice, you still have to resolve that. Or it'll be a wedge between your players. Ant that is never a good thing.
And Fizzygoo's advice is as sound, as it gets. There have to be consequences in-game. And there sure are people who can connect the dots - just like in real life, crimes like that just tend to get solved. Everyone can follow their trail, up to the vehicle, and the body, and just assume they killed him.

I agree with the first half. This is mostly an out of game issue. The player 's style is out of tune with everyone else's. It can probably be dealt with out of game with no real problems.

As for consequences, I'm usually the first one to suggest considering everyone who's effected by a particular character's death. In this case, though, its a good example of "life is cheap". Knight Errant is notorious for not caring about what happens in the Barrens. This is a guy whose buddies probably felt really bad for him as they were taking his shoes and selling him to a body bank. It amounts to one Runner devaluing the life of someone less powerful than him. Its the same thing the corps do, just less systematic.

Now if the Runners' car blasted out of Bellvue and wrecked, you can count on it being impounded and checked for prints, DNA etc. The corps may simply count their losses when it comes to Shadowrunning but a firefight in Bellvue is a high profile crime that rich people will want investigated.

[Dead Monky]

I don't have much to add that everyone else hasn't already covered other than that you should probably bring up leal to him.  It's a great means of negating witnesses without killing them.  They can't give a description if they don't remember seeing you in the first place.

[Nomad Zophiel]

I don't have much to add that everyone else hasn't already covered other than that you should probably bring up leal to him.  It's a great means of negating witnesses without killing them.  They can't give a description if they don't remember seeing you in the first place.

Yeah, but lead is cheaper. 

[FastJack]

I agree with what's been said already. It's an out of game discussion with the players to figure out how to handle it.

In game, I just have one word: Ballistics. I'm sure the Corp Guys chasing them would have no problems working with the authorities to turn over ballistic (and other) evidence they have of the runners.

[Critias]

Yeah, but if it's just a dead SINless guy, who's gonna bother with ballistics?  Sure, it might be a clue in tracking them down (depending on how serious their crime was to begin with, and what the corp was hunting them for, and which corp it was)...but in an of itself, a big part of the SR universe has always been "no SIN = no crime." 

[Kot]

Why? Because they want to get them. And if the streets start burning below the team's feet, because of the corp's subtle black PR campaign, they're easier to target.

[Mystic]

Given my particular style of GM-img when it comes to SR, plater actions and reactions are handled in-party. My number one rule when I started the last campaign was that while you are free to do whatever you want, there will be reprocussions both good and bad, and your reps will reflect it. In my campaign, it was more about life in the Sixth world, not JUST runs. We had a good chunk of game time dealing with the Rigger's bad decision to rough up a couple of KE detectives (who had the contract in my game, set in Toledo) just because they "pissed me (the rigger) off". For a rigger, he should have realized that cop cars, even plainclothes often come with little things called DASH CAMS.

It was interesting when the detectives used the threat of arrest as leverage against the rigger. Once the rest of the group found out, they were pissed. It kind of went down hill from there. They ended up offing the detectives, and accidently an undercover FBI agent in the process....this lead to them hooking up with the local mafia don for protection, having to do certin "favors", getting set up to take a dive by another mafiaso...then becoming indebted to the FBI, who arrested/rolled them to get info on the mafia family...

It was a mess, but a fun mess to play out. Not all runs are about the yen, sometimes they're about survival.

[Nomad Zophiel]

Also remember, if you want in-game consequences this will probably not be an isolated incident. If the character is a psychopath who kills without hesitation when he thinks he can get away with it, he'll do it again. So you don't have to bend over backwards to make this one instance the bringer of consequence. Sooner or later he'll slip up.

[imperialus]

Yeah, unless that squatter actually had someone who gave a damn (in which case why is he a squatter?) I don't see any consequences for the runners action.  Leaving a wrecked up car in Bellvue is a far bigger problem.  I had one PC who always carried around a modified gas grenade designed to spray chlorine bleach for just such occasions.

[Kot]

Hey, even squatters stand for themselves. And SINless rarely have the opportunity for any better kind of lifestyle. The "low" lifestyle is pretty much that - squatting. What if that guy was someone's friend, family, or contact. Maybe they'll have another team(whose contact the unlucky trigger-happy player killed) hunting them in a few days?

[9amJedi]

Out of game conversation.  If that doesn't settle, then even squatters have friends - probably a couple.  Who knows, could be ex-runners or ex-corp types.  Maybe even an undercover reporter.  Nothing ever goes right in the Shadows, this could just me another example.