Knowledge Database - Plots, Retirement, Etc.
Docwagon and Police Response Times
(Wyldfire, August 25 2012, #308)
Docwagon and police response times given in the book assume an urban, downtown, high-security situation, with all protocols in place (alarms, etc) and represent 'best-case' scenario. GM's should modify these times upward for issues such as distance, environmental conditions, area of town (or even rural versus urban), and other concerns. During a crisis these times might also increase. And sometimes, one gets unlucky. These times are guidelines only, and always subject to GM discretion on the circumstances.
Keywords: Lone Star, Docwagon, Knight Errand, emergency
Non-Shadowrun Jobs and Payout
(Greyhymn, August 10 2002, # 13)
I made a decision not to allow the character Mira to receive weekly payments from a 'real-life job', and instead directed her to use the +karmatocash function. This follows along with previous precedent with players such as Kate, who are not primarily Shadowrunners but hold IC jobs that pay in nuyen. This is what the +karmatocash function is intended to remedies. I recommended that she could either use it to suppy a steady IC income based off of the estimation I gave her for what a modern simsense porn star would make, or convert whenever she felt the squeeze for money; to her own tastes.
Offline PCs - Tradition
(Wyldfire, March 29 2005, # 67)
This has been the general ruling we've used in the past on this.
In general, your PC cannot be killed while you are offline or unable (due to RL) to be online long enough to RP it out, with some exceptions (listed below). We don't feel like it's fair for a player to log on and see, "Sorry, we NPC'ed you and your PC died."
The two exceptions to this are simple. The first arises when the player gives their express permission to be NPC'ed for the situation.
If a player, within a reasonable period of time after being informed by staff that there will be a scene RP'ed that needs their attention (say, 1-2 weeks), does not make arrangements to be online and available, staff can send a message to the player insisting that the player declare a time within the next, say, 1-2 weeks. If the player fails to respond to this, refuses to declare a time, or declares a time and doesn't show for it without a darned good reason, then staff may NPC them for the scene. The fact that this can occur should be explicitly stated.
The goal of this is to make sure to be fair to people and give them every possible opportunity to be online for the scene to be RP'ed out. We want to be understanding that people have RL scheduling issues that arise, of course, but if within a month somebody hasn't found time to RP something out, then staff has to take action to permit something to move forward and be resolved.
A scene that stays unresolved is not fair to the other players involved, and in reality, if a player is 'staying offline' to avoid the consequences of their actions, then we're doing them a favor by resolving it. Because as long as they continue to do that, then they won't be an active player here, either in their current character or via creating a new one.
In other words, give people the benefit of the doubt on this, give them multiple chances, but if they continue to seem to be 'avoiding' the situation, then you may NPC them to make the scene go forward. Warn them, but once they're out of warnings, the show *will* go on.
Playerplot Payout Limits
(Wyldfire, June 25 2009, # 136)
I'd like to address some confusion regarding payout limits.
All we can do, as staff, is take the total payout from a player plot (with gear counted at half value toward this total), divide by the number of participants, and decide whether the plot justifies that number based on the table in +news policy playerplots8.
The question of how that gets divided up is entirely a player question, and completely between them.
If one character gets the niftyshinynew item to herself, and the other participants get sexual favors from that character for their part of the deal, that's their business.
If the payout from the run is 200K cash, and we as admins judge it to be worth 40K a person with 5 people, but the player quietly tells the others in the group that it was only 100K and offers them 20K apiece… that's not our business as staff.
This is how you can Johnson runs, and make a profit!
Plot Payouts and GMS
(Wyldfire, June 25 2009, # 135)
If you GM a playerplot, but your PC does not participate ICly in the plot, then you, as the GM /do not/ count toward the total number of players for determining payout limits.
For example: Alice runs a plot for Bob and Charlie. Alice is not ICly involved; she is there strictly as a GM. Bob and Charlie go do the run. The staffer judges the run to be worth 30K per person. Therefore, the max payout of the run cannot exceed 60K, rather than 90K if Alice were counted toward the total.
However, if you are ICly involved, for example, as (effectively) a Johnson, even though you don't /go/ on the run, you still do count toward this total.
Providing Services for Legwork
(Greyhymn, August 13 2002, # 20)
Mira requested that she be allowed to use her IC ability to provide services to one of her contacts of the sundry sort in exchange for legwork. Though it goes against the policy of straight offering of cash for information, I was loathe to deny her because it fits in perfectly with her character concept and she has the appropriate skills for it. I wasn't particularly interested in roleplaying that out with her, though ^_^ So, the solution I came to was to have her spend a small amount of karma instead of cash to obtain the information. This means that she is still being charged in-character like other players would, but her method of obtaining the information would not be prevented. If she did not have the, erm, 'appropriate' skills for such a transaction, I would not have allowed it.
Retiring Player Gear
(Acordo, August 12 2002, # 18)
On the 11th of August, after discussing the issue with Stop, I authorised the transferring of 50k in cash from retiring Alastes to Savannah. It was also decided that as long as gear transferrance was IC, reasonable amounts are allowed at the discretion of the judge.
Temporary Retirement and Magical Alts
(Vulcan, July 17 2009, # 130)
As the temporary retirement policies specifically relates to garnering the karma to legally possess an extra alt, I have ruled that you cannot temporarily retire a magical character to play another. The spirit of the alts rules is such that you may have 1 magical character and up to 2 mundane characters, provided you meet the requirements. I feel it would be a violation of the spirit of those rules to allow someone to have more alts than maximum allowed -or- more magical characters than allowed through the rules.
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