Runner?

Looking at the rest of the forums this may seem a bit of a stupid question but what exactly is a runner. I understand that he gets char's from one place to the other for a price but how?
How does one player control the other? What makes a good runner and why don't people do it themselves? I've searched the forums for an answer and although there are a lot of posts either knocking or praising runners, I can't find one that explains the basics of how it works.
A link to a guide or post would be nice if anyone knows one
Cheers all.

Runner uses skills that gets you to aplce FAST, insted of fighting the mobs he/she normally runs past them using a variety of skills, this requies experiance so thats why they charge, hope i helped

But I can't see how that helps the customer. I assume they just tag on to the runner (spacebar), but if the runner is faster than them won't they just lag behind or do you go at the same speed as the runner if you 'spacebar' him?
And again why don't they just run themselves there? I know I've only seen a tiny portion of the map to date but if I need to run somewhere I just load up with henches and go for it, letting them take the hits in my wake.

The person who gets run usually just sits still, but still zones in with the runner, so gets taken to places without actually doing anything.

They are in the same party, so when the runner goes through the zone, the runnee (person getting ran) is zoned too.

By the way, nice display pic Akuma

A runner runs people to places when their costumers dont want to do it themself or cant do it.

For example Droknars run: Running there with a new character is impossible but good (level 20) runners can run all the way to droknars forge. When they are there u will teleport there aswell.

The benefit u get from this is that you can buy the best armor in the game very fast, which helps you with your quests.....

OK I get it now. I'd forgotten that your party re-animates when one of them moves to another zone. So even if the customer dies en route, as long as the runner zones then they both appear in the new zone. Understood, thanks all. BTW How much is that top armour. Is it worth paying the runner for a lvl13 Wa/Mo?

You are gonna miss all the fun if you get that armor before you are supposed to get it. You will eventually get to Droknar after a lot of missions and quests. And that is exactly what people with more then 1 lvl20 char want to avoid. So they pay to save time and money as they are no longer interested in story line.

I made a ranger yesterday in Cantha. Bought her 70AL Canthan set (love it ) then moved to LA, fought my way to Beacon's Pearch, found 2 runners (as I can't run myself to Droknar, I am just lvl14), got to Droknar, took henches and got thought missions, cap Barrage and eventually ended up in Marhan's Grotto. If I decided to do everything myself I would get there in about a week.