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Posted by: Deimos Masque May 20 2008, 03:11 PM

In general, what sort of payouts should a slightly better than beginning Shadowrun team expect for the various types of runs they perform at an equal level to their skill?

I've been having real trouble find a good starting number to work from and I fear giving my players too much early on in the game (we are only 7 game sessions in)

Posted by: imperialus May 20 2008, 03:19 PM

this comes up every couple weeks. Might want to try the search function for 'payment'. I'll copy paste an old post of mine that details my thoughts

Posted by: ArkonC May 20 2008, 03:19 PM

You're very vague so it is hard to give you any answer...
http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?showtopic=21969 is a thread about payment, I'm sure if you use the search function, you can find more...

Posted by: Deimos Masque May 20 2008, 03:23 PM

Funny thing is I used the search function on several other things, but for some reason didn't think to look up payment.

Silly me.

Thanks for the replies though!

Posted by: JeffSz May 21 2008, 03:15 AM

problem with that explanation of Street Cred is that street cred is already Karma / 10 (rounded up)
you've replaced that with rewarded points at your table?

Posted by: imperialus May 21 2008, 03:27 AM

Yeah, that's the downside with me quoting bits and pieces of an old thread without the context. I did mention I use street cred somewhat differently. Really though, it's just a name. You could call it 'runner points' or GM beanies or whatever and keep streetcred intact.

Posted by: Emperor Tippy May 21 2008, 03:42 AM

It really depends on how you see Shadowrun and how your players see it.

Let's face it, 400 BP is enough that with almost any build your character could walk in the front door at any megacorp and have a job, complete with genetic reprinting and a legit SIN matched to the new DNA, that pays 120K (a high lifestyle)+ per year. For mages and hackers it's even more reasonable. So if the character can't make at least that much risking their lives and freedom then it really stretches believability that they would run (barring some fairly specific backstories). A runner team can easily make 5-10K per person per month just jacking cars, and that is a lot safer than your average run.

If the characters are smart they will be getting a new Fake SIN for every run, stay in a safe house every night when on said run, dump any weapon used or ammo bought at the same time, rent a vehicle, etc. Since most anything less than a rating 6 SIN is practically worthless let's go with one of those. SIN, Safe house, and rented car comes to 10K in expenses for the first week; with 4K a week after that.

That generally holds true on every run that involves the in person commission of any crime (pure matrix runs are another story). So after expenses the character should be looking at how much his life and freedom is worth, and its at least 10K.

That right there is 20K per runner, or 100K for a 5 man team of runners. And the expenses (at least) are paid in advance.

A more normal run that involves the loss of drones, the pissing off of a major organization (running against Ares for example), or enough felonies to result in the death penalty/several hundred years in prison should be paying around 150K.

----
My characters (again barring specific back stories) tell their fixers to make sure that the Johnson knows about the 100K minimum in advance. At the meet said character asks the Johnson a series of questions about the run; nothing specific but enough to tell them probable danger, etc. The character then tells the Johnson a ballpark figure for the run, the Johnson can agree that its at least reasonable or the runners walk. He can choose to share the data with the players without a commitment to accept the job if he thinks that there are mitigating factors, or he can leave. If the Johnson agrees that the figure is reasonable then he will give the runners the details. Now final haggling begins. If the Johnson misrepresented the truth in answering the initial questions then the characters will up the price to match the data.


Note: This is only for contract runs. My players and my characters generally do favor runs or stuff that they plan themselves - "Hey, some rich guy just bought a panting for 10 million and he leaves here in Seattle. Want to rob him?"

----
Street games are fine but they don't work that well at 400 BP

Posted by: Sir_Psycho May 21 2008, 04:02 AM

Sorry tippy, but the Johnson simply doesn't care about you enough to fork 100-150 thou for a bunch of 0 street cred renners that he's never heard about. You can whistle "100k minimum" to your fixer if you want, but good luck if he would call you back.

As for replacing equipment such as trashed vehicles and drones and chopping up the guns you used? J cares even less. Why should he pay you, a runner he does not know, 20k, when he could actually get a runner with a better rep (Cred 1) who will likely do the job for half of that.

I don't dispute that getting new fake SINs, weapons and safehouses is a good, conscientious, and secure way to run, but until you have the rep to afford that kind of precaution, you're pissing in the wind.

Posted by: Emperor Tippy May 21 2008, 04:19 AM

Again, this just doesn't fit with 400 BP. Whether or not you have every run before, you have the skill set of a professional. You are risking your life to do something that is of no personal interest to yourself except in the monetary sense. You have other ways to make money which carry far less risk. If someone wants *you* to risk *your* life and freedom then they need to pay you what you consider an acceptable amount for said risk. If they don't consider the amount acceptable then you shrug and walk away.

I would far rather mug a drug dealer or jack a car if I need to make this months rent than risk my life for a similar amount of money.

As for street cred and rep, you shouldn't have either if you do your job well. Your fixer should be the only person who knows anything about you, and in almost every case that should only be a way to contact you and your skill set. You don't tell people when you do runs or when you have done runs. A Johnson should not be able to track you or link you to any previous or future runs.

As for the expenses, I will give the Johnson an itemized list in advance and he can either pay it or not, if he doesn't we walk. I have no incentive to run at a loss.

And even at 100K for the run, your still cheaper than an in house team. Your average runner has that much in ware inside them. The corp has to cover said cost for the inhouse team. And the inhouse team isn't as deniable.

Posted by: Teulisch May 21 2008, 05:03 AM

its not about the BP! it dosent matter how much 'skill' you have! it matters more if you have what it takes to get the job done. Mr. J wants results.

so forget about the numbers. look at what the Mr. J knows, what he thinks, and what he can afford. that matters far more than what obscure numbers you have on a sheet of paper.

if you want to sandbox it with car jacking? feel free. who knows, maybe you'll survive and turn a profit. but that isnt exactly shadowrunning, and it gets you a different kind of rep.

Posted by: Emperor Tippy May 21 2008, 05:25 AM

Mr. J wants a deniable asset that accomplishes the mission and doesn't talk about said mission. If he can link you to a previous run then why should he believe that someone else can't link you to his run. If he can trace you then why shouldn't he believe that someone else can do the same and perhaps pressure you into revealing what you know.


Mr. J knows that he called a dependable fixer and that the fixer told him that if he wants a good team then here is a com number to call and leave a contact number, the minimum cost for the run will be 100K. The fixer told him that if he just wants muscle or a specific skill then it could be cheaper (highering gangers for example, or a matrix specialist). Mr. J knows that when he attempted to trace the com number he came up blank. He knows that he left a number and a person told him a time to be at a certain restaurant and to ask for the table reserved for Mr. Johnson. He knows that 1 person showed up and placed 2 comlinks with a fiber optic link on the table and told him to pick one and put on the trodes. He knows that the face picked up the other and put it on and that the rest of the conversation happened entirely in there heads where it couldn't be intercepted. He knows that the face told him that he is not to leave the restaurant until 10 minutes after the face does and that he is not to attempt to follow said face. Failure to follow these rules will cause the snipers outside to put a bullet through his head as he leaves.

As for what he can afford, if the Johnson can't afford a hundred thousand for a run then he shouldn't be in the business. That pay data is worth millions to his corp. Corps don't just capriciously higher people to steal from their competitors or assassinate rivals or extract assets. It's not good business.


What's this rep? No one, and I do mean no one should be able to link any of your identities to any of your other identities. Maybe your teammates know where your house/apartment is. But even they shouldn't really know who you are without earning that trust. For your Rep to change people have to link the act to you. And you don't have a consistent identity to link it to.

Posted by: Sir_Psycho May 21 2008, 05:31 AM

How about an analogy of another career to demonstrate how shadowrunning works. How about hospitality?

I worked in a cafe for the better part of a year. I was young, I had dropped out of school, and I was working a crappy job below minimum wage. Hell, I was making so little money, that I could have gone back to school and made more money from youth allowance/oz-study (Australia's welfare system). But why was I being paid so badly? It wasn't because I was a bad employee. It was because I was young and inexperienced, and without any references on my resume, and no higher school certificate, I couldn't get anything better.

That's a shadowrunner for you. They've got the skills and the ware to be a good shadowrunner. But it means nothing if you don't have a rep to back it up. That's why you start small, doing jobs for less than you're worth. It's not the money you're doing it for when you're a bottom-tier runner, that's just buying you food and rent. You're working for the rep. And if you are a good runner, then it's going to filter back, and people will be willing to lay down more nuyen for your services.

The car-jacking analogy sucks, and it's used all the time here on DS. Sure, a starting runner can make better money by jacking a car. But there's little advancement. You're a car-jacker, you jack the same cars for the same deals for the same chop-shops. You don't expand your contacts, you don't get a rep, except that you're a decent car-jacker. When you're a shadowrunner, there's advancement, if you work hard enough and make the right connections, you can make more money than a car-jacker can dream of. Shadowrunning is a hard job, and no, the money at first is not good. But with ambition and reputation, it can be a very lucrative job.

Of course, street cred and rep don't mean that you have to go around saying "you know that ares facility that had the ebola-plus scare last week? That was actually my team, and the scare was faked by our decker, so we could actually make a copy of a secret file called 'Ares-Research12486'. It's not bragging and leaving a trail, it's customer satisfaction. You do a job for a Johnson, and if you're this "good runner" you keep talking about, he will pass the compliments back to your fixer, and your fixer might decide you're ready for a more challenging and better paying assignment that has just been brought to the table.

And if you don't go through this process, if you just walk into a blind sit-down with a johnson and suddenly demand that he pays for this and that, you don't look proffessional. You may have the skills of a proffessional, but if you can't do it under budget, then you're not using the correct level of force and discretion and you're not a proffessional.

Posted by: Emperor Tippy May 21 2008, 05:53 AM

You weren't risking your life. You weren't committing felonies on a daily basis. Your company wasn't willing to disavow your existence.


Again, if you have a rep you have failed on your run. If the Johnson can find out what other runs you have done thats means that others will be able to find out about this one. The only person you will have a rep with is your fixer, and all he knows is that no Johnson has complained about your failure on a run. And again, 100K is working for food and rent. Thats 10K a person, or enough to support a high lifestyle on 1 run a month. The ones with multiple successful runs are pulling down the million or more jobs and getting a new genetic reprint after every run.


It doesn't matter. Why should I risk my life for a luxury life style when I can live a high lifestyle for relatively little risk? And again, a rep is not a good thing to have. It means that you are traceable.


Sure, and thats when you get the 200K jobs. Or the million jobs.

What it really comes down to is 10K won't cover the cost of doing the run. No intelligent, professional, runner will accept a run that pays him less than his expenses. Once you accept that fact you are at a 50K minimum per run. Now we get into what the runners risk is actually worth. Don't think of it as a 100K for a runner. It's 10K for the runner. Enough to support a high lifestyle or make a profit if he lives a lower lifestyle.


You are doing it under budget. Let's go with the basic paydata run. The corp would not be highering if that pay data was worth anything less than several million , its just not worth the risk or trouble. It could potentially be worth several hundred million (stealing that companies new OS, erasing their copy, and giving it to the johnson for example). Let's say the pay data is worth 10 million (low), 100K is 1%

And you aren't sitting down demanding said money, the fixer already told the Johnson that it was a 100K minimum and what the procedure would be (at least most of it).

Posted by: ArkonC May 21 2008, 06:12 AM

Tippy, you seem to be falling for the trap of believing you deserve more money...
You fail to realize that Mr. J doesn't care if you do the job, or some other poor sap...
If you tried to pull what you're describing at my table as a beginning runner, you'd be ridiculed by the whole runner community...
"Yeah, I know him, the guy who think he's all that? He's out there, trying to jack enough cars to make this months rent. ... Oh yes, we did the job he declined. ... Let's meet and discuss the specifics..."
400BP doesn't make you god's gift to runners...
You try that for any job without the rep to back it up, and you'll get laughed at (if you're lucky) or killed (if the Mr. J doesn't like arrogant loose end who are likely to try to sell him out)...

isn't the only form of payment, you forget about the rep and contacts you build up while running, and the die-hard-pro you describe might work when you are a government assassin, but as a runner, you need a name, you need a rep, and you need to have contacts who know you, a man on his own in the shadows is an easy target, no matter how well trained he is.

Posted by: kzt May 21 2008, 06:37 AM

The other reason that this analogy sucks is that guys who steal cars for chop shops don't really make much money. If you OWN the chop shop you might make several/many thousands from a stolen car, the guy who steals it for you is making a few hundred at most. Stealing the car is the easiest part of the whole "getting rich from GTA" cycle and therefore pays the least. The guy who can fake the title, the guy who can strip the tracers, the guy who can take a car apart in 20 minutes, the guy who runs the place and manages relations with the cops and car thieves, the guy who find buyers for the parts, these are the people that have useful skills/resources that are not possessed by every thug.

Your only going to do well at this if you can retitle the car and sell it to someone at close to market value for what a non-stolen car gets.

Posted by: Emperor Tippy May 21 2008, 06:46 AM

Then Mr. J is free to pay someone else. It's not that you deserve that much money or more money. It's just what it costs to higher a professional. In real life you can pay the homeless drug addict to kill someone for a rock of rack or a few hundred bucks. Or you can higher a professional hitman for anywhere from 50K up to several million or more. Thats for a 1-2 man team at the low end. If Mr. J wants a low end job he can higher the team of 250 BP gangers to do it.



See, failure here. There is no "Yeah, I know him". If you are a professional that does not happen. You are a randomly generated face (nanopaste or false front) who the Johnson might have a picture of and that will never be used again. You are an online handle that no one knows in the meat, or several of them.


No it doesn't. It also, objectively (seeing as only 50 BP can be spent on gear) makes you a highly skilled, highly talented, professional with several thousand worth of gear in your body. A 4 in a skill is Veteran level. A 6 is best of the best. Most runners have several skills at 4 or higher (and many have whole skill groups at that level). And if the person has focused on 1 trait (say hacking) they can really be one of the 5 or so best in the world out of char gen (especially if the GM lets you code your own programs above rating 6).


Again, if the Johnson knows your rep you have failed. Your fixer knows but your Johnson shouldn't (it means that you have one). And I would be a lot more likely to not trust the team with 5 guys who show up, agree to meet in a private room, accept my offer of 20K for the 5 of them, and agree to have the run done in 3 days. They are easier to bribe, apparently have no sense of security, apparently are trusting, and don't do proper legwork.


Sure you need contacts. Those contacts need not know the same person. You may have a childhood buddy who owns a private clinic and thinks that you are a private consultant who specializes in "Acquisition Facilitation". You may have a fixer who knows you as Ghost, the person who gets the job done. You may have a banker who knows you as the next door neighbor who found him a friend to get back his daughter when she was kidnapped. You may know an arms dealer who knows you as Snake and that your credit is good.

As for being on your own in the shadows, your not. You have your team. And again, that assumes that people are gunning for you and can find you.

As for Rep, how would your Johnson know it in the first place? Johnson's don't talk to one another. They can ask around but what does it mean when they find nothing, that the runner is a professional who hides themselves well and takes proper security precautions? Or that the runner is new? At the meet the runner appeared professional, asked relevant questions, charged a reasonable rate, and was completely impossible for the Johnson to track. So does he assume a new runner or a professional?

As a player and a GM I assume that the Johnson has a camera on the whole meet and has a agent running a real time search for anything and everything it can find on the runner.


What it really comes down to is this: Would you risk your life for $5,000 when you could get a job paying 120K a year with benefits by just showing up at a company? Now how about the same thing except reasonable precautions against loosing your life cost you 10K. No runner would risk their life for -5K.

Posted by: Muspellsheimr May 21 2008, 06:57 AM

In the shadows, you need reputation. Just because other's know of your rep does not mean you failed. If they know the specifics of the jobs you pulled to get that rep is when you fail.

For example, one of my characters has a reputation for wetwork. She is a known professional assassin. However, the only people that know which jobs she has pulled are herself, the Johnson, and to a lesser extend, her fixer. Just because you are known to do something does not mean which instances of said something you were involved in.

Posted by: ArkonC May 21 2008, 07:02 AM

And how long can you keep turning down jobs before you run out of money to pay rent?

Again, you're not a professional assassin or special ops guy, you are a shadowrunner and shadowrunners live and die by their rep, if you don't get this there is very little I can do about it...

Just like every other runner out there then...

Again Shadowrunner live and die by their rep, no rep, no good jobs...

Again, shadowrunners LIVE AND DIE BY THEIR REP!
If NO ONE knows you, NO ONE is going to offer you any sweet deals...
If you spend most of your hard earned cash trying to remain alone and unknown, don't whine when no one knows you when the shit hits the fan...
And as to this reasonable rate the runner is asking, if it is more than Mr. J is willing to pay, it isn't reasonable, and not all runs are for multi million worth of paydata, a lot of runs aren't even for things that are worth a million to the corp, "They're working on someone we want to know what it is, 25K, take it or leave it" is a very common run in my experience...
Acting like a pro is acting like an arrogant self satisfied git, unless you have the rep to back it up...

No, what it really comes down to is you're a SINless loser who has the choice between carving out a rep for himself and start pulling down some nice jobs, or staying a nobody and stealing cars for a "safe" but meager living...
You try running up to the Star, telling them you kick ass with guns and have no SIN...
Will they:
A) Give you a job.
B) Arrest you and frame you for some high profile crime they haven't been able to solve.
Let me see here...

Posted by: Emperor Tippy May 21 2008, 07:19 AM

How did you get said rep? I don't mean what did you do specifically but how did you get it?


Sure. I know you work is Seattle (or where ever) and that X was hit. It was to clean for a ganger or the like, meaning a professional did it. Does Seattle have any people with a rep for wetwork? Sure. How many? 5 maybe?. Now who has the best rep out of those 5? And how hard is it to do an indepth check on 5 people when you have a place to start? Not that difficult.

That you are known to do something is irrelevant, its easy to plant such things. That you are known to be good at something is different, but getting known to be good at a job requires that other people know about your work in the job.

You can say your a great programmer and even get that planted in peoples mind fairly easily. But if you never show anyone any of your programs then they don't really know your that good.

So the only person you really should have a rep with is your fixer. And he should just know that your Johnson's have never complained about you messing up a run. As for your rep just starting out:

Mr. Johnson: I need a team that does extractions, the target is mid level and has a moderate security detail.
Fixer: Well I have 2 possible teams that are available. Team A has done work for me in the past, no complaints but they charge a minimum of 200K. Team B hasn't worked for me before but they apparently have the skills and are professional, they charge a minimum of 100K. I'll vouch for the first team but no guarantees on the second.
Mr. Johnson: This shouldn't be real hairry. So long as they are professionals I'll meet with team B.
Fixer: Here's the comcode. Leave a number to contact you at and you should here from them within a day or so.
Mr. Johnson: Very well, I've just wired 10K to your account.

Your assumption that you are charging more than others is flawed. 100K is a great deal when the runners with the "rep" are charging 200K, 500K, or even several million for the run.

Posted by: ArkonC May 21 2008, 07:33 AM

To the OP, check out the SRM for what they pay...
You can find them http://www.shadowrun4.com/missions/index.shtml...

Posted by: Emperor Tippy May 21 2008, 07:52 AM

As long as you have to. There are safer ways to make money.


Um professional assassins and special ops guys are exactly what shadowrunners are. They are also demolitions experts, B&E specialists, kidnappers, etc. And yes, you live and die by your rep. But that rep is between you and your Fixer. Not you and the world at large.


PRIME RUNNERS
Every once in a while, player characters will encounter a
memorable NPC who is their match, or better. These individu-
als may also reappear now and again over the course of several
adventures. These special characters are called prime runners.
Prime runners are signature characters that appear over the
course of an adventure. If an adventure could be thought of as
an action movie, a prime runner is the equivalent of the evil
mastermind, the mastermind’s chief henchman, or the femme
fatale. Most prime runners oppose the characters as chief an-
tagonists, but some may be neutral, helping or harming the PCs
according to their own personal agenda.

Um no.


Sure, their Rep with their Fixer. Not there rep with random underworld figure X


Yeah, you should be getting your referrals though your fixer. It's what you have him for.


People do know you. The arm's dealer knows you as the guy who got the star to drop their investigation. Or the guy who found someone to get the mob to stop hassling him. He doesn't know you did it but you now have a higher rep with him. The fact that no on else has ever heard of "Snake" doesn't matter.


Why doesn't the J just talk to someone in the know at the corp and pay him a 20K bribe? That's prolly a good quarter of the secretaries yearly salary. Or the janitors. Much easier and safer than paying a team of 5 guys to brake in after hours and take a look. It's a great rate for 1 guy doing matrix work and hacking into the system from his safe house.


If you are a pro then the Johnson does not know your rep. All he knows about you is what your fixer told him, which should be the bare minimum.


How about you walk up to Knight Errant and say:
You: Hey, I used to be UCAS special forces but I was undercover when Crash 2.0 happened and my records got lost. I came out of cover a few months back and the UCAS disavowed my whole department while I was gone. I'm great with firearms and infiltration, the UCAS filled me up with a ton of combat enhancers, and I'm personable. I need a job and I'm wondering if your interested?
KE: Let's see what you got.
A few hours later after you passed their tests.
KE: You have the skills we're looking for. Let's put you on as a contractor, no salary but we will give you an Ares SIN and provide some work. If everything works out it can turn into a salary position. We have a contract to provide some bodyguards, the principal is a low level manager. It shouldn't be that dangerous, it's a 2 week job and pays 2.5K plus all expenses for those 2 weeks. Bring your own weapon.
You: Thanks.

That sound kinda like a shadow run and something someone with no rep would get? Sure does to me. It's also low risk, legal, and you can quickly be making a lot more money with a runners skill set.

Posted by: ArkonC May 21 2008, 08:21 AM

And you'll be doing it for all eternity unless you start building up a rep...


No, they are spycraft people woth big organisations to back them up, they don't need a rep to attract jobs, they work for the company...
Shadowrunners are deniable assets with no backup, just themselves and their, get this, rep...


Um, no.


Guy geeks Fixer, you're back to no one knowing you...


Oh, someone killed him...
Back to no one knowing you...


If no one knows you did it, you don't have a rep for doing it...


Mr. J doesn't care if you bring everyone and their moms on the jobs, the job pays 25K, you want all the pay yourself? Go alone...
If you need to go with 5 people to be safe, maybe you shouldn't be running or maybe you should suck it up...


Man, since when did rep become unimportant in the shadows?
A rep is not between you and you fixer, that's just like, his opinion, man...
A rep is what the community thinks of you...
No rep = nobody...


Or KE frames you because you admitted to being special forces and having proved it through testing...
Sounds like an idiot to me...
"My government denies my existence, I'm all alone, protect me?"

But this is going no where very slowly, so let's stop here, you feel runner should be payed a lot more than I do, or than any game fluff indicates, or even the official Shadowrun missions...
And that is your god given right, we have also played games like that, and it was fun, but it is far from the norm...

Now in the interest of not seeming like I want to have the last word, you can reply to this, but I have said all I will on the subject...

Posted by: Emperor Tippy May 21 2008, 08:49 AM

Not really. Eventually the Johnson will risk the 100K instead of going with the 200K team that the fixer vouches for.


Do shadow runners do wetwork that they have no personal interest in? Do shadowrunners do assaults on locations or people without a personal motive? Do shadowrunners break into secure locations and steal things that they personally don't care about?

Those are the definitions of professional assassin, special forces solider, and professional thief. Shadowrunners are anyone who does illegal activities for money.

=Um, no.=
Thats what the core book says.

=Guy geeks Fixer, you're back to no one knowing you...=
You should have more than 1 fixer, each knows a different "persona".


Again, you should have multiple fixers that each know you as someone different.


And if someone knows you did it then you have a rep for people finding out your work.

=Mr. J doesn't care if you bring everyone and their moms on the jobs, the job pays 25K, you want all the pay yourself? Go alone...
If you need to go with 5 people to be safe, maybe you shouldn't be running or maybe you should suck it up...=
Mr. J should never have bothered to higher the runners in the first place. He should have just bribed someone. Easier and safer.


If you are a part of said community then you are an idiot. "Flappy" can be part of the community and known for offering good opinions on matrix work and matrix security. "John" can be known as a guy who knows his weapons. "Mojo" can be known as the guy who is good for theoretical magic discussions. Everyone of them can be the same person and no one else should know it.

The J doesn't know he hired "Flappy" he knows that your are John Doe, the man the fixer told him to contact about the job. He knows exactly what the fixer told him and can't find out anything more. 2 months later the same J can talk to the same fixer and be put in contact with Bob Brown, the man the fixer told him to contact about the job. They can be the exact same person and he shouldn't even have a clue.


Frames you for what? For corps its all a cost/benefit analysis. So is it better to higher a good guard or to frame said guard for something when he has done nothing to piss us off. If they need to frame somebody they grab a random ganger off the street and frame him.


It's not my fault that some things don't make sense. Take the "On the Run" mission. Somehow the vamp in the graveyard knows exactly how much the Johnson is paying you for the run. Somehow the Johnson knows if you sold the goods to the vamps before you sold them to him, even though you met with the vamps not an hour earlier.

And thats a very low risk mission with minimal risk. If you just do the run the J pay's you for then you net 4K per person (iirc, it pays 20K) for a low risk run that takes 2-4 days to complete and doesn't require any expenses.



*Shrug* I play as, and GM expecting, professional runners and a professional community that doesn't fuck around. The Johnson's and the runners are both expected to stick to the agreement, not because of rep or anything so nebulous, because both sides expect the other to have security out of sight waiting to put a bullet through their brain pan. Pay is generally transferred to a numbered bank account where it is automatically laundered though several shell companies in several different companies before ending up in yet another numbered account for the runners to draw on.


*Shrug* Street level games are fine, and I even think they can be fun, but without specific backstories or a lower BP level they really don't make much sense. Maybe the team is made up of a bunch of friends who just got fired/are unemployed and decide one drunken night that being runners would be fun so they go and do it.

Because of quote limits per post some quotes are marked with an '=' at the beginning and end.

Posted by: Fortune May 21 2008, 08:58 AM

Some people might be inspired to stop and think about how they are viewing the situation when they realize that pretty much every other person involved in the discussion disagrees with their stated point-of-view.

Posted by: bishop186 May 21 2008, 09:05 AM

It seems to me that if corps are all about Cost/Benefit Analysis then wouldn't the Mr. J see more benefit for the cost of someone that the fixer is more confident to get it done?

For example, if you hire an Analyst to look over your systems and the Analyst says that neither program will work completely, guaranteed, but that the more expensive one is more likely to work than the other, which are you going to pick? If you're on a low budget and it's not a mandatory system, sure, you might pick the second one but you'd probably feel more secure picking the one that your Analyst is more confident about.

Same with the Fixer. Your fixer says I've got two guys, one with a decent reputation for getting the job done for $75K and one for no Rep for $50K ($15K and $10K for a team of 5, respectively) the Mr. J is more likely to choose the $75K if he needs it to be done and has the money to spend, and the $50K if he's on a budget and doesn't care as much about it.

Seems to me that the more prestige you have (even if it's just with your fixer), the higher the jobs and more money you'll get.

You say "eventually" the Mr. J will risk it; to me that sounds like you get less jobs for less money with no rep. Rep seems to be the mechanism for getting more jobs for more money, doesn't it?

Posted by: reepneep May 21 2008, 09:06 AM

You are aware that this discussion is taking place on teh intarwebs, yes?

Posted by: Sir_Psycho May 21 2008, 09:11 AM

So you justify charging 100k by suggesting that the teams who aren't bottom-feeders with no rep like you are making 200k? Excellent supportive evidence there. I'll suggest some of my own.









The Baseline Payment table is designed to be tacked onto your lifestyle cost. These were the best prices I could find. Interesting.

Posted by: Emperor Tippy May 21 2008, 09:13 AM

I have stopped and thought about the situation. Multiple times. I have had this debate before on other forums and in RL with multiple people. Some agree, some don't. All I know is that with the skill set and ware of a normal PC's runner *I* would not risk my life for less than 10K in profit (in fact it would prolly require a higher amount) after reasonable expenses are taken into account.

Do you dispute that the expenses are reasonable (fake SIN, safe house, rented vehicle)? If not then you are disputing the cost of risking your life.

A lot of the debate comes down to the perceived balance of power between the runners and the Johnson. I see it as the Johnson coming to the runners and asking them to perform the run, not as the runners coming to the Johnson. I see it as runners who can shrug their shoulders and walk away if they don't see the compensation as worth the risk, they can always get money if/when they need it, and a Johnson who has told some highly dangerous people about the run he has planned and who could very well sell him out, who has to decide whether the cost of having the runners eliminated is worth the risk and expense. If he was only willing to pay 50K for the run and the players shrugged and said 100K then what does he do? Higher another team to take out the runners, which would prolly cost him another 50K and has no guarantee of success? Or pay the runners 100K, which will keep them quiet and get the job done.

Posted by: Emperor Tippy May 21 2008, 09:26 AM

What I said. Your "rep" with your fixer matters, that rep being entirely the fact that out of X runs he has given you the Johnson has never complained/has been satisfied Y times. You don't have a "rep" in the underworld that the Johnson has any access too. Sure he might know that "Bob", "Snake", and "John" are all good, skilled, reliable, people but he doesn't know that "Mike", the guy he is highering for the run, is all of those people. He also has no way to find out. So it comes down to how much he trusts your fixer and your fixers rep.

As for the eventually thing, its exactly like you said. The Fixer might offer your team up 10 times before the Johnson bites the first time, but it doesn't really matter. One can assume that said bite has already happened in game as its the players first run. And once that run has been successfully concluded your "rep" with said fixer goes up.

My main dispute is with the assumed base price for runs, not with beginning runners making less money than experienced runners. I really like the 20% of the paydata's value on Sir_Psycho's chart, that should be several million on most runs. The plans for the new tech? That new program that X was about to release?

Posted by: Fuchs May 21 2008, 09:27 AM

Just a few basic assumtions I go by:

A run should pay so much that shadowrunning is worth the risk and covers all the costs, the lifestyle, and enough for the retirement/upgrade funds. How much that is exaclty depends on the campaign, but I consider it a pure meta-game decision - the group's fun decides.

A Johnson should not to hire runners for something that's not worth hiring runners for.

Apart from those entering the shadows for the first time, runners usually already do have a history at the start of a campaign.

How much reputation matters, and how wide-spread a reputation is, depends on the specific campaign. LA's P2.0 is one extreme, Tippy's "Only fixers know runners" the other. Most campaigns will probably fall in between, with some runners aquiring a rep, if not as runners, then as people not to mess with, after the sam "took out that Orc ganger and his troll buddy 2 weeks ago in Jenny's Bar, they wanted to mug him".

Posted by: Crusher Bob May 21 2008, 09:47 AM

What makes things even worse here is the Mickey Mouse quality of the timetable, intel, and support you get out of the Johnson. the 10K in profit figure should only be charged for the simplest of runs where the timetable allows plenty of time for legwork, and the whole job is not that risky. The idiotic 'you go in tonight' style runs that the book adventures tend to be are the kind where you want a bank up front, and just walk away if you don't get it. In addition, the price goes up above and beyond the risk you are running because the Johnson is incompetent enough to have let things get to this stage. This means that things are likely even worse than he knows or is telling you. For a pile if idiocy like First Run, your crew (assuming 4) had better be getting something like 200K up front and 200K on delivery, or its no deal. If it the whole job could have been done by someone with a car thiefs skills, then you can pay ~10K to a car thief and everyone will be happy.

Posted by: bishop186 May 21 2008, 10:02 AM

I could see runners going through several runs before gaining any rep. Once is luck. Twice is coincidence. Three times is getting there. By the fourth, you've gained some rep with the fixer.

Honestly, the low missions are definitely going to be offering lower pay than a 400BP character is worth, but them's the breaks when you're starting as a team of highly trained people with no reputation. It's akin to going into an industry with a 4-year degree and no experience. You get lower pay at first because you're inexperienced with the way things are run even though you have knowledge of the field.

Once you've got the experience, you get the pay. If you don't have experience, or if you've majorly screwed up somewhere, it's going to be hard to find a job that pays. The nature of the world, if you ask me. If you agree with that, I don't see how you don't get that your first several jobs are going to be for measly stipends like 5K - 10K per person.

I see where you're going with the 20%, but honestly I don't see that to be the case even in the real world. A programmer who (with a team of other programmers) makes a program that is sold for millions of dollars worth of profit isn't going to see anywhere near 20% of the profit. I don't see why a runner would. Anyone who works for someone else is probably going to get a very small cut of the profit. 20% (and in some cases even 5%) is ridiculously high.

Posted by: Sir_Psycho May 21 2008, 10:15 AM

I posted 16 different examples of canonical payments. You only select one, the only one that supports your own paradigm. As this argument is purely down to playing style, and my style is dystopian shadowrun, and yours is shadowrun-once-and-retire, I'm going to give up.

Posted by: Fuchs May 21 2008, 10:28 AM

Canon means nothing compared to what the players&GM need/want to have fun. And that's different from group to group.

Posted by: ornot May 21 2008, 11:49 AM

The biggest problem I see with Imperator Tippy's logic is that he assumes a seller's market.

However, canon suggests that there is a buyer's market, with many many wannabe Prime Runners. Of course, if all the characters are tweaked and munchkined to the hilt, and each individual is the absolute expert at their respective skillset (and by extension, sucks at everything else), and additionally the players have designed their characters to mesh together perfectly, it may work as the ultimate running team but it still relies on perfect planning and nothing going wrong. 400BP makes pokey characters, but they aren't the elite of the elite; challenge them with anything outside their area of expertise and they'll simply fold, unless they're well rounded, in which case their area of expertise is not as maxed out as it could be.

Consider, also, that in the 6th world life is cheap, so people are more likely to risk their lives for less material reward. You or I may want a hefty wad of cash to embark on a life of crime, but the point of SR is that you don't have a choice in the matter. For whatever reason (addiction, social problems, issues with authority etc) the runners can't/won't go work for a corp. If they do, congratulations, your character just became an NPC, make a new one.

Of course, if you decide that 100K jobs are the way you like to roll, go ahead. At least now I know who is going to run against Tippy's clone army.

Professional Shadowrunners With No Rep Beyond What Their Fixers Heard.

Posted by: Fuchs May 21 2008, 11:55 AM

I think it needs to be stressed - important is not what canon says, or what seems logical (which are often two different things), but what the players and the GM are comfortable with.

If a player is unhappy because his samurai can't buy new stuff, or the drone rigger can't risk his drones because he cannot afford to buy new ones or the mage and adept players feel underpowered because the rest of the team are byuing delta ware cyber with the millions the made while earning 3 karma, then something is wrong in the game and needs fixing, no matter how much the canon might say the payment is right.

All that matters in the end is that everyone is having fun. That includes the GM - and for a GM, having "Logical payouts" could be crucial for having fun, beyond blancing the game even.

Posted by: Crusher Bob May 21 2008, 12:03 PM

Then why aren't the hordes of runners doing other, more remunerative activities on their own time? If they can steal cars and make more more than running, then that's what they will be doing. Therefore, running has to pay more that the alternatives. Since the alternatives for a team of the runners skills are pretty lucrative, the pay for running has to be pretty lucrative. In addition, running is very high risk. If you really screw up stealing a car, you do 3-5 for grand theft. If you screw up running, the best you can hope for is a bullet in the head. So the reward for running has to cover the added risks of running as well.

Where the risk of the run is reduced for example, the timetable is reasonable and/or the Johnson provided plenty of intel (which the timetable allows the runners to confirm on their own, then expect the price to go lower.

Posted by: samuelbeckett May 21 2008, 12:05 PM

Fuchs, couldn't agree more.

However, what Emperor Tippy seems to be saying is that anyone who pays less than 100k for a team of 'runners is just plain doing it wrong. That may not be the intent, but that is how the posts come across.

Now at Emperor Tippy's table, no less than 100k for a run may be the done thing. At someone else's table, it may only be 5k for the run and the runners had better appreciate the Johnson's generosity or they will never run again. To each his own, and it is rather a pointless debate to say otherwise.

The only time it isn't a pointless debate is when we are discussing how the RAW suggests a runner should be paid, as this should determine the 'canon' world's economy when it comes to deniable operations. This would be playing Shadowrun as the Devs intended, and the only sources we have for that are the sources being quoted in this thread i.e. Shadowrun Companion and the SRM. These seem to indicate that a going rate of around 30k to 50k, obviously dependent on the mission.

So can we say Emperor Tippy is wrong to expect 100k per run? No, because at his table, in his group's interpretation of the Shadowrun setting, this is the correct and logical amount for them.

Can we say Emperor Tippy is not playing as per the canon Shadowrun setting? Yup.

Posted by: Shiloh May 21 2008, 01:28 PM

That section of canon has always pissed me off too. I agree with Tippy in general principle. Shadowrunning gots some serious overheads. It's seriously risky; we're not talking 50 dollars a day plus expenses gumshoe detective stuff. 100k nuyen for a job is in no wise "shadorun once and retire".

The "canon" of 5knuyen for an assassination is an absolute base cost for whacking an unguarded target who isn't aware they're under threat and hasn't any of the skills or resources to do anything to mitigate that threat. It's about what rumour says the cost would be for such a little league hit in the RL aughties. Such a job wouldn't have a timescale (maybe sometime in the next 12 months), there would be no prescription by the "J" on the manner or place of death. Making it look like an accident would cost more. The same sanction against a protected target would add a factor. A shorter timescale would add yet more. The possibility of elements other than The Law taking action afterwards would add further cost.

Starting runners accept 1k runs couriering things across the city. Most of the time such runs are cake walks, and the Johnson is paying peanuts to get monkeys but *adventures* that actually get played out are the runs where the courier runs go bad and the J has hosed the job, either by making an error, or just underestimating something, or by trying to do things on the cheap. Couriering something hot and live and desirable through a combat zone is going to pay *way* more.

The low priced runs are the ones that pay for the Runners' lifestyles, and they shouldn't hit the gaming table unless something goes wrong. If you want to run a couple of "no drama" runs to get a feel for what the team usually do in such runs and then start "in media res" where it's gone all pear-shaped, that'd make sense.

Posted by: Fortune May 21 2008, 01:48 PM

I would like to note that my earlier comment had nothing to do with money, but was concerning E.T.'s oulook on Reputation.

As to money, every job is different, and those 'big score' runs don't always come along every month. Sometimes even top-notch professionals need to stoop to doing a milk run or three to pay the bills.

Posted by: Fuchs May 21 2008, 02:20 PM

Or boost a few cars. But in either case there's the question if such stuff will be played out at all.

Posted by: Deimos Masque May 21 2008, 02:23 PM

Wow, surprised on how much conversation this suddenly brought. First want to thank everyone for the interesting conversation going on here.

When I started my current game, I had the team be a bit more experienced than the average starting characters. I had them build on 500 BP and then gave them "30 Total Karma" for purposes of starting Reputation. The idea was that they generally worked as couriers and smugglers, smuggling things out of Manhattan and into Manhattan.

The first game session was to be their first big job. I paid them 50k after negotiations. Since then I had been having trouble determining good starting points for it all.

I think that basing it on reputation is definitely a good way to go as is some of the other ideas here. Basically it seems to make perfect sense that the reputation of the runner team = better pay outs. However the higher rep means the team also gets more dangerous runs where more unexpected things can happen. The reputation of the team would actually represent to the potential employer that the team can handle the situation if things go bad.

Granted, not every corp Johnson is going to know the rep of a Shadowrun team, that's why they go through intermediaries and find out "who's the best for the job." This would be based on the rep of the team. If word doesn't get around and the team doesn't get known for the good work they do (the bad work being represented with Notoriety not Street Cred) then they aren't going to get the better paying jobs.

Atleast that's how I see it. Your mileage may vary.

Posted by: ArkonC May 21 2008, 02:28 PM

The GM needs to make sure he gives a karma boost with that too, giving the tech based characters 100K and the magic based ones 4 karma is asking for unhappy players...
"He got Synthcardium 3 and Reakt, I got 4 out of 6 karma for my magic increase..." Just screams unfair...
So if you do up the pay scale for runners, you need to up the karma scale and things will get high powered very fast...

Posted by: Sir_Psycho May 21 2008, 02:29 PM

Several mil is.

Personally, I run pretty paranoid, gritty shadowrun, and I strip pistols, spray C-squared, Change ID's and wear disguises, but it's just a tough fact of life that until you've got a bit of a rep, you can't afford to take the most excessive of the measures yet.

Posted by: Shiloh May 22 2008, 10:03 AM

Not if you have to set up half a dozen good fake IDs each with licences, disguises and the rest, burn rating 6 commlinks and drones by the dozen, abandon or destroy expensive gear that you didn't dare steal for fear of raising your profile too high and get a genewipe afterwards (we're talking for the team, here).

And we weren't talking about a big score like that, we were talking about potential "worthwhile run". At 100k, yoru runners would still have to snaffle several tens of these, plus expenses, and assuming that the "bread-and-butter" runs that don't hit the gaming table keep their lifestyles ticking over.

Posted by: Fortune May 22 2008, 10:18 AM

Actually, Emperor Tippy mentioned the figure first.

Posted by: ArkonC May 22 2008, 10:24 AM

Indeed, according to his pay scale, 100K was for beginning runners, with more experienced ones pulling down 200K, 500K and several mil jobs...

Posted by: Fuchs May 22 2008, 10:30 AM

I do have some trouble balancing the "logical basic security measures" (burning fake SINs and commlinks, maybe even gear after a run) and the supposed payout. Especially fake sins worth a damn (according to agem mechanics) are so expensive that the proposed payouts often make a plan involving a fake sin too expensive for a team.

That simply does not add up - either runners are not supposed to change sins per run, or the payout has to be bigger.

Posted by: Shiloh May 22 2008, 10:55 AM

I read that as the *paydata* should be worth several million to the J. Though I do agree that 20% is too high on most runs.

So the ones pulling down the big money are *experienced* and have run *more than once*, so there's no "run once then retire" mentality. Neh?

Sure the big jobs net (i.e. after expenses) you several months, maybe a year of luxury lifestyle, but they could take months to set up and further months for the heat to die down/geneclean. "Getting out" takes a lump sum of 10 mill for "luxury forever", plus whatever other safeguards you want to purchase. And it's not always possible to retire. People have things to say about it.

You want something done reliably and deniably, that carries lethal risks you're going to have to pay more than 5k.

Posted by: ArkonC May 22 2008, 11:09 AM

You don't consider 100K for your first run big money?

If you're pulling down .2M min every run, retirement isn't far around the corner, according to Tippy's pay scale, experienced runners earn this minimum, so a bread and butter run is another .2 mil...
And next week? Another .2 mil...
And the week after that? ...
Seems like retirement is actually a reasonable option, instead of the dream it is supposed to be...

Quote me where I said wetwork any job pays 5K...

Posted by: Fortune May 22 2008, 11:17 AM

Shrug. I merely referenced the first appearance of the figure. I didn't provide or even imply any interpretation.

As to the subject of standard pay, I don't think there is a 'standard shadowrun fee structure', as every run, and indeed everybody's game is different. You need to find place where everyone is comfortable, then mix it up a little to keep things just a little on edge. At least, that's my opinion.

Posted by: Fuchs May 22 2008, 11:20 AM

It depends on the expenses. If a team of 4 runners gets 100K for a run, but spends 20K on fake sins for the job, another 10K for nanopaste disguises, and another 10K to replace the weapons they used and dropped and the ammo spent afterwards, they're already down to 15K each. If there's special gear used up or lost during the job (like drones), that's another expense to take care of.

One such run per month would cover a medium to high lifestyle, but not that much will be saved up (not after upgrades, and set back expenses like medical costs).

Posted by: ArkonC May 22 2008, 11:26 AM

If beginning runners get payed enough to support a medium to high lifestyle with the most basic of runs once a month, why doesn't every ganger and their dog do it?

Posted by: ornot May 22 2008, 11:35 AM

Well, you could play where all the PCs reinvent and completely re-equip themselves every mission. Depending on who you are running against, that may not be necessary.

Anything that you might destroy or lose during a run is a legitimate expense, but depending on the run you won't necessarily lose or use anything up. If the job doesn't pay enough to compensate for losing your drones, then don't put them in danger. If the job doesn't pay enough to replace a lost SIN, try not to put your SIN in a position to be compromised.

The unexpected does happen, and that's part of the fun.

I have noticed that 'bread and butter' runs that pay for lifestyle costs have been described as 'not even hitting the table'. I can't get my head around this at all. Does this mean you only actually RP the big money runs? The infiltration into Ares highest security labs, to steal the CEOs clone type runs? And the smaller runs are just assumed to be completed? Why bother with money, lifestyle or availability at all? When the GM asks where you got your Gauss Rifle, you can just say, I pulled a couple of 10K jobs, and bought it with the proceeds.

Posted by: Fuchs May 22 2008, 11:47 AM

Actually, while we do play out every run, and usually every day of "civilian life" even, we do not bother with money, lifestyle or availability anymore. Gear is aquired by GM approval, normal gear not requiring anything, special gear (like aforementioned Gauss Rifle) for example needing a run.

Posted by: Fuchs May 22 2008, 11:49 AM

In my campaign, not every ganger has the skills, smarts, and dicispline needed for shadowrunning in that price range.

Posted by: Fortune May 22 2008, 11:55 AM

Note the 'most basic of runs' qualifier.

Posted by: ArkonC May 22 2008, 11:56 AM

So you are saying the most basic of runs for beginning runners shouldn't pay 100K?
(Which, incidentally is what Tippy is claiming, that they should...)

EDIT: clarification

Posted by: Fuchs May 22 2008, 12:14 PM

I think it depends on what counts as "the most basic runs". Tippy seems to consider runners as the high-paid pros hired for special, high-risk tasks. I doubt he considers "go and persuade Mom and Pop to sell their store to my firm so I can start with my mall project" a job for shadowrunners.

Personally, in the classic campaigns I ran (my current is mafia-centric, so not the same), where the usual set up was "Mr. Johnson calls fixer, who sets up a meeting with the team", the campaigns started at a point where the runners did get aforementioned high-paying jobs. We did not play out how the various characters started in the shadows and gained the skills and contacts to get those jobs. In a way, we defined shadowrunners as "those people doing high-paying, high-risk jobs", and anyone not doing those jobs was not a runner yet but a ganger, wanna-be, or greenhorn, and usually would not get to meet Mr. Johnson at all, but would get some jobs from fixers. But a "beginning runner" was, back then in my campaigns, some who started doing those high-paying jobs, not someone who started doing minor courier work or break-ins in unguarded warehouses.

These days, I do things a bit differently, but then, we do not use money anymore, and have a different set up than "Fixer/Johnson", so it's a moot point.

It's a matter of semantics and intended "power level" I think.

Posted by: Janice May 22 2008, 12:57 PM

Actually, as far as I can tell, he's saying a starting 400 BP runner should. Considering that 400 BP runners are WELL above gangers, this doesn't seem unreasonable if you run a fairly paranoid game of Shadowrun.

Posted by: ArkonC May 22 2008, 12:58 PM

Well, to get the high paying high risk jobs, you'd need an established reputation and are, by definition, not a beginning runner...
You may begin playing you character at this point, but the character doesn't begin his career here...
The first runs are the shitty ones where you barely break even and risk your life for little to no money...
While I can understand skipping to the high end spectrum of play, the low end still exists...

And paying someone new to the game a minimum of 100K for a milk run is just plain crazy, no matter how you rationalize it...

Posted by: Janice May 22 2008, 01:00 PM

Considering the precautions he's mentioned, I highly doubt there are milk runs involved in his games.

Posted by: ArkonC May 22 2008, 01:02 PM

As I said, just because he skips them, doesn't mean they don't exist.

Posted by: Fuchs May 22 2008, 01:07 PM

Then the only question is: Do the runners start out when the players start a campaign, or are they established runners? I do not recall anything abut that in the rules, and I consider that a matter of personal preference.

Posted by: Cthulhudreams May 22 2008, 01:13 PM

Look, the only real basis for a job is what your runners background and lifestyle determines they should get payed.

If your team are refugees from Mr and Mrs Smith with high lifestyles, they need to ger 10k Per Person PLUS expenses per job just to break even if they do a job a month. So you seriously need to throw down 70-80k on a job. Then give them 80k jobs for your team of 4. However, make sure their run is complex and testing - big runs for big money

Its a totally different equation if your team are all homeless alcholics who live in cardboard boxes in the barrens. 5 k is big money here. So you can have a job where you go steal mr big shot gangers bike or some shit once a month.

Edit: This makes it important that players have the same lifestyle, and I actually mandate that they do.

There a couple of other factors.
Like if the mage uses a bound spirit he's out like 3 grand, and a drone costs the rigger that much too so if you are throwing lots of them down, push the team towards the high lifestyle, big money end of the bracket.

Finally you need to make sure the street sammies get enough money to pay for new bling as they are powered by money rather than karma. This is easy to fix though, if the street sammies are getting to good, hand out more karma and foci, if the street sammies are sucking, hand out the cash as though it was halloween, except you are giving out the candy and the candy is fat wads of cash

Anything else is really just bollocks and distracts from that core issue. Guys need to eat, and pay for crap they need.

Posted by: ArkonC May 22 2008, 01:15 PM

It doesn't matter whether you start out as beginners or as established runners, at one point, they were beginning runners...
And considering most people start with a rep of 0, I'd say they are beginners (or screw-ups)...
Anyway, 'nuff said on the subject...
I'm right, everyone else is wrong...

Posted by: Shiloh May 22 2008, 01:23 PM

By basic runs I'm referring to the

that Sir_Psycho threw up.

"Your fixer calls. He wants a package taken across town."
"What's the pay? He says 800; simple milk run. Not even any borders to cross."
"He wants this gear shifting now? Delivered by when?! And I bet it's hot... 1200 or I'll just go rob a convenience store."
"Roll your negotiation... okay he bumps it to a round thousand, and you think that's probably his budget."
"Kay, I'll take it. I'll see him at the club in 10."
"You meet him, get the package."
"I turn off the gridlink, swap the plates on the bike, scoot across town avoiding trouble."
"Roll shadow to notice the cop car and drive bike to slow down in time"
"Made 'em; 3 and 3."
"Area Knowledge: Seattle (2) to find the the drop-off point."
"Easy."
...

Bang: 5 minutes play, 2 hours of game time and 1000:nuyen: in your credstick because you shifted 20ki's of contraband without getting nabbed by the Star. As I see it, *most* of what Shadowrunners do is this sort of thing and it's not worth playing through. It's not every day, but it could certainly be considered to pay at least some of the bills.

Assassination: 5k. By canon.

As to: "Why bother with lifestyle and availability?" Because they mount up. Like run costs do. If it's not worth risking your drones or your van, how much fun is the Rigger going to have?

400BP characters are stuffed full of cyberware and magic and are professionals by any standards. IMO they should all have backstories and a reputation in *certain* discreet circles before they begin play. You want to work up through the leagues, you need to start at 300-350 points.

Posted by: Zak May 22 2008, 01:33 PM

I think the problem is a metagaming one. GMs don't want to hand out alot of rewards.
And players don't want to spend money on "useless" stuff like Fake SINs or additional security measures if they know any guy the GM wants to will find them anyway.

So they settle for the rediculous pay suggested by Missions or other official material and have fun, because it is too much of an annoyance to argue about it out of game instead of playing. There is nothing you can do if the GM disagrees with you on this matter.
Except rolling a punk and have fun not giving a crap about paranoia.

This is even worse on conventions. Damn, I still cringe at the run involving the theft of an helicopter, a double digit force spirit, SK hitsquads and a briefcase nuke run by a guy employed by Fanpro. We got 5k each. But arguing about it would be no point as we wanted to play the game.

So, dear GMs, if you want to play up the paranoia involved in Shadowrun, please pay your groups properly, so they can reasonably afford to run without being fucked up after the first successful hit.

Posted by: JeffSz May 22 2008, 02:43 PM

Go out RIGHT NOW, and rent the movie Assassins with Sylvester Stallone and Antonio Banderas. Stallone is a professional assassin, so he makes the larger amount of money per hit, but he's been in the business like 15 to 20 years or more, and if he were in shadowrun he'd probably have a Street Cred rating of 20. He's -the best- in the world. Your shadowrunners should probably make in six months what this guy can make in a day, but it's an AMAZING example of a professional who does have a rep, whose rep gets him the jobs, how that rep can backfire on him, and also who knows what about his exploits.

If you really don't want to see it, (and you should, it was excellent), you can read the spoiler:

Banderas' character, a new up-and-coming assassin, knows all about Stallone - his professional persona, that is - and knows he's the best in the business. He idolizes Stallone's character, and actually aspires to become better than Stallone.

Also in the movie, a woman known only by her internet avatar picture (two glowing green cats eyes) and the word Meow, is an information broker. She's the best surveillance expert in the biz', and can be paralelled with an SR hacker. Everyone in the biz' knows of her, and knows she's the best, but nobody has her name or knows what she looks like.

Both the assassin and the info broker are anonymous and well known at the same time. That's your street rep.

------------------
Him: "Oh my god. You're HyperFizz? JESUS! Did Ares really hire you to blow up that Shiawase Biotech R&D lab?"

You: Chuckle and answer, "Yep, that was me. Except we think it was really Evo that hired us, and it wasn't an R&D lab - we were hired to shut down a black clinic and liberate the technomancers being experimented on. The explosion was an unfortunate... accident."

Him: "I can't believe how lucky I am to actually meet you. HyperFizz, in the flesh."

You: "Actually, chummer, you've no manner of luck at all." *you shoot him point blank in stomach*

Posted by: paws2sky May 22 2008, 02:46 PM

I think one of the things wrong with many groups is that they're fixated on nuyen and karma as rewards. Yes, you need those things, otherwise you fall behind on your rent and never get to advance your character. However... once your lifestyle costs are met, I feel like the GM should consider getting creative with adventure rewards.

My own rule of thumb is (average lifestyle cost for the group) * 2 for monthly income, plus circumstantial bonuses. Bonuses I've give out have included: nuyen, services, equipment, contacts, and incidentals. Of course, to get the bonuses they have to do really well on the run...

• Nuyen: Obvious. If the runners do (or don't do) X, Y, and/or Z, then they get a bonus. Usually 10% to 20% for base pay.
• Services: This has included things like a free tune up, discounted street doc services, invitation to get some work done at a top notch cyber-clinic, and so on.
• Equipment: Again, pretty obvious. New fake SINs, guns, armor, drones, spell formulas, drugs, etc. In the case of some hard to find items, they might not get it free, but they might get it at a deep discount.
• Contacts: You get a personal introduction to a 3rd party or gain the employer as a contact. Start at Loyalty 1 / Connection (?). Very handy bonus if your team is grossly lacking in some area, like Hacking, for instance.
• Incidentals: NERPS, but something the characters (or their contacts) would like. Tickets to the urban brawl playoffs, concert tickets, etc.

That's just my 2 nuyen, of course.

-paws

Posted by: Emperor Tippy May 22 2008, 07:00 PM

A couple of points:
1) The 100K figure assumes a group of 5 runners doing 1 run per month and living a high lifestyle. After expenses thats exactly enough to cover the lifestyle. If they want to live lower they can save some money but not alot (medium is saving 5K per month).

2) Johnsons do not higher professional shadow runners to courier packages worth 20 K across town, or convince mom and pop to sell there store, or take out random ganger X. These are jobs that gangers, hangers on, and wannabes get. The runners might get a job to courier some stolen bioweapon across town for the mob, with everyone looking to recover it, or to convince 10 mom and pops to sell, or to assassinate a gangs leadership.

3) I don't just make everyone I want able to find the runners or track them. If the runners take proper precautions then it requires them pissing off the Corporate Court or the like before they are really in danger of being tracked or found.

4) I don't expect Johnson's to pay in services, equipment, contacts, or incidentals. The first 2 and the 4th make it far to easy to track the runners while the 3rd is something the Johnson doesn't want. He wants denihability, which is hard when he is introducing them to someone. Note: This only applies to corp Johnsons. Not runs that the runners do as favors or the like.

5) I expect the runners to do their own runs when they aren't being highered by someone else. This is anything from favors for friends, to stealing artwork, to staging events so that they can come in and save the day and gain a contact.

6) The higher payouts are for progressively fewer runs. At 500K you may only get a run every 4-5 months. At a million you might again only get a run every 4-5 months but be living a luxury lifestyle.

Posted by: hyzmarca May 22 2008, 08:07 PM

It is assumed that runners will spend most of their money upgrading gear and ware, training, replenishing supplies, and saving for the big toys. It is a truism that in the life of every gunbunny there comes a time when he must pay for a rating 6 fake military/law enforcement ID to get into a http://www.blackwaterusa.com/courses/AT_NC_LEMIL.html. And, of course, upgrade his reflexes. And buy cool new guns. And lasers. And magic bullets with anchored spells on them - those are very expensive but they're damn sure worth it when the fit hits the shan.


They do, actually. Its actually worse than that. Johnsons actually hire Shadowrunners to help (very important) old ladies cross the (gang infested) street. The Genesis game has these fun little courier runs which involve taking a package next door. That isn't to say these are top of the line runners or that they get paid well, they aren't and they don't. Such runs are basically limited to runners who are just breaking into the industry and lack both skills and contacts.


There is proper precautions and then there are proper precautions. There is pissed off and then there is pissed off. There are always ways to identify someone and always ways to find someone. It is impossible to completely cover one's tracks. The advantage of Shadowrunners is that it is rarely worth the effort to bother. But, a little bit of magic is really all it takes. A single security camera picture and a magican who can conjure is all that is necessary to find someone anywhere on Earth except behind some absurdly high-force wards. And even absurdly high-force wards aren't a perfect defense.
The best defense that runners have is that they are just tools that no one cares about.


That depends on the level of anonymity involved. Equipment from a different company with the serial numbers removed it perfectly reasonable. Services may be, depending on how it is set up. A discount coupon for the local Bunraku parlor wouldn't be that traceable as such things can easily change hands. Just because the Johnson is supplying a service doesn't mean that he's actually supplying it or that he is connected to the suppliers. With contacts, it depends on the level of anonymity. If I introduce a guy who I don't know to another guy I don't know and neither of them know me, well there is little chance of it being traced back to me because none of us have any idea who the others are. Introducing anonymous contacts to anonymous contacts does work well, particularly when neither know that you are the one doing the introducing.



Obviously, though this is substantially more dangerous because this time it's personal. They still need downtime to rest and train, however.


The big issue that is equipment upgrades and upkeep. At a million nuyen a run a gunbunny can quickly max out his 'ware. But getting all delta synaptic booster 3 is still extremely expensive, more than one run will pay for.

Posted by: Emperor Tippy May 22 2008, 08:38 PM

Sure, I expect them to spend a lot of money and effort doing both. If they pull 2 of these 100K runs per month then they get 10K a month for upgrades. Or perhaps they do 3-4 runs on their own each month to raise advancement money. These are anything from the players hearing that the military is moving a truck full of weapons too raiding the LS drug storage. Or even other, lower level runs. Like providing security for the arms dealer at a meet where he expects no trouble. Or the hacker going in and hacking his way into databases and seeing what he can find to sell.


See, the big thing is the lack of skills. I would consider said person a wannabe or ganger, not a shadowrunner.


Thats why all runs are done with nanopaste disguises, so that security camera pictures don't provide anything useful. And why the characters get a genetic reprint followed by genewipe treatment as soon as they have the 75K for it. Any previous ritual samples are worthless and no new ones will be left. And when you are doing runs that will piss off the CC you should be being paid enough to take all those, and more, precautions.


The best defense that runners have is that they are just tools that no one knows about.


Services and equipment aren't as much a problem for the Johnson as for the characters. The Johnson knows what equipment he gave you and what serial numbers it had. He knows the ID number on that coupon. If the Johnson gives me a gun I assume that he has a full work up on the gun. So if its used to hit a facility of his corporation then when they look at the bullets they will know that it was the gun given to our team that was used. Whether or not your team still had the gun doesn't really matter, it gives them a trail to start tracing.


Sure, the still need downtime. And they can take it when they want to. As for it being personal, often its not. It's just like a regular run except without the Johnson. They players hear about something valuable or whatever and then plan a run to acquire it.


Sure, at a million nuyen he can max his ware, but by the time he is making that on a run he already has it close to maxed. Delta synaptic 3 is about all he doesn't necessarily have.

Posted by: Fortune May 22 2008, 10:23 PM

If a runner is a tool that no-one knows about, then he is a useless tool.

Emperor Tippy: You seem to think that the Corporate Court, or indeed any individual Megacorporation actually gives a shit about exacting revenge on Shadowrunners. Shadowrunners are a tool that everyone 'in the know' in the corporate world is aware of, and make use of. Just because one specific group of 'runners ripped off that special prototype last month doesn't mean they cannot be utilized this month by their previous victims. Once the job is done, nobody cares about the Shadowrunners until the next time they are needed ... not the employer ... not the victimized corp ... and not the Corporate Court. Even in the case of really high profile jobs ... unless they screw up.

Sure there are cases where betrayals and the like occur, but they should not be the norm, or there would be no shadow business at all.

Posted by: Emperor Tippy May 22 2008, 10:35 PM

Again, your fixer(s) know that X exists. They have a way to contact you, which should be effectively untraceable. That isn't information that can be used to trace you.


Sure, they generally don't. As I said, you have to do something really bad to get the CC after you. Like Winternight level bad. Or use WMD's. Or be causing them enough public problems that it becomes cheaper to have you eliminated than just absorb the loss. If you hit the same corp repeatedly then it becomes cheaper for them to take you out than it does to keep fixing the damage. Sure, someone else might be highered for the run. But when Ares goes and takes them out the price to higher said runners goes up.

If runners are causing you a hundred million worth of damages a year then its in your best interest to spend 10 million to deter them. Deterrence can be done by publicly taking out the people executing said runs against you.

So if you run against a corp and they can trace you with 5 minutes worth of work then its in their best interests to take you out either with their own forces or by highering other runners, and making sure that the Shadows know it was you who did it. If it will take you 6 months and cost 50 million to track the runners down, its not worth the trouble.

Posted by: Fortune May 22 2008, 10:57 PM

Why is it in their best interest?

The deed is done. They aren't getting their lost doodad back. Typically the 'runner doesn't know who actually hired () him in the first place. There is no gain by exacting revenge.

Again, Shadowrunners are a tool. Although they do illegal stuff, every single corporation knows about, tacitly approves, and actively utilizes Shadowrunners in the course of doing business.

They are a disposable asset. Disposable because they have very little invested in them by the corp, and have few to no links to the person and/or corporation that hired them. So if they screw up, then very little backlash actually hits the 'Johnson' and his clients and/or bosses.

And while they may be a disposable asset when and if the occasion arises, they are also a reusable one. One that everyone in the sandbox can play with, and use against everyone else. Again and again, because that is the whole point of a Shadowrunner's existence.

If every corporation sought revenge for even half of the Shadowruns performed, there would be no Shadowrunners. But that doesn't happen, because this month's 'victims' have nothing to gain by doing so, and ultimately lose out on using those very same Shadowrunners next month against another 'victim'. Think of it as a sick, high-stakes game of hide-and-seek. While you are actively 'hiding' (on the job), you are fair game, but after you make it to 'home' (complete the job ... including hand-off), then you have a free pass until the next 'game'.

Posted by: JeffSz May 22 2008, 11:04 PM

You have a very different style of play, Emperor Tippy. YOUR Shadowrunners are much more professional than those detailed in the rulebooks; nanopaste disguises, fake SIN's, genewipes - these are all OPTIONS that characters can take to help with anonymity, and I find it interesting that in your SR4 game world they've become standard equipment, akin to carrying around Certified Credsticks or extra ammo.

Shadowrunners in your game world, though, are how -most- SR players view extremely successful runners, who have been in the 'biz for some time. In your world, Shadowrunners are rarer and in more demand.

A shadow run = An illegal service performed for someone in return for payment.

Some poor fool with no rep doing courier runs or drumming up business for a glass shop by throwing bricks through the windows of cars in the neighborhood - he's still a shadowrunner, by the standards of the rulebook and most players, even though he's nobody. Your games, where only the Best of the Best actually take the title "Shadowrunner", is absolutely and ONE HUNDRED percent valid. But it's not the norm.

Posted by: Emperor Tippy May 22 2008, 11:44 PM

Most corps don't really seek revenge. It's not profitable in most cases. What is profitable is taking 5 minutes to run what information you have through the matrix and if you track down said runners, go and publicly take them out. The objective isn't to retrieve your property, its deterrence. If the shadow community knows that no matter what the run is SK will pull out all the stops to track you down and kill you then most runners will refuse to run against SK, and the ones who will run against SK demand a higher price from the Johnson's which makes it less profitable for another corp to run against SK.

Most corporations will take 5 minutes to a week to search for the runners, it costs them maybe a hundred k and they can pass the cost on to the insurance company fairly easily. Most runners are smart enough to cover their tracks well enough that they can't be tracked down in 5 minutes to a week.


Why wouldn't they be standard equipment (at least everything except genewipes)?


Actually no. If you go by what the BBB says as examples for skill levels then almost any 400 BP character is a highly skilled, rare, individual.
Rating 3 Professional
Competent at general skilled tasks. “Average� skill level for starting characters and NPCs.
Athletics Example: College athlete (NCAA Division III)
Firearms Example: Regular beat cop or military grunt.
Technical Example: Trade journeyman, or entry-level professional straight out of college.
Social Example: Professional sales representative, social dilettante, face, Mr. Johnson.
Vehicle Example: Commercial driver: truck driver, taxi cabbie, airline pilot. Ordinary go-ganger.
Knowledge Skill Example (Academic): Associate’s degree (2 year college degree)
Knowledge Skill Example (Street): Lived in Seattle for i ve or more years.

Rating 4 Veteran
Very good at what you do; can handle difficult tasks with ease.
Athletics Example: Minor leaguer: NCAA Division I, AAA baseball or other farm team
Firearms Example: Riot control cop, combat veteran, superior regular force (Marines, Airborne)
Technical Example: Mid-career professional (4 or more years experience)
Social Example: Politician, diplomat, socialite, senior manager
Vehicle Example: NASCAR or Formula One driver, regular military combat pilot, go-gang boss.

Rating 5 Expert
Star status: your expertise gives you a reputation.
Athletics Example: Athletic star: most major pro sports athletes (NFL, NHL, MLB, NBA, etc)
Firearms Example: SWAT team, elite military (Rangers, Special Forces)
Technical Example: Top scientist. Published in peer-review journals.
Social Example: Incumbent politician, Grand Tour regular, corporate vice president.
Vehicle Example: Ancients go-ganger. Military combat pilot with combat experience

Rating 6 Elite
The “best of the rest.� Maximum skill level for “rank-and-file� unnamed NPCs and starting characters.
Athletics Example: Athletic superstar: Peyton Manning, Roger Clemens, Shaquille O’Neal, David Beckham
Firearms Example: Individual superstars amongst elite forces. Ghost-Who-Walks-Inside, Hatchetman, Matador
Technical Example: Wiz-kid. Has more than one patent to their name. h e Wright Brothers.
Social Example: Presidents and other heads of state, CEOs
Vehicle Example: Blue Angel stunt pilot.

Rating 7 Legendary
The “best of the best� Someone whose expertise outranks all others in all of known history. Can only be achieved
with the Aptitude Quality (p. 77).
Athletics Example: Athletic legend: Michael Jordan, Babe Ruth, Pele, Wayne Gretzky, Joe Montana
Firearms Example: “Wild Bill� Hickock, James Bond, Thunder Tyee
Technical Example: Thomas Edison, Nicholai Tesla, FastJack
Social Example: Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan, Damien Knight
Vehicle Example: The Red Baron, Evil Knievel

Let's use a regular hacker/support build of mine as an example:
Logic: 5-6 (Genetic Optimization makes that 6 soft capped)
Electronics Skill Group: 4
Cracking Skill Group: 4
Biotech Skill Group: 4
Mechanics Skill Group: 4

That right there is a veteran mechanic, hacker, coder, doctor, and surgeon. If someone with that kind of skill set isn't rare and in demand then you are the one not following the rules as written. That street sam with a 6 in pistols and a specialization in semi-automatics is one of the 3 or so best semi-auto pistol shooters in the world, if not the best. So yes, 400 BP shadow runners should be rare and in demand.


Those other people claim to be Shadowrunners, most people even view them as such. But they are not the PC's. So sure, that pay scale may make since when you are highering 200 BP "shadowrunner's". And the lack of professionalism also can make sense. But it doesn't for the stated level of the PC's.

They have the skills and at least 1 character should have the brains to take proper precautions. Stupid criminals end up dead or in jail, you never hear about the smart ones.

Think about it right now, if you were planning to kill someone what would be the minimum precautions you would take? Wear gloves, dump the gun and ammo afterwards?

You expect people who are using military grade equipment and tactics to break into well defended and secured compounds to steal items, or to assassinate prominent individuals, etc to take fewer precautions?

Posted by: Fortune May 23 2008, 12:02 AM

Shrug. You pretty much ignored the bulk of my post, despite quoting it in its entirely.

You have your own quite set-in-stone but workable ideas about how the Shadowrun world operates, and if that goes over at your table, then more power to you, and I seriously hope you have fun. I just wish you would go a little farther in qualifying your statements about how the game world works 'in your games', as opposed to making blanket statements concerning the canon outlook. Especially when it is apparent that the bulk of public opinion clearly shows that the canon outlook differs a great deal from your own.

Posted by: Chrysalis May 23 2008, 12:22 AM

My own take is this rep is important it is how they can sell themselves to their prospective job market. There are two choices how they can do this: they can either be really silent of the jobs they do or go around and mention the jobs they have done. Shadowrunners cannot be found in the yellow pages, their résumés cannot be read on a web-site somewhere, so they have to rely on word-of-mouth.

So successful shadowrunners irrespective of the qualifications professional or academic, talk. They talk alot about their jobs specifically to their fixer pals. They wander by his place just to brag some more about some job they have done. This also means that successful shadowrunners lie, they lie about jobs they have done and the difficulties of the missions. It also means that there are a lot of people who pose as shadowrunners to get that magical job from Mr. J - after all, how do you verify that stories are moving about group X pulling off heist Y, phone up the insurance company and ask for a recommendation?

So as shadowrunners, your fixer tells you of a problem that landed in his lap and liked you. For a finders fee he will give you who to contact. You og off to the meet.Mr J is hot under the collar. Not only is this illegal, but there is no guarantee that the thugs who walk in are not going to practice daylight robbery. Mr. J tells the problem the face says if the amoutn is too low or not and a bit of haggling ensues just to make sure that everyone is playing the professional.

The job gets done and the costs are covered by the payment and a little bit of nuyen is still left over. This is the point where the shadowrun goes to their favourite watering hole, gets drunk and tells everyone who comes through the doors all the sordid, liquour besotted details. Word on the street rises that you are next to Rambo, respect increases and jobs come in. That's a win.

Posted by: Emperor Tippy May 23 2008, 12:24 AM

*Shrug*

People are free to play however they like. I started with 4e and went and read the 3e books afterward, I'm sure its shaped my perceptions of runners and running. When I first read the BBB it was with no preconceptions, so I look at the book saying that 400 BP is standard for PC's and that at least 150 points of that ends up spent on skills. Ok. Then I looked at what skill levels are supposed to represent in the game and saw that a 4 is very good and a 6 is one of the best in the world. So when I looked at what level of skill is reasonable to start off with I see that the average PC runner is veteran level in multiple skills and can be the best in all of recorded history with a skill if he wants. So then I thought about what those skill levels mean in terms of lifestyle and rarity.

What it comes down to is that the players are some of the most skilled people in the world and I can't see people of that skill level working for cheap.

So I feel fully justified in pointing out that cannon makes little sense in what it pays runners. If those numbers were the profit numbers per runner than they become reasonable (pay after expenses and maybe after lifestyle for a month). But as the base pay they make no sense at all as the cost to hirer a team that really is, skill wise, one of the 20 or so best shadow running teams in the world (few people at their skill level being runners).

Posted by: Fortune May 23 2008, 02:13 AM

That's probably true to a certain point.



Just because it is possible to make a character that is the best in the world at something doesn't automatically mean every single player character falls into that category.

If you are going to be measuring up and comparing various figures, also keep this scale in mind ...

In SR4 a normal, average, everyday pedestrian has the equivalent of 160 BP in Attributes (3 in each of the basic eight stats). PCs at chargen only get, at most, 40 BP more than that.

I guess we each read the same books, and each get totally different things out of them.



I made no comment whatsoever as to your take on 'pay scale'. My only points have been directed toward your stated opinions on reputation and retribution.

My opinion on the subject of 'pay scale', is that shadowruns come in all shapes and sizes, with a wide variety of pay-offs. It's a buyer's market, and big scores don't always come along every second week. As such, even the 'top dogs' have to sometimes stoop to doing a few milk runs to pay the bills until the next big job comes along.

Posted by: kanislatrans May 23 2008, 04:00 AM

I've been paying out about 10 to 20 k per runner. As is the teams still pretty green and pretty poor. by the time they pay lifestyle and extras(alimony, some new toys,booze) they are itching for next run. a good balance I think.

Once the team gets some more runs under their belt, I'll add a little more.

I also drop an easter egg every run for one of them. 1st run the occult investigator got a puppy. (Fey hound, something I hope to have stated out by sunday to post.) the next run the hacker picked up a data packet with the codes for a carib league bank account.(Big order sent to Mumblin' Mike for some Mondo sparkly drones.) This week Hoz, the former LS dwarf gets his present. Just something to keep them coming back to the table.

Personally I run it as runners are usually under paid till they get a rep( with fixer or what ever).

my reasoning is kinda based in economics. here in the sticks,we had a cable company that paid big bucks for call center help. unfortunately, the company got eaten by time-warner. at this point we have aprox 800 highly trained call center employees out of work. So company B comes in, hires about 50 of them and is paying them a little over minimum wage. Hell, some of them were making 20 $ an hour before. I see it as the same as shadow work. a lot of talent at the bottom with pretty good skills. but only so many positions open.

In a dog eat dog world, don't get caught wearing Milkbone™ underwear!

Posted by: WeaverMount May 23 2008, 07:30 AM

I think you're right. I also started out with e4 and this is my take.

Take a close look at what you can get for 400bp and look at how that stacks up to the skill descriptions and example NPCs. Without making a super specialist, just some straight forward optimizing(not minmaxing) and 400bp you get characters with world class abilities. Soft maxing 1 or 2 abilities, hitting the 5-5/6 skill cap, and 1 or 2 pieces of ware under the availability cap is RAW for char-gen and leaves plently of room extras. This seems like what the devs intended for an "average starting character". Let's look how a starting hermetic starts off. They can very easily start the game with 5(7) logic, 5s in two magic skills, and several logic skills of 4(8 - specality and neural amplifier). The way I see it this is a well rounded character 400bp character. This character has the skill and wear to work in delta clienic. The way I think about it the directer of a delta clinic has a skill of 7, but can't be bothered to do operations most of the time. The leaders of surgical teams have a skill of 6. "lowly" assistants on the actual surgical teams a skill of 5. Every one has augments in line with skill. IMO this looks like a well rounded 400bp character could be working in a delta clinic if you don't write a back story that forces them into the shadows.

And yes, this is all interpretation, so let's take some literal RAW examples you can build someone with Shaquille O’Neal levels of athleticism while still maintaining veteran professional levels (ie. "regular military combat pilot") in several secondary skills.

I understand people some people like street level games, but if you don't use house rules or gentleman's agreements starting RAW dicepools own the streets.

Now specifically on the subject of pay and rep. I just don't see how people think that 400bp characters are forced to do grunt work. First off their skills are much higher than that. Even if you think starting characters have no rep all, pull 1 or 2 jobs on spec for a syndicate contact and show them that you are head and shoulders better than anyone they have on retainer. That really ought to get you good jobs quick.

Concluding this post there are two reasons I really think that having 400bp characters start at the bottom of the ladder does make sense.
1) If you have a 5 in a skill you have set yourself apart from veterans. I don't see how you do that without getting noticed just doing your thing.
2) Also if you only spend 25bp (half the RAW cap) that mean the character has 125,000 of profit. Either they have been pulling 5k jobs once a month for years and squiring away what little they can save, or they have been making better money that that BEFORE char gen. Yes maybe the PC is an AWAL spec ops or a syndicate killer, that is a choice some people opt into.

Posted by: samuelbeckett May 23 2008, 07:53 AM

Struggling a little with why this discussion is still going...

Yes, you can make an argument that the chargen rules produce people who are at or near the top of the game in a number of areas, and that these areas translate into highly marketable skills.

However, this is not Corporate Wageslave 4e, it is Shadowrun 4e, and as such your character has chosen not to join a AAA and earn a luxury lifestyle, they have chosen to live in the barrens and commit crimes for a living. The reasons for this could be manyfold, but the main driver is that they are SINless and therefore effectively non-persons. And non-persons don't get an awful lot of choice as to how they earn the money to live.

So the canon Shadowrun setting is built around the idea that the PCs do not have the option to sell their skillset for 100k a run until they have earnt enough reputation to become a respected person within the criminal world. This means they need to get contacts they trust, they need to build enough street-cred for people to come looking for them for specific high paying jobs, and they need to not fuck up.

To Fortune's point, the Shadowrun world is based around the simple economy that Corps need 'runners, and therefore are only going to take extreme actions to reduce the 'runner population if that 'runner has greviously fucked up. If they offed 'runners just for taking 'runs, there would be no more skilled deniable operators left to do their dirty work.

Granted, this setting may not make 100% sense if you apply logic to it, but that is why it is up to the GM how much they choose to deviate from this canon. If you feel 'runners are underpaid for their skillset, then go right ahead and pay them some more money. It is your game, and all that matters in your game is that everyone is enjoying themselves.

But regarding discussions of what is canon...that is clearly that most 'runners do not earn the sort of sums you are quoting.

Posted by: ornot May 23 2008, 08:21 AM

Just thought I'd point out that - assuming you've spent 200BP or close to it on Attributes - after buying all those skill groups at 4 you've got a mere 40BP to buy gear (including your genetic optimisation, and the commlink, programmes and tool kits you actually need to fulfil your role), any other skills you think you need, contacts, and any qualities you happen to want.

Yes, your character is an experienced professional in a wide range of technical skills, but he has very limited to no combat ability, social ability, or athletic ability. He can't drive under pressure, spot anything that's not immediately obvious, hide worth a shit or any of a wide range of other things. Sure, you''ll tell me that those skills are covered by the rest of his team, but he's not a well rounded character. He's designed to slot into a team made of other similarly designed hyperspecialists in other areas, and outside of his element he won't last 5 rounds. Make a well rounded character who's not entirely gimped outside his area of expertise, and you'll find those BPs don't stretch far enough for 4's in all the skills you need.

Yes a 400BP character is better than your average bloke on the street, but they don't have to be so terribly uncommon as you seem to be suggesting. Making that assumption it's easy to see 'running is a buyers market; hence prices are driven down, and runners simply won't have the readies to replace all their gear, and work up a new ID every run. If your team won't do a run unless they get enough to take all those precautions, the job will go to another team who don't replace all their gear after every run as a matter of course - there's no need to anyway unless a profile begins to be built up by someone who can actually hurt you - and thus have lower overheads.

Posted by: WeaverMount May 23 2008, 08:55 AM

>But regarding discussions of what is canon...that is clearly that most 'runners do not earn the sort of sums you are quoting.
As far as I have read there is not one iota of e4 cannon about what to pay runners. All I have to go on is the fact that the 400bp characters are world class criminals and can start play with 6/6 contacts and one or two 100,000 nuyen in gear. I just don't see how you can ask these people to risk life and limb for chump change. I totally see how the system and setting allow for all kinds of other stories, but that really doesn't seem to be the e4 default.

And I really hear you about there not being a lot of options for the SINless. But 400bp PCs take the skills to be an amazing shadow cyber doc as an after thought. I know people harp on the Car thieving ring but really a vanilla infiltrator/hacker and steal most any car. A Rigger/Grease monkey can chop it down in no time flat. A face can move all your product. If you have a mage doing buffs and over watch you operation is that much more hardcore. Throw in a sam for when something occasionally goes wrong and you're golden. Solid, SINless income, all the freedom of running, and getting shot at as a matter of courses. You could also work the drug angle. The competition is a little more ruthless and blood thirsty in that arena, but a solid face backed by a solid team should be able to convence most anybody that it is worth do biz rather than try to take out a 4-5 400bp characters. The options are there, and if you want several runners to do a job together it just needs to be a large very well paying job to make any sense.

Posted by: reepneep May 23 2008, 09:03 AM

I tend to think that you start at 0 street cred for a reason. That means no one knows you. If no one knows you, then potential employers have no idea what you're capable of. No matter how competent you are, Mr. J, fixers, other runners are all going to going to treat you like a noob until you prove yourself otherwise. How are they supposed to know you aren't just a run-of-the-mill psychopath, or a ordinary ganger who's mouth is writing checks his ass can't cash? For those low level jobs all those secrecy precautions aren't going to be within your budget and thats ok because you aren't doing anything terribly noticeable to begin with. No one is going to trust an unproven team with any assignment of real importance.

I also started with SR4 and have read very little of the earlier editions outside of the Deus Incident. The idea that starting runners, 400bp or no, would be given any respect whatsoever from the community is downright silly.

Posted by: ArkonC May 23 2008, 09:07 AM

One could say that the adventures published in the official "contacts and adventures" are canon...

EDIT: Also, 400BP characters can start with 1/1 contacts and 25K in gear, are we going to take this as proof that they don't deserve to be payed?

Posted by: WeaverMount May 23 2008, 09:55 AM

Ok so I just checked the pay scale from "Prodigal Son" and "Hubris and Humility". Both are actually in the range I was talking about. I was saying that each runner should pulling 10k plus a month. 3k a week and 80k for 4-6 runners are both in that range for what I was talking about for starting runners. Throw in a couple smart moves with scavenging and the bonuses listed your doing just fine. The PCs should quickly be in line for better work, but that is in the printed material too.


Yes actually if you start with only 1/1 contacts you will be making crap because you don't currently know anyone important. As for the actual value of the gear a character enters play with no it has no bearing on pay. What does have bearing is listed max. If the "default" character was starving up an comer they would have low limit on starting wealth. To me that fact that a legit starting character can having a almost a quarter million in ware means that they having no been working for peanuts. They had a serious income stream. IMO a back story with an income stream + world class talent + major contacts = good (10-15k per runner per head) pay out of the gate.

Posted by: ArkonC May 23 2008, 10:07 AM

So there are canon examples of how much runners should be payed, which was my point...

And my point was that you used the fact that you can get 6/6 contact and a quarter million in gear as proof you should be payed more, which it isn't...
Also, I have made a rigger with a quarter million in gear, but he didn't buy most of it, he made most of it, so very little income, more like scavenging...
A B&E specialist I made also didn't buy most of her gear, he stole it, so again, very little income...
Just because you have to "buy" it during chargen, doesn't mean you actually bought it...

10-15K per runner out of boot seems decent, but it wouldn't involve expenses or anything, and would be the exception, not the rule, IMO...
Now, I'm not arguing your points, my first point was that there are examples, my second one was that your argumentation was flawed, not the point you made...

Posted by: ornot May 23 2008, 10:31 AM

10-15k per runner out of boot is not unreasonable, but that would be for a tough run (if the PCs are lucky enough to be trusted with one), and would include incidental income from fenced data and gear, as well as Mr J's offer, and any bonus he sees fit to tack on for a job well done. It's a far cry from the 'minimum 20k offer before I get out of bed' position that has been suggested.

The payment scales suggested in the SR Missions typically start at around 5k per runner adjusted by accumulated karma in the early rep building phase of the Missions arc. "Prodigal Son" and "Hubris and Humility" are both toward the end of the Denver arc, by which point, assuming the player has run through the preceding adventures, it is not unreasonable to consider them to have built up quite a rep.

Posted by: WeaverMount May 23 2008, 10:35 AM

I do appreciate the distinctions. But feel line of thinking is valid. Let me make my point a little more precisely. I feel those rules in conjunction with abilities as a 400bp character establish a very high upper bound for what a runner could be making very quickly. The rules establish you can start out as an adept hacker with legendary skill who is a close personal friend of an Ares junior exec. That guy uses deniable assets as a matter of course, and if he needs high end data run who else will they turn to? Obviously with those same 400bp you can make a sam with 3s and 4s across the board, a high edge score, a ton of wear, and no contacts worth talking about, and you now RPing just an erily competent guy no ever thinks of body messes with... but isn't going to offer major jobs to. The fact that both characters are valid doesn't mean that junior VPs are calling up the seasoned dessert wars vet with 100k jobs jusst because they could have taken the skills and contacts to do so. But on the flip side if you have phenomenal skills and the ear of a gumi boss I don't think that you will be doing milk runs just because your karma total means your rep score is technically 0.

Posted by: Shiloh May 23 2008, 11:13 AM

Reputation and Retribution

Most corps won't take action against Shadowrunners because it costs them more money to do so than they anticipate gaining from their own employment of 'Runners. There *is* a line that 'Runners can cross where they start to become associated with one corp or runs against a particular corp and the RoI on the efforts to rub them out starts to look attractive to a Corporate Security Executive. For organisations such as the Yaks and the Mafia "everything is personal". They rely on their "honour" and dominance to do their business and anything that makes them look even a little bit weaker or damages their rep with their "clients" *has* to be avenged. Different motivations. Higher level runs are more likely to step on a given corp exec's toes hard enough to warrant some sort of smackdown, even if it's not strictly good business.

In order to ensure they don't *accidentally* get associated with runs for or against a given corp, and to avoid "Imperial Entanglements", it's necessary to stay pretty clean. Nanopaste disguises and multiple IDs are, I reckon, mandatory when on Ops. And keeping the general public unaware of your activities is part of this low profile. Your true capabilities should only be known to a select few. That will mean you'll only get jobs from those discreet sources, and won't get much in the way of 'on spec' offers, but hopefully your fixer(s) is (are) well enough connected that you do get enough jobs.

There's always a reason people are 'Runners. There are many reasons. Not all 'Runners are fuckups. Most aren't even *close* to "professional" in their attitude though, especially the sort that get wasted in a club post-run and blab the gory details. There's two entire different styles of game there.

Starting people with a Rep of zero is only appropriate if they really are wet-behind-the-ears noobs, and for my money, being able to have salted away 250k and have better than average skills and stats and contacts with national reach (especially helpful fixers) definitely implies *some* sort of pre-existing rep.

Rating and Remuneration

There are a lot of Shadowrunners out there. Most of them are fodder: freelance legbreakers, independent muscle. Doing dirty jobs for low pay in a bad situation. Not so many of them are the "main characters" of a story though. Player Characters are better. They're the ones that do the un-mundane jobs. they *may* also do the little jobs, to keep their hand in or make ends meet, but those aren't the ones most people with limited game time want to play. The list that Sir_Psycho posted looks fine as an absolute baseline for simple, straightforward jobs involving criminality and Edit: serious realistic but low probability risk to life, limb and liberty. Almost any job should pay more than that because the probability of danger actually occurring is higher.

Redux

In the end, though, it's about the stories you want to tell in the group. The background is flexible enough for your runners to have any reason to run, from clawing their way out of the gutter and finding the next fix, through crusading to save the Ork Underground to earning enough money to retire to a yacht in the Caymans with a new face and genotype. You just have to juggle the assumptions to mould the flavour and make sure everyone's working from the same ones.

Posted by: WeaverMount May 23 2008, 12:01 PM

Shiloh, you really reminded me that most conflict is over definition and terms. I think that most of us have fairly specific ideas about what a run and a runner "really" are. IMO not all freelancer criminals are shadow runners. I wouldn't call braking a debter's knee caps a run. Especially if you get the job done

I think this is largely where the confusion came from.

Posted by: Fortune May 23 2008, 12:40 PM

As for canon examples of what is considered a 'shadowrun', you can always use the published Shadowrun Missions scenarios. At present, there are 24 different scenarios from the just-completed story arc, and I would say that collectively they give a pretty good indication of what is considered to be a normal shadowrun for 400 BP characters straight out of chargen.

They also provide some useful examples of pay scales, but I will also add that I believe they are a tad too low, but I also believe that was done intentionally. Again though, they provide at least some insight into the economy of the Sixth World.

Now, I'm not saying these are the only types of Shadowruns, but in my opinion they do provide some good guidelines, or at least a solid basis to work from.

Posted by: Cthulhudreams May 23 2008, 02:47 PM

The problem with 5k per runner is its really.. not enough money to even cover expenses.

Rigger loses a Nissan doberman and an R2 sin on a mission - not unreasonable - and he doesn't even have enough cash to eat, let alone pay for a medium lifestyle, so he needs to 'greyhawk' the place to have any hope of getting ahead.

Posted by: Zak May 23 2008, 03:13 PM

And then we are back to the point where the character (not always the player) should ask: Why bother? Lets just steal that drone over there. Or lets impersonate that rich guy and take all his money. Of course, this is usually boring for the player, so he keeps doing shadowruns.

It can be a real pain in the ass though to deal with this issue.
So I prefer to pay more and show them how money can be spent in addition of 'new ware, new ware, new ware'.

And let me ask again: What is the problem with proper(higher) payment? Does it destroy your game balance? Does it make the game less fun? What exactly does your game gain by crappy payment?

Posted by: ornot May 23 2008, 03:18 PM

Have you read the early SR4 Missions? How exactly would you lose a drone and a SIN on those?

Of course sometimes everything can go horribly badly wrong, and other times you can complete a run without a shot being fired.

If the run was significantly tougher than you were led to believe it's not unreasonable for the runners to complain to the Johnson, and demand a bonus. If it sounds like the kind of run where you'll be in danger of losing drones (infiltrating a megacorp facility say) then there's no reason not to negotiate for more before accepting the run.

The resale cost of stolen drones is not great, and if you steal a bunch of them the Shadoweconomy ceases to be able to soak up the glut in drone parts, making them effectively worthless. The same goes for cars. If the runners decide they want to just go in for a heist then fair enough, I can still construct a decent run around that.

The jobs should be worth what the J is willing to pay, and simple runs is a good way to build up the PCs experience and skill. If you have experienced players then by all means have them contacted for tougher missions. It should still remain a buyer's market though. Mr J has power. The runners rely on him, and need him more than he needs them. He should not be the poor mook following instructions and dropping cash in anonymous lockers while the runners cover him with a sniper rifle.

Posted by: Shiloh May 23 2008, 03:39 PM

This is a thought-provoking thread. I just stumbled back across the thought: A 'Runner is defined by hir contacts.

Obviously this is a very broad statement and I should clarify what occurred to me.

If your 400 pt beginner character starts with lots of shadowy contacts: a couple of fixers, a doc, a hacker, a 'monger, an arms dealer and so on, and a background of having been in the shadows to have acquired their cyber and toys, then they've already got some sort of a base rep, or why would they be dealing with these people?

If your 400 pt beginner character has few or no shadowy contacts: an ares exec, a magic tutor and a cop, say, and their background is just having arrived in the shadows for whatever reason, with at least a quasi-legit source for all their gear and skills they *won't* have that base rep. The childhood friend Ares exec won't be shuffling shadowjobs their way until they realise that Our Hero is actually operating on the shadowy side of the fence now, and even then, such sensitive stuff will need some testing of the water before really significant business comes their way.

So, if you want your characters to be starting-out, talented amateurs (as far as operating in the Shadows is concerned), limit the style and character of their contacts: restrict their Fixer contacts to low Loyalty; limit the number of street level folk who will put themselves out for them. Then make the early runs about making your mark.

If you're of the mind that 400pts is a decent-level 'Runner, let 'em have their Spider-Fixer who knows everyone and will trust the team with the kind of jobs that pay 6 figures. And make sure they have the requisite other contacts and attitude to ops to match their rep.

Obviously there's the whole spectrum of origins and power/rep levels beteween and beyond these two vague points, but for illustration, they'll do.

Posted by: ornot May 23 2008, 03:56 PM

That's a very valid point Shiloh

My players seem to neglect contacts in favour of gear and stats, so they get low end jobs with small karma and nuyen rewards, but can build up a rep with contacts.

If the players make characters with lots of high level contacts, then they'll get bigger karma and nuyen rewards for bigger jobs, with which they can boost their gear and stats.

Posted by: Cthulhudreams May 23 2008, 03:57 PM

I think I've read the first one, and thought it was retarded because the plot is dependant on you openning the box - but 90% of the time, your not actually supposed to open the box.

But this begs another question about risk. If there is to be a sense of danger, don't I the rigger need to get into situations were I may loose my drone. Drones are a pretty disposable asset for a rigger - they are cheap enough to buy a dozen or so at char gen, I can easily throw 3 into a routine combat. It's actually pretty easy to loose a drone in a fight.

Should the mission just be a total cakewalk because the pay is low? Doesn't that lack suspense if all the challenges that may use resources are not going to use any.

Hell, what if a mage uses a service from a bound spirit. That could cost several thousand yen right there.

I suppose it never says 'validate SIN here' in which case you could actually argue that you'd never loose any fake SINs ever, but thats a bit of an open question.

Posted by: Mordinvan May 23 2008, 04:02 PM

I'm pretty sure its not the runners that pull in the jobs initially, its the FIXER. IF you have a 6/6 fixer then he IS well enough known to FIND the
1,000,000+ jobs and send them along to you if he thinks you can handle it BECAUSE he likes you.
Your pay will almost exclusively depend on your FIXER contact ratings until you become well enough known to have people looking for your skills by name.
And as for what happens if someone axes your fixer? Well obviously since he is well connected with people who CAN pull these jobs, and you just chopped off the hand that fed them, they are going to be very upset with you, and likely feed you feet first through a wood chipper when they find you, so you will strongly avoid taking such actions cause you enjoy breathing without pain, and the ability to chew solid food.

Posted by: ornot May 23 2008, 04:14 PM

The first Shadowrun Mission (Parliament of Thieves) emphatically does not rely on you opening the package, although that is an option. If you do, you run the risk of not getting paid, and pissing off the Mafia.

In that mission you're actually far more likely to lose your SIN trying to pass through a checkpoint than a drone, and even that expense can be bypassed by paying a bribe, or getting the face to talk you out of it.

My point really is that the rigger knows how much he's getting paid, and can make a value judgement as to whether to put his drones at risk or not. Likewise with the mage. Given a choice between calling up your bound spirit (3k:nuyen:) and not calling up your bound spirit (0:nuyen:), you need a 3k motivation to pull out your spirit.

Sending your drone (or your bound spirit) into a fight and running away may make the run a cakewalk, but if you stand a fight, directly rigging the drone to increase its survivability, and summoning on the fly (which is free) the run is more difficult. So, cakewalk and less cash, or challenge and more cash? It's your choice.

Posted by: Zak May 23 2008, 04:19 PM

Well, good you said early Missions.

But let's take Mission 13 as an example of really shitty payment.

Seriously, WTF? Do you consider this proper payment?

Posted by: imperialus May 23 2008, 04:56 PM

Honestly this whole debate can be summed up by thinking to yourself "What will keep the players coming back to my table, and how to I balance Sams, Riggers and Hackers with Physads and Mages."

Do your players want to be globe trotting power brokers who can go toe to toe with Tir Ghosts or Firewatch and survive? That's cool. Give them 1,000,000 jobs that net then 20+ karma. Do your players enjoy the idea of running around the dark edges of society struggling to keep their edge? That's cool too. Give them 50,000 jobs that give them 5 or 6 karma.

Do you want the campaign to start out low powered and end up crazy and over the top? Go for it. It's easy to up the challenge of the opposition once you have a bit of experience as a GM.

If you're a new GM I'd recommend keeping the power level lower, at least initially. It's easier to ballpark a teams capabilities at the lower end of the karma/nuyen scale and make sure you're throwing opponents at them that they can handle but won't be a walk in the park either.

IMO A far more important thing to balance is the advancement between money hogs and karma hogs. If you're giving out 50K a run and 15 or 20 karma your street sams are going to hate you. The reverse is true too. That's IME what causes games to run into trouble. A mage who's on his second initiation and has a magic rating of 8 is going to be a lot more powerful than a Sam with the same amount of Karma but hasn't been able to scrape together the cash to tear out the wired II he started with and replace it with a nice MBW system or other piece of killer ware.

That's the big reason I created that "street cred" system I posted back on page 1 of the thread. I feel that it gives a good balance between Karma and Nuyen which lets the different archtypes get access to their toys at about the same rate. I had a bit of a problem with giving out too much karma and not enough nuyen early in my GMing experience so I created that as a guideline to go by.

If you notice that your team is having a tough time 'paying the bills' as it were then it's not too hard to give them a quick cash infusion (find some extra paydata or something) to get them back on track. Also remember payment doesn't necessarily have to be cash. If the team Sam needs a new piece of ware or the Rigger really really wants that customized Citymaster then you can always give it to them over the course of a run without necessarily plopping a million nuyen payday down on the table.

I oftentimes ask my players to give me a 'wishlist' of things that their characters want. There is no limit on this. They can ask for an AGIS Cruiser or access to a Thor shot if it suits their fancy. It doesn't mean they'll get it but particularly for pricey items (like say a Beta MBW II system) it lets me reward them to the PC's without throwing the whole system off kilter.

Posted by: ornot May 23 2008, 04:56 PM

Zak:
I'd not read that one. It does look harsh, and the payment is pretty poor.

Given the number of J's willing to screw over the PCs this looks more like a hose job than anything else.

Posted by: Mordinvan May 23 2008, 05:23 PM

Our group solved it in a different fashion. We had a cash to Karma system where you could buy and sell Karma at a fixed Rate.
We handwaved it as saying things like spending karma buy a winning scratch ticket, or buying karma by giving money to a noble charity.
Very noncannon, but if you can find the right "price" for karma, then the system works very well. SR4 seems to suggest such a price to be around
2,500-5,000/Karma if such a system were ever implemented, given that 1 BP is worht about 2 karma, and also worth about 5,000

Posted by: Aaron May 23 2008, 06:02 PM

Has anyone tried something like basing it off of earned Karma?

Posted by: Ryu May 23 2008, 07:39 PM

I suggest to look at the average monetary gain a character makes per real-time month. Will the augmentations and other purchases possible with that money satisfy the player?

A net gain of 30k¥ per real-time month will allow for one large purchase per quarter, certainly not a rate that will make players feel ultra-powerful fast. (Street campaigns need a way lower value, until the chars hit it of)

Posted by: WeaverMount May 23 2008, 10:19 PM

>Obviously there's the whole spectrum of origins and power/rep levels beteween and beyond these two vague points, but for illustration, they'll do.

Exactly. I was taking issue that PCs at char in some way should be doing low end jobs for a while. The rules allow for characters to come out of the gate with very impressive skills, gear, and contacts. If the GM approves such a character, which should vary by campaign, they should treat them "realistically".

Posted by: Mordinvan May 24 2008, 05:03 AM

I'm just thinking low level fixer contact = low level jobs, high level fixer contact could mean much higher jobs

Posted by: Crusher Bob May 25 2008, 03:44 AM

Even 'low level' jobs have to have a risk vs reward balance.

A low level job might be "go and convince these shopkeepers to sell their shop". Consider that a team of 4 runners can each make 5K by stealing an 80K Y sports car and selling it to their fence @ 25%. If the job is easier than stealing a sports car, the it's ok for it to pay less, but if the job is more difficult than simply stealing a sports car, it had better pay more.

Stealing a 10K econo-box and selling it to your fence @ 40% gets each of you 1K. If the job is paying less that 1K, it's either a favour you are doing for someone and they are basically buying you lunch in exchange, or the job had better be a simple as going to the bathroom.

Of course, who wants to play through a mission that's easier than simply stealing a car? You might as well say, "OK, you've done some low level jobs for a while, now it time for your first real job..." I'd assume that the only way a job that pays less than stealing a sports car to be interesting is if it screws up royally. So either the players/characters are complete and utter incompetents, or the GM is just screwing with them. Either alternative is unpalatable.

Posted by: hyzmarca May 25 2008, 03:56 AM

The big advantage to doing extremely low-level runs is karma grinding. Sure delievering a package across the street isn't going to pay very much, but a character can do several of those types of runs per day, earning a measly 1 karma each one. A Prime Runner character out fighting dragons and saving the world might spend weeks doing it and only earn 10 or 20 karma. The extremely unbalanced Karma payoff should make grinding such runs a favorite tactic of all sorts of magicians who aren't quite audacious enough to try to deal with a Succubus.

Posted by: Crusher Bob May 25 2008, 04:04 AM

Might as well send all your off nights doing high speed pizza delivery then. Get the pie to the customer in less than 10 minutes and get an extra point of karma!

Posted by: hyzmarca May 25 2008, 04:08 AM

Those Redmond pizza delivery runs really give your Predator finger a work out.

Posted by: Sweaty Hippo May 25 2008, 05:49 AM

I'm pretty sure that shadowrunners are like spies and assassins; the best ones are the ones that you never hear about.

As for jobs, I give a flat amount. Inexperienced, starting runners make 5000 nuyen each. 500 up front, the rest when the job gets done. Depending on how sloppy the runners performed, there can be pay deductions on the final amount, ranging from 5% (minor inconveniences, unnecessary casualties) to 50%(when the media gets involved, but identities of runners remain unknown).

Posted by: kzt May 25 2008, 06:10 AM

Um, no, it won't. Your fence doesn't buy stolen cars. "What do I look like, a fucking used car dealer?" The guys who do buy stolen cars pay like crap because they have to do a shitload of work to build a fake title, repair the damage you did stealing it, and ensure that they don't lead the cops to their shop, since every car has built in a cute little system that will be telling the cops where it is right now until you turn it off, if you know how. Expensive cars have several of these, which do clever things like wake up every hour or two and send a message about where they are, then go back and hide in the engine control computer and the anti-lock brake computer, etc.

You can sell them yourself, in a stuffer shack lot, for a good chuck of change. Once you find a customer who wants it. But are YOU going to pay big bucks to "some dude" selling a used car with fried security and the pilot ripped out, with no title, in a stuffer shack lot while he looks around for the Star? Or might you suspect that it's kind of toasty to extremely hot and offer 200 for that late model sedan?

If it was easy to make serious money, car thief wouldn't be the bottom of the criminal pyramid. Car thieves who want to live well between stretches inside find better paying occupations....

Posted by: Fortune May 25 2008, 06:16 AM

Like Fastjack!

Posted by: hyzmarca May 25 2008, 06:20 AM

Stolen cars are like stolen people. With few exceptions, you can make more money chopping them up and piecing them out. If you sell a stolen car then you sell it to a chop shop, which breaks it into pieces and sells all the parts individually, which generally turns out to be worth more than the car itself retails for.

Posted by: Crusher Bob May 25 2008, 06:35 AM

And if your crew is too ill-skilled to turn off the lowjack, you have no business doing anything runner like in the first place. That crew you want to hire to break into a place with state of the art physical, magical, and matrix security? They have better be able to break the security system of an automobile without a problem.

Posted by: Cthulhudreams May 25 2008, 09:17 AM

Sure, it might be like that, but the game has rules that explicitly contradict you.





So you get 10% of the book value per car you steal after selling it through a R4 fence for parking it outside his chop say and saying 'yo, dude, a car!'

Posted by: kzt May 25 2008, 05:26 PM

Sure, all you have to do it carefully examine the car for security and stealth tags. Every part of the car, for the really small and easy to hid security tags. Which requires that you have a couple of days and about 100 square meters of a nice concrete surface with good lighting so you can disassemble the car and examine things like the floor under the carpet and the rear seats, the inside of the ABS computer, inside the tires, the bottom of the dashboard, and the inside of the battery compartment. Remember to peel off the spray on plastic sealant too, the tags are very thin. Consider that for every place that a modern automaker inscribes the VIN or a part serial number they would install a RFID tag at minimum, probably many would be stealth tags.

That's one reason that runners typically are stealing information or small items that can be easily searched and are small enough to fit in things like portable Faraday cages, or are being rapidly handed off to soemone else.

Posted by: Sweaty Hippo May 25 2008, 06:47 PM

What are you talking about? Fastjack does not exist! Just a street legend made by a sci-fi RPG writer!

Posted by: Detharin Jun 2 2008, 12:48 PM

Personally my team is just starting out. Their first run was for 5k per runner with a bonus based on how they performed. The run went off flawlessly and they each made 10k. Their second run was a bit more difficult. I started them off at 10k per person, with an additional 5k for bribes and equipment. The job was to stage a riot during a public appearance of Karl Kombat mage. Furthermore they had to ensure that Lone Star Security ended up looking bad, and Knight Errant who was performing body guard work on Karl came out looking very good. I gave the players the stipulation that depending on the size of the riot, how good Knight Errant looked, and how bad Lone Star looked there would be additional money given.

When a dominated mob attacking a Lone Star officer ends with the decker catching video of a crying 8 year old girl in a bloody dress sitting on the unconscious officers chest is leaked to the media by a blogger contact, you can bet they got a hefty bonus. The fun part, the 8 year old girl was part of the mob that beat the officer down due to the mage gliching on her assessing test to make sure she didnt get anyone in the mob who would notice her casting.

The point is that personally I like to keep payment down, around 10k per person, per run. Then offer the runners additional sources of income they may, or may not take advantage of. If the run takes a week, they will more than pay for a medium lifestyle and any expenses they accrue just on that. They do not feel to bad losing a drone, or buying nanopaste, or renting cars because they know they can afford it. Which tends to mean they spend more money during the planning phase. Give them 5k and they will scrimp and save as much as possible. Give them 10k and watch them blow 5k in stuff for the run.

Posted by: Ring Kichard Jun 2 2008, 08:12 PM

Seriously?
The crew has unrestricted physical access to the car.
They can hack the car's PAN.
They can read pirated shop-manuals.
They can summon a spirit to do their dirty work.
They can just sell the thing with the most seductive and persuasive sales elf a corporate wage slave is likely to see in the flesh.

They can probably defeat this security easily.
But that's not what you want, is it?
Selling that car is supposed to be hard! That's your whole point.

This sounds like a bad case of the, "GM dosn't want you doing this, so it's going to be stupid-difficult."
I get the fealing you'd ramp up the difficulty of running a car-theft ring to be the equivilant of heroic shadowrunning just out of spite.

All to avoid paying your players some cash. Which costs you nothing.
Is your favorite player playing a mage? Do you hate the sammy in your group?
What gives?

Posted by: Eryk the Red Jun 2 2008, 08:39 PM

This whole argument of "Why would any character be a Shadowrunner if it doesn't pay oodles and oodles of cash?" comes up a lot and it's silly to me. The answer is simple: that's part of coming up with a character concept. People in SR don't become runners because it's a sweet deal. They do it because they feel like it's their best option. Maybe they feel like it's all they know how to do. Or they feel trapped in the shadows, having no real connection to a legit lifestyle. Whatever. If you can't justify your character being a shadowrunner, then he probably isn't appropriate for the game (barring certain campaigns that take a different focus). If your character thinks he'll do better boosting cars, awesome. But he's not a shadowrunner if he does that instead. That decision is most likely a decision to stop playing.

Best to think of it this way: the point of the game is going on shadowruns. Which get money. Which is spent to get cool thinks to make you better at shadowruns. We play the game for the adventures. If you turn them down all the time because you think your character deserves more money, you're missing the point. You're refusing to take part in the fun part of the game, for the sake of a secondary, supporting part of the game. Have fun. Play the game. And GM's, pay as much cash and give as much karma as seems appropriate for the kind of game you're trying to run.

Posted by: JonathanC Jun 2 2008, 08:48 PM

The question of "why would someone risk their life for 5k a pop" or whatever the job pays is based on the assumption that you're like you are now: reasonably educated, certified as such, and a legal citizen. You aren't. By default, Shadowrunners are assumed to be SINless, which means that your peers in the modern age aren't guys like you, they're the guys who hang out by Home Depot looking for odd jobs and working dirt cheap.

Posted by: Ryu Jun 2 2008, 09:14 PM

The question is "what should a shadowrunner earn", not "what could a shadowrunner earn instead".

My primary concern is the long-term mundane vs. awakened balance, which I find pretty good at chargen. A rate of 5k¥ per karma, with occasionally monetary windfalls, is in my experience a rate that works. The size of the combined reward depends on the length and intensity of the scession. Consequently there are 4 karma / 20k¥ base runs and 6 karma / 30k¥+ special occasions.

Posted by: Shiloh Jun 3 2008, 10:50 AM

Or a Shadowrunner's peer/equivalent is the drug dealer/pimp/art thief. There's a continuum of talent and earning potential.

Posted by: Crusher Bob Jun 3 2008, 11:26 AM

Note that the 5,000 Y per 2 points of karma rule of thumb should be net of expenses, lifestyle, hospital stays, repairs, replacements, etc. So if you are going through a SIN every month, and are burning drones, and so on your pay should account for that as well.

So, as an example:

A 4 karma run pays out 10K net per runner.
Depending on the group, this might be 250K for a crew of 5, but with 200K of burned gadgets, bribes, fake SINs, genewipes, lifestyles, transportation etc.
Or it could mean a crate of 90K worth of useful loot for a crew of 5, and 40K Y in out of pocket expenses.