Jobs-jobs-jobs, A fan supplement on shadowrunner daily jobs Options

[Fatum]

As demanded by the community here, I've written the outlines of a fan supplement.

You can see it here.

What I'd like to hear is:
- whether you think the mechanics look to be usable
- what do you think the parameter changes for the particular job qualities should be
- whether you'd like to write some intro fiction (cause I know my narrative writing sucks)
- general feedback

Hit me with all you've got :3

[bannockburn]

Will have a look at it, when I'm back home, but I'm excited about it (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Makki]

I think it's awesome.

I believe you already have points to payment table, but it's not in the document.
I'd make all the qualities add multiples of 5 / -5 to the quality cost. And Day Job should not count towards the 35 BP limit, so someone could potentially build an awesome job costing like 50BP, earning lots of money and contacts, while doing nothing.

This or a separate thread should be used to build tons of sample jobs, that can be used directly or used as base.

note@ sidebar roleplaying dangerous jobs: time frame should be per working hours, not per week/days.

[D2F]

Pretty impressive work, Fatum! I like it a lot. My only point of critique would be the "dangerous" Job quality. As it stands in the document, a CEO Bodyguard dies in his first week. A total of 6d6 physical damage amounts to an average of 21 physical damage. Unless you intend to allow the character to soak that damage with a regular damage resistance roll, not even a humongous troll will survive that. Did you plan to allow for a damage resitance roll on the damage?

The rest, as I said before, is truly impressive. Can't wait to see the numbers you had in mind.

[thorya]

Looks good. I know I ran into some issues with day job in my last game.

I can't wait until you have some more time to fill in the numbers.

I would normally be willing to do some writing for you or job descriptions, but I will have barely any free time for the next three weeks.

[Fatum]

Okay, updated my journal.
Added a few qualities (ones that describe payment frequency), Payment points to Nuyen Table, and the rest of the preliminary numbers I had.

[D2F]

Scanned through it and what I found so far it looks awesome. When I have more free time at my hands, I'll run some numbers on differen Job setups but at first glance it looks solid.

Only minor nitpick: "Bimonthly" usualy means every 2 months, not twice a month. I know both useages are valid, "semimonthly" would probably be a less confusing term, though.

[Fatum]

Okay, fixed this.
Also corrected the bit on dangerous jobs, both changing it to encounters per working hours and allowing to soak the damage.

[JesterZero]

Scanned through it and what I found so far it looks awesome. When I have more free time at my hands, I'll run some numbers on differen Job setups but at first glance it looks solid.

Only minor nitpick: "Bimonthly" usualy means every 2 months, not twice a month. I know both useages are valid, "semimonthly" would probably be a less confusing term, though.

D2F is correct. Technically, it can be either. However, if you want to go by the definitions that are most common in the payroll realm:

• Weekly: Paid once per week (often on Friday, but that can change)
• Bi-Weekly: Paid every other week (again, often on Friday, but that can change)
• Semi-Monthly: Paid twice per month, almost always on fixed days (such as the 15th and the 30th, or the 15th and the "last day of the month")
• Monthly: Paid once per month, almost always on a fixed day

Keep in mind that those terms relate to how often you are paid, not necessarily your wage is calculated. Without getting into accounting language, the most common ones would be "hourly" (paid per unit of time worked), and "salary" (paid a set amount regardless of time worked). In the Shadowrun realm, the common type of rate would be what is commonly known as "fixed bid" (paid a set amount for a specific end result/outcome).

[bannockburn]

Ok, read it through and I'm intrigued (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)
Needs some playtesting of course, and I don't necessarily agree with all the numbers, but yes, the rules look usable.

Specific feedback, ordered by appearance in the doc:

1.) Telepresence shouldn't pay so much worse, IMO. Just a feeling, no hard facts, though.

2.) Sick leave should be limited. 10 missed work days per year is a number I've heard thrown around for an average employer to still make profit of the employee's work force. That's for 40h weeks and in Germany. After that ... well, your performance review might now contain a blunder for every 2 days over 10 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)
Again, just a random number that feels okay-ish at the moment, without further playtesting.

3.) I disagree that gangs should only be treated as small business. Especially top-tier gangs should probably be wrapped into syndicates. Not a big difference, but the sentence about street level gangs may be confusing.

4.) Licenses: Maybe include a section about how often licenses or SINs are checked in the job, and at what scanner level? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

5.) High skill and Diverse skill set should maybe pay a little better?

6.) Examples:
a) Pizza delivery drivers usually don't work 40h per week. This is, in my experience, a sidejob rather than a real one.
b) Bouncers need Intimidation 4 and Unarmed Combat 4? Seems a bit steep. I would think a higher strength attribute or obvious chrome may be substitutes for these requirements.
c) Strength requirement for a mover seems too high. I have personally not had problems moving even big furniture around when helping out friends, and I'd say, my Str is rather average. Maybe Str 3, Bod 3?


I particularly like the examples given in the separate sections and I would like to see them all statted out.

[Fatum]

Ok, read it through and I'm intrigued (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)
Needs some playtesting of course, and I don't necessarily agree with all the numbers, but yes, the rules look usable.

The numbers are preliminary, yes.

1.) Telepresence shouldn't pay so much worse, IMO. Just a feeling, no hard facts, though.

It's a bit of metagaming on my side, admittedly, but minding how much less problematic telepresence work is for a runner, I thought I'd assign it harsh penalties.

2.) Sick leave should be limited. 10 missed work days per year is a number I've heard thrown around for an average employer to still make profit of the employee's work force. That's for 40h weeks and in Germany. After that ... well, your performance review might now contain a blunder for every 2 days over 10 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)
Again, just a random number that feels okay-ish at the moment, without further playtesting.

That subsystem does look very prone to abuse, yes. Seems like a reasonable addition.

3.) I disagree that gangs should only be treated as small business. Especially top-tier gangs should probably be wrapped into syndicates. Not a big difference, but the sentence about street level gangs may be confusing.

Changed the phrase a bit.

4.) Licenses: Maybe include a section about how often licenses or SINs are checked in the job, and at what scanner level? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Frankly, I have no idea how often a chauffeur is required to show his driving license, neither a spec-ops operator his firearm license. When he's hired?

5.) High skill and Diverse skill set should maybe pay a little better?

My reasoning is that it already pays significantly more thanks to the additional skill/attribute requirements.

a) Pizza delivery drivers usually don't work 40h per week. This is, in my experience, a sidejob rather than a real one.

Possible to change with the addition of Half Day quality.

b) Bouncers need Intimidation 4 and Unarmed Combat 4? Seems a bit steep. I would think a higher strength attribute or obvious chrome may be substitutes for these requirements.

You see, this is a question of principle here. Sure, it could be replaced with higher strength, or high negotiation, or in some other way. I feel that the GM will still have to decide on a per-case basis here.
Although now that I think about it, rating 4 does seem rather steep, yeah.

c) Strength requirement for a mover seems too high. I have personally not had problems moving even big furniture around when helping out friends, and I'd say, my Str is rather average. Maybe Str 3, Bod 3?

Think there should be secondary attribute requirement available?

I particularly like the examples given in the separate sections and I would like to see them all statted out.

Including the burlaku parlor cleaner? :3

[bannockburn]

It's a bit of metagaming on my side, admittedly, but minding how much less problematic telepresence work is for a runner, I thought I'd assign it harsh penalties.

Good point, but I think it may be very ordinary in the 70s. It's a matter of taste, though (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Frankly, I have no idea how often a chauffeur is required to show his driving license, neither a spec-ops operator his firearm license.

Me neither. But maybe, in addition to the availability test, the license / SIN will be checked once by default and then ... I don't know. Once per year?

My reasoning is that it already pays significantly more thanks to the additional skill/attribute requirements.

Ah, yes. I didn't think of this (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Think there should be secondary attribute requirement available?

Not until you mentioned it. But now ... yes. Especially the mover is an unskilled worker. There are a lot of jobs that require only raw attributes and not much skill (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Including the burlaku parlor cleaner? :3

ALL of them! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[Makki]

starts looking great. Let me see, whether I can brake it (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

Artifact Hunter
Primary rare high skill: Arcana 5
Secondary rare high skill: Counterspelling 5
White Collar: Magical Theory, Magical Artifacts
Required License: Foci and Spells
Quality: Magician
Dangerous, Academic Degree, Business Trips, Secret Power Employer
Cost: -22
Availability: 28
Payment: 23
Social: 2


I think 22k per month are not enough for this kind of job.

[Fatum]

Note that White Collar allows you to take Knowledge skills as Primary and Secondary skill requirements, it doesn't just add additional requirements by itself. So we're looking at Diverse Skills here.
Is it worded ambiguously in the document?

I'm going with Core book definition of wealth level, and going by it, 10k is High. So twice as much looks like a reasonable compensation to me. Opinions?

[D2F]

22K¥ a month is a TON of money.
For the sake of the argument let's assume ¥=€ and 2073=2012 as far as the income to expenses ratio is concerned and take a look at wages on the german market:

Average annual salary (across all jobs) with less than a year experience: 33,814.-€*
Average annual salary (across all jobs) with 20 or more years of experience: 83,594.-€*

Best paying employer would be Boehringer Ingelheim Corp with an annual salary of 17,531.-€ - 177,500.-€*

So, looking at the top end spectrum of a (considerably more than 40h/week) job at BIC we see a (gross) salary of 177,500.-€ or a monthly salary of around 14,792€
Contast that with your (disposable) 22,000¥ a month salary.

The country with currently the highest average annual (gross) wages would be the US at 54,450$**, or 4,537.5$ a month. If we look at disposable income it's even only 3,504$ a month.

Your treasure hunter would be compensated insanely well for his skill and effort with more than 6 times the average income. Keep in mind that monthly salaries with six digits or more are an extreme exception and in no way, shape or form dependant just on qualifications.


*: All data taken from ww.payscale.com.
**: Data taken from Wikipedia

Edit: changed the wording a bit to avoid confusion between wages and income per household.

[Fatum]

Note that average income in US statistics is per household, not per person.

[D2F]

Note that average income in US statistics is per household, not per person.

My bad, I should have pointed out, that I was listing average wages. I will edit my previous post, to avoid further confusions. My apologies.

[ShadowDragon8685]

Oh, I like it, I like it, I like it! Some thoughts, though, in no particular order.


1: There should be a time quality for having a "no-show job," which is a job wherein you're put on the books but aren't actually expected to show your face except on very, very rare occasions, usually company social gatherings or for inspections by outsiders. Usually these jobs are rewards, bribes, or political favors.

Example: You saved an oyabun's daughter. Just paying you a lump of money and pretending he doesn't know you is dishonorable compared to the magnitude of gratitude he owes you, so the oyabun puts your whole team on the payroll at a yak-owned casino, you even have offices and everything! Your responsibilities are a beautiful, elegant document full of corpspeak, newspeak, vernacular and jargon that boils down to meaningless nothingness, your hourly scale is set to "when it's done, it's done, and you get paid" which synergizes nicely with the fact that you have no actual responsibilities to fulfill on a normal, day-to-day, week-to-week basis. You thus have a steady income, an office you can use if "Shades" the hacker needs to vanish for a while and "Emily Sansnom" the lower-middle-manager at a casino suddenly feels a need to start pulling true Japanacorp sleep-in-my-closet hours for a while, and you're only really expected to attend parties and such. (Other examples include a union boss arranging to put the no-good useless wastrel son of a politician on the payroll of a work crew in exchange for political favors, or for a bisunessman with political aspirations and a strong rival they don't think they can beat fairly offering them a no-show job in exchange for dropping out of the race.)

2: "Implant Needed" cuts off mid-sentence.

3: I'd also write up some numbers for a job that pays by the day, such as being picked up for day labor. In that case, your employer isn't likely to stay the same (except in that it's yourself hiring yourself out on a temporary basis) and you're getting paid in cold hard nuyen, but you're not getting paid a whole hell of a lot.

4: I'd also think of a pay scale for piece-work, getting paid per item you produce rather than hours you work. Although likely to be exceptionally rare in the Sixth World, it might not be entirely impossible - A progressive and/or sneaky Native tribesman might pay you decently per bow or whatever made in their workshop with their tools and your hands that he can then give/sell/whatever to others as "authentic, handmade Native American goods." It's authentically handmade in that you crafted it yourself with your Armorer skill, and it's a Native good in that he's a Native, and he's selling it. And of course, there's always artifice - though given how expensive and valuable things that cost Karma to make are, that's probably not something that's going to be represented well under these rules. Still, with the first example, someone with a high appropriate skill and a sleep regulator could, if he wanted to, work 48 hours straight and crank out piece after piece.

[Fatum]

1: There should be a time quality for having a "no-show job,"

Sinecures should be added, nice idea, thanks.

2: "Implant Needed" cuts off mid-sentence.

Fixed.

3: I'd also write up some numbers for a job that pays by the day, such as being picked up for day labor. In that case, your employer isn't likely to stay the same (except in that it's yourself hiring yourself out on a temporary basis) and you're getting paid in cold hard nuyen, but you're not getting paid a whole hell of a lot.

Payment reduced even further? I'm not really sure that's a good idea because it just moves the whole affair from something more or less constant to something you're doing once. Maybe it could be represented by a tiny subsystem instead of a quality.

4: I'd also think of a pay scale for piece-work, getting paid per item you produce rather than hours you work. crank out piece after piece.

I'm not sure if people want to bother with bookkeeping.

[NiL_FisK_Urd]

What about adding a "data-trail" statistic (that adds a bonus to locate the runner) to the jobs, because a shdowrunner with a day job is more easily identified as one without a job.

[Fatum]

Added an intro fiction piece (tell me how horrible it is), as well as an IC Mosaic Data Haven login page (isn't the emblem adorably 80ies?)
Added sinecures and slavery as scheduling qualities, and changed the sick leaves qualities a bit.
Wrote up a sidebar on license checks.
Added secondary attribute requirements.

As for a data trail, think we should just use a plain modifier to legwork against the character? Unless his employer is someone very secretive, the change to the difficulty of tracking the runner is about the same.

[Fatum]

Moving a piece of discussion here from elsewhere...

The "Social" aspect is incredibly underdeveloped compared to the payment aspect of the rules. It feels like an afterthought, and honestly, you could jettison it (and the section on co-workers), without losing anything of substance. It also gives you one less variable to balance as you fine tune the qualities.

I think it might need some expansion, but generally, it's meant to be very rules-light, allowing both the GM and the player some levy.

If nothing else, the rules for upgrading acquiring and upgrading these contacts need to take place on a timeline longer than a week. Believe me, in my career I've had a number of employees who measured their tenure in weeks, and I don't remember their names (unless they were spectacularly awful, or the police came to arrest them at the office, or a few other horror stories).

Well, we could up it to a month, I guess. Minding that generally a Loyalty 1 contact is just a business acquaintance, I don't think we'd be all that far off from reality.

Job Requirements: I'd suggest that you also write a mechanic for under-qualified workers to get jobs, either due to the fact they exceed another requirement, or by taking a pay hit. Even just a line emphasizing that the job requirements are baselines with a +/- 1 range or somesuch might help.

Of course the example job requirements are just guidelines. It's not humanly possible to describe the multitude of professions of the Sixth World, so my intention was to give the GMs and players a construction set to play around with.

Payment Frequency: You're welcome to represent the Sixth World however you like, but in my experience, the pay difference between monthly, semi-monthly, and bi-weekly are utterly negligible.

It's more of a metagaming thing, fairly. Minding that runners are likely to just up and leave at any moment, being paid more frequently is a benefit for them.

"Academic Degree" could be expanded to account for Bachelor's/Master's/PhD (or taken multiple times).

I guess it could be expanded to be taken multiple times with lower Payment change. I had something around Prof level in mind when writing it initially.

Some have odd interactions (such as "Illegal" and "SINless"...if I'm willing to pay you more to shoot someone in the face, am I really going to turn around and try to dock your pay because you don't have ID?).

Yeah, I guess Illegal should make SINless excessive.
Otherwise, if I'm a legal company willing to pay you money to legally shoot people in the face, sure I do care that you have your papers in order.

The "Doing Your Job" section needs to be non-optional by default...otherwise there's no penalty for building jobs that the players are completely unqualified for.

It's a lot of bookkeeping, and people dislike bookkeeping on general. Besides, there's a blurb on failing to meet the prerequisites...

Note that if any of the requirements are no longer satisfied, be it because of implants being replaced, drug supplies running out, or any other reason, a runner risks losing her position. If you’re using the optional Doing Your Job rules, each day you arrive at work with the requirements not satisfied adds a Blunder to your service track. If you are not, the newly incapable worker loses his position a week after first losing his competence, either being demoted to a position he’s capable of filling or being let go altogether.

[NiL_FisK_Urd]

Advanced Day Jobs Excel File
I made an excel calculator for this, with the following changes:

-differentiated between working hours, working schedule and workplace (Fixed/Variable/Telecommuting)
-added 10hrs/wk, 60hrs/wk (paid overtime), 60hrs/wk (unpaid overtime)
-removed sick leave and business trips
-removed coworkers
-removed academic degree (->College Education PQ)
-skills round up
-knowledge skills are counted like active skills
-made one field for all licenses
-added datatrail stat (can be disabled in "data")

All Data is changeable in the "Data" sheet. To add a new value to a dropdown field, insert a new line between two already existing options.
Illegal options are ignored (eg. selecting a third active skill without choosing "diverse Skillset", or selecting a knowledge skill without selecting "White collar job").

[Fatum]

College Education positive quality (or Technical School, for that matter, too) is not just a formal degree, if you read its description.

Knowledge skills cost much less than active skills, that's why they're distinct.

[NiL_FisK_Urd]

I know there is a difference, but how do you simulate a degree ingame? Can I just put it in my character history? Or do i buy a fake one like a license?

@knowledge skills: I did this for authenticity, because an accountant (Prim. Know Skill: Accounting 3) should at least earn the same as a truck driver (Pilot Ground 3), if all other variables are equal.