Need Help - Kinda Fast too, The Cash or the Box Options

[Leviathan]

Ok, I've just got back from a run that took a couple of sessions. Basically my character organised a run on a facility that was mining and processing oricalcum.
We'd subdued most of the place, and were breaking into the refining area, when a couple of choppers came in.
Another corp started attacking the place as well, starting by tearing down a couple of wards on the refining labs, and summoning spirits into them (from the astral) to tear up the mages that were working inside.

Now, as the choppers moved in, the rest of my team bugged out straight away, I moved in, bashed the doors off the labs, to see what I could grab before running.
I grabbed a tray of unrefined oricalcum, and then after I got a 27 on my perception test from magic sense (I'm an adept) my gm indicated a small safe in a cupboard that contained oricalcum. I tore it out of the wall and bolted.

Now it turns out, unbeknownst to the rest of us, our mage had had contact with this other group (wuxing), apparently he had the option of initiating with them and declined, so he knew the person 'running' the raid, and she agreed that if 'his team' didn't do anything hostile we wouldn't be harmed.

So I regrouped with the team, after carefully hiding the safe on my person (by small, think 30cm*10cm*15cm or so). The women we were talking to was an astral-manifesting mage, there was a chopper above us and another mage standing next to us, you get the idea. She said that 'her crews had found one of the safes was missing', etc etc.
Anyways, cut a long story short, the other mage used a Catalogue spell on me (which apparently is unresistable and you can't hide anything from it), found the safe, and the women offered me a choice. I can take the safe, with an unknown amount of oricalcum in it, or I can take the tray of unrefined stuff, which apparently has about 200-250k worth in it.

I'm rather annoyed at my GM for shafting us (an extra 10 minutes in-game time and we would have been away scott free with heaps of loot, but we were running out of time for the session, so he decided to 'speed up' everything), so I'm trying to come up with ways of on-the-spot figuring out how much oricalcum would be in the safe. Dont suppose anyone has any ideas?

[ShadowDragon8685]

Option 3: Finders keepers. There's more than enough for Wuxing, we take what we have.


Anyway, joking aside, yes, I'd be pissed off at your DM too. But this is Shadowrun; take the tray and call it good. Odds are they want what's in the safe, want it bad enough to break their promise to a no-name Shadowrunner mage, gun you down, and take ALLLL your Orichilum.

[Leviathan]

[ShadowDragon8685]

Uhm, yeah. You need to smack your DM with the head, since ~52 sessions should generate a hell of a lot more karma and nuyen than that. Tell him to stop being such a stingy son of a bitch.

[Oracle]

Those 60k Nuyen wouldn't be enough only for the lifestyle of my character. Even without taking ammunition, replacements of gear, sota, upkeep for connections and DocWagon contract into account. o_O

[Leviathan]

Well, it *has* been the uni year, so closer to 25-30 weeks than 52. But yeah, it hasn't been nearly enough cash for what my adept actually wants :P

[ShadowDragon8685]

Tell your DM to stop being so stingy.

[Leviathan]

[Oracle]

To quote from ShadowDragons Sig:

[Aku]

well... even I (being a newbie, and by most accounts craptacular GM) think the numbers in the SR comp are WOOOOOOOOOEEEFULLLY pathetic, what is it, like 20K for the TEAM to knock someone off? Hell, i think i'm paying my team 5K PER PERSON, just to go drag some guys rear end out of the Salish, who is..semi willing... if that guy is getting knocked off for 20K for the whole team... he;d better be nothing more than a street bum, or wage slave maybe.

[Leviathan]

Oh wait, my mistake, we've made *70k* for the year.

Oracle - yep, thats about right

[Kagetenshi]

What you do there is you ambush and kill the mage, then gun your way out. What you have in your hands is easily worth the risk if you're only getting ~¥7k per job.

~J

[Eyeless Blond]

How'd she cast Catalog--a Physical spell, producing results in the physical world--as an astrally-projecting mage? Astral spells can't affect things that aren't dual-natured, and Catalog only counts physical objects. Unless she developed some sort of weird metamagic that lets her Materialize, there's no way she could have done it.

Also there's no way for projecting mages to summon spirits on-the-fly, as both are Exclusive actions. They must have just used elementals or Great Forms that were already on-call.

[Leviathan]

[Altheas]

*sigh* I'm pretty sure that I'm making a mistake by posting here, but in my defence, I offer this summary.

Here's the list of runs that has occured for this group (and it is most definately not been in the 25-30 range). Apologies for the somewhat fragmented and arbitrary descriptions of list (of runs that this PC has participated in, on occasion other characters have been used, or he's been unavailable). I am convinced it is incomplete, since my GM's notes have unfortunately disappeared, but that's something to remedy in the morning. Apologies to all if my memory is somewhat incomplete.

Bombing the media star's vehicle
Recovering the thesis from the gangers
Escorting the Mafia assistant
Raiding the cargo ship
Escorting in Morion's scout
Grabbing the guy in the hospital
Planting cameras in the Sydney nightclub
Guarding an outback convoy

Also of relevance, is this team has a woeful habit of forgetting to negotiate for a better price. Corp rule of thumb, avoid spending nuyen where necessary, and this group has proven they're willing to work for the offered price. In each instance Mr/Mrs Johnson has been authorized to go up to 50% extra on the offered price, however since this group doesn't push for the extra money, then there's no need to offer it.

Additionally, expenses are relatively low, since there is little legwork associated with most runs, they often do not have to worry about bribes, favours and the like, keeping those costs down.

I don't admit to being a good GM. I'll admit to being a poor GM, who attempts to make the best game possible for the PCs. My knowledge of the rules is often lacking, and corrected upon by others more experienced in this game. Regardless, I attempt to keep the game enjoyable for all involved, and for the most part I believe I have succeeded.

However, please get back to your examination of my GMing method. I am keen to listen to constructive criticism, beyond 'You need to smack your DM with the head' which seems anatomically improbable.

[toturi]

Consider this: Is there a Face in the group? Is this Face able to negotiate the payment upwards and does the Johnson have corresponding high social skills? If the Mr J has high social skills, the group may be risking the payment being reduced. Some of the runs look like extremely high risk jobs - I would consider these to be "windfall" jobs if you are using SRComp rules and definately not on the normal job scale in SRComp. Remember that those prices are the baseline, the absolute minimum.

Remember one other thing. Pay your PCs more and the PCs will have less incentive to pick up as much "loot" as possible on runs. Pay them less and you reap what you sow.

Spoiler follows: GM keep out!

[ Spoiler ]

See if you can crack open the safe, take whatever is inside and then give them the safe after you relock it. Maybe put a bomb in the safe and detonate it to muddy the waters.

[blakkie]

Keep in mind people play for fun. A sizable chunk of fun for many people is progression of their character. Typically 60k at street prices buys very little after, especially after SR3 expenses. Even light expenses for a number of runs. Take a look at those cyber/bio prices, or say a magic foci. Months of gaming resulting in little more than upkeep? Not much fun.

Especially if you dangle that safe. :( Was the safe written in by someone else?

P.S. Was part of the deal with the Johnson that they got to keep whatever they looted? Wuxing is basically going back on their deal and mugging their own runners? :( Usually you don't want to screw a team you hire unless you intend to go all the way. 'Runners make bad enemies, that's why you hired them.

[Altheas]

Wuxing never hired the runners for this gig, it was put together by Leviathan as an IC run. If I could find the spoiler function I would explain in detail Wuxing's interest in the facility, however suffice it to say they crashed the party.

There is a relatively charismatic face/mage character in the group, with a reasonably good negotiation skill that could perform such bartering. Keeping that in mind, the majority of Johnsons have been kept at around that level for negotiation. Loot also has been relatively available, in the form of helpful gadgetry (good decryption/encryption sets), useful guns (a good selection from CC in both armour/weapons/grenades). I've got no ultimate objective in denying them loot, in most instances they walk away after looting everything bar their organs.

Expenses wise, I believe they've been pretty low. I am not playing a paranoia game of Shadowrun, with multiple safe-houses, disposing of every weapon used and the like which would drive up expenses considerably. Most of the runs that have been performed can be done in a single evening (in game) IMHO justifying a reduction in overall money being spent. The truly hazardous ones, have been PC initiated, and garned a considerable quantity of loot or other good stuff.

[Leviathan]

[Leviathan]

[hyzmarca]

My recomendation is WAR. Don't just double cross Wuxing, declare a guerilla war against them. Bomb Wuxing buildings. Kidnap Wuxing employees. Rape their spouses while they watch. Sell their children to ghouls. Cobble together some nukes or have you decker steal some Thor Shots and take out Wuxing's largest and most important assets.

And remember, targeting the Thor Shot on your location is a decent way to take opposing armies down with you

[Slacker]

[Aku]

i think i see one of the major problems, and it's something i deal with in a similar way. I'm going to guess altheas, is, like me, trying to convert from D20/dnd, into SR, where the primary method of monetary gain, is looting (generally in the form of finding what you want/need). In SR, imo, that shouldnt work, and that most of their reward SHOULD come as payment from the johnson, and whatever tidbits they pick up is extra, not vice versa. As for the johnson's.. I prefer to think not in terms of "how low can i go..", but rather "what is this worth to my corp/cause.." and i find that more often than not, i have a lot less of a percentage increase that they'd negotiate for (as in, a base rate of 50K for 5 runners... is it REALLY worth 75K for this scientist?) My johnsons take the low road in upfront payment, however, and generally won't even offer it, but would (begrudgingly) give up about 50% of the intital pay, if the runners ask. That is one thing i think the corps would worry about... you pay the runners in advance, and they die, you're screwed, and you have to pay another group.

for me, the biggest problem is not turning everything into a dungeon crawl/monster hunt, i really need to imrpove on running legwork...

[ShadowDragon8685]

Ahhhhh.... Dunjon Rex Stingus. A problem I am quite familar with.


Let's look at your list of runs.

[LinaInverse]