Makin' Dat Nuyen, How does your character get that Nuyen? Options

[Lazarus]

I was just curious as to how your characters have tried to make money in SR?

I've had characters that tried to make money almost any way they could. Never did straight up organlegging, well at least we didn't go out with that express purpose, but I will say it helps to have an Organlegging Street Doc as a Contact.

"Ah yeah, hey what's up Doc, yeah we just killed like 14 Red Samurai... Uhh huh... yeah just like 3 minutes ago. Ok same place as last time. 40% on the cyberware. Sweet! See you in thirty!"

Now I have played all kinds of characters that would give up their money (Had an Ork Physad who gave almost all his money to "his people" in the Ork Underground) Some wouldn't do organlegging period, even selling the dead foes who attacked them first. Then I had characters who would pimp, sell BTLs, do wetwork, run protection rackets with Organized Crime, you name it.

Basically I know that you won't get to retirement working for Johnsons. <"Wait! You're going to pay me 20,000 nuyen to break into the Arcology? Sweet can I roll my Neg. Skill to see if I can get 500 Nuyen per success?> Just wondering what different things you guys did to make phat cash, or even better what things your characters wouldn't do?

Thanks in Advance

[Dawnshadow]

Selling "Trophies" from particularly nasty opponents: A force 6 sword weapon focus, a force 10 unique focus, photos of the runes covering another..

Selling bits of paranormal opponents (Not recommended for normal/low powered games.. the expensive bits are attached to nasty, nasty things like dragons)

Regular paychecks for training and leading a security/runner force for a midsized local business.

Selling cyber from bodies.

Extraction work.

Random salvage/looting has netted us a lot too.


Edit: Erm, forgot what characters wouldn't do. Depends on the characters. Most wouldn't kill other PCs -- for money. Some would do it for pleasure. Others would do it for revenge, self preservation. But only one would do it for money.. and that was a unique circumstance.. he was being put on retainer to kill the PC.. by the PC.

Sell out dependents.

Anything liable to cause destruction to the planet/metahumanity as a whole. They're prone to spend money, blood, sweat and tears to prevent that.

[Sharaloth]

My old play group used to make million nuyen windfalls, and so weren't concerned so much with making extra cash by organlegging or anything like that. On top of that one of the lead characters was a highly moral person who, while she would kill people when she needed to to get the job done, would not do assassinations directly, and would try to use nonlethal force whenever possible, and make her teammates do the same. So organlegging was out. As was pimping, btl's and other high-revenue areas. Organized crime kept pissing us off, so we didn't really deal with them.

On the other hand, most of the team were sociopaths of one sort of another, only held back by this lead moralistic character. When she left the team to work for Lofwyr things kinda went wild. Last game it had gotten to the point where the team leader, a powerful mage/decker, had stopped using much money at all, since he pretty much just stole what he wanted, and bartered his ill gotten gains to others or sold it through a fence if he actually needed to pay for anything. The only major non-run moneymaking scheme he really did towards the end was when we were doing a lucrative run for a certain corp, he liquidated a bunch of assets and bought a chunk of stock in that corp to take advantage of the jump in price their leg up on the competition would bring.

One of my earliest characters was surreptitiously working for both the Yakuza and a shadowy AA corporation. None of the other characters noticed that he seemed to live in a low-end apartment but drove a Westwind 2000 Turbo when not on runs.

Then there was the Magician-Adept Loki worshipper who used to get spirits to use confusion on random passers-by and then convince them to let him inspect their credsticks with his stolen credstick-reader (which conveniently withdrew a large sum from their bank accounts and put it into his). This was only for chump change, of course, but he never used his own money when buying drinks.

[Mr.Platinum]

#1 successfuly completing missions.
#2 Sell Nova Coke.
#3 Sell Information on my Fellow runners
#4 Sell out to your Local criminal Org.

[Gerald Fitzgeral...]

I had a character with cyber eyes and recording equipment. On the particularly interesting runs, I would sell the first-hand footage to a reporter contact of mine. Each run would get me 2k or 3k extra, depending on the action.

Looking back, there's a lot of potential for that to come back and bite me on the ass, but it never did.

[FrostyNSO]

Oh my god. Is this a thread on how to get yourself busted or something?

Renraku Exec: "What happened to that squad of Red Samurai we sent to take out that seal down the research facility? Do we know who was involved?

Renraku Company Man: "We're not sure yet, but a contact of mine mentioned a street doc who just got a hold of good deal of wired reflex systems. We'll start there. I also put the word out on the mage's power focus, if anybody tries to fence it in Seattle, I'll know."

[FrostyNSO]

That's another reason I pay the players more than they would make by boosting Americars and selling them to chop-shops.

The PC's are supposed to be professionals, not a group of adventurers from D&D.

[BookWyrm]

#1. Completeing the mission within spec.
#2. NOT screwing up.
#3. Living to make the rendesvous ON TIME.
#4. NOT screwing over the wrong people. Which means almost everybody.

[Trax]

If you don't want to screw the wrong people, don't be a Shadowrunner.

[Kyoto Kid]

For Leela, it was her concert appearances. Of course, after seeing how much she made from her gala debut at Royal Festival Hall, Shadowrunning became a bit moot & she eventually retired.

"It may not be as thrilling but it sure beats having your butt shot at all the time."
--Leela G.

[stevebugge]

Went Semi-Legit. Parlayed some run cash in to my own sec company and take a lot of investigative jobs for Insurance Companies, Fee + Commission on voided claims + Reasonable Expenses.

[SL James]

Uh, shadowrunning?

[nick012000]

Save up enough to start an orichalcum factory.

[Westiex]

One of my characters started doing independant runs - we're talking 300 or so karma, plus a few good contacts used. Basically she orgainised to hit shops that were into selling medium end decks. I was planning on hitting another facility that had the promise of some high end sthick, however it was surrounded in monowire so I put that off to another day.

[Crusher Bob]

Any place surrounded by monowire becomes target #1. Who cares what's inside, just steal all their monowire, that stuff is expensive.

[Oracle]

*g* Stealing monowire is a great way to make GMs cry. ^^

[warrior_allanon]

oh lets see we've done:

ghoul hunting
sold each other out to the mob, then killed the mobsters (characters had a 12 million bounty on each of our heads after the miss world run)
Invested in the stock market
used B/R skills to build stuff to sell
sale of various stolen items from runs, not to mention dead enemies weapons.
bank robbery in the bahamas
wetwork
extractions
basically every SR adventure up to Dragon hunt, (freed a comrade instead of taking the 50,000)

i think thats about it other than in one game we had an AI decking for us and hit the ZO bank, but that was and endgame for us.........just kidding, :D but we did invade, take control of, and destroy an Ares Space Station for Cross Tech.

[ShadowDragon8685]

I think that the best bet for runners looking to make quote-unquote safe money would be to set up an efficient factory belt system. Steal cars GTA-style in the rougher C and D neighborhoods, zip them out to Z-zone areas where you're pretty much immune to the 'Star unless you shot the Mayor, cool down the heat yourself by using your teams' electronics and car B/R skills, and then sell them however you can. :)

And Frosty? Repeat after me. "Vengeance Pays Poorly." Corps are monolithic, soulless entities that only care about the bottom nuyen. Let's add up a cost/benefit analysis from the corp's PoV, shall we?

Cost:
14 dead Red Sammies and all their gear:
:: -80,000 nuyen training each.
:: -600,000 nuyen cyber each.
Target of the original Shadowrun (Let's say it was something medium-key, like stealing the plans for their new cyberdeck upgrade): 26.6 Billion :nuyen:
Cost of tracking down members of Shadowrunning team: 40,000 :nuyen: each. (Assuming five-man team.)
Cost of wetwork on five members of Shadorunning team: 100,000 :nuyen: each.
Subtotal:
00,008,400,000
00,001,120,000
26,600,000,000
00,000,200,000
00,000,500,000

Total:
26,610,220,000

Benefit:
Vengeance

Now, you know what I see when I look there? I see 700,000 :nuyen: that can be trimmed off that final figure. In fact, I see the following figure scenrio that can be done with that last 700,000 :nuyen:

Hire novahot Shadowrunners (possibly the same ones who hit you,) to make Run on your opposition. Cost: 700,000 :nuyen: (Give or take, depending on your Johnson's skillz.)
Benefit: Stealing opponant's plans worth 28,600,000,000 :nuyen: to you. Fringe benefit: Your opponant likely takes multimillion :nuyen: worth of damage, too.

Simply put, there's no reason for corps to wage vengeance. You're taking an impersonal thing (We got hit by a Shadowrun; deal,) and making into an impersonal thing (We got hit by a Shadowrun, now we're going to hunt down all the Shadowrunners and their families and torture them in hideous ways before we kill them, which will set their friends up to start nibbling away at our :nuyen:.)

[tisoz]

[Oracle]

[mmu1]

[Calvin Hobbes]

You can't "leave no trace" selling a car: *someone* bought it or the parts of it. Also, very few cybered out killing machines can withstand their drinks being poisoned or their rooms being gassed as they sleep. Nor can they easily handle their contacts being killed.

[mmu1]

[Lazarus]

I agree with ShadowDragon to an extent. You are right in saying that Corps are interested in the bottomline but is it a universal fact of reality? Sadly for runners, no. Here are some possible hiccups:

1. The runners could be the only like to finding that 25 billion nuyen proto-type. If you find the runners chances are you will be closer, hopefully, to you robjective.

2. Something that is impersonal could be become personal pretty quick. Killing, loss of money and status have a way of doing just that. I mean some high-up suit could have lost out on this run. Maybe he's pissed because this was supposed to be his key to the upstairs boardroom. Maybe he can't take down the Corp but he can take down some runners. Or maybe one those Red Samurai we killed had a loving wife/husband/partner. Maybe he/she just happens to be a badass combat mage with good friends who don't care to help he/she kill you.

I mean would these examples happen everytime, even half the time? Of course not. But all it takes is that one time.

With the Street Doc example our team used him not so much for the money but as getting rid of evidence. The money was a nice bonus. Going on the principle that even if you kill a person in a Z Zone someone is eventually going to find it. It may be a thousand years, but someone will find it. With a Street Doc who knows what he is doing you can get rid of a huge piece of evidence to murder: the body. Hopefully you have a good Doc who ships organs and ware all over the world to lessen the trace back to him, hence back to you. Hey he shouldn't be stupid. He doesn't want to get caught just so he can be a GM plot tool and dime you out.

Basically I believe the criminal environment functions like an eco-system. A system that is balanced will function. However when you introduce a new element into that system it has to change. Change can be good or bad. You start a car stealing ring change occurs. Not everyone likes it especially those who are on the bad end of it. They may want to change it back. Like that Seoulpa Ring whose car stealing market you just muscled into. Sure maybe they can't take you on, but they know a decker ring that can make your life hell.

"Just because I think everyone is out to get me doesn't mean they aren't."

Sometimes just being paraniod isn't enough. :|

[Calvin Hobbes]

Corps tend to have image problems: you run around shooting people, you're going to get noticed and eventually, it's going to look bad. Your extraterritorial rights only matter on your turf. Government turf is punishible by the Corp. Court or even the UCAS.

And it's not an issue of them doing it constantly. It's the issue of them doing it *once*. Because after people learn that dealing with you left a couple of people beat up, the rates are going to get higher, assuming you're even still in the carjacking business after a lone star squad, corp goons or mob stooges make a serious play for you.