Run nuyen payoffs? Options

[AFCErik]

Is there an official guideline for how much nuyen a shadowrunner should expect to get for a run?

If not, what nuyen range do you GM types usually parcel out for your players for an average run?

[James McMurray]

It depends on the definition of "average." For some groups hassling the local street gang is average, whileothers spend most of their time doing difficult hits on well defended corp targets.

[BnF95]

If your runs are "small potatoes" anywhere from about 500 :nuyen: - 1,500 :nuyen: is alright. We are talking going up against really small groups of hoods or a run so simple it is ... basically ... a no brainer.

For runs such as "gang suppression" where the group is hired to convince a street gang that a particular neighborhood is unhealthy for them, and if the gang in question isn't a prime group like the Ancients, maybe 4-6K :nuyen: would be fair.

Most corp missions (in my games) tend to go for the 5-10K :nuyen: range ... modified by time, danger, etc. etc.

[Voran]

I think its also important to gauge your player's enjoyment of the game when figuring out payout. If you want to avoid the 'loot mentality' or end up with characters who regularly organ-leg their foes to make money, you'll have to make adjustments to actual payouts accordingly.

[stevebugge]

[Aaron]

When I put runs together, I base my pay rates off of the sum of the runners' lifestyle costs. I usually start it somewhere between 125% and 200% of the total and let them negotiate what they can. So, assuming about one run per month, they can cover their costs and upgrade a few things.

[AFCErik]

Thanks for all the advice, guys!

(I think I searched for "run payoff". I'll go back and search for payscale as you suggested.)

[Ki Ryn]

If the runner make more money by selling the bad guy's equipment, then you are not paying them enough (as they could make more money just mugging gangers and yaks in the back alleys).

Basing it on the lifestyle charts sounds like a good idea, thanks for the suggestions.

[James McMurray]

I dislike basing pay on lifestyle, for a couple of reasons.

1) It isn't very realistic IMO. You don't get paid more for the same job because you live in a nicer house.

2) It gets wonky when multiple people in the group have different lifestyles. What if one guy is a squatter and another has a high lifestyle? Does the high lifestyle guy end up losing his house while the squatter has tons of extra cash in his account, or is the group supposed to split the take based on who lives in which house?

[Aaron]

[Aaron]

[BnF95]

I tend to make runs based on whatever ideas I get during work, while driving, even when doing other stuff. (That's why I always bring a pen and small notebook around.)

That said, the runs I offer to my players tend to vary from chump change variety to occasional big scores. I've even offered them multiple missions (sometimes just to give them a brain-fart ... do they help their friend get rid of the gangers muscling offering protection to her shop or go after the 25K :nuyen: payoff from Mr. Johnson?)

Of course, not helping their friend might cost them some street cred (them's the suckers that ain't wanna help ol' Ma Pootions) and even lower the loyalty of some contacts. On the other hand 25K is 25K.

[Big D]

The squatters can either choose to improve their lifestyle, or sink the whole thing into gear.

There should be at least some RP considerations keeping cheapskates from continuing to live on the streets with pockets full of cash--for starters, the new gear they're buying instead of lifestyle should attract those without.

That should encourage them to gravitate towards a low lifestyle at least, for security reasons.

[Aku]

i agree with big D, those boxes you live in at a street lifestyle arent exactly secure, and ya know, buying a lock for one just isnt very useful since ya could like, just rip it off, literally...

[Geekkake]

Depending on where your characters are starting out, I like to work in Street Cred as part of the pay formula (though to say I use anything even remotely resembling a consistent formula would be a gross and vindictive lie). Currently, I'm giving the runners are serious windfall (with attendant and significant risks of death and dismemberment). However, on the whole, I like to work it out by lifestyle. My SR4 campaign started, I'll admit, much too low in payment - my runners were constantly in danger of getting evicted from even Low lifestyles (and some of them were evicted). While I, personally, found this to be entertaining, and one of the runners worked it into a continuing personal background story, on the whole it just generated a lot of anxiety that wasn't really necessary.

These days, I try to ensure the runners can maintain their current lifestyles (I did restrict this to Middle at most, no prepay, because of the street-level nature of the run). No one has above a Low lifestyle right now, so that much is easy. Way I figure it, they can upgrade their lifestyles once their Street Cred warrants it. A better reputation means better jobs. My current, scarcely-used, "formula du jour" is Low lifestyle, times Street Cred for individual payouts, roughly averaged out for the group. I'm working them into a higher pay scale coming up, because they've managed to impress some very significant contacts in the Chicago underworld. Once the story arc with these contacts is more or less complete, they'll get bumped up to serious corporate work, and serious corporate money. YMMV.

[James McMurray]

[DrowVampyre]

I think it really depends on your group. For example, my group got 1,000,000 nuyen apiece after a particularly difficult run a few montsh back (all the corps were after us when we got one of the viruses that caused the first Crash dropped in our laps) by the Corporate Court. Now, while most people would probably think this incredibly excessive, none of us has used but a fraction of it, and that was to set up a club as a hangout for other runners. We still run, as much for the thrill of it as anything (and because when every corp is looking for you, lying low is a good thing), we just have rather large offshore accounts... ;)

[Geekkake]

[Shrike30]

I tend to try and pay between 5k and 20k per runner per job, depending on how nasty the opposition, and how tricky successfully accomplishing the mission is. A campaign arc of 5-7 5-hour sessions usually has 3-5 "runs" in it (since some runs end up eating 2 sessions), and i tend to have 6-8 weeks of "downtime" in-game between arcs (which eats up 1.5-2 months of lifestyle costs between the arcs).

This isn't a hard-and-fast rule by any means, but I try and make it so that my players actually want to upgrade their lifestyle, and yet still have enough cash on-hand to do things like upgrade their ware, buy new gear, replace drones, and the like.

[DrowVampyre]

[Tiger Eyes]

We've played high nuyen, high powered games in the past (50,000 - 100,000 per run). We've played street-level, be happy you're getting paid nuyen instead of food games. Now we're in a semi-corporate game, where we get a regular monthly "salary" of 12,000 :nuyen: a month. (That's after a raise, mind you.) We also get bonuses, supposedly... (not so far, but they've been promised).

Some months, we've done 4 or more 'assignments'. This current month, we've done diddly-squat. So I guess it averages out.

However, in our street level campaign, when money got to be just too big of an issue... well, we started creating our own opportunities. We did the legwork, made the contacts who'd buy certain items (electronics, gemstones, precious metals, etc), and then we would steal the valuable stuff. We started raking in 1 - 2 million :nuyen: per robbery, to split among 5 runners. (Mind you, we would generally plan for 2+ game sessions before executing said robbery...) After that, our runs were more on the 'favors' side than the 'employment' side.

So, as a GM, if you're thinking of starving your players for cash, beware that they may just take matters in their own hands.

Of course, our GM started finding clever ways to take our money for us... Very clever, very painful ways... :S

[Nasrudith]

Remember also to balance nuyen and karma. If you have too much nuyen it harms the mages and technomancers. If you have too little nuyen, it favors the mages and technomancers.

[Voran]

Heh, yeah I notice for most of my chars they end up in semi-permanent wage type jobs by the time they get past 100+ or so karma. Keeping under the radar only works so long, after awhile you need to either pull a complete fade and revival, or have someone with resources to help watch your back. Organized crime, corps, foreign nations, etc.

[Edward]

It has been said before.

If a team of 4 runners is doing one job a month then they should be being paid at least as much each as what they could fence a computer car for. Take that as the base pay rate and modify for difficulty and risk.

To be honest it doesn’t matter, just make shore the players know what they should be used to earning when they design there characters. there is nothing more stupid than building a character with monthly expenses of 10k and a history of being a runner for a year. Then the gm telling you while you’re at the meat that your character has never earned more than 2k a month.

Edward

[BnF95]

Which before (SR2 & 3) could be covered partially by the flaw called day job. So if the GM is willing, just revive it as follows:

Day Job [1] 05BP - 20 hours per week - income of 500 :nuyen: per month
Day Job [2] 10BP - 40 hours per week - income of 2000 :nuyen: per month
Day Job [3] 15BP - 60 hours per week - income of 5000 :nuyen: per month