How Much Do Shadowrunners Make? Options

[Walknuki]

One of the things I've always had a problem coming to grips with is how much cash to throw at my players? It's a difficult ballance to master because too little and they feel cheated and too much and they're lobbing rockets like they're water ballons.

How much has your group gotten and for doing what?

[Konsaki]

I think its been around a month since the last thread about this. Use your search fu, young grasshopper.

[Walknuki]

[Witness]

I tried 'wages'. Probably not the best, but this one came up.

[JonathanC]

I generally end up kicking them about 5k or so per run...if they fence and squeeze out for more cash, they can get up near 10k.

[Shrike30]

5-25k apiece, depending on complexity, threat level, and anticipated expenses (it's very rare that I'll allow a group to negotiate for expenses to be covered, be they medical, ammunition, or whatever). Anything over 15k is a seriously badass/dangerous run, taking several sessions.

[DireRadiant]

yet Another payout thread

[JonathanC]

[ShadowDragon]

Depends on their rep. More experienced runners will earn much more than newbies.

[kzt]

[emo samurai]

That means magicians will never buy their own foci, because the only economical way for them to get them is to either enchant, defeating the point of running, or stealing them from corpses, also defeating the point of running. I pay them 20,000 :nuyen: a run at LEAST. Runners are supposed to be 1337, and if side jobs can pay them more than running, then they won't take up running.

[Adept_Damo]

I agree with emo. If runners can make more money going out jacking nice cars or kidnapping and extorting rich folk why would they bother taking low paying jobs with a high risk of death? Running the shadows should be more lucrative than your traditional crimes: theft, drugdealing, kidnapping, extortion, prostitution rings.
You gotta keep in mind that runners are on some independent secret agent type shit. The type of stuff that used to only be carried out by shady government agencies like the CIA and M16. There a lot of nuyen involved in the plots and schemes that these shady corporations have going, its only fair that the deniable assets get a fair cut for succeeding.

[Slithery D]

You should also consider it from the Johnson's point of view. What's the job worth? What are the odds of success? How many other teams could do the job in your particular locale? Difficulty of the run doesn't always have to measure up with the benefit to your boss and how much he's willing to pay for it. Give them the occasional milk run that pays well but provides little karma. Then make them earn their karma with runs gone wrong that don't pay enough worth the hassle that they take because (1) they didn't know it was going to be that bad or (2) there's nothing else going on and they need to maintain their rep.

[ShortyMcShineyPa...]

Here's how I figure it,

Assuming the runners are in it for the money. I feel a successful shadow runner should be able to retire on a high lifestyle after 5 years of running.

I believe its 2,000,000 to buy a permanent high lifestyle and assuming 2 runs per month (120 runs in a career) that works out to that the runner would need to save about 16,500 per run on average. Expenses would probably bring that up to 20k-25k.

As that's only an average and experienced running should command a lot more than newbie, I say start the newbie runners off on 5-10k per run and gradually increase it over there career (say 40-50k near the end)

[Adept_Damo]

but thats kind of like comparing skill level between a runner that's around 40 years old to some punk teenagers that think they're badass. Just because a character is new doesn't mean that they're a newbie. Most people make characters that are in their late 20s or 30s. These are people that are highly skilled. Maybe awakened characters in their 40s would have a nice advantage in skill, but non-awakened characters wouldn't be that much more skilled, just better equipped. I would change the pay range from 15-20k for less experienced runners to 30-40k for prime runners. Yeah prime runners can pull in twice as much as someone greener, but they're not neccessarily worth more than that. Put two 28 year old street sams up against one 40 year old sam in a fight. Yeah it could go either way, but I'd put my money on the young bucks.

[kzt]

[Adept_Damo]

maybe you should read what I wrote before you comment on it, you missed the point

[Rotbart van Dain...]

[Adept_Damo]

to get to 250 karma even you're talking about someone with 60 or more runs under their belt. Thats a prime runner right there, as most runners won't live through that many. The average karma payout for a run is 4, unless your GM is outlandish with karma payouts you'll never see a runner with 1000 karma. And I really disagree with the statement that a 400 bp build is characteristic of a 21 year old. I'd put someone that young at 200-250 bp build. A 400 bp build runner is a skilled person with a decade or more of criminal/military/corporate security/magical practice experience, or someone in their late 20s/30s.

[Slithery D]

You're mildly nuts. Except on the young person 200-250 scale - there you're certifiably insane unless you're interested in talking about fat burger flippers at McDonald's with a GED. Any in shape moderately bright college kid would blow through nearly all of that just in attributes.

Then there's skills. Assume he was a high school athlete and grew up hunting and shooting guns as a kid. He needs 2-3 points of skill in Pistols/Longuns and Running. And probably also one of Diving/Swimming/Gymnastics or a nongame skill equivalent for some other sport. Probably a point or two in Pilot Ground Car. Ettiquette. Con for bullshitting cops when he's caught with beer or shooting over his limit. A point or two of Automatic Mechanic if his dad was anything like my stepdad, and unlike me, he paid attention. Computer, surely. A point of First Aid if he had a summer job as a lifeguard (and Swimming if he didn't already have that). He hunted, so give him a bit of Perception, maybe a point of Tracking. Have we hit 100 BPs on skills yet? Not quite, but only because we're giving him ratings of 1-3. If he's the least bit special or has a really unusual number of hobbies and interests we go over.

Now make him awakened. Or make him better than average in more than three or four skills. Or give him enough money for some meaningful cyberware. Enough contacts that would be reasonable for someone who has had a mentor in college, a close family friend who will do favors for you, and a boss who thought well of you from a job.

400 bp is indeed characteristic of a someone like you say. But such a peson couldn't run the shadows very well except at a low level. If you're going to risk your life and succeed enough to matter, you need to have considerable advantages over the opposition. Slightly better than average attributes and the same skill accumulation as an experienced but not outstanding Sergeant who's been in for ten years is nothing to be proud of, and it's not enough to hit any defended target that matters more than a handful of times before you get killed or caught.

[cybertrucker]

I will list what my runners in my campaign have been paid so far...(4 runners on the team)

the first run they earned measely 2k totall, now granted it was an easy run. they were hired to find a womans son who had goblinized and got involved in a small gang and bring him back to mommy. They took the job because of the TM player in our group is female and our mage is the good guy type.. the other 2 were not happy with what they were making but the decided to go along.

The 2nd run was alot more involved and they were payed based on how successful they were.. There were 4 different things they were hired to get their hands on and bring back to the corperation that lost or at leasts the corperations MR johnson. Anyway they had a time limit in which to find the items and bring them back... in working order they payed more than if the items were destroyed. one of the items was the living scientist that took off with the prototypes that he stole and ran with because he didnt like the way the tech was going to be used. (neither did the mage in our group once he found out). Anyway they got payed the following
Scientist 5k dead 10k alive
items 2k ea. broken 5k ea in working order
total amount available to be earned was 25k. now granted the scientist no longer had the items so alot of legwork on finding them went in on this run

The 3rd run I took out of the old Mr Johnsons little black book, and it payed 5k total but was a fast run was supposed to be a cake walk but you know how that can go in shadowrun...they were hired to take a corperate wage slave on a mock shadowrun after he got a big promotion, anyway they were not allowed to take their real guns/weapons on the (fake) run which was out in the middle of nowhere and low and behold another shadowrun team shows up to kill the person they are supposed to be entertaining.. it turned nasty really quick. They almost lost their physical adept he had to burn an edge just to stay alive. and if not for the technomancer hacking and taking over one of the other teams drones and of coarse the group mage they would be pushing daisies and making new toons. Needless to say though they didnt kill the other team but did manage to get away alive.

Then I ran on the run and it payed what was stated in the book..


Now I am running their first BIG paying run... in which they are breaking into an Aztechnology Biogenetics lab for a data and sample steal.. they are getting paid 120k for this one if successful 8)


Also have some backstories going on some of which are causing the team problems that they are not going to get paid for. Those are usually the really fun ones 8).

Anyway it really depends on a few things, complexity of the run, danger level, how successful the team is, and how much rep they have.

[Kairo]

I generally will hand out anywhere from 5k to 50k per runner, per run. There's a lot of variables depending on the mission difficulty, the priority the Johnson puts on the run, and sometimes the degree of success.

If you read SOTA 2064, on page 84, you'll see a section about bribes and cops. The quote from the first sentence is: "Street cops pull in close to 40k a year, which is what a runner can get for a single job."

That's a basic benchmark I was using before seeing the quote, but was happy to see it to reassure me that I wasn't really far off base from what the accepted norm was.

[emo samurai]

I mean, really, the reason the BBB gives 25,000 :nuyen: a force point foci is because you're never supposed to be able to buy them, right?

[Shrike30]

I look at things like cyber and cars as being deciding factors. Screw lifestyle... that's entirely up to however often your GM decides you run. If after 3-5 jobs where I'm getting shot at, gassed, my brain is getting hacked and my blood on the walls is getting sprayed with ammonia just to keep my skull from being exploded a week later by ritual sorcery I can't even afford to upgrade some of my basic 'ware to beta or get a fast car, there's a problem here.

[kzt]