Supplemental Income, Your favorite sources Options

[jrpigman]

Money for making runs pays for your lifestyle, and maybe a couple extra gadgets, but what self respecting runner honestly wouldn't take a little extra cash? To the victor goes the spoils, right? Lets talk about your favorite ways of turning a work-a-day run into a massively profitable enterprise.

If you have the extra space in your vehicle, snagging a couple of those cybered up corpses you just iced can be worth a bit on the used cyberware market. A decker can snag an extra couple pieces of data while disabling the security system, and any halfway decent rigger (or even someone who just knows a bit about computers and has a bug sweeper) can auto-nav a hot vehicle to a chop shop.

So how do you like to make a little extra cash on a run?

[adamu]

Sorry - I know the question is "extra cash" - but one thing cool to do is figure out who else might be interested in achieving the same goal you have been hired to do, and then seeing if you can get them to pay you for it, too. Maybe customize it for them.
Say someone hires you to topple an underworld figure - maybe you can earn a get-out-of-jail-free card from the Feds if you do the toppling their way.
Or if you are going into a facility anyway for Item A, see if the targets rivals are interested in hiring you to go for Item B at same facility while you are in there.
Obviously you need never tell the second party about the existence of the first contract.

[Kagetenshi]

We do the basics—if we find a car, we sell it, if we end up with a corpse, we sell it. Had a teammate go that way, rest his soul.

~J

[Grinder]

Selling stolen cars, selling corpses, selling used cyberware, working as bounty hunter, working for the company of a friend (getting paid with hard cash), working as mechanist - there a plenty of possibilites for the enterprising runner.

[BishopMcQ]

Persona-fix chips and neuro-stun. Human trafficking just became a whole lot easier...

Beyond the things mentioned above, I've had characters do their own "money runs." Put your ear to the ground and find out when the next Fairlight shipment is coming into town or when that Talismonger will be out of town...

The threat level is higher for the big payoffs, but it's always worth it. Especially if you set up a deal before you have the goods and can get top dollar. Just make sure you follow through on the arrangement, or your street cred takes a dive.

[Snow_Fox]

besides picking up loot from the dead, weapons, cars, decks etc, heck that's part of the run. But we draw the line at taking cyberware off of bodies.

My main character also worked as an advisor for Lone Star and as a paranormal expert for hire. That was infact a common htread for some runs. "I went to Lone Star but they couldn't help me. I was told you could help me..."

[Rajaat99]

Organlegging. It's gross, but frag, it pays.

[PlatonicPimp]

I had one character as a bouncer/barrista at a local bar.

Another (male) character turned tricks.

And I've always loved the day job flaw....

My favorite however was a graduate student who did shadowruns AND worked on his thesis. He made a little extra dough through grants and scholarships. Why, once he did a run in order to guarentee he'd get the scholarship money....

[Ryu]

I immediatly thought about off-run extra money, not opportunities on the way.

Rigger - transport business
Samurai - securing a meet, working as a bouncer would pay little so depends on lifestyle, smaller tasks that don´t need to be played out
Mage - small-scale talismongering, community doctor, research
Adept - fighting circuit, teachning wall climbing

(all examples from my current group. If they don´t know what to do with their spare time, they go to work. Pays much less than running, but covers lifestyle costs for most)

[Snow_Fox]

[Kagetenshi]

That's your problem—you haven't sold that yet. Start there, it's decent money.

~J

[Fortune]

Hell, you don't even need to sell it nowadays. Just get the doc to remove those scars for you ... just a small, one-time fee.

[Jack Kain]

Stole an Aries Dragon cargo chopper, that was a sweet sell.

[Black Jack Rackh...]

I have a Troll Mercenary character who moonlights as a Flower Arranger/Delivery Guy. (He works for a chummer from the war who started the biz, and has a couple of contacts with the people he delivers to).
Mark

[Sicarius]

I hear mention of selling weapons from dead corp-sec, or stolen cars, or god forbid boddies I think that sounds like a quick way to get busted.

You get away clean from the 'run, sell the stolen guns.

Two weeks later the guy you sold it to gets busted sticking up a mchughes'. He's looking at 15 years for armed robbery, so he flips to give up the guy who sold him the gun, whose looking at federal weapons trafficking charges, so he flips, and gives you up, whose now tied to weapon trafficking, and the original murder of the guard, plus whatever job it was you were paid to do to begin with.

That's a pretty common scenario even RL.

Or your driving to your street doc, get pulled over because your muffler is dragging on the asphalt, because you've got 4 200 lb corpses in your trunk. 'Star gets curious, looks around and bingo, you're sunk.

How often do criminals get busted not for the original crime but for something stupid, like running a stop sign connected to it.

If the PCs are risking all that to make a little extra money, your PCs need to get a better negotiation skill.

ps. I know not everyone plays the professional criminal angle, in which case, if your character is purposefully greedy, or purposefully amateur than it would make total sense to do all those things suggested.

[Jack Kain]

Its not that hard to remove the RFID chip and sand off the serial number. They can't tie the gun to the dead guard. And they can't convict you on the word of the guy they found with the goods.

[Ryu]

The thing you need to do here is ORGANISED crime. You don´t go around selling the quards weapon when it´s still warm from his hands. You collect weapons and sell them whole. After removing RFIDs and fingerprints, and waiting for the case to be old news. Then you sell bulk to a gang / black ops division / other fixer.

The thing with organlegging is the high profile compared to a lowly weapons sale and the need to act now rather than next month.

[Kagetenshi]

[Fortune]

[Grinder]

[Fire Hawk]

Cutting out the middle-man can be hazardous to your health.

[Konsaki]

[Catsnightmare]

[mmu1]

[Sandoval Smith]

Babysitting.

I kid you not. I wasn't able to regularly make games, so to explain my PC's absenses, his side job was bodyguard, speciality: high risk kids (as in high risk of kidnap, etc). I was kind of disapointed that the GM never came up with the run that sent the rest of them after I target my PC was watching...