[X] My Assistant

[Ring Kichard]

Sure, all you have to do it carefully examine the car for security and stealth tags. Every part of the car, for the really small and easy to hid security tags. Which requires that you have a couple of days and about 100 square meters of a nice concrete surface with good lighting so you can disassemble the car and examine things like the floor under the carpet and the rear seats, the inside of the ABS computer, inside the tires, the bottom of the dashboard, and the inside of the battery compartment. Remember to peel off the spray on plastic sealant too, the tags are very thin. Consider that for every place that a modern automaker inscribes the VIN or a part serial number they would install a RFID tag at minimum, probably many would be stealth tags.

Seriously?
The crew has unrestricted physical access to the car.
They can hack the car's PAN.
They can read pirated shop-manuals.
They can summon a spirit to do their dirty work.
They can just sell the thing with the most seductive and persuasive sales elf a corporate wage slave is likely to see in the flesh.

They can probably defeat this security easily.
But that's not what you want, is it?
Selling that car is supposed to be hard! That's your whole point.

This sounds like a bad case of the, "GM dosn't want you doing this, so it's going to be stupid-difficult."
I get the fealing you'd ramp up the difficulty of running a car-theft ring to be the equivilant of heroic shadowrunning just out of spite.

All to avoid paying your players some cash. Which costs you nothing.
Is your favorite player playing a mage? Do you hate the sammy in your group?
What gives?

[Eryk the Red]

This whole argument of "Why would any character be a Shadowrunner if it doesn't pay oodles and oodles of cash?" comes up a lot and it's silly to me. The answer is simple: that's part of coming up with a character concept. People in SR don't become runners because it's a sweet deal. They do it because they feel like it's their best option. Maybe they feel like it's all they know how to do. Or they feel trapped in the shadows, having no real connection to a legit lifestyle. Whatever. If you can't justify your character being a shadowrunner, then he probably isn't appropriate for the game (barring certain campaigns that take a different focus). If your character thinks he'll do better boosting cars, awesome. But he's not a shadowrunner if he does that instead. That decision is most likely a decision to stop playing.

Best to think of it this way: the point of the game is going on shadowruns. Which get money. Which is spent to get cool thinks to make you better at shadowruns. We play the game for the adventures. If you turn them down all the time because you think your character deserves more money, you're missing the point. You're refusing to take part in the fun part of the game, for the sake of a secondary, supporting part of the game. Have fun. Play the game. And GM's, pay as much cash and give as much karma as seems appropriate for the kind of game you're trying to run.

[JonathanC]

The question of "why would someone risk their life for 5k a pop" or whatever the job pays is based on the assumption that you're like you are now: reasonably educated, certified as such, and a legal citizen. You aren't. By default, Shadowrunners are assumed to be SINless, which means that your peers in the modern age aren't guys like you, they're the guys who hang out by Home Depot looking for odd jobs and working dirt cheap.

[Ryu]

The question is "what should a shadowrunner earn", not "what could a shadowrunner earn instead".

My primary concern is the long-term mundane vs. awakened balance, which I find pretty good at chargen. A rate of 5k¥ per karma, with occasionally monetary windfalls, is in my experience a rate that works. The size of the combined reward depends on the length and intensity of the scession. Consequently there are 4 karma / 20k¥ base runs and 6 karma / 30k¥+ special occasions.

[Shiloh]

The question of "why would someone risk their life for 5k a pop" or whatever the job pays is based on the assumption that you're like you are now: reasonably educated, certified as such, and a legal citizen. You aren't. By default, Shadowrunners are assumed to be SINless, which means that your peers in the modern age aren't guys like you, they're the guys who hang out by Home Depot looking for odd jobs and working dirt cheap.

Or a Shadowrunner's peer/equivalent is the drug dealer/pimp/art thief. There's a continuum of talent and earning potential.

[Crusher Bob]

Note that the 5,000 Y per 2 points of karma rule of thumb should be net of expenses, lifestyle, hospital stays, repairs, replacements, etc. So if you are going through a SIN every month, and are burning drones, and so on your pay should account for that as well.

So, as an example:

A 4 karma run pays out 10K net per runner.
Depending on the group, this might be 250K for a crew of 5, but with 200K of burned gadgets, bribes, fake SINs, genewipes, lifestyles, transportation etc.
Or it could mean a crate of 90K worth of useful loot for a crew of 5, and 40K Y in out of pocket expenses.