Starting With Credsticks? Options

[tsuyoshikentsu]

Need help on this one.

My players are new to Shadowrun, so they're sort of a fresh set of eyes. When creating their characters, they asked me, "I know it says I can't hold over starting cash -- but why can't I just spend my creation cash on a credstick with the correct amount on it?" And I had to say to them, "I don't know."

Now, the way I GM is, if the entire party, who are a group of very strong friends, and do this sort of thing together, finds like this at once, I let them have it as a reward for cleverness. (They all have it, so why not? Balance is maintained.) But is there something preventing this? Am I missing something? I don't have a problem with it, but I would like to know.

[Kerenshara]

Need help on this one.

My players are new to Shadowrun, so they're sort of a fresh set of eyes. When creating their characters, they asked me, "I know it says I can't hold over starting cash -- but why can't I just spend my creation cash on a credstick with the correct amount on it?" And I had to say to them, "I don't know."

Now, the way I GM is, if the entire party, who are a group of very strong friends, and do this sort of thing together, finds like this at once, I let them have it as a reward for cleverness. (They all have it, so why not? Balance is maintained.) But is there something preventing this? Am I missing something? I don't have a problem with it, but I would like to know.

The rules are very clear on that score. They can add +1 to their "roll" for cash based on main lifestyle at the end of character creation, but the max number of dice added can not exceed 1/2 the total possible on the dice rolled. So a high lifestyle can keep up to +12 on the die. But since you can spend BP/Karma one at a time on resources, it's not that big a deal. Buy more ammo or "RP" items until you've spent it all, or trim the points and put them elsewhere. That keeps them from saving big cash from CharGen (where it's cheap) and then using that high-level contact with Black Market Pipeline to immediately buy that "above 12" availability gear.

[knasser]

Need help on this one.

My players are new to Shadowrun, so they're sort of a fresh set of eyes. When creating their characters, they asked me, "I know it says I can't hold over starting cash -- but why can't I just spend my creation cash on a credstick with the correct amount on it?" And I had to say to them, "I don't know."

Now, the way I GM is, if the entire party, who are a group of very strong friends, and do this sort of thing together, finds like this at once, I let them have it as a reward for cleverness. (They all have it, so why not? Balance is maintained.) But is there something preventing this? Am I missing something? I don't have a problem with it, but I would like to know.

Very simple answer: credsticks are money. You wouldn't let the players say "I'm going to buy banknotes with my starting resources and carry it over". You can still get bank notes in SR2070, but the vast majority of money is digital and is stored in bank accounts and accessed via credsticks, or is sometimes just pure Nuyen stored on a certified credstick. Players can't sneak cash through from char gen by saying: "I'm going to buy money with my money." When you buy a certified credstick in the rules, it's not as much like buying an item as it is changing your money from one currency to another.

Also, what Kerenshara said for the potential risks of allowing this.

Hope this helps,

K.

[tsuyoshikentsu]

Hm.... I'm not sure if I buy that, but that does seem to be the logic the book is sing. I'll have to think about this.

[Glyph]

Starting nuyen represents resources, not raw money. It is all of the stuff that the character has accumulated up until now, such as fake IDs, gear, lifestyle, cyberware, and so on. The rules are pretty clear on what starting money the characters get - and how they can withhold some of it to increase their starting cash. Someone with a high lifestyle can spend an additional 1,200 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) to start out with two to twelve thousand (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) , plus an additional 6,000 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) . That's a pretty decent amount of money to begin play with.

[Jaid]

i understood it to mean that you would buy a credstick, but you wouldn't buy money that's on the credstick. that is, you buy a credstick; it can hold up to a certain amount of cash. but you can't buy cash on a credstick, it just allows you to have some (or all, if you like) of your starting cash in the form of credsticks. so sure, they can buy a credstick. but they can't buy a 5025 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) credstick with 5000 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) on it. you don't buy a 5000 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) credstick at all, you buy a credstick and then you put 5000 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) into it.

[Bob Lord of Evil]

You could look at it this way, the cheap cash of chargen can be used to buy items that later could be resold for in game cash. Yes, they would get dinged on mark down at that point but it is one option if everyone is of a like mind.

Frankly, I can't see a problem with simply spending the chargen cash on items that they may need down the road.

[paws2sky]

re: char gen nuyen on a credstick... Its not like you've just walked down to the cyberware store with a loaded credstick and purchased all your implants, then wandered over to the gun store and bought your guns, then... well, you get the idea. These are things you've accumulated over time. These things are "resources" and, in fact, you might not have ever had the money to buy the things in the first place!

For example: Consider an up and coming runner who is willing to accept part of the agreed upon payments in merchandise, at least until he's established.

• You do some work for a street doc, knowing he's strapped for cash, but hoping to get a contact out of it. While the doc is strapped for cash, but he can hook you up with a set of tricked out cybereyes...
• You did a job for an Ares Mr. Johnson who set you up with a slick Ares Alpha, ammo, and grenades...
• You boosted a car during a job and had a mechanic wipe the RFID tags and change the access codes...

The character never had the char gen "nuyen" in-hand, but the above amounts to about 15,000 worth of gear.

Also...

Characters don't need to buy things that they will be using immediately, or ever. For instance, want to make nice with a gang (or start a gang), consider buying 10 AK-97s and (or the El Cheapo SMG from Arsenal) and a bunch of ammo. No reason a dedicated runner would want that, but for bribes to "regular" people... not shabby.

The same thing can be applied to other gear too. You could, if you wanted, spend enough nuyen to outfit your entire team with basic gear - commlinks, micro-transceivers, medkits, and so on.

As for the certified credstick gear... I always buy one, especially for SINless characters.

-paws

[Screaming Eagle]

Just say no to starting cash.
Ok you don't have to but I find a runner with a fat wad of cash in more picky about the work they'll take and I like my Runners trying to figure out where to get money for the new "Atomic Jalapino-Chocolate" soy chips in the vending machine (Proudly an Aztecnology Product - where Chocolate begins (now with 20% more real Cocao!)) when the start play, let alone that new car.

I generally encourage players to sink left over resourses into either lifestyle: its not cash but if you've payed rent in advance for the next 6 months you will have a good chunk money soon enough
Or : crap, all sorts of crap. For low lifestyle types: low tech and simple electronic security messures are great fun, depending on location, screamer door alarms, barbed wire, ultra sonic scanners, restraints. This also leaves the player fleshing out there personal space more, heck have a floor plan with all the security emplacements for when trouble invariable tracks them down..

Saleable commodities may be a middle ground between the PC who wants to start rich and the rules - 30%- 50% pay back on investment, varied based on tons of things. This coupled with a good fixer or fence can drag some money into their pockets. Gold anyone? where did I get 50,000 in gold? I guess its hot -10% to the value unless they sit on it for a good long while - which will be an adventure in itself.

[DireRadiant]

Chargen Gear is bought with BP. Instead of giving both a BP and Nuyen price for an Ares Predator, you have a Nuyen price and you get a BP to Nuyen currency conversion to do the math with.

Instead of doing fractions of BP math for each gun and bullet, people convert the BP to a wad of cash mentally, then think it's really there after chargen is over instead of realizing it was a lazy mathematical construct of convenience for those of us who don't like adding up lots of fractions of BPs.

They wouldn't ask for 0.003 of a BP on a credstick would they? (Thats' 15 nuyen for the less mentally mathematically agile)

[Mercer]

Starting nuyen represents resources, not raw money.

Glyph nailed this one early on, but I thought I'd chime in because it reminded me of a character background I always thought would be funny; the guy who decides to become a shadowrunner and then applies for a small business loan to cover the start-up costs in cyber and weaponry and martial arts classes at the Learning Annex.