biggest payout, runner millionairs Options

[Rystefn]

Why were your characters paid that much? It seems totally out of line. Isn't it reasonable to assume that they'd do it for less? Is so, why weren't they offered less? If they really didn't want to do it for less, weren't there other people with similar capabilities that could be hired for less?

Just about the only reason I can see to pay someone that much would be if they stole something valuable and you had to give them an incentive to actually hand it in rather than resell it themselves.

Like one of the original Apollo 11 spacesuits? A piece of history that would easily go for millions on the open market? That's basically like paying a group of people to steal the original Wright Brothers plane today, you know. No, we wouldn't do it for less. We were offered less and refused. Like we said to Mr. J: "If you think you an find someone who'll do it for less, you go right ahead, but you come trying to hire us to bust them out of the joint before they sell you out or steal it out of an evidence locker afterwards."

[DireRadiant]

My character got paid with his life.

[Ophis]

My character got paid with his life.

That hardly counts as a big payoff, life is after all cheap.

[TheMidnightHobo]

My team got away with just over 100k and a Force 2 Power Focus (after expenses and fencing), for recovering a sword possessed with the soul of an ancient Japanese warlord (I'm assuming the item was made up by my GM, but I'm not too sure...).

[toturi]

I like to have people behave at least somewhat realisticly. This means that people who have millions to spend on getting a job done, will generally be savvy enough to not waste millions overpaying runners unless there's a very good reason for it.

And they are behaving realistically. I do not think that millions for runners of the PCs' caliber and experience to carry out high risk activity is overpay.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

perhaps you should look at the charts that indicate typical levels of ability then.

look at the kinds of people who have a skill of 6. most are quite literally the kinds of people who make millions every year. legitimately. without getting shot at or risking life imprisonment.

people with a skill of 7 have as examples people who are basically the best of the best. you're talking about people who are (or should be) legends (in fact, the descriptor for the category is "legendary").

i would be surprised if the average PC runner team didn't have at least one person with a skill of 6 or 7. even a skill of 5 is likely enough for someone to make a million a year in some of the areas.

runners who have a 6 or a 7 in the skill are legitimately not going to be cheap to hire.

*Sarcasm
But Jaid.... Why would you think that? That would actually make some sort of sense (and it is something that I have been arguing for for a very long time)...*

I do agree with you wholeheartedly...

Keep the Faith

[Daylen]

BLASPHEMY!!! everyone should have 5-7 in combat skills or any other skills! runners should be paid in shoelaces (not even leather shoes) from which they should have to make soup for sustinence! Bullets are something they should buy at start and never be able to afford after! Upgrade, no! sell off cyber to eat YES!

[Smokeskin]

perhaps you should look at the charts that indicate typical levels of ability then.

look at the kinds of people who have a skill of 6. most are quite literally the kinds of people who make millions every year. legitimately. without getting shot at or risking life imprisonment.

people with a skill of 7 have as examples people who are basically the best of the best. you're talking about people who are (or should be) legends (in fact, the descriptor for the category is "legendary").

i would be surprised if the average PC runner team didn't have at least one person with a skill of 6 or 7. even a skill of 5 is likely enough for someone to make a million a year in some of the areas.

runners who have a 6 or a 7 in the skill are legitimately not going to be cheap to hire.

Are you kidding? Maybe if their skills applied directly to extremely popular sports, they could make lots of money. But I don't really see that as an alternative for most runners.

There are tons of people with great illusionist skills, but hardly any of them get to be David Copperfield and make millions. There are lots of geniuses with great creativity and technical skills, but how many get to be Bill Gates or Steve Jobs? Just having better social skills than Bill Clinton isn't enough to become President of the United States.

Being awesome at sneaking past guards and shooting an assault rifle, that might get you a job in the army, which won't lead to a life in luxury. (In SR, an Urban Brawl career might make things different of course). If you take the 100 best shooters in the world, what do you think their income is? Shooting isn't golf...

Most runners just don't have the option of dropping into civilian life - they're mostly SINless, they have a criminal past which at least would get them blackmailed if they hit the limelight, and many of them have all sorts of issues that fit very poorly with the discipline and consistent performance required for civilian succes - much less to become rich in the process.

On top of that, you have to wonder how often rolling 2-3 dice more really makes so much difference that it is worth millions to the employer. Planning skills, special knowledge, reliability and other "soft" capabilities can be very valuable in the right circumstances, but just being a good shot doesn't really make that much of a difference.

I can agree that they won't be cheap to hire, but "not cheap" is very different from making millions - and just having high skills doesn't justify that at all.

[Smokeskin]

BLASPHEMY!!! everyone should have 5-7 in combat skills or any other skills! runners should be paid in shoelaces (not even leather shoes) from which they should have to make soup for sustinence! Bullets are something they should buy at start and never be able to afford after! Upgrade, no! sell off cyber to eat YES!

Yeah, the only alternative to making millions is to be paid in shoelaces. Obviously.

[Ascalaphus]

There are tons of people with great illusionist skills, but hardly any of them get to be David Copperfield and make millions. There are lots of geniuses with great creativity and technical skills, but how many get to be Bill Gates or Steve Jobs? Just having better social skills than Bill Clinton isn't enough to become President of the United States.

A "great" illusionist probably has a skill rating of 4 ("Veteran").

Why are good shooting skills worth millions? Because the sniper will get only one shot at the president, and he has to die before he signs the bill that's on his desk.

As for the "2-3 dice extra" argument.. the skills have been defined to mean a particular level of skill in-game. NPCs should react to that.

Sometimes the bonuses from equipment rather overshadow the importance of skill; that's unfortunate. I rather like the optional rule that the limit on bonus dice is the character's base Attribute+Skill rating.

[Platinum]

Why were your characters paid that much? It seems totally out of line. Isn't it reasonable to assume that they'd do it for less? Is so, why weren't they offered less? If they really didn't want to do it for less, weren't there other people with similar capabilities that could be hired for less?

Just about the only reason I can see to pay someone that much would be if they stole something valuable and you had to give them an incentive to actually hand it in rather than resell it themselves.

What does it matter? It's obvious that they pulled off the job. The corp or power players stood to make hundreds of millions. I would gladly payout thousands of dollars to make 10 or 20 times that.

Now bring that up to corporate levels. Betting 6 million to make 600 million by being first to market with new tech or to delay your competition from cutting into your profits.

I don't care who does it as long as they can do it.

[Platinum]

That hardly counts as a big payoff, life is after all cheap.

Your life is cheap. My life is worth a fortune. It's a matter of perspective.

[Machiavelli]

If you stand on the wrong side of my character, your life is worthless. So nearly 6 billion people in the world don´t care about your life and the only one who disagrees is yourself. Doesn´t sound like a draw to me.^^

[Draco18s]

It's a matter of perspective.

My last character pretty much valued his companions as bullet magnets. Because thats what they did. They were good at it. He didn't care if they died because they didn't seem to care either (case in point, the player who made a vampire who decided to melee a guy with a shotgun, the shotgun won...he recovered later, but basically took lead to the face and was down for the count).

[lordnth]

SR2 I was the GM

I offered 5 Million nY for some job. I forget the run and the job. But the PCs all killed each other. The last guy left showed the goods to Mr. J and he was capped by snipers nearby....

[Daylen]

If you stand on the wrong side of my character, your life is worthless. So nearly 6 billion people in the world don´t care about your life and the only one who disagrees is yourself. Doesn´t sound like a draw to me.^^

I love it when people talk tough over the internet about their character.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Sometimes the bonuses from equipment rather overshadow the importance of skill; that's unfortunate. I rather like the optional rule that the limit on bonus dice is the character's base Attribute+Skill rating.

I do like this rule, and generally use it for my characters regardless of whether the GM enforces it or not... always worked out well for me...

Keep the Faith

[RedeemerofOgar]

SR2 I was the GM

I offered 5 Million nY for some job. I forget the run and the job. But the PCs all killed each other. The last guy left showed the goods to Mr. J and he was capped by snipers nearby....

Perfect.

[RedeemerofOgar]

SR2 I was the GM

I offered 5 Million nY for some job. I forget the run and the job. But the PCs all killed each other. The last guy left showed the goods to Mr. J and he was capped by snipers nearby....

Perfect.

[Smokeskin]

What does it matter? It's obvious that they pulled off the job. The corp or power players stood to make hundreds of millions. I would gladly payout thousands of dollars to make 10 or 20 times that.

Now bring that up to corporate levels. Betting 6 million to make 600 million by being first to market with new tech or to delay your competition from cutting into your profits.

I don't care who does it as long as they can do it.

So you think that corporations that make profits don't care about cost? How long do you think a Johnson lasts if he pays 6 million to runners if his boss knows someone could do it for 10% of that? This sort of thinking "we're going to make 600 million on this project, so we can easily pay 10 times the salary to the runners", does that apply to everyone on the project, or just the runners?

The whole "they make so much money they're not going to care about a few millions", it is frankly ridiculous.

[toturi]

So you think that corporations that make profits don't care about cost? How long do you think a Johnson lasts if he pays 6 million to runners if his boss knows someone could do it for 10% of that? This sort of thinking "we're going to make 600 million on this project, so we can easily pay 10 times the salary to the runners", does that apply to everyone on the project, or just the runners?

The whole "they make so much money they're not going to care about a few millions", it is frankly ridiculous.

I think the Johnson would last quite long, as long as the runners deliver the expected results.

If his boss knows someone who can do the job for 10%, then his boss would have gotten that someone to do it at 10%; the reason why the boss didn't, is that he knows the other guy can't do it at 10%.

At one end is the low end shadowrun where there is a oversupply of guys who can do the job. On the other end is the high end shadowrun where there may be a handful of guys/teams that maybe can do the job. It is not every day you make billions of dollars of profit, when you have the opportunity, how much would you be willing to pay for success? Sure, if the GM thinks the market rate of breaking and entering into Mitsuhama's vaunted zero zones is a couple of thousand of nuyen, then it is his game, he can set whatever pay he wishes.

The whole "they make so much money they're not going to care about a few millions" may be ridiculous, but that is what happens. It even happens when they lose money too.

[The Monk]

So you think that corporations that make profits don't care about cost? How long do you think a Johnson lasts if he pays 6 million to runners if his boss knows someone could do it for 10% of that? This sort of thinking "we're going to make 600 million on this project, so we can easily pay 10 times the salary to the runners", does that apply to everyone on the project, or just the runners?

The whole "they make so much money they're not going to care about a few millions", it is frankly ridiculous.

It's hard for me to imagine the money spent on hiring criminals is making it into some corp's P&L. Maybe I'm just imagining it, but the way you put it makes it seem like the Johnson is an HR guy sitting behind a desk.

"You got that expense report on the NeoNet extraction, Mr. Gibbons?"
"Oh yes Mr. Lumbergh, I'll send it up right away."

[Ascalaphus]

If I'm choosing which Johnson to use, consider this choice:

A) Johnson requires 6million to earn 600million with 80% chance of success
B) Johnson2 requires 600k to earn 600million with 40% chance of success

I know which one I'd pick. 5.4 million "insurance premium" to double my chances of earning those 600million.



Look at the real world: corporations are certainly willing to spend a lot of money to earn far more money. They won't just jeopardize their chance of the big bucks for comparatively small savings.

[toturi]

Look at the real world: corporations are certainly willing to spend a lot of money to earn far more money. They won't just jeopardize their chance of the big bucks for comparatively small savings.

I know some bosses who are willing to pay 10 times the going rate for a mere 20% better performance. I also know some bosses who don't but those companies folded.

[Smokeskin]

There's still this assumption that the Johnson gets more for paying 6 million to the group than if you paid them 600k. That's mostly a wrong assumption.

First off, most groups would still do it if they were offered only 600k. Why pay the same people more to do something they're willing to do for less? How often are 600k jobs turned down?

Secondly, aren't there other groups able to do it? If this specific group of PCs are the only ones that can do it reliably, there are two options. Either, they're the only ones this good - if you're playing a campaign where your runners are the best in the world, that's a valid point, but if you're playing such a high-powered campaing, come out and say it. The alternative is they have insider knowledge, a history with the target, or some other unique aspect that warrants extraordinary pay.