How much does a runner get paid per run?, Not where one would look in SR4A index :( Options

[Cardul]

OK, due to something being said in another thread, where it was being insisted that there is a set amount spelled out
for what one should be paid per run, I went looking through my SR4A. I checked Rewards, Payment, and even went looking for
Shadowrun payment/rewards, and read through the Adventure creation section. I even looked through the whole
"Running the Shadows" section. There is no "This is the suggested payment for shadowruns" like insisted.

Can someone give me, in SR4A, the page number where I can find these rules?

[Karoline]

No one can give you that page number because it doesn't exist. It depends on alot of things, like if you're running a normal game or a street game or a high end game. It depends on how often the runs happen and what kind of lifestyles you generally expect people to be living. It depends on if you want mundane to be a more attractive option than awakened.

I've heard anywhere from 5k to 20k per run and up if it is higher levels. Personally I figure following the rough line of karmagen is a decent rule of thumb, giving out about 2.5k nuyen for every 1 karma. Of course I've heard some people say this is far too generous, but I figure it works well enough in CG to keep awakened and mundane balanced, it should be fairly reasonable after that.

My suggestion is to just go with whatever you feel is right. If you find the mundanes are all strapped for cash and being vastly outstripped by the awakened, pull up a super high paying job to even things up. If you find that the mundanes have money coming out of their ears and make awakened look like glorified lightbulbs (or whatever) then have some of their equipment get doestroyed, or have some low paying jobs or make them unable to find a job for a while to eat through rent. Also consider making things harder and more expensive to get by someone pulling a monopoly on the things they want, or a police crackdown, or the various other modifiers to price.

As GM you have fairly strong control over the flow of cash in the game, so just try whatever for a while to get a feel for it, and then adjust as you find you need it.

[DireRadiant]

Runners are always paid in stolen vehicles.

[Karoline]

Runners are always paid in stolen vehicles.

No link?

Yeah, I thought about mentioning the 'Make sure they can't make more money stealing vehicles than they can running' thing, which is always tossed around whenever this question pops up.

[koogco]

Yeah, I thought about mentioning the 'Make sure they can't make more money stealing vehicles than they can running' thing, which is always tossed around whenever this question pops up.

Yes, that usually gets down to "how can you ever be sure you got all tags off it?"

We (two on our team taking turn GM'ing) have been quite generous, but then, our players are fairly good at spending money on other things than gear and bioware.
I think its good if its a little varried. Sometimes, things are really gritty, and the next rent is your main concern. At other times, you get one of those rare, relatively easy jobs, that someone pays well for (because of potential threats, or just because its an important job)

The last job i gave out as a GM, was supposedly a fairly easy one. and it had an interesting twist on the payment side.
As per the jobs description, the team wouldnt earn very much (i think, 5000 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) for the entire team) but there was a threat involved that the Johnson wasnt aware of.
Now, if the team had taken perfect precautions, the threat might have been avoided completely, the johnson would have never known, and the team would have gotten the described payment. (the team was hired by a manager to buddyguard a famous rockstar)
If things had come to worst and the rockstar had died, the team would have gotten nothing.
Things happened to end up in between (as a GM, i had made sure there was a high chance of this), thus, the rockstar took a gel-bullet form a sniper, but was up and walking the next day. The manager being relieved at this, and happy with the teams quick response, gave the team a huge bonus (the team ended up earning at least 3 times as much as they where expecting to)


As for payment amounts in general, I once found a great list in a similar topic. I don't really follow it, but its a good way to get a basic number that you can then tweak depending what you think the team should earn.
http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?s=&a...st&p=863255

[hermit]

Yes, that usually gets down to "how can you ever be sure you got all tags off it?"

There're rules for that? And tag blasters? Sorry, this is a bullshit argument.

[DireRadiant]

There're rules for that? And tag blasters? Sorry, this is a bullshit argument.

Tell that to the guy who recently left his car running in Times Square.

[MJBurrage]

In my experience around 2,000¥ per karma is a good starting point.

As for why street crime does not pay as much as running: Each category of crime (drugs, prostitution, auto theft, etc.) is already controlled by a local syndicate (gang, mob, yaks, etc.) and they will not take kindly to you cutting in to their action. You either become an employee for a minor cut, or you take them on for dominance over the class of crime in contention. If a group would have fun playing such a game more power to them.

All the threads, complaining that "safe, easy crime" pays more than running, focus only on the mechanics of the theft, and ignore the fallout that would result with existing underworld powers. Again if the group wants this game, more power to them.

As an aside, someone posted in another thread that blackwater type operatives make ~$600 a day, with ~$900 being charged for the service. Extrapolating to Shadowrun, a high-end long-term contract should probably pay about the same: I.E. the Johnson pays up to 1,000¥ per runner per day, with the fixer taking 25–33% as their fee.

[hermit]

Tell that to the guy who recently left his car running in Times Square.

"It is possible" and "some uneducated dude from a shithole in Pashtunsistan would know about it" are two different things. Also, while such technology does exist in SR, it is rather less effective IRL.

All the threads, complaining that "safe, easy crime" pays more than running, focus only on the mechanics of the theft, and ignore the fallout that would result with existing underworld powers.

As I said in the hijacked thread, I already factored a 75% mafia cut in. It still netted the runner more than four runs a month. At a vastly reduced risk, and with the additional benefit of syndicate contacts and some syndicate protection.

As an aside, someone posted in another thread that blackwater type operatives make ~$600 a day, with ~$900 being charged for the service. Extrapolating to Shadowrun, a high-end long-term contract should probably pay about the same: I.E. the Johnson pays up to 1,000¥ per runner per day, with the fixer taking 25–33% as their fee.

True, but Blackwater operatives get free equipment and everytingmand have a decidedly different relationship with their employer. For the same quality of employee, maybe double the price.

And Blackwater employees cannot easily turn to theft of everything, since there mercifully is no equivalently tech controlling technology as an all-6 commlink around anywhere.

[Kanada Ten]

Stolen cars net 4% their value on the black market.

[hermit]

Please keep in mind setaling more than one a night is very much possible in SR4, with cars you hack and that then drive to whereever you want to meet with your fixer that night by themselves. you can even have them drive through a tag fryer before, and since they're sold that very night, any remaining tags are not your problem.

Still pays more than running.

And that's for ordinary mundanes. Why any awakened should work such a high risk job for such a shit payment is beyond me.

[Eratosthenes]

It is difficult to set a standard fee for services, as it is highly dependent on:

1) how difficult the job will be
2) how much the Mr. J wants it done, and
3) how much money the Mr. J has

The same job from an Aztech Mr. J should pay more than the same one from a Snohomish commune Ms. J.

There is no such thing as risk-free crime. Even stealing cars, eventually someone in the crime enforcement area is going to notice nice cars are disappearing in a locale, or there's a spike in city-wide car thefts. Then they start dropping bait cars to find you, or otherwise actively hunting you.

Society has a certain tolerance limit for crime. If someone goes beyond this tolerance, society will push back. Those syndicates you're all chummy with won't like someone making a huge living off of crime, without getting a huge cut, especially if it means law enforcement's suddenly emphasizing that enforcement more and more because you're a single-person crime-wave.

[DireRadiant]

Please keep in mind setaling more than one a night is very much possible in SR4, with cars you hack and that then drive to whereever you want to meet with your fixer that night by themselves. you can even have them drive through a tag fryer before, and since they're sold that very night, any remaining tags are not your problem.

Still pays more than running.

And that's for ordinary mundanes. Why any awakened should work such a high risk job for such a shit payment is beyond me.

For any individual there is always something that could pay more. Why aren't all individuals doing the thing that pays them more?

Finding an example of less then optimum income earning potential doesn't make the norm any less the norm.

[Karoline]

Hey, can we please not turn this into another thread about stealing cars? Go make your own, don't hijack this one.

[TommyTwoToes]

Please keep in mind setaling more than one a night is very much possible in SR4, with cars you hack and that then drive to whereever you want to meet with your fixer that night by themselves. you can even have them drive through a tag fryer before, and since they're sold that very night, any remaining tags are not your problem.

Still pays more than running.

And that's for ordinary mundanes. Why any awakened should work such a high risk job for such a shit payment is beyond me.

Except that the stolen car market is like any other market and driven by supply and demand. As the number of stolen cars sold increases the pool of potential buyers decreases (since some of those folks have cars already). If the availability of stolen cars skyrockets (caused by someone stealing multiple cars a ngith, every night) then the ammount you can sell a stolen car drops, for everyone who is selling them.

Also each instance of theft carries a chance of detection. The more frequent the thefts (especially if the same M.O. is used) will make it a little easier to predict future thefts. Eventually some LS/KE hacker or technomancer will get some pattern analysis right and there will be an observation team staking out a car you are stealing. This leads to a SWAT team taking down your fixer and you have just burned a contact.

In every game I have playing in or run, losing a contact would be a huge downside. Leading the cops to your fixer and getting him burned should be worth some Notoriety too.

As to the tag fryer, I sould say that they should be pretty good at frying the electronics in the car too. No driving safely through a tag fryer with the car's node up and running.

[Endroren]

I swear we should just sticky this question since the exact same question gets posted every two months...

Here is some VERY rough "science" you could apply.

Starting with the our world - note that these are all averages:

US Military Pay: About $100/day ($36,500/year)
Blackwater Pay: About $400/day ($146,000/year)
Median Household Income in the US: About $45,000/year

Based on these numbers, your typical Blackwater Contractor makes about 3x the median US income. If we apply this in Shadowrun terms, we're looking at around 500 nuyen per day. ( (Middle Lifestyle x 12)/365)

Now taking into account that I don't believe your typical Blackwater contractor is expected to partake daily in the type of heavy live fire action your Shadowrunner will, let's say we only REALLY expect our shadworunner to REALLY work 2-3 days a month. Throwing in the fact that the Shadowrunner is usually doing something illegal as well, we throw in some additional pay for the risk.

In the end, it strikes me that a relatively experienced Shadowrun, doing a job with a decent chance of physical injury, that takes about 2-3 days, would make around 15,000-20,000 nuyen.

You can then slam it into a grid:

Job Difficulty Pay (Rookie/Typical/Experienced)
Easy 3000/5000/8000
Simple 5000/10000/12000
Average 10000/15000/20000
Tough 12000/20000/25000
Epic 20000/30000/50000

DISCLAIMER: I pretty much tossed these numbers together on the fly with a few google searches. I imagine you could build a much more accurate scale, taking into account things like reimbursement for expenses, and such - plus there may be errors in my calculations - but I think you could pretty easily build a really nice "What a runner gets paid" system.

[TommyTwoToes]

Hey, can we please not turn this into another thread about stealing cars? Go make your own, don't hijack this one.

Good point, I know in the game I am currently in, we always have extra money - right up until someone needs to go purchase some vital gear, and then we don't. It always feels like we have alot, but then you need 3-4 activesofts and all of a sudden that cash is gone pretty quick. For us, it isn't so much about big purchases, but more that we always buys some outrageous stuff to do a run. I swear to God that we had a run that included a catapult loaded with fresh meat as a vital component (OK it wasn't that vital, but is was fun).

Our GM lets the Karma pigs (mages and TM's) spend ridiculous ammounts of money to earn more Karma. Our Technomancer hid the target of a wetwork mission, set up a fake death for the guy and then gave him a $250k nestegg to get started somewhere else. He didn't get a pile of extra Karma right away, but rather has been getting 1-2 extra per run. It will end up being about 20k to 1 karma in the end.

He has been funnelling money to some non- profit groups to help out the downtrodden too. I think the technomancer always seems to have money sitting around, but rarely buys gear. He always is there to pay the Doc (for trauma surgery anyway) or cover the rent....but he doesn't fund the group's cyberware or gun purchases.

Just give everyone some outlet for their money and everyone will be happy. In general it is better in the long run to have the team short on cash than have them overflowing with bucks. If they get to much gear, have a reocurring NPC blow some of it up. Gets everyone motivated to go do things then.

[koogco]

Our group has a "gear fund" or whatever, we usually put whatever is payed up front in there, along with some 20-50% of the final pay. Its for bribes and preperations, for stuff that might benefit the whole team (larger vehicles and safehouses) and for funding expensive gear upgrades (if we all agree a character needs it)

As for the whole stealing cars stuff (might aswell be burglary or something similar). We can make alot of arguments back and forth, but i agree that the pay in fluff seems very low, and i usually give quite a bit more (unless it is 1-3 day jobs that doesnt require much recovery or cooldown). In my experience it works out rather nicely, its not that gritty, but the streetsam still does not want to be living high lifestyle, and there is nothing wrong with loosing a vehicle or safehouse now and then...

[psychophipps]

I look up the probable charges on the internet with my state judicial site and multiply the highest charge in years by 5-10K (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) . It's worked pretty well so far...

[Nixda]

Stolen vehicles aside, shadowrunners usually tend to be very good at break and entry and hacking security systems.
If one compares the difficulty of breaking into high security research labs or doing extractions on corp assets to the difficulty of breaking into a normal shop and getting away with the stored goods, running should not be too badly payed.

As for exact numbers, I also have trouble to provide these as an economy I only read about does not give me a very good "feel" for what would be real value.

As a GM, for a fair offer (and my NPCs do tend to misjudge dangers or offer a too low price occasionally) I usually think about for how many game sessions the run is designed (because each session will usually present some challenges that need to be overcome), and how tough the challenges at each stage are. I also try to anticipate the amount of money my players will invest into bribes, information dealers, hardware and other things. For an average run with some danger and (probably) some bullets flying I aim to have them earn about 10.000 each.

Back when I was a player, when we felt the GM was being especially niggardly again - which he tended to be quite often - we would simply refuse the job and design one of our own: find a small and nice target, nothing too dangerous, and steal all we could.
Or, when we were feeling very annoyed by him, we'd set off into Ghoul territory once more, trying to earn some cash bounty hunting. He eventually got the message after the 7th or 8th evening we spent ghoul hunting. He was only paying a reduced bounty of 500 for them, so we never really earned money with it; it was just our way of telling him if he'd plan to waste our runners time we'd at least waste it in a way of our own choosing.

[Karoline]

Also, if you want to be a bit more realistic, think about how much the hiring party stands to gain off the success of the mission. If the job is to go poison the latest batch of Jack Daniels or whatever to nuke competition, then they likely stand to gain a ton of money in increased sales (like tens of millions or more) and should be willing to pay an amount relative to that gain. If they're hiring you to guard someone because he is semi-important and his death would be a minor inconvenience, then the amount they're willing to invest is going to be way way lower.

It's the old 'you get what you pay for' and a corp is going to have alot of money to toss after a multi-million dollar sales increase or new product or whatever. I mean coke and pepsi spend how much a year on marketing?

[Dumori]

Again the Job is the BBB is liteary go here do this in this order tonight job no legwork of any large kind and its a one nighter sure 5-6k is still a bit low for it but its not that bad a sum for hitting a low security holding area. Its not braking in an R&D lab and making out with several million of prototypes and fleeing for the HTR. Also the J gets to poket any thing he has left over from pulling the run. In some cases he might hire some teams to do the legwork and others to pull the job ect while if one team had to do it all solo he might pay 5-6k up frount and maybe 20K+ after he might just play four separate teams 5-6k each to do parts of the job.

[Bob Lord of Evil]

I had players tell me that their characters would not get out of bed for less than 10k. Cheesed me off...considering that they had all the tactical finesse of a B-52 bomber on a carpet bombing run. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[Veggiesama]

Character creation says 1 BP buys 5000 nuyen, and KarmaGen says 1 Karma buys 2500 nuyen.

If you award 10 Karma at the end of a session/adventure/campaign, then 20-30k nuyen +/- (GM fiat) per runner seems reasonable to me. I think that's much higher than any of the books suggest, but I like advancement to be as similar to character creation as possible, so no one feels ripped off.

If the Karma:Nuyen ratio leans toward Karma, then Awakened characters tend to benefit. If the ratio leans toward Nuyen, then Mundanes benefit. If you notice your Awakened players are outshining the Mundanes, then throw in a couple thousand more nuyen for them to buy some more toys, or vice versa.

Of course, you can always award 15 Karma and have the Johnson back out of the deal. Or conversely, the players could find a military-grade commlink on a corpse without any bonus Karma. It's all a big wash in the end.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

There're rules for that? And tag blasters? Sorry, this is a bullshit argument.

You cannot scrub a security tag... you have to actually find it and remove it... and cars have a hell of a lot of places to hide a Security Tag... or hell, a Stealthed Security Tag... even worse...

Just sayin'

Keep the Faith