Run Payout, Extracted from Edition Discussion Options

[Sendaz]

Spikes, Troll Ganger turned Shadowrunner, gets 500 Nuyen per body on delivery.

Please note that there has been debate on whether all bodies were fully dead prior to the time of pickup.

Let's just say you do NOT want to be on the streets at the end of the month when Spikes rent is due if he is running a bit short is all. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/ork.gif)

[nezumi]

Blade, you fail to account for the long-term value of a market. If your go-go-gang syndicate makes $X on boosting cars and runners start pushing in, they may pay more than $X in defending against it (and not just by sending runner teams. Flood the market, pull in LS support, release better car-locking technology, whatever.) Why? Well two-fold. Firstly, it scares off the next guy. Yeah, I spend $2X to knock off that team, and I'll do that for you too, so it's not worth your money going into it. And second, because it's a long-term thing. Okay, the business is at a loss this month, but it'll return to normal and be better protected next month.

[Cain]

This is going to sound rich coming from me, but that's a big tangent.

Shadowrun isn't a "realistic" game, but even if some things don't make sense-- shadowrunning as a profession, for example-- they're a genre conceit, and it needs to happen somehow.

In a traditional fantasy game, you knock over one flying lizard with lethal halitosis, and you'll make enough gold to buy a couple of kingdoms and set yourself up for life. Most adventurers don't actually do so, though-- they spend tons of money on new magic items and other toys, so they can knock over even bigger dragons, make more money, and spent it on toys to take out even bigger opponents.

Shadowrun was meant to follow in that mold. There's always a bigger and better something to get, so even when you can retire, the assumption is that you'll spend on bigger bang-bang, and take on bigger targets. This isn't "realistic" in any meaningful sense of the word, but it is a genre conceit, and part of the game. So, since shadowrunners = adventurers, you need to think of the D&D treasure tables to set your payouts.

[ShadowDragon8685]

Blade, you fail to account for the long-term value of a market. If your go-go-gang syndicate makes $X on boosting cars and runners start pushing in, they may pay more than $X in defending against it (and not just by sending runner teams. Flood the market, pull in LS support, release better car-locking technology, whatever.) Why? Well two-fold. Firstly, it scares off the next guy. Yeah, I spend $2X to knock off that team, and I'll do that for you too, so it's not worth your money going into it. And second, because it's a long-term thing. Okay, the business is at a loss this month, but it'll return to normal and be better protected next month.

Which is amazingly short-sighted when the Runners are (a) not boosting enough cars to make a dent in your own profits, since they're boosting cars to satisfy their own needs only, and (b) are likely to retaliate with extreme levels of excessive violence which you can't hope to match.

Better to work out a deal with them where you buy their boosted cars off them and add them to your own take, which would then put you in the realm of "business partners" to them, than to risk getting all violence up by them, because a car-theft ring is the kind of thing Runners render defunct on a daily basis.

[Blade]

Blade, you fail to account for the long-term value of a market. If your go-go-gang syndicate makes $X on boosting cars and runners start pushing in, they may pay more than $X in defending against it (and not just by sending runner teams. Flood the market, pull in LS support, release better car-locking technology, whatever.) Why? Well two-fold. Firstly, it scares off the next guy. Yeah, I spend $2X to knock off that team, and I'll do that for you too, so it's not worth your money going into it. And second, because it's a long-term thing. Okay, the business is at a loss this month, but it'll return to normal and be better protected next month.

You're right but I actually consider that the market is worth "x nuyens" not "x nuyens per month". It's an abstract value, a bit like a company will be "worth" some amount. This amount can take into account the long-term value of the market and the public image value. The idea is that no matter what spending more than this value to protect it would be detrimental.

@ShadowDragon8685: Yes, but the conclusion is the same no matter if the runners get into the market via negotiation or actual fighting: the money they'll make is equal to the money they'll make taking up jobs. If they make more money than it costs to hire a similar group to go after them, then a competitor (be it the one they negociated with, another syndicate or another runner group) can do it and claim the margin.

[Shemhazai]

....if some things don't make sense-- shadowrunning as a profession, for example....

Shadowrunning as a profession makes sense to me.

Which is amazingly short-sighted when the Runners are (a) not boosting enough cars to make a dent in your own profits, since they're boosting cars to satisfy their own needs only, and (b) are likely to retaliate with extreme levels of excessive violence which you can't hope to match.

Better to work out a deal with them where you buy their boosted cars off them and add them to your own take, which would then put you in the realm of "business partners" to them, than to risk getting all violence up by them, because a car-theft ring is the kind of thing Runners render defunct on a daily basis.

If (a) is true, and you aren't exerting any downward pressure on the price of used auto parts, then a go-gang may well leave such a small fish alone. Organized crime may not even notice you unless you accidentally steal from their territory. I don't recall anyone other than myself proposing that any legwork or knowledge skills were necessary to avoid that situation. I would expect the people who run illegal chop shops to have good relationships with go-gangs and organized crime, even to the point of being friends or family, and to inform them of your existence. How much do you think you can make being such a small-time operator? Thousands of nuyen?

You have (b) backwards. Are you telling me that your public awareness is so high that street gangs know about your shadowrunning career and you're notorious enough that they will leave you alone? How is it that the people who engage in this "profitable business" on a much larger scale than you have less resources to bear than you do? And if you are stronger than these gangs, then you can take it all from them and merely pay them a small cut for stealing cars for you.

[ShadowDragon8685]

@ShadowDragon8685: Yes, but the conclusion is the same no matter if the runners get into the market via negotiation or actual fighting: the money they'll make is equal to the money they'll make taking up jobs. If they make more money than it costs to hire a similar group to go after them, then a competitor (be it the one they negociated with, another syndicate or another runner group) can do it and claim the margin.

If (a) is true, and you aren't exerting any downward pressure on the price of used auto parts, then a go-gang may well leave such a small fish alone. Organized crime may not even notice you unless you accidentally steal from their territory. I don't recall anyone other than myself proposing that any legwork or knowledge skills were necessary to avoid that situation. I would expect the people who run illegal chop shops to have good relationships with go-gangs and organized crime, even to the point of being friends or family, and to inform them of your existence. How much do you think you can make being such a small-time operator? Thousands of nuyen?

You have (b) backwards. Are you telling me that your public awareness is so high that street gangs know about your shadowrunning career and you're notorious enough that they will leave you alone? How is it that the people who engage in this "profitable business" on a much larger scale than you have less resources to bear than you do? And if you are stronger than these gangs, then you can take it all from them and merely pay them a small cut for stealing cars for you.

You're both missing the critical part to the "Hire other Runners to go after them" thing.

Shadowrunners represent five ton bulk cargo containers worth of hurt condensed into a portable can of whoop-ass. No amount of go-gangers, street gangers, gang bangers, or made men are going to equal them on a 1:1 basis. Only heavily-cybered, elite corporate and national special operations groups exceed the amount of danger that one starting Shadowrunner represents, and if the group has any kind of veterancy at all, only Immortal Elves and Dragons exceed them.

It is very, very easy for a small group of professional paranoids who are practicing their profession to slip out of any net you cast. And when they do, they will go hunting for you. These are people who have cultivated a very particular set of skills. A particular set of skills that make them a nightmare to people like mafia bosses, let alone go-gang and chop-shop runners.

Sure, they can't win in a straight-up shoot-out with the entire mob or gang, they just don't have enough initiative passes for it, even if they're all running at the max. It's just too bad that the entire mob and gang will never get the opportunity to engage them in mass combat. Do kindly remember what sort of work these people - Shadowruners - list as the primary line of work on their CV - skills like breaking and entering with extreme prejudice, conjuring spirits which kill you and/or possess you, slinging spells, making every motherboard's son connected to the Matrix their bitch, and supermurdering the living fuck out of everyone in their general vicinity.

Sending Runners after these guys is betting your life on black, and the wheel is rigged red. Sure, your assassin team might succeed, but chances are they won't. Hell, there's a not insignificant chance you actually wound up hiring them (through blinds and disguises and cut-outs) to assassinate themselves, which means you're going to be seeing the business end of your own down-payment. And if you don't get them all, in one clean sweep, your life is forfeit when - not if, when - they find you and pay it back in spades.


All because you begrudged them the profit of a few stolen cars a month in a city where dozens are stolen every night, because that's their sideline when Shadowrunning work that isn't suicidal or insultingly low-priced isn't on offer.


So, do you feel like betting on black? Or are you going to decide that, in fact, there is room in this town for you to let some professionally paranoid supermurderers enjoy a profitable sideline of car thievery to keep the rent payments going in lean months?


Well, if you're an asshole GM, you're gonna bet on black. If you're not, you're gonna realize that the runners' scale of operation is so small as to not impact the profits of the gangs and mobs, and the risk versus reward of taking them out for reasons of face is so upside down that it's on the bottom of the sea.

[Shev]

Let's say everyone does it. The stolen car market gets a huge supply, while the demand will probably stays the same. Prices go down. People stop doing it if they can find better paying stuff (like stealing TVs).

Now let's say that you're in a situation where people in the Barrens are literally starving (which is the case according to some sourcebooks/GM) and that they are exploited either by SINners (working as very cheap illegal workforce) or SINlesses (workers in sweatshops, prostitutes, or people whose business is heavily taxed by the local gang/mafia). In that case, the very low pay for stolen cars is still good enough, and it will stay that way. The only limit is a price so low that people would rather die of starvation than sell stolen cars.

Who do you mean by "everybody"? The ability of Jack SINless to successfully steal a car with no 'ware, no mojo, and no deck is virtually nil. He'll get caught, sent to jail, and assigned a criminal SIN at best. For Jack, rummaging through garbage bins for a half-eaten soyburger is a much better bet of avoiding both starvation and imprisonment.

If you're in a situation where people in the Barrens can get a decent pay one way or another (which is the case according to other sourcebooks/GM), the price will finally find a sweet-spot, which will be the lowest price anyone is willing to work for (since, with our assumptions, car stealing is the default job that anybody can do). So in any case, in that situation, car stealing will be not very profitable compared to other jobs, such as shadowrunning. The difference is what the base price will be. In the first case, Shadowrunning will be better if it pays more than what you need to survive while in the second it will need to be more rewarding than that.

Ah, I think I've found the part you're confused on.

Stealing cars is not something just ANYBODY can do. it's something ANY RUNNER can do, including those fresh out of character creation.

So, does every runner boost cars? Not necessarily. I mean, if there IS a demand for runner services, runner fees will rise until they hit a point where the runners are willing to take the job. This will naturally be above the point where doing a low-risk easy money carjack makes the same amount for much less trouble.

In the case of a carjack team, they've simply not encountered any reasonable Johnsons. So to make ends meet, they carjack. Not every other runner team is doing this, else the lack of willing runners would lead to Johnsons offering more reasonable prices. Or, maybe all the other runner teams are daft adrenaline junkies who just accept their chronic underpayment. Either way, there's no reason to assume there's more competition than normal.

In a criminal setting, there's no limit to what one can do against the competition, as long as it's profitable enough. Violence (or the threat of violence) is often the most efficient solution. And once you've started, the only reason to stop is if you're up against bigger than you. Soon enough, there will be a handful of actors big enough to stand against one another. Just like in any other oligopoly, total competition will soon become a bad idea for them: they'll be better off sharing the market than spending all of their resources and risking what they have to get what's left. So they'll negotiate to share the market... and get rid of all competition that could endanger their activity.

The problem with applying this logic to runner teams is that they are mobile, difficult to track, and punch well above their weight. If I get into a tiff with a mafia, I can target their establishments, their line members, and their operations. With runners, you have to invest a non-trival amount of money just to find the bloody bastards. Or I could simply ask for my cut, and they'll probably give it to me because they're as interested in spending time and money burning my organization to the ground as I am in spending time and money squelching a freelance black ops team.

This will, pretty much, always happen, especially in a criminal setting where there are no laws to limit competition. So the first solution becomes irrelevant in regard to the second: no matter how hard to do something is, there will be an oligopoly (or monopoly) dominating the market. Since there are nothing to prevent these top actors to invest in all possible fields, the biggest ones will soon control mostly everything as long as it's profitable. That's why you will have criminal syndicate dominating every criminal businesses except possibly for some niche where other actors are already there and too costly to overthrow (for example Tamanous in the organ-legging business).

Bolded the important bit. The same applies to runners, only more so for reasons outlined above.

You have (b) backwards. Are you telling me that your public awareness is so high that street gangs know about your shadowrunning career and you're notorious enough that they will leave you alone? How is it that the people who engage in this "profitable business" on a much larger scale than you have less resources to bear than you do? And if you are stronger than these gangs, then you can take it all from them and merely pay them a small cut for stealing cars for you.

I'm a little curious as to how the gang finds out who you are to begin with. It's not like you're physically jacking the cars, and they're not going to have the matrix muscle to track down the decker. I do suppose they could shake down the guy you're selling to, but if you've been smart he's only ever dealt with the team face. The gangs options at this point are very, very limited. I'd like to hear from you what you think the gang could do to actually even discover the team identities, let alone where they live and hang out.

Well, if you're an asshole GM, you're gonna bet on black. If you're not, you're gonna realize that the runners' scale of operation is so small as to not impact the profits of the gangs and mobs, and the risk versus reward of taking them out for reasons of face is so upside down that it's on the bottom of the sea.

Nah, if you're not an asshole GM you're just going to have the Johnsons offer fees in line with freelance black ops work and not force the group to carjack to pay the bills.

[Shemhazai]

@ShadowDragon8586

I see where you're coming from. What I disagree with are the amount of money per chopped vehicle, the police not caring to get involved, the inability of criminal organizations to hire people that are more than a match for the player characters or otherwise overpower them, and the possibility that either the victim will be capable of revenge or something will happen to the car in the Barrens before you can make the sale.

I'm a little curious as to how the gang finds out who you are to begin with. It's not like you're physically jacking the cars, and they're not going to have the matrix muscle to track down the decker. I do suppose they could shake down the guy you're selling to, but if you've been smart he's only ever dealt with the team face. The gangs options at this point are very, very limited. I'd like to hear from you what you think the gang could do to actually even discover the team identities, let alone where they live and hang out.

Presisely through the face. I even typed that out explicitly but revised my post to be shorter. The team's face, and presumably those sent along for backup will be the weak link here. A way around that is to hire people to negotiate for you who can't be traced back to the player characters, reducing the haul by the amount you have to pay them.

If you want to do this, get a few extra skills, particularly knowledge skills, get the right contacts, make careful plans, including legwork, spend a little money to CYA, and prepare for chopped car parts to be worth far less than rulebook values for new vehicles for PCs.

So regarding the chop shop shakedown, if you go in with no relevant contacts, don't be surprised if the place you find is run by the cousin of someone who might take an interest. Or maybe not. They probably won't care if it's just a few cars. My idea was that the people who steal cars professionally and the ones who cut them up for spare parts may be as thick as thieves, but maybe it's actually better for the shop owners to do business with whoever. But what if that person is part of a sting operation? How would that possibility affect their willingness to conduct illegal business with that person?

Oh yes, back to being traced by them. Are we assuming they can't get astral help, or would that end in a flipped table? If the players are assumed to be untracable, even when dealing face to face, then yeah, they can pretty much do whatever they want. Just bust open a gold and diamonds shop, fill your van and drive off. It's a cheeseball way to start off with unlimited starting nuyen.

[Shev]

Presisely through the face. I even typed that out explicitly but revised my post to be shorter. The team's face, and presumably those sent along for backup will be the weak link here. A way around that is to hire people to negotiate for you who can't be traced back to the player characters, reducing the haul by the amount you have to pay them.

Easy solutions:

1. Hire a guy to do the biz, as you suggested. Not that optimal because not only do you have to pay him/her, they can still be shaken down themselves.
2. Have the face do the talking. It's what he's skilled at, and to boot most faces have pretty good disguise skills. Downside here is that the face can be attacked by the gang. Though the team is perfectly capable of rooting out a ganger ambush, (if gangers can take you by surprise, you don't deserve to call yourself runners) it takes time and resources away from money-making. Still, could easily scare the gang away if you do enough damage before they cut and run.
3. Talk through the car. It's not like your decker doesn't have full control of the thing when he remotely directs it into the chop-shop. Use a voice modulator, and have the chop-shop guy slot his cred into the car door, completing the transaction and giving him full control over the car. Boom, done. Best the gangers can do is meet the car at the shop and smash it up, which is when they say hello to Mr. Angry-To-Be-On-This-Plane Elemental and several Programmed-To-Be-Angry hoverdrones with lots of ammo. Suddenly, the gang finds itself in a shadow war with a complete unknown who obviously has a lot of firepower at their disposal. I don't think they'd try to stop the transaction more than once with that setup.

If you want to do this, get a few extra skills, particularly knowledge skills, get the right contacts, make careful plans, including legwork, spend a little money to CYA, and prepare for chopped car parts to be worth far less than rulebook values for new vehicles for PCs.

Most runners that I've seen have the contacts and background skills already, or know someone who does. After all, that's what fixers are for. I would certainly call bullshit on a GM trying to screw me out of what the rulebook lists as the sell price, however. The fact that the item is "hot" and has to be broken down into parts to be sold is already accounted for by the fact that I'm getting 30% sell price.

So regarding the chop shop shakedown, if you go in with no relevant contacts, don't be surprised if the place you find is run by the cousin of someone who might take an interest. Or maybe not. They probably won't care if it's just a few cars. My idea was that the people who steal cars professionally and the ones who cut them up for spare parts may be as thick as thieves, but maybe it's actually better for the shop owners to do business with whoever. But what if that person is part of a sting operation? How would that possibility affect their willingness to conduct illegal business with that person?

No different than finding and utilizing any other fence in the game. Again, this is why you have fixers: they fix you up with the people you need to do biz.

Of course, there's always the question of why they can't fix you up with a Johnson who pays reasonable rates, but hey.

Oh yes, back to being traced by them. Are we assuming they can't get astral help, or would that end in a flipped table? If the players are assumed to be untracable, even when dealing face to face, then yeah, they can pretty much do whatever they want. Just bust open a gold and diamonds shop, fill your van and drive off. It's a cheeseball way to start off with unlimited starting nuyen.

If it's a gang and not the Ancients, Cutters, or Merlyns, a single (mediocre at best) street mage or shaman is pushing it but doable. Of course, this doesn't do any good for scenario 3 above, and for 1 & 2 one would presume the team would have astral cover of their own in place.

No one is assuming the players are untraceable no matter what. It's that the amount of effort required to trace a half-way competent team of shadowrunners is so out of line with the value of the car it's not even funny. Anyone who has the resources to reliably do it has bigger fish to fry. Which brings us to what you said to Shadowdragon:

@ShadowDragon8586

I see where you're coming from. What I disagree with are the amount of money per chopped vehicle, the police not caring to get involved, the inability of criminal organizations to hire people that are more than a match for the player characters or otherwise overpower them, and the possibility that either the victim will be capable of revenge or something will happen to the car in the Barrens before you can make the sale.

1. The amount of money per vehicle is more or less set in the rulebook. If players are lifting cars, it's because you already had the Johnson try to stiff them. Actually going against the prices in the rulebook just so you can stiff them again is going to lead to even less happy players.
2. I'm just going to drop a little anecdote here: My first day of grad school, one of the guys finds out his customed-out-the-wazoo motorcycle was stolen over the night. He actually missed class because he was filing the report. They caught the guys on video, though no faces. It was a gang of professional thieves, and the cops basically told him "Yeah, they come through here occasionally." Two years later, and the police have done jack squat. I seriously doubt Lone Star/Knight Errant are going to be any more concerned than actual, real-life cops. Bike was worth about 100,000, by the way. Poor guy was in tears.
3. Syndicates are certainly capable of hiring people to go after the runners. However, such runners are going to be expensive. It makes much more sense for the Mafia to ask for a cut than to to try and take down a black ops team on general principle. Syndicates don't last long if they don't have an eye for noticing and subverting talent.
4a. If you're stealing a limo, sure. If you're stealing a high end SUV, then the dude files a police report, collects his insurance, and goes on with his life. This guy probably has less ability to find and take on the PCs than your average gang. You can pull the whole "Wow, one in a million, you just stole the discreet backup car of *insert important and influential person here*" precisely once before it strains suspension of disbelief.
4b. This is probably the way most cars get lost: some random asshole/gang rides up and beats the drek out of/outright destroys the car just for kicks. You can either defend it remotely, or just shrug and have your decker jack another; not like cars are difficult to find.

[Cain]

Shadowrunning as a profession makes sense to me.

If the payouts aren't high enough for the skills required, then the profession doesn't make sense. Thus, if shadowrunning doesn't pay more than stealing cars, no one will be a shadowrunner.

Really, shadowrunning as a profession only makes sense if a bunch of factors come together just right. It's a conceit of the setting that those elements always come together, even when it doesn't fit the setting anymore. Originally, the reason shadowrunners had to be SINless was because it made them easier to get around unnoticed. The new matrix actually turns that into a liability. We'll need new genre conventions to fix things.

[tete]

So, since shadowrunners = adventurers, you need to think of the D&D treasure tables to set your payouts.

QFT

Also to the point of payout for professional crooks look to hollywood. Ronin for example where Bob says if its going to be armature night he wants 100k upfront and 100k on delivery for each of them.

If we want to look at real life for an example computer contractors generally get a year of salary for 3 to 9 months of work and that is LEGAL WORK. Its not uncommon for someone to double their current pay rate for a short term contract. I generally get offered about 150% for 6 month contracts. Based on that and low lifestyle cost I would think a total n00b runner should be pulling in around 1000 to 5000 a week (at least) and as they gain rep a lot more. Its got to pay enough over flipping burgers to be worth the risk.

[binarywraith]

If the payouts aren't high enough for the skills required, then the profession doesn't make sense. Thus, if shadowrunning doesn't pay more than stealing cars, no one will be a shadowrunner.

Really, shadowrunning as a profession only makes sense if a bunch of factors come together just right. It's a conceit of the setting that those elements always come together, even when it doesn't fit the setting anymore. Originally, the reason shadowrunners had to be SINless was because it made them easier to get around unnoticed. The new matrix actually turns that into a liability. We'll need new genre conventions to fix things.

Or, you know, writers working on the setting with coordination and a more than surface understanding of the setting's conventions and history. There are a few still working for Catalyst, but not nearly enough.

[Cain]

Or, you know, writers working on the setting with coordination and a more than surface understanding of the setting's conventions and history. There are a few still working for Catalyst, but not nearly enough.

That still requires a strong editorial direction. Honestly, you could have the best writers in the world right now, without an editor with the vision to bring them together, it's useless.

[ShadowDragon8685]

I would point out that, even for a team whose GM doesn't make a habit of stiffing them, scalping the occasional car could be worth it, if, say, your budget suddenly fails to line up to the tune of four digits and you need that nuyen within a day (and don't want to take a loan from your friendly neighborhood loan shark, or even your Fixer,) or just for the lulz.

But yeah, if the Johnsons are all being tightwads, and the GM then tries to stiff you on the pre-set "fencing novahot goods price" for a freshly stolen car, I'd be furious, too, and probably explain to him, OOC, that we're jacking cars because we find the prices he's trying to offer us appallingly low, and that if he keeps this up, he can narrate his game to an empty table!

Or, you know, it's also good for when you're just starting the game, and you want to beef up the amount of cash you have to get started with.

1. Hire a guy to do the biz, as you suggested. Not that optimal because not only do you have to pay him/her, they can still be shaken down themselves.
2. Have the face do the talking. It's what he's skilled at, and to boot most faces have pretty good disguise skills. Downside here is that the face can be attacked by the gang. Though the team is perfectly capable of rooting out a ganger ambush, (if gangers can take you by surprise, you don't deserve to call yourself runners) it takes time and resources away from money-making. Still, could easily scare the gang away if you do enough damage before they cut and run.
3. Talk through the car. It's not like your decker doesn't have full control of the thing when he remotely directs it into the chop-shop. Use a voice modulator, and have the chop-shop guy slot his cred into the car door, completing the transaction and giving him full control over the car. Boom, done. Best the gangers can do is meet the car at the shop and smash it up, which is when they say hello to Mr. Angry-To-Be-On-This-Plane Elemental and several Programmed-To-Be-Angry hoverdrones with lots of ammo. Suddenly, the gang finds itself in a shadow war with a complete unknown who obviously has a lot of firepower at their disposal. I don't think they'd try to stop the transaction more than once with that setup.

Don't forget
4. Have a good, reliable, high-Loyalty Fence, possibly even specializing in autos, as a contact. Suddenly you get your 30%, and don't even have to negotiate. (And when you need a vehicle, you have your man right there.)
5. Hand the car off to your Fixer. He'll probably want 10% of the total car's value, cutting you down to 20%, but he'll take the car off your hands with as much lack of negotiation time as 4 will.

4a. If you're stealing a limo, sure. If you're stealing a high end SUV, then the dude files a police report, collects his insurance, and goes on with his life. This guy probably has less ability to find and take on the PCs than your average gang. You can pull the whole "Wow, one in a million, you just stole the discreet backup car of *insert important and influential person here*" precisely once before it strains suspension of disbelief.

Generally speaking, yeah. You're going to want to stay away from vehicles owned by Organizations or People with Power. So nicking a limousine, unless it was owned by a rental limo company, is a bad idea. Nicking police cars, delivery vans belonging to powerful corps, etcetera, also not a good idea. When you're perpetrating this kind of cash-harvesting criminality, you want to prey on people who are small and insignificant, lacking in resources and contacts, so all they can do is file their police report and insurance claim and bitch on the 'trix about how it's not even safe to leave your car parked in your own garage these days.

Of course, this does mean you should run at least a cursory background check on the people whose car you're about to boost, and you should, as I mentioned, have a team in the Barrens, somewhere which is both not near the entrance and not near the chop shop, to investigate the vehicle, for two reasons.

The first reason is for added value: people often leave valuables on or attached to their cars, and a ten speed bicycle is easily a good 50 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) extra, or your Street Sam might want it for himself. You might find a credstick in the glovebox, someone's emergency rainy day fund, and you see no reason the chop shop guys should get to have it when you can have it yourself.

The second reason is, if you happen to find a car which is modded out like five nines, or has like, ten kilos of novacoke concealed within it, you're going to want to discretely return it, so you don't piss off some Shadowrunner, drug cartel, or VIP. Though really, it kind of is their own fault for modding the car out or hiding novacoke in it, and not replacing the vehicle's dogbrain with like, a Rating 5 commlink running Rating 5 IC or something.

On that note, if the Hacker ever has reason to suspect the electronic security of the car has been enhanced at all from factory standard, walk away. You don't know who it belongs to, but even if they're just Joe Q. Public with a few dots of Electronics, they take their security seriously enough to actually do something about it, and that alone should be enough to earn them a pass from this kind of trawling-for-money anonymous and impersonal criminality.

Not only on general principles ("Hey, this guy's not as dumb as the average moron who leaves the default admin password on his commlink, he doesn't deserve to have his month ruined,") but because you want to foster the impression that taking any kind of active interest in your security puts you above 99% of intrusion, so that when Joe Q. Public's friend comes into the purview of an actual Shadowrun, he'll think his slightly-upgraded security will actually protect him from the likes of you.

4b. This is probably the way most cars get lost: some random asshole/gang rides up and beats the drek out of/outright destroys the car just for kicks. You can either defend it remotely, or just shrug and have your decker jack another; not like cars are difficult to find.

Yep. Think about it: The car isn't actually yours. What do you care if it gets the shit beat out of it and gets stolen from you. It's a trivial matter to steal the next-nearest model of the same car and drive it down.

If they do it again, that's when the pissed-off Spirit materializes and wrecks their shit, and if your magician feels like putting in the effort to make it a Force 5 Spirit, the average go-gang is going to be utterly annihilated. And if they're the Ancients, well...

You do have an Ancients contact, right? Call your friendly local Ancients Lieutenant (the one you're banging every other week and wholesaling the guns you steal off the rentagoons to,) slip her a few hundred nuyen and/or the D, and ask her to politely ask her friends to let driverless cars in the area of XYZ at ABC hour pass unmolested.

[Medicineman]

as a slightly Offtopic Question:
Do You know the Movie : Ghost Dog, Way of the Samurai ?
If you don't you should really ( REALLY) watch it (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

with a Dance of the Samurais
Medicineman

[JesterZero]

Caveat: I'm typing this out of an interest of simply correcting some misconceptions some folks seem to have about th economics of car theft in the real world. I'm not really interested in defending or attacking the SR rules regarding black market sales, which are...problematic...to say the least. But if anyone out there wants to do a wee bit of worldbuilding and houseruling, you should probably know the following:

• In the real world, car theft is increasingly uncommon. Depending on where you live, car theft is down between about 60% to 90% in the past 25 years. For example, there were about 7,400 cars reported stolen in New York City in 2013. That's about 20 per day. That's not as high as you might expect in a population of 8.5 million people and about 2 million registered vehicles. And to be fair, New York has seen more decline than some other places, but in the entire country you're looking at approximately 721k thefts out of 254 million registered vehicles per year.
• One reason for this is economic. Shadowrun posits that you can sell goods on the black market for 20%-30% of retail. In some cases (such as guns), this is crazy low (street value of a gun is typically slightly more than 100% of retail); in the case of cars however, this is generally crazy-high. At least as of a couple years ago, chop shops in the US were paying in the mid-to-high single digits (percentage-wise) for opportunistic thefts. To put that in perspective, I drive a 9-year old car that I originally paid about $20k for. KBB tells me that I could probably get about $8.5k in a private-party sale today. A chop shop would probably give me up to $600 for it (in some markets, like the aforementioned NYC, that could go as low as 50% less). For comparison purposes, that's the value of about two stolen iPhones, which unlike cars, can fit in your pocket and are often stolen by thieves whose primary skill is running away fast.
• Another reason is that stealing cars is pretty hard. Sure, a professional thief of any kind can usually successfully steal nearly anything from Joe Citizen given sufficient motivation and preparation, but engine-immobilization devices and locator systems aren't typically surmountable by your average street hood. This means that a lot of cars simply fall into gap where they are too daunting for a non-professional, and not valuable enough for an actual professional to bother with. In this case, the non-professional thieves just aren't keeping up with the emerging countermeasures. My model started including them in 2001, and thefts of that model are down almost 85% since that happened.
• Most cars that are stolen are not stolen with intent to profit. Statistics on this are bit harder to come by, but some estimates are that as few as about 25% of cars that are stolen are actually sold (either for parts, or whole). The vast majority of thefts are related to either simple joyriding or the commission of another crime. I had a family member whose car was stolen, and we recovered it a couple days later...after it was used in a robbery. Once that was done, they simply ditched it. Also, a significant percentage of stolen vehicles are accessible to thieves because the keys were stolen first(see previous comment about anti-theft devices), usually as part of a break-in, or less commonly, a mugging.
• Not all for-profit thefts are equal. Generally, in roughly-descending order of profit margin you have: stealing a particular or high-end car with intent to resell it whole, opportunistic theft of a car with intent to sell it whole, stealing a particular car with intent to sell it for parts, opportunistic theft of a car with intent to steal it for parts, and stealing a car with intent to sell it for scrap. (And keep in mind, those middle three categories can vary quite a bit). I have no idea what the truly high-end market looks like these days (a la "Gone in 60 Seconds"), but I do know that chop shops were typically paying in the mid-hundreds to low thousands (depending on the vehicle), and most scrapyards aren't allowed to give you more than about $1k unless you can show title (and typically the car has to be beyond a certain age as well, usually 8-10 years).

Again, I'm fully aware that both the Shadowrun world and the Shadowrun rules... imperfectly...reflect the near-present day US (most of those numbers above are from 2012-2014), but hopefully that's useful as a basis if you want to strike out on your own. You could get a lot of mileage out of simply breaking black market sale prices out by sub-category, but I'll leave that as an exercise for folks who want to do that (FWIW, that's what we did; we also spent a fair bit of time re-jiggering costs across the board).

[ShadowDragon8685]

Do remember that thanks to the balkanization of states and Megacorps, which frequently don't get along with one another to the point of actively welcoming those who break laws in their rials' territories, it will be very easy - especially in Seattle - to ship a stolen car to another market entirely where you can gray market it perfectly legitimately. Nobody in the CAS is going to give one damn if a car was stolen from some schmuck in the UCAS, for instance.

[Sendaz]

Just keep in mind do NOT bother lifting the Azzie Adobe as nobody, not even most chop shops, will take it. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

as a slightly Offtopic Question:
Do You know the Movie : Ghost Dog, Way of the Samurai ?
If you don't you should really ( REALLY) watch it (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

with a Dance of the Samurais
Medicineman

It is an awesome movie indeed... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Shev]

You bring up some good points JesterZero, and thinking them through was a fun exercise. ShadowDragon touched on the price issue, so I'll take a look at the rest.

Another reason is that stealing cars is pretty hard. Sure, a professional thief of any kind can usually successfully steal nearly anything from Joe Citizen given sufficient motivation and preparation, but engine-immobilization devices and locator systems aren't typically surmountable by your average street hood. This means that a lot of cars simply fall into gap where they are too daunting for a non-professional, and not valuable enough for an actual professional to bother with. In this case, the non-professional thieves just aren't keeping up with the emerging countermeasures. My model started including them in 2001, and thefts of that model are down almost 85% since that happened.

This goes back to what I was saying earlier, namely that not just any Jack can jack a car. The only ones who probably do it with any regularity are street gangs, who rely less on not being traced and more on pure anarchy in certain parts of Seattle. Runners are professionals, professionals who normally wouldn't bother with such small change as you said. The whole point of the carjack thought experiment is to serve as a guide to GMs on how to price their run payouts: if your runner can make as much or more money by doing something so small-time and beneath them, that's a sign you're not paying enough.

Most cars that are stolen are not stolen with intent to profit. Statistics on this are bit harder to come by, but some estimates are that as few as about 25% of cars that are stolen are actually sold (either for parts, or whole). The vast majority of thefts are related to either simple joyriding or the commission of another crime. I had a family member whose car was stolen, and we recovered it a couple days later...after it was used in a robbery. Once that was done, they simply ditched it. Also, a significant percentage of stolen vehicles are accessible to thieves because the keys were stolen first(see previous comment about anti-theft devices), usually as part of a break-in, or less commonly, a mugging.

That sounds about right. Thrill gangs, or dumb kids seeing a running car and taking it for a spin. And the only times my group has actually stolen a car was when we needed a quick ride that couldn't be traced to a fake ID. The non-pros don't have the skills and conctact to sell a car even if they do get their hands on one, the pros have more use for a temporary getaway than bothering with a chopshop.

Not all for-profit thefts are equal. Generally, in roughly-descending order of profit margin you have: stealing a particular or high-end car with intent to resell it whole, opportunistic theft of a car with intent to sell it whole, stealing a particular car with intent to sell it for parts, opportunistic theft of a car with intent to steal it for parts, and stealing a car with intent to sell it for scrap. (And keep in mind, those middle three categories can vary quite a bit). I have no idea what the truly high-end market looks like these days (a la "Gone in 60 Seconds"), but I do know that chop shops were typically paying in the mid-hundreds to low thousands (depending on the vehicle), and most scrapyards aren't allowed to give you more than about $1k unless you can show title (and typically the car has to be beyond a certain age as well, usually 8-10 years).

Depending on the chopshop contact and the group, I imagine the runners would be able to find out what cars were selling for the highest price vs. what's needed in bulk and determine what cars to steal from there. Also, I can't imagine any of the shops you're taking it to in SR would ask for a title. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

I think the TL;DR of this whole thread is "Can the PCs make money off of stealing and selling cars? Absolutely. Should they forced into doing so because it pays better than the actual black ops shadow work they assembled to do in the first place? Absolutely not."

[Sendaz]

I think the TL;DR of this whole thread is "Can the PCs make money off of stealing and selling cars? Absolutely. Should they forced into doing so because it pays better than the actual black ops shadow work they assembled to do in the first place? Absolutely not."

+1

[binarywraith]

I'm curious where you live that engine immobilizers are even a remote concern for a car thief, JesterZero. They aren't standard equipment on anything except for a few of the OnStar models as far as I'm aware.

Not to mention that they're pointless for this discussion given that the whole assumption here is that a group of shadowrunners has a Matrix asset on their side in the first place, which makes shutting down the vehicle remotely a pointless concept given that part of the theft is the rigger or decker on the team already having spoofed that system to accept him/her as the legitimate owner.

[Shev]

I think, Binary, Jester was just giving the lowdown on car theft as it exists today, not as it applies to Shadowrun.

[JesterZero]

Also, I can't imagine any of the shops you're taking it to in SR would ask for a title. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Just to clarify, there's a difference between selling a car for parts and selling it for scrap.

• Selling it for parts typically involves a chop-shop, which is itself an illegal entity. And from everything I know, they typically pay somewhere in the neighborhood of 4% to 7% of KBB. Occasionally they pay slightly more, but usually that's for a particular model of vehicle that they currently have a need for, often related to a larger enterprise of re-VINning some specific cars. And no, they're not going to ask for ID. They are probably going to want some kind of reference though, although police tactics lately have focused more on impersonating buyers rather than sellers (for example, you can look up Operation: Buyback in NYC from a year or two ago).
• Selling a car for scrap typically involves a scrapyard or junkyard, which is itself a legal entity. The disadvantage is that you have to show ID, and unless you can also show title, the car must be over x years old (where x typically is equal to 8-10), and the scrapyard caps your payout at around $1k. So the upside of a scrapyard is that you don't have to have any underworld contacts, but the downside is that you do have to have some sort of better-than-average fake ID, and you're generally limited to cars that are over a certain age, which limits your options. On the bright side, it's less of a factor that these older cars have diminished value, because you are literally selling them for their materials. In many cases, this means that substantially older cars (which contain more metal) have a higher scrap value than newer-older cars (which contain more plastic).

Someone also mentioned that Shadowrun's Seattle setting has proximity to a lot of borders that would make stealing cars potentially more attractive. That's probably true, and if you wanted real-world data, California's I-5 corridor (with it's relative proximity to Mexico) would be a better approximation than NYC. Case in point, car thefts in NY have diminished 95% in the last 25 years, but have only dropped by 61% during the same period in CA. It's expected that places like CA will continue to see a decline in stolen vehicles as cars without the newer anti-theft devices are slowly replaced by those that do have them, but unless you're going to model that sort of thing for your Shadowrun world, it probably isn't worth going into here.

Mostly I wanted to hit on the difference between selling a car for parts and for scrap, since that is something that might be immediately useful given that different SR characters have different types of gear and connections. Chop shops generally assume the burden of technical know-how, but in return they require some sort of connection with their customers to avoid getting busted. Successfully selling a stolen car to a junkyard actually requires more technical know-how on the part of the seller, since you need a way to make the trail go cold (e.g. fake ID) when it's discovered that the vehicle you sold was stolen.

Anyhow, I'll stop now. The economics of crime is a particular interest of mine, so I just wanted to try to curtail a few assumptions that seemed more rooted in GTA or Hollywood than reality. If people start talking about the payouts involved in organ-legging or contract killing, I may drop back in. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)