Nuyen rewards, prices from MJLBB Options Track this topic Email this topic Print this topic Download this topic Subscribe to this forum Display Modes Switch to: Outline Standard Switch to: Linear+

[Otaku On Acid]

I'm planning on running my first shadowrun game so I decided to pick up a copy of MJLBB. Reading through I found alot of the information was useful until I came to the sample runs and I just got sticker shocked. What I'm wondering is how accurate are the prices listen in that compared to what people give out?
I'm trying to decide if they're appriopate for the game I plan on running or wheter I need to shore up the nuyen a little. I'm planning on running a dark and gritty atmosphere, but I still want to give the players enough nuyen and cash to allow for some, gradual, improvent. However going by the prices in MJLBB it would take a street samuri 12 runs to afford a Level 1 adrenal pump, and that's not counting any money he needs to pay out in contacts maintenance, life styles, run expenses, and etc... I understand trying to limit characters growth but the rewards offered just seem so pathetic I can't imagine why anyone with 1 milliion nuyen worth of cyberware in them would even bother.

[JaronK]

Well, really good runners can get really good pay, but I find it more interesting to set the pay low, and make little side quests, as it were, in the mission to get more money. For example, the mission is to break in to the facility and plant a virus... but there's a storage room full of BTL chips in there as well, and some paydata on the mainframe. If they just do the run straight, they get a little cash, but if they get creative or curious, there's more danger and more cash.

JaronK

[Sphynx]

I set the pay very high personally. I want players to enjoy every aspect of the game, and this allows not only the ability to use powerful elementals, ritually sustained spells, and expendable foci, but it also is the ONLY way samurai characters can feel equal to magic types in advancement (look at how much it cost in both time and nuyen to install something like a Beta/Delta/Cultured).

Realism gives way to Fun often in my games. Besides, the way I see it, a good "run" should be able to put your team in Luxury Lifestyle for a couple of weeks. Of course, you'd be in a bigger shock if you saw the Nuyen I give... Since they only get a good payment once every few months (up to a year even). Like when they ran Bug City, or the Amazon area, their "loot" wasn't sellable for months until they got back into the city. Fairness said that the loot should be worth a buttock-load, so the sammies could "catch up" on their off-time.

Sphynx

[Dashifen]

I generally hand out more than what they provided as a base pay. For example, I just ended up paying runners around 10k nuyen for a run. 'Course, that being said it totally depends on what they need to do, what they face, and how good their negotiation's roll is :)

[nezumi]

I generally used to aim at around $10k-$20k per run, but I was pretty gentle on contact maintenance, cyber repair etc. Plus, I had no problem with letting players loot corpses or what not, and they could sometimes get some nice gear that way. Reading through the books though, the pay is usually much higher. The beginning run for players in First Run is $20k, if memory serves. That's for an easy job, enter the back door, grab a case and return with it, no security concerns, no preparation required. Earlier books tend to pay even more. $50k per character is common, plus medical expenses, free contacts, and looted gear including a Fairlight Excalibur (retail of a cool $1M).

The characters will want to improve themselves. Handicapping them with money is fine and good, as long as you give them another avenue to pursue to get their gear. In the case of the sam's adrenal gland, give him a run with a biotech firm. They're willing to give him the gland at wholesale price, and install it for free, cutting the price to lower than half, 3 - 5 runs instead of 12 (better than that, if you remember the SI). On the way, the mage gets into a fight with an ambitious gator shaman and 'inherits' a level 2 Power focus. They still get paid barely enough to keep eating, but they still get a chance to really grow.

[Cray74]

Lately I've been paying 1-5K per run, sometimes less for "small favors" for Mr. Johnson, who sort of had them on retainer for very odd (but safe) jobs. For real runs they nose up to the 5-20K region.

And I have no urge to pay much more until they turn into super runners who assassinate dragons and have beers with Damien Knight. That's because they *always* manage to earn some major nuyen every so many runs.

They'll get into a fight with some elite corporate troops and walk away with 300K nuyen from re-sold cyberware. They'll spot the Fairlight Excaliber the corporate decker had and sell it. A hostile mage will have a high value power focus on her. There'll be some paydata on the extracted corp scientist's PocketSecretary worth a fortune. Etc.

It's like the runs are just medium-risk business ventures to them. If nothing turns up, they got enough money from Mr. Johnson to cover ammo and booze. If it goes wrong, well, there's always next time. But after a while, they find that phat l00t and can afford that adrenal pump or rigged car or permanent lifestyle or whatever.

But YMMV.

[mfb]

i wanna play in sphynx's game, where the cyber types have to scramble to keep up with the magical types.

my runner generally charges 10k for a one-shot run--go to location X and kill/plant/grab Y. he's charged that price from his first time in the game up until now, ~200 karma later.

[Krieger]

I don't own a copy of MJLBB, but I do know that in the back of SR Comp they list prices for the different types of runs (smash and grab, assassination, etc.). At first I thought these were really low for what they were, but one of our more experienced players/GM's informed us that those were costs per skill. For example, if the average primary skill level for the team is 5, then you take the price for assassination (we'll say :nuyen:10,000), multiply, and there you have it (per runner).

[mfb]

the SL Comp also mentions that a good rule of thumb is that, for a one-run-per-month campaign, a runner should get paid enough to cover his living expenses plus gear expenditure. this isn't a bad idea; it makes sure that the runners can keep their heads above water as long as they don't hose up too badly; and it means that they have to work extra-hard to advance. it's also a good way to make sure your group's munchkins aren't maintaining low or street lifestyles, and spending the extra money on cyberware/foci/whatever.

[GrinderTheTroll]

I try and temper the Nuyen reward with some of these things in mind:

1) MRJ needs the runners, else he could hire some regular employees to do it (for company wage).
2) What are the material costs for the run? Why should a runner spend 20k on supplies to make 10k? Would a day job pay more?
3) Mission importance and relavence. What might be a simple task for runners, might be so important to MRJ that they might over-pay just to get the job done right.

...To name a few.

[mmu1]

Most SR publications try to sell the idea that runners are in the business for more than just the money - to "rage against the machine", "live free or die", and other varieties of what's also known as teenage angst. ;)

I never bought it - at least not when it comes to any runs offered by Mr.Johnson, the corporate whore. I expect to be very well paid for those.

I might spend some of that on random acts of kindness if I'm so inclined, but that's just another reason not to work for peanuts.

[Kagetenshi]

Like gangers that you pick up off the street? :)

Note that that is an entirely literal usage of the phrase "pick up".

~J

[Edward]

As a player I want my average monthly pay to be slightly hire than my living expenses. If I have a medium lifestyle. A low lifestyle safe house and regular medical expenses your looking at well over 6k per month. Riggers, high cyber characters (needing maintenance) heretics that maintain elementals and characters with high lifestyles need more. (I believe my rigger needed to be getting 10k before he was wiling to power up his drones. (actually not powering them up didn’t save me anything)I wouldn’t lunch the spotted dragon for les than the 5K it cost to fire its weapons systems). Paying 1-5k per run is ok if you’re doing several runs a month. But in general the pay (as apposed to the extras) should keep your lifestyle and equipment running.

I don’t mind loosing stuff to plot or mishap but not getting enough work to pay the bills sucks (and if the hole teem is in that boat your just asking for a self funded run of the type that GMs hate. I like drone raids but robing a legit cyber clinic that focuses on brain wear is also good. (5 encephalon’s, 24 data jacks, 5 alpha data jacks 15 sets of cyber eyes with assorted preinstalled modifications a orienteering system and special recogniser. All in original packaging. A bundle of anaesthetic that can be converted into tranq rounds and all the surgical equipment we could carry.

Edward

[FrostyNSO]

Dude, pay your runners at least more than they could make managing a Nacho Mama.

I've been paying roughly 20k per run, but we're in a sort of drought so we've only made about 10k a piece. Every once in a while it's nice to tease the runners with a big score. These are rare and pretty tough. On our last "big score" we ended up taking the fall for a corporate type and needless to say didn't get paid. This did a great job to make the runners a little more appreciative of their 10 to 20k "honest" runs, but the cash hasn't been much of a drawback because we're mostly "people people".

[lacemaker]

I personally hate the side-quest model and accordingly pay enough to discourage it. Nothing is more damaging to the flow and tone of a game than a team of runners who feel the need to stop and steal the heavy pistol from every sec-guard they take down - but if you pay them just enough to cover lifestyle that's exactly what they'll do.

As well as hating the rigmarole of searching the bodies and feeling that it detracts from any sense of professionalism or significance, I don't do it just because it doesn't make much sense. If runners are earning the vast bulk of their payoff by stealing things and selling them then why the hell are they bothering with the whole "get mission from Mr Johnson, make a plan, get the item he wants, blah, blah, blah" portion of their profession - if they're really just looters who get paid a bonus for the occasional specific piece of loot then why don't they just get serious about looting - back a truck up to the corp facility and steal the air conditioners and desktop computers?

Finally, low pay (and by that I mean lifestyle+basic maintenance provided things go right kind of level that seem to be suggested by sourcebooks but never applied in actual modules) not only removes certain kinds of advancement, it removes great swathes of options from the run itself - what kind of professionals won't summon an elemental because it would eat up most of their pay, or won't buy a drone or piece of software for the raid because they can't justify it economically? Reasonably professional teams should be happy to make sensible expenditures to help them on the run, they shouldn't be worrying about how every 100 nuyen bribe eats into their bottom line.

Kitty cat runs for starting characters which pay accordingly are fun for a very brief while. Likewise the occasional underpaid or unpaid run is a great change of pace, and brings ideas like limited resources and the possiblity of loot into the frame as a useful change of focus. But as a general rule incredibly talented professionals taking on life-threatening work should not by buying their equipment from cost-co and they should not be stopping to loot the boides on the way through so they can make enough to improve.

[mmu1]

[Corporate Raider]

I tend to pay at rates higher than the books suggest as well. Paying a street sam with 1 million in body mods to perform felonies on behalf of a stranger, no questions asked, should expect to be paid more than 2-3K.

From a player's standpoint, most of my characters will have the attitude that a Johnson will get what he pays for. If he pays top rate, he'll get a professional run with no side trips. If he pays peanuts, he should expect that the team will take more than the prototype he's after and sell the rest to the highest bidder. And he shouldn't be surprised when sees on the trid that the corp security chief bled out 'cause the runners cut off his cyberarm to organleg after they took him down.

[Siege]

That's one of the problems with unrestricted character creation - 1 million nuyen samurai and similar characters tend to be amazingly high-powered which skews the balance of the overall group.

-Siege

[toturi]

[Siege]

Because a one million nuyen samurai requires more money to maintain his systems, which impacts directly on how much money the character needs and subsequently the amount of money charged or requested for a given job.

Which can prove a difficult for the GM and how much money he wants floating in the game.

-Siege

[Jason Farlander]

I havent gotten my hands on a copy of that book yet... does it provide advice on how often runners should be recieving job offers? I mean, if youre constantly running - getting a simple 2000 nuyen job every five days or so - thats enough to live a high lifestyle - or a low lifestyle while accumulating some serious cash.

While one version of success would be to get to the point where youre being offered harder, higher-paying jobs, another version might be to complete your jobs efficiently enough that theres always something for you to make money doing. I mean, if you are sufficiently competent that those little jobs really arent life threatening anymore, 2K nuyen for a night's work really isnt shabby.

[mfb]

that's addressed in the SR Comp, actually, on page 99. it says most runners average about a run per month.

[Jason Farlander]

Heh. If theres something I've completely overlooked or forgotten, theres a 95% probability that its in that book.

But anyway, I think my point still stands. If you can complete jobs efficiently and are willing to work cheaply, you will end up getting more jobs than the average runner, and you can make a decent living off of doing so.

[mfb]

yeah, but that'd be a pretty unrewarding life. sure, you'd have a high lifestyle, but when would you have time to enjoy it?

[Kanada Ten]

Fah, my players do 4 "runs" a week for a month, then take a month off to train and vacation, repeat. And by "runs" I mean do things to make money.