Fat Stacks of Cash, Your Shadowrunner's Budget Options

[Gyro the Greek S...]

Awright, so I was just trying to figure out how much the average runner pulls in while working, keeping in mind that an 'average' runner is a rather mythical thing, but hoping to establish a baseline from which I can view how well a typical runner is doing compared to his peers.

I'm going to assume that Runner X has to spend about 5,000 nuyen a month on living. This is either through one fairly nice crash-pad or several not-so-great hidey-holes. We'll add 500-2,500 nuyen for sundry materials that are used up during the course of the month: bullets and what have you. Let's also say that your average runner tries to come out about 5,000-10,000 nuyen ahead every month to buy wiz new gear. Right now you're looking at runner that needs to pull in anywhere between 10,500-17,500 :nuyen: a month.

You could go several ways with this. A runner could do a big job that month and get 20k. Jobs that pull in this much nuyen could easily take a month, I would think: getting your gear in place, planning, legwork and opportune moments could take this much time. Or, you could do a 5,000 nuyen job every week and come out nicely ahead.

How are my assumptions along this line of thought?

[Kagetenshi]

A lot. If Runner X is trying to maintain a Middle lifestyle for what they live in, I'd say a minimum expenditure would be ¥6,100 (Middle, Low, Squatter) for lifestyle. 20k for a month-long job is too low unless you're talking pure profit, in which case it's reasonableish but still low. At least with my group, jobs often end up costing ¥5k+ to complete; a month-long job I could see taking ¥20k and up just on expenses.

~J

[Solstice]

our jobs have been varying between 20-40k depending on the risk and how many NPCs we have to hire to fill the skill gaps.

[Gyro the Greek S...]

Here's a follow-up question: Is the average pay per run 20k? How risky is the average job a runner takes?

[Solstice]

no the min for us is 20k. We were paid 40k for First Run. That is a pretty good gauge of what you should be paying/getting. Of course our team loses at least 1 Westwind per run.

[Ancient History]

Your average run usually involves the possibility of serious mental or bodily injury, plus jail time if caught, likely a messy and violent death if things go really bad.

Now, your exceptional run can leave you to die in a number of godsforsaken wastelands and unfun locales, have you infected or irradiated something nasty, eaten by one or more nasty critters, experimented on or tortured if you get captured...and, oh yes, the possibility of jail time if caught.

Magicians and deckers face the illustrious possibility of spending the rest of their (hopefully brief) lives as drooling spastics with lobotomies; provided their brain
doesn't melt out their ears or daemons from a netherworld consume their soul and life essence first.

In rare cases, use and abuse of a runner's body and soul may continue after death. But we don't like to talk about those runs.

[Kagetenshi]

Riggers suffer the same possibilities as Magicians and Deckers.

~J

[Ol' Scratch]

Check out the Shadowrun Companion pages 99-100. They give a good baseline you can use for determining how much to pay runners for various jobs. Bodyguarding work, for example, is 200¥/day whereas a bit of professional wetwork or smuggling will set the Johnson back at least 5,000¥. These fees are intended to be used as a starting point for newbie runners with no reputation and performing basic, run-of-the-mill jobs. They are not per-runner values (though I would recommend using them on a per-runner basis myself).

By the way, Gyro, have I ever mentioned how much I love your handle?

[Gyro the Greek S...]

Haha, no, but thank you.

I have the Companion and scoped those starting fees and wanted to get everyone else's thoughts on what they've actually been using. Typically my runners do anywhere between 5k to 15k per job. For the scary stuff, it's 20k and up and up and up!

Scary stuff being something like, "We want you to find out why this Atlantean Foundation research post in the middle of nowhere has gone silent."

And now, why look, here comes a juggenaut... :wobble:

[Kagetenshi]

Per job, or per runner per job?

~J

[Gyro the Greek S...]

Per runner per job.

I'm not that mean.

[Johnny Reb]

Teh groups I run bring in about 1-10K per job, to split between them all. Some work is straight-up pro-bono They flit between Low and Middle lifestyle, with most of the time at Low. Windfalls hit now and again, giving them a month at high or a couple months at Middle, but then they wind up back in the dank Low again.

-- Johnny Reb

(Edit) They normally bring in one 'Run a month, two if really pressing for it.

[Solstice]

well when AV round cost $4000 per 10 you gotta pony up at least 20k per runner per job as long as the risk is there.

[Ol' Scratch]

Assuming you're in a game where they can get their hands on AV ammo on anything approaching a semi-regular basis. That Availability of 16/2 weeks tends to hurt. Well, unless you're an adept face. :P Nevermind that it's only 800¥/10 rounds on the street, too.

[Solstice]

[Ol' Scratch]

In which case it would be 3,200¥/10 rounds. Math isn't your strong point, I take it? But no, it's 200¥/10 rounds on the legal market and 800¥/10 on the streets.

[Solstice]

[Ol' Scratch]

Eh?

[jezryaldar]

My entry level runs paid around 20 - 30K for the group and were just that, more like milk runs.

From there, I started adding things up. ***Contact maintenance, SOTA, replacing guns and ammo, upgrading weapons, bribes ect *** If my players ever wanted to get ahold of upgarded ware, it was going to cost. Paying them 10K a month wasnt going to get them there. Since they had been fairly successful in their first 5 - 8 runs, didnt kill anyone and usually got in and out without being seen...

So, I decided that paying them well wasnt the problem since if I needed to rein them in... well it could be done easily enough by whatever mega they had tweaked bad enough.

After a few extraction style runs, they realized the benefits of looting the place while they were extracting someone.... ::chuckles:: Fencing the loot is starting to cause them problems... but that is another story...

I believe it comes down to the type of game you want to run and are comfortable with running.

[DocMortand]

I know I try to give out 10 - 30K per runner on my runners, depending on difficulty. So far, the max has been 50K per, but that was a fee to clear out a roach spirit hive. *evil grin* I throw nasty stuff, but I pay 'em well in karma and money.

[lorthazar]

Do what I do pay them the bare minimum to get with the average Lifestyle of the group., then put something there they can resell if they are smart. Learned this from one GM when we found an Ares MP Laser man the profit from sell that to the right people gave us all some HUGE upgrades.

[Johnny Reb]

I tend to keep the group running too fast to worry about looting issues. "Grab the guy's pistol and book!" is only an option when your own gun's lost, for example.

And I'll tell you why.

In one of my old playgroup's time, one fellow noted his GM loved to use monowire. He thought it odd when looknig at how much teh stuff cost, but, decided to work with it and got himself an empty spool.

Our next adventure, the target had a wall topped with monowire. My partner snipped the wire, then spooled it up. Then left. The spool was worth ten times what the run itself was.

Oops.

[BitBasher]

[Voran]

Depends too I guess on the mix of your characters. Even with cash for karma kinda stuff, if you give a group too little cash, the rigger/decker/samurai will be able to buy 1 new piece of gear every year or so? :P Lord forbid they have to make any repairs or goto the hospital.

Regardless of money my char gets per run, if feasible I augment it with looting. Think we had a thread/poll on Looting several months back. Anyway, lifting guns/cyberdecks/etc adds up.

For the security concerned, invest in a shielded case to dump loot in, just in case they've got trackers or something. Then the next time you open it up, make sure you're in another shielded room. Etc.

[DrJest]

The theoretical bread-and-butter run normally nets my runners around 5k per person. An example of that would be... oh, the first chapter of the Harlequin mini-campaign, a little B&E into a not overly defended building.

If I'm planning to sucker them, then they will find some other source of renumeration during the run. What was that run with the Shadows rock band (I so could not take that name seriously - kept cracking Hank Marvin jokes), you get offered a high fee because you're being set up, but you eventually get paid by the band themselves. Or as someone mentioned above, some piece of expensive kit that you can fence off - I still recall nicking (as a player this time) some corp exec's prize personal helicopter to make our escape with after a nasty ambush, we fenced that thing for close on to a million nuyen (I still remember the look on the GM's face - "Uh-huh, well you've no rigger so which of you can actually fly a chopper?" "That would be me," said the mage. Turns out the GM had only skimmed the characters for the high points, and missed that some of the mage's time as a merc in the Yucatan had been spent flying relief choppers).