Fat Stacks of Cash, Your Shadowrunner's Budget Options

[Johnny Reb]

[Toxic_Waste]

[Crusher Bob]

Just start car jacking people and selling them and their cars for parts. If you are luck you can find a whole carpool on their way to work.

The problem has always been that there are a lot of 'normal' criminal jobs that someone of the runners skill could do, so runs (which are much riskier) should pay oodles more cash. Otherwise, why quit your day job?

[Toxic_Waste]

[Kagetenshi]

If you're playing a Rigger, odds are you have Connected already. The extra two build points are some of the best you can spend.

Either way, 30% of 18k is still ¥5,400.

~J

[Toxic_Waste]

[Crusher Bob]

Chop shops are after ford americars. They chop the car up for parts and sell them to crooked mechanics. Since most everyone drives and Americar, the demand for parts is high. Stealing 'one of a kind' sprots cars is not worth a whole lot as the chop shop can't move the parts, who are they going to sell them to?

Sure, you can lift luxury sedans like BMWs and Mercedes for more money, but there are plenty of them on the road.

Yes, we are discussing the all singing all dancing car jacking team, since this is a 'point' about how runnig is not worth it, using the canon payment amounts. A runner team that turns to car jacking can make plenty more money (and safer) than running.

Which would your team rather do, nicking an Americar for 5,400 Y that is 15 min work for the team, or a 5,000 Y run that might result in shooting, hospital time, etc?

[Ol' Scratch]

I'm a little lost. Where are you coming up with 30% figure? Selling a vehicle is like anything else; you get 50% of the legal value normally, or 50% (or 100% depending on your reading) of the Street Index value if you have the appropriate Connected Edge.

[Kagetenshi]

I'm pretty sure fencing the loot brings in a base of 30% before Connected. Although it is often sanity-ruled to 50%-80%, a strict reading of Connected would be 100% of Street Index value or legal value if SI is less than one.

~J

[Toxic_Waste]

Coulda sworn it was 30% (up to a maximum of 50%) for fencing stolen goods

[Ol' Scratch]

Ah, interesting. I just glanced over the Fencing the Loot section of SR3 and you're right. I guess I had the "the price will not rise above 50%" bit from the Negotiations portion stuck in my head.

[Toxic_Waste]

[BitBasher]

Well, In my games pay is not typically lacking. newbie shadowrunners can take jobs from 3-15k each and availability is iffy, every few weeks, but that's a break in period.

If they show themselves reliable they start to run in different circles and they become a commodity. depending on their track record, assuming it's good, they end up with 15-40k each per job because they are in demand. They can take jobs as often as they want/need/can, because there's often more work for good reliable SR's than there are good, reliable SR's. They usually have a working relationship with a handfull of trusted johnsons by then. The difficulty level of runs is professional. Amateurs would get eaten alive now.

There's a lot of asshat SR's and wannabees which makes the real talent more valuable.

High end runs with a rock solid ironclad team with 150-200+ karma undir their belt can earn 50k-200k each per job. But almost noone gets that high. There's a good attrirtion ratio due to the "oh shit" factor. By now the team usually works exclusively for a single johnson or broker, almost like an agent. The agent makes enough money off them and vice versa. At this point corps are usually coming to the johnson looking for the team by reputation because they know the team can pull off things that others can't. The difficulty is ramped up significantly.

[jezryaldar]

[Kagetenshi]

Another problem is the convenient fiction that everyone on the team would get paid the same. Hermetic mages, deckers, and riggers probably would command higher pay on most runs than their counterparts, simply because the job they do is extremely expensive and, in the latter two cases, requires specialized knowledge. By the same token, on a job in which physical security is high but countermeasures for deckers, riggers, magic, etc. is negligible, the streetsam or whoever is actually physically entering the place would probably take more than their usual cut. If a job pays 100k and there are five runners, it's damned unlikely that everyone gets 20k minus expenses. To some degree, it doesn't even make sense that the team exists as a cohesive entity, certainly not as cohesive as in some games. A Johnson hiring five independent runners, some of whom may have worked together before, would be more reasonable; so would a Johnson hiring a single runner for the job at that price and leaving the subcontracting up to the hire.

~J

[Toxic_Waste]

[Johnny Reb]

So, I guess that I'm the only one playing in teh low-pay regions, then?

Huh.

Have to do something about that...

-- Johnny Reb

[lorthazar]

Hey, I got an Ork running the same sections man. Running is what he does to bridge the gap so he can live a middle lifestyle. Owning a bar, running a house, and producing simporn just ain't cutting it especially when you hand over 80% of the gross to the mob for protection.

[Rev]

"On the other hand, you have a 5 runner team earning 100K total. How can you justify a mid management bloke shelling 100K to have his boss offed or to find his missing daughter?"

Heh, you can't. It's an unbeleivable shadowrun. Should not exist in that simple form.

Either the guy is fairly certain his daughter is in some horrible situation that only shadowrunners can get her out of and is willing to max out his credit and spend the next ten years paying it off or end up in debtors prison (meaning that the runners should be provided with knowledge of whatever horrible thing has happened to her, not a bare "find this woman") or he ought to be hiring a private detective (which could be one shadowrunner) for up to a couple kY instead who will actually deliver her if he finds her in a morgue or having recently inserted a new BTL at some flop house but will just come back to him and report while expecting payment if it turns out she is probably about to be dissected inside the aztech pyramid and maybe offer him a price to actually try to go get her that is on the order of 100kY (quite possibly researching exactly what he is able to pay, but that's more the fixers department really).

Similarly if you are offing his boss for 100k the boss-removal has to be worth a lot more than 100k to him, and the boss has to be very difficult to kill. If either of those conditions are false the run is unbeleivable.

If it is a few days low risk work and half a clip of ammo a few kY for the job is appropriate, but if it turns out to be way harder the correct response from the players is to call up thier fixer and tell him they aren't going to do it unless they get a lot more money and this should not reduce either thier reputation or thier karma award (though the fixers rep could take a hit). In fact they should keep the advance money as well.

It is ok if sometimes that cheap job turns out to be a hard one, or sometimes that expensive job turns out to be easy, but if every run is unbelievable nobody will be able to roleplay well. Also there needs to be a reason to stay on the hard job despite the insufficient pay. Do gooding, favor repaying, loot opportunities, inability to escape something that prevents them all from deciding to simply go home other than that the game is over if they do so, they will get less karma, or that their fixer will be angry that they won't fulfill the fifth contract in a row on which he has screwed them.

The only way you get a run that is fairly easy for a lot of money is when a lot of trust in the shadowrunners is required and the johnson has to up the pay to prevent them from selling him out in some way. So if Mr Johnson wants you to steal 1MY worth of gold bullion because he happens to know when a lightly guarded shipment is occurring you ought to get a reasonable share. For Mr Johnson to even consider you for that job he ought to be very confident in your reputation.

[Kagetenshi]

[BitBasher]

[Fortune]

I don't see why runners should automatically take a reputation hit for turning down a job offer. In some instances this might be the case, but in some instances it might be just the opposite.

[BitBasher]

[Rev]

Good point. I meant more that they shouldn't automatically have thier rep decreased for failing to do something stupid.

Sometimes backing out of a stupid job would increase your rep (because it makes you look smart, others want to work with you knowing you wont soldier on and get everyone killed), sometimes it would decrease it (unfairly, but thats life).

Your fixer may well be a lot more angry/frightened if he gives you a 2ky job and you end up assassinating a slumming tir princess than if you came back and demanded 20k to kill this far more important than expected person. If he thought it was just a random person he may not want to take 10kY worth of heat for 1kY of profit.

[Kagetenshi]