I'm seriously confused. A friend of mine recently pointed out that the character creation rules for SR4 states that you can only ever have one Lifestyle. Period. End of story.

Yet in the same breath (meaning the same paragraph), the rules tell you that if you want a safehouse, garage, private storage, workshop, or whatever else, you have to buy it separately.

That left me thoroughly confused by the first limitation mentioned.

With all that in mind, I decide to flip through the gear chapter and have a look. The only two things I could find in relation to the "you have to buy it separately" clause was the price for a safehouse -- at a ridiculous 500-nuyen a day -- and a workshop in the form of a facility which is just the tools, not the housing.

So... what the hell? You want to maintain a scuzzy little hidey-hole in the Ork Underground in case the drek hits the fan, and instead of paying for a Low or Squatter Lifestyle to reflect that maintanence, you instead have to pay 15,000-nuyen a month for it?! That's more than a High Lifestyle. And what are you supposed to do if you want any of the other things the limitation mentioned? A separate workshop? Private storage? Garage?

Seriously. What's with the "only one Lifestyle" limit? It makes no sense whatsoever.

It doesn't make much sence to me either but the "safehouse" lifestyle is intended to be like hospitalized. Basically it's there when you need it but you only pay while you're using it.

Of course this assumes that there is enouogh of a demand to support an entire safehouse industry which strikes me as a little strange. Sure some organizations are going to maintain safehouses for their members but I can hardly see them maintaining what literally amounts to a very expensive hotel that wanted criminals hide out in. If such an organization did maintain a safehouse then why on gods green earth would they want to rent it out to any Joe who wants to lay low for a while. Half the point of a safehouse is that it's secret... something that is quickly going to change if you have people in and out all the time. Not only that but once the secret is out what is going to keep the cops from periodically kicking the door in just to take a look around and see who they catch.

Personally I run it like in SR3. You have your "primary" lifestyle then as many secondary lifestyles as you can afford. Secondary lifestyles get a 25% discount since lifestyle cost accounts for food, toilet paper and other consumables that you just don't need.

We just houseruled it so that you can have more than one lifestyle, because that was a pretty good mechanic in SR3 and I don't see any reason why it doesn't work in SR4.

There was a thread about this a while ago and people came to the conclusion that the 500/day was going to be a safehouse that you needed in a hurry that you didn't have before, not a pre-existing safehouse you had fully set up.

This makes plenty of sense if you consider that "Lifestyle" is an abstraction for your generic monthly expenses, rather than just your rent for a single place. Finding creative ways to abstract safehouses and other minor stuff shouldn't be a problem - it's hardly the end of the world.

Maybe your character lives a Medium Lifestyle, but pays for High because he mantains multiple secure bolt-holes all through the city (country, world, etc.). Or maybe he lives just an inconsequent smidge below "standard" Medium and mantains a flea-ridden pad in the Barrens. Whatever.

I imagine 500nY per day is for a short-term secure place, the kind you have to rent from some other professional criminal because you need to hide now, and don't have time to set something up yourself.

Yeah, I realize that's the intent of the Safehouse Service. I only pointed to it because it's the only rule I could find about buying things like that separately from a Lifestyle.

I mean, I could understand if the rule said "you only get starting nuyen from your highest level Lifestyle if you own multiple Liifestyles." That's a reasonable limit to place down, even though I find it equally silly having to use such a mechanic instead of just keeping leftover Resources. But "only one Lifestyle ever ever ever?" Insanity, especially with them telling you that you need more than one if you want the alternatives...

only getting money from your highest lifestyle makes sense to me.

I think the intention behind the "don't keep your starting cash rule" is to prevent people from saving 200K during character creation then spending the money on some wiz peice of availability 18 gear right after the game starts. *shrugs* doesn't make much sense to me but I could see someone doing it.

Keeping the cash would be ridiculously awesome for some archetypes, honestly. Hitting the streets and immediately buying a Pain Editor could be just what the doctor ordered for a Mage or troll tank with heaps of armor, and that's only 8 bp worth of gear. That said, my group happily ignores the safehouse costs unless we're doing something crazy like asking the Yaks to let us hide out in one of their places of business when the heat is real heavy. Otherwise we just throw in together on an extra low lifestyle apartment with some tools, an autodoc and a few survival kits and some bottled water.

I know that fake SINs wearing out is all GM discretion, but I'd think that if the a character actively maintained a lifestyle for it had a an agent+virtual person surf 24/7, order food that you collected etc, that that would stretch out the viability a lot

As someone mentioned, this has been discussed before. An official reply came from Rob on page three of this thread.

Enjoy. =)

Link to coolgrafix's post

maybe arsenal or the highly theoretical shadowrunner companion (or whatever it is) will have some specific numbers to suggest...

Are you saying that someone may find a safehouse in your Arse?

Only if they ask politely.

I can tell already that my biggest regret when SR5 comes out (no matter how bad it is) is that it will probably put an end to the Arse jokes...

Bah. That response is basically saying "we dumbed down the rules but made them more complicated than they had to be by telling you to just make shit up for all the stuff we listed right after that rule; good luck figuring out what to do, suckers."

As opposed to, say, exactly what they did in 3rd Edition where you could buy a lifestyle for whatever purpose you described. Those rules were then essentially replaced by the ones in the Sprawl Survival Guide which allowed you to tailor one for whatever purpose you need.

What I find even more amusing is that they got rid of the basic rule because it apparently cost too much in their opinion. Yet the only option they give you is one that costs an absolutely absurd amount! /boggle

Oh well. Easy enough to house rule. Just terribly disappointing. Thanks for the link nonethless; much appreciated.

Rather it costs a supremely realistic amount... It's just not listed in the book. $500 per day is for a day by day rental, you grab a hotel room, pay someone to put up a quickie ward, and rent some electronic surveillance to put around.

You want a price list for what it costs to set up a safe house without all the attendant costs, go look in the apartments for rent section in your local classifieds.

In SR3 I put together a system based on something I saw either on a website or ShadowRN (I couldn't relocate the original so I just stole the concept). I thought someone mentioned that system was going to go into a book, but I don't remember which book. I obviously don't have it.

I devided lifestyles out into like 5 categories IIRC (physical space, entertainment, clothing/decor, food, safety) with 5 levels to each. Then people could set the levels they wanted for each item where they liked, for each of their lifestlyes.

So if you want to live on the street, you take a 1 in everything and you pay about what the squatter lifestyle comes out to. If you want to live in the lap of luxury you take a 5 in everything and you pay a little more than canon luxury lifestyle. If you just want a secure parking space for your sports car you take a 3 in Space and Security, and you got your monthly fee. It's a rough idea, but it worked out well for extra lifestyles. It also worked out for implants that required the owner to eat more. Just up your food rating to account for more food.

I can't find my original copy. Maybe I'll see if I can work it up again. I love the idea of rolling augmentation maintenance (and maybe hacker SOTA maintenance) fees into as well.

The point is both rules could have existed just fine. The "extra" costs could have just as easily reflected all the maintenance that needed to be done; having someone keep an eye on the property while you're not there, paying a hacker to make it look like it's being lived in in case someone checks up on that fake SIN you have, keeping the utilities running, etc.

Want a garage to park your spare vehicles or drones as a rigger? You're screwed; make up your own rules rather than just buy a lifestyle to reflect it. Want a place to put that Facility you just bought? Tough! Make something up rather than just buy a lifestyle to reflect it. Want a few places around town to hide some emergency kits like a spare gun, ammo, and change of clothes? Sorry, chump, you're on you own. Time to make up prices rather than just reflect it with a few squatter lifestyles.

What exactly was this completely unnecessary rule supposed to do? What possible benefit does it give players? All it does is make things far more complicated than they have to be. For players and GMs.

It's ridiculous that they put a rule like that in the game for the alleged sake of making it easier when it does nothing of the sort. Doubly so while simultaneously leaving out much needed limitations in other areas of the game.

I figured. I think the original author posted them to ShadowRN earlier and then maybe revised and submitted them for that book. I was definately using the system before that book came out (it's on my list of books to buy). All credit goes to the original author of course. I just took what I saw and rebuilt it from memory.

Hey doc, you are absolutely right. The humans who wrote this game made a dumb mistake. They added a line that made the RAW less usable for absolutely no benifit. buuuutt WHO CARES. Are you, or have you ever played with GM who wouldn't let you rent another place because of this line? Even if you are playing with the strictest RAW Natzi who wouldn't let you maintain multiple life styles as a book keeping convenience, does that line also take away from their ability to make up unpublished goods and services? Do you really think that you can't get a storage locker in another city because its part of some mystical lifestyle package? Any GM who would shoot themselves in the foot over such fundamentalist reading of the RAW deserves to have to think up individual unit costs of all the stuff the plays CAN buy/maintain even if it isn't explicitly listed.
Does anyone have a page number a rule saying more or less "GMs get to add stuff in to the setting as needed because we didn't write down every single everything"?

However, only megacorp belongings are extra-territorial. And you can bet that the police will know if your building is extraterritorial or not, and that they won't be fooled by anybody.

I totally coincide that this is bad rule that never should have been written down. My question is has it EVERY effected a real game in anyway? Anyone lost time a game table rules lawyering this? Or do you have another objective in talking about the rules besides coming up with interpretations that maximize playability and model the setting?

Actually, my original post had two main purposes. 1) To verify if this was a legitimate rule and not simply an errata'ed mistake or changed elsewhere in the rules. 2) To try and figure out why the rule was there if it was, in fact, a legitimate rule.

As in most threads, the discussion diverged a bit. No shock there. And yes, I'm well aware that I have the amazing power to house rule things. But believe it or not -- I don't like to have to house rule things. Especially silly, nonsensical things like this rule.

OK, enough from both of you. Stay away from the personal attacks.

Speaking someone who has only played SR4, on my first ever character I did by an extra life style for my laying-low sin.

It encourages roleplaying. With the old rules, you could just plop down the correct amount of money and bam, you have a second home. With the new rules, you have to really work with the GM, since everything is GM fiat, and the GM has to work with you. This encourages roleplaying. The GM designs a few homes (or you do and give the specs to the GM, or someone else does) and your character goes house hunting. You can't just give the GM 500 Monopoly Dollars and claim the place, no. Your character must tour the homes and check everything out. He must negotiate with the with owners on a price. And he will probably have no choice but to do this multiple times before the PC can find something that he likes at a price that he can reasonably afford. Then he'll have to deal with the utilities and getting everything moved in that needs to do moved in. You can seriously dedicate entire campaigns to house-hunting. No combat, no missions, just house-hunting. And that, friends, makes great roleplaying.

I... couldn't agree less. The current rules for your primary lifestyle are a handwave, but handwaving this other side of lifestyles would be bad because it would hold you back from role playing? I'm not saying you are wrong. Just that I don't necessarily know if the two of us are looking for the same game experience.

I did draw up floorplans for a house my players' characters purchased in a game. It was an old fire house they all pitched in and purchased as a base of operations using 3rd edition core lifestyle rules. I liked the idea, so I spent the extra time on it. They wanted to set it up with a lot of cool features. Shooting range in the basement, hermetic library room in the attic, and all sorts of surveilance and safety measures. All of that was rolled into their lifestyle, or purchased separately from item lists in books.

I don't buy the role playing argument, personally. This is not a role vs roll discussion. Regardless of how comprehensive the rules are or are not, my experience tells me that I get out what I put in.

Well, that is the point. You do get out what you put in. And the complete lack of applicable rules forces you to put more into it if you want it to work at all.

Of course, this line of thought brings us to the conclusion that the perfect RPG rulebook is a 20-volume set, each with 400 totally blank pages, absolutely no text or art whatsoever, so that the game will have ultimate flexibility and customizablity while requiring that players and GMs put a great deal of effort into the game.

I'm not saying that this is a bad thing or a good thing. I'm saying that it has some good aspects.

I'm pretty sure that optional Lifestyle rules and the like will be addressed in the proposed Runner's Companion book.

If you could get multiple lifestyles you could get 250k nuyen worth of High lifestyles backed with nuyen to max the starting money and start the game with more than 250k in cash. Then you could bypass the avail rules by just taking your first few months getting the perfect cultured bioware and missile launchers, etc.

Taken from that perspective getting only 1 lifestyle and the rest as safehouses seems to fit the spirit of things juuuuuust fine.

That's a completely separate issue. You're also assuming that if the restriction were never implemented, there wouldn't be a limit stating something along the lines of "you only receive starting nuyen based upon the single highest Lifestyle you own in the case of beginning play with more than one."

I still, personally, think the Availability limit at character creation is silly. Same goes for having a maximum starting attribute and skill rating system. Limits more along the lines of "each point above your normal racial maximum costs 35 BP per point for Attributes and 8/20 points per Skill or Skill Group. Availability over (3 + Charisma + Etiquette) cost double or triple, reflecting the extra resources you had to pour into your contacts to make up for your lack of social yumminess." The limits on Build Points more than covers any abuses, and if it doesn't, the numbers simply need a bit more fine tuning. This also gets rid of the silliness of a randomly generated amount of starting nuyen for characters (why on Earth is this the only part of character creation that's random anyway?!?).

But that's me. I know it's not a popular view of things. If someone wants to give up all their potential at character creation simply to get deltagrade Move-By-Wire 3, I'm not going to stop them. Especially if it leaves them so crippled that they get one-shot by a pissed-off girl scout weilding a hold-out pistol.

20% seems fair to me.

On a semi-related note. Wasn't there a 3rd edition rule that covered multiple characters chipping in for one lifestyle? Was that in the main book, or the companion?


It's pretty clear that I'm not happy with the current lifestyles mechanic. Others seem to be in the same boat. Given that, and what we've seen in previous editions of the game, I have pretty high hopes that an alternate, more robust, lifestyle mechanic will be made available in a future release (the companion or arsenal would both work).

So... I've read most of this thread, but a lot of it is the same two sides of the argument over and over again. And as much fun as reading that is...
I just thought I would add my two cents to things with what happened in our group.

So, my team is on the run, things didn't go down so well during the run, our TM bought the farm and the corp we were hitting wanted us dead. Not to mention Mr. J. wasn't terribly happy that we failed our mission. He hadn't gotten to the "Not happy enough to want us not breathing" yet. but getting there. So we needed a place to hide out. So, since its 4th ed and we don't have addition life styles, we go by the book and start paying our 500 for a safe house. (meanwhile the Tm is drafting up a new character. When I say dead, I mean dead. Something involving escaping from an explosion and getting a critical glitch... twice).

When I was drafting up my character at first, I liked the whole idea. yea! No more buying multiple life styles! No more paying for all the junk I was keeping there 'just in case'

Then we came head to head with the whole rule and our GM. So, our safe house provided us with a place to hide out, for 500 a day. Fine with me. Till we started going about gearing back up. We had all taken a beating getting out and lost a lot of gear and burned a lot of ammo. rigger lost a few drones and had to rebuild himself some, I was short several firearms.

Before the 'no multiple lifestyles rule' it was common place to buy extra gear, firearms, workshops, spare parts, lots of extra ammo, body armor, etc. Just to put in your paid for safe house just in case you had to go all Sarah Conner Terminator 2 and stock back up. (I've KNOWN sammies with THAT much hardware sitting in the desert somewhere). So we look at he GM and he says the safe house we are in is no more than a 2 bedroom apartment, none of the things we NEED are available here, because we never purchased them before hand. If we need anything, we have to go out and acquire them. Our fixer will help us out, but his recourses are limited as well.

So, we are all stranded in an apartment, under greared and shot up and we have to go out with a corp on the lookout for us and do some shopping. Great!

After much deliberation, our GM has decided that next time we draft up characters, purchasing additional life styles will be allowed, as it is nice to have a permanent place to keep the additional things you purchase to place there.

As for the whole role playing purchasing lifestyles? I don't see the point. I'm not going to role play interaction between my character and several property agents till the GM supplies me with something I want at the price I want it. I'm going to say "I'm searching for this with this and this" and the GM says "You find that with that and that for this" then I make a note on my sheet and deduct the cost from my cash. Done.