I have been wondering lately, do all group split the payment equally? Groups I've played with in the past have always split the payment for runs equally but we usually all rotate characters and often run with characters with varring levels of experience. The only things we've ever gaggled over were what to count as overhead expenses before dividing the money evenly. Often riggers will want their destroyed drone to be replaced out of overhead, sammies will want their medical bills, mages want their summoning materials, ect. What I'm wondering is if a experienced runner is running with a group of newbies, why wouldn't the veteran receive a larger share of the money? Have any of you done this in the past?

it really depends on the groups social structure, if its just a band of mercenaries, or good buddies working together.

equal payments, either before or after some expenses, seems like a reasonable norm. however, i can definetly see some groups pooling their cash, and focusing on specific upgrades to their capabilities once the rent is paid. It only makes sense to invest in getting the hacker better gear, or the sam better implants, if your life depends on their ability to cover your back. plus you have to consider the sam's downtime after surgery.

There are some stories about faces and pornomancers actually making secret rolls to lie to her fellow runners and negotiate for more than her fair share.

I've only ever seen equal shares, but I could see reasons, potentially to, go otherwise.

Depends. When we had a close knit group we took a lump sum and got living expenses and such from it. Most went to our security companies funds, which then paid us.

Others we spit evenly.

Loot we sometimes took as a share, sometimes just and extra. A 4pt power focus isn't worth too much to the group in terms of utility, but they know how much it's worth as cash. So the mage should be offering cash to cover some of what they would get.

I don't think we had anyone cheat, but it's possible.

I have seen two types:

1. Buddies, share and share alike: Meaning equal shares, then chip in to cover costs for wanted upgrade or repairs. IE: I cover my own drones, until I can't then my buddies give me a hand.

2. Strickly Biz: Literally offer items on a contract type of basis. IE: if the mage needs to summon an elemental for the plan to work, the costs come out of the overhead. If the mage summons an elemental to cover his own ass, it is his cost.

#2 might seem stingy, but be honest Shadowrunning is largely a business. As a drone rigger (SR3) I cannot be expected to have my 99k Guardian Drone shot to hell as a diversion just becuase. Now I can do that given that there are understandings: ala The Guardian will not be used unless: and repairs/ replacement will be covered at a 70% value or whatever the contract states.

Again though, those things need to be hashed out prior to the issue just like RL. Else if your favorite custom made 15k sniper rifle gets trashed it is your responsibility.

Back in the day, the GMs would always have the NPCs offer X amount per person. We had a very flexible group though. Sometimes we'd have four people, sometimes six. Sometimes we'd split into two groups. It really depended on how many people showed up that week. Everyone took care of their own expenses, unless we were feeling really generous and decided to loan each other some cash.

In my most recent campaign, I've been having the NPCs pay lump sums. I figure Mr. Johnson doesn't care how many people you have on the team, so long as you get the job done. He does have a budget to stick to though. Since the team is pretty much set in stone, barring character turnover, the Face (and most veteran player, aside from myself) has sort of railroaded everyone into agreeing to put 10% of the payout to put toward mission expenses like a disposable safehouse, medical fees, fuel for the rigger's helicopters, etc.

We split payment equally, allthough there have been discussions when one char did bring no useful shadow skills to the table. Riggers compensate for drone costs by stealing drones and vehicles.

Most of the time payment gets split equally, because that decision normally gets made by a circle of friends sitting around a table eating chips and rolling dice, and we were all taught to share when we were wee little bastards. "Everyone gets paid the same" is a fine default for that sort of thing, because everyone needs money for something (and everyone tends to get the same xp, so keeping nuyen right in line with it makes for everyone advancing at the same pace, in theory).

That said, there've been times it just didn't work out that way. A character of mine once got hit up for a job at the last minute, with a bunch of 'runners he didn't know (while he was sitting at a little over a hundred karma at the time). He cheerfully agreed to go along, but insisted that for the five of them the pay would get split six ways, and he'd take two shares. Not because he had any extra bills to pay, but because he knew he could kill the rest of the team in about three seconds and he deserved to be paid at least as much as any two of them.

So, y'know, sometimes these decisions are made in character, instead of out.

Like Critias says, equal payment makes no sense except for out-of-game sense, where it makes enough sense to maybe ignore the fact that it's out-of-game.

~J

Given how rare they are a good Mage should be able to demand at least two if not three shares.

All depends on the contract you agree to. sigh as a team fight as a team, get paid as a team, sigh as a solo act and get paid acording to the contract. Break contract? well a sniper round to the back of the head dosn't care about karma

Except that mages seem to be every third drekker in the Shadows, Ravor.

It's really best to keep it even. IC conflicts can become OOC very quickly, and that's Not Good.

And expenses ought to be covered first. Especially drones and vehicles, since the fiddly little bastards are so expensive and get shot to hell so damn easily, but tend to be so damn vital to the Run.

Sure thing. As soon as people have to start rolling a 0-1 on percentile dice to be allowed to play a Mage, instead of just having to pay a couple dozen BP for the Advantage and a Magic Point or two.

We split even because one it keeps things simple. The second reason is this, you never know when that piece of gear so and so bought will save your own arse. If something "drops" on a run, then if a person can use it they get it. Say a minigun happens to fall off the back of a truck, well whoever can and will use it, gets it. That way some other run, if I happen to find a random dead mage, that just happens to have a power focus I can use, well I get it. Just good business, keep the people watching your butt happy, so they'll keep watching it.

Operating expenses are pretty much your own. You need more bullets, that's your own stash. Just like the care and feeding of my spirits is my problem unless the group specially requests something that I wouldn't normally be doing. We need a bribe to get into a place, that is the groups expense and is split up.

One out of every hundred people? Ok, fewer than that because of the restriction "mage", and fewer still because of the term "good", but a good Rigger or Decker should easily match them in terms of ability to command pay, and probably exceed them with ease.

~J

Two players dropped out of the group I play with, just before we worked out the income from fencing a pile of loot that had accumulated over a few runs. One player suggested that we split the income among the PCs of the remaining four players. At first I agreed but then it just seemed so against what my character would do; he's a believer in keeping deals, and I'd rather have my character get a little less loot, than have cognitive dissonance between "benefit as a player" and "my character gypped former teammates out of loot". I talked with the other player and GM and we worked out a compromise: there was some not-fenced-yet loot of unknown and hard-to-assess value, and we agreed that this loot magically equalled fair shares for the two PCs whom we were unlikely to see again now that their players have left the table.

If a PC takes an item, they pay its fence value into the loot pile. For example, we captured a troll-mod 25mm sniper rifle after a brush with Sons of Sauron; the only PC who could shoot it without taking recoil damage (houserule) is my troll sammie; we could probably fence it for 12K, so he paid that much into treasury (though he gets 1/2 of the treasury, so effectively he paid 9K, which is a lot cheaper than what he'd pay anywhere else). Meanwhile, we also captured some trollmod bicycles, in bad shape after we'd killed the drivers, and my character fixed them and sold them; has he earned the difference between their value when damaged and their value when repaired? or are his repair skills (and biker connections) part of his status as an equal share partner? I suppose he could have kicked in cash to buy them out of the lootpile, at damaged-goods low price, after which he gets to fix and sell them as his own property. Buy low, sell high! Flip this loot!

We skip some detail. For example, we usually fence guns at their unloaded price, though presumably when we acquire them they have varying amounts of ammo left. It's not worth spending play time to scrape out every last nuyen; better to round off, do some "shopping", and get back to action scenes.

We almost always go even shares. The only time we don't is if one person is accepting the job on behalf of the others, and can dole out funds as he sees fit. Or sometimes the team members who agreed to the job in the first place will get paid our shares, and we'll hire someone else on for a lower amount.

We never have a disparate skill level among characters that would make it worthwhile to demand more pay.

We often have a team fund that we contribute to. This covers most vehicles, but doesn't always cover drones. Sometimes the drones are a stand-in for the rigger, much as the sam's bullets or the mage's spirits.

Nothing causes teammates to kill each other faster than an argument over the payout. That's why opening the door to uneven fees is genearlly stupid. I'd say the one exception is when a PC does something expensive, especially if it wipes out his payout but saves the group, like fires a bunch of Panther Cannon rounds or something. But even there you have to be careful. Players can get into an argument over silly things, like the mage wants compensation for his bound spirit, only he used it just to defend himself, not the whole group, and then some of the team die over it. But no matter how it goes, it's up to the players. It would be nice if the GM could force them to be reasonable and prevent RL estrangement from the group when the stronger characters murder the weaker ones. Though if you're actually acting to save the game group from falling apart, I'd say you could go ahead and railroad the characters - make them do a logic + intuition roll, and if they pass, they act reasonably, per the GM's definition of reasonable

It's interesting the incredible IC power that Face characters actually should have over the team here. Negotiation is basically never rolled between team members, which I see as a bad thing, but also, if it did, then it would very quickly escalate into OOC arguments and IC violence against the face, who could easily and unscrupulously get his/her unfair share.

But what can you do when an OOC conflict turns into IC violence (very thinly disguised as "role-playing")? Punish characters who retaliate against the face? This kind of thing has the potential to escalate.

Does anyone remember that CLUE file where the runner team has a race, and one bitter racer with an inferior motorbike plants a kilo or five of C4 in his rival's motorbike, which when detonated, kills most of the team?

its been coverd but its late and I found it funny But with this logic, say my rigger comes in. he has three sniper rifle,roto drones and is the driver. Does he get paid as the rigger? as the driver? or paid per armed drone drone that is deployed and as the driver hehee in the end its always best to cover costs then split the rest evenly.


costs tend to be, Fake id's, housing, ammo, gear if needed to be replaced, gear that had to be bought for this job, I.E. lang softs, skill softs ect, and so on. I mention this mainly becouse if you are working as a team you should view it as. what helps you helps me. New guns for the gun bunny or new cyber for the sam means you get shot less, better programs or drones for the rigger/hackers means you get shotless,foundless, or get more info faster. gear for the mage see the above examples.

its all a big warm and fuzzy happy famly type a thing ya know? becouse honestly your in a room full of guys with guns and bombs and invisable monsters and things that can eat your face. do you realy need more reasons to be honest with them?

We have to split equally because we can not know what payment is "fair" in the real world.

- Not everyone on the team might be needed. Mages are only needed if there is magical opposition that only they can deal with. So payment should be based on utility, not capability.

- Mages are rare - as are people with a cool quarter million of augmentations installed. And while we not even know how rare those people generally are (giving EVERYONE their favourite bargaining position does not lead to fast compromises), we also do not know who the Johnson has access to.

- The more gear you bring for the group, the more money you deserve. If the equipment is needed.

If I as a GM would negotiate individual rates, I´d give out higher quotas for those characters "that are known to move things along". Regardless of the individual aspects of a teams abilities that they provide. If the streetsam is only looking for targets, he gets paid for holding a gun. If he is the tactical leader generally working to avoid unnecessary fighting, the payrate would more than double. The skillset might look the same, the pay would be much different. (I prefer the relative peace of equal payment + different booty. The creative players in my group have started not to share extras with people that did not work for it).

My team splits it evenly as well. If a mission goes over one session and you are not there at the end, oh well (It happens more than you would think )

For costs, at the beginning of the mission we start out with 0 nuyen. We take what we get upfront, subtract all costs for that mission, usually legwork stuff but occasionally gear we need to do the mission, subtract that out at the end and then divide it up.

Depends on what he brings to the table other then gear, but I'd say he probably counts as either the driver or the Rigger, and is worth one share unless the job simply couldn't be done without him.

Personally I'm rather suprised by the uproar, Mages are supposed to be rare (The fact that they aren't is a metagame problem, not one with the fluff.) and can bring things to the table that no-one else can, ergo in the fluff as presented are worth more then their mundane counterparts. (I'm not going to address the OOC Issues, they tend to bore me, especially if the people involved are inmature enough to allow IC conflict to bleed into OOC conflict.)

Our group works on a slightly different dynamic. When we get paid, each member gets 5% of the paid cut (4 members), the other 80% goes into a group fund. Which any of us can use as long as another member of the group approves of it. Ridiculus amounts, require all 4 members of the group to approve. If anyone in our group decides to cut out, and leave the group he can take 25% of the group fund and go on his way. Until then its cash flow towards running. 5% is to pay for your cost of living, and personal items or new toys. Only problem is our face at the end of last run got a larger negotiation then any of us realized and he got another 70,000 on the top of his. To reiterate what I put elsewhere, Hackers you need to tap your faces conversations, he's the most likely person to screw you over.

Or simply have the group show up to the meet, in addition to the Johnson getting to see the goods (Something that most Johnsons should require -if for no other reason then to make it easier to screw the Runners by expecting them to be together at the payment phase.) it prevents the Face from screwing the team over. Of course your Decker should already have everyone tapped anyways, just on general principle.

I've seen variations of course, but equal shares is the norm. Common differences include:

1> Expense Accounts. A certain amount of the payment is put aside for expenses, which are then spent on travel, spirit summoning, ammunition, drone replacement, medical expenses, etc. The expense account is almost never drawn upon equally by every character, so it in essence subsidizes characters who are using expendable resources on behalf of the team.

2> No interest loans. Team members frequently give (often large) loans to one another at no interest. Characters who are saving for a big purchase simply pool their resources so that one character makes their purchase now, and the other makes their purchase later.

3> Loss Compensation. A character who loses something important may be given a replacement before shares are calclated. This may be instead of or in addition to a share.

4> Loot assignments. Sometimes loot is pooled as part of team income. Other times certain characters just get to keep it.

-Frank

You have an interesting way of "sav[ing] the game group from falling apart".

In most of the groups I've been in, this would at minimum put everyone very close to walking.


Maybe you missed the part where the fluff says they're a significant part of 1% of the populace?

~J

Correct me if I’m wrong but I thought that it was 1% of the population had some magical ability, meaning a magic ability at 1 or higher. Even if its for the positive qualities in Street magic like Astral perception, spirit/spell knack. Etc...

But yeah, basically its either an even split or some slight deviance on this as highlighted above.

At the end of the day if the group starts screwing each other up it’s only an amount of time before the rest of the group notice. Plus the whole OOC-IC argument bleeding that is inherent.

The Awakened represent fully 1% of the population. That means out of every 100 people, one of them is Awakened.

That means you literally average more than one mage on every street corner! So no, they're not significantly rarer than people with the hacking skills of FastJack, the ability to command an army of drones in battle, a quarter million nuyen of augmentations, technomancers, or people who can talk a Johnson into eating out of her hand.


And folks, when you're playing with a rigger, get his or her drones fixed/replaced first, m'kay? Otherwise playing a rigger sucks ass, and you'll find yourselves not having that rotodrone with the LMG to back you up when you really need it because the rigger is afraid to send it into a hail of gunfire to provide cover for you.

Yes. However, unless one of the SR4 books has decided to change it, those people account for "a fraction" of that one percent (MitS, p28), implying that at least half of that percent and probably more consists of full mages.

~J

The way I figure is probably a third are full on casters of some degree, about a third are probably adepts, and the other third are probably the other weird stuff. Just my personal opinion/view on the thing.

Well with all the hoopla, over this, lets look at some minor things instead of the basic well my class is better then your class, after this is shadowrun not EQ or WoW, acording to the the fluff as well as the charts in the book here are some things we know. mages are rare, not one of a kind but rare, as are Hacker and deckers (their is a dif but diffrent thread ) That are at fastjacks level, and rigger that can bring in a hord of spy and combat drones (normal roto combat drone worked over is about 10k anything less and its a toy )) And as stated is the suped up cybered street sam or the adept that runs up the walls and gives the bad guy a wet willie before he even knows what happens.

Another fact. Most runners have at least one skill at 5, some have two, and skills of 4 and 3 are the norm, The normal cop,Military ground trooper,computer eng,ect. people who do their job for a living as per the core rule book tend to have a normal skill of THREE, Their for your normal PLAYER (not fluff, player )) Shadowrunner team reguardless of how well they do. On paper are in the upper teirs of skill, gear, and know how. So a far split is well fair becouse each one is better then thousands of other people in the world. Or at the very least have combat or hacking ect, on the same level as your local HRT team. Now one guy mentioned a group fund, that is not a bad idea at all, my group did that when we started, 4 members 5 payouts, this was to replace, summoning stuff for the mage, drones for the rigger, cost of transport (when not stolen) ammo, skill chips,maps, ect. general overhead. And so theirs no more this class should get more money then that class, remember each and every class can counter the others in their own ways, I mean the hacker or techno can do alot to a mage or a sam ect if they are sneaky, like say hack a riged car and run them over the rigger, drones are a bit hard to see on the astrel plane ya know. and the mage, well a normal mage might have a magic of 3? How many players here ever have a mage with am agic of 3 is not either a mystic adept, or heavly cybered?

I guess thats about it. in reality the only time any one would get more money is if and only IF the whole team was hired one by one by the same fixer and offered diffrent deals, ok guess thats my 4 cents total

When I run a game (not often enough ) my players (with a covert threat of falling cows) come to an agreement that is totally unrealistic for a bunch of hardened criminals to actually arrive at but prevents anyone being screwed over and moves the game along.

They usually go for for equal shares with varying degrees of expense covering/loss compensation with a hybrid of loot allocation and fencing.

If its something small, like an SMG, you usually 'pay' for it with a cut price rate out of 'loot'. If its something big, like a rover 2068 you carjacked and got resprayed on a run where your share would only amount to like 4 or 5k, you may get that free with the understanding that while you are the nominal owner you better cough it up when the group needs to place that asset at risk.

I don't see why that's unrealistic. Assuming these hardened criminals are more likely to kill than to allow themselves to be bullied, the equal loot distribution is the most likely outcome amongst a group of heavily armed and deadly individuals.

A rep for being a cheat is only one step away from being able to sell you out to people who want you dead. I think bullying anyone with a rep for pulling shadowruns is a good way to get yourself killed at night if you make a habit of it.

Eh, you can look at it that way, although 'advancing' people several months salaries - say 50k in the form of a recycled car or whatever on the expectation of a future lien against that good seems unreasonable given that the guy you just gave it to may elect to move to japan/get arrested tommorrow.

But the real reason is that criminals may resort of armed violence if a sufficient amount of money is on the table, but that is never, ever, ever going to happen my game.

ShadowDragon8685 I'm not sure how you see the Sixth World as working, but 1% of the overall population is Awakened, and even assuming for a moment that the majority of them are either Mages or Adepts with at least a working ( Magic 3 ) that doesn't translate into most or even alot of them working the shadows when by mere virtue of their birth they are virtually ensured a comfortable life and a fragging good salary.

But then again, I assume that world-class Deckers on par with Fastjack and The Pornomancer grade Faces are also worth more then one share by virtue of their rep.

I can think of many times when there was no magical opposition and the mage made the run a milk run with no shots fired, no alarms set off, and thus plenty of time to thoroughly loot.

So even if not needed, they can still do things mundanes cannot.

Games I have played in, the GM usually decides what each gets paid by declaring pay per runner or hiring the runners through their own deals. Most other times, the pay is split evenly, which sucks for those that need cash more. When the rigger whines, he gets told he lost his drone instead of taking holes in his physical hide like everyone else risked. Really, I have yet to play with a rigger that contributed much of anything, so it is hard to defend how they have been treated in those games.

One group had the GMs wife as the connected Face who was determined to make money of the group. Our character sheets got submitted to their email account and I think she looked to see what equipment PCs lacked, then stocked it for her character and tried selling it to us at street price. (Of course she chose items with high SI.) I remember her trying to sell me some kind of commlink for 4*list price (SI 4). I said no, if she or the group wanted to communicate with me they could lend me a device, I'd pay list, or do without until I could afford one. This was the first time she came straight out and tried making money off the group. I suspect after this, she still did, but behind the scenes with one-on-one sessions with the GM/husband. But then again, in this group, I was the sole mage and when I found identified magic items for the group, they usually just let me have them. Of course this is after they saw how valuable I was when it came to looting. (For example, a typical run would pay about 5K each, but loot would run 50-250K each.)

Except that you can fairly easily match or near-match those straight out of chargen.

So, no. None of this "I am 1337, I get moar shares" bullcrap. Or you can split yourself two shares of nothing.

Heh. In an edition where Magician is a mere ~1/27th of your starting build points, you don't want to try to argue that the ability to match a tech specialist isn't worth more than magic.

~J

And in those cases the mage would have a rather high utility, he should be paid better than the others. He could even be the only one who is contracted. I think the mage gets paid for special abilities, the samurai is valueable equipment with high risk of loss if things go south (as in, dead), the rigger brings less gear but with almost guranteed losses. All of those things are worth money. The mage is rare because of metagenetics, a samurai is rare because you need 200k¥+ to make one, on top of training costs. Both can make a run into a milk run, see augmented stealth vs. guard perception.

The player vs. player angle in your second paragraph is the reason why such things should be avoided. It´s easy to assume that the wife gets her hands on things your connections can´t seem to find, and such assumptions are quite impossible to remove. Unless availability is never a factor in the first place. I´d be pretty pissed from the get-go if she got to read your sheets before she made her own char. Equal opportunity - as I had to tell my GF before ( must mention that it is generally not an issue for our group, now that she reads here ).

Just to weigh in: My group likes to tally expenses as the run goes, bribes, destroyed/lost gear, and specialty equipment that no one wants to pay for to actually own, all count as expenses. After expenses are paid, the leftover cash is split evenly.

*Shrugs* Once again that is a problem with the Metagame aspect of things, not with the fluff, Fastjack, The Pornomancer, and Mr. Lucky are rare if not one-of-a-kind as presented in the fluff, and I've already said that I'm not a bit interested in the OOC Metagaming side of dividing payment.

Then how about this:

Without the other members of the team, Mr. Magician dosen't stand a rat's chance in hell of pulling the job off. Therefor, it does not matter that he can bend reality, since he will still fail without the assets of the cybered-up troll gun-bunny to watch his back, the Matrix whiz who hacks the enemy's sensors and their comm channels, and the rigger who's running the getaway van and the combat support..

It dosen't matter that he can bend reality, because without the others, his own skills won't even let him do the run.

It is also impossible to make movies without technical personel, that is why we pay our cameramen and soundmen the same as our lead actors...
Last SR campaign I played I was a pure face, as in all I could do was talk, I always took half the payment...
It's not like I couldn't convince the others of this...
Our d&d campaign had the Paladin taking half the profits to donate to his church...
The God-Will-Like-You argument works so much better when believers actually get spells from them...

It is true that I can only get away with this with my usual group, but in that group, killing fellow players is allowed if it makes sense for the characters...
We have been playing together so long that we have all conned, manipulated and killed chars of everyone else...
In the warhammer game I'm playing with people I don't know that well, we balance out all the ingame gain outgame so no one gets disgrunteld...

Technical crew on a movie are (a) not criminals performing highly-dangerous and difficult jobs, and (b) are not likely to simply shoot you in the back of the head after the Run is done and take all of your ill-gotten shares.

This is why it's best for any given group -- be they a team of characters or a table full of players -- to just work this sort of shit out for themselves. There's no "right" or "wrong" answer, so there's no point in arguing it. What works for one group won't work for another, what makes sense to one person won't for someone else.

If you and your group think mages are so rare and talented they should get extra money just on account of being rare and talented, knock yourself out. If you think riggers have such high overhead costs they need a larger share, and you can convince your group of that, fine. If you think equal shares are the simplest answer, super duper for you and your group. Just don't plan on changing anyone's mind on Dumpshock (of all places).

Indeed, and criminals aren't known for being more fair than movie producers...
My point exactly...
Also, if I was planning to geek the rest of the party, I wouldn't be making a fuss about my cut to begin with...

I wasn't trying to argue with you, just showing that life isn't fair, get a helmet...

The only reason to make it fair in SR, or any RPG, is to avoid OOC arguments, which is a very good reason IMO...

A friend of mine (playing our face) did this constantly in my last SR camp... He'd negotiate for himself to get paid more... then tell us the item we needed for the run was going to cost 15k when it was really like 10k so he wouldn't have to pay his share.

All in all he ended the camp with 220k while the rest of us floated around 10k... however all that money didn't stop him from catching a polearm to the head when our TrollSam found out what was going on

Though... it's stuff like that, that makes me love SR so much hehe

My players usually split a run evenly when the "groups" Johnson contacts them. But since several of them have their own Johnsons, I usually roll Connections + Loyalty (2) to see if their Johnson found them a job. Most hits wins the next mission.

If is up to the player then to determine if they wish to present the mission at full value or take a slight finders fee. Which they almost always do.

Also each person can spend one of their 4 down time actions to gather nuyen (1 per week). These are skill based, uneventful jobs. Each person has a base earning per hit. While the mage does get the most bang for the buck in this case, initiation and other things usually take long enough that he doesn't have any spare time.

But overal I have a rule of don't ask / don't tell when it comes to nuyen and karma. You don't go to work and start talking about salary's, less you want to start alot of trouble.