So we're all busily answering why our various deranged personalities run the shadows, but when will they stop? 5 grand or more for a nights work? Hard to find legitmate work that pays that well.

But how much is enough? Is there such a thing?

see overkill, no such thing, only the need to reload and open fire . .
but if my character can make more money stealing cars for a night it's just not enough

I think "enough" will be when I have enough in my coffers to buy permanent luxury lifestyle.

I think retiring is going to be difficult. When you're 'Running, you've got some protection. You're mobile and you're practising to be dangerous. Retirement, even with the best ID wipe, means sitting there (maybe only metaphorically, but cruising the South China sea in a junk diving with the Manta rays and such isn't everyone's idea of a good time...) waiting for your past to come back and haunt you into an early grave.

Pulling together 10 mill to buy a Luxury lifestyle for ever (can you still do that?) plus the costs of dropping *entirely* off the radar is a pretty common goal, I reckon.

There are plenty of idealistic 'Runners out there with a conscience who could find better things to do with that 10 mill if they stayed in the shadows though.

Nas is 'Running more for the lifestyle and the rush than the money, so there is no "Enough" for him. He's swapped out his heroin addiction for adrenaline. Although, if he could get onto a Combat Cycle team, I'm sure he'd jump at the chance.

"Money" Johnson considers being a Street Johnson to be his "Hobby" in some ways, and in others... Well... That... Is another story.

He had retired from the Shadows, however, when he got married (2066). But a Terrorist Bomb took away that life, and he came back to Seattle three years ago (2067) with blood in his eye, and thirsty razors. He reconnected with contacts, and waged a Shadow War against those responsible, gaining more contacts, and gaining a lot of favours (This is how he got the Harkness to owe him one).

In the last year (2069-2070) he's calmed down somewhat, and is just setting up 'Runs and doing the occasional favour for friends, while checking his stocks and watching his personal worth grow, seemingly contect to be a "Gentleman Shadowdenzien".

Back to the two characters I described in the other thread...

My decker did retire, sort of. It was more like he went into hiding. The awesome campaign the club had been running was utterly destroyed when couple new GMs came in and completely "jumped the shark," by introducing several extremely retarded plots. We tried to retcon and reset the game, but it failed; by the time the GMs were ousted, we'd lost half of the club's players. So, my poor decker is somewhere in Seattle, plotting to destroy MAGUS, the sentient, magical robot with a crystalline computer brain, MP laser shooting finger guns, armor capable of shrugging off AV rounds, and... I'm sure I'm forgetting some of his other "features." Of course, I actually know how to defeat him (and through GM fiat knows that I know, so he's hunting me). All I have to do is somehow manage to lure him into the Seattle metro dome (or a concert venue) and blast a certain harmonic frequency sound through the stadium's sound system to shatter his brain. Yes. It really was that retarded. *sigh* Every player who'd stuck it out was pulling out all the stops to defeat him... we had a lot of resources at our disposal too. If the stupidity hadn't happened, my decker probably would have retired when he couldn't keep up with the tech curve anymore. He probably would have been going strong until Crash 2.0, maybe even later (he'd be in his late 40's by 2070).

By 2070, my Shark shaman is probably long dead, which is probably not a bad thing. I'm not sure if he got lucky and survived up to the Crash 2.0, died on a run, or fied hunting down some super-bad magical nasty. It'd be ironic if he just died peacefully in his sleep, I think. I haven't really given it much thought.

I guess that really depends on on the characters themselves. I've had PCs who literally had to claw and fight their way up and out of the Barrens so retiring with an iron-clad fake SIN, permanent middle lifestyle and the 2060s version of a Toyota Tundra in a nice quiet little neighbourhood was quite literally beyond anything she'd ever hoped for. Other have been shooting for the ultimate prize of a permanent luxury lifestyle. But most of the realists have been aiming to bank enough to buy a permanent high lifestyle, get their DNA altered and a little light cosmetic surgery and a bulletproof fake SIN so they can disappear to enjoy it.

The short lifespan of Orks gives them a very ready reason to continue, the high cost of life extension Gene Therapy. For my ork characters it's pretty much keep earning, or get old and die fast. For other races it's less of an issue so being able to retire is a theoretic possibility. Permanent Luxury lifestyle is a possibility or getting offered a legitimate job that pays more (it could happen). Others may never retire either because they are to unsocialized to rejoin society, so it's run or die.

I think the line between "retiring" and "going into hiding" for a runner may be on in the same Has anyone had a character that openly retired? Maybe as a fixer or some such?

A couple characters from my game have retired. A street doc (PC) decided he wanted to become a fixer and started getting lots of connections. Couple sessions later, the party was taking jobs from him and the GM claimed the character as his from that point on. Slightly pissed off the character's player... he was entertained by the whole situation.

Both of the characters I'm using have retirement plans, since both have technical skills that they can develop and acquire infrastructure and contacts for. I just need to figure out how I'm going to get these characters to reach the point where they can retire safely to a stable day-to-day job.

That is just grotesquely unfair...
Does he also take streetsams away when they get to 4 IPs?
Or Hackers when they get a 6/6/6/6 commlink?

I don't usually have retirement plans, most of my characters take life one day at a time...

My current character started as a Face with medical background...
Now she's leaning how to hack, than comes mechanics and rigging, and if I can then work in armorer, all I need is contact and money and I can set up shop somewhere out of the way and be left alone to become a mad scientist (without the mad)...
And this was actually the plan when I was writing her background...

Actually, I think he took the character because the character was completely useless 99% of the time. Said character litterally was a fixer: call us about a job, take his cut of the pay, and do nothing else.

granted, before he became big and important, we did manage to get him (an elf) on a leash and taken to a major gang boss in Seattle's barrens. Good time...

I don't think I could retire a character. I'd just be so curious to see the manner of their death.

For my three primary characters:

Seraph: Being a hobby, running will never return 'enough' nuyen.

Nightwing: As her primary focus is increasing knowledge & power (particularly the pursuit of immortality), nuyen has very little to do with her motives. As long as she makes enough to live & fund her side projects, she doesn't care were it comes from.

Muspelheim: Similar to Nightwing, he does not care much about the money, and so will not stop running because of how wealthy he becomes.

How much is enough? I'll tell ya how much enough is for me.

There's this little village down in Amazonia, quiet place, lots of friendly girls with few modern western preconceptions about sharing the night with a troll, even if they ain't one themselves. Nice and WARM, lots o' rain, but non of it acidic. The jungle tries to encroach, but all that means is that a guy with my particular skill set and level of education can both be appreciated for his ability to help protect the community and teach the youngsters a bit more about some modern idea that they might WANT to learn about. And it'll never get boring. I'll always be pushed just enough that I won't atrophy down there.

Now to make this dream come true I need about another 300,000 in the bank. Not so much for me as to make the village a place that is more comfortable and acceptable for any of my chummers from the ol' Plex who finally wisen up enough to haul their hoops down to Papa Blues Retirement Paradise and stay a spell. That and set up a decent medical facility to take care of any damage to my cyber systems. I'm already learning the techno end and I've got a chummer who's done a turn as medical assistant with a street doc for six years now who is ready to come along.

So, for this old Troll, it's another 300k.





And if you think that even I believe what I'm saying then you're very, very young indeed.



BB

Well most likely most runners are of the live hard, die young, and leave a pretty corpse variety. I would think that in the end most runners end up dying due to work related injuries. On the other hand one of my characters did end up showing up in a later campaign as a successful talk show host and couples therapist/match maker. Though he was an odd character to start with.

My characters "retire" when a campaign ends, and tend to turn up as cameos in following campaigns. Given how the last campaign that ended played out, with most PCs drifting towards having some legal job/interest in addition to running, I think most of those are semi-retired, focusing on their other careers.

Well, see, now that's different...
I'm playing a face, I started with decent social DPs (13 dice) and 3 contacts, now I have about 16 dice on average and close to 15 contacts...
I usually arrange all of the talking parts of the legwork, when a deal is made and money flows away from us, I negotiate to make it less money, when money flows to us, I make it more, I also usually take about half of the profits for myself, to wine and dine my contact, no one mind, they consider it a good investment...
And my only combat skill is Dodge, unless you call first aid a combat skill...
I also have a medical background and am diversifying into hacking, but currently, hacking a tamagotchi is a challenge for me...
So yeah, I pretty much behave as a fixer, and I do more than anyone else, all they do is plan the run (After I got us all the info I could, and then I still help them make a plan) and then do the run (I'm not usually there for those parts, you know, the dangerous shooty parts)...
I haven't had this much fun with a character since I played the luckiest adept in the world in SR3 (half of the dice he rolled where 6+)...

If this guy was useless 99% of the time it's not because he actually was useless, it's because he didn't do anything 99% of the time...
It would be like the streetsam using only his assault rifle, never his stealth, pistols, spurs, never climbing, and then complaining all he does is shoot his AR...

Also, since this thread I've been reevaluating my face's future, so my previous future dreams are now subject to change...

My character's answer would probably be, "when every child has enough to eat, enough to wear, and warm clothes; when every corporate toxic waste dump gets cleaned up; and when every human being is allowed to freely choose their own destiny".

Then again, I'm currently playing a bit of a Don Quixote type.

I normally shoot for one million in the bank as a retirement set for all my characters.

One million after normal upkeep and expenses (first aid, ammunition, vehicle repair, routine maintenance), after staying SOTA with the occasional upgrade or shiney new toy from the latest book, after maintaining contacts and bribing local gangs and mafia bosses as necessary to maintail a productive work environment, after factoring in the monthly costs for multiple lifestyle/safehouses (each with their own mini-gear stash) as part of the price of doing business, and after however much it'll cost for one last trip to the Street Doc to get a new face and the Fixer to get a new SIN for me to wear when I retire.

So far, I've had one character retire. And, truth be told, he could've done it much earlier, I just happened to get a great big fat windfall with him right about the same time I was getting a little bored with him. So that stash of cash became his "fuck you, Seattle" paycheck, and he split.

Retire? When's enough, enough?

I'll tell you, chummer. I'll have had enough when the Shadow Runnin' fraggers who shot me and left me for dead are all devil rat snacks. I'll have had enough when the fraggin corp and the mid-level soycaf slurpin' suit that screwed my hoop are both tearless memories.

I'll have had enough when they all are dead and I am virtually pissing on their graves while drinking margaritas on some nice beach, a naked doxy sunbathing on either side of me as I tip the waiter a handful of nuyen to bring me another drink with their cred.

I'll have had enough when that fraggin' troll that keeps lookin' at me across the bar is eating concrete out back in the alley with my Predator in his ear.

Maybe.

First, I need to to figure out who set me up, drugged me and left me in that lab with big holes in my memories.

Until then, I need to make some nuyen. Got a job? I am not easy....but I can be had.

Vlad

I've been thinking about this one and my first reply, was a bit flippant. How much is enough?

Enough is enough to really disappear, but in to a place where I won't become horribly bored by having done so. But at the same time it becomes vitally important that there is a step down, a lessening of the daily grind, a chance to relax and enjoy the fruits of my labors. More, for me, it also requires that I provide the younger folks around me with possibilities they wouldn't have had without my presence. I need, and I do mean NEED, to be able to advise those who come to me for advice, to teach those who want to learn from me and to help those who deserve my help and want it. That means that I had to find a place small enough to make a difference by being there, but that would continue to push me to excel, if in a lesser manner and with a smaller chance at ending up as fertilizer. I'm too much of an adrenaline junkie anymore to consider giving it all up entirely, so there has to be that aspect there as well.

What I wrote earlier is not so far off in detail, but lacks the essence. Besides the cash and the ability to get there without too many of my old enemies having a clue of where I went, I also have to have the right people with me and have to ensure they too get there without too many of THEIR old enemies knowing where they went. That's trickier.

All in all the physical monies part for the necessary gear/equipment/supplies is around a further 300,000, over what I have in place now, but the getting of myself and the friends I want to take with me into retirement in to it without too many traces is more formidable. I put it at about 250,000 EACH, for the six of us. Now four of them have been able to pull about half of what they want to take into place already, and more than 1/3 of their "drop dead" money (which is about what I've got squirreled away to this point too) as well, the sixth part of this grand plan is always perpetually broke and we all want her along at least as much as she wants to be part of it, so we're looking at another half a mil in all accounts from her end. Eevn splitting it all between us, we average over half a mil short EACH and we still have to make some attempt to keep up with the SOTA enough to not get crowded out of the decent jobs. Siting down I figured that this REALLY accounts for 90+% of what we earn.

Sooo, we only need about another 5 mil a piece worth of runs/time. Piece of cake huh? That should only amount to about another decade or three.



BB

It always struck me that most shadowrunners probably never really retire completely. The costs, as Cantankerous has outlined, are prohibitive. I'd assume most people simply pick a side and esconce themselves in the relative safety of a major player in the shadows. People may still want to settle their scores but with the Yakuza at your back they'll probably think twice.

Of course this all stands upon your ability to convince the big fish of the world that little old you is worth protecting... for the rest of your unnatural lifespan.

Well, I'd say most Shadowrunners probably die rather than retire (or even semi-retire by going Company Man or the organized crime route), in-game.

Becoming a Fixer isn't, for me at least, retiring. It's sideways (ok, slightly vertical) movement within my present job. But while it would more than supply the adrenaline charged situations I'd still "require" and while I have enough contacts, savvy and a solid enough reputation to pull it off, I don't think that many former active Runners who dream about this as retirement are really thinking things through. Being a Fixer really means moving into the bigger leagues in many ways, where both the profits and the dangers are greater. It isn't as possible for a Fixer to, say, pull a quick fade for instance, as it is for one of us. Being a Fixer looks glamorous (and is) but it also means being less mobile in a job that often relies on mobility as protection.


BB


((Sorry, I keep forgetting the iconography in this BBS, to this point as BB, it was IC and whenever I signed as Isshia it wasn't))