BTW, this is incorrect:

A disease resistance test and escaping certain death are two different things per RAW; nor isn't there any possibility to deliberately fail a resistance test. (see But I Wanna get High)

It's perfectly legal to burn a point of edge first to gain a critical success at resisting the disease (or simply spend edge normally, or not at all due to implants, high body, etc.) and after successfully resisting the disease, burn one additional point of Edge to escape certain death. (Having an Essence of 0 will put the charakter in a coma anyway first, and essence loss by the essence drain power can explicitly be cured with the Cellular Repair treatment.)

BTW, this is incorrect:

A disease resistance test and escaping certain death are two different things per RAW; nor isn't there any possibility to deliberately fail a resistance test. (see But I Wanna get High)

It's perfectly legal to burn a point of edge first to gain a critical success at resisting the disease (or simply spend edge normally, or not at all due to implants, high body, etc.) and after successfully resisting the disease, burn one (additional) point of Edge to escape certain death. (Having an Essence of 0 will put the charakter in a coma anyway first, and essence loss by the essence drain power can explicitly be cured with the Cellular Repair treatment.)

Hmmm then what is a social adept with a bucket o'dice in con, negotiations, seducing and leadership (skill group!) with extra dice in negotiations and con?

bugs bunny?

Look, old shit.

Er, um...no. They don't have full civil rights in all parts of the world. Trust me.

That's just ordinary, everyday, broken. You don't reach Pornomancer levels until you're discussing a dice pool of 50+.

Rodrigo.

No GM allows Rodrigo (and his hot Latin passion) be played in a game.

Rodrigo is the SR equivelant of the Diplomancer (aka Politico) in D&D: doesn't matter who it is or what their intentions are, you can sweet talk your way out of it.

While in ShadowRun there aren't rules for convincing someone who is going to shoot you to not shoot you, Rodrigo should be able to avoid the possibility that someone wants to shoot him (i.e. there are very few instances of immediately hostile NPCs that can't be reasoned with--they are not color coded for your convenience).

Rodrigo needs to go Leadermancer and use Commanding Voice. I tried it just once, as a Big Bad NPC to face the players. As a result of that session, we unanimously banned Commanding Voice from the game.

Well, that depends on the game specifically.
My two Shadowrun games I'm running go like this:

1) The PCs are working for the UCAS government as black ops. They have SINs and legal identities, and run covert ops.
2) The PCs are working for the Draco foundation, half the group have level SINs.

The game doesn't have to focus on being 'hired criminals'. That might be the majority of the game, but I'm more than happy if they give character options to work outside that field.

Example settings movie settings and themes I'd love to play or run in Shadowrun: I, Robot, Minority Report, Ghost in the Shell, Appleseed, Robocop, Blade Runner.

Actually, I am happy with RC, except for a few quibbles.

1) Some of the art on the metavarients
2) One of my players tried using the Karma rules for chargen, and said they're pretty broken compared to the BP version.
3) I'm sad that they didn't put in the 'average pay for mission type' charts that they had in the 3E RC.

Personally, I'd rather say that the BP rules are pretty broken - both from a value and a min-max angle. The value issue works out if you change 300-400-500 to 400-500-600.

Like equipment weights, this was one of the most ridiculous parts of 3rd ed.

How would that be ridiculous? I actually like having a good idea of what the 'average' mission would pay out. It was one of the annoying things about 1st and 2nd Edition -- you had no idea how much anyone would pay to do a run. At least, with that guide, the game master could go 'X nuyen is a reasonable amount'.

Usually you can toss a value to the players and they'll mumble it over.

Gauge their reactions. If they perk up at the number (even after they divide it evenly) then you've chosen high and should make the run harder than planned.

If they grumble and are on the verge of saying "hell no" to the Johnson, increase his offer (prior to negotiation rolls): he needs the job done, maybe he can throw in some extra cash.

If they shrug and go "sure. wait. you, face, roll negotiation, see if we can milk him for more" then you know you picked the number right, bulls eye dead center.

For our group, we're used to being paid in 4 digit numbers bordering on 5 digit numbers per player for a run. This is probably double recommended. 3 to 7 thousand newyen a player is probably sufficient for the first couple runs. Obviously as they complete missions and grow older, wiser, and more Karmic, the number should go up.

The 5k mark is right around how much most characters spend per month on lifestyles, so this is pretty much the average needed for a 1 month long job (including post-run downtime), so if that's the opening bid, negotiation should make that higher and give them the profits they need to buy ammo and upgrades.

See, my usual character would say 'hell no' to a 3k run. 5k is pushing it, depending on what I'm being asked to do. Then again, I usually break a run down into 'parts' mentally, and figure out what is needed, what I'm going to be doing, and how much hassle it is going to be.

Then again, my usual character follows the creed 'if you were spotted, the run was a failure', which shows the amount of work my character tends to do in a run. (Get in, do the work, get out, nobody saw a damn thing)

So, yeah. 3k? Not worth the effort. 5k is pushing the line.

True, it depends on the group and the mentalities of the players and the characters. 3k is pretty much an absolute minimum here, a "fetch quest" as it were (break into this low security warehouse and pick up this package, it weighs about 50 pounds). I almost edited my numbers to say 5 - 9k. Our group tends to get jobs at the 12 to 20k level, frequently. The run we're in the middle of, if we complete every objective, will get us 25,000 each (150,000 total).

I believe that the word you are looking for is clandestine.

Clandestine Operation: Something no one knows we did.
Example: Sneaking into a company, getting a copy of the data, erasing all traces perfectly, and sneaking out with no alarms/alerts/history.

Covert Operation: Something we say we didn't do, even though most people will believe (rightly) that we did it.
Example: Destroying/stealing a companies shipment to a certain group every time they try for a week. They might never know who did it, but they sure will suspect (rightly) the company that stole their contract while they were having difficulties.

Other examples, this one of a "Hit"...
Covert: Guy gets a bullet in the head from a sniper while out on a morning run. No one knows exactly who did it, but his enemies are strongly suspected.
Clandestine: Guy gets really riled up at work due to stress, has a stroke, and dies of heart failure on the way to hospital. No one thinks it was deliberate.

Be they were a few digits short to get mundane PCs even thinking about risking their equipment, both internally and externally.

True dat. The published adventures are always very short in the money range. Unless your living in "Low Lifestyle" and have almost no equipment of note, they pay enough to barely cover your Lifestyle. Forget about replacing any used ammo and equipment or advancement to better gear.

The old 1st edition published adventures had the exact opposite problem. Run Elven Fire and every player who survives is pretty well set for life when it comes to finances.

Keep your players hungry but don't starve them is the rule I GM by when it comes to figuring out the rewards for an adventure.

*nods*
I always add up all my PC's lifestyles, divide it by the number of runs @ month, add in a reasonable expenditure amount for that run, and finish it off with 2.5~5k * Karma * #PC as a good peak job pay. Minimum pay if they screw up a lot but still finish the job is around (Total Lifestyle Cost / runs @ month) + Expenditures + (1k * # PCs).

That's actually an interesting way to do it. Of course, the question then becomes 'how many runs do they do a month'?

Depends on what the run entails and how long the GM expects it to take. If the Johnson wants it done in a week, then feasibly they could do the run in 5 days, take 10 off and do another run (both paying half a month).

# runs a month often boils down to character power level. Beginners tend to have to take several runs a month (as many as 4 or 5) while with higher skill and rep, it goes down as they take more time on the runs and more time in R&R/downtime/recovery/training. My guys are at the 1 or 2 a month stage. When they started they would go as high as 5.

Also, if the runners are not getting enough money, they might start doing odd jobs and non-run things on the side to get more money. Stealing cars, jacking drug shipments, actually making drug shipments, etc. If your characters start doing PC driven things, don't try to stop it. Their actually coming up with things to do which is good. The best thing when this happens is encourage it, tie in as much plot and meta-plot to their actions. Figure out who they might piss off, opposition to their new enterprise, etc. Lotta fun.

Like when they busted that BTL dealer last week for encroaching territory they could have stolen a case of BTL chips, had the rigger scorch the ID numbers off, and then sold them yourselves.

We did this once (SR3), a whole case of BTL chips right off the printer, I think we got 90,000(?) for them for the group, wait, let me check the log.

Damn, can't find it. We got a huge loot pull from those chips, took my rigger a week to burn their ID numbers off. Jim might not have recorded that part...or at least not in the way so I can find it.

In 3E, I think my best stunt was this: Our street samurai was cybered to the hilt by the Tir for a run into the Renraku Archology while the AI was in control. Of course, they added some things to him without us knowing (though we suspected it). Once we were finished, a shaman performed a ritual on him to 'cleanse' him of the taint of cyberware.

It 'melted' out of his body, and I collected it, took it to a fixer, and sold it. Pristine Betaware. I blew the entire team's Karma Pool for re-rolls, and pulled off some score-and-a-half successes. Walked out of that with multiple millions of nuyen to share with the group. That wound up being near the end of the campaign...

I didn't like the average pay charts, either, until I figured out they worked really well with multipliers. Wetwork? 5k each. Bodyguards? Price doubles. He's a magician? Price triples. Make it look like an accident? Price quadruples, etc.

Exactly. That's how I use it.
'I'm smuggling my group across the border to another nation, to infiltrate a corp, steal data, free two people from the company, and smuggle them back. If possible, I'm expected to do a hit on a CEO in the building and frame someone else for it? That'll be...'

My character, Cleric, gets around all this by simply letting the rest of the PCs negotiate for the run, then charging them a certain amount based on what he has to do on the mission. His role is pretty simple: drive group there, wait for them to arrive after the run, and drive them back. Sounds simple, until you figure this may require crossing multiple state / nation lines and involve him evading pursuit, as well as shooting things.

He charges the group per-person. Often makes out with more money than the group does.

That sounds fine to me, as long as you let the team's face negotiatiate your fee, just like they do with the Johnson.

Sure. If they ever think to. The Face hasn't bothered to try yet. So I walk out with better pay than anyone else. Mind you, I don't accept a share of the fee for the run itself, so they get a larger 'chunk' of that. Which means, if they get any extras... bonuses or what-have-you, I don't get any cut of that, nor do I expect it.

Professional, you know?

What do you do while the team and GM perform the job? Wait patiently until they get out? Watch tv and eat pizza?

Play guard for the Technomancer who is ghosting in, providing her meat support and keeping an eye on things around her body so she's not fragged, keep an eye on external security, eavesdrop in on communications if I can, and keep an eye out for external support coming in to ruin their day.

Someone has to do it.

---

Alternatively, if the GM allows more than one character, I use my back-up character. Though I am more loath to do that, simply because of how that character operates: astral masking + trid phantasm + catfeet + gecko crawl + stealth spells up the wazoo on the entire group. Then there's the IR dampening and other physical things to prevent the PCs from being noticed. Slip in, get the job done, slip out, nobody sees a damn thing.

The GM's been frustrated a few times trying to figure out how to get past the character's 'stealth suite', and has a few times deliberately fudged to have the group noticed. So, I don't use the character on most runs, simply because I know the GM wants there to be firefights, and my character's mentality is 'the run fails if you're noticed'. So, I don't use the character, the PCs get shot at and mowed down and what-have-you, and I sit back with my driver, and wait to see how many people survive.

Are you under the awareness that Trid-Phatasm can only ADD things to a scene, not remove them?

Clearly you can fake this a little bit, but eventually you'll end up with a cube textured to look like the end of a hallway (and someone will notice that the perspective is off).

There's a reason Invisibility is a different spell.

Please submit this character to dumpshock (in a separate thread). We will find your character, capture them, send them to maximum security and submit them to bubba the love troll.

Oh god, he ran a used car dealership once didn't he? My elf had a run in with him. D:

Jim, our old trickster made a gay troll NPC who hit on my elf, who promptly used a chameleon suit to hide and run away (very fast). Had I let the troll violate him we'd have gotten a discount on the camper we purchased (ah, the price of my (charater's) anal virginity. And pride).

Which one? The driver, or the covert operative?
I blame 3E for that. I took a look at the covert op character, and just loved the idea of that sort of role. The character who sneaks in and out without anyone seeing a damn thing. Added a shaman template to the concept, to make things a little different...

... then noticed just what kind of hell you can create with illusion and manipulation magic. As soon as the character got initiated, things went downhill from there.

I had a very... interesting... discussion with the GM about two or three adventures he'd run, and how even if the group was 'silent' and 'cloaked', people were still acting as if they sensed something sneaking around them regardless of any evidence to the contrary. No rolls or anything.

We don't use nuyen in our games, only abstract wealth. Saves a lot of calculating.

Inspired by D20 Modern?

No. When I introduced this there was no d20 modern yet. I just had gotten sick of the money management, of juggling mages with samurais and riggers with regards to payouts and game balance, and of the sometimes really annoying negotiating for runs. So, I said "Screw it! From now on, pick your lifestyle, and assume you've got enough to cover it and expenses and most gear. If you want something special, tell me, and we'll work out how it's gotten - through a run, simple purchase, looting, or accident. It gives everyone, GM and players, more control. Players know that if the GM allows them something it'll be ok and there won't be any "and now I'll take it away since it's too powerful!" antics, the GM knows there won't be any gear in game he did not approve, and no "but the rules say I can buy it with this roll" complaints. All in all it lightens my workload and makes the game more fun for me to run.

In a similar way we've done away with karma.

If you read what I quoted, I cut out everything relative to the driver. I want you to post the covert shaman along with the techniques, spells, etc. that he/she uses.

For one, I want to know how you manage to cast all these spells on your team-mates without being crippled by sustaining penalties. Also, there is lots of other ways to be detected other than guards and cameras. Did you have silence sustained to defeat ultrasound sensors? Why weren't astral patrols spotting you? A big one is making obstacles rather than opposition. If some-one doesn't see a trip wire, you've all just set off an alarm even if you're totally concealed. Another good way to set off an alarm is putting anti-tamper alarm systems on all the maglocks you have to bypass, and then layering them near high-security areas, and the probability would be in the favour of an alarm going off, but this is really off topic and I'd like to explore this better in a different thread.

Ok, the way you're handling money and gear is cool, but how does it work out with karma?

People make the character they want to start, no limits other than that it has to be balanced with the group. Any changes afterwards are done by GM approval. There's no "start, and then improve" - people start with the character they want "maxed".

do both, you have the time and you know you wanna show off ^^

Heh. My Covert Ops was 'reset' for 4E for the new campaign, and my driver's a newer character as well. Hmm. Fine, I'll do both. The covert I'll do in two modes, to show what he was like before, and what he's like now (IE, 'green'). Take a little bit, I think.