It's an RPG. Not a chess match.

The stats/attributes/numbers for BP/Karma/Nuyen are one part of the game. It's the easily measurable part.

The other part of the game, the bigger part, is the character/story/world that the group is working in. This is measured in FUN.

The relative value of the BP/Karma/Nuyen to the Character/Story/World is going to entirely be a matter of personal values and is up to each person to determine.

Negative and Positive Flaws, attributes skills gear, all the elements that make up the character sheet all have a value that is partially your FUN.

Some think magic is more FUN, some think cyberware is more FUN, some think big numbers are FUN, some think the odd rarely used combination of Adept Powers is more FUN, some think big guns are more FUN, some think no guns are more FUN.

How much FUN you have is your choice and opinion.

Since being In Debt, as any Quality does, has a large element of FUN in measuring it's usefulness in the game, it's entirely up to you to use it how you want to. Just make sure you get the FUN you want out of it.

Take it to it's logically stupid extreme.

I will leave myself with a .000000000000000001Â¥ Debt and a .0000000000000000001Â¥ Interest payment.

So as said below... leave yourself with a 1Â¥ Debt... or even a fractional one... .001Â¥ or something... woohoo no need to pay it off with karma.

the problem with In Debt is you have a fixed amount to pay off... It's a loan... and you get to make principal payments on it the way it was written.

If instead you had to give up a % of any income earned as payment on the loan, and there was no way to pay it off... it would work better... but that's not what was designed into the game.

Again I'm trying to run missions compliant here... so making up additional features for the negative quality is not an option.

Keep in mind that charging Karma to get rid of a negative quality isn't an "additional feature", but the RAW for dealing with players who want to get rid of them, and that In Debt neither has any wording contradicting that, nor is it any more difficult to get rid of than a number of other negative qualities.

So... if you're trying to be consistent, then ask yourself how you would handle it if a SURGED character with the extravagant eyes negative quality simply got cybereyes, or if the guy with the day job decided to quit it, since he's ditching that fake SIN anyways, or if the guy with a childhood enemy shoots that enemy dead. Would complications ensure that the negative quality remained or was replaced with an equivalent negative quality? Would they get charged Karma for losing that negative quality?

If so, then why can you get rid of In Debt just by getting rid of it, when you can't do that for other qualities? Seems kind of unfair to any other player who has any other negative quality.

If not - well, then no biggie. They can get In Debt, pay it off whenever, and it's gone.

That is probably reasonable, and probably what was intended. But they didn't write it down. So, we have the examples folks suggest of paying of most of the debt. Presumably, the right answer is that you have to proportionately pay off the karmic burden. But that is not something that is a general rule. I will go so far as to agree it is common sense. Unfortunately, there are parts of the rules that violate common sense, so I at least have grown cautious about assuming that is what was intended.
As a house ruling, and what I would expect of a sane GM, having to pay off the Karma as you pay off the debt, makes sense. (4 Karma each time you pay of 3K of principle.)

Thanks for the discussion,
Joel

I'd just up the BP sum by 35, and let players pick flaws they actually want to keep, no matter the cost.

That pretty much sums it up... if I leave 1Â¥ on the books... I haven't paid off the debt... so I get to keep it.. and my .1Â¥ debt along with it.

Yah I'm raising a stink... with the dearth that is posts in the missions section... it's hard to ask the same question there and ever get a response.

SR Missions are very much by the book. Buying off Negative Qualities requires paying it off in Karma. Buying off Negative Qualities with Karma is a general rule for all Negative Qualities which is described in SR4 book. The specific text in the Debt Negative Quality only says that if the payment of interest is made that no leg breaker is sent. There is no explicit text overriding the general method of paying of a Negative Quality in the specific text of the In Debt Negative Quality.

SR Missions compliance with base rules are very important because the players will be dealing with several GMs. If there is a question about how something is done, it is much simpler to go to the base rules in the books. Also, it is to give the same baseline rules for all the players. If I, as a Missions GM, or as a Missions Player, encountered a PC who got rid off 60 Karma worth of Negative Quality on the basis of simply paying off the Nuyen and the GM approval without the normal payment of Karma expected in all other cases of Negative Qualities, there would be some question fairness to the other Players.

Qualities by their natures involve balance and impact related to story and character events in the game world. Addictions and allergies for example have their level of impact on the PC driven by how often the GM introduces elements that would effect the PC. The ability to make an acceptable payment to the Loan Shark is just another variant of this.

For Missions, if you waived the karma payoff requirements and I got that players sheet, I'd certainly ask some rigorous questions about it.

For non missions campaigns, feel free to do what you want, it's entirely reasonable to allow Negative Qualities to be bought off however you want, there are cases where the story and character development certainly make gaining or acquiring Qualities an in game IC event rather then a karma expenditure.

And if you ran into a character who paid off all but say 100Â¥ or 10Â¥.?

He's still got the debt... and by RAW, he's still making his 10% interest payment of 10Â¥ or 1Â¥ respectively.

He's neutralized the in debt negative quality without getting rid of it, as there's nothing written in the quality that specifies that paying it off with karma is required as you stage down the principal.

And FWIW, even paying 10% monthly on a ¥45,000 debt is a mere ¥4,500 payment... with the sorts of payments that the first few missions from Denver have paid out... that's about 1/2 to 1 mission out of 4 per month, or less if you fence the big ticket items that are made available. Such as the chopper, the trucks, raw materials, etc.

Given the quality of most of the Missions GMs I know it will be disturbingly trivial for most of them to figure out creative ways to make that 0.2 nuyen worth of remaining debt seem like 30 BP/60 Karma worth buying off as soon as possible.

Just as you can go ahead and sign off on the Missions Log giving away whatever you want, the next Missions GM can taketh it away. Making it all the more important to follow the baselines rules to begin with.

Also keep in mind giving a Missions Player 60 karma worth of freebies is the equivalent of 10 Missions, since most of them only allow a maximum of 6 karma.

The easiest way I can see of forestalling the pay-off is to simply make it nigh impossible to hock the half mill chopper. Seriously, do they have the contacts to sell it to?

I've not read the RC in that much detail, so I'm not sure about 'In Debt', but presumably the loan shark could impose fines and such (typically you can't pay off your mortgage in one lump sum without incurring some penalty).

Noone at my table has made a new character using RC, but if they were to use In Debt I'd be inclined to add a zero to the owed money, while leaving everything else the same (they still only get 10% as walking around money at start). You're going to have to Run pretty hard to earn enough to pay off this debt at the top levels!

In Missions, everything is by the book for a reason...

In a house game, however there are some major considerations to be made...

The one that gets me is this "they may not let you pay it off all at once." Consider your average runner's contacts, and that few runners are solo operators, but usually operate in groups. So you owe Venny from the Mob 30k and he won't let you pay? Call up your friends, owe them a favor or two and have the team hacker BURY HIM IN LONESTAR GOONS. You don't really wanna go frakking around with people who professionally deal with (avoid, hack, kill) corp security on a more or less daily basis... unless you are DAMN sure that:
1. They can't come after you in any way without completely frakking themselves up.
2. They don't want to come after you for other reasons...
3. They won't tell every runner/shadow contact they have you are frakking them (Word of Mouth is still the most damaging/helpful marketing tool.)
AND
4. They aren't psycho's who will come after you, your friends, family, etc. until an outside contractor brings them down.

By that token wanderer_king noone is going to want to mess with a runner!

If a runner destroys Venny from the Mob, you can be pretty sure that the mob are going to want to make an example out of the runner. 'Da Mob' should be scary, and if they aren't there's something wrong.

sure at 25% and with their face adept? They can fence it themselves per the rules if they want to. They only get 20-25% of the value of the thing anyway... The other choice would have been giving it to the rigger... complete with Mini-gun and ammo..

I'm sure the fight was supposed to go differently, but with troll hanging from sky hook, and mage at the mini-gun it went like this.

Party wasn't surprised (or at least those that mattered weren't).

First IP.

Team sniper went first, firing from vehicle, in broad daylight at somebody in partial cover. He spent an edge to re-roll misses and got 10 hits. Turning the HMG weilding Mage into smush.

Team heavy weapons expert went next. Long Burst from Ingram White Knight basically cut the troll in half.

If the troll had dropped and the mage hadn't, then the pilot would have flown away... but with the mage dead, the adventure says the rigger goes after the party... So now the Street Sam takes the longshot test and bounces a round of Stick N Shock into the chopper, not signficantly hurting, but still incapacitating the pilot for 5 rounds.

It's the pilot's turn... who twitches in the chopper incapacitated for 5 rounds from S&S

The technomancer then blows through the chopper's security systems and orders it to land nearby.

They didn't even bother looting the trinity of their gear... they dumped their corpses out on the lawn, flew the chopper away and fenced it. The social adept, who roles about 32 dice to negotiate, fences it quickly enough and maxes the payout.

No, that wasn't my point... my point is you have to watch how hard you push someone who either A.) Kills people professionally for a living or B.) works with people who kill professionally.

People will try and screw over Runners, but you have to watch how hard you push someone... sure the runner may know the Mob has him over a barrel, but if he has no breathing room, or think the deal has been too slanted against him, he may not care what happens anymore....

Old Chinese saying: never fight 2 kinds of people; those with right on their side, and those with nothing left to lose.

I have never run a game where players will stand that kind of being pushed around for long.... EVEN IF IT KILLS THEM, THEY WILL GUT VENNY'S OPERATION, putting the mafia down a lot more than letter a runner outta there grasp, but with friendly relationships; after most runners need a variety of black market goods, and if you have had good relations with one outfit in the past....

Mafia = Business men, they want what brings them the most money, not to be pushing people around who can and probably will push back.

I wasn't suggesting that it wasn't completely above board, although I'd have been a little more restrictive of the SnS actually being able to hit the rigger. If the rounds were sufficiently bouncy to ricochet inside the chopper they'd surely just bounce off their targets. Similarly, if they have the force to punch through a chopper's windscreen, they'd probably cut straight through their target. Meh. Ultimately it's unimportant.

Still, for fencing it's legitimate for the GM to demand who they are planning on selling to. The fact that the Face can convince a buyer they are getting the deal of their lives by RAW, you still need to find someone that wants a hot chopper. Not inconceivable (hell, flog it to the weapons dealer Lady Jade), but it does appear to have given you a bit of a headache.

I know how vindictive players can be wanderer_king. I've known some who actually kept a list at the table of NPCs they would hunt down and kill, for various real and imagined slights!

The issue at hand here is how to make that 30BP (or 60 karma) -ve quality worth the payout. If they turn round to the loan shark saying "I've come into some money, here's your cash" within the 1st month game time, there's a problem. If the PCs take offence to the loan shark demanding six months worth of interest payments and cap him, or otherwise try to badmouth or inconvenience him, the mob should take action, and this can be as disproportionate as the GM feels is appropriate for game balance. Personally I'd be inclined to give him the Hung Out To Dry quality, if they didn't just take out a contract on his arse.

I was actually taking about a post up the thread where someone suggested that without the karma points the loan shark wouldn't let them pay it off at all, not saying fees and penalties couldn't or wouldn't be assessed. (IMO a Fee/Penalty is entirely appropriate.) This isn't really much of an issue in my games anyway, as i have house ruled how players pay off negative qualities anyways. The system I use is roughly if you just want it gone its BPx2 in karma cost. If you want to roleplay it, you get the points for free. (We recently RP'ed a Addiction at Burnout losing the habit, a multistory plotline.)

I just don't understand this "gotta make the player suffer for daring to take this quality" attitude, it's not like most players can't just take some other negative qualities(that don't have so bad effect that it must be bought away) and trim that 5-35k of from their gear bendings at chargen.

What the hell are you talking about wanderer_king?

I'm sorry but there is a BIG president for Johnsons to try and screw over runners. There is even a story at the very start of the BBB 4th ed where someone tries to bone the runners. If that mob boss will only accept your interest payments until you do them a favor and pay off the loan so you kill him over 4.5 k in payments a month you will no doubt experience that the mob will bury YOU. The mob has waaaaay more connections then a sad little 400 bp character. They can also contract with multiple shadowrunner teams to wipe you off the face of the planet. Killing a Johnson when they try to screw you over is justified, killing a Johnson for a small loan is petty. Your players are not walking gods, they are just very good at what they do.

Corporations and syndicates will try to dick over runners. The only difference is that if that they kill you, you have every right to totally bone them over hardcore. If you take a small loan with them and decided that when they only want you to pay it a certain way so you kill them.... expect pain. Massive amounts of pain, plus you team will probably take a huge rep hit for knocking over someone on such a sad little loan.

RC give wimpy little flaws that you can easily just remove without any consequences. If you decided to take any single flaw in the BBB worth 20-30 bp you are in for some serious pain. If there is no punishment for a flaw then just give the character 30k, 35 extra bps, and be done with it.

It was a longshot test... The Sam rolled all 4 edge dice and got 3 hits... lucky sam. The pilot rolled to dodge and got 2, even after applying edge... unlucky pilot.

As for the fencing, it didn't bother me... everybody walked away with about 18,000 nuyen + the mission payout + lady jade's bonus... etc.. it just put everybody who had in debt, in a position to pay off the cash balance portion.

Which is my problem... yes I can make them pay 60 bp to get rid of in debt... But other than making up what happens to them if they don't... there's not much to go by in RC to document it.

Perhaps it's just me... I'm used to Living Greyhawk and Living Forgotten Realms... if it isn't spelled out pretty much exactly in the rules, a FAQ, or something... you don't get to do it as a GM...

Ok, so Masterofm, you're saying that as the Mob boss in Seattle are going to make it your business to skimp every deal with every shadow lowlife in Seattle?

Think like a mob boss for a minute... you do this AND SOMEONE WILL KILL YOUR BOOKIES?LOANSHARKS. No big, right? But after you have buried the runner/runners, you have to pay the people to kill them, and replace the assets they took out. This is going to cost you money and respect... eventually if you push around enough shadow lowlifes, one will get lucky or be skilled enought to get to you and kill you to. The Mob wants money. Yes, they will add fees, and mess with you on small stuff' however they know not to go around shoving everyone in their path into the mud...

Also, the Mob may have better contacts than a cruddy little 400 bp character' but remember they are not the only game in town. You act all king of the hill and go piss on several hundred lowlifes, then find out how many have contacts with street gangs, or the triads, or the yaks....

Your average mob boss would rather regular business dealings with low-mid range profits than a bloodbath that requires money and outside rescources to clean up.


If you skimp every deal with a mercenary, you will eventually lose everything. Its not just a matter of one shadowrunner, its business practices. Plus, if you do frak with every single no name loan you make, your noteriety is gonna go up and people are gonna stop doing business with you.

EDIT: CLEANED UP LANGUAGE

Do you know why the mafia kills people? Do you really know why? They do it because of this there is a clear signal even today of "don't fuck with the mafia." So if they want to slap you around after you broker a deal with them you know that if you retaliate they will shoot you in the head and BURY YOU. Assets to kill you is worth the respect it brings so that everyone else knows if anyone tries to screw around with the mafia it will never happen again. Everyone knows that the mafia does this. If you don't know this you would have to be living in a cave your whole life. Everyone knows that whenever you ask a favor of the mafia you had better be desperate, because when they call back the favor it will be ten times greater then the favor you ask. How the hell does everyone know this? That is because the mafia makes a specific point to go out of their way to kill or destroy someone who messes with them. Even if it is a low level mob boss. If this is still common knowledge why do people still do dealings with the mafia? It happens, people get desperate, and it is common knowledge that the mafia kills people.

A little north of Boston there is a strip club (in Lynn) someone walks into the club in broad daylight during business hours and shoots someone ten times, near the main runway before walking out. There were no witnesses. There were 30+ people in the club. Oh yeah and the club is "rumored" to be owned by the mafia. You ever see Batman Begins? Remember the part where the mafia boss says he has no issues about pulling out a gun and shooting Bruce Wayne in the head while being surrounded by four off duty cops, a judge, and various other people in a crowded bar? Sometimes it's not bullshit.

If he gets taken out by a runner you are going to bet that they will do whatever they can to take him out. There is a big assumption on your part that if a mob boss says "No you can't pay it all off at once" that the runner will suddenly go ape shit and destroy half the Seattle mafia.

Runners are not gutter trash. 400 BP characters are awesome in their power, but they are not gods and they can eat it hardcore. Having you owe them a favor is always worth something considering your skills and talents. Paying off a debt and the mafia still saying you owe them is not this uncommon event.

Yes master, however the mafia in that case isn't hitting what amounts to black ops specialists (which is how Runners are clearly portrayed in fiction, fluff, and the RAW archetypes.) Also' the mafia isn't gonna really want to go around killing random people, it want to keep a low profile. It will whack anyone that gets in their way or looks like they are gonna get in their way, but I highly doubt its going to give what amount to Semi-Professional hitmen a reason to try for the one in a hundred shot at the boss or the attempt to whack everyone in the local office.

They might not be gods at 400BP, but they might be with 750 karma and after they earn enough to pay off the debt. I am not going to rehash the yakuza/mafia/some organised crime syndicate vs runners argument again, but given sufficient prowess, a runner can bury more than what is worth to try to bury him and still it might not bury him.

Why do people do dealings with shadowrunners? It happens, even the mafia get stupid, and it is common knowledge that shadowrunners kill people.

I think its hillarious such a simple, clear and cut issue has reached 4 pages.

- J.

I suspect that means its not clear cut. Just. ya know.

I personally think that dealing with the mafia, or the other types likely to make these kind of loans to shadowrunners, shouldn't be all tea and cookies. There should be risks involved, from catching their attention as possible "talent" to leverage in the future, to having the mid-level capo abscond with your recently paid-off loan. I'm not saying screw the player over at every opportunity, but there should be some danger involved. But if the character pays off the debt and the interest, I personally would be more likely to withhold Karma until the Karma cost is paid up, rather than either have the mafia engage in foolish brinksmanship, or resorting to increasingly contrived circumstances.

That's RAW - personally, I don't like how the system makes you essentially pay twice to buy off flaws, but I'm not sure how else it could be fair for people whose flaws are less fixable by direct actions.

[img]http://www.jalife.net/up/files/orly-ostrich.jpg[/img]

- J.

The power of the mafia, a gang, or a coporation at any table is entirely within the GMs reins. At my table I have generally run gangs as chumps, much less dangerous then they appear in any of the books. But I run OC as fairly nasty outfits to tangle with. I can guarantee you that my table I could very easily have the mob put the smack down on your most elite crack A-Team of runners if it suited my fancy. Of course as GM I have power of FIAT and could make calls from the sky on you as well if I liked.

So anyways, the relative competence of the runners vis-a-vie their competition is entirely table dependent. There is no universal law that the mob dare not mess with Shadowrunners, or that Shadowrunners must live in fear of the mob. I happen to think that fear of a bigger fish is an important part of Shadowrun. But if you want to play the biggest fish in the ponds, then by all means more power to you.

But I do think as a general rule you should also have to pay for the flaws you take. If being in debt (or any other flaw) suddenly cease to be a drawback for some reason. The GM should feel free to ask the character to buy it off with karma and/or introduce some other flaw of equal weight. It is also true though that if the GM feels sufficient work has been put into buying off a flaw (despite a lack of karma expenditure) he can wave it away, or have it paid back at a reduced cost. Whatever works.

You know, that should be the universal law of GMing. Whatever works.

If you explicitly choose not to pay the karma to buy off the flaw, you still owe that much money. Whatever justification the GM uses, you still owe that much money. If you don't have the karma on hand to buy it off, but have the nuyen and want to buy off the flaw, then the GM can obviously allow you to pay the debt and then just take the karma owed off whatever karma you earn until the karma is paid off. I'd also allow a player to reduce his level of In Debt by paying off both the difference in nuyen and the relevant amount of karma.

Oh, and if the mafia wants you dead, don't expect them to necessarily send a bunch of goons to off you. Nothing says "drop dead" like a sniper round to the head. Nothing says "you shouldn't have messed with us" like a bomb in your bed. Nothing says "retribution" like Ringu in your soap dispensor.

And all of that goes same for the mafia don.

The universal law of GMing is keep your players happy.

This is explicitly stated for some other flaws (I don't have the books in front of me at the moment so I can't look up which). If circumstances render it irrelevant, replace it with another flaw of equal BP of the GMs choice. So you pay off all your debt, but maybe paying it off that fast causes you to be hung out to dry or something similar. You can pay it off with nuyen only, but you still have the same amount of flaws afterwards.

I think everyone should be having fun, not just the players.

Here' I'll fix this problem for you guys.

Starting character buys R2 Fake SIN. Gets 30 BP of In Debt. Gets his 30,000 nY. Links his In Debt quality to his Fake SIN (Fake SIN of an Ares employee, got an advanced payday loan or something). In game, immediately burns his SIN. Burning a SIN removes all legal debts.

Fin.

Now for clarification's sake, the character would still have the debt, but no-one would be looking for him. Ever. He wouldn't be able to get rid of the Karmic Debt unless he bought off the quality. But Ares would never look for him. It'd only come into play if Ares ever got his bio-data again, and cross-referenced it through a lot of databases and backup systems. Then they might find it.

There is a difference between burning the SIN the debt is attached to and actually using money made from runningto pay off the debt, at least in my mind. One is an accounting trick, the other is legitimately paying off the debt.

I had a character pay off an Debt of 15,000 + the interest after one really really lucky run where we found some unrelated but highly lucrative items, then again the character is a face with 24 Dice in Netotiation and Ettiquette and I made 8-10 hits on the test the GM required.

If it is all this stuff about just burning a fake sin and bla bla bla just give every player at the table an extra starting 30k and 30 bp and tell them they can't take the flaw. As a GM it is important for your playerS to have fun not player. If not everyone has this flaw there will be players who are bitter that they were not able to have the flaw themselves. It is a power creep and generally someone will cause of a fuss about how they were able to take the total cheese flaw and how they were not able to take it. It then makes for a bitter gaming table. That is why a flaw like this sucks, because it makes for hard feelings amongst those who took flaws that were not nearly as amazing as this one. As a GM if someone wants it why not just give it to everyone and be done with it. You can then at least use it as a plot device and have some fun with it.

However if you are taking a large loan out I am sure the loan company will get your biometrics before handing out the loan so the fake SIN will only get you so far because if your blood ever splatters on a wall and you don't clean it up.... well you know... I mean biometrics is about the only way that someone could safely track you.

Me I would think of replacing debt with a flaw such as enemy or records on file + some thing may be both. Just a few small ones. May be by paying back the debt to the yaks my elf runner pisses off some orf the more anti meta yaks who then try and mess with him. Also here is an idea an odd one but may be to stop them paying it all off they lender offers another lone that this time has strings attached (these are the new flaws and the lone can be made up with other IC things for the other players)

That's an excellent suggestion... just it seems to be non-missions compliant... which was the source of the problem for me. I think what I'll try to do is talk the players who have in debt out of paying it off in a purely metagame reasoning.

i.e. Well ok.. you just paid 49,500 nuyen of in debt + interest off... which is 10 bp worth of cash.. I'll take that and discount the 30bp flaw... and the next 40 karma you gain will have to be spent removing the debt before you can improve your mystical adept, gun bunny adept, etc.. If they complain... I'll point out the rule that says they have to pay the whole thing off with karma if they make it go away. It seems like a fair balance to me.

sounds good to me

What happens if the character has Erased?

QQ QQ

then I wouldn't give them that quality or make it one group who know of the paper records or offline store.

I'm reading this and the quality says owes them that much plus 50%. It does not say it owes them that much plus 50% plus 1karma per 2500. The general rule is the specific overrides the general when the specific is given.

I think the bigger problem is people pulling some outlandish rewards. I don't know the scenerio in question but a hot chopper is salable sure. Now how big is the market for it? You can get that much but in how much time? How many of your customers have that much scratch laying around to buy it in a hurry! Point is to have fun for everyone... which sometimes means making things a little difficult (nobody appreciates anything which they don't have to work for a bit!).

Personally, I think the quality is one of the better ones in RC. It gives a good in-character reason for why the character is running if played well. It segue's well w/ contacts and backstory. And just because you paid off the bill doesn't mean that you weren't in-debt (and the debtor might have say some tissue samples or the like in use for ritual magic or the like, hell he may come back and blackmail the runner. Or someone hunting down the runner might learn about it and find some way to work that backtrail in their favour). IMO the problem isn't w/ the quality, it's w/ the GM going monty haul. (reading the chopper bit, just has me shaking my head... longshot rule was misapplied IMO).


Lets put this in perspective... 4500 a month is practically a medium lifestyle. Now toss out your actual living costs, and other ongoing costs.

For example, I had drawn up a dwarf hacking adept smuggler. Unfortunately I only got a chance to play him once.
His backstory was he was doing well as a smuggler til he nearly got killed and had to get some cyber (alpha grade cyberlimb). I more or less used the quality to buy the cyberlimb and then put him in hoc to the guys whose shipment got lost. (anyone familiar w/ the old battletech term 'the company store'). By the time I had run the numbers... low lifestyle (he lived in his garage drone workshop)... he needed something like 10000 a month just to pay the bills!!! (cracked software upkeep, debt, low lifestyle(spoofed up when necessary for appearances sake). And unfortunately, I only managed to play him one session. But that was a LOT of money which wasn't going into new drones (he had his vehicle, a doberman, and that aerial supply drone... that was it). His reason for running quite simply... in order to make enough money for a low lifestyle, he needed to make enough money a month to afford a high lifestyle just to get himself out of debt. (and he also had the erased quality, not that it'd help him if he tried to renege on the debt against someone w/ a ritual magic biosample).


For a game which goes on for a while, this quality can easily cost the character well over 100,000. 10% per month is an INSANE rate of interest, as others have pointed out that works out to 214% annualized! Maybe this is just me, but I'm used to seeing runs which pay 15000 total... which then gets split 3-5 ways after expenses. Or which are more like the PI rates in the old detective films... well our rate is X per day plus expenses.


If you're running a game where the amount owed isn't in line w/ your games power level. Then you should probably increase the amount owed or disallow the quality. Not pull this silliness of now spend karma in addition to paying off the loan. If the character was to get a starting loan first thing in play, you wouldn't make him pay karma even if the loanshark's terms are equivalent.

Oh sure, the GM is always welcome to play with himself.

If the character gets a loan in game he isn't gaining karma for taking the loan, whereas he does gain build points if he takes the negative quality In Debt. This difference is why the character needs to pay karma to get rid of the negative quality. (Note, if the player really wants to (with GM permission), he could always opt to pay off the nuyen owed and have the quality changed to an equal value of other negative qualities.)

Actually after careful reading, there is nothing in the description that says you actually need to or even can repay the principal sum. You just need to pay at least the interest each month. And here is where it gets ambigous, does the additional payment(over the interest) go towards reducing the principal sum or does it not?

Strictly speaking, by RAW, however, the PC need never pay the interest. So the debt collector comes to collect, but it is never stated that the PC needs to pay, just that the consequence of not paying is stated. Indeed, it can even be that the debt simply accrues(because the debtor never sends anyone to collect since per description it is "may send someone") and is never actually paid off and the flaw is simply bought off like any other flaw.