I'm starting up a SR3 game. One player has invested starting cash on rent(lifestlye), kit, workshop, facility, and skill points on having a store front featuring Enchanting items. Now the player wants to know what kind of this business would pull.

Are there any rules on having a small store front?
It's a "by appointment" type of store for now. So it would be something he runs during downtime. But he's upset that he has invested so much of his starting character creation with out a scheduled detail of returns.

If there are no rules (quote SR4 if you must -I'm open to adding rules to my SR3 game) are there any suggestions??

The SR3 Companion should have the "Day Job" negative quality, or Flaw, as they were called back then, which should cover what you describe - basically, the PC gets a steady revenue in exchange for a fixed time-commitment.
If that's not enough for your player, gently smack him upside the head with a rulebook of your choice and ask him whether he wants to play Shadowrun or Small Business Owner - the RPG.
If he chooses the latter, smack him again for answering a rhetorical question.

Well...I'd probably make him do tasks to keep the shop running and getting customers (marketing, sales) plus the rolls for making the items, some of which might mean that he has to go out and collect rare materials! (Street Magic is SR4, but it has a great line for a rare and hard to get material example, "bodily fluid from a dragon, 'You want me to do what in that cup?'" So it's probably worth picking up and skimming on item creation stuff).

As for how much he pulls in? Figure more than his rent* if he gets "enough" customers (find some threshold for the marketing aspect that allows you to figure out how many customers he gets in a given month--an outstanding roll would be a high paying customer, but the item requires hard to find materials, a low success might be a dozen low paying customers and just barely making rent, and a botch would be "no one").

10% profit over the cost of running the business is probably good. You should "encourage" him to reinvest any profit into making the business more successful and/or acquiring rare materials (say, paying the fellow players to help you go off into the woods to get hellhound fur, for instance).

Sounds more like he's made an NPC than a runner. I'd consider they use the store front as a "home turf" or common contact that'd give then a central point to meet or get otherwise restricted or maybe some cheaper gear. I've always viewed shops/kits/facilities more of a place to do your own work than to run a legitimate business...although black-market work could lead to some interesting hooks however once the facility gets in trouble you'd be sunk.

Consider using qualities like "Day Job" or "Home Turf" and maybe allow the group to contribute (split the BP cost perhaps?) for income/resouces unless you really want to play SimShadowrun.

Hackers (can) write their own programs and then sell them, why couldn't a mage do the same thing?

I belive hacked software is very cheap (10-20% the "real" legit versions). Software is just a matter of making the Extended test over time. Selling it would be fencing any other loot.

Enchanting is still extended tests over time.

Rare materials not withstanding, but those are excuses for runs.

Absolutely! I just wouldn't like to see players setup shop to just print money.

Yes, give him all the rope he wants and let him hang himself.

Other than the day job flaw for a guideline for his return for the hours he puts in, I would have him take the time to enchant items, spend karma on their first bonding (there is always a minimum of 1 karma), then use the fencing rules to actually sell the stuff to someone using the shop for the meet location.

How is this hanging himself? The mob, the yakuza, the triad, the local gangers, etc. are planning on taking Whatever it is he is making. The talismonger/customer that said he'd buy it plans on double crossing him, a corp middle manager heard about it and hires a team to steal it, in short multiple people plan on taking it from him. Also, keep an eye on interruptions while he is enchanting. If none are scheduled, throw some at him. When he deals with the interruption, have the enchantment fail and destroy all the ingredients.

And BTW, The quote about the bodily fluid from a dragon has been around for several editions - it is far from new or exclusive to SR4.

Warning! Your player may be smarter than you are! The answer to your question, how much can he expect to make is, 'how much can you imagine?' The rules are very, very broken and I had a PC who was making about $200k a month in goods, plus had two weeks for runs. If you can help it, don't go there. If you can't, tell him it's not a good idea, then when the first batch is done, have mafia boys break down his door and destroy all his stuff.

If you do decide to go with this, set a reasonable income first, then figure out why that's the price - and make sure he works for it. He's going to need to do more footwork than anyone else (and if this is tabletop, that may mean he has to send you long e-mails at other hours). He may get paid a little more than the decker would writing programs, but not much. Once you have a price, figure out why that is reasonable (it is important you figure out the income first!) I wrote a post just yesterday that seems to have gone off somewhere on the pressures which will act to reduce his income. If you are a new GM and not up to this (I sure wasn't) just tell him you're not allowing it and he can take the dayjob flaw if he wants. Maybe discount the gear he bought for the purpose of income so he can make stuff for himself on the cheap.

This comes up quite often.
There are three main ways to deal with:

1. You want to play Shadowrun, not Shadowrun: the Business Edition. Players are supposed to play runners and not enchanters, medics, programmers, carjackers or corp CEO, even if the rules allow you to create one. In that case, you can:
1.1 You just talk about it with your players so that they won't do it.
1.2 Have mafias, gangs or regular businesses that don't like it when independants try to get a share of their businesses. They either ask for a lot of insurance money (so much that the PC won't have much left) or just tear down the PC's business. In that case it's a good idea to tell your players before starting the game, or they won't like it, especially if they invested BP for that.
1.3 The business isn't that profitable or successful so it doesn't have any impact.

2. You accept it: the player has invested BP (or money) on this, and should get returns:
2.1 You don't want to spend time with it: you consider that it pays a medium lifestyle
2.2 You use it as a plot hook so that the players can still "run" even if it's now for the shop rather than for M. Johnson. You give "random" payments
2.3 You play Shadowrun: The Business Edition and calculate everything (or let your player do it).

3. Why have a business? After 1 run I get more money than after 1 year with my business!

The only issue with that is the game is geared toward running street level which doesn't exactly pay *that* well. Couple that with the simple fact that you **CAN** at char-gen start off as an excellent enchanter and start making more money enchanting than you can running unless your running pays well, you run often, or both.

See the disparity?

I don't see why people have such major issues about the character running a magic trade on the side. As long as this goes through the GM there won't really be any issues. He can't sell items for any more than the GM is willing to give.

I'd call this good roleplaying as it gives the player another way to develop the character apart from just being a single-minded street mage who does nothing but shadowrunning and preparation for more shadowrunning.

The three ways aren't cumulative, they are three different ways to solve this "problem".
In a street-level game you can choose any answer from 1.1 to 1.3.

Also, don't forget that the powers that be will ALWAYS want taxes, permits, and all that fancy jazz handled even if manage to keep your shop free of syndicate influence.
And if any crimes are comitted with a focus he makes... well, Lone Star will wanna talk to him about his clientele, obviously.

Which is actually a kind of cool idea for a plot anyway.

Why try so hard to fit this round peg into the square hole of the campaign? Tell the player that the character doesn't fit, please make one appropriate for running the shadows.

I started in SR3 and didn't get into the magic side of things. I got one character (hacker/rigger) that went though a year or so long game (died from a space laser trying to harbor Deus), then SR4 came out.

Sounds to me like the guy isn't so much running a shop as he is a special order business. He doesn't have 20 odd foci on the shelves, the client comes in orders a rating 3 power focus and the character makes it. I'd say Charisma + Negotiation (4) for his marketing with the number of successes being number of customers. Then roll a d6 for each customer with the number being the rating of the focus they want made. Then once a month roll a d6 for every customer he does an order for, TN 5. If there are any successes then he has problems of some kind. Syndicates making a move to get protection money, lone star investigation, etc. The more successes the worse the trouble. Then make him roleplay getting all his ingredients, otherwise he will have to buy them. Leaving him just enough to pay for a middle lifestyle.

In SR3 enchanting is covered in Magic In The Shadows book. Pg 39. Also there is no facility for enchanting it comes in kits and shops only, and costs twice as much as normal. It also requires either a lodge (shaman) or library (hermetic). So if he didn't buy them, or buy them high enough then he may not be able to make what he wants all the time. Also there is a new skill for gathering raw materials, so if he wants to get his own he needs to pick up that skill. I highly suggest you picking up the magic book, it really lays it out. As an example gathering raw materials takes 10 days base per unit. So even if he gets 6 customers it may take him months to get the materials for the orders. If he doesn't deliver then he will start getting a bad reputation, say increase his Cha + Negotiation TN to 5, then 6, then 7, etc.

If he gets 6 customers he can always say guys 4, 5 and 6, "Hey, I'd love to make some stuff, but I'm a little backed up right now. Can you wait a month?"

People ordering these things have at least a general idea that it takes time to gather materials and do the enchanting, so most people would say, "Need an extra month? I understand, I suppose I could wait."

As a real world example, an artist I watch offered $20 oil paintings for Christmas ($20 for an oil painting is not just a bargain price, it's "We've hacked, we've slashed, and we've put it on sale and it still wasn't cheap enough!"). I still don't have the painting my sister got for me (ok, so I nudge nudge wink winked her about the offer). I don't except it for a couple more weeks yet, and I'm the only one who jumped at the offer!

Commissioning a magical item should take weeks to months and the person placing the order should know that (of course, you could have the occasional clueless/inpatient/etc. customer come along, "What do you mean 6 to 8 weeks? I thought I could have it by tomorrow!").

I have to confess that I thought about something like that for a character of mine, just not from chargen, more like a later development. I just thought that she would like to do something creative from time to time instead of just dodging bullets; however she wouldn't just make things for money (for that buying raw reagents and refining them would grant alot of money, especialy if you have bound an high force Task spirit with enchanting as craft skill), she would experiment alot and produce compaunds and unique enchantmen (I'm already planning on an unique katana weapon focus, it would automaticaly bond to the intended use without any karma expense and its force would be always equal to the user, to produce it would require ten units of orichalcum, meteoritic iron, one litre of the user own blood, from his/hers body not cloned, and obviously the flame of a dragon to forge it).

Pick up the raw materials to enchant is not easy in a city. In fact realistically is damn hard to find something in a sprawl that isn't polluted, tainted by mass production or collection techniques.
Yes you can buy this stuff but you need permits or pay black market prices, which means syndicates will realise and then enforce that they own your buisness and by extention you.

You got three takes here:
No
Yes, have a flaw and don't get cute runner.
Yes, welcome to how little your character nows about business, stick to running. You may then get enough to retire into your enchanting trade.

Thanks for the replies guys.
Also thanks for the ideas. >:) Some were a little more than what trouble I had thought of for him.
With out giving details, I'll have him read this thread and we'll talk about what to go from there. -he's still thinking of going with a PhysAdapt instead.
Again thanks for the imput and ideas. I'm sure my players will hate you all

Any other deviant ideas? I'd like to hear them.

Dragons.

Everyone loves dragons.

Oh yes, especialy talisleggers looking for bodily fluids, and people trying to produce some Dragon on metahuman porn (which could be a good way to collect bodily fluids).

And probably just as easy to convince a dragon to do!

<insert well drawn dragon-human porn image of your flavor (M/M, M/F, F/M, F/F, etc.) here>

My question is, why would the mafia/gang be so eager to step on a mages toes. Those toes are often connected to spells like physically invisibility, levitate and powerball, which if you started messing with my shop, you would get in liberal applications. Mages much like most runners are the people to strike a 'friendly' deal with, kill, or leave alone. Threatening them, or otherwise pissing them off is a great way to find out exactly how many pieces you can be cut into before actually dying.

Ok chummers, lets avoid exagerating.
Up to this moment it has been just some fun so please don't bring it to the point of violating the terms of use we agreeded on.

Is this a real question? In your game, do you find that all of the PCs quake in fear of the mafia (and probably also Lone Star, the corporations, et al.), but the mage walks happily through life knowing he has Invisibility?

The mafia has mages. Lots of mages. Not only that, the mafia knows how to pluck out your eyeballs so you can't cast spells any more at all. They also have drones. Lots of drones. Don't worry, the mafia can deal with your pesky mage.

A mage isn't a god on earth, to realy kick asses you need high force spells/spirits and those come along with an hefty drain tag. Also you might be a badass mage but the syndacates have numbers and sooner or later you are going to have to sleep, or maybe they could just target those you care for; as a general rule a war against organized crime is a losing prospect for any runner crew, not to count that even if the crew manages to kick the ass the syndacates can simply make sure that doing buisness is impossible by "corporate meanings", or shadowruns.

Uh..? He (she?) beats me on time.

They have "some" mages. Certainly not lots, as in a city with a population of 1000,000, there are less then 1000 actual mages, and of those most are likely sinners, and working good corporate jobs for the pay and benefits.
Second, unless those mages are pretty much dedicated to 24/7 body guard duty, of who ever sent out the people to toss your shop, and all the people who did the actual tossing, which is exceedingly unlikely, they will be left open to a 'response', which I can grantee will cost more to prevent or repair then they could have possibly obtained by messing with you in the first place.
Also if you cut a mages eyes out, they astrally perceive and kill you anyway, then they cast some physical mask spell, look like you, and steal all your crap.
I'm not saying they are unstoppable, but certainly more trouble then a shop of generic mundanes, and likely more trouble then they are worth. Its like trying to "sell protection" to a 7/11 that keeps loaded medium machineguns on the back wall behind the counter. Sure its possible, but would you really want to try.

Reading this thread makes me wish I could have gotten that business-runner campaign started. Every player had a character who had the day-job flaw and a struggling start-up business in the same neighborhood. They all did runs on the side to either support their business on the sly, or to help out the local neighborhood businesses/residents. I had run ideas lined up for them going against local gangs, big corporations trying to put them down, buy them out, etc. I think it would have been fun if Real Life hadn't kicked everything to shit right as soon as characters were done.

Who said the mafia is limited to recruiting from one city? And keep in mind also, mafia also has very good pay, and VERY good benefits. Sure, Renraku might cover your health plan, but will they cover your underage boy habit?



1) How is that? Does your mage have a 'see through time' spell? Seems to me, if you get back home after a night out and find your store on fire, you're not going to have an easy time figuring out precisely who did it - and if you did, so what? You're going to actually assault a made man? You REALLY think that's a good idea?
2) Which is why you go back to plucking out eyeballs.



Except you can't cast a spell against someone not on the same plane you're perceiving on.



Don't get me wrong. If the mage was say, fixing shoes, and basically made Low lifestyle, yeah, the mafia will probably cut its losses.

But if the mage is selling magical materials, i.e. MAGICAL GOLD, and regularly nets $200,000 a MONTH, YES, it is definitely worth putting some pressure on him.

And odds are many of the mages they recruit from other cities will be used in the cities they came from. Also given the corupt nature of cooperate law enforcement... they might just be happy to cover all your habits if you're a talented enough mage.



1) its called bound spirits. For a few Karma you can get long term bindings done, which would be great for spirits being used to help maintain your shop. If they are disrupted... you summon them back again, and ask "Who did this?"



pretty sure I can use astral perception to cast spells at someone in pitch darkness. So doing so while blind is also NOT a problem.



and lose a quite a few mooks doing so.
They would likely try to strike a deal where by they supply raw materials and get a cut of the finished products and perhaps some priority specialty orders on the side, but threatening to burn down the shop of a mage who can craft a Force 6 power focus is really not the best idea I've ever heard of. Its like urinating on a dragon. Sure you'll make your point... you'll also get to know what its like to exist for a few moments without any skin.
In addition, if I have a shop like this, I have a good enough fake or real sin to likely call in lonestar, and pay then well enough to keep you off my back, and STILL be making enough money to keep myself very happy with life, the universe and everything.
I can see the mafia threatening mundanes, but when someone can ritually make your house explode from the other side of the planet, its best to not give them a reason to make that happen.

Why are those the 'odds'? If the Mafia says 'hey, we need two mages for a job in Seattle', will it really be so hard to get a pair of mages on the next suborbital over? After all, they regularly shuttled people back and forth between cities for particular jobs- in the 1930s - and it's not like travel has gotten any tougher since.



If you're running a private organization, then you're just bribing someone else. If you're talking about a corp, perhaps, but it's a serious PR liability. If the head of Thaumaturgical research likes little boys, all the V-P of Thaumaturgical research has to do is "slip" that to the news corps. Now he's head. Plus, that's assuming you're head of Thaumaturgical research. If you're just a wage mage, don't expect any such thing.



And the spirit says... "a mage banished me. I can recognize his astral signature, but I have no way to communicate it to you".



You're right. Better to just install a kink bomb.



I'll make you a deal. You set up a magical shop on Welcome to the Shadows. I play the mafia. We see how many mooks I lose.

Really, I have no idea what sort of game you work, where mages walk on air and people build churches to the thaumaturgical holinesses, while street sams are scum who jump at shadows because they're vulnerable to most anything, but it isn't Shadowrun.

The orgs would all be quite happy to mess with a shadowrunner or mage that won't play ball. Quite simply, they don't convince people primarily by killing them, they convince people by making it a cost/benefit scenario; the threat of violence hangs in the air but is rarely made explicit. Ideally, it's handled like a business decision, not a drawn out pissing match. The goal is to push you just hard enough that making some money while giving them their cut seems like a better idea than trying to pull a Karl Kombatmage just so you can keep the whole enchilada. They don't even have to mess with you or your shop directly, they can just make it hard for you to make a real living via the underground economy, which is kind of a problem if you're a shadowrunner. Quite simply, it's highly unlikely that your services will be so valuable that many runners and fixers (likely your primary customers; genuine magical goods are a niche business) are willing to losing "favored client" perks from the Mafia or get blacklisted by the Yaks just so they can buy your binding materials. The Mafia doesn't have to shoot you, they can just set it up so that your Fixer won't return your calls and you lose your table at your favorite club. They'll get back at you in a hundred little ways; by the time they're done, Domino's might not even deliver to your house anymore.

Actually I'd expect that the Mafia is probably light on Mages, maybe not the Yaks but the Mob strikes me as being a fairly old school group. The mob might try going after one mage, but if he has a couple more mage friends, I expect one of the mobs rules is don't get into a pissing match with an initiatory group unless you have to. Starting a war just to collect some protection money doesn't make for good business. Even a single mage puts you at risk for such things as ritual magic and spirits and remote service.



Plucking out a mage's eyes will only piss him off (and cause the GM to need to break out the rules on Mage's and cloned replacement parts). Actually for that matter there isn't much that will keep a mage from seeing if he's willing to astrally perceive (short of a mage mask). Even pitch darkness can't blot out the astral.

Cough *Merlins* Cough

Well except for the very real chance that 1. anything of value is kept somewhere else and 2. that there will be a bound high force security spirit.








I would expect that "magical gold" is more a mail order item. Day to day sales are probably refined herbal or animal radicals for use as ritual or summoning components. Yes foci are high margin item, but I expect that an enchanters shop might sell maybe three or four foci a year. Taking into the cost of various materials to deal with that -force dice mod, I get the feeling that enchanting can make money, but not great money.

And if they're going to sub orbital a couple mages over just to kick over a specialty order business, then the GM is giving the mafia too much time on their hands. Also see part about hiring lonestar.


You obviously didn't read the part about mages being rare enough that good ones can get away with crap that would get mundanes, fired, killed, or both in some combination.


unless its a task spirit, with some artisan ability, and would manipulate something on the astral for you to see, or write a formula showing what the aura looks like.


change explosives to water spell, have it removed, and ritually vaporize the jerks house and brainstem.



Actually it is. You're trying to threaten a mage capable of prefroming rare and expensive services, protected by lonestar and paying them good money for it. He also has runner buddies, and bounds spirits to assist. The fact is the cost benefit ratio of messing with him is NOT working in your favor. No one in the mafia would support pushing his buttons as a smart business move, and you'd be doing it on your own, without mooks. To even begin conscidering such an action you would have to have some percieved benefit from messing with him. And I'm just not seeing it. Just like messing with a street sam, attacking someones fortress should NOT be an easy venture, and should certainly not be done without expecting reprisals, especially if your making it personal by installing something as useless as a kink bomb.
Really I don't see this working out in terms of an extortion deal. If you just want to kill the mage sure, but again, bad for business. Strong arm tactics don't work against someone who's ability to kill you has no limits in terms of range. Unless you want to spend your entire life hiding in an underground bunker, making enemies of mages by burning their shops down is not a wise decision.
Even if I can't personally get too you, all I need is a possession spirit who will hijack a plane and crash it into your house. Mages are the kind of people you a) kill, b) get owning you a few favors c) strike up mutually beneficial business deals with, or d) leave the hell alone. Your option of "E" do everything you can to piss them off, is not really a good one.

Who ever said it has to be an underground shop?
Just make sure you have the and use the masking metamagic before doing anything illegal, and always clean up your signatures.

Besides I think I said their best option would be to enter into a business relationship with you.
The idea they would act as nezumi describes and just take everything from someone capable of casting powerword NUKE is a little improbable.

Granted, I was assuming this is someone who is maximizing profit by following the rules as stated, not necessarily playing realistically. If your character is pulling in Low lifestyle every month and not $200k/mo., you're right, it's probably not worth putting on that amount of pressure, and the mafia may turn a blind eye altogether. As they say on wall street, 'bulls make money, bears make money, pigs get slaughtered'. But I've yet to see a PC mage willingly turn so few profits.



Indeed. Where does it say that?



What is this ridiculous 'task spirit' you speak of? Is there a task elementalist? Are you daring to quote from the heathen texts? No wonder your game is so broke.



1) What is this 'change explosives to water' spell? And are you willing to risk the OR of 12, and the assumption it'll blow up if you fail?
2) You can't cast spells on particular pieces of cyberware, as it's part of your entire aura.


I was thinking on this the other day. The easiest method actually is to get a material link - not hard when you already know where the guy works, eats and sleeps. Then you have all the bargaining material you need, and he can't fight back, unless he's going to take out the entire organization overnight.

Um I should probably point out that if the spirit has ascensed but can't describe the mage who banished yet 1. It can still act as a spotter for ritual magic or 2. it can tell a watcher spirit what to look for and the watcher can track down the mage.