So I'm building up my first Shadowrun guy and getting into all the fun of the details of it, but then I got to the availability of my purchases. Looking up in the book it only seems to list availability for when you've already got a guy made up but how does it work for when you just building someone?
In the mean time I've just combined my base Charisma+Negotiation score for most items and if anything was really important I took my chances at listing it just so long as it wasn't crazy high above this value. But really, is their anything other than having your GM pick a number?

At character generation there's a limit of Availability 12 and a maximum Rating of 6 as per the rules in the Gear section of Assigning Resources under the Creating a Shadowrunner chapter. Page 86 of SR4A BBB, page 84 of SR4 BBB.

Furthermore, you can expand the Availability cap to 20 for a single item using the Restricted Gear 5 BP Posititive Quality from Runner's Companion, which may be taken a maximum of 3 times.

What we do as well...

Well, my group had a problem with the overuse of street and squatter, so I implemented the following.

Street: Availability 4, No vehicles, No gear over 5,000 Nuyen
Squatter: Availability 8, No gear over 10,000 Nuyen
Low: Availability 10, No gear over 45,000 Nuyen
Middle: Availability 12, No gear price restrictions
High: Availability 14, No gear price restrictions.
Luxury: Availability 16, No gear price restrictions.

Oooo I like that.

Thanks! That's exactly what I was looking for, looks like I'm pretty good to go, now all I need to do is convince my GM
Overcannon's thing is neat too, I'll have to remember that one when I set up a run.

Only problem that I see with this is that it completely hoses the concept of the Runner who never stays in one place for longer than a day, keeping always under the radar, but is a professional (say Hitman, or Hacker, or Something) with access to the tools of the trade... Just because I choose to live a Low or Squatter existence in Motel flop to Motel flop, does not mean that I could not get access to the gear that I need to complete my missions...

I think that I will stick with the RAW. Availability up to 12, no limits on Nuyen expenditures to your starting Nuyen capabilities through BP (No More than 250,000 Nuyen at character creation barring any adjustments due to qualities).

Well that is a slightly different situation. overcannon said he used it to deter players who take low-end lifestyles just to skimp on costs (not to support a character concept). In the case you describe I would say that the player adds up the prices of multiple low-end lifestyles and compares the resultant total to the table. Or I would just handwave it.

Lifestyle isn't just just your bed. It includes food, entertainment, LTG errr Wireless provider and so on.
You could be the guy who moves from place to place under the radar but still have nice things. One could, but I am not, argue that the dude who doesn't have a lifestyle cannot keep up socially and becomes excluded. Though I am not making this argument, I believe it could be the intent of the chart.

My argument here was "Just because I am broke now, doesn't mean I have always been broke".

I too stick with RAW.

BlueMax
/"This is why we can't have nice things"

However, Entertainment is strictly optional... Food serves nothing but to keep one alive (whether it is the basest crap or the most luxurious Exotic Food is irrelevant for staying alive)... Who cares about Wireless or matrix services (all I would need is a minor Matrix account -available for 50 Nuyen Monthly)... Nice things get in the way of escape and evasion... the less you have to worry about, the more free you are...

However, I agree with the above completely... It completely depends upon the character concept...

Thanks

on a related note, I've seen two varieties of the availability at 12 rule:

12, 10R,8F

Or

12, 12R, 12F


What do you use?

Availability 12 is availability 12... Regardless of whether it is restricted or forbidden, or not... it is still availability 12...
Never heard of the First option that you provided, where is that from?

My Two Cents...

This is an interesting idea, but one that I wouldn't consider for my games. When I GM I simply make sure that a character's theme makes sense, otherwise I make them change it. I do make the players adhere to the availability 12 and restricted gear rules, but again they must be part of the theme and background.

Also remember, you can use those lifestyles against a player. They want to spend 200k on a vehicles and toys, but have a squatter lifestyle, there are a few ways to handle it. Suggest that they pick a lifestyle that better fits the gear they are sporting, if they don't then demonstrate what you meant as the game starts. They walk outside to find their precious vehicles stolen, without tires, vandalized, etc. Similarly, if they aren't as blatant as the first example there are other things that tend to stand out. That 3000 cred outfit you wear on the street makes you stand out; and a gang probably doesn't even know or care that its just armor. If this doesn't work for you, simply say no to things that you think are out of line for a character, even if RAW allows it; sometimes the job of a GM is to say no.

My problem with the different availability based on lifestyle is that lifestyle is a representation of current living conditions; not where you came from. You could have a street type character who has chosen to live above their past (say by buying 1 month of medium lifestyle) and is now caught in the wage-slave like rat-race of trying to keep up. On the flip side, there are plenty of characters that are now in the shadows because things have gone bad in their life. These people often had much higher lifestyle and standing than they do now. The melee fighting type character that was once a professional wrestler but has fallen out of graces of folks like the McMahon's is an example of a character that could be starting back at low lifestyle, but have some higher availability gear (in my games anyway).

Well Said... Much Better than what I had...

Thats a bit metagamey, if you ask me, which touches on the reason why overcannon presented the rule. Its easy to say as the player "my character needs no comforts", just like "my character doesn't flinch in the face of gunfire". The reality is most real people couldn't live that way- yes there is a rare breed that can, but most require some comfort.

Plus moving too much when you should lay low can be just as dangerous because it can cause you to make mistakes...

In the game I am currently prepping... I have instituted a 30 BP cap for starting gear, no Forbidden gear, nothing past 12. I'm awarding free contacts though- up to three for each player. My own test characters have still been beefy enough to play with, and controlling the contacts is giving me some nice storytelling options.

Now I understand that my gear to lifestyle table does not necessarily allow for all types of background possible. What I will say is that my group contains some of the finest power-gamers, rules-lawyers and meta-tacticians around, myself included. If you want justification of that, my group moved to SR4 because we had thoroughly beaten D&D 3.5. This in not an exaggeration, and I can go into detail if you wish to challenge this. As a group, we have a thorough appreciation for well written, balanced and self consistent rules situation, and we derive much of our fun from exploring the parameters of a given rules set. That said, most of our recent adventures have been one shot with more cursing than usual, so I wrote up some RP guidelines along with some new crunchy rules to combat the problems as I saw them.

From the mechanical aspect:
Street is free.
Squatter costs 0.1BP per month
Low costs 0.4BP per month
Middle costs 1BP per month
High costs 2BP per month
Luxury costs 20BP per month

As a result, I find that street and squatter should be fairly heavily penalized. Low is also down there in terms of cost, so it bears a lighter penalty. However, I recognize that shadowrunners are likely from a poorer environment, so Low, Middle and High are comparable. If anyone griped at me I could just point them to the mechanics matrix and tell them that for just 2BP, they would be permitted to purchase better gear than they could get in a standard setting.

So far, the team has made it through 4 sessions, and I have seen the best roleplaying that my group has ever done.

Also, the my group's general opinion of backstory is that "Backstory is most often a combination of cover and justification for a player to min/max his character as hard as possible while still allowing him to feel superior to a powergamer." That said any character in my group's recent memory that had shown up with a backstory has been the most broken kill machine ever, so we have had reason to distrust backstory justification anyways. for groups that have a more serious roleplaying element, my system is almost certainly unnecessary, if not just a needless burden, but for a more crunch related group, it could certainly be useful.

Besides, if you really want one fancy piece of gear, I was still allowing the "Restricted Gear" quality to lie outside this system.

Apologies I I sound a mite bit defensive, but I went through a good bit of trouble customising it for my group.

If it works for your group, keep it.

We did away with using it at all at chargen, and simply abide by the ''stick with your concept'' rule. Even then, we are lean. Want the PAC but only take a street lifestyle? Have fun keeping it safe and hidden with no security.

We like people to be able to make the character in their heads, and some concepts simply have access to higher Availability than others, just from their occupations, IMO-but at the same time, in RAW, a ganger still has access to availability 12 stuff. So, doing away with it just made it easier. (Also, keep in mind, that the people around the table are mostly old friends, who have gamed 14+ years together, as well as new folks who are very cool. The ''honor system'' works best in this state.)

Not to mention some of the Availability things/Legality codes don't make much sense to us as well. Availability has the problem, IMO, of not necessarily representing ''power'' but ''difficulty to aquire''. There are some items that are very difficult to aquire, and flat-out illegal(titanium bone lacing), and it has a completely legal and easy to get counterpart in Bone Density, which is the damned same thing; the former gives a bit of armor, the latter gives an extra die to damage resistance. (Bone lacing is cheaper but harder on the body-however, Alphaware Titanium Bone Lacing has the exact same essence and nuyen cost as Bone Density 4.)

People on these very forums speak of APDS as being ''not that hot and sub par to other ammo types'', yet it's Availability 16. Stick n Shock, widely called very powerful if not broken, can be loaded up on. I could probably find a few guns that run ratings a bit high or low for what they can do.

In other words, while I can appreciate making things hard to get in certain games, it should more be up to the GM. Availability 12-even sticking to that a person can get some very, very, very broken things(i've both seen it and done it in some test builds) and just because someone does not use it, does it mean they will end up more unbalanced. (As an odd side note, I actually find that someone who blows a lot of cash on one huge, expensive, high Availability purchase doesn't have a lot left for the cheaper, broken combos. )

That is the truest bit, and one I forgot to add. I wasn't trying to criticize the availability by lifestyle houserule. In fact, I fully understood the reasoning for it and am sure it works for your group. My point was just to offer an alternate way to look at things for the OP.

That seems to favor mages and adepts a lot.

Personally, I tend to ignore the Availability rule for 'ware only. I only use money to limit 'ware purchases. That rule interferes with character concepts like the escaped guinea pig that fled from megacorp lab being chock-full of cutting-edge 'ware. Availability is a great rule for weapons and other gear, but sucks for 'ware.

I do something similar. I tend to ignore availability as long as the player isn't abusing it. So if they want Titanium Bone Lacing, or a pair of glasses with sensory mods that just happen to hit 13 or something, go for it.

On the other hand, if they want something incredibly silly and heinous, that's something else.

That's prety much how I run it as well. Anything at 12 or below is unrestricted at chargen, anything above that and you have to discuss it with the GM.

So far we have run by raw, with 12 availability at chargen and 20 with restricted gear. However i do like the look of overcannon's system if i ever ended up gaming with a group of "powergamers". I admit that some people might call me a power gamer (i have played DnD, had a shit GM, us players knew the game better than him and we broke him pretty quick ). Most of the people i play with currently dont really pay much attention to the whole aspect of things and simply love to play the game, making in character decisions quite well. As such availability wasnt that much of a problem at chargen. However trying to track down stuff after that is their problem. Our demo guy is getting quite frustrated at how long it is taking him to replenish his stocks and acquire plastic , so he is using more innovative methods to get things to go boom lately

I dig it.






I seriously have a hard time with this concept.

No one who isn't completely unhinged is going to live a spartan life in the gutters, barely able to take a shower, or ride public transportation, eating the worst of the worst garbage, in a room with nothing but concrete walls and a piss stained pair of jeans for a pillow - while simultaneously being a professional hitman who seems to have no needs beyond acquiring money through the riskiest method possible with the sole goal of purchasing more cutting edge gear/cyberware so they can continue to live in their hovel...

It just makes no sense to me.

Why be a professional criminal if your goal is to live like a hobo? You can do that without risking your life by pissing off some megacorp, or organized crime syndicate that can make your every waking moment a complete hell on Earth.

Personally, I find that a single question is the easiest way to decide what is or is not appropriate to take for a runner.

"Why does this character run the shadows?"

A Coffin Motel is all you need if you are constantly on the move... what is metagamey about that?
Yes, when you need to lay low you can, however it is NOT A REQUIREMENT of the SR world to have Luxuries that you don't truly need to accomplish your job... You may think that most real people can't live that way, but in the real world several billion people living in third world countries currently live that way, so what are you trying to say?

Besides, a Criminal with a High or Luxury lifestyle draws a LOT of attention to himself... attention that he probably does not need.

There are several perfectly viable character concepts that can function in this manner, so why is it such a big deal?

My Two Cents

By the same Token, why run the shadows if you are living a life of luxury? you have way too much to lose, don't you think. Besides, your analogy of living liek a hobo is a bit misplaced... Just because I choose to pay little to no attention to Entertainment or exactly what quality of food that I eat, it does not make me a hobo... by your analogy, a good number of the american troops are Hobo's because of the lifestyle that they live, and I can assure you that that is NOT the case...

Again... Just because you choose to live in a motel does not mean that you have no vehicle, or other gear... what I said was that an overabundance of gear, for certain concepts, ties that character down way too much. You can eat whatever you want... if you purchase a lifestyle, that is certainly your choice in the level of necessities and even creature comforts that you utilize, but it is NOT A REQUIREMENT that you MUST HAVE MIDDLE LIFESTYLE to survive on food or have GREAT entertainment to keep the boredom away.. from the way that I read the culture, the VAST majority of individuals in Shadowrun live a LOW lifestyle...

and with the Custom lifestyles, you are free to provide whatever style of life that you want... Why is that such an issue?

In this I completely Agree...

I think most people take issue with it, as it's generally a way for players to avoid paying for a lifestyle and not for actual character concept.

If your character is a minimalist, who's goal is to own as little as possible - then that's a cool concept and will be interesting (to me).




I've been to about a half a dozen developing countries.

The people living like that do so because they lack the means to better their situation.

They can't make $5000 for a night's worth of work. Nor do they own hundreds of thousands of dollars in state of the art technology.





That's a good point.

I tend to prefer Hotel hoppers myself as well, but the hotels are very nice.

You can live low key with a high lifestyle, you just need good habits, a good cover story and a handful of fake SINs and commlinks.




Well none of my characters live a life of luxury. Mostly they try to improve their life as much as possible.

The reason they keep running the shadows is to maintain that lifestyle, and if they're lucky - have enough cash to retire on.




Nope, U.S. troops are not hobos.

They aren't non-entities who do not officially exist either. And they don't make 5000$ a day.


Also, none of these examples fit U.S. troops:

• Street "You...scavenge garbage or hunt rats for food, you drink water from polluted puddles or streams, and you steal your clothing from other homeless people."
• Squatter "...You have limited power, light, and heat, either heavily rationed or with enough fuel to run portable sources a few hours a day. You might
  not suffer from malnutrition, but you certainly aren’t the picture of health."
• Low "...You eat soy nutria-bars or universal patties with flavor packets, you wear clothes from a second hand store..."

Well if your concept is minimal gear, and to stay in a different place each night - then that works a bit better.

It's the characters that have hundreds of thousands of dollars in state of the art equipment, and try to pass off that they live as a squatter and have no needs in life living only for their chosen specialty that raises eyebrows. And I think that's the kind of thing that overcannon was trying to prevent in his games as it seemed to be a recurring theme amongst some players.

Do these characters actually show up to the meet with their Mr. Johnson wearing at best "second hand clothes"?

You have to invest in a lifestyle to improve your clothing, to improve what your character has access to and for them to maintain all of that.




I'm assuming you have a character who likes the low or squatter lifestyle.

If you're not opposed to it, would you mind sharing the full character concept? What kind of gear they pack and what their motivations in life are?

Players who think their character would choose to live in squalor (despite having the means to better their situation), have probably never lived in squalor. If you are into playing uber-133t black-trench-coat killing machines that think of nothing besides evading detection thats great. But real people don't live in paranoia bubbles. They have interests and hobbies and relationships and other needs and wants and drives and goals. That is what I enjoy exploring- how a theoretical "real person" would engage with the fictional universe of SR. Just a different style of RP is all.

The last character I created was a food freak. He loathed the matrix, lived pretty far under the radar, and had no nice possessions beyond a few guns, but he spent as much $$$ as he could afford on top-quality real food.



This is a big issue for cyberware - if you're sporting obvious high-grade enhancements, you're generally going to need maintenance (reflected in lifestyle cost) or things will go south pretty quickly. Similarly, any twitched-out sammy is likely to find his apartment a frequent target of burglars - after all, it's really, really easy to fence a gun.




Certain shamanic totems - especially rat - lend themselves to a squatter lifestyle. The few possessions of value the character might have would all be foci or related magical items, and going after a shaman in his home domain is generally a pretty stupid idea. Similarly, some hackers likely spend so much time in the matrix that they own nothing but a whitewashed box with a beanbag chair and a bathroom.

High-cost lifestyles need not be penthouse apartments. They might reflect payoffs to local gangs and crime syndicates, top-notch security, and simply making it none that messing with you is a bad idea. People generally aren't too likely to cough up the location who regularly gives them money and owns lots and lots of guns.

..Unless all PC:s are with low-level income,solution is shared lifestyle, for 500 yen/mnt even Rat Shaman can enjoy security of middle
lifestyle..Comforts 3,Entertainment 2 The Neccessities 3, Neighbourhood 2 Security 4 and Quiet Neightborhood +1, safe place in Barrens
is complete..

As Have I; it breaks one's heart to visit a country where the annual income for a family is less than $100 American.
And I would agree that they do not have the means to improve their quality of life... That being said, this is a very common condition in 2072 Shadowrun... as almost everyone is Beholden to the Megas, with no way to better their situation...

And then there are some that don't truly care to better their situation, just make sure that their lives do not deteriorate too much...




Which again takes a substantial amount of money...




Laudable goals, but not everyone cares abouth te future, they live only in the now...



I have been to several duty stations where the quality of life would fall into all three of those categories... granted it was not for years (generally a month or two at best)... but there were definitely months where I could say that the lifestyle at those duty stations was within each of those ranges, at least for a time...
1. Having to hunt rats, snakes and even insects for food, drinking water that has been contaminated by the feces of animals that used it for bath/waste facilities, having to patch your own clothes (no need to steal, but there you go, 2 out of 3) ... Street Lifestyle
2. No power, minimal water, No heat... Squatter Lifestyle
3. MRE, months on end... what more need be said... Low Lifestyle

All from more than a single duty station...



No you don't, you just have to shell out some nuyen for that One Good suit for those important meetings... Don't need a whole wardrobe, JUST ONE SUIT... and you DO NOT NEED A LIFESTYLE TO DO SO... Lifestyles can provide wardrobes, Wardrobes do not provide a Lifestyle...



The general lifestyle I prefer is usually a variation of Low (using the Runners Companion rules for custom/multiple Lifestyles.
Now, not all the characters that I come up with choose that form lifestyle, and I even have a few that live on the higher side of life (Modified High Lifestyles)... I even have a few that do the Motel thing as a form of self-preservation...

The only point that I was trying to make is that Lifestyles do not dictate equipment... that being said, if you have equipment that is highly valuable, you should have some form of security (or you will probably lose that equipment), whether it is in the form of a lifestyle, or muscle that you can hire/throw around... Can this be more expensive than the lifestyle would have been in the long run... YES, Most Definitely, but there you have it, you take your choices and pay your nuyen...

As for character type prefering the Low or Squatter Lifestyle... My Troll Ganger prefers the Squatter lifestyle... he does not have any major high-tech, and he just wants for him and his gang to be left alone... He does have ambitions to expand his territory, but he doesn't need lifestyle to do that... He has minimal belongings, and can move on a moments notice, by just loading up what few possessions he has onto his bike and riding away, gang in tow...

Again, Just my two cents...

So very true... I have seen them go for even less than that with shared lifestyles...

Yeah, I agree.

Jakarta in particular struck me as a fairly depressing city to be in. It was a pretty drastic difference after having spent a week in Bali.



Very true.

I also like that kind of character as well.

Although, I do imagine someone living "for the now" would probably be splurging somewhere in their lifestyle for better food or accommodations if they could afford it.




Gladly that was only for a month or two.

I seriously hope that's not normal for U.S. troops outside of wartime or being stationed in areas of heavy conflict.

But that's a bit off topic.





Sure you can live in street rags, and own a single good suit that you manage to somehow keep cleaned and pressed in a hole in the wall apartment that has rats, roaches and spirits know what else living with you.

But if you can make 5k in a night, why would you do this?

That's all I'm looking for in this discussion. Outside of a few special cases, like a complete minimalist or street archetypes (like your troll ganger), why would anyone who can make 5k in a night (or more) even consider living like this?

Why would you hunt devil rats for dinner when you could actually afford real food?

Where is the motivation for the average runner to live in a slum if you actually do make enough money to improve your situation, and when I say improve I mean 2 nights worth of work can see you living out of posh hotels, or at least in a relatively safe area with constant power, clean water and food that you don't have to hunt for yourself?




See your character concept at least makes sense. A low, squatter or street lifestyle makes perfect sense for a ganger as well as several other archetypes.

I don't think characters like your troll are the kind that overcannon's houserule was attempting to address.




You're quite right, it doesn't dictate equipment. Which is exactly why overcannon implemented that houserule.

In the end, the GM dictates equipment. And if the game continually runs into a problem where characters are living like squatters while they also are carting around top end milispec hardware and stuffed full of the best wetware money can buy, it get's a bit preposterous.

Well, there can be certain situations where it can come up. Now, these are rare, but it can happen-deep cover. If a character goes ''deeeep cover'', I assume there is no going home to their cushy high lifestyle for awhile. They'd probably be living squatter for the time they are deep cover(if the people they needed to infiltrate were squatter. Or whatever level those people were.)

The person starting out on the lam could well not have any place to themselves-maybe it was blown up, or they just had to bail ASAP, and thus live among squatters as disguise. Not many might think to check the squatters for that guy who happens to be trained as an assassin.

Then again, starting characters are different than those who earned a ton of nuyen and continue to live low. Also, though, having implants and physical toys are a bit different. If a character wanted to just slowly turn themselves into the six million nuyen man but keep nothing but a cheapass, little apartment with the bare minimums(2's in Lifestyle Points, maybe even a couple of 1's mixed in), I wouldn't have a terrible problem with it if it fit the character. But if they have allll manner of crazy cars, guns, explosives, etc...well, they better at least bring that Security rating up to 4 or so.

Which reminds me-the different categories in the Advanced Lifestyles say a bit, too. If someone, say, wanted to live like a minimalist(Entertainment 1, Comforts and Necessities 2), but live in an awesome neighborhood with great security(4's or even 6's), I wouldn't have a problem there. If they wanted to live the opposite, no problems there either, but better watch those expensive electronics in a 2 security area.

But damn, I like characters to live it up, myself. Hell, first thing my guy did when he had almost 50k socked away was to pay off another month of his High Lifestyle and to make sure his safehouse was taken care of, as well. But he has a 10 year old dependent living with him, so he'll be damned if he lets his lifestyle shrink. He makes sure he keeps the security and location of his place top-notch and hidden for his ''kid's'' sake(not his, but he takes care of him now.)

One day I will try the Luxury lifestyle.

My issue with this stuff is simple: anytime the GM makes house rules to 'force' the players to RP the way he wants, something is going to go wrong. The game is as much the players' as the GM's, and this sort of thing smacks of power structures I seriously don't like.

I think speaking to players OOCly first is a lot better than using house rules to force players to RP a certain way.

Lifestyle doesn't have to be your pad in Redmond. It's your quality of maintenance. Your roaming runner may not have one place he calls his own, but if his food is High Lifestyle and his Hotels are High Lifestyle and, for professional appearance, his threads are High Lifestyle, he's maintaining a High Lifestyle.

If you want to tweak the levels, use the Advanced Lifestyle system from Runner's Companion. The categories are Comforts, Entertainment, The Necessities, Neighborhood and Security and p158 even addresses living out of hotels.

Lifestyles aren't just your rent for apartment, they're how we avoid tracking every meal, every outfit, your gas, your newspaper feed subscriptions, your car maintenance, etc.

It was Honduras for me...



Not typical, and it is in fact pretty rare, but it does happen from time to time...

Well, the system is certainly not a "force;" technically it is incentivizing. Secondly, this was not a measure to limit role-playing, but rather a measure to cause role-playing to be a two "L" word to at least a minimalist extent.

So you know, If you care to read, you can look through this, which was what I issued prior to the campaign. We were building characters in a decentralized manner, so this was meant to answer most questions and set a general tone.

Campaign Dossier
Initial Remarks
I want to run an actual Shadowrun campaign, not just one or two adventures and call it quits. What this is going to require is me providing a plot, and the rest of the crew providing some minimal level of role playing coupled with characters that aren’t one trick ponies.
The reasoning for this is that we have already proven how to take the game system and break it to a level that makes any adventure moot. Pay and karma haven’t meant anything due to the short nature of our games, and that takes a pretty large chunk out of the system. Gear over 12 availability has not come into play due to the one shot nature of things. Contacts haven’t played the roles that they are supposed to either.
The main thing is this: If I’m going to bother spending time making a campaign, I want to enjoy running it enough to justify the work I put into it. If everyone decides to be dicks, someone else can run it.
Making Characters
400 BP, CHAx2 free BP for contacts,
Other than that, there are no explicit build restrictions. The bottom line outside of that is there is it needs to not be a one trick pony, which means that I will approve or deny characters as I see fit. Some of the runs will require a significant skill set, so diversification is important. Contacts are essential with how I envision the campaign working, so it is highly encourage that you spend points on them. Not every character needs to be a combat hoss; 20-30 points in combat related skills should be adequate for tertiary combat characters.
Also, your characters must have enough social skills/charisma to be able to function like a normal person. That means a minimum dice pool of 4 in at least 1 social skill not including a specialization. The asshat douchefag archetype that our group has been fond of will not fly; i.e. I will not approve that character.
Gear Restrictions
There have been a few problems with item restriction in the campaigns we have had thus far, and it pretty much boils down to the concepts of availability. Availability is simply a measure of how easy an item is to obtain, the lower the easier to get, nothing more. Restricted and forbidden gear seems to have an even greater misconception of concept. The rating “Restricted� means that in the jurisdiction of the UCAS, Seattle, it is legal to own that piece of gear if you are a citizen and have a license for it. Forbidden means that it is illegal to own it in the UCAS, Seattle area under any circumstances, and it is quite likely that this is the case in other areas. Be mindful that this means that it is just as hard to find an availability 4 piece of gear as it is to find a 4R or 4F piece; it just means that the channels are required to be more under the table for restricted and forbidden gear than for legal merchandise.
I also feel that a flat rating 12 availability rating is a little bit questionable. It doesn’t quite make sense to me that a street living hobo has the same access to the wide world of technology as someone who is living the luxury lifestyle. In addition to this, the character who shells out 100,000 Nuyen, or 20BP, for starting wealth should have something more to show for it than a difference in starting wealth. That said, the BP Cost between middle and high is 1 and 2, or 5,000 and 10,000 Nuyen respectively, which means to me that there should not be nearly as much of a mechanical bonus. Low lifestyle seems like it should be the standard for quite a few of the people living in the shadows, so it follows that it should not be a significant penalty versus middle and high, especially considering its relative price similarity. In addition to this, lifestyle is expected to cover the cost of things such as regular vehicle maintenance, refueling, etc., and thus the ownership and maintenance of complex and expensive items is not within the scope of some of the lower lifestyles,
As such, the rules will be as follow:
Street: Availability 4, No vehicles, No gear over 5,000 Nuyen
Squatter: Availability 8, No gear over 10,000 Nuyen
Low: Availability 10, No gear over 45,000 Nuyen
Middle: Availability 12, No gear price restrictions
High: Availability 14, No gear price restrictions.
Luxury: Availability 16, No gear price restrictions.
Armor rules will NOT follow the one suit rule. I think that it’s a stupid rule, and as such will not allow it. In its stead, the standard Body x 2 rule will apply, excepting special armor rules (like form fitting or MilSpec).
No weapon modifications outside of the core rule book will be allowed at character creation, but they will be allowed after play begins. This requires the appropriate level of tools, the standard availability checks for the parts, and either a contact that will perform the modifications, or the player must do them. Due to the time consuming nature of these tasks, time will be tracked to a certain extent. This means that a character with the day job, made man, etc. drawback will have less time for modification and the like.
Starting Out
One thing that has made no sense to me at all is the ludicrous difficulty of some of the runs that have been played with starting characters. It just doesn’t make any sense that any fixer worth a damn would send green runners on a mission suited for prime runners. So, some of the initial missions will be easy. The hard part on most runs is avoiding a big data trail that leads back to you while avoiding that “lucky shot� that kills a character.
As far as pay goes, sometimes it will be money, but other times it could be gear (or even prototypes) or new contacts. Street Cred, Notoriety and Karma will factor into payment.
Healing, Cyberware and Bioware
It’s fairly straightforward here; the additional rules from the Augmentation book will be followed at my discretion. What this means for you is that healing is not automatic, and is often expensive. Doc Wagon contracts are a great idea.
Augmentations will cause damage when they are implanted to represent the trauma that the surgery causes as well as the necessary recovery times. Removing an augmentation that caused essence loss does not return the lost essence; however, the difference between the essence cost of current implantations and the character’s current essence functions as a credit towards future augmentation of the same type. This means that the essence gap from the removal of a cyberware implant cannot be filled by a bioware implant. If for some reason need that essence back, there is a process/medical procedure for that described in Augmentation.
Role Playing
Yeah, we don’t really do that too much. About all I’m going to ask for in terms of character creation is two to four sentences describing the character’s background. These should describe what the character used to do, and should reflect his qualities, contacts, skills etc. It doesn’t need to be deep at all, just what he used to do, what he’s doing now, and why he’s a runner. As far as contacts go, they all have to have names, and you will refer to them by their name and contact type when bringing them up (Hey, I’m going to call Joe, my plumber contact), and by name when communicating with them. The characters also should have names, and you should avoid the first person when describing the character’s actions. If you’re having trouble with names, use a damn random name generator.
If you have your character say something that is utterly retarded in a situation, as per the rules, you get a charisma + etiquette test (rating based on level of severity, normally 2) to avoid actually saying that and getting everyone killed, but I do reserve the right to disallow this test in the face of blatant, flagrant bullshit.
Oh, and on the plus, if you role play better than the other characters, it’s worth extra karma. The same is the case for in character, non anachronistic jokes that are actually funny.
And not everyone is allowed to play sociopathic douchebags, and that goes double for anyone with a high charisma score.

Interesting, and I agree with probably 95% of it... So how is the campaign actually going?

It's actually the best campaign that we've run in Shadowrun. The characters actually act in a semi consistent manner, and it is the first that they players know the other character's names/bothered to name their own characters. On top of that, the players seem to enjoy it enough, so there isn't a problem.

We have been playing as a group for about 5 years, and like I said, we are usually mechanically minded powergamers with a taste of violent slapstick and outrageous exploits and dialogue.

We have a Investigator/Face Adept, a Gunman/Mechanic, an Elf Mage/Hacker, and, to round things out, a crazy paranoid pixie that is covered in on giant luminescent tattoo.

The pixie has upgraded from his original street lifestyle, and is now living large in a ghoul infested abandoned building that he has rigged traps all throughout.

Just curious what you take exception to. I'm supposing it has something to do with the whole lifestyle thing.

Can I play?

Yep, Just the lifestyle thing...
It is odd to me that characters do not know the names of their co-runners... very strange...
Interesting mix of characters as well... Especially the Pixie...