I was looking through my D20 Modern book and while I'm not a fan of the system it did remind me of something that I did like about D20 modern, Credit. In the system you have a pseudo attribute called credit. Your credit is adjusted depending on what you buy:

• Item price <= 1/2 Your credit == no change to credit
• Item price <= Your credit == -1 to credit
• Item price > Your credit == -(Item price - Your credit) to credit

I'm also making a variation of this for my D% game system, but I wanted help creating a house rule (and it would have to strictly be a house rule) to implement this in Shadowrun. I was thinking you would have to tie your credit rating to your lifestyle and a SIN (fake or not). How does this sound:

• A character buys a certified cred stick and attaches it to a lifestyle.
• The spending limit is set to the monthly amount for that lifestyle.
• If the character buys an item[s] with a daily accumulated cost that is less then the spending limit then there is no change to their lifestyle.
• If you exceed the spending limit, determint the best fit (lowest lifestyle that has a spending limit that can pay for the item) lifestyle and count how many lifestyles it is over yours.
• You can't over spend or decrease a lifestyle bellow street level.

Example:
Joe has a Middle lifestyle attached to his certified credstick and he decides to buy 20,000 in ammo one day. He is overspending on his credstick and this purchase puts him into the Luxury spending limit (2 levels above his Middle Lifestyle). For the next month his lifestyle is effectively a Squatter lifestyle. The next day Joe is silly enough to go out and buy a Dodge Scoot ( 3,000), and since he effectively has a Squatter lifestyle ( 500 spending limit) he is over spending again (Middle lifestyle spending limit). Since this will drop Joe's lyfestyle bellow a Street lifestyle the auto dealer rejects the purchase. Joe will have to wait till next month before getting that Scoot.

I like the concept, but how does one go about upgrading their lifestyle? How do you factor in escaping with a truckload of Uzis? Or a Johnson paying you with betaware access, or offering free hired muscle for a personal run?

This is where the idea kinda falls back to game mechanics, you have to use your money to buy/upgrade a lifestyle and attach it to your credstick (paying the monthly cost). If you "acquire" some kit from a run then that isn't paid for and thus wouldn't effect your lifestyle, when you sell the goods you can pump the money back into your lifestyle to upgrade it if you would like. As for access to betaware, and other services, those again aren't being paid for and as such don't effect this house rule.

I hope you don't try to stay too close to the original modern D20-rules, because while the concept is workable, those rules are not. They make it painfully easy to create wealth out of thin air.

And keep in mind that "wealth" in Shadowrun isn't just some background filler like in some other games, it's much closer to an actual attribute. Wealth quite literally buys power in SR.
If my spending limit allows me to buy a drone without having to reduce some number on my sheet, then I have infinite drones and just waltz over any opposition.
That's even more pronounced with a summoning specialist chain-binding force 7 spirits, because the conjuring materials suddenly became free.

Very true. I just like the simplicity of the credit system. I would like to port that simplicity and not the attached munchkinism.

How about simply rolling similarly to Call of Cthulhu's Credit Rating skill?

If you gain the target you get it as part of your lifestyle. If not, you have to pay for it like everyone else. It's also used as part of the influence group meaning do you get past lines in clubs and restaurants.

Serenity (the Firefly RPG) had a trait you could take that allowed you to roll when trying to buy an item. It was like Charisma + Bartering or something. If you met a threshold you could buy anything up to....16,000 credits I think. Every 2 past the threshold got you an additional 2,000. The one game I played I did the math and if I rolled the highest that I could roll on my dice I could acquire a shuttle (some 24000 credits) for free.

I've always played with a type of credit system as a means to reward players for having a lifestyle. Depending on the type of character they'd get different advantages. (riggers vehicle maint free, deckers prog maint free, sam surgeries discounted/free, mages discounts to different things) If you had low you could replenish ammo and clips. Medium maybe add another type of ammo, etc... Also got better clothes free, better meals. each rating got some number of free taxis. It was all alot of GM hand wavery to get the nit picking down.

"We're being paid in fish?"

"No, in chummer."

Yeah I've also always assumed that food and daily clothing were covered by your lifestyle as well. You can roleplay out going to the bar (and thus paying for drinks) but as a GM I was quite lenient on how much I charged the PCs.

i could have sworn that claim was dismantled in detail back in the day...

To get back on track, how would you houserule a credit system in Shadowrun?

Simple, pay the PCs in Corporate Script instead of .

Make sure a Burner SIN is given for purchases from said Corporation.

Example: "Money" Johnson is sitting on a Drekpile of Ares Corporate Script due to a suitcase of it "falling into his lap". He pays a group of Shadowrunners in the Ares Script, and includes a Level 3 Fake SIN so they can shop to their heart's content at Weapon's World™ for the more civilian weapons and ammunition (Hunting Rifles, Heavy Pistols, Bricks of Ammo, and so on.).

I played enough d20 modern to discover that the wealth bonus concept, while it seems great, made for very disappointed players. They wanted something tangible for their rewards. When they did a job, they wanted to get paid. This seems all the more true in Shadowrun.

Which is why I like the lifestyle system so much better. You buy a lifestyle, then you don't have to pay for the little things in the game. No more bookkeeping. You only have to worry about about buying equipment and other big ticket items, which players usually enjoy doing.

The one thing the wealth bonus did do very well is the concept of investing. Buy making money abstract, it could also incorporate assets into your total wealth, with was cool. I would actually be interested in seeing a way of adding this element to Shadowrun.