How much do Runners usually get paid per run assuming the run doesn't span multiple sessions and isn't part of an epic plot thing? The cash-karma ratio is kind of important when you have street sams around, and I also want my players to have to think before making major purchases like heavy weapons, vehicles, etc.

That depends on the difficulty of the run, what the run is, who the Johnson is, what corp backs the Johnson, and if they pay a set rate per runner or give a lump sum to be divided evenly among all runners. It also depends on the runners themselves and their ingenuity. A run might be an extraction, but in the process of the run, the face got blackmail info on the Johnson via one of his contacts, the hacker took advantage of being in the system to "liberate" some data, the rigger spoofed some drones into going to the team's vehicle and shutting down, the mage sent a spirit in to cause some havoc and then showed up to "banish the wild spirit" for a fee, the sam had to act as a bodyguard for one of his contacts in order to get some of the info on the run and earned a little extra in the process, etc etc. There's a lot of factors.

A simple data retrieval will usually pay less than a wetworks mission, unless it's hacking into an ARM of GOD node or something.

I'm reasonably sure there are already dozens or hundreds of threads with this or similar questions that turned into the same discussion. I think the common answer is 5-10k per runner. Depends on tons of factors of course like how often they get to run (game time) and how many freebies you give them and how much you want mundanes to advance compared to awakened and so on and so forth. I suggest employing some search fu and checking out the other threads.

As a GM, you also have final say as to what is available in gear. Especially if the availability rating or cost is high (SR4a, page 312). Items that are rated with an F could potentially be impossible to acquire.

Also, runs can involve smuggling or "acquiring" goods (a.k.a., stealing from smugglers). Your team might be able to snag some sweet gear, but on the flip side that nice and tricked out assault cannon one of them wanted might just "go missing" on its way into the city (because another runner team stole the smuggler's cargo).

Also, pretty key advice. No successful run should net a runner less then their monthly rent unless high or luxury lifestyles.

Nuyen payout should, after expenses, net ~2,500 per Karma earned.

Expenses include false identification, ammunition expenditures, bribes, etc necessary for the job, plus monthly expenditures for the expected lifestyle (note some characters may have lifestyles higher or lower than expected for a given campaign - the net gain or loss of such should not be taken into account for payment).

Nuyen awards does not always have to be payment from the Johnson, nor does it always have to be liquid assets; it could come in the form of easily usable/sellable salvage during the run, equipment payouts, paydata, or even multiple jobs on a single run.



Keep in mind that you do not always need to follow this formulae - you could present some runs with low Nuyen payment & high Karma awards & vice-versa, but it should always average out to 2,500 Nuyen per Karma point (you could entirely disregard this if the group consists entirely of karma junkies or money sinks, but is still inadvisable).


On a final note, remember the "average" award for a Shadowrun 4 Anniversary run should be ~8 Karma; thus, such a job should be paying ~20,000 per character, plus expenses.

Woah that's alot more than most moduls have. 20k per character AFTER all costs? Then they can't be running very often or they will get very rich very quickly.

In any case I have the SR4 book where IIRC you would get 4-5 karma on average. That would mean getting 10k+ per runner, not bad. However some runs, especially the ones supposed to introduce the players to Shadowrun and their team to potential employers, will not pay more than 10k total. Not enough to support the good life, but taking such a job is more to get the experience than to actually make alot of money. It beats working the Stuffer Shack at least.

In my own game I've been very stingy with the nuyen. The team are also supopposed to be nobodies without relevant contacts, and no Mr. Johnson would hire them as they are. Thus the jobs they get means very little nuyen, I think they got 6000 total on their last run total (3 players)... and 3 karma each.

This of course makes their power level lower than average, but I compensate by making fairly easy runs with limited opposition. And once they get more experienced and maybe earn some contacts of their own, they will get maybe 10k each per run.

I just love the gritty "street" version of Shadowrun and not the one where the runners all live High Lifestyle from the get go and can buy whatever they want.

The idea here is that some characters are more based on money for advancement (sams, riggers, hackers), while others mostly advance with karma (mages, adepts, technomancers). If the karma/nuyen ratio is wrong, one side or the other is getting more than the other one.
(But I think 8 karma per run is rather a lot, too.)



SR4A has different karma standards, because they raised the amount of karma it takes to raise attributes (including Magic!) to 5x new rating. Which makes sense; raising attributes should be at least as expensive as raising skill groups.



The standard comparison is stealing cars; both running and stealing are illegal, and somewhat risky. But if running is harder and riskier (it usually is), then it should also pay more. Otherwise all the runners will start stealing cars instead.

I get that some types need more karma to get better while Sammies can more easily get better with nuyen. Still, they all get the same amount of each so as long as karma awards and nuyen are mostly consistent, it should be balanced. Is the 2.5k per karma an official guideline or something you invented?

Seems like they forgot the karma awards in the rules changes SR4a document. But the reason for upping awards is silly as all it does is make everything but attributes HALF COST! Heck even attributes become cheaper than before despite raising to *5, although it becomes more expensive compared to everything else.
In my game I made attributes cost 5 times new rating long before SR4a.

In my game the runners haven't even thought about car theft. Can they make more out it than running? Sure, if they had the right contacts they could, although that would means they'd have to steal alot or steal very expensive cars. Also, the income would be more or less static - while in the SR business their pay would increase according to their experience and street cred.

Come to think of it, awards in SR Missions are based on the karma level of the group. IIRC the runners would get about 300-6000 per runner on the lower experience tier. It does make sense that more experienced teams get more karma for jobs. Of course these teams will usually also get offered more dangerous and difficult missions. You don't hire Fastjack to hack a vending machine...

That's the karma-to-nuyen ratio in the Karmagen system.




Those update/errata documents are notoriously faulty.

Anyway, the point is that karma/nuyen should be in a reasonable proportion to each other; how much you give out of both depends on how quickly you want characters to advance (which is a matter of taste).



Does that make sense? I'm not so sure. Karma is supposed to be related to difficulty; the better you get, the harder a job needs to be to challenge you. So Karma might actually stay fairly stationary. Of course, that doesn't mesh as well with the intention of keeping cash and karma balanced..

The money you get per karma in chargen is just half of what you would get with BPs. It's not intended as a guideline for how much money you should be able to get per karma in game.
It might be reasonable that way, but it's not what it's intended for. It's only a representation of how much of your chargen resources (BPs or karma) you can use on equipment.

I get the idea that karma and nuyen should be in reasonable proportion, but exactly what is reasonable is hard to say. Sure, chargen can be a guideline, but it also caps the amount of karma you can spend on resources. In play there is no such cap. Also, it is intended that getting some nice gear at chargen will not be at the cost of everything else.

That said, in my game I've decided on a low-resources game. Although they get the full 400 BPs, they were limited in both equipment and Magic, I don't believe anyone spent more than 14 BPs on gear!

Also, they have gotten very little on their first two runs, but also only 2-3 karma.

At the last, I don't get your point. Karma is supposed to be related to difficulty, so it might actually stay stationary... what? In my game, the harder and more dangerous the adventure is, the more karma can the team expect to get from it. Same with money. In fact, it's not that different from "that other game" except there are no levels or random treasure.

Depending on the feel of the game different values work, but here are the guidelines I use.

A runner won't get out of bed in the morning for less that 5,000 nuyen per runner, their skills are valuable, and any exposure is a risk so at the very least if they are working it job it will pay for the months rent.

A runner won't do anything dangerous for less than 10,000 nuyen per runner. In addition to rent, there is also medical care, supplies, ammunition, involved, so if the runner expects any danger, this will be the baseline fee.

In general, as mentioned above I think the best ratio is around 2,000-2,500 nuyen per karma per runner. This ensures that the sami's and the hackers are getting new gear about as quickly as the mage is getting more magical power, and keeps things from getting out of hand. You don't have to do this all at once. Going low for a few runs, then having a run with a big payout works well.

BPs are also worth (very roughly) twice as much as karma points.



I think karma should be awarded according to the relative difficulty of an adventure, not the absolute difficulty. An adventure that's very hard and worth 10 karma for newbies is far easier for experienced runners and should be only 7 for them, and maybe only 3 for elite runners.

So if the characters attempt a mission that's hard for them, it should pay well in Karma, but if it's only moderate for them, it should pay only average.

I've heard more than once a 'no' from a runner / player when I've offerd less than about 20k for riskier runs. Don't expect anyone to run against an AA Corp let alone an AAA Corp below 25 to 30k. The moment they hear words like Ares or SK the fees will rapidly go up.

Only when the book says that's what they're worth. Otherwise they're much closer to 30-40% more than karma



Not nessicarily. I mean jobs will pay based on absolute difficulty. Just because your group of neophyte runners will have trouble breaking into a stuffer shack and hacking its drink machine doesn't mean that a J will pay 20k each to do it. They'll pay 2k regardless of if it is an ultra difficult mission for you, or if you can hack it by the time you finish sorting out the agreement.

In a similar way, I figure karma should be based on absolute difficulty. Keep in mind that if something is only worth 2-3 karma, then the prime runners aren't really going to be concerned with it. They have bigger fish to land and fry. The reason they won't be concerned with it? Because they need 50 karma to improve a stat by that point. Basically the karma costs are self scaling so that higher power runners will need more karma to advance, so they should get more karma on their harder missions, even if they aren't relatively harder because they are more experinced.

That's not to say there shouldn't be some small bonus/penalty for doing extra hard/easy missions, but for the most part it should remain absolute.

Yes agreed you wrote my answer for me. Elite runners will generally not accept low pay, and the only way they'll accept easy low-karma runs is if they are overpaid and it takes little of their time and effort. Of course if the Johnson is paying them 100k to get a gizmo only worth 20k on the market then the runners should be very careful. Also it might turn out to be a 10-karma mission after all, involving serious backstabbing, attacks on the PCs contacts, getting chased by the law etc.

Sometimes the elite runners will take jobs under their level, in which case they expect less pay, less karma, and less trouble. Of course they are less challenging and thus not so fun, but it can be nice to thow in such a mission once in awhile so the players can actually feel their characters has improved and that they can have a good successful run once in awhile without too many complications.

The other issue is how well compensated are the runners for the assets they are bringing to the table.
Given life is cheap, but assuming you don't die on a run, you at least want to break even and cover rent right?
The riskier the run, the more likely assets will be lost.
And the more you bring to the table, the more important that the run covers the potential losses.

Drones and medical expenses come to mind.

A rigger might have to expend every drone in his stable to cover an escape and maybe even lose the team vehicle in the bargain.
That means he could be out any where from 25 to 100K easy. Double that for a Top runner.

So if I was a rigger, I wouldn't launch a single drones unless I knew the team was covering it.
They decide where it goes, and they cover it if it doesn't come back.
And as far as the rest of the team is concerned no Rigger no runner.

And medical expenses. Medical expenses that are trustworthy and will cover the majorities of situations while still leaving enough for the rest of the team to live on. Everyone needs medical expenses covered.

A magician is going to need to rebind his spirits and can drop 10K in binding material. A street samurai knows that if arrested, even if he doesn't disappear, a lot of his ware will be gone. A hacker can get his comlink fried. Then there is special equipment and ammunition expenses.


Add in the Triple A factor (SK, Ares, Aztechnology) and you will need to seriously make sure nothing is tracked back to you.
That means no going back for downed drones for one.
That also means fewer "Extras" picked up on the run to cover expenses, and having to burn gear, IDs, and other stuff used on the run earlier then normal.

And if they still track it back to the team, then you have to have enough cred to pull up stakes, get a new faces, and Sins, travel to a new city, then build up your rep again.
Plus cover anyone left behind.


So not only is Mr J, paying for professionals that are totally deniable, he is also paying to cover the untraceable assets the professionals are bringing to the table.
The more the assets are at risk, the more he will have to pay to get them.

But considering what stakes mega corps play for, he would be a fool to cheap out when an extra 100K would make all the the difference between success and failure on a run.

At that point, wouldn't it be up to the runners to negotiate to make sure they cover their expenses? I'm sure the Johnson realizes that he needs to pay out, but if the runners low-ball it, that's their fault.

If a Johnson can contract a world-class runner team for 30k because someone had a brain fart, then is he going to say "no, no, I need to go back and offer more" or is he going to chuckle at his luck?

Actually, the Johnson would probably double-check to make sure he was dealing with the actual people he thought he was.

I figure you're more or less spot on though. The Johnson has X amount of money per runner, plus expenses, approved for his job. He starts out by offering the baseline, what the payoff would be. The runners then have to haggle to get the payment up to something that will cover expenses as well.