A dad with a a wife and kid working a 40h day job is a sammy? So, why didn't he sell his cyber to pay off his debt, then? You just go from one imlausible scenario to the next. And yes, stakeouts and social facilitation are very important parts of most Jobs. Yes, he could do a stakeout, if it werent for his job. The concluding b&e of a run is just the finish. You expect me to believe a team would drag around a sammy whose net worth in Cyber is less than 50K¥, does almost nothing and only shows up for the b&e and still pays him an equal cut? Don't make me laugh. They'd have to be some serious suckers. Hey, while we're at it, I'd have bridge to sell...


Your only valid point, yet implausible. Why can't he pay off his debt? He can't be a sammy or rigger, or he could pay them with his cyber alone. He can't be a hacker, or he culd pay them with his software alone. That leaves face, adept and mage.

If he's face that's not available most of the time, he is worthless, so scrach that option.
If he's an Adept, you could have a point.
If he's a mage, he could simply work for a lot more than 5K a month. Legally.


Most of them, since these are the working hours of the people you want to observe. I am not sure what half assed runs you've been on lately, but anything even marginally difficult (read: decent payout) will require entry to an installation. Despite what you may think, crash and burn is not the go-to option for professionals. Not to mention that the jobs have a habit of infringing on your daily routine with such annoying little tibits like hit squads, spirits and ritual magic.


The lifestyle I described was all 3s, not 5s, I edited that typo, but thanks for letting me know. it slipped past me. Total cost: 3,200¥ base and 3,840¥ accounting for the two dependants. Monthly costs for the debts will be 4,500¥.
At 500¥ a month he could still have a pretty cozy life:

Your neighborhood has some (mostly) inhabitable buildings, some shops or markets (which probably deal in barter or certified cred only), and a neighborhood watch to provide security. Of course, anyone walking the streets had better be armed, but chances are you won’t be killed just for your shoes. Police presence is minimal, although they will enter the area (heavily armed, of course) if there are major problems, such as high-profile serial killers. Residents tend to live crammed together in squatted buildings, but at least
they have a roof and three or four walls. Garbage is collected by scavengers, or it accumulates in the alleys. Your home is comfortable and cozy. You have stable utilities, although the occasional peak-usage brownout still occurs. Your home has room for a small family, with an extra guest room and has enough comfortable furniture to fill it. It’s mass-produced, but it won’t break when someone sits on it. You have three or more household drones and a multi-function soy processing unit. Your walls are fully covered with AR paint or wallpaper. You even have a collection of knick-knacks. Your CHN is secure enough that you could telecommute.
You have decent locks, probably electric, which deter crimes of opportunity and your building is secured by a contract security guard. If you lock your doors, you can sleep (relatively) safely at night.
Your home is well equipped, and you can afford subscriptions to multiple entertainment sites. Date nights are more frequent, and you can go to the occasional large event. At this level, you can keep up pampering treatments and can budget for a modest vacation annually.
The home is part of corporate-built arcology. Tthe place is nice and secure, everything is monitored. Security watches inside and out.

Something about this home—perhaps the wide-open floor plan or a below average Matrix firewall—gives intruders the advantage in an ambush. Your home is a magnet for friends and strangers to crash. Your landlord has no patience for you, your friends, and the various problems you bring home. If you’re thirty minutes late on the rent, he’ll be pounding on your door. Loud parties will be interrupted by the landlord (or he may just call the cops on you).

While that is certainly not as nice as the suburban community in my previous excemple, it is still relatively safe, stable and with enough cash and freetime for things like vacations and family activity. The neighborhood is safe enough, as long as the kids don't leave the arcology and education is likely to be free. Certainly not the high-rise of society, but I still can't see the "struggling dad, forced to become a shadowrunner" here.


I never claimed he was unplayable at all and I can't stand people telling lies about me. Go back, read what I wrote, especially the about half a dozen times where I stressed that it did not make him unplayable, merely implausible, that you so convientently ignore. Thank you.

Johnson.

Nigh impossible to play, unplayable, I'd call those about the same word.

Sorry, didn't realize that in your game, there are no shadowrunners, because anyone who could be a shadowrunner could be paid better for legal work or sell their stuff to live a comfortable life.

Then you should familiarize yourself with the english language.


There are plenty of reasons for people to become shadowrunners:

-ex-military that did not want to become a merc, as he had seen enough warzones to last him a lifetime
-ex-cop that saw through the corruption of his corporation and decided to quit
-Thrill seekers
-Radicals
-Those after the "quick buck"
-ex-gangers, who want to join the big leagues
-....

Just to name a few. A dad with a 5K a month full days job, does not compute.

Here's what your proposed character would look under me:

Day Job 5
In debt 10
Dependants 10
SINer 5
Compulsive (Gambling) 5

Where's the need to beat the 35 BP limit? Also, this Character is far more plausible. He can't get a decent job, because his skill set is inadequate for your average daytime job. Maybe he is ex-military and decided to quit so he could take care of his wife and daughter, not risking his life in warzones all over the world, never seeing his child grow up and ending upm a stranger to his own daughter. His gambling habits racked up a bit of debt, but nothing insurmountable, if he could ever get a job. His particular skillset leaves him only the route into the shadows, if he wants to stay close to his family. His time schedule is still open enough to allow for Runs and irregular enough to be accomodated for. He's not in the shadows to pay off his debt (otherwise he could sell his cyber, for excemple), but to earn enough money to pay the bills in the first place.

Why is this far more plausible than your proposal?
-His base income is insufficient already, providing a reason for him to run the shadows
-The build gets along with the regular 5BP limit, requiring no extra rules
-The build has no logical contradiction
-The negative impact on the time schedule of the runner is low enough to be worked into a regular team schedule

And the only thing you get less with this build is money. That would only be an argument, if you were more interested in the cash than the background story, so it's irrelevant to the argument.

Anyways, I thought of a reason why a guy with a 40hour/week job would have to join the shadows having a big debt and strugling to pay the bills and his gamble.

He works for the Doc Wagon.

AA corps might issue SINs and have extraterritorial rights, he works as a member of a rescue team and spends most of his time on call. He has to stay in the office waiting for a call but can spend time doing legwork using his commlink.
Besides, some or all of his cyber/bio belongs to the corp and he can't sell it.

Just a thought

Stretching it much? You don't think they might look at him a bit funny, the moment his RFID tags stop transmitting? And why would a Doc Wagon member wanna run the shadows in the first place?
Oh and Legwork is not just something you can do over the phone while you're on call. What kind of games are you guys running? This is ridiculous!

First off, there are a number of reasons a character might run the shadows besides monetary. Second, don't judge someones game when you know next to nothing about it. Hell, even when you do. You are not playing Shadowrun "right". No one is. Everyone plays it their way. Sorry to come off a bit harsh but that is a huge pet peeve of mine.

That's why it was a question. I cannot know what they assume to be "normal", hence my asking. And the idea to do your legworlk over a phone, while you're on call IS ridiculous. It's called legwork for a reason. Sure, in the day and age of telecommunication and the matrix, there is a lot you can do legworkwise that won't require you to meet someone in person, but to assume that you can do your legwork during your work break in about an hour is ridiculous to me. If you simplify legwork to such levels, why not do away with it in the first place?

And coming back to the DocWagon member with the bills and the gambling habit: Shadowrunning? Where he runs the greatest risk of having to combat his colleagues? And don't even get me started on Shadowruns and the hypocratic oath. And last but not least why not rather strike a deal with tamanous?`There are plenty of ways for a doc wagon Employee to get corrupt without having to resort to Shadowrunning (all of which are favourable).

Again, I am not saying it's impossible. I am saying it's implausible. I just don't buy it.
I get the whole "struggling dad" angle. Hell, I played a streetsam with a stripper wife and two kids, once. I even posted a plausible setup for the same concept, that is both legal (in terms of rules) as well as plausible. What I have a problem with is the assumption that a GM ought to grant exceptions to the BP limit for qualities, just because a minmaxing munchin wants to cram more extra points into their character and tries to justifiy it with their background. I guess that's a pet peeve of mine.

Actually being 'on call' is almost like a day off except that you have to have your phone on and be able to get into work within a set amount of time (Generally an hour or so I think).

So yeah, can totally envision doing all your legwork while on call. Heck, depending on the job you could even do that while on call, you know, if it the kind that can be executed very quickly. Likely not most runs, but maybe the occasional can.

Psh. I do all my legwork over the Matrix.

You're making some assumptions there that may or may not be valid, such as that the character is the only one doing legwork, or that it's only doing legwork at work. Mostly though it's the tone of your back and forth over the last page, ending with that last post. What works for your game works for your game. That's cool. That doesn't mean it's the only right way. Your Mileage May Vary and all that.

I'd agree with you that it should be extremely difficult to do all of your legwork in the short space of a lunch break. That's why it's a negative quality. 'Cause it interferes. Obviously he'd have to find some extra time outside of hours, or rely on other team members more. Hopefully they've got a dedicated Face at work, covering for the Doc/weapons guy who can't get more time off of work, and can't quit because he's got a need for a steady income and Corp Cyber inside.

That's not exactly the 40h/week quality you were talking about, though, as the quality is meant to deduct that amount of time from what you have available for anything BUT work.


If you go through my previous posts, you will see that my argument was that a team would not want a character that is leeching off the group effort. If he can't pull his weight, why bring him along? Or why pay him an equal cut? Again, I need to stress that I am not saying it's not possible, but it's not realistic.

Ok. I get what you're saying, and where you're coming from. It's a difficult situation and likely a burden on the group. Again though you're making an assumption on the reason that they're together. Perhaps they're not all professionals. Perhaps there's another reason the team is together than a pro group. The character we're talking about has a gambling problem. Maybe the other characters are equally messed up, and they got into this because their friends. Having the negative quality like this could indeed make it a less viable character to work as a group. That's why it's a negative quality. It has a negative impact. Same goes for the guy with "vindictive" or "compulsive" behaviors, "liar", and so on. Shadowrunners are less than likely to be balanced people. There's a reason that they're together, and hopefully they've taken the time to set that beyond "we all made characters, so we're a team".

Oh, I didn't know I was playin Shadowrun wrong, please enlighten me.
Anyway, here it is how I do legwork: I try to call my contacts first. My gm rolls their contact rating and says if they can answer the phone. If not, I must go to their usual hangouts looking for him. Depending on the contact, this can take a while, then I use the Matrix to do data searches, heck, if I had to spend a day on call I could totally do that while waiting to drive the ambulance somewhere or get armed to rescue someone. This could possibly be a reason why the rest of the team hangouts with him in the first place, specially if they have contracts with Doc Wagon.

And I'm not talking about a doc or sometone who would tak Hipocrates' oath, I'm talking about the rigger driving the ambulance or the armed escort accompanying it to save the gold/platinum associates.

Why he doesn't deal with Tamanous? Because as low and corrupt he might be, he didn't reach THAT level yet. Heck, I play the most greedy shadowrunner of my group and even I don't want to deal with them (and I had the chances, mind you).

Besides, runners are not exactly a plausible group in the first place...

I wasn't talking about the 40h/week character. Oh, it was 40h/week. I was thinking it was smaller because of being 'on call'. Still, it is possible to have a '40h/week' job in which 10 of those hours are on call, but yeah, I was thinking a lower hour amount.

Still, I think it's silly to act like 40 hours/week makes it 'neigh impossible' to run.

The Day Job Quality does not says much though. It doesn't say your job is dangerous in the first place or if you are flipping burgers on a fast-food franchise or even going door to door selling stuff.

I mean, by the 2060's you don't have that much room for manual labor as drones can do these jobs with as much or more quality than most metahumans and union labors don't exist anymore or have almost nothing to nothing influence anymore.
So, either humans work for a misery or they have to find jobs where drones can't do better then them (yet), this leaves some academic/technical jobs, artistic jobs (although drones or AI could get into this business too, Sharon Apple from Macross Plus would totally fit into Shadowrun) and jobs where intuition instead of logic (and not necessarely the attributes) are called for.

Where did this poor dad who gambled and got sucked into shadowrunning get this amazingly good cyberware? Same way this group seems to pick it up: http://www.shadowrun4.com/fiction/fiction6_unmaking.shtml (and that's a canon story). Seriously, you do a few runs, someone ends up dead, are you just going to let the first scavenger that comes along take the cyberware or are you going to take it yourself?

Wow, I didn't expect my character concept to get argued over. I looked at it somewhat mirroring modern life and some of my own. I tried to make a plausible three dimensional character who shadowruns for a reason.

First off many people I work with get 5-7 hours of sleep a night. I generally go to bed around 2300 and wake at 0500. I am at work at 0630. I work 9 hour days and if I took a shorter lunch would be off at 1600. Every other friday I am off. I am home by 1630. Mate and baby are asleep at 2000. This could easily be altered with a 10 hour day to have every other friday off or so or work half day fridays etc. Basically, 80 hours every 2 weeks. Now this leaves a couple of hours to go out each night. This may explain the gambling issue or an addiction problem. The character probably has marital issues with his wife yelling at him for debts or how he sneaks away at night. He is stressed about money and knows if he doesn't pay it off they will kill him or his family. He turns to some other way to earn money and happens to fall into shadowrunning (or maybe returns to shadowrunning).

Now said character never needs to meet Mr. Johnson. That is the face's job. Yes, runs are limited in time, but the character can also take leave, comp time, etc. The real question is could said character be an asset to the group. If the character is the rigger, mage or hacker the answer is yes. If it is just muscle maybe. It depends on what the group needs. Sometimes having the knowledge skills is enough.

Now from a GM perspective. You have plenty of plot hooks and the threat of debt means the character has few options to say no. The only problem is such a character could have the game revolve around him rather than the group as a whole. Now this is not a bad character concept for a player who can only attend games part time. His absences are explained away by work and family for his character.

Here are the problems from a player perspective. If a run goes bad everything goes to hell. He can't pay off the loan sharks, if he is injured he could lose his job and hence any means of supporting his family, etc. You could be creating a new character very quickly if you are not careful.

I actually do like the debt flaw, but firmly believe it needs to be carefully monitored so a player doesn't pay it off within the first few sessions. It gives a good motivator for players to take shadowruns...

The problem with the In Debt quality is that it takes not money but also karma to pay it off (it is a negative quality anyway), that's why I think that it should cost 0 points and the players my start with extra cash for debt.

Agreed. I've always thought it was beyond stupid that you had to pay karma to be able to pay off a loan. I've also always thought it was fairly silly to get extra BP in exchange for something that could actually be a fairly nice bonus. That extra 10k could be the difference between being able to reasonably afford synaptic boosters and not.

Maybe that's why it costs Karma, then.

Why would it cost karma to buy off? You pay the loan shark the principal and the interest owed and then what? It's a negative quality with no penalty, why spend karma to buy it off? The only concern is that you shouldn't borrow more than you think you can pay (for instance, if you don't think you'll be making a few thousand a month, don't borrow more than 5k or 10k) or you'll be getting a free Enemy flaw as well.

I'm using that line.

Because paying it off entirely would remove the quality, and per RAW, any negative quality that is removed via gameplay must be bought off with karma. So even if you pay it off, it doesn't go away until you actually spend the karma for it, and thus the flaw can still impact your life until you do.

Because it is a negative quality and negative qualities should be bought off with karma. I can understand your point of view, I do. But as I was talking tou Garou about this, this shoudl work just like GURPS, if you have a disadvantage that by some reason should no longer apply (you killed you enemy, for instance) two things might occur: you pay the disadvantage with experience points (and if you does not have enough at the moment all future experience points will be used to pay the disadvantage) OR you gain new disadvantages (like another enemy or whatever the GM finds appropriate).

Another shadowrun example: you start with an addiction and during the game you accomplish yourself to stay clean long enough for breaking the addiction (I know that in Real Life™ a addicted is never truly healed, but bear with me), should the player just risk it off of his/her character sheet or should the karma be payed as well?

Flaws like contacts should depend on the situation. If the flaw is easily removed then it should be payed with karma. If it is a huge pain to remove then it should be done via roleplaying. IE. Enemy flaw. If the Don is the enemy and you have a hard time to remove him then I see no reason to pay in karma. Now if you kill him in the back alley in the first run then I would require karma or replacing the negative qualities. I don't think anyone would give a player extra karma for losing a vehicle or deduct karma for a highly profitable run. Yet, because this is a flaw then view is the character should have to spend karma to get rid of it. If a contact gets killed does the character get the BP back?

Overall to be fair on both sides of the ledger for every 5k spend to pay off this flaw it reduces the BP debt. So if a player immediately pays off the debt flaw then they should be assessed 42 karma in debt. If they take several months to pay it off and the grand total is 150k then they should pay nothing in karma debt. I believe this is fair. Same with several other flaws.

I believe in the Han Solo debt quality myself. It is something that pushes the character and adds to the story. In the end the killing of the person who is owed the debt finishes that arc. No loss of karma would be assessed and the story is better off for having the flaw.

At the end of the day the questions that should be asked by a player and GM are:
1) Do I want to deal with this flaw? It is not a flaw if it does not come into play. Also some flaws seem to be more trouble than they are worth. It is one reason I tend to disallow some character flaws or races.

2) Does the flaw add to the story? Enemy, vengeance, debt, etc can add a lot of depth to a story. It gives motivations to the players and allows the GM to come up with new stories. In this case the flaw is worth more than the BP because as a GM it makes my job easier and more fun. At the end of the day it is the players who should be creating the stories and my job as a GM is to provide them the obstacles to overcome.

3) Will the flaw dominate the game? This is a real issue with something like enemy. When the flaw takes over the game or causes the spotlight to focus only on one player it should not be allowed unless the other players ok it first.

That's not entirely true. You can pay of the debt and have a monhtly interest of 0¥/month, while still having the quality.

Yeah, I know and how silly is that?
Every month there will be leg-breakers at my house saying that the Don/Boss/Chief/whatever isn't happy with me not paying my 0 debt.

Naaah, that just means that you are never quite done with the loan sharks (Mafia, Yakuza, Whomever), there will always be something extra that they ask of you until the quality is actually paid off...

Keep the Faith

That. Although the monetary drain will be gone at that point.

Indeed... But I have found that favors are far more of a drain on resources than the actual money was... it is an incentive to buy off the quality...

Keep the Faith

It certainly is =)

And all this is why I really like the idea of being able to do the loan as 0BP. You don't get extra BP, but you also don't have to kill your initial growth when you get a 70 point karma debt after a few runs.

How are you paying off the debt in just a few runs? It should take quite a while to pay off that 45,000 base debt that the 30 point flaw provides... what with the vig included with the base 45000, you may be in debt a very very long time indeed... Remember the debt increases by 10% per month (which is the vig), and if you cannot pay more than the base 10% monthly, including all of your other expenses, you will never get out of debt...

Just Sayin'

Keep the Faith

Don't forget it is compounded monthly. That adds up quickly if you are unable to pay. This is why it could be a flaw that gets out of hand or if you are pulling big runs it might be nothing.

Well, was going to include it but decided against it. It varies from game to game. Some games have runners going out on a mission nearly every other day, and some have them as closer to monthly events. And of course the amount of money made per run varies fairly heavily. If you keep the 2.5k:1 karma ratio from karmagen, and a run nets 6-8 karma, you're looking at upwards of 20k per run. If you do a run a week, you'll have the debt paid off in three runs before you even get hit with interest. So, if you haven't already spent the karma, you lose it and are 50ish karma in debt. In other words, your character fails to advance for the first 70 karma of their carrier, all because they had some outstanding loans. Now, that varies in each game. From what I've read on the forums, it seems most GMs are way more stingy than that with the nuyen, and some runners go for a month or so between runs, meaning they can barely afford a middle lifestyle, much less ever hope of paying off any kind of major debt. So yeah, in some games debt could be a crippling quality that is never paid off and is a constant drain on funds, but in other games, it could be a crippling quality because it gets paid off and advancement suddenly stops for the next dozen or so runs.

As I said, this is why I like it being 0 BP. You don't hit the trouble with never advancing, but you still have to at the very least pay a bit extra back, and may well get hit with a couple of interest charges. Now, in a game where funds are really low, and it is expected that it'll take years of game time or something before you pay it back, it should be a 5BP quality like normal, but then you shouldn't really have to pay it off in karma since you have suffered for it fairly significantly. Plenty of qualities out there that offer more BP and are less of a hindrance than having debt for a year would be.

How does this kill your initial growth? Nothing states you have to pay karma to get rid of a debt. These are house/optional rules where the player has to pay more back...

But you do have to pay Karma to get rid of the Negative Quality itself, which is equal to twice the amount of BP the Negative Quality cost you... this is not a house rule, but the standard rule for buying off Negative Qualities...

Keep the Faith

When I first read the quality I put it as 1BP per 5000 nuyen. This meant a player could get 30 points for 150000 nuyen and then owe 225000 nuyen. This made it a lot uglier and I still favor using more money for each BP as it puts the character much deeper in debt.

I think one run per month is fair. I don't think that there are that many shadowruns occurring in a city let alone where there are other runner groups. Otherwise the body count would be horrendously high and no one would ever make a profit. I also believe that players should have ample opportunity to do legwork, etc. This also means the pay should be reasonable.

The main reason I like the quality is it actively encourages players to be proactive looking for work. Anything that gets the players involved in the game as instigators rather than reactors is a plus in my book.

Yeah, it gives an example you are working off the quality such as addiction or something that requires personal effort. There needs to be some common sense on how to pay it back. Things like dependents, day job, debt etc. can be lost or gained just by roleplaying. It is awfully hard from a GM standpoint to say ok you can't be fired from your job until you pay 30 karma. Just like positive qualities can be lost based upon circumstances, nuyen can spent or contacts lost. No one blinks or compensates a player for having his VTOL blown out of the sky. This also assumes a player doesn't abuse a trait to either make him hog the spotlight or get rid of it within 1 or 2 games sessions.

I think it debt should really be about favors. Each 5 points is one contact 5 favor to an unsavory personality. This way it gets paid off, but it puts the player in a very bad position.

I heard this argument a lot, but I don't buy it. The sum is simply not plausible for most runs. It is also in stark contrast with the actual payouts in published adventures.
If you want to stick by the 2,5K¥:1 Karma ration, you need to hand the money out instead of the karma, or you will reward gear dependant characters more than your karma dependant characters. Of course you could also find a balance. You could, for excemple, give the samurai half the karma and turnt he rest of the karma into money, but I think that would screw things up even more (as you would have to explain why he earned more cash than his friends). You could just assume he played the lotto or gabled, though and that the karma he gets shorted on represents the luck he had to get the extra cash in his "side-adventures" in the gambling hall.

I don't see how that gets things out of balance. Sammy advances with nuyen, not with karma, and awakened advances with karma, not with nuyen. If you give less than the proposed ratio of 2.5K:1 ratio, then those that advance via nuyen will fall behind those that advance with karma. Maybe do an experiment: grab a 400BP sammy and a 400BP mage that are 'roughly equal' and advance them three seprate times. Once giving each 100 karma and 100k nuyen, once giving each 100 karma and 250k nuyen, and once giving each 100 karma and 500k nuyen. See how much their power changes for each one. I'd imagine on the first the sammy is going to have barely improved and the mage will have made huge advancements. I'd imagine in the second they will be largely equal, and on the third one they still might be fairly equal, but the sammy will have pulled ahead some at that point.

I'd do it myself, but won't be around for a couple days.