Yes, SR can be run that way. YMMV depending on the GM. As a GM, I try to focus some of the campaign on the PC's relationships. It helps with the plot.

Yeah, and one of the books (RC I think) even makes particular mention of something like "People with high loyalty aren't going to remain at high loyalty if you don't show them attention every so often. GM should feel free to lower loyalty ratings for contacts that the player has been ignoring." or something along those lines at least. Just because SR doesn't give 30 pages of rules on it doesn't mean it can't happen.

Then have the Johnson pay them in profit and expenses. Anything exceeding their expense account comes out of profit. But they don't get the whole expense account if they don't use it up.

Make expense account coverage be a negotiable item.

Ex: Pay is 5k/week + expenses (submit expense report for reimbursement of covered items).

But why is the J going to pay you more because you live it up? It doesn't make sense that he'll pay the Sammy less because he lives in a hovel and the Face more because he lives in a Mansion.

Expenses would be what you spent in support of the mission, not what you spent in support of yourself.

I view Lifestyle as what it takes to keep you living in your place. If you are on travel, that's coming out of your discretionary budget.

Lifestyle, upgrades, toys, etc all come out of profit. Expenses would be those things incurred in support of the job. Things like greasing palms, buying information, research, equipment consumption / damage, etc.

If you read up on some of the Mercenaries handbooks for BattleTech, you'll see what I mean. This stuff is all detailed in the sorts of things a merc unit negotiates for. Face it, shadowrunners are mercenaries; hired guns. They may as well work it like a mercenary because that is what they are.

The last thing a Johnson is going to do is give a team an expense account. That defeats the whole purpose of deniability!

It's either taken out of the half up front or he hands out a credstick with additional funds on successful negotiation. You want to make sure your runners live it up, give them a reason to lie low for awhile.

I often use expense accounts, payments per day, damage and even death compensation. If runners can't accurately estimate the danger level, time required, expenses required, etc., they're either going to ask for lots of money to cover the uncertainty, or they'll just walk away midrun if it turns out not to be worth the pay. The Johnson knows this. Either he gives them real solid intel and a well-defined job, or he offers them more money than they'll probably need, or he makes such a variable deal. Most go with the latter.

Trying to get players to spend money on fun seems counter-productive. I'd rather get them to spend money on business, which frequently means the same thing.

Yeah, sure, a runner can shadow some mook through the burned out sections of town and if they want to draw the kind of cash that gets paid to do that sort of work, that fine.

But that kind of work pays for a new Ares Predator. It doesn't pay for the kind of toys they want.

They need to be able walk through better neighborhoods. They need to know what to order in a bar where even the glasses are running software. They need the ability to hire quality arm candy, talk to bartenders, and blend in with people whose other name is Mr. Johnson and listen to them as they complain about their day job without them suspecting a thing.

As a GM, that makes things easier for you. Either they have the lifestyle or you nickle and dime them to death with bar tabs, taxicabs, and bribery. And those dang social skills modifiers are murder. Wrong clothes? -2. lacks background knowledge -2. Prejudiced (who is this mook?) -2. If they want to work in this society, they need to spend the time and money understanding the society, and that means lifestyle.

Or they can go back to tracking down wage-slaves.

Edit: Think of it this way. If you were going to hire someone to do some delicate work, would you drop more than an economic class in order to find the person? I find white collars are comfortable hiring blue collars but not daily labor/daily pay. Blue collars, on the other hand, have little problem hiring daily labor/daily pay. Sure, maybe the face may have some street people he associates with (the team) but the Johnson isn't going to talk to them. He probably doesn't even want them in the same room and may go elsewhere.

Feel free to have a fixer contact of the players explain that he's had to let some better paying jobs go to other teams because of this issue. "I'd rather you guys had done the Brunner Girl job, but in those neighborhoods, let's face it, you don't blend. It ain't the troll thing. This ain't the old days. But look at you. That ain't Berwick you're wearing and if you even use a cleaning service it hasn't been enough to save those clothes. I can see grease, blood, and what looks like a bullet hole from here."

Wait wait wait.

Are you actually using expense accounts, complete with requsitions for receipts, signatures, counter-signatures and entries into the Accounts Payable system to kick out a credit transfer from the correct cost center, or are you using 'expense accounts' as a catch-all term for 'credstick full of nuyen based off an estimate'?

Mostly they're expected to handle small costs through an up-front payment, and the fixer is assigned by the Johnson to handle the "expense account" - provide gear or approve expenses upon request, and if applicable to resell the gear after the run. I never really went into the details of the Johnson-fixer arrangement, I just figure the fixer gets a certified credstick, some guidelines, and that the Johnson trusts the fixer to care about his reputation as someone who is responsible with the funds and returns as much as possible, as that reputation will net him a lot more income in the future than ripping off a few expense accounts will.

So, no accounts, just a savvy fixer who knows how runs work, what stuff costs, and cares about his rep.

Oh thank god.

I've always seen it as the Johnson uses the fixer as an extra layer of protection. The fixer gets a fee based off his team's skills - he's the one that fills the roster for what job the Johnson needs doing. He facilitates the meet, the Johnson works to negotiate the deal down with the team and it's assumed that either the team has what they need, or they have access to it. If the team negotiates the costs up, the credstick with some funds comes out and they're in charge of appropriating it. I'd never earmark gear to a fixer for it because it's traceable back to me as a Johnson - and that defeats the purpose.

Unless I'm running a gear test op, tailchaser or a run against my own corp, I'm going to keep the intel basic (it's up to them to do the legwork), the payments in line with my bottom line, and trust that the fixer I utilized has filled the roster with a team that can handle the details of the run that I provided. If I want it to succeed, I'll downplay the difficulty a little to drive my costs down.

My advice: Do not look for mechanical fixes to what is essentially story telling problems. Additionally I know more then a few people whose idea of fun is going to the range and then cleaning their guns afterwards. Knowing these people in real life there's no reason for me to see that as unreasonable.

The road your going down lead to "I'm at the bar, roll body to see if i'm getting drunk. If there are any joygirls there I want to do them." Style unfun.

But...But my Monofilament Whip is -4AP against Trolls!*






*I totally forget what the stats are on a monowhip

You're not there!

On a personally annoying note, I'm pretty sure I'd qualify as "Low Lifestyle". Which is made worse and more tenous given my current out of work status.

Man. You're adding sauce to your Cup o' Noodles with an eyedropper?

So these people, in the 2070s, if they started making lots of money, they'd spend all of it on 'ware? They wouldn't get a nice car, a nice place to live, invest some money for retirement, go on a nice vacation (maybe somewhere they let tourists play with military hardware even)?



It beats "yeah I'm staying with Low lifestyle and saving up for move-by-wire."

Nothing wrong with that.

Make ware not available for Nuyen

At least anything with an availability of R or F

They have to pay in favors.

The entire thread's genesis was on the assumption that there was something wrong with that.

Which there isn't.
If you are content with the way your living arrangements are but not content with how your body reacts to certain stimuli, you don't change your appartment, you change your body.

"I cast stunball at the darkness."
"You take out 5 ninjas... damn."

*nods*
i'll allow it!

Let me ask you, if your GM said "hey, I'm going to double your payouts, but you can only spend half of it on ware, the rest you have to just blow off". Would that strike you as a bad deal? Would it be a worse roleplaying experience for you that your char got to increase his lifestyle and buy an expensive watch to lure in the golddiggers?

Money-Laundering.
Intermingle co-existing funds.
It's the shadowrun way to get around such limitations.

Then nothing has really changed, has it? You've just given the runner all the money he could want to spend on expensive trash and he still gets to save up for 'ware.

Cup o'Noodles?

Flour, egg, salt, and a chair leg as a rolling pin. That's noodles.
Bagels are great when you can spring for yeast. Man, I made a lot of bagels....

Hey now, he did say Low lifestyle, where I remember 'adding flavor with an eyedropper'.

what . . no one? O.o

That's the point, yes. The thing is, there is also the player to consider who already burns money on lifestyle - he now gets to save up as much for ware, instead of being punished for sound roleplaying choices.

Why not just tell them they can only spend half on 'ware? I'm not seeing the point of doubling their payout.

Or of curtailing their choices, period - if you aren't playing up the problems with their lifestyles, that isn't necessarily on them.

Does it make you feel better to know I got it?

Yeah, I got it too.

yes it does ^^

as i had hoped/expected ^^

If everyone was living like hobos to get more ware, that'd be fine (well, sort of, more a case of "no one cares what happens outside of runs"). But a player that actually role plays his char's downtime desires, that costs him compared to the others. I don't want power differences to creep in, and it bugs me he's being punished for his sound decisions.

So I feel like balancing the field, and I'd honestly rather give more lifestyle to the powergamer and more ware to the roleplayer, than take something away. It is just easier being a nice guy So that means increasing payouts.

I think the easiest solution is award the player that is roleplaying his character's downtime with a little extra karma, it really doesn't need to be a lot of karma either, just a couple of points. His increased karma will help to balance out the other guy's extra 'ware. It's win/win. The guy that likes to roleplay will feel his efforts are being rewarded, and the guys that like to roll-play will still see their characters getting more uber.

I would however suggest not telling everyone at the table about the bonus karma as sometimes that can cause hurt feelings. Our group usually does secret karma awards for all awarded karma anyway.

-D

Yeah, one of the karma award sections is good roleplaying isn't it? Just give them a point or two from that.

No, but I am living on the 'college student' nutrition plan (cheapest ramen I can get, cheapest mac and cheese, buying stuff like pasta and sauce, 'low grade' family packs of hot dogs, etc).

Did you ask your players if they even WANT to roleplay that stuff? I know some very dedicated roleplayers who simply dont want to RP the 'day to day life' in shadowrun, because its simply to... realistic? Close to life now, just with more tech? Something like that.

Yeah that.

Home made noodles are delicious. I make them often. To save time I just pull bits off the dough and toss them into boiling water.
But it sucks to be forced to make stuff from scratch. You can make some great food for cheap if you buy generic and make things from their basic ingredients as much as you can, but it is very time consuming.

They don't, and I don't. If one goes to Middle, keeps a safehouse, and saves the rest for retirement, and another starts living it up with High+ and parties, then it doesn't have to be more much more than that. It just makes the characters feel real, without it actually taking much time. The roleplayer that has to do this anyway gets to do it without falling behind the other guys, and the other guys get to flesh out their chars a bit and give them flavor, without it hurting their min-max approach to nuyen.

I think forcing a small percentage makes sense. It should work out to be slightly less then the character would normally pay if they were not trying to save money. That way someone who makes sacrifices for the long term still fairs a little better than someone who is less frugal.

This assumes that roleplaying downtime has to involve spending money. Do you have to? If the character is the frugal type, or was raised not to spend money unnecessarily and save his money, isn't he roleplaying his character as well?

On another approach, if this is a question of 'are all characters contributing their fair share?', there may be some wiggle room. Back in D&D, there was the player type that always wanted free assistance from everyone else, but was loathe to burn any charges or give up any potions to help out the party, the one that would also bitch and moan about contributing to a party-fund to pay for things like healers and rooms and wenches and info-gathering costs.

They tended to focus on their own gear and 'becoming more powerful'. They also tended to be the ones that loathed social encounters cause they weren't built for that and wanted to start fights at the social encounters so they could flex their combat skillz.

I feel you. Shop n' save has dollar packs of eight hot dogs, and occasionally I'll get two packs of Hillshire Farms cheddarwurst for five bucks. And Little Caesar's is next door for five dolla pizzas!

I figure if I can squeak out more than two meals off a five dollar large pizza, I've done well.

I would kill for a TNG food replicator.

It can be, or it can be a lazy player not wanting to be any more involved than picking up dice when it's called for. It is up to the story teller to make that distinction (with input from the player). Remember watching devil rats fight in your living room can be a roleplay thing or a roll play thing depending on the player.

-D

Edit:
P.S.
A player can come up with a lot of reasons to NOT do anything but throw dice when it's called for and call it roleplay.

I think the premise of this topic is really weird.

RPGs are like movies; you have to decide what will happen on-screen. In some movies, you see the details of someone's life, while another only focuses on action and explosions. What to show on-screen depends on the effect you wish to achieve.

Do the players care about the minutiae of their characters' lives? If they don't care about long downtime descriptions, then don't bore them by forcing those on them. Shadowrun shouldn't be a chore.

Is someone spending no money on Entertainment, because the player wants to save up for more gear? Ask the player if he doesn't think his character is flat or dull. Maybe the character is particularly motivated, or simply has an ascetic temperament?The character isn't materialistic?

If the player doesn't care if his character has fun, that's up to the player; but it has IC consequences. The character might be perceived as a dullard by his NPC neighbors. Horizon might disapprove. Significantly, other players' characters are seen to have more fun!

You can hit people up with lifestyle costs after an adventure, based on their actual behavior. Did the "dullard" PC go to all manner of shows and nightclubs? When it's time to settle the Lifestyle "bill", rate Entertainment higher than the player thought he was going to - if that's what the PC actually did.

Lifestyle is a nice tool of abstraction. Personally, I find tracking petty bribes, bullets and other trivial expenses rather dull. It'd be nice to shovel those kinds of things in an equivalent, something like Runstyle. I want to see action, drama, not accountancy.

That's a pretty good idea.