This brings up a point -- in most published adventures, what's the average payment suggested? We can use that as a frame of reference.

3k-5k on average, considering it is just a 1-2 day job.
Jobs that take more time usually pay more or the runners have the opportunity to loot whatever they want.

Reputation's even more bugged. It stops working beyond the first hundred karma points. SR4's even worse than SR3. My character would have a Street Cred of 48 if I'd use that rule. (I stopped playing SR3 with a Karma Pool of 15 as I used the optional RC rules for keeping it low.)



And lifestyle costs have gone up. That's the important indicator concerning incomes.

Hmm, aren't there supposed to be activities which help to reduce reputation? The game master should be willing to use those to keep things in check.

Yeah, killing innocent bystanders will reduce Street Creds.

Critical glitches, talking shit to Johnsons, etc...

Napalming a bus full of Nuns and Orphans. And Orphaned Nuns.

Using a Improvised Weapon of Mass Destruction in the middle of a heavily populated area...

My runs usually award between 3K and 20K per PC.

Something simple like a simple assassination (takes no skill to kill) will be on the low end.

Something difficult like kidnapping a 3-person science team from their megacorporate lab will be quite a bit more.

Something complex and difficult like the said extraction above combined with an assassination combined with making the newly-dead victim appear to be the kidnapper would be toward the top of the scale.

Really it can be a matter of how often your group plays SR and how fast you would like your players' characters to advance. Its okay if you overpaid them in the beginning as a kick-start to their shadow careers, just have their character's 'find out' that that kind of pay was a fluke and bring it back down to a normal range.

Pay 'em just enough to keep them hungry. Figure out what the runner's lifestyle costs are and pay them just enough to make the rent, depending on how many jobs they do in a month. The only time I go above and beyond the norm is if it's a part of the story and I deliberately want the PCs flush with cash.

This is the kind of stuff that needs to be handled in a Mr. Johnson's Black Book type product because this is the most asked question in this game.

You're telling us that your runners are willing to commit a capital crime for 3ks? My character would never ever risk a death penalty if he could easily earn much more by stealing a car.



And after about 10 runs every sam, rigger and hacker player will ask you, if he may play a mage or ki-ad.

You mean "Mr. Johnson's Little Black Book"?

I mean, paying and such is fluff for the most part. Fluff doesn't change even when Crunch does.

I hope I'm misunderstanding that. Are you saying that the money runners get for a job is fluff, and so has little bearing on the mechanics of the game system?

I definitely like to respond to my player's feedback and I respect that you do too. However, is it worth considering that car theft might be too easy and too profitable in your game?

Personally, I love it when my players steal cars for their runs, but they usually end up with some beater that has more RP value than NuYen value.

Actually, I consider the car to be one of the bigger things in the adventure -- simply because one of my characters owns a very nice car, and driving to / from the mission is a big thing for him. He scopes out the city, streets, patrols, and everything like that, to plan the perfect approach and get-away.

In addition to being a gun nut, I'm also a classic car nut. Muscle cars in particular. Also, motorcycles.

I freely admit that Jon "Money" Johnson is my Gun Nut run free, and Nas is my Car Nut run free.

Well the whole thing in the OP about the runners highballing to the extreme and walking out will easily cause a rep to drop rapidly, as well as cause their notoriety and PA to raise up.

For the concept of pay, like nearly everyone says, it varies on the game and runs. I use to have a chart I made for the last campaign I gmed years ago where I had a rough payout for different types of jobs, and then different factors would effect the price (e.g. If target was corp base would be for non-rated corp. +% for Nat, +higher% for A, +even higher% for AA) mainly who they were agaisnt, opposition, risk, expenses, extra intel/equipment supplied, threat of reprisal and another column or two and the player's negotiations were taken off as a percentage, roughly 1-3 percent per hit . So essentially it was base price + all percents = base payout + Neg% = Final cut.

I found doing it that way kept a set system so that the players knew what certain jobs were worth, in a rough sense, in the shadows (They never saw the chart though) but each job was a different payout.

Also, for the OPoster, maybe have a pre-planned fallout scenario, where the johnson decides that since he already spilled so much he has to go after the runners to silence them, or they insult a johnson for a major crime family and they want revenge etc. Or just talk to the players.

QFT


If you're actually paying lifestyle costs, your hacker hates you.

last time, I wanted to be noncommittal about the payout.
J gave the team some boxes and told them what they can expect, if they bring the boxes to the designated target who will pay them. Then I brought in two more parties making totally different offers (a bigger amount cash, some high availability hot guns). they stuck to the expected certified cred. If somebody had kept the contents (a new drug), he could have made up to 10 times instead, depending on the date of selling. sadly nobody considered gambling. so they just sticked to the safest solution and the lowest amount. And I rewarded them with a new connection.

most fun was the mage who considered keeping his share for personal use

I'm surprised he isn't named "NOS".

His name is short for "NASCAR", as he was a driver funded by Stuffer Shack (Car #711). He was in a major wreck and his insurance company cheaped out on his recovery, using replacement parts that are violations of NASCAR rules. His wife, accountant, and lawyer ran off with his money, and left him destitute and kicked out of the hospital barely able to walk.

He worked as a taxi driver for a bit until a Shadowrunning team spotted him and asked if he could still drive. He could, and got the handle "Nas" as a result. He refuses to answer to anything else now unless it's part of a Fake SIN. (Well, OK, his boyfriend calls him a few things he'll answer to, but that's a special case.).

Just spend time burning Street Cred to reduce that Notoriety... or when the Cred gets cumbersome, just change your identity (Reduces your Cred to 0) and rebegin with a new Identity and New Street Cred.

Easiest ways I know...

Of course, there is always something to be said for having a reputation that is unmatched, just look at Fastjack.

Yeah, exactly, FastJack. Just how many gigs is he getting now?

Of course, it's not like he really needs to work any longer, does it? 'Course, he will anyways, just to keep from being bored (And having to deal with his Sister and the rest of his family.).

Yeah, Well, You know how Family can be... what are you going to do?

Take your sister's kids to The House of Mouse, apparently.

Heheh... Awesome...

Your players seriously don't attempt to steal, loot and fence everything that isn't tied down? Geeze, I'm running a (stupid) Star Wars game where my players have tried to cut up a space station hanger bay and sell it for parts.

Corporate Suit: "Where are the security guards?"

*Meanwhile, in a dreky abandoned motel*:
Security Guard #1: "Oh man, why am I so cold... Ah, man, they took my kidney! And I'm naked in a tub with Bob. Bob, this never happened."
Security Guard #2: "I think they'll find out it happened at our next physical."
Security Guard #1: "I MEANT THE BATHTUB TOGETHER!"
Security Guard #2: "Oh, right. Yeah. I was fantasizing a hot tub for our first time..."

Specify an edition and I can do some data mining.

Well, Missions for 3E and 4E come to mind, but even some of the classics, I'm curious now.

Here's a chart someone posted here a few months back. I assume whoever it was will step forward:

It can happen in any game where you actually track your character's wealth, but SR and D&D are of course severe offenders, due to the emphasis on buying moar equipment.

Star Wars is equally bad, as you need to repair and upgrade your ship. Trust me on that one. As for looting things... We had a Star Wars Privateer campaign going where that not only was a major theme, but rewarded!

The Rebel Alliance needed anything it could get it's hands on. We brought them cargo ships filled to the brim with war material and other essentials, and the occasional warship.

Our crowning moment was when we took an entire FLEET (A small one with outdated ships, but still) single-handedly. Minus the flag ship as it went boom very nicely in the middle of the commanding officer's rant at what he thought was outside our range. IIRC, he didn't even have his shields up. The only modern ship was an Interdictor-Class Star Destroyer, which, for those of you who know Star Wars, will know that's a pretty damned big thing for the Rebellion to get!

When we brought the fleet in, we could hear the gnashing of teeth from the accountants through vacuum!

I'm going to try and attempt to create a representative sampling (read: not exhaustive list) of compensation values from published 4E products. That'll give us a basis to do statistics from.

By the way, am I the only one who thinks that High/Luxury lifestyles are still fairly cheap? I mean, you can't really fold high-stakes gambling, cars, restaurants and expensive joytoys into 10-25K per month...

You can if you win with the high-stakes gambling, but otherwise I don't see you paying for all of it either.

I dunno, the High description really sounds more 'upper middle class' than it does High Life, at least from my reading and interpretation of costs in SR. Luxury costs 100,000. This seems like a lot, and could justify the luxury perks. I don't know where you're getting 25,000 from.

From Runners companion you can have one luxury and the rest high lifestyle for 20k.

Ah, I haven't messed with the lifestyles from Runner's Companion. I've mostly only used it for qualities. The rest seems like a lot of extra complications that have me fearing balance issues. This seems like an example of me being justified. It does lead me to another question about lifestyles though. can you upgrade permanent lifestyles? Like if someone is trying to move from low to middle do they only have to pay 300,000?

A Lifestyle that has been permanently purchased cannot be upgraded; in order to change some (or all) aspects of the Lifestyle, you must first sell it, then purchase the new one.

If a player wishes, her character can sell a permanent lifestyle of
Middle or better. If the character has a couple of months to broker a
legitimate deal, roll 2D6. Multiply the result by 10 percent to determine
how much of the purchase price the character gets paid for her
“property.” If the character doesn’t have the SINner quality (see p. 95),
roll only 1D6. Also roll 1D6 if the character must dump her home and
possessions fast or through an agent because she is on the run.

well, darn, I guess I'm blind and missed that paragraph. That's kinda lame though. I don't think investments work like that in the real world.

This is not the real world, though, it is a dystopic hellhole, full of crime and corruption, and myriads of individuals that are not even real people as far as the Governments and Corporations are concerned...

"I am not a Number, I am a Free Man!" "Your SIN says otherwise, Citizen."

I always find this to be great. You need to let your team relax a little, and choose their own "activities" between runs. More often than not, this leads to great material further down the line -- like neighbors that you pissed off ratting you out to Lone Star or some MegaCorp that wants your blood, or having any number of odd things happen that are too obvious to be coincidental. Oh yeah, there's lots to work with in that department.



For this reason, I usually have 2 or 3 scenarios ready to go in the background in case my guys filch on a run -- though it rarely (if ever happens). I can only think of one run that got turned down due too "too much hazard; too little pay". But, you could always say "okay, we'll pay you 100K nuyen" and pretty much plan to throw an ultimate death trap on them for being greedy. Been down that route before, too.

As for run payment, I usually offer between 5K and 10K for a run. I think the best that ever got paid out was 12K due to some amazing haggling for some "up front cash" and a runner death. Of course, my players have a bad habit to bring duffel bags and try to loot every single thing that is not tied down as well as leave a high body count, despite the fact that I usually give an opportune "side mission" while they're in there for maybe an extra 500 large or maybe 1K or 2K nuyen... And they still wonder why all these bad people "keep finding them".

Unless you are going for a pink mohawk style, that can be considered unprofessional. First of all, Johnson wants the run done, and doesn't always want you tearing up the place, especially if it endangers the mission, and also that is how to provoke reprisal. Most corps and security firms don't chase after shadowrunners because there is no point. A few hours after the run Mr J has whatever he wanted, and the runners have moved on. There is no profit to be made in capturing them. But if the runners stole a lot of things, or caused a lot of damage, they are more likely to get chased after to a)recover lost goods, and b)be made an example of. That goes back to the whole shadowrunners are professional criminal things. Anyone can hire some gangbangers to do a smash a grab for a couple thousand nuyen, but shadowrunners bring another level of professionalism.

You need to make sure that the money you give runners is a good deal more then they could make as part of a gang or stealing cars or whatnot.

I personally find it.. unaesthetic.. if the party loots everything. Not cinematographic or cool at all.

To a certain degree it might be conditioning left over from D&D (especially when trying to "beat" the wealth-by-level guidelines). But it also has to do with GMs deliberately lowballing payout "because they'll be looting anyway".

But if looting is that easy, why go for the Johnson job anyway? Why not rob random office complexes and R&D facilities to steal the guards' weapons and the printer cartridges and stuff?



I think the focus should clearly be on the big payout. It should be big enough to make the players salivate - and wonder what trouble awaits, because nothing easy can be that well-paid. It shouldn't be interesting to loot every knick-knack - it'll slow you down, weigh you down, and it's not worth enough money to do anyway.

It's like being in a computer game where you could pick up every dirty rag dropped by a monster you killed, and you could sell every dirty rag for a gold piece. But you get only X time, and in that time you want to get to the end boss and the good stuff.

I'm not saying looting shouldn't happen at all, but it's nicer if it's just a few things here and there, instead of a big systematic thing. Just that one guard's nifty modded gun, the CEO's private correspondence (while hacking), and such things. Targets of opportunity or of high value; worth the time to pick them up.

It's easy to train your players not to loot. Have the corp send out a strike team, or get them stung for selling stolen merch, or have a vengeful corper hire a runner to take you out for stealing some important family heirloom. Just make sure you're giving the runners enough money so that they don't feel like they have to do that. Give them bonus objectives for extra cash, or give them things to do between runs to make an extra buck if they are low on cash.

Why get paid for one job when you can get paid for two?

Also, Mr. Johnsons provide support often in the way of information the 'Runners might have a hard time getting as part of their deal... Guard rotation schedules, back-door access information to servers, layouts of facilities, and so on. That should be part of any negotiation is whatever intel they can provide.

Double-check that intel, however. It might be pure vapor, or it might be misinformation fed to the Mr. Johnson to let his Corp get caught trying something...

I have mixed feelings about l00ting. My team doesn't wind up doing a lot of it. By the end of most fights, they're too worried about getting out of there before the 'Star shows up to strip the bodies.

"Best offer in the accepted time frame" is good. The variance is much to large, try 80% base + 20% risk. A good Negotiations roll should raise the price. "+1 per net hit (threshold=LP/5)"?