Without a price table for run jobs my haggling between Johnsons and runners has them paid waaay to much. Is there or has anyone created a table to help GMs know what prices Johnsons should be haggling for ?

First of all, how many runs they do per month? Unless they are really hoarding money to pay for some shiny new toy, most runners would work once a month. This means they should earn enough money to pay for their lifestyle and the legwork of the run and enough money so they can buy some new cheap toy.

I know it is someone's sig and I will paraphrase it: "if the cost of a run is cheaper than stealing cars, then you are not paying enough".

Indeedy. It's a fine line, but know how many people you got, what their lifestyle costs are, and get it to be close, if not a bit over. Your players are likely to pick up some cash on the side in the farm of moveable assets purloined from the target. Also figure on the difficulty of the run. If this is a Zero Zone target, then the payout is going to be higher. If your people don't think the paycheck is going to be high enough, they'll walk away or haggle for a higher result. If you figure the price is fair but they don't, then yes, they've been paid too much and they're going to need to lose some of that bankroll.

No more than the job is worth, no less than the runners can make doing something else, averaging around what the Johnson thinks they're worth.

Specifics? My runners probably wouldn't accept less than $5k/head for an hour's work. This is something easy, like the old 'pick up the Johnson's laundry down the street'. They go up to $50,000, barring special circumstances, and average around 20-30,000. That's all 'per head'. They've made as much as $200,000 per head (mostly in hardware, but still), and as little as... nothing.

They are very pro. For gangers, divide those numbers by 2.

It should vary very much by

1) the (expected) difficulty of the run (little opposition/security vs. Zero Zone)
2) the time involved (1 hour job vs. 1 week commitment)
3) the urgency of the run (now, vs. anytime within a week)
4) the ability of the Johnson to pay (Megacorp vs. co-op commune).

Also figure in that some J's will overpay, some will underpay, and some will downright try to screw the runner's over. And leave leeway for negotiations to change the final amount.

As others have said, they should make, in a month, enough to cover reasonable (for their ability and level of play) lifestyles + a little extra for gear/expenditures. Expenses will likely rise as they players maintain extra dosses, use more expensive gear, and encounter more risk (higher medical bills), so the contracts they receive should increase as well. Perhaps peg it to their Street Cred.

Depends on the market. Whatever the market will bear.

As for some Mr. Johnsons downright screwing the 'Runners over, the 'Run isn't over until the Johnson has put the screws to the Shadowrunners. Serves them right for being the dregs of society and all that!

It also depends on the negotiation skill of the Johnson and the 'Runners. Too greedy, and Mr. Johnson will just find a crew that can do the same job cheaper, however.

IMHO also by 5) the tone and style of your specific SR setting and campaign (gritty ultra-dystopia vs light-hearted action movie style).

A metagaming thought:

Having disposable cash once in a while allows your PCs more leeway for their own projects. Let the ex-ganger street sam throw a big party for his former gang, let the high society face buy a cover at the mayor's campaign dinner, whatever. In my experience letting the PCs do their own things between more standard runs leads to much more fun in game than having them just sit in their basement between runs, polishing their guns. Of course that depends on your group. If their reaction to a windfall is "I buy more guns to polish while sitting in my basement", it might not work out for you.

There's also out-of-character considerations - I generally take the viewpoint that the GM should dole-out the cash, karma and other rewards fast enough to keep your players having fun. If your table has lots of folks looking to write down bigger numbers on their sheets, but you only get to play once a month or less, by all means, throw some big numbers their way. Enough so that they can afford some sort of upgrade every other play session.

Actually there's something in the negotiations that I encountered with my players and it's bugging me deeply. I wonder if anybody else feels that way. And keep in mind this is talking straight out of character here.

The situation is like this: I, as the GM, have prepared a scenario, or mission. It starts by the J making an offer (let's assume it's the typical "J pays, you do" situation). Then they negotiate. And they are greedy like hell (just for the fun of it I suppose as they are not very short on toys or anything). Let's say the J can offer them 30k for a rather simple job. They tell him they want 300k and nothing less. For the kind of job in question there is no way anybody is going to pay 300k, or even 100k for that matter. In character, the J simply walks away, having a good laugh, and finds another team.

The problem is: the players (not the characters) know that I have this mission prepared for them. And if the J walks away, there's no mission, there's no play. We can all just get up and go home. So they know they have me by the balls. I have to give them the money so we can play. I think this isn't fair play. But on the other hand, they players are fairly new to the game, and they thing they should earn tons of cash simply for being criminals. Of course they wanna play. But they know I won't end the game withing first 15 minutes, simply because of failed negotiation.

So, did anybody have a situation like this? Where they know they can negotiate way up or else the game is over for tonight? What would you do? Just get up and leave, teach them a lesson?

Of course I can always invent jobs where they are blackmailed or else forced to do something, but every once in a while it would be nice to just have the J hand over the details and get over with it. Or should I just pay them millions and then kill them because the run was way over their heads (as it should be for this kind of cash)?

I usually have a second run semi-prepared to run in case of this sort of thing. Then the original offer gets re-cycled if feasible given the situation. If the runners make a habit of refusing otherwise decent jobs, you should have fewer customers available for them. It's one of the hard bits of trying to simulate a 'real-world', and usually the players themselves should have a bit more understanding of the GM's time.

Along these same lines, I've been thinking of writting-up a adventure titled 'An offer you really ought to refuse' and seeing if the players are smart enough to say no.

I can see this as an issue, but doesn't it go both ways? Why can't the Johnson just stand up and walk out? While yes, the GM does have a vested interest in the session happening, so do the players.

I run a pretty reactive game. Were my players to pull this, we would wrap it up right there, and play Risk or something for the night. And their characters wouldn't make rent that month. So there are consequences. Of course, you'd have a discussion about the situation out of character so that you can see what the issue is. If their characters legitimately believe that the run is worth nothing less than 300K, then maybe there is a misunderstanding. "No no no... not Saeder Krupp HQ!!! No, its a SK office in Tacoma." "OOOooohhhh! yeah, then 30K seems more like it."

Of course, maybe they are being jerks. I haven't much experience with that, as my group is composed of friends, but I can see that happening in some groups. Not sure what you'd do there.

I generally assume that runners won't get out of bed for less than 5k each, and if the job present any real risk to them 10k per runner is minimum. As mentioned above, if a run doesn't at least pay for a months worth of middle lifestyle it's not profitable to the runners, and a run with any danger is going to need to be able to pay for legwork, consumables, fake SINs, and whatnot.

Generally speaking, if you want to keep power level even, giving about 2,500 nuyen per point of karma you give it to be advised. This will keep the archtypes that rely on money to become more powerful (riggers and hackers), balanced with the archtypes that rely on karma (awakened and technomancers), and makes a good balanced with the mixed types as well (samurai, faces, ect). This doesn't have to be all at once however, the players may hood it for a few runs, working for 10k when they should be charging 15-20k, but then do a big corp run that gives them a high payout.

If this happens, you can always pretend to give in. Have the Johnson say "Alright I'll pay you that, but I need time to gather the funds, I can only pay X up front right now and then later I can..."

And when they try to collect their unrealistically high paycheck, stiff 'em or have actual consequences waiting. Knight Errant, Red Samurai, Tir Ghosts, Sioux Wildcats or worse if they really deserve it. There are also a lot of other ways a Johnson can screw them over if they break etiquette and demand some more overt than others. Call ahead and have every single possible security already alerted while they're IN the run comes to mind.

As for payscales, I personally think paying a little more per head han is listed for a 40-hr/week day job, with scaling up per the fame modifier depending on how much karma the team has is pretty fair.

Then you can add all sorts of extra opportunities to make some cash on the side, loot, paydata or commodities and flavor to taste.

Careful with that. While Johnsons do betray their runners sometimes, that is rare(would you betray a team of professional mercenaries?). Rather, if the runners demand high pay, have someone come to them with a job that is actually difficult enough to warrent that kind of money, and see how they like it.

Except Johnsons have been known to do it all the time. See the original Buzzkill SR opening fic.
See the fact that Corps like Shiawase and Renraku are known for hiring runners to hit their own facilities as security tests.
If a group of upstart runners came to me demanding money an order of magnitude higher than I was originally willing to pay them, and may or may not have an in game reputation for that (and not necessarily an reputation for deserving the pay) then they deserve what they get.

You reap what you sow.

Edit: Alternative solutions for runners who demand too much money consistently. Have the next Johnson they meet be an anonymous caller and when they go to the meet and greet start with the line "Greetings, my name is Herr Brackhaus"

Depending on how often you run in a month will directly effect your pay scale. I often try to keep it so that for every karma I give out, they get $2.5k after expenses. Meaning if all your players live in middle lifestyle, they run once a month, and your giving out ~6 karma each then the job should pay ~$20k each on completion, with enough money upfront to reasonably cover the cost of expenses (bribes, ammo, demo, etc).

Just remember, take home pay (that is cash after all lifestyles and expenses) should come out to roughly $2.5k for every 1 karma. It is the only way to maintain some balance between the cash heavy builds and the karma heavy builds.

As TygerTyger said, it cuts both ways. Don't let them bully you into giving them what they want. Have the Johnson walk out. Have jobs dry up. Have them go broke. After a couple of months of no jobs, toss them a back up bone. Same run, just different dressing (different corp names, character names, etc.; they'd never know, since they didn't run the first one). See if their price point hasn't come down.

On a less drastic note, I've run into the problem where some characters have RP reasons for not doing specific jobs. Wetwork, sabotage, that sort of thing, because of either morals or perceived inabilities or dislikes. Which means I have to have a few missions on hand in case the players opt out.

Not doing a job for personal reasons or morals will cut both ways. In one way, you won't get as many gigs.

In another, you'll get some respect from people in the Shadow Community for not wanting to sell out. Sure, the more Mercenary ones will go "What the Frag", but the Pink Mohawk, Neo-@s will see it as a blow to "The Man", even if but a little.

Sam "Twist" Verner lived this way, BTW, and was active from the early-2050s to the mid-2060s, wielding only a Narcojet Pistol and Rifle for the most part.

i am running at game at the moment with a group of about 4-6 (depending on life) players, we play weekly.

depending on the scale of the job that i write up for them to run, and the amount/rating of the \"bad guys\" that i put them up against is what i use to base the amount of money they are getting paid, when i get Mr J or their fixer to met them with the info about the job, i tell them that it is worth, 5-15,000 less then what it should be. eg snatch and grab on a armoured car: its worth 20-30,000 per person, i offer 10,000 per person and let them haggel over the price, if they want more they will ask, i have an upper limit that i am willing to go to, and i try and get the cheapest option.

i have about 4 jobs written up at the moment;
1: extract a little kid, 15,000 per player, i have given them a flood of info on the kid/area/house/security, but all that info drys up when it comes to the childs dad (head for a triad family) the job is being offered by a rivel family because they want to make a move and become one of the key players in seattle... they said no, they were then offered more money for the job, still they said no, they ended up being offered 50,000 per head for the job, they still said no... (it was very wise to say no, 2 of my players are in debt to the triads)

2: Hattori Hanzo\'s sword, 10,000 per player, this sword is the sword of legendary swordsman hattori hanzo, he used this while he was a shogun assassin way back in the day, the sword is said to be so sharp that it cuts through light making the user invisable, a yukaza boss has gotten his hands on this sword and is throwing a massive party to show it off (in 2 weeks) for all the movers and shakers (yukaza, triads, megacorps, lone star, knight errent, heads of state, ect) about 50-60 people all up, the job is to go and steel this sword. they said yes... after doing some research, (the hacker got about 20 hits on an extended test) they found out info on every guest at the party but could find anything on a Mr L. (lofwyr) they found out that some other people have been hired to do the same job as them, no one knows where the sword is coming from or where it is being heald, just that it will be at this blokes home on the day. most of their contacts either know someone or are part of a team who is going after this sword (its a big deal)... they then called up the fixer and said they didnt want the job anymore, the fixer asked them to hold on a second as he was told to do something in this case, he called up the J (another runner team) and then told my players that the offer has gone up to 25,000 per head, they said no, 50,000 per head, still no, 75,000 per head, a bit of a chat amongst each other but still no, 100,000 per head, the game was put on hold for about 15 mins at this point for a food and drink run, they spoke amongst them selves about the job, aprehencive but still no... the sword is worth about 5,000,000,000 if sold to the right person, they are still getting asked if they want the job, but its from different places (contacts, triads, mercs)

3: \"talk\" to some gangers undercutting the price of crappy cram: 5,000 per head, the dragon dodgers have been getting someone to import some cram, which they have then be changing to make more adictive and not as good, then they are selling it on the cheap. the players have been asked to find out who the supplyer is and have a \"chat\" to him about it, and to take care of the dodgers. they asked for more money so i said 7,500 per head, they said yes...

4: help doc wagon, about 5 days out of the hanzo job, the players will be asked if they want to work with doc wagon as there procetion for the night, no one shoots at doc wagon (that would be silly) they just need some extra people for the night, as its going to be quiet messy, i havent told them what they are getting yet as doc wagon will haggel over the fee at the end of the job (thats how i run them)


i hope this helps you have a basic idea on how i run some of my jobs and how i pay them

Realistically, the budget Johnsons have for paying runners is

(benefit reasonably expected from operation) - (acceptable profit margin, adjusted for risk)

This is pretty much the ceiling for payment. Naturally, some benefits are difficult to quantify, and what constitutes and acceptable profit margin differs from case to case. Furthermore, it's worth delineating between entities responsible for organizing operations and payment.

A headhunter for a research department might think that kidnapping some nanotech specialist from a hardened facility could give his team a shot at beating X rival to the punch in the next quarter. Maybe getting his product to market first is worth 500 million in defense contracts to the company, but only a 50k annual performance bonus to him personally. It's absolutely stupid for this Johnson to pay 50k up front for the extraction, no matter how good the team or how difficult the operation, especially since he can't be assured of the success of the operation ahead of time and he personally risks getting caught playing dirty, or getting extorted by unscrupulous runners. If the corp hires the runners directly, it could easily be worth their while to blow a million on hiring multiple competent teams; but probably not very much more, since all that money has to disappear in accounting.

On the other hand, if the employer is a mob boss targeted by a rival's assassins, he might inflate the value of the benefit (his own life and limb) and minimize the motive for profit (though his underlings might take exception to their superior blowing the payroll on outsiders; or simply decide that it's worth losing their boss to keep the organization's funding).

These numbers are a moving target. If it turns out that scientist X already completed work on the project before his extraction, suddenly his worth plummets, and the runners might find themselves hunted by corp Y for an unsaleable hostage.

Furthermore, prudent Johnsons (which is most of them, since that's why they're in black ops HR and not the mail room) will keep in mind the going market rates for work and the specific desperation of runners. If he hears that you're in the hole to someone nasty, he might call in a marker to get your debt canceled, in exchange for services far in excess of the debt value. After all, when you need that money now now now before someone repossesses your kidneys, you're not exactly in a position to negotiate.

On the flip side, shadowrunners are creatures of wealth and taste, often burdened with massive expenses. Sammies need their bullets, their cyberware checkups, their docwagon card bills paid on time. Hackers need to keep their ware on the bleeding edge to say competitive, and who knows what kind of crazy magical junk a mage might be into. Everyone needs their rent paid, and most need just that little bit extra to justify the danger and discomfort of the profession, when most of them could easily get into a nice, safe line of work. Like dealing crack, or being a medical test subject.

The minimum payment a shadowrunner will accept for a job is

(whatever bills I can't get away with putting off this week) + (however many bullets/drones/pints of blood I'm liable to lose in the process of completing this contract) + (beer)

Again, moving target. Maybe the landlord turned off your heat, so you're thinking this time you could just try really hard to not get shot, and throw rocks at the guards instead of wasting your last clip of APDS. Sometimes your expense reports will be larger than expected; things go wrong, you drop an overcast powerball and glitch the drain, and the hospital bill ends up being more than your payday. Do you ask the Johnson nicely if you can please have some more? Does Mr. Johnson think your continued goodwill is a safe enough investment to give you an advance on your next run? Do you borrow from your teammates' cuts, and hope they don't just sell your Islets of Langerhans to the chop shop?

It's a constant battle between a bunch of horrible people who all need to get paid, and the only regulation of the industry comes from the end of a gun.

Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste...

The Shadowrunners need a union. Why not, the Assassins unionized.

Also remember that the Rolling Stones are going to get paid like the Rolling Stones even if you book them for your little back-alley bar with chicken-wire around the stage.

There comes a point where a runner can demand a premium, if he has a reputation. Remember that movie where Bruce Willis shot Jack Black's arm off with an autocannon? He was paid 70 million for a single assassination, half up front. Few shadowrunners will have a reputation sufficient to command such extreme remunerations, but someone with a rep can certainly expect more than bargain basement wages. Fastjack and random script-kiddie #12 might both be able to break into datastore X, but you'll be paying Fastjack a hell of a lot more, not because the job is difficult, just because he's Fastjack.

Haven't GM'd but a good rule of thumb to me always seemed to be $2000xStreet Cred, assuming that the players start with a street cred of 3 (AFB) and they get a point of Street Cred every 10 Karma. Seems like it keeps the pay increasing at a rate reasonable to their advancement, helps mundanes keep pace with magic users, and provides a decent reason to hood (no pay on this job but increased pay on every subsequent job).

No runner worth the name will ever do a corp run for $6,000 unless there is great personal investment for them. If it costs 5k to maintain a medium lifestyle, and you can expect at least 1k in equiptment, bribes, medical work, ect, where is the profit.

Besides, that method would have nuyen rewards quickly sprialing out of the GMs control. Awakened characters would get really powerful early, but eventually riggers and the like would become gods.

Multiple limits to "realistic" results have been mentioned:

- Joe Runner lifestyle costs
- Johnson gains
- Johnson budget
- inherent cost of the run

The important question is still what you want to dole out on average.

Runners need to pay for an acceptable lifestyle, lost assets (SINs, drones, binding materials etc), costs of the run itself, and occasional upgrades to ware. Gangers have low lifestyle, little assets to loose, do runs in their home town, and any significant upgrade would but them in the next bracket. The Elite has multiple high lifestyles, expensive illegal gear, operates globally, and can use only the best upgrades due to essence constraints.

What kind of group do you have? 400 BP allow for both gangers and accomplished street sams.

I can't see people doing corp runs right after chargen, especially not AAA corps. And no one actually has a medium lifestyle. And mages already get too powerful over time, by the time the Mage has initiated twice, 22,000 a run doesn't seem that crazy when Beta wired reflexes will run you 84,000 and get you 0.3 essence.

If they can't run against corps, they are not worth the title of shadowrunner. Not all corps are Ares or Aztechnology. That small pharmaceutical corp, or that MSP call center with customer data are corps that runners may go against.

And on the other note, you give a good rigger 30,000 nuyen a run, and see who becomes the most powerful person on the team.

I could not disagree more.

My business needs a website. I expect it will bring in $20,000 of additional profits per year. Does that mean I should pay $10,000 for a website, and take $10,000 as an 'acceptable profit margin'? No. I pay what the market will bear. If I can get a web site for $200 that meets my requirements, I will pay $200, even if the profit from it is $20,000. Same with runners. If I can get a dude to bust up the Renraku prototype for $500, within my range of risk tolerance, I'm going to hire a guy for $500 to do that job.

You are correct that the cap should be, approximately, in that area. A billboard might bring in $1,000 in sales, but that means it's not worth $2,000. But a cap isn't the same as a budget.

This does indeed reflect back on the party's 'level'. If your party is in the 1,000 karma range and you get a job offer to go hunt paranormal animals for a week for $10,000, well you need a new fixer. That's not an unreasonable pay for that job, but it's below what a really experienced party should be expecting to make for their time, regardless of the nature of the work.

It's also important to remember that the price paid reflects how many screw-ups the Johnson is willing to tolerate. Killing the target during an extraction mission where you're paid $5,000 is probably going to give you a rep hit and some sour looks, but you can walk that off. Doing that on a job that pays $60,000 might just end with you having a hit team on you when you get home. The higher the pay, the more the Johnson expects the PCs to be able to take care of themselves, improvise, provide their own resources, 'go the extra mile', adjust to changes in plans, etc. This goes up to the 'ridiculous' levels of pay, where the Johnson probably expects the PCs to die (by his hand, if necessary). Players think they're worth $300,000? Give them a $300,000 job. Tell them in advance to keep backup characters.


If characters walk away from a reasonable job offer, take the opportunity to smash them (EVEN if they walk away for moral grounds). Run through a few weeks in game of no jobs and no income, the continuing rise in cost of their crippling smack habit, Vanessa calling to tell you it's triplets, and where's her fragging child support, and some dude threw a brick through the window of your citymaster. Pitch them some trash runs ($1,000-$10,000 range). Make sure the Johnson mentions he heard they're 'desperate' and thought they might be interested. Then, for no reason, attack the bar with legions of drop bears, killing everyone. Fragging whiney shadowrunners.

True. A neophyte team would likely cut their teeth on A-level corporations that don't have any public ties to the megas. They can cut their teeth learning the biz off penny-ante datasteals and the occasional company sabotage.

Sample career arc: Team starts out taking a job from a Johnson to sabotage a couple Dominion Pizza trucks. Pays maybe a few thousand a head since they're small potatoes. Maybe a few shakedowns of LCN Pizza franchises to spook the employees. Steal the new dough recipe from Dominion, sabotage the rollout of LCN's new Chick-E-Nubs. Things continue to get escalated, turning into a low-level corporate war between the two - then the team goes up a level. Dominion's really a subsidiary, and the AA-level hires the team off for higher jobs, with the understanding that this crap stops now. Maybe on the other end, you find out LCN's a Mob front, and they'd rather use the team on some problems they've got at a well-defended Triad drug operation. Stakes get raised. Pay goes up. Ten thousand a head to shut down the drug operation, or extract a researcher from a university who's perfecting the formula for a new silk that can be weaved into body armor. Word continues to get out. The team does well, doesn't ask questions, and they pull off the tough jobs.

At the top of their game, they're being hired direct by a veep out of the megas to pull high-level defectors that could be paying 50,000-100,000 a head. Infilitrating Zero Zones in order to get that new cyberware prototype that's worth millions on the black market. At that level, only the perfect run can have everyone walk away unscathed, but Lady Luck still has a card to play and the stakes are high enough the runners can buy their own pizza franchise to launder their profits - and be the business owner when a neophyte team gets a job from your competitor to steal your new pizza dough recipe...

If your players are seriously trying to hit your NPC's for ridiculous amounts of money, have the NPC walk away and just improvise the rest of the night. The players just told a job to go away, and now they just have to deal with the consequences. Play out those consequences. First of all, who did their antics cause to walk away? And who set them up with that meeting? They've just made fools of themselves and anyone who recommended them to the Johnson. You think a fixer is going to set 'em up with another Johnson when they've just proved that they aren't someone you can do serious business with? IMO they are lucky if they didn't just loose their fixer, or at least cause him to drop significantly in loyalty towards them.
2nd of all, let them deal with the fact that rumour travels fast in the shadows, and let them deal with the consequences that they now become known as ridiculous amateurs who people shouldn't waste their time on.
3rd, let them deal with the fact that the bills keep coming, even if the income doesn't. The landlord don't give a hoot if the characters didn't get earn any money last month because they got greedy and scared off the Johnson, pissed off their fixer in the process, and made fools of themselves in the shadowcommunity.
4th, hit them with the next work opportunity and see if they've learned anything from last time. If they still try and run up the price by a factor of 10+, have the Johnson walk out on them again and repeat the consequences from last time, but crank it up to the next logical level. If the players keep trying to pull the same stunt you ultimately tell them that there isn't any jobs to be had, and that they will have to try and make their own missions, if they want to make any money. Or they can make new characters, because their current runners are socially sunk and won't be able to find anyone who'll waste their time on them.

If the players want to play hardball and try to hit you up for stupid amounts of money, then hit them back with the consequences of such behavious. It changes the game and means that the players don't get to go on any runs, but the characters will still have a personal life, and you can probably improvise the content of some normal days in their lives. Maybe they get mugged by a bunch of Go-Gangers. Maybe they witness the rape of a streethooker. Maybe the mob suddenly wants a piece of their earnings, if they want to work in their area, or maybe they just got hit with a "fine" by someone powerful, because they annoyed him, and now they suddenly have a 25K debt on their hands, and 8 days to get the cash, if they want to keep all of their organs etc. Plenty of stuff you can throw at the players, without sending them on actual runs So even if the characters do cause a Johnson to walk away, you don't have to call it a night and tell people to go home. You can still get to play, it just won't be the run you planned, and which the players expected.


As for how much money characters should make on a run, I believe that really has to come down to the game in question, and the nature of the run. Finding someone's prized dog might only pay the entire group 1000 + expenses, whereas a run against a high security fascility with many armed guards and magical support etc. might pay 50K or more per character.

Depending on the reason for the walk away, that might be a positive thing in the PCs favor.

If the job was a piece of hell and the Johnson was being overly stingy, that rep will get around as well.

Door swings both ways, and Mr. Johnson is typically only anonymous to Society, not the Shadows. If he's a professional, that is. If he's some idiot Suit whose only idea on how to hire 'Runners comes from the 'Trid, well... You get what you pay for.

Next step: You'll have to get new players as your old ones appear to have no time whenever you call them.

---

Concerning karma level and targets: I'm closing in on 500 karma points but I don't even want AAA level runs. Im entirely content with mid-level, mid-risk runs for 10 to 25k Nuyen and the occasional bigger one. Semi-legal ones are even better.

Bad examples are bad. Hiring a shadowrunner team is not like doing another service. You're not building a billboard, or setting up a website. You are hiring an elite team of professional criminals that specifically work as deniable assets. If you need someone to break into a stuffer shack, or deliver a package across the city, you hire some ganger for a couple hundred or maybe even a thousand or two. Shadowrunners do the jobs that require more finesse and tighter lips. They handle delicate situations, and, assuming they are good, will not give up their Johnson.

These are reliable professionals who do sensitive work for a living, and oftentimes have unusual specialties that may be required for a unique job. All this costs money, a lot of it. And in most cases, if runner team a doesn't accept, there is not always a runner team b that has the skills necessary to do the job.

A runner would never accept a job for 1 or 2k, because it would devalue their skills. If they get a reputation for being cheap, they won't get johnsons who are willing to play them good money, because they work cheap, in fact they might not be accepted into the shadowrun community at all.

A final note, the whole johnson budget argument is silly. You're the GM, you decide how much money Johnson has. Period.

I'm not sure I necessarily agree with the 'elite' part but that is certainly what you'd hope for. Not all shadowrunners, especially those right out of 400 BP chargen, can be called elite. In fact not all group scan rightfully be called a 'team'. So I'm gonna just agree with "Professional criminals that work as deniable assets." With the emphasis on "deniable". Of course, YMMV, but just 'cause you want to run the shadows doesn't make you an elite.


A Parliament of Thieves, Denver Mission 01 seems to disagree with your bolded section.


Again, you're automatically assuming that a self-styled shadowrunner is necessarily a pro who is already at the top of his/her game. I on the other hand will claim at this point that the shadows are full of more newbies and wannabes than ice cold pros, though the life expectancy of the formers are not high, there are plenty of other dregs of society to fill their place. Certainly if you're hiring a deniable asset with unique skills you're unlikely to find a quick or less expensive alternative. But for those 'runs which take less finesse, there's always another team out there.


This part I actually agree with. Most runs even for starting runners ought to clock at least 3-5k per head, and probably should have additional opportunities to earn money from the job be it from selling acquired information, or fencing captured loot. As runner experience and street cred climb, or if risks vs returns climb, the team can expect to be offered more, and to be able to ask for more straight up.


YMMV. If you're trying to make a semi-believable shadow-economy where you don't want to throw common sense out of the window, earnings will be limited. But if you just want to cater straight to your audience, feel free to award whatever.

The negotiation is as much between GM and players as it is between PCs and Johnson. If the players feel you're not offering them enough, they might feel bogged down - this way they'll never get the shiney toy they want. On the other hand, if you offer more than they expect, then they'll be wary and paranoid because this mission must surely be harder than it looks...

A straight-up negotiation where the parties are only negotiating price is pretty dull. Either the GM is willing to give it or not, and the same goes for the players - but both sides basically need an agreement, or the game won't go on as planned. So it's a rather thin negotiation.

But you can spice things up: the mission can have variables that can be negotiated! He's willing to pay more if you're faster, or he can pay more if you take part of the payment in useful goods, or he'll pay less if he has to hire an external specialist to do something because the team doesn't feel up to part of the mission - like hacking, in some groups.

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How much money is enough? It depends on several things, most importantly the social level of the characters and the kind of missions.

In a Barrens/gutter criminals campaign, 1K a head for taking out some other gang is reasonable and a couple of jobs like that will have you comfy for the whole month.

On the other hand, you could have a high-roller, work hard play hard kind of campaign where characters live the high life, going to expensive casinos just to burn money and sleep with 10K a night escorts. They'll have to be good to warrant the kind of payment needed to support such a lifestyle, but it's an entirely viable campaign style too.


The tricky part I suppose is the split in income between equipment and "funstyle" expenses. There's something kinda dull about characters who spend all income on more gear and sit in the basement cleaning guns. On the other hand, as a player you sometimes just feel like you want your character to improve between games, and money practically a kind of XP - why "waste it" on RP stuff?
I haven't really figured out yet how to deal with this.

I totally agree. Someone has to be doing those runs for the gangs and for the Yaks, someone has to be out hooding, someone has to be out hunting paracritters in the woods or ghouls in the sewers. Most runners are SINless, poor, and uneducated; it takes time and experience for them to become "professional" shadowrunners and very few will survive that long. Realistically nine stupid or unlucky newbies have to die in the shadows for each ice cold runner that emerges. Corp runs are the top end of the shadowrunner scene. When I imagine a starting party, I usually imagine them as a group just about to emerge from the "rabble" and into the "professional" scene where corp runs become an option.

As for the economic argument, the payment figures for SR have always seemed absurd to me. Sure, there might be a few nutcases out there whole whack somebody for less than the cost of a family sedan but corporate spies make serious cash and it never made sense to me that a Johnson is going to quibble over a few thousand nuyen when the team is stealing something valued in the millions to billions. It doesn't make sense that the Johnson can't pay more, it's got to be a matter of having so many shadowrunners that there's always someone else willing to make the run. That should hold true for the more "low-skilled" work but for the more advanced stuff there's no way for that to hold.

FYI, a 400 BP starting character is at professional shadowrunner skill level, and that is the default assumption. Shadowrunner aren't just people who commit crimes for money, they are a special class of mercenary.

I think you're right by the book (AFB) but with a street cred of 3 they're can't have been running for long (or must have screwed up very badly) and the sample characters in the book certainly don't seem like professional runners. More importantly, I think this varies depending on the experience and optimization of your party. Sure, a SR vet with a reasonably optimized character could probably start making runs against corps out of chargen but if the players aren't experienced or the characters aren't very optimized then it's probably better to have them start by making runs against gangs, criminal organizations, or small corps below the A ranking. A clothing store like the Gap certainly wouldn't qualify for A ranking but you can certainly imagine there's money to be made running against it. And hey, it's probably a subsidiary of somebody so you can expand it later one.

Edit for PS:
Also, I think the books definition of professional and the definition of professional we've been using here are different.

A lot of RPG grognards cut their teeth on the sort of wargaming-based disposable-character fantasy Vietnam meatgrinder that supports the opposite style of play.

If that's what people like, more power to them; I know I've had plenty of good times rolling 3d6 for stats in order and checking for traps with 10' poles. But the golden rule of all group activities is make sure everyone is on the same page, and a lot of GMs and players just don't give a shit about other peoples' fun.

The "RP stuff" might actually earn you a contact here and there. Spending copious ammounts of money should help for some.
Sure. They might not be too loyal for the most part, but a contact's a contact. And really, taking that corp's secretary out of a soycaf on a lunchbreak is nice, but it won't keep her satisfied. And you never know when you might need her again. And you need to actually get to know her somewhere too. Surely you're not just calling her corp, noting a female receptionist and asking if she's free tonight? The same goes for collecting whatever kind of very useful to utterly silly paraphernalia. You never know who you run in to at that Urban Brawl game, especially when you're walking around with a (signed and dented) Sprawl the Brawl Troll helmet on your head. (however that troll helmet may be shaped ) Having that specially casemodded (to look like his) Panther strapped to the same bike that he drives? All the better. In that little gear list, you're meeting a black market arms dealer, a skilled metallurgist for the modjob, and some vehicle salesman for the bike, probably modded as well. And hopefully another fan or two.
If Sprawl keels over the next match, all the better!
If you hired the sniper that offed him, to make that helmet worth just that bit more, power to you! ;p

And yeah. The GM decides how much a Johnson is willing to offer, but that should be based on his background in all but the more pink mohawk games, and probably even there it's a good thing. The local Stuffer Shack manager just can't pay you 10k a head to get you to "deter" a local gang.

It might. But that shouldn't be the reason you do it.


Yeah, I guess typical characters may be a bit overqualified for that - or the Stuffer Shack managers are just out of luck. Although it could be a fun hooding/charity job, dealing with opponents way below your level.

It shouldn't? I don't think anyone's at liberty to determine why people do things
That said, I was just providing a possible mechanical benefit. Those who do so anyway don't need those, since they're doing it because they enjoy RPing for RP's sake. Those who don't, or not so much, might need some incentive. Though really, any behaviour you as a GM find preferable, because it's the kind of game you want to play, because it enhances group atmosphere or whatever, can do with encouragement. You just need to find the proper buttons to push, some times.

Yeah. my group is composed of such "do-gooders". I rarely toss out a run involving assault/murder/assassination as its goal. If I do, it's for a (hopefully) damn good reason. I've basically let it become a reputation they have, and people acknowledge it, at least. So jobs like that never even get offered, because it would be a waste of the Client's time and effort when they could be getting some one who will do it.

As far as price is concerned, I tend to low-ball. The Client is generally only a cog in the great corporate machine, after all, and they are budgeted only so much. Keeps the notion of good ole' greed involved.

If I remember, the third edition Shadowrun Companion had a list with approximate costs for various runs. I used that as the baseline, and allowed characters to haggle from there. I'd really like them to remake the list for fourth edition, just so people have a decent idea of what the average 'going rate' is, and to give the game master something to work with.

Always overpay, people can be poor in real life, and you can always take toys away, in fact if you arn't attritioning gear your doing something wrong IMHO.

For most corporate level meetings I offer the runners a retainer of 2-3k just to show up and keep the meeting confidential. It shows them that the J isn't wasting their time and obligates them to keep the matter private if they decide not to accept the job.

From there I calculate a figure based on roughly ten percent of the item or persons value for theft and 5 percent for protection (as it usually involves less risks or elgal hassles). Obviously you've got to eyeball it some for things who's inherant value is out of synch with their actual value, this is why 'hooding or "favor for a friend" runs pay little or at all.

I've said it before in other runs and I'll say it again here: Figuring out what to pay the runners gets a lot easier if you work out motivations with the players other then coin.

If the OP wants a table to use as a baseline, than a good place to look that is at least semi cannon would be the SR missions, where you have a table rating based on average karma per player. New chars are Green (TR 1) than streetwise (TR 2) and so on.

Difficulty in the mission is than scaled in various places based on the table rating and number of players, and so is what the Johnson is willing to offer.

I think (3000+2000xTR+500xnet negotiation successes ) per runner might be typical, but that's just off of memory.

While the newer stuff is bundled up in fancy PDFs that you have to pay for, the older ones are free downloads. You might want to read through those both for inspiration and to get a feel for what some people consider standard pay and difficulty.

Personally I pay more, probably have more risk in my missions, and have corps and even cops crack down surprisingly hard on theft compared to most runs. Their reasoning being that if some runners stole your prototype, after the dust settles and your competitor releases their product there isn't really any info the runners have worth getting, and whacking them doesn't really gain the corp anything either as the runners just as likely to work for the offended corp next time.

If you don't bag the theives however, they'll probably be back again. I encourage GMs to have one of their early missions be one where the players hunt down a different runner team that either has turned to a crime spree (the expensive stolen cars are in the news, and LS/KE wants those reports stopped, NOW) or maybe the other team killed a secretary on a run that just happened to be the mistriss of a major executive, and he wants vengence, screw the bottom line.

Also to get them to actually take those months between runs I do karma for cash, where higher lifestyles for the month generate more karma. I find this keeps the players greedy and gets them to take downtime which is great for RPing.

I've always seen this list as totally ridiculous. That's the sort of payment leading to runners turning into car thiefs.

Really? Because from what I saw, you could tally together the different things the Johnson wants as part of the run, and come up with a reasonable figure. Then what I'd usually do is use the reputation of the runners as a modifier to increase how much they'd get. Then there's the negotiation roll by the runners themselves to raise that even further. And the outcome, I considered, was 'per runner', not 'for the whole group to divide'.

UCAS$5000 and a 1000 gift certificate to Stuffer Shack.

Keep in mind, Nuyen has increased in buying power from SR3 to SR4, so the old values per-run are quite a bit more lucrative.