Alright, so I sat down one day and was flipping through the Runner's Companion when I came cross one line that made me squeel with joy. I'm telling you, it sounded like GIR had taken over my brain.



So we take that with the Trust Fund quality, which gives us a "free" High Lifestyle and we go nuts. Like so....


Comforts - High (4 Pts)
Entertainment - Middle (3 Pts)
Necessities - Middle (3 Pts, Food and Size are Luxury thanks to positive qualities)
Neighborhood - High (4 Pts)
Security - Luxury (6 Pts)
20 points of Lifestyle for the High provided by Trust Fund

Astral Repellant +5
Concerned Neighbors +2
Easy-Going Landload +1
Escape Tunnel +3
Feng Shui +5
Free Access +1
Friendly Neighbors +1
Hasty Exit +2
Homegrown Farming (Plus two levels food Necessities) +1
Inconspicuous Housing (Matrix) +2
Inconspicuous Housing (Physical) +2
Perfect Roommate +2
Privacy Screen (Astral) +3
Privacy Screen (Matrix) +3
Privacy Screen (Physical) +3
Quiet Neighborhood +1
Rad Pad +1
Security Conscious +2
Well Made +1
Worplace (Plus two levels size Necessities) +1
Total = +42 positive qualities


Now the quick and dirty math of this is 20 Pts Lifestyle + 42 Pts Qualities = 62 Pts Total = 1,150,000 New-Ones a month for rent, which is essentially free thank so 20BP. Again, all this was quick and dirty.

Ithink there is a limit to the qualities a lifestyleca take, much as with Characters. Used to be 5 qualities of any price in SR3, dunno what it's now. If there is none, the rules writing is crap (suprise anyone if it is ...) and there ught to be one to prevent exactly that kind of thing.

Good luck getting it past the GM!

If it works, don't forget to grab Animal Lover Two +3, Outbuildings +2, and Reinforced Housing +3 (from Running Wild). That'll give you a landlord who likes pets, a place to keep them, and a house built to withstand them (just in case).

Depending on the character, you might prefer Animal Lover Three +5 and Rural Neighborhood +2 instead of Concerned Neighbors +2.

Good job. You live a thirteen million nuyen a year lifestyle of the rich and famous...You beat Shadowrun. Retire your character and make me a Shadowrunner, this time.

I'd remind the player that the character doesn't manage the trust fund. The trust find is managed by an NPC and as such... here's your high lifestyle.

Mentally, I'm thinking "Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" for my inspiration for trust fund manager.

I LIKE IT!


Like I mentioned in another thread this was based more off of the 'villain' from Ocean's Twelve.

The limit is the GM pulling out his rusty nail pierced beatstick and "suggesting" that the player try again. Followed by blood loss and staph infections if they do not.

And while you're at it, declare your cybered battleform tigerdragon thing the Perfect Roomie.

Nope. You don't get any qualities for your 'free' lifestyle, just a plain vanilla High.

One of my Players had a house that he used as a Bolt Hole.

The place was called "The Hell House" and lived up to it's name. A wild Hellhound stayed in the back yard chewing on an old transport truck tire, the house was haunted to the gills, and the roommate was a driver for Ghoul Cab who wore a housecoat that was two sizes too small and nothing else.

The group refused to spend more than a single night there, despite the heat being on. The house was worse.

And then the roommate had the company BBQ over. The group refused to partake of any of the meal, no matter how much was offered to them, especially as they saw he was wriggling on a spit next to the fire, but not actually *ON* the fire.

He was able to pay and own that Lifestyle at character creation.

It can be argued that the High Lifestyle is paid for, but the Qualities aren't.
In any event, since the Lifestyle is managed by a trustee(NPC) then the Qualities of that Lifestyle are determined by the GM, not by the player.

If a player showed up with Trust Fund I'd just randomly generate the lifestyle, print it out, and hand it to them.

Indeed, Your Free Lifestyle is just that, a Basic Lifestyle. Anything above and beyond is paid out by the character, the user of that lifestyle.

Additionally... A Lifestyle bought with amenities is still Listed as the Lifestyle purchased. So, a High lifestyle with 1.4 Million Nuyen in Amenities is still a High Ligfestyle, that you are paying 1.4 Million Nuyen/Month to maintain. Somewhat academic, to be sure, but there you go...

If you haven't used Mr. McMurray's random lifestyle generator yet, I highly recommend it. A lot of my players don't like to stay in the same place week to week, so I use this thing at least once a session to determine what they can find on such short notice.
Some weeks, they get a Resonance Well. Some weeks, the Blood Mountain Boys steal all their stuff. It's good times!

All have made valid points but, like most extreme stupidity on these boards, it all comes down to logic and RAW VS RAI. Still, but still a fun thought. Like the Pornomancer or the extreme wall climber.

I think the more interesting aspect of that line is that you can get a luxury/high lifestyle's starting cash but only pay a middle or so price for it.

By living in the Luxury place that no one else wants to.

The Vannacutt Psychiatric Institute for the Criminally Insane, perhaps?

(The House on the Haunted Hill - if you were wondering about the reference)

-Tir

Ooooooooooooooooooooo, I think I just found a new place for the group to have to pull an... Extraction.

True, but that's why you ditch it right away and buy a medium/low lifestyle with decent options with all that bonus starting cash you got. Or just get that secondary lifestyle right away in chargen and drop the luxury as soon as the month is up. Either way you end up with a hefty starting cash bonus and a reasonable lifestyle.

Bah. Shadowrunners should start in the gutter, and get kicked down from there!

Builds character!

I feel like that would negative affect your reputation. "Look at that slop, he can't even afford to keep his house!"

I didn't say there weren't ways the GM could turn it against you (Then again, there isn't much of anything the GM can't turn against you if they really try)

That however doesn't seem too likely as it should be purchased under a fake SIN and not really considered much different from dropping a spare safehouse. Or it could have been an 'investment reality' that paid off. Overall in the shadows though, I don't think dropping a lifestyle is anything to be concerned with, especially as that is how some people get into the shadows in the first place, and shadowruners aren't often associated with being rich anyway.

Overall though, it was just an idea based off the wording of the rules as opposed to something I thought wouldn't prompt some sort of (real or IC) violence from the GM.

The extended life style rules are a load of crap, sorry.
Just get you a runner who has no home (or even have a shak and load it up with negative modifiers) and get a high only on entertainement.
Than again get a second lifestyle for your home and food.
Lets say around high but without entertainement.
Now you got yourself close to a high lifestyle at 5000 + 1100 at most instead of 10.000.
If you add all the modifiers into it, it gets even worse.

That is one fine example of making basic rules which work fine and overload them with new possibilities which simply let them break apart.
This point was raised concerning war too. But my take is that RC is a lot worse in this aspect.

I do not get into the stupid idea of buying permanent aspects of lifestyles like a home.

You know, while I agree that you can probably abuse the advanced lifestyle rules in Runners Companion, I like them a lot. Negative aspects of a home are IMO just gifts to the GM, with regards to generating events in the campaign and bringing the world to life. Personally I prefer to try and build a lifestyle that makes sense with regards to the character in question, even if it means on occasion loading it up with different positive and negative qualities.

As an example I'm in a game where I play a female elven Banshee mage. Used to work for Saeder-Krupp doing research into the HMHVV virus and ended up getting herself infected, causing her to have to go underground. She's currently holed up in the following place:

Situated in the southwestern part of the Old Everret district, near Mukilteo Boulevard and Beverly Park Road is a district of more or less abandoned appartment and office buildings. The primary inhabitants are squatters, gangs, and criminals that have simply taken over a number of the run down buildings, and now use them as hideouts and crash pads. Amenities such as water, power, and heat are very basic, but they exist...at least some of the time.

Comforts: 1 (Squatter)
Entertainment: 1 (Squatter)
Necessities: 3 (Middle)
Neighborhood: 1 (Squatter)
Security: 2 (Low)
Qualities:
- Hasty Exit +2
- Inconspicious Housing +2
- Crash Pad -1
- Green Plan -1
- Haunted -4
- Lax Security -2
- Network Bottleneck -1
- Rough Neighborhood -1
- Worse Neighbors -1
- Infected Lifestyle +30% cost

Total Living Points: 4

Total Cost of Living/Month: 400 (living costs cover mainly the special dietary requirements, along with the pay-off to the dominant gang in the area, in order to have them keep an eye on the appartment.)

The place is a dump, but cheap, and IMO it suits the character.

@Kyrel

Lets look at you lifestyle for a human. It would burn down to 1 point translating to 100 per month.
Lets assume the gang only takes 15 per month. You stay with 85 for the rest.
Holding a middle Necessities with that? Good luck, even the food.


You are already abusing/breaking them.

As a matter of fact you used the advanced rules to keep the impact of your essance consumption minimal.
That is meant if somebody is talking about abusing the system.
It is the same if some mage pays for his middle lifestyle by having some AIs in his home electronics and does not care about it.

As a counter point i would say their the best set of rules in the book, little bit ahed of karmagen.
Those rules add so much more flavor to a characters lifestyle, as opposed to just saying he has low,medium or high lifestyle.

Also your exampe of an abuse pretty clearly shows that you have no idea how those rules work.
Your homeless runner cant get anything higher then squatter in entertaiment, as it's limited to the rating of necessities you have + 1.
Also if negative lifestyle qualities have no effect, then you just have a bad GM.

There are very few rules that can't be abused. If we throw them all out the game is an unusable skeleton.

There's a GM for a reason.

@Irion

Concerning the Essence requirement, it's not my impression that this is covered by the Infected Lifestyle. At least I only play the "Infected Lifestyle" as counting the blood requirement (and most of this is still kept ingame, when I can get away with it). I simply elected to include it in order to cut down on some of the detailed book keeping which the GM for this particular game don't tend to put so much weight on. At least not so far.

I'd agree somewhat with your reasoning, if the character was human, and if I'd envisioned this place as a regular place with a landlord and regular expenses for heat, power etc. Thing is she's a Banshee, and don't we agree that the area of "Necessities" cover mainly the areas of electricity, water, heat, food, and the state of the building (sorry, but I don't have access to the book right now, so I'm going by memory here)?

I envisioned the place as an ababdoned appartment complex with a green plan quality, so much of the stuff you'd normally pay for with regards to power, heat etc. will be covered by the "Green Plan" design of the place, meaning limited costs for water and power. Food in the character's situation means blood, as she can't consume anything else, and the Infected Lifestyle (+ some points spent on a contact to some organleggers to provide the blood...) is meant to cover the extra cost for this dietary requirement. As the building is abandoned, the heating is probably limited, and who exactly is it that's collecting rent on an abandoned building? The way I envisioned it, you're looking at a budget more along the lines of 2-300 for the blood, and 1-200 for the local gang. And then of course you have all the downsides with regards to the negative qualities, which I expect the GM to pounce on sooner or later. At least that's my hope that he will...

/Kyrel

I have to agree with the others: Karmagen, the load of new qualities, and advanced lifestyles are my favorite aspects of RC, and while you could potentially have some kind of abuse of the advanced lifestyle rules, that's the case for basically every single rule in the game. It's why you have a GM to say "Yeah no, that's not happening" or "If that's what you really want. "

Personally I find that I tend towards putting in a bunch of positive qualities because they're so cool in general. And AI in the network would be serious trouble for anyone, even (perhaps especially) a mage. Everyone uses commlinks and the matrix, and the technically inexperienced mage is going to have all the more trouble dealing with the AI because of being less familiar with tech. Also, the AI would have control of all appliances and everything else. Annoy it and it'll stop your food processor, TV, and fridge from working, it'll stop all incoming calls from reaching you.

No need to just stop the food processor when you can replace the soy with arsenic.

Is that real arsenic or imitation arsenic made from soy?

My characters are so tired of eating faux-edamame made from soy....

I now love this thing. Thanks for the link.

@Mäx

Which would have costed 400. I wrote 1100. There is enough for necessities 3 (300 more). (Not that you could not easy take it on 5 and get a lot of disadvantages)


A haunted house, in a bad neigboorhood, with an AI and bad connection to the matrix which you never use. Well, guess what.



Flashing stuff out is a good thing. But you should have the rules to support it.

Lets say the runner want to buy a house with some advantages permanently. (Say it is middle class +3 in advantages=6LP)
So first he needs to rent it.
His lifestyle was middle to start from.
So now he is paying 7000 a month.
Since he wants to buy the house he starts cutting back.
neigboorhood stays the same (as he can't change it), Nessarity stays the same, since he can't change it.
So he is cutting back security(2) (no more updates for his firewall etc), compforts (2) and entertainement(1).
Lowering his cost down to 4.4000. (Thats quite a nice saving)
No after some runs it is time to buy the house: 170.000
Now what would it cost, if he had not cut back: 205.000

Now lets look at the same thing with an high appartment:
Normal Costs: 20.000 a month.
After cutting back: sec 3, compforts 3, entertainement 1. (cut back 5 points) 7000.
Now buying the house:
Normal: 20000*(4+2)/22*100= 550k
Cut back: 7000*6/17*100= 250k
Thats HALF the money, if you make a few modifications!
But if you want a house you also want to keep your high neighborhood.
Lets just keep looking at the high lifestyle, as we want to buy that too.
So the cost go up to 7000*10/17*100= 412k.

Now lets see what we would pay for our over the bank high lifestyle now:
3.200. So you are saving over 15k a month. So payed for itself in 30 month. AKA 3 years.

Now lets just put it to the max. You have a nice house in the ADL but as fate is crule you have to leave to help out a chummer in the Seattle.
So you rent out your house to friend for the time beeing. The only things you keep supplying are Neighborhood, security and necessities, since you can't drop them.
Your friend has his furniture, pays for his own amusement.
So you end up with 4400. Lets give him a rent of 2000.
Lets make it permanent for 440.000.
And now the biggest step has been taken. Lets get the rest of your lifestyle.

You get back and increase compfort to high, while keeping entertainement at middle.
To get that permanent you pay: 800*4/6*100= 53.000
Having laid low for so long, you get yourself a Luxury Entertainement for: 80.000.
Now you got a better than high lifestyle for less than 700.000.
Normally 4.000.000.
I did not make use of negative qualities which can bring down your "home" to the negative.
It is not a big deal to get a "all high lifestye for less than 200.000.


@Ghost_in_the_System
It is not like abusing the rules in the way of "it is the frist day of the new moon cycle and I stand next to the altar of blood with a feahter in my left hand, socks on my head and a beer in my right" kind of abuse. (Creating a extremly stupid situation to get a benefit)

Even if all your choices IP are logical you may end up getting something for half the money. Or even better.

If your runner has 200K lying around and can afford the permanent high life, why is he running the shadows anymore?

There are definitely some problems with buying lifestyles piecemeal, but personally, I've never seen a player buy a permanent lifestyle. Even if you jimmy the system like you did they're incredibly expensive. Maybe you pay a lot more for runs, but when your the end example is 170,000 I don't see it as a threat in a game where the average pay is only just now hit ~10,000 per runner per month. (that's the standard Missions pay rate for a group with 60 karma)

Yeah, I can't understand why the permanent option ever existed, nor why it still does.

Why do people feel they can do High Lifestyle, and drop their entertainment budget to squatter level and thats' okay?

Though I could see someone who'd taken the Ascetic initiation ordeal a few times lowering entertainment for RP purposes, in general it happens because for some folks it's a numbers game where you try to crank your security as high as possible. For others its a way to flesh out a character that's supposed to at least look like they're a living and breathing individual with a personality.

You think you can live in a luxury condo, and you're only form of enterntainment is.. what.. hanging out int he loby people watching? That's what a 1 entertainment basically says.

You never go out to eat/dance/drink/party, you don't ever rent trideos, or play Matrix Games. You're more dull than Leon.

@James McMurray

If you do not build your Batcave, I really fail to see the reason behind the extended rules.

But I have to say, I am a bit surprised. Al the talk about alpha ware and stuff on dumpshock...

Well, let but it like that:
If you really use the rules given,they fall appart. If you do not use them, why should you really care?

@sabs


A mage doing is initiation is a very good point for dropping your compfort and entertainement. Two seams reasonable. (Even 1 in entertainement is not out of question)

I totally don't understand your complaint about buying lifestyles. Yes, you bought the lifestyle for cheaper, because it is a worse lifestyle... Am I missing something? Oh, no, I see what you're doing.

I think this falls under "This is why you have a GM." Personally if their LP total ever changed, I'd force them to recalculate the cost of all permanently purchased options, and pay the difference. Problem solved.

Like I said before, any rule can be abused, and don't forget that in this case you're talking about abusing the rules to gain something which doesn't really directly affect your character in any meaningful (crunch wise) way.

I'm saying it's possible, not that I'd ever do it with a character. I can think of several ways it would make sense. Maybe you just moved in and plan on upgrading as you go. Maybe you lived there a while and couldn't make the payments, so the rules for that kicked in and took away some stuff.

As long as it makes sense to the group, who cares? (whether it's because they roleplayed it "properly" or because they enjoy crunching numbers).

Current the PCs in our campaign have a safehouse with the following qualities:

Comforts - Low 2 (Second-hand office furniture and bunk-cots for sleeping. An out-dated man-servant drone by the name of "Helper" keeps the place clean.)
Entertainment - Street 0 (Whatever you brought with you. There's no trid-projector and the security-concious CHN has even blocked it's own access to common entertainment apps and games.)
Necessities - Luxury 6 (State of the art CHN, first-floor offices, barracks and gym on the second floor, large kitchen/bathroom area, helipad on the roof, and spacious underground parking.)
Neighborhood - Street 0 (Located in the heart of the colorful slums of Redmond Barrens, Seattle. Protection money is paid to the local gang.)
Security - Luxury 6 (Heavily-secured CHN w/ concealed external sensors, astrally warded, reinforced structure/doors, wifi-inhibiting paint, and veteran gang patrols.)

Positive Qualities:
Escape Tunnels +3 (Underground parking is connected to the maze-like Redmond Barrens Sewer System.)
Free Access +1 (Hijacked connection to the net from a random residence via buried utility lines nearby.)
Hasty Exit +2 (Fire poles! Wooo!)
Workplace +1 (Maintenance bay for vehicles and a few work-benches.)

Negative Qualities:
Rough Neighborhood -1 (In the midst of well-armed, warring gangs that have their own vehicles and trained paracritters. Luckily, the runners are on good terms with one of the gangs.)

It's skirting close to the line with so many extremes, but I can see them fitting into an abandoned firehouse whose basement has partially collapsed into the sewers. The entire team is making payments on the security and necessities portion, but it's a safe house so there was no reason at the time to give it any entertainment at all. Granted, people have since moved in (the flat broke Face), and she's likely to start feeling the bite of a lifetime of boredom soon, though she's got 20 hour work weeks at a day job to take away part of that boredom (and replace it with another kind).



Heck, I made a bat cave generator. I think it's safe to say I use the extended lifestyle rules.

I love the extended rules. But no, I don't ever see anyone using the buying of permanent lifestyles rules (in any edition, with or without extended rules). Active runners have other things to do with their money, and retired runners don't have to track that sort of thing.

I could see doing a permanent buy of something like a safehouse or other very low cost thing so as to always have a place to fall back on without worrying about monthly payments all the time.

Also, that place sounds less like a safehouse and more like a base of operations.

A safehouse is different, you don't live there year round. Hopefully you NEVER live there, or only for a week or two every few months.

That's /completely/ different than a place you live in all year round.

I see it as useful as GM tool, not as a player tool. It adds to the barter system. Much like you could give someone a docwagon contract in payment you could give them some lifestyle options. Do Ice-T a solid in Johnny Mnemonic and you get crash space in the mothership. That rocker you saved makes sure there's tickets waiting for you whenever she's in town. A Rigger you did right by has a spot in his warehouse where you can safely leave your ride if you have to leave town without it.

That's what it's turned into. Up to and including contacts dropping by to discuss missions (much to one of the runners' dismay).

There are goals a character can have that involve more than "make a big score and get out of this business for good."

Maybe they're seeking revenge, or looking for a loved one who went missing, maybe like the Leverage team they only take Hooding runs, maybe they're just one of those freaks who likes this business. The hacker in my group has a permanent high lifestyle trust fund. Not sure yet if she runs because she's bored or because (thanks to being reality impaired) she thinks she's playing a Shadowrun MMORPG.

That's cool. She'd didn't have 200K though, right?

If you have goals so strong they drive you off the grid and into the shadows then you've got better things to do with 200,000 bucks than buy a tricked out lifestyle. If you don't have goals that strong, why are you still running now that you're rich enough to life the high life forever?

Hehe, that sounds great! Maybe even thinks her shadow bank account is just a game account as well and so has all this money that she only spends on 'in game upgrades' and lives off the trust fund money exclusively.

I worked for that guy. His definition of entertainment was jogging. One might think that might mean a gym membership but he actually finished his runs at a local church where the pastor let the local joggers use the showers. That was it. No books, TV, movies, concerts, bars, sports, magazines, travel, etc.

It would be interesting to stat out the lifestyle(s) for George Clooney's character in "Up in the Air". I don't think he'd have an entertainment budget either. I'd have to go through that section again and look for something to describe a "non-permanent location", be it his constantly paid for hotel rooms or even a "Coffin Pass" (an account with a chain of Capsule Hotels that gives you unlimited access. Much like a Gold's Gym card but with a hotel). That would be a nice thing for a traveling shadowrunner to have. All the hotels have the same room layout and menu so wherever you are, you're home....