How would you represent a character who had a spouse and two children? And the spouse works, helping to support the family?

I'm using the Advanced Lifestyles rules, so I pegged it over to 3 guests,and added Perfect Room-mate. And (coupled with the Dependants negative quality) that'd be fine, for a stay-at-home spouse. But if s/he works, and earns money towards the family's bottom line ... how best to represent THAT?

Isn't that Roommate?

Page 159 of the Runners Companion talks about Roommates. I would talk to your GM to see what he allows.

As GM I would look at things like, what is the overall lifestyle level, how much did the spouse work, etc. I would then try to figure out a number that took into account Day Job for the spouse and the extra expense of Day Care if needed. Since the Perfect Roommate does say that there are qualities that should help the PC, if the only benefit was that of the spouses income (not a trainer or contacts as suggested), that would also factor into things.

Of course, the can of worms that a runner would be opening living this type of life is something I'd greatly enjoy as a GM. My players would probably put it into the same category as Mysterious Implant as a "HELL NO" type of response.

I'd go with dependent 5, and two dependent 15 point qualities. Yeah, I'd give the PC some control to who she/he marries but the rugrats would be waaay too much fun.

Dependents, yes; but I'm saying, the way you model *extra* income from the spouse is the reduced/shared Lifestyle cost effect of Roommate. That's the whole point. What is a spouse but a roommate, anyway?

I would agree. The PC him/herself does not have the day job, so it really isn't a negative quality that would apply.

Mhm. And if the spouse/dependent *doesn't* work, then no Roommate (sharing calculation) in the Lifestyle costs.

Then deduct day care for the children from the income- trust me I know what I am talking about here. 2 incomes BUT day care for 2 children. It is a big lump of your income. Add to the game all the fun. "You were late for meeting Mr. Johnson because of a PTA meeting?" getting into the van for the run and having to fold away the child seats? My husband and one brother both are reenactors. Seeing their gear piled in the car around the girls' seats is..surreal. Plus there is ther fun of child proofing a runner's home. Never mind knives, power outlets and tools, will the runner start keeping trigger locks on everything? Zip strips on grenades?

This comment is just so full of WIN its amazing!!

I took my son to a renfair with some friends, seeing him surrounded by a Pirate, 2 knights and a "lady of the night" was....interesting

Yeah, the Dependent quality *says* they use up money, but doesn't actually crunch it. It's up to the GM to deduct various costs whenever appropriate, which is just begging for trouble. Instead, roll it into increased Lifestyle costs.

Runner: Honey!!!!!!.....HONEY!!!!!!!!!!
Spouse: Yes??
Runner: Where did i put the SnS?
Spouse: I dont know, did you check where you last saw it?
Runner: ::grumble:: did you check?!?!? ::yell:: Of course I did!! ::goes to check where he last saw it::
Runner: Its not there!
Spouse: did you check the kids room?
Runner: What the Hell!!! Why does little Billy have my SnS ammo?? and why is my AK-97 lying under his bed in pieces!!!!??????

I'm counting each kid as a full room-mate for purposes of lifestyle costs.

As for guns and such: all kept in daddy's workshop. Which will be behind a nice strong door, secured by a high-rating maglock that uses a high-rating biometric scanner.

If the kid(s) can defeat that, they won't be punished ... they'll be hired. Hehehe.






Runner: And ... wait, what in the frag is ... how the hell did he manage to add a THIRD magazine ...?!? Drek, I think it'll even WORK ......... well damn, eleven or not, he's HIRED ...!!

Hired nothin, kids make a hell of a "wage" off us parents anyway, its not slave labor if we dont pay them, its making them work for their room n board!

… Unless the kids all have real jobs of their own, they're not Roommates. They're anti-roommates.

And locked in daddy's work room mean daddy can't get to them quickly either. We joke that in the basement there are the girl's toys and daddy's toys- no guns but packs and water bottles, clothes, gas masks and the like. I don't think you want to get into too much number crunching but for lifestyle a small child does not eat as much as an adult.

Uh-huh. I line up work for him, charge 30% for room and board, plus 30% "finder's-and-management" comission, toss 30% into a savings account for the kid, and ... he gets 10%.

10% of maybe two to four thousand nuyen a month? For an eleven or twelve year old? MOOLAH SUPREMO, yes? (Plus he gets a great savings fund, so he can be sent to a proper school, and Dad can bribe the right officials to get him a REAL SIN, and Junior doesn't have to be a shadowrunner ... and even if he wants to, he'll have all that extra training to help him survive the first 2-3 years.

Right, DLN, but they're still anti-roommates (in the Advanced Lifestyle sense). They just might be only -0.5 instead of -1. It depends on how much you think daycare/etc. does cost, as you mentioned. As long as the PC is being dinged significantly for that +10BP, there's wiggle room.

"Who is your Daddy, and what does he do?" "He shoots people in the face for money." "Riiiiiight, your Daddy's a Shadowrunner." "He got me a pink fiberglass furniture AR-22 rifle for my sixth birthday." "... OK, he's a Shadowrunner."

"Honey, have you seen Spike?"
"Your Emotitoy? Yeah, Susie was playing with it. Check her room."
"Dammit! That's an important piece of my gear! We're gonna have to get her her own."
"You know she only plays with it because it's 'daddies doll.' She wouldn't want one of her own."

"'Scuse me Mr. Security Guard, have you seen my Mommy?" "No I haven't sweety, but we can find her together, where did you last see her?" "Behind you holding a tranq patch." *Thud* "Good girl. Now I'm going to teach you how to disable the alarm on a MagLock and we'll have Soy Cream on the way home." "YAY!!!"

You guys are a riot.

Well, in terms of "cost to support", they are room-mates. Just ... freeloading room-mates, yes?

'Freeloading Roommates' is a contradiction for SR4, though. A Roommate (caps!) is defined as someone who shares the lifestyle cost with you. Someone who doesn't is a kind of Dependent (anti-roommate). (I say '*a* kind of' because a spouse with a job would be a low-BP Dependent as well, but it's basically true otherwise.)

Tomayto, tomahto. Room-mates always add 10% (each) to the cost of a lifestyle; they sometimes pay part of that total expense.

That's true, but we're specifically talking about a two-earner household with kids. That's 130% Lifestyle, divided by 2 (in the simplest possible terms; you could have different incomes, etc.). It seemed like a useful terminology distinction to add to SR4 (at the very least, for this thread), that's all.

It also makes an anchor for the runner-targets for enemies and people tracking htem it makes a creature of habit. You have to drop the kids off at or pick them up from school at a certain time.

now would you have to pay for additional contacts?
next door neighbor... teachers... friends of the spouse... book club

Oh yeah, but kidnapping a kid? You better believe that's going to raise the ire of a lot of people, even criminal types. Watch the loyalty ratings jump through the roof of contacts for a limited time.I'd put those down as "Friend of a Friend" for your high-level Loyalty Spouse Contact, depending on their Connection Level.

You'd also have to buy the kids as Contacts, too, don't forget.

Hehe. Only if you're using them for something. You don't need Contacts for every person you know.

Hm.
I would model this with a custom low or medium lifestyle, adding +1 or +2 to necessities (for the additional space needed for the kids and that safe room) and then add 30% to the base cost, afterwards deduct a percentage depending on the income of the spouse (50% for ease of use, I guess.)
Of course, dependent quality for 15BP

Make no mistake, as the others have said: This is a BIG chink in the armour of the anonymous runner. But from my position as a GM: I like it. Very much. (That should give you something to think )

Personally as a GM I tend to go after the PCs family only rarely and tend not to do horrible things to them. I want to encourage the PCs to flesh out their characters with friends and family not punish them for it. That said the world is a bad place and things sometimes happen.

I played an elderly runner once that went into the business after his son died and his day job couldn't cover all the extra expenses of raising his granddaughter. Wasn't any attempts of enemies to use the child but getting a call in the middle of a run from the school nurse or having to organize a run around a netball game so he could watch. Not the sort of character you should play all the time because it makes it harder on everyone else but still a personal favorite.

Not all of them - certains criminal circles have a nasty habit of going for the family of whoever crosses them seriously to make the lesson even more of a detterent. Or just don't give a fig about splattering the wife and kids along the intended target. If you're willing to splat a target drive-by-shooting a bus stop, doing the same in front of school isn't much of a stretch.

IRL, there's been several cases of guys basically inviting themselves at daw in a banker/jeweller or the like and holding the family at gupoint while he goes to open the door and cut off the alarm.

One point to consider is that for a criminal group, the shadowruner will be an outsider to the group and whatever internal code or gentleman's agreement they have with their peers looses a lot of it's force.

I'm not talking about the groups, I'm talking about the fellow Independents. You don't think they'd have a "Gentleman's Agreement" as well?

Sure, some, maybe most, will be like Clockwork or Kane and not give a fig... But for every one of those, you'd also have a Bull or Slamm-0! (Or FastJack!) who isn't about to let that drek go by and become "Biz as usual" in any way.

Did you avoid the title Married with Children on purpose? Because I can't stop giggling thinking about Al Bundy as a runner.

That was my first reaction as well!

Day Job: Selling Women's Shoes.

I actually had a couple of players, long, long ago, do a group where two members were divorced and shared custody of their daughter. Poor decker had to do side-runs to make child support payments. Having characters who have, or had, real lives before hitting the shadows always makes for good RP and lots of fun for the group. So long as it doesn't become the focus and take away from the other characters, of course.

OP - you should check out a thread I started a long time ago about "Shadow Schools", a concept my group developed. Lots of fun "kids in the shadows" stuff in there.

Which reminds me, I have to beat my friend until he writes more about the ShadowSkool.

Sorry for being off-topic, but this reminded me:
http://littleleaguecomic.tumblr.com/ -- web-comic with the DC Heroes as kindergardeners.

Reply to a previous post in the first page http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?s=&a...t&p=1156957

I'm a father of two sons (the oldest by marriage) and a baby girl born 5 days after New Years', a homebirth under a full moon sky will be memorable for me and my wife who had the strength nature gave her to deliver her children (actually she enjoyed it). I'm glad to be a father and we who are parents in this forum should feel fortunate and blessed, because I sure am. They are fun to have, but are a big responsbility, nowhere near having a house plant or a baby doll...I take my turn in baby care and taking my sons to school, but they are worth the trouble.

Um ... (a) nice necro-threading ... and (b) this thread wasn't about being a parent IRL. I was (months ago) seeking input from others about how to best represent a character being a parent, in terms of the Advanced Lifestyle rules.

Humorous side note: I just discovered the Distinctive Style is before Dependent in Runner's Companion.

A wife + two kids would increase lifestyle costs to 130% of base value according to the lifestyle rules. A "perfect roommate" could qualify for one of the dependents (I'll leave it to the reader to guess which) and as such could mean that the perfect roommate has a job sufficient enough to cover half the lifestyle cost.

I also don't think you would get 3 dependent qualities to create the family. Based of the example, a wife + 2 kids would be a 15 BP NQ even though each one could qualify as a 10BP NQ on its own.

To Pax, sorry my bad. Being a newbie in the forums...but some of us talked about our RL parenting lives, maybe to include them in the game.

Yeah. Back in may

a wife and two kids? poor bastard. He'd have his hair falling out on account of the stress on runs and the stress of the nagging right when he steps one foot in his home. Each one of his kids would age him 10 years compounding his arleady dibilitating health from all the stress. Don't even get me started on the no sex part cause his wife already has her hooks into him!

I think he'd go on runs more and more just ta get outta da house. Eventually shacking up with them two hot psyad twin sisters on his team...yes I definately think he would do that.

Could be worse...

A kid and two wives.

Cyberhair

Leonization

VR Porn... like having sex, but no mess (other than your shorts), no disease, and no having the wife ask annoying questions.

Then you find out the misses is not happy and she hires Shadowrunners to kill you.

Man, you've got a pretty dim view of marriage. For your sake, I hope it's not from firsthand experience. Every study I've seen shows that on average, married men are considerably less stressed than single men, so while the "henpecked hubby" makes for a classic sitcom trope, it's definitely not the norm.

So, I just realized that I'll have a full runner team in tye next fourteen years or so. My oldest would be 18 (b&e), my other son would be 16 (rigger), and my little girk would be 14 (hacker, hey, /dev/grrl did it). My wife would be the face and I'd be the meat shield.

Time to start teaching my oldest to pick locks!