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Nal0n
In many threads I notice the trend that many people are very "tense" on this topic.

It seems sometime that a lot of people think that a run to steal the "McGuffin", which nets the Johnson's company a few hundred MILLION of Nuyen in revenue, will "destroy the world" if the runners get more than 5k NuYen each.

Why is that the case?
Too much money has never had any influence in the groups I played with.

Are you afraid that they get too much gear? That's what Availability is for. If you do not want them to have it it is simply not available.

Is there another reason? If so: Tell me please, because I just do not understand it frown.gif

What can the players do? Get a permanent Luxury Lifestyle? Retire? Get another 10,000 shot for their favorite HMG? So what?
Mäx
Who noes, my Sasha wouldn't even get out of her bed for a lousy ass 5k run. cool.gif
Nal0n
QUOTE (Mäx @ Jul 26 2013, 10:49 PM) *
Who noes, my Sasha wouldn't even get out of her bed for a lousy ass 5k run. cool.gif


Amen! (Or any other strongly positive outcry that belongs to your favorite system of belief/diety/etc. wink.gif)

I have characters (some of which I play since 2nd Ed), that would not get out of their beds for a lousy ass 50k run, but it is hard to find a GM who accepts that...
KarmaInferno
Most runners SAY they're in it for the money, but many have other reasons for being in the shadows, even if they can't admit it to themselves.





-k
Umidori
QUOTE (Mäx @ Jul 26 2013, 02:49 PM) *
Who noes, my Sasha wouldn't even get out of her bed for a lousy ass 5k run. cool.gif

Well when it costs $400,000 to fire your weapon for twelve seconds, that's entirely reasonable. biggrin.gif

~Umi
ShadowDragon8685
I don't get GMs who are stingy with the cash, quite honestly.

Mr. Johnson, assuming he's a professional, knows what's what. He's looking for people to take massive amounts of risk of personal failure to do things that Mr. Johnson can't do officially. Sure, he could hire some absolute nobodies - gangers with ambition or desperate hobos who have some street guns - for an absolute pittance, but then more likely than not the job won't get done period. If he's paying low, it's because he either has low confidence that the 'run is possible or will shake out profitably even if it does get done (like Darius St. Johnson - err, St. George, from On the Run,) or because he's looking to hire absolute noobs. And if someone is looking to hire absolute noobs, that should be a massive red flag that he's setting up a tailchaser or a distraction for something else and he doesn't expect to have to pay you the rest of what he owes you, in which case the smartest thing to do might be to take his down-payment and run.

Honestly, a professional Johnson should be paying you well. Not stupidly well, but quite honestly any one 'run should suffice to pay everybody's rent (or go further if they like shacking up together,) and more than one in a month should be gravy/go towards consumable goods and upgrading things.

It's the unprofessional Johnsons where things get... Interesting. The non-pro might be making promises he can't deliver on, planning to throw himself on your mercy when the job is done, or he might be planning to screw you and run, or he might come up with a way to pay you in kind rather than in coin. I sprung one of those on my players once - they were hired by someone representing himself as a DocWagon Johnson to investigate why the Seattle LTG was delaying calls from DocWagon getting to DocWagon, whilst letting them through to CrashCart immediately, thus resulting in CC getting more of those reciprocal call bonuses. (Where they answer the other company's calls and get there first and get a bonus.) The "DW" Johnson made it clear at the start that this was an off-books operation, saying he couldn't shift much funding because then he'd have to answer questions, and he very pointedly did not want the question of "why are DocWagon calls reaching CrashCart before they reach DocWagon" being answered to the DW higher-ups as "because CrashCart funded a Shadowrun to infext the Seattle LTG with a virus that randomly delays DocWagon calls whilst routing them immediately to CrashCart," for fear of starting a shadow war.

In the end, it turned out that it actually was a CrashCart trauma surgeon who had learned of this by overhearing the local franchise CEO talking about it whilst she was putting in a weekly shift in the trauma ward. His stated reason was true - he wanted to avoid the shadow war - but he had even less means to pay than he claimed to have had. He threw himself on the group's mercy, explaining that he was trying to prevent people - including Shadowrunners like themselves - from dying, bleeding out on the pavement waiting for a DocWagon extraction chopper that doesn't know they need help, and where the less-capable CrashCart extraction teams can't or won't go. He had about a tenth of the agreed-upon sum available.

(They took it, and then set up an extortionate payment plan wherein he'd be paying them in installments something like 200% of what the originally agreed upon price was worth over the next year. He managed to get them to agree to discount the price of any medical supplies or other such goods he managed to smuggle to them from the amount he owed them, however, regardless of what it was, whether it was a few palmed stim patches or a Savior Medkit that fell out of the back of an ambulance.)
Slide
Yeah chummer, your job is dangerous. But do you know who you are? You're nobody. Mr. J isn't gonna be fronting a small fortune to an unknown unproven runner. Get your street cred up kid, then you will be able to pick and chose your jobs. Then you can tell Mr. J to frag off over a tiny 5k, cause you got some one who is paying tipple what he offered you. Its all in the name chummer. Make yours a good one.
Umidori
See, I could see 5k being a reasonable rate for starting runners. If you've just got into the scene, yeah, it makes sense you're not making much money as you only get the junk jobs. Meanwhile, all the regular pros are pulling in contracts worth 5 or 10 or 20 times that much, and rightly so.

So, easy solution? Make Street Cred into a multiplier modifier in the pay calculations.

~Umi
Mäx
QUOTE (Slide @ Jul 27 2013, 12:28 AM) *
Yeah chummer, your job is dangerous. But do you know who you are? You're nobody. Mr. J isn't gonna be fronting a small fortune to an unknown unproven runner. Get your street cred up kid, then you will be able to pick and chose your jobs. Then you can tell Mr. J to frag off over a tiny 5k, cause you got some one who is paying tipple what he offered you. Its all in the name chummer. Make yours a good one.

Except that really doesn't apply unless it's an actual street level game and barely even then.
Jaid
QUOTE (Slide @ Jul 26 2013, 04:28 PM) *
Yeah chummer, your job is dangerous. But do you know who you are? You're nobody. Mr. J isn't gonna be fronting a small fortune to an unknown unproven runner. Get your street cred up kid, then you will be able to pick and chose your jobs. Then you can tell Mr. J to frag off over a tiny 5k, cause you got some one who is paying tipple what he offered you. Its all in the name chummer. Make yours a good one.


when there's a very real probability that one or more people on your team has gear that is valued in the hundreds of thousands of nuyen, and that pretty much every single member of the team has training or special abilities which could be valued at a similar amount, 5k nuyen sounds pretty ridiculous.

i mean, if you're actually playing a street level game, and resources A means you can actually afford a nice car or something like that, sure. heck, in those situations, you're probably counting yourself lucky to bring in 5k per run. but if you're running at the standard level, 5k nuyen per run seems pretty screwy. not sure i'd agree with 50k per run, but i mean, you need to be bringing in enough money to cover your expenses, which can get pretty nasty if you've got something like a rigger in the group, or if you use up a fake SIN, etc.

so quite frankly, if you're going to be paying someone to put a 5,000 nuyen drone into a position where it's very likely to get destroyed, you're going to need to be offering them better money. otherwise, when the time comes that sacrificing a 5k nuyen drone could save the run, they may very well just decide that it's cheaper for them to keep the drone.

never mind if you want them to make an escape carrying a prototype in a 30,000 nuyen van that's likely to take a lot of damage or something like that.
Tzeentch
5,000 nuyen should be barely enough to motivate street gang members to do anything risky, but shadowrunners supposedly suck it down because reasons.

If the runs can't cover even Lifestyle cost (p. 95, SR5) just pack it in, your players are going to get tired of that shit pretty quick.
GiraffeShaman
Well there's expenses, there's the market value of a character's abilities and equipment, there's reputation. And most of all there is risk of death and fates worse than death. That last one gets overlooked by many GMs. (Until it's the time when the party gets captured, and of course the GM remembers) How much is it worth to seriously break into the facilities of guys that might rip your heart out in a Blood Magic ceremony, or sell you as an overseas sex slave?

You also have to factor in how many runs are done in a month. It's good to keep track of everything by the month, mainly because it's a good way to remember it for your long term calculations for campaign wealth.

Now on the flip side, why worry about wealth at all? I heard 50,000. Why not 100,000, after all don't you want your players to have luxury lifestyles? The reason not to has to do with high end equipment. Wealth can act like a sweetener to campaigns (Completely separate of if it's a good storyline or not, wealth sweetens the bad and good alike), but it has to be somewhat managed and trickled out or it gets boring quick. It's called Monty Haul, where the GM acts like a game show host handing out prizes. I like to give out pretty high payments, but I also aim for my players to always be saving for something. In fact I ask them what they are saving for at any particular time.

Going completely nuts on wealth and just letting it flow out like a firehose is great for short term campaigns, however. In fact, if a game appears to be about to end, you may as well.





Ricochet
When I have players who "won't get out of bed for less than..." x, I go find find new players with runners who will play the style of game I want to run. There are always other players and runners out there. I'm pretty sure Mr. Johnson feels the same.
quentra
QUOTE (Ricochet @ Jul 26 2013, 07:40 PM) *
When I have players who "won't get out of bed for less than..." x, I go find find new players with runners who will play the style of game I want to run. There are always other players and runners out there. I'm pretty sure Mr. Johnson feels the same.


Obviously, if you're playing street level gangers, then that sort of attitude is stupid. But it's also insulting to say that just because players think their characters have a rep/deserve to be paid commensurate with their skills, you drop them. Obviously gangers and starting runners don't have the leverage to turn down low-paying jobs all that often, but I'm pretty sure Dodger can name his price. Not everyone likes street-level games. (I don't, that shit is boring.)
CanRay
My group tries to be mercenary.

Tries being the operative word. I once threw a domestic issue at them that had nothing at all to do with their 'run. The things they did to that guy are horrible and I won't post them here.
FuelDrop
If a run is going to pay well then the players are less likely to look for cash on the side.
Case in point: Our group's first ever run was 4 grand between us. We'd never played before so had no idea what was good money and what wasn't (GM was an old hand though), so we took the job. We ended up having to take on most of two gangs plus multiple prime runner teams. However, because it quickly became apparent that one grand a piece wasn't even going to cover ammo, we quickly decided that this run was now all about how much we could loot. burst fire became called shots to the head so that organs were intact for resale. every chromed opponent we took down was dragged back to the street doc to be dissembled. Vehicles were hijacked. Custom guns were pilfered. hostages were ransomed.
we each came out of the run with about 75 grand from our massive loot-orgy. The GM wised up and started paying us more for our runs, and looting dropped to whatever we could carry (He's still a bit stingy).
Wakshaani
Re: Risking your life.

Lone Star and Knight Errant cops make around 22,000 a year, while soldiers make 19,000 (But their living costs are handled different from living on base.)

On the one hand, the PCs are probably better than KE officers or military footsoldiers, but on the other hand, there are gangers who'll go shiv a guy for twenty Nuyen. Finding the right balance isn't easy.
Umidori
Lone Star and Knight Errant cops don't really risk their lives the way Shadowrunners do. The vast majority of their work is procedural, doing paperwork, filing reports, that sort of thing. Even the beat cop on the street every day doesn't face the sort of dangers a single Shadowrun brings.

Now, the guys on the HTR team? Yeah, they've got a good basis of comparison for danger. But they also get paid a lot better than the rent-a-cops.

~Umi
Ricochet
I think I've decided GM's need to kill more of these runners more often. That would actually make the combat pay for the others make more sense. This has told me that most shadowrunners (and their players) are lacking in economics skills.
ShadowDragon8685
QUOTE (Tzeentch @ Jul 26 2013, 07:00 PM) *
5,000 nuyen should be barely enough to motivate street gang members to do anything risky, but shadowrunners supposedly suck it down because reasons.

If the runs can't cover even Lifestyle cost (p. 95, SR5) just pack it in, your players are going to get tired of that shit pretty quick.


Even street level gangers have a grasp on what their time is worth and what their skills are.

If you get some random street gangers with aspirations of Shadowrunner hood and tell them to break into Ares, it won't matter if you're paying them 50,000 nuyen up-front. Okay, it will, but only because they'll then use 45,000 nuyen of that to hire actual Shadowrunners to get the job done whilst pocketing 5K and anything else they think to embellish the job on the real 'runners to retrieve. But even if you're paying them 50K, but at a usual up-front rate, they'll tell you to frag off.

They are not capable of doing the job, and trying it will just get them killed. Even if you have a job which is theoretically within a street gang's means - annihilating another gang - they're going to tell you to frag off if you offer them a grand total of 5,000 nuyen to do so. Because you're telling them to go to war, where they will lose people. Maybe if you offered them 50K for the gang's coffers and 2K per man up-front for each member of the gang to arm himself or see to his family before he marches off to war, that might work. But depending on the size of the gang, you may well be looking at spending 100K or more nuyen.

And when it comes down to the people desperate enough to take 20 nuyen.gif to stick a shiv in a guy's ribs, just how much use is that guy going to be sneaking into an Renraku off-books lab full of Lone Star hired goons to extract an unwilling extraction target, hmmmm? If he's very, very, very lucky, Mr. Shiv might take down one guy before he gets super-murdered.

If you want the job done, that means you're going to have to hire someone with the skills and equipment to make it happen. Those people have a firm grasp on the economics of the danger they undertake, and they should be telling you to go frag yourself if you're not offering enough to replace semi-expendible assets that are likely to be expended in an operation such as the one you propose, let alone for them to turn a profit.
Umidori
Hell, in SRR you're offered 100K to track down a guy's killer. Of course, it's never just that simple...

But all told? You don't really risk a whole lot for that hundred grand. Most of what you do is technically footwork and piecing together a puzzle. Sure, there's combat involved, but a lof of it is avoidable and it's not like you're breaking into a corporate research lab or some other immediately impressive task.

~Umi
Critias
I think some GMs knee-jerk to keeping cash low because it's one of two ways for characters to advance. The lower-powered/weaker/more predictable they keep their players, the more comfortable they feel challenging them, the better they know what to expect from them, and the easier it is to dangle other, smaller, treats in front of them as rewards. If you're handing out +3 Whatchamacallits to everyone, suddenly no one wants to work for a +1 Whatchamacallit any more, right? To entice them, from that point, you've got to start offering +4 Whatchamacallits, and the problem (inasmuch as they believe it's a problem) escalates.

Personally, I think that all too often it's the game that suffers, and the fun factor. The feel of the thing. If GMs are too stingy, it seldom meaningfully cuts into the core competencies of characters, and instead they'll still scrape together the nuyen they need for the new Shiney Gizmo 3000 they want to be better at their job -- they'll just have it while sleeping in a van down by the river. They won't role-play out weekend gambling binges, novacoke and joygirls, or taking their Contacts out for a night on the town. They won't buy fancy new color schemes for their cars, or chromed finishes for their guns, or cosmetic upgrades for 'ware.

They'll put all their money into function, and save none for form. And I think the game suffers to some extent, as a result.

In many ways, the same can be said of karma, or even starting build points, in my opinion. Folks won't keep their little flavorful skills like Artisan or Performance, you'll see them keeping their Pistols or Hacking high and sacrificing secondary or tertiary abilities, the more you clamp down on chargen.

I'm, personally, a big fan of players having enough elbow room to really stretch out a little bit. More > Less. Period. The trick there, though, is then keeping things balanced, because some players will keep that "screw it, I'm staying focused!" min/maxing type of mindset, even when given room to stretch their legs.
ShadowDragon8685
QUOTE (Umidori @ Jul 26 2013, 11:20 PM) *
Hell, in SRR you're offered 100K to track down a guy's killer.

Of course, it's never just that simple, but all told? You don't really risk a whole lot for that hundred grand. Most of what you do is technically footwork and piecing together a puzzle. Sure, there's combat involved from time to time, but a lof of it is avoidalbe and it's not like you're breaking into a corporate research lab or some other immediately impressive task.

~Umi


You haven't got very far into SRR, have you, Umidori?

WARNING: This spoiler spoils the whole fucking plot! No joke!
[ Spoiler ]
WARNING: This spoiler spoils the whole fucking plot! No joke!

Frankly, you're been massively underpaid for everything you do in that game... But there's not a whole lot to spend the jaja on, anyway.
CanRay
My group complained more about how hard it was to get things through the Availability Rules and a general lack of respect that people showed them.

'Course, they were just remembering the jerk Johnsons and the one cop that always screwed them.
binarywraith
Honestly? I am that GM that pays his runners lowball rates.

Why? Because if they want more money, they need to invest in Contacts, social skills, and networking. I'm not going to make it a gimmie if you haven't bothered to learn to negotiate beyond 'I break you.', anf frankly there's no reason in hell most Johnsons would bother rolling out red-carpet rates for the better part of the work they want done unless it's for a team they know they can trust.
Seerow
QUOTE (binarywraith @ Jul 27 2013, 05:17 AM) *
Honestly? I am that GM that pays his runners lowball rates.

Why? Because if they want more money, they need to invest in Contacts, social skills, and networking. I'm not going to make it a gimmie if you haven't bothered to learn to negotiate beyond 'I break you.', anf frankly there's no reason in hell most Johnsons would bother rolling out red-carpet rates for the better part of the work they want done unless it's for a team they know they can trust.


Do you actually tell your players that investing in these things will result in higher pay, or do you just passive aggressively punish them for not playing the way you deem right?
braincraft
Runners should have huge expenses.

I don't just mean the five hundred rounds of EX-EX you blew through last Saturday, I mean the drawer full of prepaid commlinks. I mean the safehouse the team keeps just in case, and the safehouse the team doesn't know about that you keep just in case; the new tailored suit you got to infiltrate that charity ball; the bribes you paid to the kitchen staff to let you in the back door and the bribe you paid to the day spider to give you the up-to-date floor plans and patrol schedules; the bribe you paid the Lone Star clerk to lose that evidence with your blood on it; the new SIN you used this week, the new SIN you're going to be using next week, the new SIN you're going to be using for five minutes tomorrow night and then abandoning; the dues paid to the gang that lives around your safehouse so they won't break into it or tell everyone where it is or piss on the side of it more than they do everywhere else; the fee for that detective in Denver you're paying to follow up on that thing that happened back then; the fee for the local informant who gives you a call when they hear something interesting going down; the fee for the shaman that checks your aura and casts antidote and cure disease and detects and dispels magic on you every other week, just in case someone's put the whammy on you (including your own team mage, because you trust him but you don't trust him); the custom revolver you had made that looks exactly like the weapon of the guy you tried to frame, and the fingerprint artist who forged his prints on the grip; the two cars you used to run surveillance on the target, and the pinhole cameras, microphones, and data taps you installed in his apartment during the twenty minutes he wasn't in it; the five bucks you paid that bum to keep the target busy for an extra thirty seconds while your teammates finished hiding the bugs; the three hundred bucks you paid to eat in the same restaurant as the target while he had a dinner meeting (dammit, Grinder, I said no wine, and you had two bottles!); the hundo you slipped the maitre d' to get you the table on the other side of the divider from the target; the stealth rope and blowtorch fuel you used up getting into that compound; the tranq patches and plasteel restraints you used on the extraction target; mapsofts of the area you're deploying to soon; a datasoft of French Poetry because that's what the next target likes and the plan requires you to be fascinating for twenty minutes of conversation; the emergency fund you keep putting money into, because if something goes wrong and you need a hospital stay and a new small intestine the only street doc you trust doesn't work on credit; the money you keep sending to your mom; the certified credsticks you keep in a non-ferrous lockbox buried next to a certain tree in the park, just in case; and yes, the cost to replace the van, gun, surveillance equipment, sweet hat, and fingers that got blown up by a rocket launcher last month.

And you need all of this money all the time, just to operate, and enough money to spare that you can keep spending it even if you have a slow month or a deal goes bad or you have to back out of a job for some reason. And you need enough to spare that you can keep all your gear well-maintained and up-to-date, because the next guy will always have a newer gun, a newer deck, newer wires in his head, and you can't fall behind when it's your life on the line.

And taking care of all of this shit is so stressful that you deserve to have a nice apartment, and nice clothes, and booze off the top shelf, and an expensive foreign car and an expensive foreign girl and that guitar you saw in the window of the music shop yesterday even though you barely have time to practice anymore, because after all the shootouts and chases and lies and late nights and sneaking around and all the close encounters with the worst people in the world you deserve to feel like a rock star for just five minutes a day, dammit.

And then it's time to go to the meet with the Johnson for the next job.
Mäx
QUOTE (Ricochet @ Jul 27 2013, 03:40 AM) *
When I have players who "won't get out of bed for less than..." x, I go find find new players with runners who will play the style of game I want to run. There are always other players and runners out there. I'm pretty sure Mr. Johnson feels the same.

There always other GM:s too mate, no need to play with one who has no idea what runners time is worth and incidentally that applies in game to Johnsons too.
vladski
QUOTE (braincraft @ Jul 27 2013, 01:32 AM) *
Runners should have huge expenses.

<snip... only for brevity!>
...you deserve to feel like a rock star for just five minutes a day, dammit.

And then it's time to go to the meet with the Johnson for the next job.


Inspired! Where's the like button? wink.gif

Vlad
vladski
QUOTE (Ricochet @ Jul 26 2013, 07:40 PM) *
When I have players who "won't get out of bed for less than..." x, I go find find new players with runners who will play the style of game I want to run. There are always other players and runners out there. I'm pretty sure Mr. Johnson feels the same.


QUOTE (Mäx @ Jul 27 2013, 01:54 AM) *
There always other GM:s too mate, no need to play with one who has no idea what runners time is worth and incidentally that applies in game to Johnsons too.

Seriously? All of you have such a plethora of people that play/run Shadowrun that you can just alienate them and move on?

Whatever happened to give and take and friendship? Neither side should be "it's my way, or else..."

Players should trust their GM to provide them a good time. Give the stingy GM's game a chance. I have played under a stingy GM and they were some of the most fun, challenging games. I have played under a Monty Haul GM and had a blast with the big story he wanted to tell. I like to think my own GMing style is somewhere in the middle and it must be, because I had both the stingy guy and the Monty Haul guy playing, together, in my games and they think I am the bee's knees.

GM's should try to give players things they want... sometimes even if it's not exactly the story you first had in your head. As a GM you HAVE to make adjustments for the players interests. It doesn't mean you give them everything they want... not even a tenth of it. But you do allow them the opportunities to go after what they want. And don't make it a goose chase. Make it... an adventure! If you give every character a real chance to play and shine, moments that they are legendary, it doesn't really matter where that "legend" exists. Could be amongst your mates, in the local bar or in the entire Runner community. Point is the story is about them and what THEY did. Not about how you controlled the game and told exactly the story you wanted to tell on exactly the level you wanted to tell it. If that's what a GM wants, then he really should be writing novels instead of adventures.

Most importantly, at the end of the game, you want the players and the GM to sit and talk about the great time they just had and the one they had a week ago and "that one time a couple years back....Man' you should have seen when Rhoenn and Dex took down that copter from the rooftop...." We are ALL doing this for fun and if you aren't having fun then that is the ONLY time you are doing it wrong.

Vlad
Nal0n
Thanks for all the answers! (where is that like button anyway, want to push it a few times in this thread alone)

I do now see much clearer where my perceived problem might come from and can work on that.
It now seems it is mostly OC stuff I overlooked like desired power level, amount on "min/max focusing" etc.

I guess I need to talk to some ppl. soonish and have a nice long OC talk about where we see things different and what we can do about that.

Thanks!
Ricochet
QUOTE (vladski @ Jul 27 2013, 01:22 AM) *
Seriously? All of you have such a plethora of people that play/run Shadowrun that you can just alienate them and move on?

Whatever happened to give and take and friendship? Neither side should be "it's my way, or else..."


When I was in college, I had a large pool of players to choose from. When I played with the players who thought along the lines of many on this thread, I had less fun. I learned not to waste my time because what they wanted out of a game wasn't what I wanted out of a game. I chose players who wanted to play my style of game, whether it was D&D, Shadowrun, Starwars, World of Darkness, or anything else. As a player, I chose the same way when finding GM's.

After college, my circle of friends typically haven't been gamers. I've had to seek out gamers specifically, or teach people gaming. When I find gamers or gaming groups who play styles I don't care for, I simply move on. When I teach new gamers, I get to teach the style I want to encourage. Those who have never played monty haul don't get ridiculous expectations, and once again, all is good.
binarywraith
QUOTE (Seerow @ Jul 26 2013, 11:54 PM) *
Do you actually tell your players that investing in these things will result in higher pay, or do you just passive aggressively punish them for not playing the way you deem right?


I tell them, repeatedly during character creation and via blatant 'roll your negotiation, what you don't have it better default, oh you dumped Cha, okay the J's screwing you and you're too inept to talk your way around it'. When they don't listen in favor of trying to be min-maxing opti-tards, I punish them for it with in-game consequences. grinbig.gif
GiraffeShaman
QUOTE
I tell them, repeatedly during character creation and via blatant 'roll your negotiation, what you don't have it better default, oh you dumped Cha, okay the J's screwing you and you're too inept to talk your way around it'. When they don't listen in favor of trying to be min-maxing opti-tards, I punish them for it with in-game consequences.


Does that actually work? From what I've seen min-maxers won't just min-max the optimal combat choices. They'll min-max whatever works best in a particular GM's game. So they might make a pornomancer. I guess it helps though if you have the real life negotation skills to find lots of new players though, and can just dump players. Many of us are kind of stuck with our old groups, which means there has to be a give and take. Sometimes you have to negotiate with terrorists. smile.gif
ShadowDragon8685
QUOTE (Ricochet @ Jul 27 2013, 07:47 AM) *
When I was in college, I had a large pool of players to choose from. When I played with the players who thought along the lines of many on this thread, I had less fun. I learned not to waste my time because what they wanted out of a game wasn't what I wanted out of a game. I chose players who wanted to play my style of game, whether it was D&D, Shadowrun, Starwars, World of Darkness, or anything else. As a player, I chose the same way when finding GM's.

After college, my circle of friends typically haven't been gamers. I've had to seek out gamers specifically, or teach people gaming. When I find gamers or gaming groups who play styles I don't care for, I simply move on. When I teach new gamers, I get to teach the style I want to encourage. Those who have never played monty haul don't get ridiculous expectations, and once again, all is good.


Expecting to be paid enough to make the group's rent in one run plus change isn't monty haul expectations, that's "how in the flying fuck are they supposed to make money without being paid commensurate with their abilities and the dangerous, illegal work they perform" expectations.

And when you get stingy, as has been said previously, players no longer consider the Johnson's run their primary means of acquiring money, it's just the job that takes them to the places where they strip the environs clean for money, up to and including organlegging the security guards.


Some players are just greedy and will organleg the bodies whether they're making 10K or 100K, but most players who resort to such drastic measures are quite simply desperate for nuyen, and the GM is causing this by being stingy.
Sendaz
QUOTE (ShadowDragon8685 @ Jul 27 2013, 10:40 AM) *
Some players are just greedy and will organleg the bodies whether they're making 10K or 100K, but most players who resort to such drastic measures are quite simply desperate for nuyen, and the GM is causing this by being stingy.

Plus there is something to be said for disassembling your enemy just to make sure they don't come back. biggrin.gif
ShadowDragon8685
QUOTE (Sendaz @ Jul 27 2013, 09:48 AM) *
Plus there is something to be said for disassembling your enemy just to make sure they don't come back. biggrin.gif


If you're that convinced of the need to make good and sure they're dead, you don't organleg them, you feed them to the nearest ghoul colony and watch with a drone to make sure the ghouls chow down, dump a tub of disassembler nanites on them, incinerate them in the nearest blast furnace run by a shady night crew who will accept bribes to walk off the job for half an hour whilst you ensure the cameras still record them doing their normal routine, feed them into an industrial shredder, etcetera.
imperialus
One thing I have done in the past is to introduce an idea of a sort of 'meta-currency' that operates in the background. This meta currency accumulates at a much faster rate than the actual nuyen balance on the character sheet, and PC's can use it to 'purchace' big ticket items like cyberware, drones, vehicles ect. It can't be used for mundane expenses like Lifestyle, ammo, or even guns (unless it's really exotic), only the high end upgrade items.

Basically, a player will say I would like to spend 200K of my 'shadow currency' to buy a new cyberarm. I would then try to figure out a way to introduce said gear in the next run. It might be a reward, they might find and steal it, or a contact of theirs might give it to them in exchange for a previous favor. Depending on the item they may still have to pay some real cash to make it usable, but that is minimal. The whole system requires some suspension of disbelief, but it works reasonably well. It lets me keep the runners poor and desparate for the next payday while still letting them get new shinies.
Freya
I really like that idea, Imperialus. I may yoink it at some point.

... and you're another Calgarian. OGOD
Mäx
QUOTE (Ricochet @ Jul 27 2013, 03:47 PM) *
Those who have never played monty haul don't get ridiculous expectations, and once again, all is good.

How on earth is expecting to get more the 5k a ridiculous monty haul expectation to character that has 450k worth of gear from the start and pretty much any upgrade watt so ever costs 100k+.
Not to mention that anything more then a literal milk run, has a good chance of ending up eating more then 5k worth of resources.
Seerow
QUOTE (Mäx @ Jul 27 2013, 04:22 PM) *
How on earth is expecting to get more the 5k a ridiculous monty haul expectation to character that has 450k worth of gear from the start and pretty much any upgrade watt so ever costs 100k+.
Not to mention that anything more then a literal milk run, has a good chance of ending up eating more then 5k worth of resources.


Anyone who plays anything other than a mage is clearly looking for a ridiculous monty haul game if they ever want to progress.
Umidori
Average SR5 mission rewards are 5 Karma and 5000 nuyen.

Guess which one takes you farther.

~Umi
Seerow
QUOTE (Umidori @ Jul 27 2013, 08:47 PM) *
Average SR5 mission rewards are 5 Karma and 5000 nuyen.

Guess which one takes you farther.

~Umi


So by the time your street sammy can afford Wires 3, how many times has the mage initiated?
Nal0n
QUOTE (Umidori @ Jul 27 2013, 09:47 PM) *
Average SR5 mission rewards are 5 Karma and 5000 nuyen.

Guess which one takes you farther.

~Umi


5k for a run is ok.
For stuff like ...
... following the (pretty standard without any security detail or such) guy around a bit and make some pics of him shagging his secretary for the wife...
... or to sneak into his (absolutely low to none security) office and plant some (2-3) cheap bugs ...
... or to get a tracker on his car(s) ...

... but not for anything involving any violence ... or even a slight chance of getting arrested, maimed or even killed ...

Just my 2 NuSen
Jaid
QUOTE (Seerow @ Jul 27 2013, 03:56 PM) *
So by the time your street sammy can afford Wires 3, how many times has the mage initiated?


hard to say. focuses are cheap enough that mages should be able to buy some with their 5k/run rewards, and some focuses are *crazy* strong. like counterspelling focuses, which grant their bonus to every counterspell test (not just for the type of spell they're tied to), when the skill itself has to be split up each time you make a test in a combat turn. plus they also give you extra counterspelling pool that can only be used against the same type of spell as the focus.

(personally, i suspect the counterspelling focus entry got rewritten a couple of times and both of the ways they were thinking of having them work got left in the final version, but it's just a gut feeling based on how ludicrously strong they are)
Nal0n
QUOTE (Seerow @ Jul 27 2013, 09:56 PM) *
So by the time your street sammy can afford Wires 3, how many times has the mage initiated?


As he reasonably wants those in beta thats 325,500 NuYen or 61.5 missions ... which is 325 Karma for all involved too ...
Assuming a starting magic of 6 and the mage always raising his magic too he could have initiated:
- 5 times for 320 Karma + 5 Karma to spend elsewhere
- 4 times for 240 Karma + 85 Karma to spend elsewhere
- 3 times for 168 Karma + 157 Karma to spend elsewhere
And that is without any discounts for magical groups, quests, geasa, etc.

So the Sam got +2 REA +2d6 Initiative ...
The mage now has up to 11 Magic + up to 5 Metamagicks ... and still has those 325k NuYen too!

Totally fair, is it not? wink.gif
Tymeaus Jalynsfein
QUOTE (Mäx @ Jul 26 2013, 02:49 PM) *
Who noes, my Sasha wouldn't even get out of her bed for a lousy ass 5k run. cool.gif


We have had characters in our group who refuse to get out of bed for less than 50k Nuyen. smile.gif
Of course, some of them are 300+ Karma Characters. smile.gif
binarywraith
QUOTE (Tymeaus Jalynsfein @ Jul 27 2013, 03:55 PM) *
We have had characters in our group who refuse to get out of bed for less than 50k Nuyen. smile.gif


So have I, but she was.... well, let's just say she made more cash entertaining the right rich and powerful folks than running.
Sendaz
QUOTE (binarywraith @ Jul 27 2013, 05:03 PM) *
So have I, but she was.... well, let's just say she made more cash entertaining the right rich and powerful folks than running.

Sounds like she wouldn't get into bed for less than 50K. biggrin.gif


EscortRun™

They really mean it when the Johnson scr... you get the idea. wink.gif
Umidori
QUOTE (Nal0n @ Jul 27 2013, 02:12 PM) *
Numbers.

Totally fair, is it not? wink.gif

To be completely fair, though, at this point the Street Sam does also have 325 karma to spend on attributes, skills, and positive qualities. So you could go from Rank 6 maximum chargen in a skill to Rank 12 for a cost of 126 karma. So that's +6 dice to a major skill pool, and you can do that for two skills and still have 73 karma to spend elsewhere. If you're willing to settle for only Rank 10, you could improve 4 different skills that much, and still be able to buy a cheap positive quality or two.

~Umi
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