I am sure that this has come up before, but since the board was recently wiped I can't find any topics about it.

How much nuyen do you typically award for a run? Figuring the cost of supplies, legwork and such our GM is giving about 10k per run (more in exceptional circumstances).

Also, the rules in the main book seem pretty straight forward about awarding karma. Do most people like them or tend to give less/more?

Deliver mail in a AAA neighborhood: 1 karma max, 5 per house
Deliver mail directly to the owner of a mansion in a AAA neighborhood who doesn't like visitors: 6 karma possible (potential for more, but not likely), a few thousand per runner, penalties to both for any non-stun damage to anything and they must pay for any repairs needed to the mansion.

Heheh. No seriously, I've been wondering this as well.

Well, the Shadowrun Companion can help you out with your Nuyen plight, on page 100. Here's some examples:

Assasination: 5000:nuyen:
Bodyguard/Security Duty: 200:nuyen:/day
Burglary: 2000:nuyen:
Extraction: 20,000:nuyen:
Datasteal: 20% value of data

Keep in mind, these are baseline costs and I'm not going to violate any copyrights by posting the whole thing. Those, however, should give you a taste of the average prices and how different jobs can give you different types of pay instead of just a flat price.

There ain't no way a character of mine would even consider performing an assassination for a mere 5000¥!

As far as I'm concerned those prices are way too low.

Well, in the campaign I just started in (which has, I must admit, a insanely imaginative GM) we just got paid 5,000 apiece to steal a large tuna. No, really!

Basically, we had to intercept said tuna, which was stored in a cryo-coffin, from a moving truck which was delivering it to a particular Yakuza chieftain and bring it to our Ms. Johnson. We never did find out just why we had to get that particular tuna... but based on the way they had techs swarming over it and cutting into it as soon as we delivered it, I've got my suspicions...

I give an average 3 Karma per "total goal" achieved. A total goal means... a difficult run completed; a challenging favor; a life lesson; an enemy overcome; surviving a week in the desert with no food; taking out the hijackers, saving the dying stewardess, landing the plane, and convincing security you had nothing to do with it. OK, so that last one is worth 4, but the second is only worth 2, so

And that's including the bonus Karma (which I usually add up in quarter points). Remember, whatever level of karma you give the players is more or less the same as the rest of the world's occupants get. But we play day-to-day, so it skews things.

As for money (or rewards as I say):

1,000,000 per Blood Mage captured alive.

Think about the difficultly of doing that, then compare it to what they are doing, and divide (or multiply!) by the difference.

heh. guess that proves that, contrary to popular belief, you can tuna fish.

In the campaign I am currently involved in, we receive about 3 Karma for succeeding, 1 for being there throughout the whole run (usually 2 or 3 sessions), and sometimes an individual bonus.

Nuyen-wise, our last run netted 15k each, and a HUGE stash of loot from a survivalist weapons cache. Previous runs have netted 5k:nuyen: and about 10k:nuyen: as well as one being a "favor" for our fixer.

I personally think the "A Runner should earn enough per month to satisfy their lifestyles" from SRComp is ludicrous. How could anyone ever upgrade their gear in that case?

I think the figures in the SR Comp are ok, per person, as a base value. You then multiply by the run's difficulty. Something brand new runners do might be 1-1.5x the base, expert runners might be 10-20x the base

Of course it just happens to end up like that. My Johnsons never pay by the person. They just want job X done for Y nuyen. They don't care if it's done by one elite runner, or a small army of ragamuffins. That's for the Fixer to worry about.

make one session like bidding for government projects, the lowest bidder gets the job. my GM did that to me once...

(other runners' face)"we can do it for no less than 7,500 if you provide the equipment"

(ME)"500 and a 20 gift certificate to the stuffer shack!"

looking back on it, i shouldnt sell myself short like that, but we DID steal everything we could, including the johnsons car afterwards. its a lesson on his part, never trust "stupid" runners

Have the face get a cyberskull implanted and make Mr. Johnson an offer he can't resist.

Let the players decide. Our current group of runners had to lay low for a while, so we made new characters, we had a large group fresh 6 runners at this point. We were asked to extract a man from a low security corp hospital. Now this Johnson never really hired runners before so he wasn't sure what the usual payment for this was. And our runners being new haven't really been on runs together, or really at all. One of our guys looks right at him and said 25,000 each, straight faced didn't budge. the johnson wavers but says ok, we walked in, walked out, it went fairly smooth, easy money.

So a week later we get another call from our fixer for another job, we go in, meet the Johnson and this time it is a basic kill a guy take a staff, it should be fairly easy. well we pop up before the Johnson lists a price and we tell him our standard rate is 25,000 each.

Basically if you are asking from a GMs perspective guess or let the players decide then negotiate. If you are a player tell the johnson a price.

In the campaigns I've been in, beginning characters have been willing to accept runs from Mr. Johnson for 1,000 nuyen each, and are happier at 2,000. Characters with 50 earned Karma think 5,000 each for a job is kinda low, but they are willing to take it, and are happier at 10,000. At 400 earned Karma, they are willing to take a job at 40,000 each, and are happier at 80,000 each. At each of these levels, they are unhappy to accept runs at the lower number.

Running these numbers through a spreadsheet, I see a pattern. 100*(current earned karma) is about the least they are willing to accept for a run that seems challenging as Mr. Johnson describes it. Less than that feels like it's not worth it, and they'll grumble. At double that amount they happily take the job, figuring that it's probably risky, but they are being paid to take a risk.

I believe that most Johnsons will seek out the cheapest team whose rep indicates they have a high likelihood of success, and will offer just barely enough money to get them to say Yes.

Rewards in our campaign are typically 3 to 4 Karma points awarded per 8 hours of play. A typical adventure might take us 24 hours to play, and awards 9 to 12 Karma to each character.

Those baseline rates from SRComp are for newb runners and industry standards. Once you have a rep, and arent doing noob jobs (like security is more than bob the guard and his trusty brown bag lunch) the pay goes up accordingly. If you play more amoral then double the base fees.

As for karma, I use the Threat and Professional ratings as guidlines; then add a small objective bonus and then the personal bonuses from SR3. For example, if most of the bad guys are rated "Equal/Professional" that means theyre good, so Ill start at 4 since its pretty dangerous. Then figure the runners need to "get a document" and "remains unseen". Each of those is worth another point if they manage to complete it. Then figure the team as a whole is in character, thats another point (as a GM Ive found that generalizing the personal rewards over the team, so that all the players get the same, makes the game much more fun because no one feels cheated at karma time). So, assuming they got the document but were seen (likely with such skilled opposition) theyd pick up 6 points. I might give such a run a fee of 15k each base, they probably negotiate up to the 20k range, and want half up front. It would also account for about a month of time, with downtime during and after the run.

Oh yea, it would also probably take one evening to complete (say 6 hours) in real time, in cause that matters.

Wow, reading the posts on this thread have clearly illustrated to me something I've long suspected: I pay my PCs way off the scale.

Personally, I think the "suggestions" in the SRComp are ludicrous. With all due respect to GMs who do use those guidelines (you're free to do what you like in your own games, to each their own, etc.), I simply can not imagine any shadowrunner who deigns to call herself a "professional" working for those abysmally low wages.

Considering the risks that one takes during a typical run, those figures should be multiplied by 5 at minimum. Ignore the actual run itself and think about what happens if the Star catches you with any of that wiz 'ware or that tricked-out combat cycle or that Force 6 Manaball you've been saving for a rainy day. Those kinds of fees won't even cover bail, let alone the inevitable fine.

In my campaign, I like to see runners as professionals who work maybe once a month. I have no problem with my PCs (who've all earned 75-100 Karma apiece) earning 250,000 for a relatively straightforward datasteal (that's for the group, btw). Besides, we all know there's no such thing as a "straightforward" run. It always gets hairy and weird about two-thirds of the way through--it's part of the fun.

Besides, what will they spend the money on? Gear and spells that I approve. If they happened to have gotten the money together for a beta-grade VCR 3 or a rating 6 Power Focus or a crate of APDS, their fixer/talismonger will still only manage to locate these items when I decide it's time.

I think Shadowrun, I think Ronin or The Score or The Usual Suspects... not Trailer Park Boys.

The chart in the Shadowrun Companion (p. 100) works well, but you need to remember that one run may have several tasks. Pure wetwork is 5000¥, but if you're stealing something from the target as well, that's Buglary and that's another 7000¥. If you have to hack the computer, that's 1000¥ times the host's security value (for this example, rating . That gives a total fee of 16,000¥ for this run, based on what the Johnson believe is required for the job. Of course, this is just the base fee, for which you can scale up or down depending on security ("He has three bodyguards, one of which is a mage"), other circumstances ("You can't use a headshot because I want his headware memory intact"), the importance/visibility of the target ("This guy is the spokesman for the governor."), odd timetables ("I need it done in the next six hours"), willingness of the Johnson to pay ("I need this done and I need this done NOW and I want YOU to do it"), and simply GM fiat.

As a rule of thumb though, I've always used the scale of 5000¥ each for a cakewalk, 10,000¥ for an average run, 20,000¥ for something a little difficult, and 30,000¥ for a rough job that will almost definately result in someone burning a Hand of God. The importance of the run will cause an increase in fees (the 5th run of Harlequin, for example, is pretty important and therefore worth about 100,000¥ each).

As for karma, my players generally average about 4-8 karma per adventure depending on how they do and what the run is. A simple smash and grab is worth 1 for surviving, 1 for challenge, 1 for the goal, and 1 for not being bad. A run against the core of the Universal Brotherhood in Chicago, infiltrating the hive and killing the queen in order to rescue a woman who is being prepared to become a fleshform in the next half hour and getting out before Ares drops the bomb, that's worth a good 8-10 karma.

Again, all this is variable depending on your group. A street level game would be lucky to get 10,000¥ for the entire team on a run, while a high powered group could command six figures each for runs. It's all up to you as the GM.

The Abstruse One

I think this also depends on how often the GM and the players are meeting to play. If it's often, it's easy to make the pay offs smaller because they're getting rewards all the time, if it's once every two weeks it's gotta be a little bigger to make the players feel like they've earned something.

Nods to above. Remember the fees most of us are listing are per character, not for the whole team. Also remember that the Runners usually arent "professionals" that can demand a high pay. If one low life, no sin, law breaking, illegal, runner doesnt want the job theres another who will. Theres exceptions sure, I mean were Fastjack to take a job for cash Id imagine id have to be a large sum, but thats because theyve built a rep to back it up. Which means that higher karma = higher pay; fitting when you look at most modules and the baseline fees. If any joe blow runner got paid 200k for a job, every nooby runner would have a high lifestyle and some whiz toys .. and thats not the case in typical sr fiction. So by all means do whatever works for you! Just pointing out the theory behind some of the numbers, and that eventually the story will bring the runners into an appropriate pay scale for their level.

Upper limits of awards

30,000
5 Karma

Down to nothing...nada...zilch

I usually make the payout around 3,000-5,000 per runner, per significant goal, and the johnson will usually agree to cover incidentals and a small expenses tab (say, an additional 5-10% of the fee for the team.)

the johnson bankrolls at the outside maximum of that.
and he starts his negotiation at around 2,000 per goal, no expense budget.

so a three goal run (break into the compound, datasteal, dataplant) for my seven person team comes out to a starting fee of 5,000 per (35,000 for the team) and can scale as high as 13,000 (b&E is only ever 3k, unless it's a AAA or zero-zone security rating... then 5k and 8k respectively) per (91,000 for the team) and up to 9,100 or so for expenses.

the only jobs that pay over the 3-5k range in non-ZZ situations are unwilling extractions and 'quiet' or 'framing' wetwork. these basically count as two goals.


Karma payout is typically around 3-5 each for the team and up to another 6 for each individual player (1 for effective solutions, 3 for roleplay, and 2 for compassion to NPC's)

I don't typically award the runners for effective combat. the reward is to survive.

typical run schedule is one run to the runners lap every other month of game time (if they keep the rep stable.) the rest they have to go look for. I'll usually allow them to find work if they spend enough time (a couple of ingame days) looking.

interestingly enough, they've only once not used an expense credstick up to it's max....

i tend to slap together a lot of smaller, no-plot runs, with a base pay of 10k / 4 karma per runner. i guess that sounds kinda high--but keep in mind that these little plotless, single-scene RP's usually take two to three months to complete, 'cos we play by posting. my main character's career has been positively meteoric, by shadowland standards, and it's taken over two years to get him close to 200 karma.

I was paid 3.000 ¥ to kill 8 person (a troll, a black orc, a mage, a cyber-elf, etc.) and to save the boat where they was a lot of people...

Damn me...