Another example: runner payment. I always advocated for some guidelines on how to pay runners, especially if you are a new GM and have no idea if 5000 or 50 000¥ are ok for the group and run. We got precognition Johnson payment rules. Even basic house rules (like the one from AAS) were far better.

SYL

Runner payment's always been a tricky thing, though. Even though deltaware has been held out as the end goal for cybered characters ever since SR1, I've only seen one PC ever actually get it in game, and that only because I have it to him at a steep discount. For the most part. characters who start with cyber typically never upgrade-- what they start with is usually what the end with.

One thing that would help is actual upgrading rules, though. In SR5, you can't upgrade; you have to remove the old and put in the new, with no discounts. I'm pretty sure that's true for several editions, although I'm not going to look it up right now. If you can simply pay the difference, you make it easier to go from Wired-2 to Wired 3, and make upgrading cyber much more feasable.

Sure, but after almost 2 decades of running and mastering I know that there a certain houserules out there which simply worked fine in a wide range of groups, settings etc. I am more talking about some good guidelines for new gamemasters, not precog-payments like in SR5.



Indeed, no edition had upgrade rules (something I am missing, at least for the same quality grade).

SYL

I think the payment has gone down somewhat too,
which makes Wired Reflexes appear much more expensive.

In Silver Angel the adventure book says you can give out up to 100.000 Nuyen per player for the run for example.
50.000 before, 35.000 after, and up to 15.000 if the players haggle.

While that's true, that payout was unusual, and the absolute price difference was greater. Wired 3 cost 500,000 , so the difference was 335,000 . Even with a higher payout per adventure, it would take a while to save up for a base model upgrade, and a delta upgrade was basically out of the question.

Generally that was something I saw solved in-game by having gear and access to high-end cyberdocs be payouts for appropriately nasty runs for fixers the team trusts. Doesn't much help for Missions and the like, which are pure RAW, though.

I don't think Shadowrun's ever managed to get the payout per run numbers right. It's difficult to find a good balance that lets Sammies, Riggers, and Deckers get meaningful upgrades while still keeping the hardscrabble roots of the 'punk' in cyberpunk.

Game itself, no. I've used the low-cash, high-gear games to good effect in the past, that can work. But that's very much a personal style sort of adjustment, and not a game system deal.

Eh, ever since Corporate Shadowfiles, and re-iterated in Run Faster, it's been noted when discussing working for corp Johnsons that they tend to pay in kind when they can get away with it. Not much of a stretch there.

The SR5 Runner Payment rules basically make it so that if a GM goes by these, the Runners will start ditching runs to go and steal that nice luxury sedan over there to fence it for more than they would get if they risked life and limb on an actual run . .

Luxury sedan hell, if you can flip three Jackrabbits a week you make better payout than the SR5 standards, even giving the fixer his cut.

SedanRun™ (Think Gone in 60 Seconds 2070s)

Your crew steals and chops cars for fun and profit.

From boosting Jackrabbits to sell on the cheap to stealing sports cars to ship off to exotic locales.

Just be sure not to nick Mr Knight's Limo, he hates that.

Just to add some food: http://rabenwelten.wordpress.com/2008/11/1...lohn-der-angst/

If you cannot read German, here is a very rough translation of the main points:

Per peson:
Milk runs (almost no risk runs) around 1000¥ (very short, almost no preparation)
Easy runs: around 5000¥ (several days, some preperation)
Normal runs: around 10 000 - 50 000¥ (some risks, perhaps combat, preparation, legwork)
Elite runs: 50 000+ ¥ (high security, elite enemies, hardcore combat expected, lots of ressources involved etc)

Modifer
Untouchable: 10% of the sum, you really screwed up
Thrash: 25%, because you are still meh to us
Noob: 25%, because we dont know if you are worth it
Semi-pro: 50% because you didnt scew up last time (more than a noob, but still have no real name on the street)
Shadowpunk: standard, because you you have a name, but some things are still missing
Shadowrunner: +50% becuse you are a professional
Vet: x2
Elite: x4
God: x10

Combined with some modifiers for Johnson, bad luck, working with different teams etc and you have some really nice guidelindes for old and new gamemaster. We played with similar rules for years and it worked very well. I can only recommand that over the official precogniation- rules in SR5 or the hilarious rules in SR3 runner compendium.

SYL

Actually, the GTA factor remains the most sensible payout guideline I have ever seen written for Shadowrun.

I prefer to think of the SR5 Rewards guidelines as though they were Mr. Johnson's expectation estimate based on his experience and research.

After all since the GM already "knows" the oppositions Dice Pools and the MO of the Players/Runners working the equation backwards is a snap. Just base it on what the Runners might logically encounter.

The "stealing cars" argument is flawed.

Stealing car is a business. It's even a criminal business. Once a criminal business becomes profitable, it draws the interest of the mafia.
So you've got people coming and telling you that either you give them some of your profits, or you'll end up with the cops knowing everything about you, or with broken arms/legs or swimming with the fishes.

And don't kid yourself, it's not a "we take 10% and leave you the rest". Even the state corporate tax isn't that low. It's rather something like "we'll only take 80%, and that's because we like your style." Refuse, and you'll be sure that your contacts will avoid working with you, and bad things will tend to happen to you and your friends.

Most runners are good enough to cause trouble to a mafia, but the mafia also have the means to take care of such problems. If they're up against one runner, they can hire 4 of them to handle the problem. Plus they can use their weight to make sure the runner's contacts won't work with him, which will make that runner's life far more complicated.

So in the end there are only two solutions: keeping low profile so as not to attract the mafia's attention (which means not getting that much money) or a whole-out war with the mafia. The latter can be done, but now you're playing "Chaos Overlord, Shadowrun edition" instead of Shadowrun.

Yes, but compared to some of the lower runner payments (usually in the 4 digit area) you only need 1-4 cars each month to achieve the same runner payment. And in a city of millions, with thousands of cars burned/vanishing/being stolen/used for insurance scam every year, a couple of missing cars per month usually are not of interest to the mob.

And of course we could return the question:

If you claim that professional and successful car thieves immediately gets visit from the mob, demanding 80% of the payment, why exactly don´t the mob knock on the door of runners? Because as professionals with exquisite taste in armor, weapons, decks etc they are part of the shadow community as car thieves are, with a lot of money. Both runners and car thieves depend on certain back end infrastructure for their kind of work. They have both a similar need for discretion, connections and different skill sets (hacking, mechanic, physical force in the case of carnapping etc). So, why do the mafia knock on the door of a well organized, well armed and well trained group of runners turned car thieves, but not on the door of a well organized, well armed and well trained group of runners?

And please don´t answer with "they need the runner" - you just said that the mob can easily hire other runners to hunt the car thief runners. If your answer is "because we are playing Shadowrun and not CarRun!". then you are totally correct. Just pay them enough that there is a reason to be shadowrunners and all is good.

SYL

No, the solution is to make it so shadowrunning is profitable enough that you don't have to force the PC's into doing it. Because that's the biggest suspension-of-disbelief issue, why run for money when there are better alternatives?

I usually like to compare the runner biz to drug trade. From drug fields in SE Asia to labs in rural US to nightclubs in Frankfurt, there exists a delivery chain for every kind of product, involving thousands of groups, individuals, organizations etc. Some are independent, some are organized, some can exists in the shadows other throw and some are simply snuffed out because they pissed the wrong people off. They do not like or respect each other usually, but they interact and co-exist. If drug dealers play it smart, have luck and find their niche they can get rich and influential. Most dont, but thats another story.

Same goes for runners. Play smart and hard and you can make your money. But you are always dependent on the shadowy system from Johnson to Fixer (and his shady connections) and info broker.

SYL

That's a very good question, and one that I asked myself recently.

First of all, that's not universal. In Hong-Kong, according to Runner Havens, runners are expected to pay the Triad boss just like any other gangs (and it makes perfect sense in the HK underground).

Second, there could be multiple explanations:

- The concept of "deniable asset". If a runner can be traced back to a mafia, corps could retallliate against the mafia, which is some order of magnitude different from the cops trying to stop a car thief ring. Besides, while the mafia can use their influence to protect car thieves from police or to expose them if they aren't cooperative, they won't have so much leverage with corps and runners. More often than not, the corp won't be interested in catching the runners once the run is over.

- Runners are big fishes. A mob boss rules thanks to his authority and his ability to enforce it. If he fails to get car thieves to accept his authority, he'll lose it. So it's not just a matter of money, but also a matter of reputation. With runners, the mobster has less reputation to lose. It will just be seen as a token of respect. Since the price it costs to send professional hitmen after a runner is significantly higher than the price to send a gang after regular car thieves, the return on investment is low. So no reputation loss + low ROI = little interest in taking care of freelancing runners.

- Mafias are territorial. They control racket on their turf. A runner might have safe-houses there, and will pay adequate protection for them, but that's it. Unless we're talking about low-key runners who only take job inside a neighborhood. In that case, I guess they won't be exempt from the mafia tax.

But in any case, mafias have never been handled correctly in Shadowrun and that causes such problems.

You're looking at it from a very polar PoV here,

For the same reason as I do not wish to play "Car thief Simulator 2053" that I would imagine
boosting crummy everyday vehicles for a proportion of their worth would wear thin quite quickly as an occupation when you are armed to the teeth and the shadowy equivalent of death incarnate... Regardless of Law or Mafia consequences, not every runner would ditch running because boosting cars is going to pay the bills.

just look at criminals in todays age, it's too much hard work and risk for little reward, may as well go out and get a REAL Job !!

See "Gone in 60 seconds" for where this eventually leads ... you move up to "Shadowrunning" for high end vehicles.

and not to mention just because it is profitable doesn't mean every runner wants to do it ! ...

I can look in the wanted adverts for the best paying job I can adequately do, ... night shifts as a dangerous goods driver.. as an example ... pays really well ... so why isn't everyone in the country doing that one job just cause it is profitable ??

personal choices

So, if the entire run, from Johnson, black payments, info gathering, fixers, runners, legwork etc stays under the radar (and lets be honest, every high level run is a big and complex operation in itsefl), so why cant a car thief ring achieve the same?



True. But that does not stop mob boss in co-existing with other syndicates (in Seattle there are 3 different Yakuza families for example), co-existing with other criminal organizations (Mafia, Seoulpa, Yak, Vory etc) or having deals with other organizations (like runners with millions in hardware and software, fixers with extensive connections, smuggler operations, black market hackers and mechanics etc). To one degree or another they are independent, yet they interact on a daily basis, without breaking into a war. Even in reality there are many different car stealing gangs (and other criminal organisations), even selling over borders (Germany / Poland for example) and still exists in one city, without constant war.



That of course goes to any other operation in the same area. You say that he cannot allow a car thief ring running independent. But why can he allow that to a normal runner team, with the same amount of money and resources (and monthly income due to runs). Why does he not simply force the runners to pay 80% of their income to the mob?



But we are not talking about a low level gang of gangers turned car thief but about a runner team turned car thief. The return of investment is the same as if he send his hitmen against a classic runner team.



And both a classic runner team and a runner team turned car thieves are not necessarily territorial, but can operate (and steal) all over the city. Depending on their ressources even nation-wide or
internationally. So the hacker has his safehouse and the runners have a small garage where some cars go in and out (perhaps 2-3 per week).



Actually ... no.Don´t forget that you brought up the Mafia example.

The only problem here is a gamemaster simply paying not enough so the question "why dont we steal that jackrabbit over there and sell it for 3000 bucks?" arises in the first place. Because the gamemaster could simply say" I am offering 10k each person to break into that secured facility" instead of "3k for the whole team". Its so easy.

SYL

Please note that while I think that the mafia should knock on the door of whoever makes substantial money with a criminal business, I don't say that Shadowrunner should be paid little. I just say that if you want to play in a universe where runners are paid little, that's completely possible even if cars are expensive.

For the payout, I think there are many different aspects to consider. Namely:
- The atmosphere of the campaign. Are the runners lowlives trying to survive in a harsh world or are they elite criminals, superstars of the underworld?

- The "goal" of the players: Do they blow all their money on novacoke and prostitutes, do they invest it all in upgrades or in acquiring the means to reach a higher goal?

- The character improvement and balance. More money can lead to more powerful runners. There's also the question of karma vs nuyens. For the same amount or karma, if you pay the runners too little and the awakened will progress faster and if you pay too much they'll lag behind the techies and augmented. In the first case, riggers will be pretty much unplayable. In the latter, they'll be unstoppable.

Each table has to find their own sweet spot depending on each of these factors.

I do not see a problem in Runners deciding to set up a business in car-stealing.

That kind of initiative is pretty awesome with players.
At some point the mob will show up and demand their cut.
Seeing the characters deal with that situation can be fun.

Same thing with the IN DEBT flaw.
Seeing the players deal with the mob is interesting there as well.
Just seeing them pay off the debt is boring.

I for one will seriously raise their pay though,
after reading through some older adventures and comparing the numbers.
5k aint enough to risk your life for.

Alternatively

Pay them crap once or twice and then BLAM ¥100,000 payment for a Milk run.

then watch their poor little souls cry and panic over "Why!?" and if they even take the job, there could be a million different in game hooks.

from being hunted for the stolen cash to finding themselves on every Trid news channel in town tracked by the new 'ware they just got implanted.

Except that it explicitly states "pools actually encountered", not "pools in the adventure". It even gives an example:


A GM has no way of knowing what pool a group of runners will actually roll against, unless the GM is running everything on serious rails. This way of determining reward works for a video game or a loot based reward game like that game, but not for Shadowrun, where payment negotiation is a part of the average adventure's ritual.

If you want a big payout in SR5, head over to the Funhouse in Redmond and cast a Lv. 1 physical combat spell on Urubia (or throw a rock), then tell her it was all a big joke to rip a Johnson off. She'll join you in laughter and probably only demand 10% of the payday.

One great change SR4 made was dropping the cost of cyberware.

I totally get the 'you want your runners scrabbling for enough money to eat' part of the setting, but at the same time, that means your runners are never improving. Bringing down the cost of cyber made a *huge* difference there. I'm also a fan of payment in equipment/services, although obviously runners have a lot of issues accepting the Renraku cyberware installation, given the likelihood of trackers and all that.

Smart runners will have all kinds of underworld contacts. It's a useful thing to have. And if the players decide that they have a "business arrangement" with a criminal organization, and represent that by giving them money from time to time, that's fine too.


Some criminal groups do have corporate ties. They certainly do in the real world. And even in Shadowrun, some corps are practically known for it: IIRC, Mitsuhama has several Yakuza bosses on their Board.



It's not nearly that clear cut.

First of all, when you say "mafias", you mean organized crime groups, only one of which is known as the Mafia. I already mentioned the Yakuza, and there's the Triads/Tongs, various street gangs, the Seoulpula Rings in Shadowrun, and many others.

Second, they don't always control geographic "turf". Sometimes, they control rackets: the Mafia might control shipping and gambling, the Triads handle opium and knock off products, the Yakuza does prostitution and white collar blackmail, and so on. They can be scattered all over the city, but remain under one groups control.

Third, even when they do own areas, those areas can be wide spread. For example, the Triads/Tongs exist in many forms, ranging from perfectly legal "Benevolence Societies" to the brutal syndicates we hear about in the news. Because of this, nearly every "Chinese Chamber of Commerce" group can trace their history to a Triad group, which means they can be anywhere that Chinese people live. Thing is, nowadays that's everywhere-- yes, there are still Chinatowns, but for the most part, Chinese people live in all sections of every major city.

What this means is, even if a runner team is less than discreet about having a safehouse or running a chopshop, they still have a good chance to escape notice. They can fake being associated with someone else, or simply not say anything and let everyone assume they're affiliated with another group.


You lose... well, not "realism", given that this is a fantasy game; but you do strain suspension of disbelief. The era of Robin Hood Runners is long gone, runners are in it for the money. And if they can use their considerable skills and contacts to make more money doing other things, they would. For example, there was a long running problem where a mage could make so much money staying home producing orihalcum, they would never need to run again. My players actually asked me to ban it in my games, just to avoid the problem.


There are, and you just scratched the surface. Paying runners is very much an art form, and like all art, it depends on the results you want.

For example: I used to way overpay the runners. What this led to was that they started expecting more and more money each time, so the cash flow got bigger and bigger, until it was so bad they wanted 5000 each just to get out of bed and go to a meet. That's another thing you need to consider.

You also not only have to consider their goals, but which ones you want them to reach first, and what effect reaching them will have on the game. Wired 3 is expensive, but it's not really game-breaking-- powerful, yes, but not that bad, not even deltaware. So, I might want to contrive a way to give a player beta or delta Wired 3-- find a discount, have him do a favor for someone with connections at a delta clinic, that sport of thing. On the other hand, a really high Force Power Focus can break a game, even though it retails for less than delta Wired 3. So, I'd think of ways to slow down the acquisition of that. Same's true with really customized vehicles; in SR2, I designed a custom sports car that could shrug off missile fire, maneuver itself better than most live riggers, had enough firepower to level a city block, and could go slightly faster than Mach 1. It was dubbed the "Knight Industries Ten Thousand" and I got it as a legal starting vehicle-- well under a million nuyen for everything, plus all my other toys. That was a much bigger problem than delta wired, even though the list price was a lot less.

You also need to consider story goals. For example, one character might be saving up a nest egg to retire. And that's a reasonable goal for a character, but it also means that if they get a big enough windfall, your campaign just ended. (Or, maybe you just lost a character.)

So yeah: there's a lot to consider, and it's all dependent on the table. There's no one right answer.

That said: I still advocate the high gear, low cash model. You do need to warn the players in advance, but that makes new gear into an entire adventure. You get better control over the cash flow, and you can better balance gear heavy characters vs the Awakened, because you can hand out the better toys as the magical characters advance. It worked well for me in many games, and I highly recommend it.

While sometimes (especially with commlinks), SR4 went too ar and capped out Hackers way too soon (until War at least), I prefer SR4 cyberware prices myself, too. Makes for a much cleaner and more steadyadvancement or cybered runners.

Cybered characters are the red-headed stepchildren of SR5.

Don't forget riggers. The cost of a destroyed drone sets them back and your rigger can end up losing effectiveness as the campaign progresses.

That's why the more I think about this issue the more I think that the solution would be to have upgrades bought with karma, and only have nuyens for fluff, NERPS and temporary boosts. Upgrades bought with karma can't be lost, at worst they can be repaired for a few karma points (to avoid having the rigger bombard the enemies with drones loaded with explosives at every run). For example, if the rigger loses a drone bought with karma, he might find a drone of similar value lying around during the next run. It would also get rid of awakened vs augmented progression problems, provided the karma costs are balanced. Karma points could also account for loot, to avoid problems with player who take everything that isn't nailed down.

And then the fluff nuyens can be millions or chump change without throwing off game balance. It might require to stretch believability in the most extreme cases, though.

My problem with In Debt and Day Job is poor game design: they're flaws that give you money. I'm fine with flaws that give you BP, that you can spend on money, but these do both.


The problem I had was that they also reduced the starting cash, and set runner payments too low. So, in relative terms, cyber was just as expensive as before. Maybe even a bit more, in some cases.

I agree that it was a good idea, I just don't think they implemented it right.


That idea certainly has merit, and I think it could work from a game balance perspective. However, from a "realism" perspective, if the characters aren't negotiating for payments each run, you start to wonder why they're running the shadows in the first place.

I'd actually suggest going the other way: all cash. Dramatically up the nuyen coming in, but stop awarding karma entirely. They can use their extra cast to buy karma, at whatever rate you see fit, and use that to improve their character. You can call in instructor fees, gym memberships, whatever-- they spend money doing stuff that will improve their abilities. Mages can call it study materials, or whatever they can justify.

The runners still get paid in nuyens IC, but OOC these nuyens are artificially split into "improvement nuyens" (karma points they can turn into nuyens for gear and improvements, merged with the rest of the karma points unless you want to bother with "you can only spend x karma in nuyens" limits) and "NERPS nuyens". Just like all the stuff characters learn during a run aren't converted into skills but in karma that they can then spend in skills.

Yeah, it makes absolutely no sense to raise the cost of cyberware back to preSR4. It's one of my biggest complaints about SR5.

If just the cyberware costs in relation to how much money you get during generation had been increased, it would at least be something I could see a reasoning for. But they also massively increased that sum you get during chargen, bringing back the Million Dollar Samurai problem...

If cybereyes should become more expensive, why not just increase the price 5-fold instead of increasing the price 10-fold and doubling how much money can be spent?

It makes no sense for Cyberware to INCREASE in cost after the 50 years that it has ben around. If anything, it should decrease in cost. SR4 recognized that fact, and thus they reduced the cost of the ware (even if they also decreased what a starting runner could accumulate at character generation). In my opinion, this was a good thing. The design path of SR5 completely screwed that up. If you want to make the ware more of a cost/benefit issue (All things have a cost after all) they should have just reduced the starting amount of Cash for character gen. At least it would have made more sense. Especially with the run payouts that they are putting forth.

It makes as much sense as the world slowing down from SR1 to 2, changes in crunch numbers are for the most part done without fluff explanations -- which I think is a good approach, balancing the rules for overlapping blasts should not depend on whether somebody can think of a good IC reason why a bag of grenades should no longer act as a nuke

The change isn't the problem, crunch which violates fluff is.

Payout is tricky at best. I think DNA/DOA 100k payout scared GMs but part of it is supposed to be high pay for high risk. Then you have Mercurial paying out 5k. I think in both cases though you never saw the money IIRC. It still sets the debate for how much should I pay runners when its that divergent. I tend to go high on karma and pay because its a run hard die fast world.

Personally, I think a lot of payment AND gear cost problems can be solved by giving the characters GEAR AS PAYMENT. This way, the GM has some control about what kind of gear he wants the characters to have (or even NEEDS to have, for the next mission), and the GM can take care that the group has shiny and cool stuff like muscle cars, even helicopters to play with, WITHOUT any risk of throwing them 500K to buy a cool car that they use instead to buy some crazy sh*t cyberware that forces the GM to throw cybermonsters from hell at them to pose a challenge.

I.e. in my last mission, the players got the option to get an Ares Roadmaster. They can, of course, try to sell it - for a fraction of the actual worth. Or, they can use it and offer their services accordingly ("Say, I heard you have a Roadmaster at your disposal, so a. you are not a gutterpunk, obviously and b. here's a job I can offer only to runner groups with this kind of transportation".)

AAS

Sure, that helps a GM keep his campaign going where he wants it to go, and keep characters in reins. However, Gear-as-payment always comes with trust issues in-game and on the player side, especially concerning anything with matrix connection and/or requiring surgery to use.

Another problem with payment guidelines is people agreeing on what the goal of said guidelines should be. I know some players/GM's who think shadowrunners are skilled professionals and should be paid as such, I know others that think any SINless person has the same social standing as an illegal immigrant, and should be paid as such.

I'd say my preferred method is that the players make enough to make ends meet (expenses, lifestyle) and the REAL currency is favours, ofcourse then you get the Face with multiple high lifestyles and even that falls apart.

And of course players may have another idea of what their characters need.

SYL

I usually find that people in general ask for what they want while they never know what they need.

You know strange people. ^^

SYL

I'm coming to the conclusion that a constant level of low cash isn't fun, but to give the appearance of poverty, high-variability may be.

I think the ideal solution might be a way to induce large unexpected debts. Medical treatment in theory contributes towards this, but I very rarely see characters who don't have the magical and technical resources to reduce these significantly. Riggers of course regularly have sudden outlays of cash. I'm at a loss for most other archetypes though.

Decker who's Deck got physically damaged


with a very expensive Dance
Medicineman

Rumor has it a few companies are interested in dissecting Technomancers and E-critters to figure out a way to make a more organic deck with self-repair capabilities.

Pretty much everyone who had to ditch a weapon/car/safe house because it was evidence.

That's what Lifestyle is for.

Generally, in a home game, I'll be a lot nicer about equipment wear and tear on those with a higher Lifestyle. The decker with a High lifestyle will have his stuff messed with a lot less than the sam living at a Squatter level, for example. And if certain rules are confusing or involve excessive bookkeeping, I'll sometimes abstract repair and maintenance into Lifestyle as well.

There used to be an official rule where a higher lifestyle actually reduced vehicle maintenance costs. It got weird when you had multiple vehicles to maintain, though, so I generally just abstracted things: at a middle lifestyle or better, you could ignore routine maintenance costs, automatically keep up with SOTA, that sort of thing. At a higher lifestyle, you could ignore most repair costs: you kept the parts on hand, or had a deal with your mechanic, so you only had to worry if it was totaled.

There were variations on this rule for everyone. Being Hospitalized used to be a separate lifestyle, which cost a lot, and unlike other lifestyles, charged per day. I ruled that a High or better Lifestyle was good enough for home rest in many cases, and Middle would work in some (if your damage was low enough). That meant you could spend a lot less on medical bills under some circumstances, if you had a better Lifestyle. I also did not charge higher lifestyles for stuff I consider to be "lifestyle maintenance": rotating credsticks and fake SIN's, for example, swapping out the transponder library, that sort of thing-- the little details all shadowrunners should do to maintain their anonymity.

Lifestyle is supposed to represent the abstract expenses of being a shadowrunner, and spare us from tedious bean counting. So, I like to use it as much as possible to take the pressure off my accounting, so I can focus on the game.

Just a note, Cain, the new expanded Lifestyle rules in Run Faster do just that. You can pick up stuff to give free repair of gear/vehicles, and certain expenses up to a threshold can be considered negligible and ignored.

Don't have that one yet, but the first problem I forsee is that the goal of a house rule like this is to simplify expenses. Generally, advance lifestyle rules make things more complicated.

Heh. We've danced this dance before: it's in my sig.


Mr. Johnson is offering the group the opportunity to risk life and limb, to say nothing of excessive jail sentences, having their augs ripped out, being organlegged because they're non-people, etc, for the pleasure of committing serious felonies against people whose first response will be to shoot at them rather than call for the cops.

The reward should be commensurate with that. Here's a rule of thumb that may or may not work: figure out what ride Mr. Johnson rode to the meet in. If the group would be better off just 'jacking his ride and selling it straight to a chop shop without bargaining, he's not offering anywhere near in the vicinity of enough money to be doing what he's asking them to do. And that's for an ordinary run; if he's asking them to do something nigh-suicidal, like go on a Bug Hunt, or breach a Renraku "Nobody gets out of here alive" facility, or something that's going to piss off a Dragon or Immortal Elf, the bare minimum should be for everybody on the team to get the sale price of his ride, and he'd better have rode a helicopter to the meet.

For everybody else? Well something I've always wanted to try when pitched a ridiculous lowball at a meet: Figure out what Johnson arrived in. Tell him you know what he arrived in. Show him a real-time feed of it from a drone, if you can. Expound upon the price you can get for it if you drove it to the nearest chop-shop and took their first offer without haggling for so much as cab fare, and how it would either be cut up by parts or on a boat for Hong Kong by tomorrow morning.

Then assure him that you have no intention of stealing his ride. That would be crass. But tell him approximately how many other rides with a similar worth you can find in the distance of a short walk. Now that he knows how much you stand to make by walking away from the table and doing something which carries an order of magnitude less risk and can be finished by sunup, have him explain to you again again why you should take his offered exciting opportunity to be perforated by high-velocity tungsten.

The money should come up, and/or perks that you can't get from a chop shop should be made available.



And re: the Mafia horning in on Shadowrunners who go into business as car thieves?

No. No they will not. Not more than, say, a token amount of like, 10% or so.

When ordinary car thieves piss off the mob, they can hire street gangers to go rough them up and make their point.
When Shadowrunners start freelancing and the mob feels annoyed, their options are basically to hire other, better runners - and much better runners if you want any kind of assurance it'll be done right the first time - to whack them all.

Shadowrunners are Dangerous People. If you try to horn in on them to the tune of 80% at threat of violence, you're backing them into a corner, and anyone who thinks that's a good position to put very dangerous people in would be well-advised to familiarize himself with the works of Sun-Tsu. Because if you put the squeeze on Runners like that, they're not going to pay you. They may:
Disappear, and plot revenge.
Come after you, personally, and then disappear if disappearance is an option.
Decide that you've got them basically dead to rights. This is the most dangerous option of all, because a small group of very dangerous people who have no fear of death (because they figure they're dead one way or another,) with the kind of skills Shadowrunners have, well, that's the kind of thing that can demolish an entire organization's leadership in the span of a few days before they get taken out.


And you want to be very wary of squeezing up-and-coming no-names, too. Sure, they might be exactly the up-and-coming newbies they look like. Or they could be a team of veteran Prime Runners who've moved to a new city/country with new identities for a new start.

The rewards for squeezing a Runner team gone freelance versus the risks are, quite simply, not worth it. You can probably ask them for a token amount to save face, which they'll agree to so as not to rock the boat, and everybody goes home happy. Or you can try to put their balls in a hydraulic press, and you'll have nobody but yourself to blame when your house soldiers are all dead, the alarms have been silenced before they went off, and they're burning through the door of your panic room with a thermal lance whilst chatting with you over the panic-room intercom, elaborating on the many means of dealing death they have at their disposal and soliciting your input on exactly how they should execute you.