I just realized something odd ...

There are 3 published SRM adventures, one more ("A dark and stormy night") is already played at conventions.
As the adventures are supposed to be set about exactly 60 years in the future, so for example "FORCEd RECON" would take place in August 2064 if played now, that would mean that the lifestyle costs for SRM characters up till now are at least for 5 months, provided they started when SRM00-01 "Mission Briefing" was published.
With only 3 (or 4 at best) runs payed for, the lifestyle costs alone can lead some (or most ?) runners to bankruptcy.
Buying equipment, paying bribes (see "FORCEd RECON"), and stuff like that will just add to these costs.

My question: Are the SRM characters really supposed to pay for lifestyle costs during the introductory adventures (SRM00-X) or just as soon as the real campaign (SRM01-X) kicks off ?

actually no...there is a little misconception here...

the only times that correspond on a 1-for-1 basis are the years...the campaign and FanPro timeline is 60 years in the future. 2004 is 2064. after that, it is each player's concept of how time passes within that year.

players can opt to start doing shadowruns in January if they are so inclined...also, you only have to pay lifestyle fees for those times that you are actively doing something, whether that be adventuring, build/repair, healing, etc. if you are doing absolutely nothing, you don't have to pay lifestyle, upkeep, or anything else...

also, tracking lifestyle does not start until you start playing.

here is an example, hope it helps:


New character, Joe Runner, is created and played for the first time in March. The player decides he will go ahead and start Joe's career in March as well, on the first week (even though the convention he's playing at is on the 3rd week).

Since this is a new character that has "no past" up to this point, no lifestyle must be paid for Jan or Feb.

Joe has 3 months of prepaid lifestyle. Since he is starting his first mission in March, he subtracts one month, and now March is paid for.

After this mission, he has a Moderate wound, which will take a week to heal fully - the 2nd week of March, which is still paid for.

For the 3rd and 4th week, Joe, also a rigger, decides that based on his first run, he needs to add more armor to his vehicles, and the B/R time to do this is 2 weeks for his vehicle(s). This closes out March, which is still paid for.

Joe decides to relax and do nothing for April. Since he is doing ABSOLUTELY nothing, he doesn't have to pay anything - he still has 2 months of prepaid lifestyle.

Joe now decides to run a mission in May (the player is at a con in July, but he doesn't want to waste that much time). He must pay 1 more month of lifestyle costs, so he still has 1 month of prepaid lifestyle.

The player next plays 3 events at Gencon, and decides that Joe will run 2 more missions in May, but then Joe gets injured and needs a week to heal after the 2nd mission. This takes up three weeks (one for each mission, and one for healing) but all of it is paid for...

his last mission must carry over into June, so he uses up his last month of prepaid lifestyle...

with three weeks left in June, Joe must decide what to do - he should probably do at least one more shadowrun, and be careful not to get hurt, so that he can have enough money (he needs 10,000 nuyen) to maintain his standard of living for the next couple of missions...

if he doesn't do any more missions for the rest of the year, and doesn't do anything else - ie he is just hanging out, going to parties, living day to day, maybe doing milk runs to sustain himself - then he doesn't have to pay lifestyle costs.

when January 2005 hits, the game year resets to 2065 as well, and all players will be in "sync" again...

Ok, now I get it.
Considering SR Missions is meant for use at conventions, that concept makes actually more sense than my (mis)conception.
Thanks for clearing that up for me.

Just to make sure I understand it as well.

What ever time Joe Runner is active at a rp Session then the time will pass. If he only uses 3 weeks of his month does he still have week availible for the next run?

You've got it.

What if someone get badly injured at the end of the run. the time healing would still be deducted from the Lifestyle before the next run. If so the other characters would still have that time to there disposal

There the beauty of this concept comes into play.

Virtually there are no "other" characters in SR Missions to keep in sync to.
Every character uses a timeline of it's own.

So the wounded character would take his/her time to heal his wounds and would do his next run after this time. The "other" characters could have some free time during this healing period or, do some other (SR Missions) runs or - if their players choose so - do the next run (the run, that the formerly wounded characters take part in also) directly after the first one.

The characters are out of sync, but considering that SR Missions is not thought to be played with a constant set of players / characters, that pretty much is left unconsidered.

I like it ... wouldn't use that concept for my normal campaign, but SR Missions has proofed to be a nice diversion from that ...

So the time line is character specific. Not group. I like it even more now.

I really like the Yearly Log sheets for SRM characters. With one of these sheets in front of the player it is very easy to tell him how and when to pay lifestyle costs.

The player fills in the sheet one week at a time. A run is marked down as a week. 8 days in a street doc's basement office getting healed is marked down as a week. 5 days designing a spell is marked down as a week. If he succeeds in ordering a weapon from his fixer that'll take 20 days to deliver, he can either consume 3 weeks on his calendar and have it for his next adventure, or he can do the adventure knowing that it'll arrive 2 weeks after the adventure is done (maybe even while he's at the Street Doc's).

Every time he gets to the end of a Month on his Log Sheet, he has to pay for another month of lifestyle or mark off another month of prepaid lifestyle. It's wonderful.

Where are these year log sheets located? Pardon my asking as I don't want to spend lots of time looking for them. Besides any future readers of this thread would also know...

In the last pages of the player aids in each SRM pack.

we'll also be posting them on the main website, as soon as we get caught up...