Help - Search - Members - Calendar
Full Version: Fat Stacks of Cash
Dumpshock Forums > Discussion > Shadowrun
Pages: 1, 2
Gyro the Greek Sandwich Pirate
Awright, so I was just trying to figure out how much the average runner pulls in while working, keeping in mind that an 'average' runner is a rather mythical thing, but hoping to establish a baseline from which I can view how well a typical runner is doing compared to his peers.

I'm going to assume that Runner X has to spend about 5,000 nuyen a month on living. This is either through one fairly nice crash-pad or several not-so-great hidey-holes. We'll add 500-2,500 nuyen for sundry materials that are used up during the course of the month: bullets and what have you. Let's also say that your average runner tries to come out about 5,000-10,000 nuyen ahead every month to buy wiz new gear. Right now you're looking at runner that needs to pull in anywhere between 10,500-17,500 nuyen.gif a month.

You could go several ways with this. A runner could do a big job that month and get 20k. Jobs that pull in this much nuyen could easily take a month, I would think: getting your gear in place, planning, legwork and opportune moments could take this much time. Or, you could do a 5,000 nuyen job every week and come out nicely ahead.

How are my assumptions along this line of thought?
Kagetenshi
A lot. If Runner X is trying to maintain a Middle lifestyle for what they live in, I'd say a minimum expenditure would be ¥6,100 (Middle, Low, Squatter) for lifestyle. 20k for a month-long job is too low unless you're talking pure profit, in which case it's reasonableish but still low. At least with my group, jobs often end up costing ¥5k+ to complete; a month-long job I could see taking ¥20k and up just on expenses.

~J
Solstice
our jobs have been varying between 20-40k depending on the risk and how many NPCs we have to hire to fill the skill gaps.
Gyro the Greek Sandwich Pirate
Here's a follow-up question: Is the average pay per run 20k? How risky is the average job a runner takes?
Solstice
no the min for us is 20k. We were paid 40k for First Run. That is a pretty good gauge of what you should be paying/getting. Of course our team loses at least 1 Westwind per run.
Ancient History
Your average run usually involves the possibility of serious mental or bodily injury, plus jail time if caught, likely a messy and violent death if things go really bad.

Now, your exceptional run can leave you to die in a number of godsforsaken wastelands and unfun locales, have you infected or irradiated something nasty, eaten by one or more nasty critters, experimented on or tortured if you get captured...and, oh yes, the possibility of jail time if caught.

Magicians and deckers face the illustrious possibility of spending the rest of their (hopefully brief) lives as drooling spastics with lobotomies; provided their brain
doesn't melt out their ears or daemons from a netherworld consume their soul and life essence first.

In rare cases, use and abuse of a runner's body and soul may continue after death. But we don't like to talk about those runs.
Kagetenshi
Riggers suffer the same possibilities as Magicians and Deckers.

~J
Ol' Scratch
Check out the Shadowrun Companion pages 99-100. They give a good baseline you can use for determining how much to pay runners for various jobs. Bodyguarding work, for example, is 200¥/day whereas a bit of professional wetwork or smuggling will set the Johnson back at least 5,000¥. These fees are intended to be used as a starting point for newbie runners with no reputation and performing basic, run-of-the-mill jobs. They are not per-runner values (though I would recommend using them on a per-runner basis myself).

By the way, Gyro, have I ever mentioned how much I love your handle?
Gyro the Greek Sandwich Pirate
Haha, no, but thank you.

I have the Companion and scoped those starting fees and wanted to get everyone else's thoughts on what they've actually been using. Typically my runners do anywhere between 5k to 15k per job. For the scary stuff, it's 20k and up and up and up!

Scary stuff being something like, "We want you to find out why this Atlantean Foundation research post in the middle of nowhere has gone silent."

And now, why look, here comes a juggenaut... wobble.gif
Kagetenshi
Per job, or per runner per job?

~J
Gyro the Greek Sandwich Pirate
Per runner per job.

I'm not that mean.
Johnny Reb
Teh groups I run bring in about 1-10K per job, to split between them all. Some work is straight-up pro-bono They flit between Low and Middle lifestyle, with most of the time at Low. Windfalls hit now and again, giving them a month at high or a couple months at Middle, but then they wind up back in the dank Low again.

-- Johnny Reb

(Edit) They normally bring in one 'Run a month, two if really pressing for it.
Solstice
well when AV round cost $4000 per 10 you gotta pony up at least 20k per runner per job as long as the risk is there.
Ol' Scratch
Assuming you're in a game where they can get their hands on AV ammo on anything approaching a semi-regular basis. That Availability of 16/2 weeks tends to hurt. Well, unless you're an adept face. nyahnyah.gif Nevermind that it's only 800¥/10 rounds on the street, too.
Solstice
QUOTE (Doctor Funkenstein)
Assuming you're in a game where they can get their hands on AV ammo on anything approaching a semi-regular basis. That Availability of 16/2 weeks tends to hurt. Well, unless you're an adept face. nyahnyah.gif Nevermind that it's only 800¥/10 rounds on the street, too.

i thought is was 800 with a street index of 4?

Ol' Scratch
In which case it would be 3,200¥/10 rounds. Math isn't your strong point, I take it? But no, it's 200¥/10 rounds on the legal market and 800¥/10 on the streets.
Solstice
QUOTE (Doctor Funkenstein)
Math isn't your strong point, I take it?

No that would be my memory.

It's ok just score points where you can...I don't blame you.
Ol' Scratch
Eh?

QUOTE (Solstice)
well when AV round cost $4000 per 10...
QUOTE (Doctor Funkenstein)
...it's only 800¥/10 rounds on the street
QUOTE (Solstice)
i thought is was 800 with a street index of 4?
QUOTE (Doctor Funkenstein)
In which case it would be 3,200¥/10 rounds. Math isn't your strong point, I take it?
jezryaldar
My entry level runs paid around 20 - 30K for the group and were just that, more like milk runs.

From there, I started adding things up. ***Contact maintenance, SOTA, replacing guns and ammo, upgrading weapons, bribes ect *** If my players ever wanted to get ahold of upgarded ware, it was going to cost. Paying them 10K a month wasnt going to get them there. Since they had been fairly successful in their first 5 - 8 runs, didnt kill anyone and usually got in and out without being seen...

So, I decided that paying them well wasnt the problem since if I needed to rein them in... well it could be done easily enough by whatever mega they had tweaked bad enough.

After a few extraction style runs, they realized the benefits of looting the place while they were extracting someone.... ::chuckles:: Fencing the loot is starting to cause them problems... but that is another story...

I believe it comes down to the type of game you want to run and are comfortable with running.
DocMortand
I know I try to give out 10 - 30K per runner on my runners, depending on difficulty. So far, the max has been 50K per, but that was a fee to clear out a roach spirit hive. *evil grin* I throw nasty stuff, but I pay 'em well in karma and money.
lorthazar
Do what I do pay them the bare minimum to get with the average Lifestyle of the group., then put something there they can resell if they are smart. Learned this from one GM when we found an Ares MP Laser man the profit from sell that to the right people gave us all some HUGE upgrades.
Johnny Reb
I tend to keep the group running too fast to worry about looting issues. "Grab the guy's pistol and book!" is only an option when your own gun's lost, for example.

And I'll tell you why.

In one of my old playgroup's time, one fellow noted his GM loved to use monowire. He thought it odd when looknig at how much teh stuff cost, but, decided to work with it and got himself an empty spool.

Our next adventure, the target had a wall topped with monowire. My partner snipped the wire, then spooled it up. Then left. The spool was worth ten times what the run itself was.

Oops.
BitBasher
QUOTE
Our next adventure, the target had a wall topped with monowire. My partner snipped the wire, then spooled it up. Then left. The spool was worth ten times what the run itself was.
Which is why 99% of the time no sane GM uses monowire that way, I mean 3k a meter, jeez! wink.gif
Voran
Depends too I guess on the mix of your characters. Even with cash for karma kinda stuff, if you give a group too little cash, the rigger/decker/samurai will be able to buy 1 new piece of gear every year or so? nyahnyah.gif Lord forbid they have to make any repairs or goto the hospital.

Regardless of money my char gets per run, if feasible I augment it with looting. Think we had a thread/poll on Looting several months back. Anyway, lifting guns/cyberdecks/etc adds up.

For the security concerned, invest in a shielded case to dump loot in, just in case they've got trackers or something. Then the next time you open it up, make sure you're in another shielded room. Etc.
DrJest
The theoretical bread-and-butter run normally nets my runners around 5k per person. An example of that would be... oh, the first chapter of the Harlequin mini-campaign, a little B&E into a not overly defended building.

If I'm planning to sucker them, then they will find some other source of renumeration during the run. What was that run with the Shadows rock band (I so could not take that name seriously - kept cracking Hank Marvin jokes), you get offered a high fee because you're being set up, but you eventually get paid by the band themselves. Or as someone mentioned above, some piece of expensive kit that you can fence off - I still recall nicking (as a player this time) some corp exec's prize personal helicopter to make our escape with after a nasty ambush, we fenced that thing for close on to a million nuyen (I still remember the look on the GM's face - "Uh-huh, well you've no rigger so which of you can actually fly a chopper?" "That would be me," said the mage. Turns out the GM had only skimmed the characters for the high points, and missed that some of the mage's time as a merc in the Yucatan had been spent flying relief choppers).
Johnny Reb
QUOTE (BitBasher)
QUOTE
Our next adventure, the target had a wall topped with monowire. My partner snipped the wire, then spooled it up. Then left. The spool was worth ten times what the run itself was.
Which is why 99% of the time no sane GM uses monowire that way, I mean 3k a meter, jeez! wink.gif

Yeah, and the spool holds, what? A thousand meters?

Somebody was ready to retire reeeeal quick. smile.gif
Toxic_Waste
QUOTE (Doctor Funkenstein @ Nov 28 2004, 07:32 PM)
Check out the Shadowrun Companion pages 99-100.  They give a good baseline you can use for determining how much to pay runners for various jobs.  Bodyguarding work, for example, is 200¥/day whereas a bit of professional wetwork or smuggling will set the Johnson back at least 5,000¥.  These fees are intended to be used as a starting point for newbie runners with no reputation and performing basic, run-of-the-mill jobs.  They are not per-runner values (though I would recommend using them on a per-runner basis myself).

And well you should.

Now let's see... I'm a shadowrunner. I have a lifestyle to maintain, some savings to put aside, ammo to spend and cars to get blown up by angry people with bigger guns than mine. I also have many holes in my body occasionaly, which require much spending of nuyen. Yes, magic users (of all types) and sammies (of all types), as well as deckers and riggers (less likely), cost a ton of cash to heal properly. Not doing so triggers that fun "there goes my essence" side effects, always oh so welcome by the magical/cyber community.

[edit]Congratulations to you, Mr "I have a samurai and have never been shot because I'm a good roleplayer/tactician", we do not share your Sun Tzu like brain or limp wristed GM.[/edit]

I would also like to move up in the world, which means getting better weapons, foci, programs/decks and vehicles. And hopefully a better lifestyle than being joe average. The better lifestyle would also account for new hidey holes and weapons stashes, places to do ritual magical on and so forth.

And for all this, Shadowrun Companion recommends runners be paid nuyen.gif 5000. For the whole team. What happens when I become a "professional" shadowrunner, I get a gold watch??

Somebody get me a calculator, I'm gonna get a job as an accountant! dead.gif
Crusher Bob
Just start car jacking people and selling them and their cars for parts. If you are luck you can find a whole carpool on their way to work.

The problem has always been that there are a lot of 'normal' criminal jobs that someone of the runners skill could do, so runs (which are much riskier) should pay oodles more cash. Otherwise, why quit your day job?
Toxic_Waste
QUOTE (Crusher Bob)
Just start car jacking people and selling them and their cars for parts. If you are luck you can find a whole carpool on their way to work.

The problem has always been that there are a lot of 'normal' criminal jobs that someone of the runners skill could do, so runs (which are much riskier) should pay oodles more cash. Otherwise, why quit your day job?

30% of base value, minus/plus whatever you can negotiate. And, IF you can find a fancy set of wheels, they all seem to have enough gadgets to take a ant nest. And not the garden variety one.

Why indeed? Why be a runner when being a common criminal nets you almost as much nuyen with 10% of the hassle? No cyberzombies, no ant farms, no dragons.. just good 'ol Lonestar. And organized crime, if you're not already working for them to begin with.
Kagetenshi
If you're playing a Rigger, odds are you have Connected already. The extra two build points are some of the best you can spend.

Either way, 30% of 18k is still ¥5,400.

~J
Toxic_Waste
QUOTE (Kagetenshi)
If you're playing a Rigger, odds are you have Connected already. The extra two build points are some of the best you can spend.

Either way, 30% of 18k is still ¥5,400.

~J

I don't think chop shops are too interested in Ford Americars, and spotting high end models is a full time job, plus finding the right time to nick it. Unless you have an all singin' all dancin' car jacking team. In which case it's not Shadowrun, it's Gone in 60 seconds.

Not to mention Electronics 6 won't get you very far in breaking down those damn in built alarms.
Crusher Bob
Chop shops are after ford americars. They chop the car up for parts and sell them to crooked mechanics. Since most everyone drives and Americar, the demand for parts is high. Stealing 'one of a kind' sprots cars is not worth a whole lot as the chop shop can't move the parts, who are they going to sell them to?

Sure, you can lift luxury sedans like BMWs and Mercedes for more money, but there are plenty of them on the road.

Yes, we are discussing the all singing all dancing car jacking team, since this is a 'point' about how runnig is not worth it, using the canon payment amounts. A runner team that turns to car jacking can make plenty more money (and safer) than running.

Which would your team rather do, nicking an Americar for 5,400 Y that is 15 min work for the team, or a 5,000 Y run that might result in shooting, hospital time, etc?
Ol' Scratch
I'm a little lost. Where are you coming up with 30% figure? Selling a vehicle is like anything else; you get 50% of the legal value normally, or 50% (or 100% depending on your reading) of the Street Index value if you have the appropriate Connected Edge.
Kagetenshi
I'm pretty sure fencing the loot brings in a base of 30% before Connected. Although it is often sanity-ruled to 50%-80%, a strict reading of Connected would be 100% of Street Index value or legal value if SI is less than one.

~J
Toxic_Waste
Coulda sworn it was 30% (up to a maximum of 50%) for fencing stolen goods
Ol' Scratch
Ah, interesting. I just glanced over the Fencing the Loot section of SR3 and you're right. I guess I had the "the price will not rise above 50%" bit from the Negotiations portion stuck in my head.
Toxic_Waste
QUOTE (Crusher Bob @ Nov 29 2004, 01:54 PM)
Chop shops are after ford americars.  They chop the car up for parts and sell them to crooked mechanics.  Since most everyone drives and Americar, the demand for parts is high.  Stealing 'one of a kind' sprots cars is not worth a whole lot as the chop shop can't move the parts, who are they going to sell them to?

Sure, you can lift luxury sedans like BMWs and Mercedes for more money, but there are plenty of them on the road.

Yes, we are discussing the all singing all dancing car jacking team, since this is a 'point' about how runnig is not worth it, using the canon payment amounts.  A runner team that turns to car jacking can make plenty more money (and safer) than running.

Which would your team rather do, nicking an Americar for 5,400 Y that is 15 min work for the team, or a 5,000 Y run that might result in shooting, hospital time, etc?

Well, they can just say "no thanks, we've got americars coming out of our @$$". It's a buyer's market in gangstaland.

Not that I'm disagreeing with your point, mind you. I do feel that shadowrunners are horribly underpaid. A shadowrunner is, from a financial and professional perspective, one step above a criminal. So they should be paid more. On the other hand, you have a 5 runner team earning 100K total. How can you justify a mid management bloke shelling 100K to have his boss offed or to find his missing daughter? It's not exactly peanuts.

And if it's upper management hiring, then odds are you're not on amateur hour anymore, and threat level/payment should be adjusted. There just seems to be a automatic job/cash mismatch for non professional runners. They should be madly underpayed or overpayed.
BitBasher
Well, In my games pay is not typically lacking. newbie shadowrunners can take jobs from 3-15k each and availability is iffy, every few weeks, but that's a break in period.

If they show themselves reliable they start to run in different circles and they become a commodity. depending on their track record, assuming it's good, they end up with 15-40k each per job because they are in demand. They can take jobs as often as they want/need/can, because there's often more work for good reliable SR's than there are good, reliable SR's. They usually have a working relationship with a handfull of trusted johnsons by then. The difficulty level of runs is professional. Amateurs would get eaten alive now.

There's a lot of asshat SR's and wannabees which makes the real talent more valuable.

High end runs with a rock solid ironclad team with 150-200+ karma undir their belt can earn 50k-200k each per job. But almost noone gets that high. There's a good attrirtion ratio due to the "oh shit" factor. By now the team usually works exclusively for a single johnson or broker, almost like an agent. The agent makes enough money off them and vice versa. At this point corps are usually coming to the johnson looking for the team by reputation because they know the team can pull off things that others can't. The difficulty is ramped up significantly.
jezryaldar
QUOTE (Toxic_Waste)
[QUOTE=Crusher Bob,Nov 29 2004, 01:54 PM] Chop shops are after ford americars.  They chop the car up for parts and sell them to crooked mechanics.  Since most everyone drives and Americar, the demand for parts is high.  Stealing 'one of a kind' sprots cars is not worth a whole lot as the chop shop can't move the parts, who are they going to sell them to?

Sure, you can lift luxury sedans like BMWs and Mercedes for more money, but there are plenty of them on the road.

Yes, we are discussing the all singing all dancing car jacking team, since this is a 'point' about how runnig is not worth it, using the canon payment amounts.  A runner team that turns to car jacking can make plenty more money (and safer) than running.

Which would your team rather do, nicking an Americar for 5,400 Y that is 15 min work for the team, or a 5,000 Y run that might result in shooting, hospital time, etc? [/QUOTE]
Well, they can just say "no thanks, we've got americars coming out of our @$$". It's a buyer's market in gangstaland.

Not that I'm disagreeing with your point, mind you. I do feel that shadowrunners are horribly underpaid. A shadowrunner is, from a financial and professional perspective, one step above a criminal. So they should be paid more. On the other hand, you have a 5 runner team earning 100K total. How can you justify a mid management bloke shelling 100K to have his boss offed or to find his missing daughter? It's not exactly peanuts.

And if it's upper management hiring, then odds are you're not on amateur hour anymore, and threat level/payment should be adjusted. There just seems to be a automatic job/cash mismatch for non professional runners. They should be madly underpayed or overpayed.

[QUOTE]Which would your team rather do, nicking an Americar for 5,400 Y that is 15 min work for the team, or a 5,000 Y run that might result in shooting, hospital time, etc? [/QUOTE][/QUOTE]

Now that I have stopped laughing, this is something we continue to go thru. You want us to steal the super top secret stuff, but we are getting a whole 50K for it? Yea right.... Or sure well extract that engineer for a big 40K. But you bet I am taking the 200K worth of stuff this guy has and that is MINE!

[QUOTE]Not that I'm disagreeing with your point, mind you. I do feel that shadowrunners are horribly underpaid. A shadowrunner is, from a financial and professional perspective, one step above a criminal. So they should be paid more. On the other hand, you have a 5 runner team earning 100K total. How can you justify a mid management bloke shelling 100K to have his boss offed or to find his missing daughter? It's not exactly peanuts.[/QUOTE]

That is why those middle management folks turn into contacts and feed the players information in return for their services. Also, figure what would the real threat rating being for whomever that middle manager is hiring for (be it daughter disappeared or issues at work)

I believe someone pointed out that the companion was guilde line to be adjusted upwards.

So, yes, in the upper levels the players are getting a bit more, however now the company might be paying them in services (free medical.. don't mind that cortex bomb), stock (yes sir, even though that last run was designed for me to screw over someone in the same company and I made money shorting the stock), equipment (don't mind those nifty new tracking devices), or my favorite, here is double in corp scrip... spend away.

Seriously, it is how your game and your players have fun. I have one guy who REALLY likes scraping together enough cash to eat. And I have another who if he isn't making 50K a month, he cant figure out what he is doing wrong...

Kagetenshi
Another problem is the convenient fiction that everyone on the team would get paid the same. Hermetic mages, deckers, and riggers probably would command higher pay on most runs than their counterparts, simply because the job they do is extremely expensive and, in the latter two cases, requires specialized knowledge. By the same token, on a job in which physical security is high but countermeasures for deckers, riggers, magic, etc. is negligible, the streetsam or whoever is actually physically entering the place would probably take more than their usual cut. If a job pays 100k and there are five runners, it's damned unlikely that everyone gets 20k minus expenses. To some degree, it doesn't even make sense that the team exists as a cohesive entity, certainly not as cohesive as in some games. A Johnson hiring five independent runners, some of whom may have worked together before, would be more reasonable; so would a Johnson hiring a single runner for the job at that price and leaving the subcontracting up to the hire.

~J
Toxic_Waste
QUOTE
Now that I have stopped laughing, this is something we continue to go thru. You want us to steal the super top secret stuff, but we are getting a whole 50K for it? Yea right.... Or sure well extract that engineer for a big 40K. But you bet I am taking the 200K worth of stuff this guy has and that is MINE!


I'm getting diablo flashbacks... Plunder the corpses! Seriously though, what are you going to do? Threaten to cut off his fingers if he doesn't transfer his whole bank account to you? Got a bank account setup in the Bahamas? Or are you going to transfer it directly into your friendly Ares bank account?

Or just plain steal his furniture? Doubt it's worth 200K though nyahnyah.gif

QUOTE
That is why those middle management folks turn into contacts and feed the players information in return for their services. Also, figure what would the real threat rating being for whomever that middle manager is hiring for (be it daughter disappeared or issues at work)


Well, when most people hire you for a job they hire you for a job, not to be their lifelong snitch. However, with enough negociation, threats to drop the job and a waving of all fees... it might work, yes.

QUOTE
I believe someone pointed out that the companion was guilde line to be adjusted upwards.


House rules work... but usually in your house wink.gif

QUOTE
So, yes, in the upper levels the players are getting a bit more, however now the company might be paying them in services (free medical.. don't mind that cortex bomb), stock (yes sir, even though that last run was designed for me to screw over someone in the same company and I made money shorting the stock), equipment (don't mind those nifty new tracking devices), or my favorite, here is double in corp scrip... spend away.


Those are acceptable options, yes... for those who don't have any other option. Which brings us back to the whole "gimme money to buy cool and safe stuff" issue.

QUOTE
Seriously, it is how your game and your players have fun. I have one guy who REALLY likes scraping together enough cash to eat. And I have another who if he isn't making 50K a month, he cant figure out what he is doing wrong...


Well then you've got a serious player problem to contend with spin.gif
Johnny Reb
So, I guess that I'm the only one playing in teh low-pay regions, then?

Huh.

Have to do something about that...

-- Johnny Reb
lorthazar
Hey, I got an Ork running the same sections man. Running is what he does to bridge the gap so he can live a middle lifestyle. Owning a bar, running a house, and producing simporn just ain't cutting it especially when you hand over 80% of the gross to the mob for protection.
Rev
"On the other hand, you have a 5 runner team earning 100K total. How can you justify a mid management bloke shelling 100K to have his boss offed or to find his missing daughter?"

Heh, you can't. It's an unbeleivable shadowrun. Should not exist in that simple form.

Either the guy is fairly certain his daughter is in some horrible situation that only shadowrunners can get her out of and is willing to max out his credit and spend the next ten years paying it off or end up in debtors prison (meaning that the runners should be provided with knowledge of whatever horrible thing has happened to her, not a bare "find this woman") or he ought to be hiring a private detective (which could be one shadowrunner) for up to a couple kY instead who will actually deliver her if he finds her in a morgue or having recently inserted a new BTL at some flop house but will just come back to him and report while expecting payment if it turns out she is probably about to be dissected inside the aztech pyramid and maybe offer him a price to actually try to go get her that is on the order of 100kY (quite possibly researching exactly what he is able to pay, but that's more the fixers department really).

Similarly if you are offing his boss for 100k the boss-removal has to be worth a lot more than 100k to him, and the boss has to be very difficult to kill. If either of those conditions are false the run is unbeleivable.

If it is a few days low risk work and half a clip of ammo a few kY for the job is appropriate, but if it turns out to be way harder the correct response from the players is to call up thier fixer and tell him they aren't going to do it unless they get a lot more money and this should not reduce either thier reputation or thier karma award (though the fixers rep could take a hit). In fact they should keep the advance money as well.

It is ok if sometimes that cheap job turns out to be a hard one, or sometimes that expensive job turns out to be easy, but if every run is unbelievable nobody will be able to roleplay well. Also there needs to be a reason to stay on the hard job despite the insufficient pay. Do gooding, favor repaying, loot opportunities, inability to escape something that prevents them all from deciding to simply go home other than that the game is over if they do so, they will get less karma, or that their fixer will be angry that they won't fulfill the fifth contract in a row on which he has screwed them.

The only way you get a run that is fairly easy for a lot of money is when a lot of trust in the shadowrunners is required and the johnson has to up the pay to prevent them from selling him out in some way. So if Mr Johnson wants you to steal 1MY worth of gold bullion because he happens to know when a lightly guarded shipment is occurring you ought to get a reasonable share. For Mr Johnson to even consider you for that job he ought to be very confident in your reputation.
Kagetenshi
QUOTE (Rev @ Nov 29 2004, 07:33 PM)
but if it turns out to be way harder the correct response from the players is to call up thier fixer and tell him they aren't going to do it unless they get a lot more money and this should not reduce either thier reputation or thier karma award (though the fixers rep could take a hit).  In fact they should keep the advance money as well.

I call bull on your across-the-board assertion that it wouldn't hit their rep. In a perfect world, you're right, it's a situation that isn't the runners' faults. However, a lot of variables including having less of a rep than the person you're working for, having a history of doing this, etc. etc. etc. can and should all result in a nasty if undeserved hit to the runners' reps.

Karma should take a hit, but only insofar as they only get karma awards for what they've done rather than for the whole run. I wouldn't dock already-earned karma based on that alone, certainly, and genuinely realizing when something is too hard is often worth a point or two.

~J
BitBasher
QUOTE (Kagetenshi)
QUOTE (Rev @ Nov 29 2004, 07:33 PM)
but if it turns out to be way harder the correct response from the players is to call up thier fixer and tell him they aren't going to do it unless they get a lot more money and this should not reduce either thier reputation or thier karma award (though the fixers rep could take a hit).  In fact they should keep the advance money as well.

I call bull on your across-the-board assertion that it wouldn't hit their rep. In a perfect world, you're right, it's a situation that isn't the runners' faults. However, a lot of variables including having less of a rep than the person you're working for, having a history of doing this, etc. etc. etc. can and should all result in a nasty if undeserved hit to the runners' reps.

Karma should take a hit, but only insofar as they only get karma awards for what they've done rather than for the whole run. I wouldn't dock already-earned karma based on that alone, certainly, and genuinely realizing when something is too hard is often worth a point or two.

~J

I concur.
Fortune
I don't see why runners should automatically take a reputation hit for turning down a job offer. In some instances this might be the case, but in some instances it might be just the opposite.
BitBasher
QUOTE (Fortune)
I don't see why runners should automatically take a reputation hit for turning down a job offer. In some instances this might be the case, but in some instances it might be just the opposite.

I don't think the hit should be automatic, but I think the chance should be there depending on circumstances and the color of the johnson's shorts.

Let's face it, the rumor mill is a wierd thing. It's possible to take a reputation hit for walking your doggie.
Rev
Good point. I meant more that they shouldn't automatically have thier rep decreased for failing to do something stupid.

Sometimes backing out of a stupid job would increase your rep (because it makes you look smart, others want to work with you knowing you wont soldier on and get everyone killed), sometimes it would decrease it (unfairly, but thats life).

Your fixer may well be a lot more angry/frightened if he gives you a 2ky job and you end up assassinating a slumming tir princess than if you came back and demanded 20k to kill this far more important than expected person. If he thought it was just a random person he may not want to take 10kY worth of heat for 1kY of profit.
Kagetenshi
QUOTE (Fortune @ Nov 29 2004, 08:15 PM)
I don't see why runners should automatically take a reputation hit for turning down a job offer. In some instances this might be the case, but in some instances it might be just the opposite.

For the most part they wouldn't unless they owe the fixer something or they do it enough to get reputations as prima donnas. Mostly it would be for backing out of a job they already accepted that debatably was more than advertised at the meet (or even clearly was, depending on circumstances).

~J
This is a "lo-fi" version of our main content. To view the full version with more information, formatting and images, please click here.
Dumpshock Forums © 2001-2012