I know this question's been asked a hundred times on Dumpshock, but I'm curious regardless.

I'm just wondering how many people aim for "street" campaigns (where characters are glorified thugs who basically work for beer money) versus grandiose 'heist-movie' campaigns, where days or even weeks of planning go into each job and the payout is a king's ransom.

For relative beginners (even though I gave them extra Karma and build points at chargen) I like to keep it cheap.

bah ,... I hit the wrong button.... most runs that we took were 25-50K plus or minus some for perks. if the johnson was a company man, we often tried to get cutting edge tech, like any runner.

I'm starting off fairly slow in the payrange, but with a catch.

With enough cleverness and contacts, my runners can get paid more than once for a job.

Say they needed to clear a squatter building of gang members (say a corp wants to knock it down, but the owner of the building is refusing to sell because he's getting kickbacks from the gang, more than he would get with legit rent).

You could probably get yourself paid by another gang to take out their rivals, and get paid by the locals for getting rid of the gang that's terrorizing them, plus get a few bounties for the more prominent gang members who are wanted by lonestar.

You'd need the appropriate gang contact to get paid by the other gang, a local street doc would probably have the pull to get a collection going from the other residents to pay you for getting around the gang, and a lonestar (or bounty hunter) contact to get paid the bounties (I don't think shadowrunners want to register with lonestar).

So the Johnson may only pay 1.5k per person, but you could probably get another 3-4k per person with enough legwork.

I don't run any games, but in the two I play in we've been getting... I'd say about 10,000-25,000 and 25,000-50,000 each, lately. (and in the latter, if we survive Bug City, I see our prices going up - one mission we've had, I probably spent several thousand in ammo alone...)

that much? really? my standard price for small-time jobs for competent runners is 10k--quick jobs that don't really require any planning. for low-end runners doing street work, i probably wouldn't pay out more than 5k per run, total. i mean, that's over a thousand bucks per runner; if you're on the street, that's a nice chunk of change.

basically, for average runners, i pay each runner one month's Medium lifestyle per run. average runners living High lifestyles should be, i feel, living a bit beyond their means; they have to work a bit harder to maintain their lifestyle and keep up their gear. for low-end runners, i pay the entire team a month's low lifestyle. they should, i feel, have to scramble pretty hard just to keep their heads above water; gear upkeep is a bonus. that, to me, is the best way to maintain the feel of 'average' and 'street-level' campaigns.

doh! reading would help.

those types of runs are low pay... like 1K.... the average run that I have done was basically some kind of corporate raid, with alot of payout. (hiring gangs to be a distraction, new toys, after expenses we only pulled about 10K) I have not done many of those. I usually try and play someone a little more professional than thugish. I am a poor roleplayer. I can only basically play myself with different powers/abilities.

Slump: Been taking Lessons, have you?

ah, okay. believe me, i'm not questioning high pay for tough runs. we got 250k per runner on one particularly memorable run. unfortunately, it was just as ridiculous as it sounds, and was memorable for all the wrong reasons.

That's a story worth reading, I bet.

no. not really.

I voted for 10-50k but that’s more of the inter quartile range.

We took the bounty on a blood mage once and after costs that was 250k each.

The current run is involving over a months preparation and not going to earn us a cent (of cause this is probably our fault for not killing the blood mage when we had the chance)

Most of my characters wont be moved for less than 20k (or non nuyen motivations). I could write a character that would but I would have to know in advance. My current character has fixed monthly expenses over 12k and magical research to fund.

Of cause we typically take runs where the slightest slip in execution would be fatal

These low end games are all very well and good but you better tell me what to expect before I create my character. Banks pay 5% interest per anem (give or take) if you have a miniln nuyen of assets allocated to running the shadows you should expect to make more than if it was in a bank that’s nearly 5k per month. Further if you are playing a rigger 700k in vehicles and drones is not unusual that’s 7K in monthly upkeep and you need to pay the rent on the place your keeping them.

Edward

Technically the Runners in the game I run aren't making any money at all anymore. Actually, they stopped being paid for individual runs something like the third run in, and despite taking on some truly impressively priced runs (including one which paid 4 million nuyen, the 1 million advance of which they spent beforehand on the equipment they needed to survive the mission itself), only one of the characters has ended up with more than 100K in the bank at any time. this is mostly due to the nonstandard nature of the campaign, and the fact that it's less street level and more stratosphere level (and about to kick it into orbital).

For a more down-to-earth game, I'd feel comfortable handing out around 5-10K per runner per run, with prices rising as the team survives and makes a name for themselves, or falling as they screw up and get their employers pissed at them. Occasional windfalls of 500K+ just to let the team go on a shopping spree and buy all the toys they want, 'cause there's nothing like the look on a player's face when you describe their brand-new 3 million Nuyen van/cleverly disguised shadowrunner tank exploding because some idiot left the back door open while a missile launcher was being aimed at it. (ah, the beautiful memories!)

It all depends on what style the group likes to play with.

So you gonna keep teasing us or do we get the dirty deets?

So kage, just how much of a van/tank can you build with 3 million Nuyen?

Remember, proactive target aquisition is a 1.5 multiplier on coolness factor.

Probably just keep teasing. It really was kind of an emberassing job.

I'm going to have to do more work to get the full effect, but the vehicle I was talking about is posted below, slightly tweaked.


Since we've got so much cash to work with and you're looking for proactivity, let's retool this a bit.


In a more comprehensive design some of these might be aftermarket additions instead of part of the basic vehicle design—I'm not certain, though, as it's definitely a nasty military-grade black ops vehicle. Either way, this is a taste—I may do a complete redesign with a ¥3,000,000 budget if I get the time.

~J

Ala Grosse Pointe Blank...Poodle puncher, hound hitter?

Actually, in terms of pure offensive power they're identical. The second design is just autonomous and nearly invisible to sensors.

Edit: I take that back, I forgot about Structural Agility. That +3 to the Reaction of any controlling Rigger is nasty.

~J

As Far as I'm concerned any run that doesn't pay at least 100K is not worth doing.
Seriously. conceder what your risking, whats involved. 5K a pop to break federal law? I don't think so chummer. But then again we tend to play games where the reward is high, but so is the risk. (Dealing with dragons isn't always bad...) I know i've made the big times when we break the 1M a runner mark.
Though the best pay I ever got was the time We stole 2 T-birds from Boeing (sold one, kept the other.) Had to steal them... there availability is astronomically high.. cant start with them in creation...

...

What Critias said.

What Critias said, only an actual ellipsis rather than three periods stuck together.

~J