Hi everyone.

As always, i'm glad of your quick and precises answers on all the questions that i had on the shadowrun universe. You really helped my in the past.

Actually i've got a team of shadowrunner on my hand and one of them(my longest player) is getting pretty good and doing pretty well. He's a street sammy with a little over 100 karma points and he just started putting some nuyens in a bank account for his old days. He's a kind of ex-rockstar who was betrayd badly by his fellow band member and he got revenge in my first chronicle. Now i intend to make him run trougth brainscan, Survival of the fittest and Wake of the comet(and i will adapt some run module in-between juste like mercurial).

In no time, this sammy is gonna have over than 200 karma and a lot of nuyens in his many banks accounts. I know he wants to gradually retire and keep a vigilant eye on Seattle shadows(to help the average Joe if he can). He actually wants to open a bar in the downtown section because he wants to run some legit buisness and maybe return to his first love(the music bizz). So it's a bar where he can put on some shows. The question his:

What is the cost of doing legit buisness? I mean open a bar, get all the permit, insurance and stuff? I don't actually need all the details just a general idea of price. I told my player that he couldn't do anything under 100 000 nuyens but i'm just no shure anymore. Maybe you got past experiences with legit buisness, bar, cornerstore, pornshop, garage?

My guess is that i will get just the right idea from you. So what do you say?

PS(As always, sorry for my limited english, that's not my primary langague)

The cost would be a lifestyle and possibly a job flaw to pay for it.

10,000 a month is not a bad start.

You might want to start gaining some skills related to managing a business and dealing with corp types.

It's definitely going to cost a legit ID that will stand up to very close scruitiny, a decent ett (corporate) set of rolls (to find a good location and set up contracts for deliveries of consumables, licensing, etc.), and, depending on the pub's location, a couple of ett (organized crime) rolls to make sure your business is approved of by the local capo.

If it's a front which is not designed to support itself, I'd try the lifestyle rules, assuming medium or better space, medium or better furnishings and entertainment, and luxury consumables. If the character is actually going to try to profit off the business, I'd have him pick up the KN skill "Restauarant/Bar Management" and make monthly checks against a variable TN (4-8, depending on how well the business is going, what the competition is like, how much time/karma/effort the player has put into making the place special) to determine a profit: say, successesx1000 nuyen per month.

Nice figures Joe.

They can do it like it's done now. Get a legit person to officially buy and run the bar.
It can be a contact of one of the guys, and he can actually run the place, like DeNiero's character in Casino. He was connected, but not really one of them. So he could get liquor licenses and gaming licenses etc, and can be paid a reasonable salary. Of course, as the PC's are the actual owners, he would be expected to skim a flat 10% off the top, cash and give it to the party. That should be a good bit of cash. I'd call it maybe 2% of their initial investment every week, cash, +/- a management roll from the guy running the place. The more you spend the better place you make and the more money you make.

As a GM, this gives you a great plot hook for whenever the PCs start looking too comfortable. Since all of the official docs say thier contact owns the bar, if they were to turn up dead, well it would all be his, wouldn't it?

Well, a bar is not the best example of a normal business, at it will need a liquor license, which can be hard or easy to get, depending on the area and who you know. If they plan to serve food they'll need some sort of food service license as well.

There are several ways to hold on to the bar reasonably facelessly. You could form a company in a juridiction that isn't too pick about records, hire a law firm to represent that company, then create a local company with the 'false front company' as the majority shareholder. (Or a much more complex web of ownership, if more money is involved). The profits from the bar (hahahaha, profits from a small bar) would go to the false front company (by way of its representative, the legal firm) and then to you.

I had a character who ran a specialty electronics shop in the UG...
Basically I bought a "facilty" package for the tools and stuff, got "protection" from the gangers, and paid lifestyle (which should have included the protection, but I talked the GM into keeping it seperate). I was open by appointment only, and charged for parts and labor (plus 15%). Probelm with the setup is that I was the one who provided tech for our party, and they didn't want to pay for my custom goodies in addition to my part DURING the run, so I told them I was going to stop going in with them. Since I was the guy with all the B&E skills, they didn't want that to happen. So they started keeping a share for a slush fund, and started paying for tech from there...but they fought tooth and nail, but my character was a little vital to them (quirky but neccesary).