[Shadowrun 4e] Money money money money......

[Kaun]

MONEY!

hehe sorry :smalltongue:

Ok down to my question;

Shadowrun risk vs reward.

How do you work out what Mr/Ms Johnson will be offering for a job and what they are willing to pay?

After rereading the section in the book it just seems like the money on offer is kind of low.

What other incentives do/have you offered?

How do you keep your players from loosing intrest in the job for what else can be stolen or salvaged?

[JMobius]

I'm somewhat curious about this is as well. I've seen Shadowrun billed as a game where players routinely risk their lives for less than a month's rent.

[TheCountAlucard]

How do you work out what Mr/Ms Johnson will be offering for a job and what they are willing to pay?One factor in it is who Mr. Johnson really is. Not every Johnson is a high-end corporate drone with vast reserves of nuyen to sink into these endeavors; in fact, most are the opposite. When we ran through The Denver Missions, most jobs were, in fact, paying on the "rather low" side.

I like one of the concepts that they used, though: "Table Rating," namely that characters with more Karma and experience would probably be recognized as such, and thus better-paid; on the flipside, though, the Johnson will probably also send them into much tougher situations.


After rereading the section in the book it just seems like the money on offer is kind of low.Well, there's a reason for that. Yes, the player characters are risking their lives just for the next month's rent, but they really don't have an alternative.

For one, the vast majority of the time, they're not even legal citizens; as people without SINs, they might as well not even be people, as far as the law is concerned. If you're not even authorized to ride a bus, chances are that even being the cashier at the Stuffer Shack is going to be out of your reach. And no matter how good your fake SIN is, chances are that eventually it's going to get caught, so you can't rely on that.

Plus, even the Johnsons that are rich corporate execs will often pay only just barely enough, to ensure that this particular 'runner isn't going to retire anytime soon. It's kind of a "company store" deal. If he's struggling to make rent, he probably won't turn down another job from you.

[Kaun]

For one, the vast majority of the time, they're not even legal citizens; as people without SINs, they might as well not even be people, as far as the law is concerned. If you're not even authorized to ride a bus, chances are that even being the cashier at the Stuffer Shack is going to be out of your reach. And no matter how good your fake SIN is, chances are that eventually it's going to get caught, so you can't rely on that.

I understand that and it makes sence, but if you are skilled enough or have rare tallents a lack on SIN is a very minor speed hump for a corp to get you into a more permanant position. Surely the benifits of working for a corp outways the risks of running for a living.

In saying that i can understand that there would all so be many runners who for various reasons dont want a permanant corp job, or are hidding out for some reason. Maybe they have been deemed as "to risky" for anything more permenant by the major players or the enjoy the thrill of running.... ehh i dont know where im going with this any more... need another coffee.

I all so realise the Johnsons will be working to a budget and will be rewarded for getting things done at minimal costs.

I think my main problem will be motivating my players to accept peanuts for risking life limb and incarceration.

I can see favours and info being good incentives to be used after a few sessions.

EDIT: man my posts are rambling messes these days.

[Seerow]

Well what do you consider making rent? What sort of lifestyles do your characters tend to sit in? Are they squatters/street lifestyles? If that's the case and you're only making one month's rent on a mission, I'd say you're probably getting gypped. But then again, shadowrun is all about your characters getting gypped... so it depends on the group, and how realistic your GM is running it.


My groups' average missions tend to be 5-10k per person, with the occasional mission where we get significantly above that (our most recent mission we got a 40k up front payment, with a larger payment supposedly due on completion, though the GM planned to screw us out of the mission complete money from the start).

[Swordguy]

You can't speak to the level of money being given out unless you are more forthcoming with the power level of the campaign. If you're in a "street punks with guns" game, then no amount is too low. Survival is its own reward. If you're in a "mirrorshades and spec-ops" game, then the amount will necessarily be higher.

Plus you have to account for the level of lifestyle people are gravitating towards. If everybody wants a luxury lifestyle...well...too bad. Go earn it. If you aren't making enough per month to keep up a low lifestyle without giving blood, then it's probably too low.

I've found the best compromise is to figure out what level lifestyle the group averages out at (usually low to medium, typically about 3500 nuyen per person per month) and give them enough, each, per month to pay for their lifestyle +25%. That's money from completing the guaranteed 1/month run ONLY (if the PCs do nothing else, they'll get 1 offer for a run per month from a Johnson). If they want more, then they have to either do legwork to generate more runs, or steal more data, or sell off loot from their runs, or whatever. Every 4-5th run gives double their lifestyle cost in rewards. None of this includes gear and paydata found during the run, mind...it's the Johnson's payoff at the end, and that's all.

I've found this progression (assuming the "standard" SR4 power level) lets players have enough money to work with, without making it so they can go buy Deltaware Wired Reflexes 8 out of their petty cash fund.



I also make it very clear in the campaign briefing that stealing a car to raise emergency money once in a while is OK, but insisting on being able to steal 50 cars a week for a steady income, regardless of RAW, will result in my leaving the game (and as I'm the GM and it's my house...). I'm here to play Shadowrun, not Gone in 60 Seconds.

[Ranos]

On average, 10-15K each a mission for our group, but we're new on the running scene. We do tend to finish our runs in less than a week, and we multitask a lot, so making rent is really not a problem. When we don't get screwed over by dragons, that is.

[Slade]

Delta ware Wired Reflexes 8 out of their petty cash fund.

DO WANT. NOW. GIMMIE. GIMMIE. GIMMIE. Wait... wouldn't the essence loss be like a 6 or something? Even with the Delta grade factored in?:smalltongue:

The rest of Swordguy's dialogue is good except....

I also make it very clear in the campaign briefing that stealing a car to raise emergency money once in a while is OK, but insisting on being able to steal 50 cars a week for a steady income, regardless of RAW, will result in my leaving the game (and as I'm the GM and it's my house...). I'm here to play Shadowrun, not Gone in 60 Seconds.

Is this really so bad? OK, 50 a week is a 'bit' much, but why JUST shadowrun? Why not be thieves? Hell we are already criminals, why not just go all out? See my dialogue below.

As for the OP, Seerow's numbers are pretty good. About 5k a head is a good number for your small jobs, 10k a head for the serious stuff, and epic stuff would be around 15k ~ 20k a head.


I understand that and it makes sense, but if you are skilled enough or have rare talents a lack on SIN is a very minor speed hump for a corp to get you into a more permanent position. Surely the benefits of working for a corp outweighs the risks of running for a living.

You, sir, have forgotten the world where the runners live in. Shadowrun is not a world with any meaningful labor laws in effect. That means 14+ hour work days, 0 safety regulations, 0 benefits for workers, commute times that are hell, horrible working conditions, and 0 freedom. Don't like it? Tough. Hit the bricks pal, its put up or shut up. Imagine this guy as your boss:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WCcKIkMp8Y

There are plenty of workers out there to fill your under appreciated shoes. If you want a real horror of what life would be like for these wage slaves, read "The Jungle" by Upton Sinclair. This is the book that got us our modern day USDA agency.

Now, as for those special skills you mentioned: Skillwires are cheap, and a level 4 skill soft, which cost the company NOTHING but the wages of the programmers (and see what a sham this is, below), can be uploaded at a moment's notice. In fact, the company can "sell" skillwires back to the workers, often times with high interest rates attached and automatically deducted from their weekly/monthly paychecks. Here is the TL;DR:
In game this should cost about 48,000 nuyen for a reasonable competent level of skill (4). Where it spread out like a real world vehicle payment, it would cost the worker 900 bucks a month or 225 bucks a week, and take 5 years to pay off. However, this is not the real world. Instead, they charge exorbitant fees and interest rate, to ensure what would take 5 years to pay off will instead, take 50, especially when you consider the "insurance plans" and "maintenance plans" that the company would force their employees to take whether or not they want it.
This is a grim statistic when you think about it like this:
Orks live for around 45 years. Considering they are 15 or so when they sign up, they get about 30 more and they start dying of old age. In short, the corp makes sure they never pay it off, and since they die with a debt, the Corp gets the body, takes back the cyberware, cleans it, and uses it again for the exact same scam. Since the corp cannot take back the cyberware from an Elf (who would live several hundred years) they will not hire elves for this kind of "work".
Other types of talents that are not skill based can probably get copied with cyberware or bioware. Which, too, would be used just like the above financing plans.

As for Corporate Citizenship,
in the case of the "benefits of corporate citizenship", that is actually a trap. The employer deducts from the workers monthly/weekly paychecks for the "privilege" of shopping for medicine at store that their employer already owns.
For buying a car at a car lot that the company owns.
For living in a house/apartment/condo that their employer already owns.
For buying their groceries and household goods at a store that their employer already owns, for stuff that was made by a plant/ factory that their employer already owns.
In short, the Corporations are paying their employees NOTHING but the ease of having all these conveniences piped to their place of residence.

All you have to do to sign up for this corporate slavery is to find yourself a SIN, sign it upon the line which is dotted, and forget ever having privacy ever again. Seen Demolition Man? That big red glowing RFID tag under his skin? Its that, only cranked up to OVER 9,000! On corporate soil, their is no such thing as privacy. To quote Dennis Leary from Demolition Man:
"Its what they want, when they want, how they want. Otherwise, you come down here and maybe starve to death."

Work for that? Please....


In saying that i can understand that there would all so be many runners who for various reasons don't want a permanent corp job, or are hiding out for some reason. Maybe they have been deemed as "to risky" for anything more permanent by the major players or the enjoy the thrill of running....

Sure, you get your adrenaline junkies that Shadowrun from time to time, but by and large, Shadowrunners are people that A) are fed up with perpetual legal slavery or B) are starving to death.

The deeming of "too risky employees" is complete non-sense, every corp uses leg breakers in their work. They are called corp-sec. With the advent of "Extra-territoriality" anything literally goes on Corp Soil, and there is NOTHING that anyone can do about outside the Corp. Even Doc Wagon is bound by this.


I also realize the Johnsons will be working to a budget and will be rewarded for getting things done at minimal costs.

Not so much that. Lets take a look at how this "Mr. Johnson" thing works:
There are no such things as "company Johnsons". When mega corp A needs to get something done, a young junior Executive (if the mission is not vital, meaning expendable) or asset manager (if the mission is important) or maybe even an Exec VP (if it is life or death) goes to a trusted (to the corp guy, at any rate) Fixer, who then arranges a meet with a separate Johnson. THAT Johnson then arranges a meet with the runner talent (i.e. the PC's). The mission(s) are then executed according to a time frame and other parameters, then once complete, the runners meet with the Johnson and get paid. Its when something goes wrong that it gets "complicated".
The reason for the complexity is simple.
The more layers of plausible deniability between Corp and Runner, the better. No one cares when a Shadowrunner breaks in a steals stuff (other than the target, of course). Its all part of the job, the environment these people live in. There are legal reasons as well, but its TL;DR.

If a Johnson can shave some numbers on the bottom line here or there, that's all well and good, but the ultimate guiding light, the reason for existence for Johnsons is SUCCESS.
How often do his people succeed on a mission?
How much collateral damage is inflicted by this team?
How much attention do they bring?
What is the body count on their missions?
Are they willing to kill? If so, how? With what? When? How messy?
Who do they associate with? High class people? Low class people? Yakuza? Mafia? Triads? Lonestar?
What is the teams ethnicity make up?
And so on, and so on, and so on. Corps would be willing to toss around millions, if it wasn't that they didn't want EVERYONE being a shadowrunner. So, they pay lite. When the mission is important, then they pay more, and etc.


I think my main problem will be motivating my players to accept peanuts for risking life limb and incarceration.

I can see favours and info being good incentives to be used after a few sessions.

If this is how your players think, they are missing the point of becoming Shadowrunners. People become Shadowrunners because they do not (or cannot) want to work for "THE MAN". Instead, they Shadowrun, for their pay, sure, bills gots to get paid, but for the high risk vs. high reward scenario. The runners should be looking for ways to make more money then just what the mission entails. Sure, the mission comes first, always and forever.

But why not loot in the process? Examples:
The PC's get into a shoot out with Lonestar. Assuming they win, why not take the cop car? And the cops? And all that juicy stuff in the car itself? From just one cop car, you get the car (30,000), two heavy pistols (~1400), two sets of armor (~1,000), a medkit (200 or so), various rounds of ammo, supplies, electronics, etc... God help them if there are 2 cop cars. Just double the numbers above.
For the more morbid of the runner teams, those 2 cops would make great organ legging loot, especially if they have any cyberware in them, and if there are 4 dead cops, hey, Runners gotta eat too, right? (Note this is not an excuse for cannibalism.)
Each runner mission should have plenty of ways to make money not just from the mission. Your players are going to have to think like a criminal (a D&D mindset might work here) and make it work.

Also, here is another option for your players to consider: who said they have to be given their work? Why wait for a job to come down the pipes? There are lots of opportunities for money to be made in the Shadowrun universe. Go steal a warehouse full of street drugs.
Rip off several attack helicopters.
Hijack trucks full of weapons, armor, drones, food supplies, Humanis Policlub members, etc...
You are a Shadowrunner, you have decided (or it was decided for you) that you are not going play by ANYONE's rules, the world must play by yours. Make your own destiny, and trample over anyone who would stop you for it. Just remember:
Shoot straight,
Conserve ammo,
and never, ever, deal with a dragon.

[Kaun]

what he said

Thanks Slade lot of good info.

I forgot about the working enviroment and the heavy implementation of droid labour and skill wire when i made the original post. I just started rereading unwired and that really hit that element home for me (i really dont think the core book hits on it enough.)

With regards to my players going into Shadowrun with the wrong attitude; I think its more of a case of them having their normal attitude with re to playing a pc and it will be a challenge for me to break that mentality.

I really have to get that "if your not at the top you are worthless" mentality accross about low level corp life. All so push the mentality that while it may not be called slavery it basicly is.

[Seerow]

Re: Slade's post, while I agree that a large chunk of the workforce in Shadowrun is that bad, the biggest thing in Shadowrun is that black and white difference between the haves and the have nots.

Corporate life for most may be a lifetime of paying off the skillwires that gave you the skills necessary to do your job, but even in that scenario it's not as bleak as you paint it. Yes, there is zero room for movement in that scenario, and you're working til you die paying it off, but those corporate benefits are still a lot nicer than living on the street squatting in some place out in the barrens with no SIN, wondering when the Ghouls are going to come for you.

On the other hand, that isn't -every- corporate worker out there. After all, someone has to be living the good life off all this money, right? It's not just the execs, though those are the ones really living the high life, there's a lot of people somewhere in the middle. The problem is getting there. With skills so cheap, working hard, getting an education/skill set, doesn't really help you break in. The higher paying jobs are all about creativity. They don't care if you have mechanics/engineering skill or not, they can get you that skill easily, what they want is for you to have the creativity to put that skill to use that will turn them more of a profit than sitting on a factory line. The second you are able to do that, you basically have it made in the 6th World.

[LibraryOgre]

Just had a thought I wanted to run by people.

In character creation, 1 build point = 5000 nuyen. Now, build points don't map precisely to karma, but might that not be a good guideline for how much a run should be worth? i.e. if the run is worth about 6 karma, you would want it to run about 30,000. Decide if that's per person or total (though I'd lean towards "per person", but I may be spoiled).

[Seerow]

Just had a thought I wanted to run by people.

In character creation, 1 build point = 5000 nuyen. Now, build points don't map precisely to karma, but might that not be a good guideline for how much a run should be worth? i.e. if the run is worth about 6 karma, you would want it to run about 30,000. Decide if that's per person or total (though I'd lean towards "per person", but I may be spoiled).

1 BP = ~2 karma in most cases. (At least that's the conversion we use for picking up qualities after character generation, and it seems to fit for everything that doesn't have a scaling cost, ie skills/Attributes) So a 6 karma mission is approximately 3 BP, or 15,000 nuyen.

[LibraryOgre]

There we go! It's a tight budget, and definitely winds up with more runners on the Middle than High lifestyles (even at making three times that, I had a hacker/rigger who was scraping to manage a High).

[Slade]

Thanks Slade lot of good info.

I forgot about the working enviroment and the heavy implementation of droid labour and skill wire when i made the original post. I just started rereading unwired and that really hit that element home for me (i really dont think the core book hits on it enough.)

I really have to get that "if your not at the top you are worthless" mentality across about low level corp life. All so push the mentality that while it may not be called slavery it basically is.

As for drone labor:
Remember, drones cost money, and lots of i,t even if the corp can some how make their own drones. All those raw materials have be dug up out of the ground (expense), refined (another expense), shipped overland or flown (another expense) to the factory or nano-forge (another expense), assembled into the final product (another expense) and then re-ship the goods to their final destination (another expense). Also, there are maintenance jockeys, security personnel, both matrix, physical, and astral, and management, all levels of this supply chain.

But people, as mentioned in my above post, are free (or nearly so). Their "pay" is simply folded back into the corporation, just at different levels of their lifestyle (rent, food, clothing, entertainment, etc...) so the Corp can recoup their costs. Drones don't do that.

That said, there are drones used at all levels of the corp; security, heavy labor, nano-manufacturing (i.e. stuff to big or to small for human workers), high risk areas, dangerous environments, etc... Drones shouldn't be nonexistent, but they shouldn't be 100% of the work force. I would think 20% (for small corps) to 60% (for the megas) would be a good "rule of thumb" to go by.


Re: Slade's post, while I agree that a large chunk of the workforce in Shadowrun is that bad, the biggest thing in Shadowrun is that black and white difference between the haves and the have nots.

Corporate life for most may be a lifetime of paying off the skillwires that gave you the skills necessary to do your job, but even in that scenario it's not as bleak as you paint it. Yes, there is zero room for movement in that scenario, and you're working til you die paying it off, but those corporate benefits are still a lot nicer than living on the street squatting in some place out in the barrens with no SIN, wondering when the Ghouls are going to come for you.

This is also true, and the megas PR machine has been working overtime to paint this exact picture. The spin machine downplays "virtual slavery" and upplays the "3 hots and a cot" mentality. You get security from the evil vagrants, a cozy roof over your head, a place to raise a family, etc... All you have to do sell your soul to the company store, I mean, live and work in our nice, secure, controlled facilities! (Did I say that out loud?)


On the other hand, that isn't -every- corporate worker out there. After all, someone has to be living the good life off all this money, right? It's not just the execs, though those are the ones really living the high life, there's a lot of people somewhere in the middle. The problem is getting there. With skills so cheap, working hard, getting an education/skill set, doesn't really help you break in. The higher paying jobs are all about creativity. They don't care if you have mechanics/engineering skill or not, they can get you that skill easily, what they want is for you to have the creativity to put that skill to use that will turn them more of a profit than sitting on a factory line. The second you are able to do that, you basically have it made in the 6th World.


Oh yes, someone has to be riding on all that wealth right? Other than the Board of Executives, the other big winner in this game is the shareholders. This is one area where being a stockholder in a megacorp is pretty sweet. Dividends being paid out is where its at, and the megas know this and use it as a powerful bargaining chip for its wage slaves.

Stock in 2072 is a huge advantage for the average joes. Too bad the megas keep such a tight lid on shares of stock.


1 BP = ~2 karma in most cases. (At least that's the conversion we use for picking up qualities after character generation, and it seems to fit for everything that doesn't have a scaling cost, ie skills/Attributes) So a 6 karma mission is approximately 3 BP, or 15,000 nuyen.

I can see this equation. Its not bad either.

[Seerow]

This is also true, and the megas PR machine has been working overtime to paint this exact picture. The spin machine downplays "virtual slavery" and upplays the "3 hots and a cot" mentality. You get security from the evil vagrants, a cozy roof over your head, a place to raise a family, etc... All you have to do sell your soul to the company store, I mean, live and work in our nice, secure, controlled facilities! (Did I say that out loud?)


I agree with what you're saying, my point is simply that to an average joe, that security and comfort for themselves and their family is worth effectively selling the soul to the corp. The shadows are a rough place, and average joe blow won't survive there for long. I'm sure if you go into the Barrens and set up a recruiting post, you will find hundreds of people eager to sell their meat bodies to a corp just to get out of that hell hole.

The shadow runner mentality is "I'm better than those schmucks, so I can play by my rules instead of theirs", and fact of the matter is most shadow runners tend towards the elites, the specialists, the people who actually can pull that off. Sure you get trash mixed in there occasionally, they never last long. I just think the distinction is important to keep in mind while playing, the majority of these people you're dealing with simply don't have the skill or drive to survive outside of that environment. It's a byproduct of the 6th world, and while the corps are largely to blame for it, it doesn't mean the people who choose to take shelter with the corps anyway are bad by default.

[Tehnar]

There is a metagame to consider as well. Some archetypes dont really depend on nuyen (much) for their progression (such as mages, technomancers...). Some depend a lot on generated nuyen (riggers, hackers, street sam).

Nuyen is easy to take away. You can even give big payouts per run, but have a lot of expenses that eat into their profit margin.

[Seerow]

There is a metagame to consider as well. Some archetypes dont really depend on nuyen (much) for their progression (such as mages, technomancers...). Some depend a lot on generated nuyen (riggers, hackers, street sam).

Nuyen is easy to take away. You can even give big payouts per run, but have a lot of expenses that eat into their profit margin.

Well, this is generally solved via loot. Riggers for example will get a lot of their effective money by looting. Steal that car for parts, steal those drones and adapt them to your own use, etc.

However, if you run a campaign where looting is discouraged, or at least not done to such a degree, one possible solution for this is allow the sale of karma. Say you introduce a ritual/metamagic that allows mages to drain life force/experience from a willing participant for things like bonding focii or initiating. This allows party members for whom money is significantly more important than karma to sell karma to get money for the stuff they need, and allows more karma starved character archetypes (typically magically active characters) to buy karma with their share of the mission money.

It may stretch suspension disbelief a bit, since you are bargaining for an abstract like karma, but if the price was put at the right level I could see it being an equalizer.

[comicshorse]

I generally find paying a lot ( though by that I mean 10-15 K for a reasonable mission) but then make sure they now the expenses the life they've chossen involves.
I'm talking about Street-Docs to patch them up, fake I.D.'s, back-up fake I.D's for emergencies, bribes to the local cops/street-gang, rent for the emergency safe-house, untraceable guns, fake plates for the vehicles,plastic surgery if they see you're face, etc. And that's before we get to the high life where you should be paying a Fixer a cut to launder your ill gotten gains so you don't leave a huge paper trail straight to you

[Slade]

I generally find paying a lot ( though by that I mean 10-15 K for a reasonable mission) but then make sure they now the expenses the life they've chossen involves.
I'm talking about Street-Docs to patch them up, fake I.D.'s, back-up fake I.D's for emergencies, bribes to the local cops/street-gang, rent for the emergency safe-house, untraceable guns, fake plates for the vehicles,plastic surgery if they see you're face, etc. And that's before we get to the high life where you should be paying a Fixer a cut to launder your ill gotten gains so you don't leave a huge paper trail straight to you

A good face can probably get stuff like that negotiated into the price of the run. The usual things like Street Doc fees, Fake ID and what not are probably good things to get added into the cost of the run. Good Johnson know a lot of people, and should at least be willing to get ahold of gear that are needed for the run.

[Kaun]

What are a best way for a runner to launder their money? How do you lot generally do your payment transactions between MJ and the team?

[Slade]

What are a best way for a runner to launder their money? How do you lot generally do your payment transactions between MJ and the team?

Exchange of money; good runners always ask for certified cred sticks. If this is not available, then hard-to-find gear is great alternative. And who do you intend to spend your money with? Low life style gang bangers? Then being paid in guns and ammo might be a good way to ingratiate yourself to your neighbors. That rating 6 SIN you have been after might be good to have too.

As for laundering money, well I guess it would depend on what money they want to launder.

"Honest made" Shadowrun money: This is what the PC's earn from Mr. J and any loot. Since they don't have SINs to worry about (pun not intended) they can load it up on a certified cred-stick and call it a day.

Problem is, finding a respectable establishment that takes cred sticks any more. The more shady operations do this as matter of course, but your Kroger's and Walmart type places (and their 2072 versions of course) don't do this.

As a rule of thumb, stores in a secure zone don't usually take Certified Credsticks. Now a Fake SIN and a more shady bank might be able to put money from a Cert Credstick onto a Fake SIN, but the instant that SIN is compromised, that money is gone (automated scripts in place not withstanding).

Another version of money is called corp scrip, basically hard money that is only good inside a corporation of who issued the scrip. If the runners are planning on doing a lot of business with, say Ares, they can choose to get paid in Ares corporate scrip. The usual risks are associated with this are too many to list and are a TL;DR note all in itself.

Fake & Stolen money: This is money that is in itself illegal. Much like counterfeit money today, the many numerous ways of making fake money are numerous but very hard to do (beyond the level of ability for most starting runners) BUT can be done. This then, is where you need to launder money. The "easiest way" to do this is to sell it to whichever crime family you can trust enough not to kill you for it.

Personal experience: My character (who was a mastermind Face) was able to negotiate a deal with the Triads (many, many hours of work went into making the Triad bosses real cool with us) and we gave them several thousands of nuyen that they made "real" and we got a 10% kickback for our effort (which was around 10k a month). So, yes, they got 90k a month FOR NO EFFORT on their part, but it did keep us on the Triad's "We really like to keep these fellas alive" books.
I guess any of the other Crime Syndicates and Families could do the same thing, for about the same amount of kick back. I would also think Mega Corps might be able to also, but since their money is legit, they would be taking much bigger risks in doing so.

Hope that helps.

[Science Officer]

There was a very excellent write-up some one made, that was posted on the Dumpshock forums. It estimated how much your average Mafia Capo, Corp Middle Manager, and several others would be able to pay out of hand, how much would be a serious amount of money for them, and how much they could pull up if they really had to. It was useful not only for figuring out how much to pay the runners, but also useful for seeing what they might be up against, what their enemies could afford to throw at them.

Good luck finding it, though.

[comicshorse]

A good face can probably get stuff like that negotiated into the price of the run. The usual things like Street Doc fees, Fake ID and what not are probably good things to get added into the cost of the run. Good Johnson know a lot of people, and should at least be willing to get ahold of gear that are needed for the run.


Yeah but you want your own as well. For the time when the Johnson screws you you want ID's and places to hide that he doesn't know about, that won't lead straight to you.
(not necassarily for him turning on you its entirely possible Runners enemies could squeeze him for this info to)


Regarding laundering money. This is generally only a problem if you want to use it with a legitimate SIN. For this you need somebody with a legitimate business who doesn't mind having you on the rolls. Organized crime is good for this, as are the Corporations (but I'd prefer to not to let them have that power over my P.C.)
My last character, a wolf shaman, as part of a run for the Genovese family that went very bad got a favour off them. He cashed this in and so he supported his lifestyle by a job as 'astral security consultant' at a mafia owned casino. Money earned by running went into their Hong Kong accounts and the casino payed it me back (minus 10%) as a legitimate wage. Hell I think he even payed tax on it
An idea from a previous game for a quick and dirty way to launder your cash was the 'King John Lottery'. Runners approach a Fixer in the know and pass him the sum they want cleaned. In return they are given a number when they play that on the Lottery, Lo and Behold they win that sum (minus 20%).

[Slade]

There was a very excellent write-up some one made, that was posted on the Dumpshock forums. It estimated how much your average Mafia Capo, Corp Middle Manager, and several others would be able to pay out of hand, how much would be a serious amount of money for them, and how much they could pull up if they really had to. It was useful not only for figuring out how much to pay the runners, but also useful for seeing what they might be up against, what their enemies could afford to throw at them.

THis sounds pretty awesome. Why not send us a...


Good luck finding it, though.

Crud.


Yeah but you want your own as well. For the time when the Johnson screws you you want ID's and places to hide that he doesn't know about, that won't lead straight to you. (not necassarily for him turning on you its entirely possible Runners enemies could squeeze him for this info to)

Good point. If all you do is work with one Johnson, its like working for a Corp all over again. Not good. Of course if this Johnson is legit (as in a level 5 loyalty friend) this might not be all bad.


Regarding laundering money. This is generally only a problem if you want to use it with a legitimate SIN. For this you need somebody with a legitimate business who doesn't mind having you on the rolls. Organized crime is good for this, as are the Corporations (but I'd prefer to not to let them have that power over my P.C.)
My last character, a wolf shaman, as part of a run for the Genovese family that went very bad got a favour off them. He cashed this in and so he supported his lifestyle by a job as 'astral security consultant' at a mafia owned casino. Money earned by running went into their Hong Kong accounts and the casino payed it me back (minus 10%) as a legitimate wage. Hell I think he even payed tax on it
An idea from a previous game for a quick and dirty way to launder your cash was the 'King John Lottery'. Runners approach a Fixer in the know and pass him the sum they want cleaned. In return they are given a number when they play that on the Lottery, Lo and Behold they win that sum (minus 20%).

Not a bad idea here. Never thought of the lottery either.

[Kaun]

I am reminded of Charles Stross's book "Halting State" (good read if you like shadowrun style sci fi - the magic side.)

The possibility of laundering money through mmorgps.

Take 10k "dirty money" and buy 1mill game gold.

Sell game gold get similar amount "clean money"

Seriously tho if you are a Shadowrun fan or MMO fan give Halting State a read.

[Slade]

I am reminded of Charles Stross's book "Halting State" (good read if you like shadowrun style sci fi - the magic side.)

The possibility of laundering money through mmorgps.

Take 10k "dirty money" and buy 1mill game gold.

Sell game gold get similar amount "clean money"

Seriously tho if you are a Shadowrun fan or MMO fan give Halting State a read.

Consider it done.
Mmos for laundering money? Why didn't it think of that?

[Kaun]

Yeah its an awesome read, it really expands on the possibly ramifications mmos could have on our near future.

I mean when you consider you get a better exchange rate for wow gold then you do for South Koreas Won its a fairly scary thought considering wow currency isn't backed up by anything other then the whim of Blizzard.

[Slade]

Actually I have question to bounce back to this forum.

Considering the amount grim dark I laid out above, I would like to ask
my fellows in this thread how much grimdark do you put your games,
fellow shadowrun GMs?

Is it business as usual, or
"CRAWWWWWLIIIIIIIING IN MY SKIIIIN"
levels of grimdark?
Maybe somewhere in between?
Thoughts?

[Kaun]

I like to add a bit of Grim Dark to most of my games, my players seem to like it that was as well so it works for everybody.

But im intrested to see an example of some grim dark you have or would use in one of your Shadowrun games as a basis.

[Tehnar]

There was a very excellent write-up some one made, that was posted on the Dumpshock forums. It estimated how much your average Mafia Capo, Corp Middle Manager, and several others would be able to pay out of hand, how much would be a serious amount of money for them, and how much they could pull up if they really had to. It was useful not only for figuring out how much to pay the runners, but also useful for seeing what they might be up against, what their enemies could afford to throw at them.

Good luck finding it, though.

Knasser was the man who wrote it up, though he has stopped supporting shadowrun, and took down his site with the various good stuff still there. I think he is still active on Frank Trollman's forum (the Gaming Den), so you can probably contact him there if need be. He took his stuff down for a reason, which while I may not agree with, I respect it.

The reasoning behind how much money a person can get in the sixth world is fairly simple. Using lifestyle costs as a baseline to figure out how much money the NPC can get; ie compare how much $ you can get based on your income to pay someone to do a shadowrun.

Its a lot, so don't go pissing off important people or you will see six digit bounties on your head.


For my games, its business as usual. The world sucks, everything has gone to hell, and the PC's will rob/kill/steal most things so they can get to that sunny bahama island.

[comicshorse]

Actually I have question to bounce back to this forum.

Considering the amount grim dark I laid out above, I would like to ask
my fellows in this thread how much grimdark do you put your games,
fellow shadowrun GMs?

Is it business as usual, or
"CRAWWWWWLIIIIIIIING IN MY SKIIIIN"
levels of grimdark?
Maybe somewhere in between?
Thoughts?

The way I, and most people I know, run it is that a Shadowruners watchword is : PROFESSIONALISM. You go in quiet, you don't taser them when you could sneak past them and you don't shoot them when you can Taser. Unnecessary casualties are the mark of an amateur. You treat civilians as civilians and fellow professionals (even if there corp security) as you would wish to be treated. You don't betray a contact and you keep your word.
Anybody who doesn't honour this and the word gets out and no-one will work with them and they find themselves doing suicide runs for Aztechnology because that's the only work they can find.
That said there are some really nasty types out there and the occasional brush with them can bring a new edge to the game. In the last game we intermitently oppossed 'The Breath of Pestilence' an Iniatiate circle of Toxic shamans. Logically speaking the worst thing they did was trying to release a genetically targeted virus on New York but the thing that really made us shudder was finding the remains of a couple when one of them, Bloody Tears, had used their apartement as an emergency hide-out . The G.Ms description did more than any reward to make us want to find them and put them out of our misery. Particualrly bad for my character as the groups shaman I talked to the spirit of the place which had soaked up the emotional residue of the event. I pulled in some favours to get a young family assigned to the apartement to give it a chance to absord some good emotions and not go toxic.
So there are sufficient twisted bastards : Toxic shamans, Insect Spirits, Aztech Blood Mages, Humanis, Tir Na Og elves and my personal favourite Fenrisnacht to make the P.C.s feel good about their job rather than just 'its a payday'

[Slade]

Since this is a Shadowrun Thread, I felt this is a good place to find players.

Link:
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=192191

So, if you want some Shadowrun goodness, come on by!

[LibraryOgre]

What are a best way for a runner to launder their money? How do you lot generally do your payment transactions between MJ and the team?

In our most recent (and sadly defunct) game, my character went through some contacts to find an investment broker/money launderer. That guy laundered the money and was starting an investment portfolio... I didn't want to be doing this forever, you know.

[Seerow]

So on a related note to how much money you get per run, I'm curious: What's the average karma take you see per run? And does this increase with how long the run is?

The SR4 guide doesn't actually account for length, and gives +1 for living, +1 for mission complete, and then extras for being exceptional from there.

Like we just finished up a mission that ran through 3 8hr sessions, where we did everything right, had 3 different scenarios pop up during the process of the run, and in the process stopped UCAS from going to war... and got 3 karma for it, about the same as we'd get for a quick get in get out mission. Is this the norm?

[Slade]

So on a related note to how much money you get per run, I'm curious: What's the average karma take you see per run? And does this increase with how long the run is?

The SR4 guide doesn't actually account for length, and gives +1 for living, +1 for mission complete, and then extras for being exceptional from there.

Like we just finished up a mission that ran through 3 8hr sessions, where we did everything right, had 3 different scenarios pop up during the process of the run, and in the process stopped UCAS from going to war... and got 3 karma for it, about the same as we'd get for a quick get in get out mission. Is this the norm?

5 should be the norm, but again, GM's have differing ideas here too. 3 should be the minimum, with 5 representing most objectives complete.
Character Survived: 1
Character completed 2/3 objectives: 1
Good Roleplaying: 1 (everyone should be getting this)
Character pushed the storyline forward: 1 (and this)
Character had the right skills at the right place and time: 1 (and this)

A mostly successful run with good rp'ed characters should be netting 5 a run.
Variations include:
Player impressed group with humor or drama
Character was particularly brave or smart
Adventure was extra challenging (or just long)

The above awards might be better to be awarded on an individual basis.

Using what Seerow said:
Doing everything right: 2 (each player)
Character Survived: 1 (each player)
Three side missions: 2 (each (6) for each player)
Prevent a large scale UCAS war in which many people would die: 2 (each player)
Mission was extra long: 2 (each player)

Then individual awards for the criteria listed above, most likely broken up into 3 batches as the mission progressed. You got jipped, sir.

The was a house rule presented in the Denver Missions (IIRC) that involved trading Karma for 5 grand in nuyen, and buying karma for 5 grand a pop. Thoughts?

[Seerow]

We generally don't get the +1 for roleplaying/right skill at the right time, like there's the baseline minimum that is expected, and that +1 karma for it comes from being exceptional (ie having some obscure skill that really helped you move the mission forward, or helped make something significantly easier, not just doing your job, the roleplaying part generally just doesn't come up, except in the case of a new player who's getting into the swing of things, to help encourage them to participate).

So we got the +1 for surviving and mission complete, and the third karma we earned was for Bravery/Valor, cause we had the cajones to break into a foreign embassy on high alert, and avoided killing anybody, to try to get the info we had acquired to the right person rather than just shrugging and saying "eh not our problem"

That said I personally prefer your breakdown of it.


The was a house rule presented in the Denver Missions (IIRC) that involved trading Karma for 5 grand in nuyen, and buying karma for 5 grand a pop. Thoughts?


Seems like a fair tradeoff to me.

[fazzamar]

Using what Seerow said:
Doing everything right: 2 (each player)
Character Survived: 1 (each player)
Three side missions: 2 (each (6) for each player)
Prevent a large scale UCAS war in which many people would die: 2 (each player)
Mission was extra long: 2 (each player)

Then individual awards for the criteria listed above, most likely broken up into 3 batches as the mission progressed. You got jipped, sir.

I want to say upfront, sorry for jumping into your conversation Seerow, you had to know it was going to happen when you told me the forum you were talking about our games on.
I'm one of the other players from Seerow's SR game, typically I'm the GM but the session that he's talking about another player was GMing at the time. While I agree that 3 is on the low side, The 3 scenerios that popped up were part of the run..

Break into the research facility.
Get ambushed at the payout.
Break into the embassy.

So extra karma for that? Nah.
Also, some might consider three eight hour sessions to be extra long, consider that combat will take upwards to 3 hours for our group (that's a whole different conversation), so I wouldn't consider it to be extra long either. So yea, the 3 karma, plus extra for individual stuff that a couple people got, was on the low side I wouldn't consider it being gypped because gypped implies cheating or swindling on the part of the GM.

[Seerow]

What fazz, really? How dare you come in here and butting in on my forum conversation. I mean, seriously, posting on a public forum, it's certainly not like that is the purpose of these forums existing!

Oh wait, it is. No problem then.



Anyway, my argument for why I think the extra scenarios should be worth extra karma, whether they were related or not, is that in your typical run, you get in, get your macguffin, get out, get paid. End of mission, you get karma.

When that gets changed up, regardless of why or how, the mission has been extended from the baseline assumption of how it works, and should be worth a bit more on the Karma side of things.

I'd agree that +2 for extra long and +4 for two side missions is a bit much, but one or the other would be fitting I think. Figure that puts it at around 7-9 karma, still 2-3x what we got.

[fazzamar]

Going by published adventures, namely On The Run and Dawn of the Artifacts Dusk, there is no bonus karma for a mission taking more than one step. It's what you do during those extra steps that is important. For example, you can get up to 11 Karma according to the table in the adventure, however 5 of those are from the players doing a specific thing, i.e. "Delivering the <item> to Johnson without selling/losing the item to anyone else" or "Successfully dealing with <person> without killing or injuring <him/her> seriously" the other 6 karma?

Surviving - 1
Good roleplaying - 1-2
Guts/bravery - 1
Humor - 1
Pushiing the storyline along - 1

[Slade]

Going by published adventures, namely On The Run and Dawn of the Artifacts Dusk, there is no bonus karma for a mission taking more than one step.

Its not the step, its the time spent on the mission and how many game sessions it took to finish it. Though I haven't poured over Dawn of the Artifacts trilogy any, I DO know about on the run, as I have read it through once, played through it as a PC once, and ran the module itself to completion 4 times.

That particular mission can be hand waved as a single night's mission, or if you really get into the mission, there are several different areas were karma could be awarded:

Nabo's Concert (might be a serious firefight)
The junkyard encounter (serious firefight)
Carrion Studios (yea, I know, devil rats, big deal right?)
Graveyard Ambush (serious firefight)

Each of those could be wort 1-2 points of karma each, depending on various factors. In fact the module suggests that as many as 10 karma COULD be awarded for the run (but that would be really hard to do, and indicate an almost Meta-game level of knowledge).

If On the Run, which as far as shadowruns go is considered easy peasy, COULD offer 10 karma, then Dawn of the Artifacts, which is a world spanning run dealing with multiple high level characters (dang, Frosty? REALLY?) should be offering twice that, again, assuming the characters do EVERYTHING right. The chart in the back of the Dusk trilogy seems to suggest that very thing.

So maybe a point of karma here and there as a "checkpoint" kind of reward would not be out of order?