Shadowrun
Shadowrun Play => Gamemasters' Lounge => Topic started by: Shamie on <04-26-14/1115:00>
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Hello to all :)
Im Dming a campaign of SR5 right now and my players are complaining about the pay they gain for runs.
Their argument is that if they want just one augmentations (in case of one of the players they want synaptic booster) they gonna have to play more than 10 runs so they feel their character dont advance.
Now, i read the payment section of the corebook but it is useless for me as i dont normally stat the enemies (i just do than on the fly) so i dont have a maximun dice pool to calculate.
I have been using the mission of "Chasing the wind" as a guide of 9000 nuyen base for my own run or otherwise i use the payment in season 4 as they are playing it.
One of the players who has play more shadowrun has told me that normally players get sick of they poor pay and start making their own run "like stealing a bank" because of the poor pay given by jonhsons.
Im curious though, how do you normally manage the paying?
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I use the guidelines in the core 5E rulebook.
But yes, you should allow players to think up their own runs if they truely feel they are capable of such a task. It would obviously likely require more planning than they consider normally, but could give a bigger payout (And greater risk of discovery)
Why you would not follow the guidelines in the core rulebook I truely do not understand. Do you simply pick up a random number of dice for a given grunt or LT and roll them accordingly? Do you use the Professional rating system?
The corerule books allow for up to 21.000 nuyen per runner, per run for going up against impossible odds. Obviously you can change this amount based on how you feel the overall Progress should be, but shadowrun mostly is about Karma, and thus skills after Char-gen. Runners are only expected to make enough to live to run another day after the bills are paid, with prehaps a little something as a bonus. It's a part of the setting really :)
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I use the guidelines in the core 5E rulebook.
But yes, you should allow players to think up their own runs if they truely feel they are capable of such a task. It would obviously likely require more planning than they consider normally, but could give a bigger payout (And greater risk of discovery)
Why you would not follow the guidelines in the core rulebook I truely do not understand. Do you simply pick up a random number of dice for a given grunt or LT and roll them accordingly? Do you use the Professional rating system?
The corerule books allow for up to 21.000 nuyen per runner, per run for going up against impossible odds. Obviously you can change this amount based on how you feel the overall Progress should be, but shadowrun mostly is about Karma, and thus skills after Char-gen. Runners are only expected to make enough to live to run another day after the bills are paid, with prehaps a little something as a bonus. It's a part of the setting really :)
Normally i just make up NPC stats as i go. For grunts, first i choose whether he is physical, mental or social grunt.
If he is physical i grab the minimum possible attribute and the maximum augmented attribute and say he has half of it for physical.
For example for a troll on body the minimum is 5 and the maximum augmented is 14 so the he has 9 for that stat (4.5 rounded down)
for any mental/social stat i grab instead the minimum possible attribute and the maximum attribute and use half for it.
For example for a troll on reaction the minimum is 1 and the maximum attribute is 6 so he has 3.
or i just grab a scoop of dices from a bowl and that seems not so much dices (for grunts) or a lot (for bosses) and throw that
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If their living hand to mouth how do they upgrade their gear?
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I go with combined lifestyle costs divided by number of runners for the base price.
So say if you have two runners with Low lifestyles, one runners with Middle and one with High. Divide the sum of it all by four and you'd get 4750 as your payment base.
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Notably, the 21,000 per runner isn't the actual upper limit; that's the upper limit of base without any negotiation accounted for.
If they get five hits on negotiation, the unmodified based can be... 3500. Add in all of the modifications mentioned in the rulebook to bring it up to max and it becomes... 24,500. If they had made ten hits instead, it would be... 28,000.
So, if they have ten dice to roll for negotiation, 28,000 is the actual max.
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I find the character development to be lopsided and wonky. After all, with 115000 nuyen and 30 karma, your mage can buy a power focus at rating 6, giving them +6 to all their spellcasting. A rising tide lifts all ships - your mage is significantly stronger in every regard.
A street samurai might be able to upgrade their initiative boosters once (if your GM is nice and allows you to pay the difference) and buy up their primary attack stat by 2 points. Your street samurai is incrementally stronger, but not significantly.
I think that the poor payment of runners is an effort to delay these scaling problems. Still, I don't think they're realistic for the danger and nature of the runner's work. Afterall, auto theft pays much more and faster than a shadowrun, and is generally easier.
I tend to pay my runners 10-50k depending on the nature of the run, and they can easily take home double that depending on their ingenuity from salvage and looting. I also give 5 karma per session. I heavily restrict availability however. Anything too powerful or too military they are going to have to find in game. By the time the mage has his +6 power focus, the Sammy has a Panther XXL or a suit of hardened military armor.
In my experience, monitoring the growth of your players is an involved process - you can't rely on the book's mechanics, or the balance will get lopsided and out of proportion.
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See, here's the thing: The very-expensive gear is a big deal, it's THE ultimate thing your street sam is aiming for. So yes, it WILL take a buncha runs! Now after a while they'll start getting into bigger jobs with bigger payments, and by the time the character has been running for five years they're really quite decked out already. Plus there's always 'favors' from a Johnson (hello deal with the devil!) for gear at a discount...
Now if you agree with a faster campaign, give them more. I tend to overpay my runners because I prefer a faster power level. But the current rewards are pretty much designed around that it will take a character 3 years to become a big player and 10 years to become a Street Legend.
You should, however, be less sloppy so that you can actually give them fair rewards.
(Sidenote: I should note I disagree with GMs playing nice and letting people pay the difference on ware.)
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If their living hand to mouth how do they upgrade their gear?
They dont, they try to save every last penny for augmentation.
They are a decker, sniper, adept (who want the reflex) and a normal.
See, here's the thing: The very-expensive gear is a big deal, it's THE ultimate thing your street sam is aiming for. So yes, it WILL take a buncha runs! Now after a while they'll start getting into bigger jobs with bigger payments, and by the time the character has been running for five years they're really quite decked out already. Plus there's always 'favors' from a Johnson (hello deal with the devil!) for gear at a discount...
Now if you agree with a faster campaign, give them more. I tend to overpay my runners because I prefer a faster power level. But the current rewards are pretty much designed around that it will take a character 3 years to become a big player and 10 years to become a Street Legend.
You should, however, be less sloppy so that you can actually give them fair rewards.
(Sidenote: I should note I disagree with GMs playing nice and letting people pay the difference on ware.)
Thing is that is not "THE ultimate thing" but one of the things (just the reflex are 100k at least) and im not really into having more than a year (real life) of campaign in me for this one at least.
Im currently dming season 4 missions and the complain is that the pay of 9000 base (assuming they fail every single negotiation test) isnt enough they say that they feel like playing FATE (meaning 0 character advancement) but i cannot really use the system for reward because my player derail a lot the missions so have to come up with enemies all the time. They were playing chasing the wind last week (adapted for seattle) which has 3 gangers and they derail it and went on to exterminate the whole gang from the city...... and even then they finish the mission.
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A synaptic accelerator is still the Lamborghini of reflex enhancements. A character who wants one is going to have to invest serious resources in just getting it, let alone having it installed. It could be an end goal for a player, but every run should not result in a character racing to the street doc for more chrome.
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I rarely bother with pay guidelines. I look at the Johnson, the job, and what the Johnson reasonably would pay (or can afford to pay) for the job. A low lifestyle Johnson trying to get back at a gang that killed his wife in a drive by probably isn't going to be able to afford 50k. Meanwhile, a high lifestyle naive fashion designer looking for someone to investigate her partners death might not realize that 200k is far more than "standard pay."
That said, my runners don't have any qualms about turning down jobs they don't feel are worth it, but they know they aren't going to get a new job that night for turning it down. They usually will find their own work (fortunately I'm good at running on the fly, so when they turn down a run and decide to knock over a Weapons World truck, I can adapt quickly). If they don't come up with something, a few weeks pass in game and I pull another run out of my file. Fixers don't like setting up Johnsons with runners unwilling to work.
On another note, if you do want to run the standard, just figure up stats for the most powerful opponent. That's one baddie a run. That's only one enemy per run you have to stat out. You can even have generic stats to pull from for the big bad (in my folder I have, for example, Bad Ass Combat Troll). His highest dice pool is his close combat (Agility of 7 + Skill of 9 = 16 DP). That's enough to figure base pay if you want to use the book.
Don't worry about the runners going off target on a run. If they're getting paid to burn down a gang drug operation, they aren't going to get paid extra for wiping out the whole gang, so don't figure that in. Just figure in the actual run's data and everything else they are choosing to do for free effectively.
There is a reason a lot of the professionals won't pull the trigger on someone they aren't being paid to. It's a waste of time for them. Time is money.
Another thing to note is that the base pay of the run should rarely be the only way the runners are making money. All that extra shiney they can get their mitts on is fenceable. Yes they're being paid to burn down the gang's drug operation, but those guns the gangers had can be fenced for a bit of extra cash. If the Johnson didn't specify to dispose of the drugs (or the players don't mind a bit of backstabbing) the drugs could be sold off as well.
Many of the Season Two missions let the runners net more money from paydata and stolen goods than the actual base pay.
Of course, if the runners are really unscrupulous, they could be dragging bodies to their local body chopper and stripping used ware out (for sale or implantation).
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Of course, if the runners are really unscrupulous, they could be dragging bodies to their local body chopper and stripping used ware out (for sale or implantation).
Wait, that's not standard operating procedure? I mean, I figured it was less unscrupulous to ensure the ghouls had a steady food supply than to leave them to their own devices and let them prey on people... I mean, the guy's dead anyway, so...
Though, to be honest, you have closer to how I would do it on pay. I would also have it factored in on difficulty for doing the job; a Johnson will pay a lot less for rescuing Fluffy from a tree than for leaving a severed horse head in the private bedroom of the Aztechnology CEO without security even noticing.
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I rarely bother with pay guidelines. I look at the Johnson, the job, and what the Johnson reasonably would pay (or can afford to pay) for the job. A low lifestyle Johnson trying to get back at a gang that killed his wife in a drive by probably isn't going to be able to afford 50k. Meanwhile, a high lifestyle naive fashion designer looking for someone to investigate her partners death might not realize that 200k is far more than "standard pay."
That said, my runners don't have any qualms about turning down jobs they don't feel are worth it, but they know they aren't going to get a new job that night for turning it down. They usually will find their own work (fortunately I'm good at running on the fly, so when they turn down a run and decide to knock over a Weapons World truck, I can adapt quickly). If they don't come up with something, a few weeks pass in game and I pull another run out of my file. Fixers don't like setting up Johnsons with runners unwilling to work.
This is what im trying to avoid because im trying to run the missions and the problem arise because the player feel they have to get their own runs because of how little the mission pay.
Don't worry about the runners going off target on a run. If they're getting paid to burn down a gang drug operation, they aren't going to get paid extra for wiping out the whole gang, so don't figure that in. Just figure in the actual run's data and everything else they are choosing to do for free effectively.
They going off scrips isnt really the issue, like i say before i can quickly stat some NPCs on the fly but the problem arrise when i have to keep in mind what is gonna be the highest oposing dice pool they gonna face.
Of course, if the runners are really unscrupulous, they could be dragging bodies to their local body chopper and stripping used ware out (for sale or implantation).
Actually i they arent, they are really good people...... which kinda suck because im just wanting them to feed the ghouls :(
Thanks for all the advices, im gonna settle for 20k base for each per mission.
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Personally I'd throw it a few different ways. Some Johnsons might prefer to pay the team, and let the team sort out who gets what share. Other Johnsons might prefer to pay per team member. In the latter case, they might be interested in meeting the whole team, not just the face. That's something to consider as well, but it's unrelated to your topic. Some Johnsons might want to pay in barter instead of nuyen because they might have access to a prototype, but not to liquid assets.
So how you pay your runners is really up to you, but I'd suggest mixing it up once in a while to keep the runners on their toes and to help make the Johnsons seem more fleshed-out. Nothing worse than Mr. Johnson becoming the equivalent of an ATM to your players.
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A synaptic accelerator is still the Lamborghini of reflex enhancements. A character who wants one is going to have to invest serious resources in just getting it, let alone having it installed. It could be an end goal for a player, but every run should not result in a character racing to the street doc for more chrome.
It's really not. Delta Wired 3 and 3 reaction enhancers is the lamborghini of cyber. You're looking at 640,000 nuyen for that. Even so, synaptic 2 costs only 20% more than wired 2. It is a little more telling that the increased reflexes spell can give a larger bonus that either Wired 3 or SA 3, and it's effectively the same when you can expect to get 6 successes on your casting - which turns out averages on 18 dice rolled (6 mag + 6 sorc +6 power focus)
But yes, 115000 karma can be spent intelligently upgrading your samurai to better effect, after all there is plenty of cheap chrome that gives armor or attribute bonuses. But at some point you'll run out of essence, and then progress halts until you repurchase all of your parts at a higher grade.
In the meantime, the mage has maxed out their bonuses from foci. The only thing they have left to do is initiate, and that's part of the problem. Mages get all their development from their karma, and when they do develop their power is increased across the board - utility function, combat capability, and defense all get better with one dice pool increase.
The samurai only increases one aspect - attack, armor, skills, other utilities, with each piece of cyber ware they install. Only the most essence and nuyen intensive cyberware increases their capabilities across the board - Muscle replacement, SA, wired.
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It's really not. Delta Wired 3 and 3 reaction enhancers is the lamborghini of cyber. You're looking at 640,000 nuyen for that. Even so, synaptic 2 costs only 20% more than wired 2. It is a little more telling that the increased reflexes spell can give a larger bonus that either Wired 3 or SA 3, and it's effectively the same when you can expect to get 6 successes on your casting - which turns out averages on 18 dice rolled (6 mag + 6 sorc +6 power focus)
But yes, 115000 karma can be spent intelligently upgrading your samurai to better effect, after all there is plenty of cheap chrome that gives armor or attribute bonuses. But at some point you'll run out of essence, and then progress halts until you repurchase all of your parts at a higher grade.
In the meantime, the mage has maxed out their bonuses from foci. The only thing they have left to do is initiate, and that's part of the problem. Mages get all their development from their karma, and when they do develop their power is increased across the board - utility function, combat capability, and defense all get better with one dice pool increase.
The samurai only increases one aspect - attack, armor, skills, other utilities, with each piece of cyber ware they install. Only the most essence and nuyen intensive cyberware increases their capabilities across the board - Muscle replacement, SA, wired.
In this campaign they dont have a mage yet but still i never found the mage difficult to handle, maybe because is the class im most familiar with that i know how to put the boot on a mage when i need to.
Personally I'd throw it a few different ways. Some Johnsons might prefer to pay the team, and let the team sort out who gets what share. Other Johnsons might prefer to pay per team member. In the latter case, they might be interested in meeting the whole team, not just the face. That's something to consider as well, but it's unrelated to your topic. Some Johnsons might want to pay in barter instead of nuyen because they might have access to a prototype, but not to liquid assets.
So how you pay your runners is really up to you, but I'd suggest mixing it up once in a while to keep the runners on their toes and to help make the Johnsons seem more fleshed-out. Nothing worse than Mr. Johnson becoming the equivalent of an ATM to your players.
Thats true, kinda bothers me they never run a check on the johnson. They believe everything the johnson says which for missions is kinda OK because the missions are like that, but i think next next session im gonna have the johnson just stab them in the back
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The pay for runners is almost never easy to find out, for sure... The book's rules are a good starting point, but yeah, as they progress, they should be paid more. Another thing related to what Namikaze said, with the runners being paid in things beyond money. For example, if you do a run for Ares, the Street Samurai could ask the face to try and persuade the Johnson to, say... Allow them the use of an Ares Desert Strike sniper rifle for the job, and then negotiate keeping it as part of the pay. See, Ares doesn't need to spend 17k to get the rifle. Say it only costs them like, 5,000 to make it (I'm just throwing out numbers) and instead of offering 15,000 as the reward, they go for 9,000 and the rifle. It costs them less money than paying outright, and the runners get a high quality piece of gear for cheap.
In my game, the players are smugglers/couriers. They're paid a percentage of the price of whatever they're carrying. They're not told what they're carrying, just that it's important and they'll be paid X amount. I haven't done much with that though, so I can't say it's tried-and-true or anything.
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I am going to try to get my players to take more items in lieu of nuyen. It helps me to control access to higher-end gear, which helps to control the power level of the game.
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The 'great gear partially replaces great nuyen' idea is a good one; as Namikaze says, it helps control access to higher-end gear, and it will get your players in the mindset that bargaining for gear-as-payment (or later on, access-as-payment) is a good thing. And it is.
I do somewhat disagree with the benchmarks of the books, however, because you are not going to find top-notch people working for frickin' pennies; Chimera doesn't do 'work' for under half a mil, savvy? As our good Critias once put it on Shadowland 6:
But when you reach a certain level of karma and nuyen, the game takes on a different feel. In D&D, for the first few levels, goblins are scary motherfuckers and a +1 dagger is a rare prize. But sooner or later, the GM has to up the ante, y'know?
I would take the benchmarks in the books, and for every point of 'core skills' expected to be used in the run - so for a decking run, that'd be Computer, Hacking, and/or Cybercombat, while for a magic-centric run that might be Sorcery or Conjuring - above 6, I'd add +1 to the cash modifier. Simply put, they're paying you more because you're good. (Doesn't improve your karma earnings, though - just your cash.) If you have multiple skills that apply, then that's nice, but it should be an average across the board. (One guy at 8 while everyone else is cruising at 5-6 might give you a slight bump, for example.)
In addition, you have two ways to play a Johnson: a professional who wants good runners in his stable (Type A), or a professional who wants to not have to pay the runners (Type B). Type B is going to try to double-cross the runners, or be extremely stingy when it comes to 'So what there were toxics involved? Not my problem.' Type A, on the other hand, is going to want to keep his runners happy; this happens more often when a lower-class person (such as a fixer of some sort) wants his 'stable' to grow. Mr. Type A will give his runners bonuses, or be available to provide an 'additiona contract for action above and beyond'. "This goes well beyond your original contract; we were not aware that Ms. Euphoria was in that sort of situation. We will pay you 100,000¥ to get her out."
I prefer to play a smart Type A Johnson; Type Bs tend to last ... less long, since trying to double-cross people who inflict extreme violence on others for a living is in and of itself a life-threatening task. (Besides, a good Type A will eventually get them to practically volunteer for a suicide mission. See aforementioned 'Euphoria' job above....)
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Paying runners enough? I don't know the exact amount that might be or the method one would calculate it but I do know one behavioral symptom of getting it right would be a significant shift in the runner's interest in on-the-job-looting to the more professional aspect of getting the run done ASAP.
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What do you mean season 2 missions I thought we only had the core book out.
Some ibteresting ideas there it also could depend a bit on ingame time too e.g a run that takes one night "I've gotten word Caparelli plans to double cross me at our meeting tommorow i want some extra muscle handy just in case. Go here, wait if I signal come in and help me get clear. Would pay less than a job where your locking them up for weeks or months. I need this prototype stolen. Well we need to get plans, observe security, come up with an infiltration plan which means working out jow to get past the guards and that's all just before we get in the pyramid we'll need an extra 10k per person to live on while we do this if you want it done right.
Tell them or better yet show them leaving the bodies just means someone else strips them for parts/money. It's not nice but I'm pretty sure its what wpuld happen in this world unless your talking innocent bystander or middle class up.
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Thing is that is not "THE ultimate thing" but one of the things (just the reflex are 100k at least) and im not really into having more than a year (real life) of campaign in me for this one at least.
Im currently dming season 4 missions and the complain is that the pay of 9000 base (assuming they fail every single negotiation test) isnt enough
Yeah, here's the thing... Missions is a low-power campaign in general, you don't get to buy the super-expensive toys during it. If you only want a year in campaign, the players won't be getting the really expensive toys, and their characters shouldn't be aiming for it to begin with. You start by boosting survival potential, and THEN you can consider saving up, if you're good enough. If you're only playing for a year, so 8~24 runs, the characters simply won't be at that level yet.
Just because the shiny toys exist, doesn't mean the players should be able to get them. It all depends on the campaign.
(In SR5 Missions, I have spent about 90k on Sniper Rifles and Reaction Enhancers, and only NOW am I considering saving up for a Suprathyroid Gland, with use of the karma-to-nuyen rules, assuming they one day errata/faq it to stack with the muscle toner and enhancers.)
Wait, that's not standard operating procedure? I mean, I figured it was less unscrupulous to ensure the ghouls had a steady food supply than to leave them to their own devices and let them prey on people... I mean, the guy's dead anyway, so...
No, it's not. First of, bodies are heavy and you generally do NOT have the time to drag them with you. Second, if you start taking killed opponents to the chopshop, you're going to be facing Notoriety soon. See, here's what people think when you leave bodies: "Ah, guess things got out of hand" or "Sloppy, but they get the job done". When you take them with you to the chopshop? "So these guys deliberately kill as many people as possible and go out of their way doing so, even risking the job result, just so they can drag their victims off to the chopshops? Yeah, I ain't dealing with bloodthirsty serial killers."
What do you mean season 2 missions I thought we only had the core book out.
Season 2.5 (midway 2) to 4 are SR4, Season 5 is SR5 and contains as legal missions:
- The rewritten 2010 CMPs, released in Sprawl Wilds and Firing Line.
- SRM-5A, 1 has been released, 2 to 6 have been played at conventions and are making their way through the process to be released, one at a time.
- 2013 CMPs were played in 2013~2014 conventions, that's Dragon's Song and Dangerous Games.
- 2014 CMPs will be new starting Origins, including Mercy (rewritten from a tournament design of 3 that got cancelled due to lack of interest), forget the other's name.
~ Introduction to the Sixth World events are legal.
So that's 9 available for the general public so far, and starting with Origins 31 total available through conventions and such. And the next batch of SRM-5, likely SRM-5B, is also in development.
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I see thank you.
As a type b Johnson there was a backstory about a character (in one of the official books) who did a lot of runs for the same guy and came to trust him. Then when he was advancing the idiot pulled a double cross and set the entire team up to be killed. Missed the boss who was very unhappy about all the friends he'd grown up with being liked and caught then horribly torutred the guy to death before staking him up outside his corporate headquarters.
Which is why i expect most double crosses are in the we left a bit of info off rather than we set you up to be permanently killed. Besides if your good enough to rise in the ranks your generally good enough to know it always pays to have a loyal group of deniable assets around.
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Wait, that's not standard operating procedure? I mean, I figured it was less unscrupulous to ensure the ghouls had a steady food supply than to leave them to their own devices and let them prey on people... I mean, the guy's dead anyway, so...
No, it's not. First of, bodies are heavy and you generally do NOT have the time to drag them with you. Second, if you start taking killed opponents to the chopshop, you're going to be facing Notoriety soon. See, here's what people think when you leave bodies: "Ah, guess things got out of hand" or "Sloppy, but they get the job done". When you take them with you to the chopshop? "So these guys deliberately kill as many people as possible and go out of their way doing so, even risking the job result, just so they can drag their victims off to the chopshops? Yeah, I ain't dealing with bloodthirsty serial killers."
Moving the body is what spirits are for. Selling the body can be advertised as disposing of evidence. After all, if you get in firefights often enough that the question of you being a serial killer comes up for disposing the body, it'll probably come up alongside questions of your ability to get a job done quietly and questions of if you might be a serial killer just due to the sheer number of guards you killed.
Then again, gel rounds, masks, and use of stun spells can take down a lot of guards and make certain you not only didn't kill anyone, but made certain that even if they saw you they can't identify who knocked them unconscious.
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Moving the body is what spirits are for. Selling the body can be advertised as disposing of evidence.
You're going to summon a spirit, have it manifest, and have it lug bodies around for you? That's certainly not going to get attention.
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If I'm moving bodies instead of making certain the unconscious people are still alive, it's a little late to worry about drawing attention...
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You are all kind of correct. SlowDeck, you know very well that shooting up the corpsec in a facility, then hauling off the bodies is a Bad Idea - even with a spirit - and that 99 out of 100 times you aren't going to check to see if someone is still alive. Namikaze, Michael, you both know that if you whack a hitman, selling his body to the ghouls and his 'ware to the clinic in order to dispose of the corpse is Not A Bad Idea.
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I see thank you.
As a type b Johnson there was a backstory about a character (in one of the official books) who did a lot of runs for the same guy and came to trust him. Then when he was advancing the idiot pulled a double cross and set the entire team up to be killed. Missed the boss who was very unhappy about all the friends he'd grown up with being liked and caught then horribly torutred the guy to death before staking him up outside his corporate headquarters.
Which is why i expect most double crosses are in the we left a bit of info off rather than we set you up to be permanently killed. Besides if your good enough to rise in the ranks your generally good enough to know it always pays to have a loyal group of deniable assets around.
Yeah, that sounds like it was Mercer's story in the SR4 2050 historical setting book on Dealing With Mr. Johnson (pg. 116).
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You are all kind of correct. SlowDeck, you know very well that shooting up the corpsec in a facility, then hauling off the bodies is a Bad Idea - even with a spirit - and that 99 out of 100 times you aren't going to check to see if someone is still alive. Namikaze, Michael, you both know that if you whack a hitman, selling his body to the ghouls and his 'ware to the clinic in order to dispose of the corpse is Not A Bad Idea.
Not a bad idea, no. But could it be done more easily with less attention drawn to you? Certainly. Thermite bars are cheap, lye is even cheaper.
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I see thank you.
As a type b Johnson there was a backstory about a character (in one of the official books) who did a lot of runs for the same guy and came to trust him. Then when he was advancing the idiot pulled a double cross and set the entire team up to be killed. Missed the boss who was very unhappy about all the friends he'd grown up with being liked and caught then horribly torutred the guy to death before staking him up outside his corporate headquarters.
Which is why i expect most double crosses are in the we left a bit of info off rather than we set you up to be permanently killed. Besides if your good enough to rise in the ranks your generally good enough to know it always pays to have a loyal group of deniable assets around.
Yeah, that sounds like it was Mercer's story in the SR4 2050 historical setting book on Dealing With Mr. Johnson (pg. 116).
Definately from Mercer I'll take your word on where.
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You are all kind of correct. SlowDeck, you know very well that shooting up the corpsec in a facility, then hauling off the bodies is a Bad Idea - even with a spirit - and that 99 out of 100 times you aren't going to check to see if someone is still alive. Namikaze, Michael, you both know that if you whack a hitman, selling his body to the ghouls and his 'ware to the clinic in order to dispose of the corpse is Not A Bad Idea.
Not a bad idea, no. But could it be done more easily with less attention drawn to you? Certainly. Thermite bars are cheap, lye is even cheaper.
Honestly, Wyrm is right on this one. Plus, unless you're wanting to draw attention to yourself, lye involves moving the body to an entirely different location. And probably burying it so you don't have to clean up the mess. It's not exactly fast-acting (which is why it's a common old-time ingredient in soap).
And I seriously doubt you're going to be carrying enough thermite to destroy a human body. It tends to take quite a bit. And can leave behind damage that draws attention. Which means you probably still have to move the body to another location to dispose of it.
Since you're pretty much going to move the body anyway, selling it to an organlegger has the advantage of making you money.
Note that the above information is useful for if the runners have to dispose of the body of a Johnson who didn't pay them enough.
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Ghouls need to eat too. I imagine they are just as eager to cover up your tracks. They might give you a good rate, by the pound.
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Honestly, Wyrm is right on this one. Plus, unless you're wanting to draw attention to yourself, lye involves moving the body to an entirely different location. And probably burying it so you don't have to clean up the mess. It's not exactly fast-acting (which is why it's a common old-time ingredient in soap).
And I seriously doubt you're going to be carrying enough thermite to destroy a human body. It tends to take quite a bit. And can leave behind damage that draws attention. Which means you probably still have to move the body to another location to dispose of it.
Of course - but lye and thermite are what I came up with in all of 5 seconds. :P I just re-watched Fargo tonight, and the woodchipper still comes to mind. I'm just saying that if you don't have to haul away a body, you're better off not risking the possible complications that come from something like that. Even if no one sees you hauling the body itself, there are all kinds of possible complications that can come up - random vehicle searches, drones with ultrasound sensors scanning your car, your taillight breaks and you get pulled over, whatever.
If you can afford to haul away the body, then yes - you should get some nuyen for it. But if you're in a hurry (and most runners are in a hurry) then you might just be better off trying to destroy some physical evidence and leaving it behind.
LOL the topic of runner pay seems to always lead to this conversation though, so clearly there are a LOT of organlegging shadowrunners out there.
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Pictured the effects on a woodchipper of a body laden with cyber armour and other implants. Why do I suddenly want to rewatch tucker and dale vs evil.
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Pictured the effects on a woodchipper of a body laden with cyber armour and other implants. Why do I suddenly want to rewatch tucker and dale vs evil.
I'm betting there's some chromed trolls who's corpse would turn the woodchipper to shreds just trying to rip into them.
And yeah, and with selling bodies to ghouls, you have to be careful. They probably aren't the best at covering their tracks; if you sell them some gangers or other criminals, no big deal. But if you off a corpsec and toss his body to ghouls, you better hope nobody finds his uniform in the trash or worse, worn by some homeless ghoul the next day. That'll draw attention and come back to bite you in the ass.
That said... I do think such a contact, even if rarely used, is something every runner should have. You're eventually gonna need to dispose of a body if you're in the shadows for long enough.
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That said... I do think such a contact, even if rarely used, is something every runner should have. You're eventually gonna need to dispose of a body if you're in the shadows for long enough.
That is great advice. My runners just had a very indirect meeting with a doctor that deals with Tamanous, and one of them was extremely queasy about the idea of dealing with ghouls. It's ironic, since he was queasy about dealing with a ghoul, but had no qualms about suggesting cold-blooded murder in order to get what the team needed for a particularly nasty ritual.
In any event, if you have a player that doesn't want to deal with ghouls for some reason, you might consider making a front for Tamanous. Or some organization completely unrelated to Tamanous.
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I've actually never had to resort to Tamanous or ghouls to dispose of a body, across any of my characters - though 'harvesting' cyberware was something we did once or twice. Either trying to do so would have been futile (e.g. stopping in the middle of heated combat), or the point of the killing was not to make the fellow vanish, or the individual's death was in such a location so as to make it vanishingly likely for the corpse (or any corpse) to reappear (i.e. other paracritters would take care of it). I suppose ghouls were a possibility with a few of the latter, but it wasn't like we were counting on them - or dealing with them.
Note, this doesn't mean I haven't dealt with ghouls - just not for disposal/food/etc.
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I've actually never had to resort to Tamanous or ghouls to dispose of a body, across any of my characters - though 'harvesting' cyberware was something we did once or twice. Either trying to do so would have been futile (e.g. stopping in the middle of heated combat), or the point of the killing was not to make the fellow vanish, or the individual's death was in such a location so as to make it vanishingly likely for the corpse (or any corpse) to reappear (i.e. other paracritters would take care of it). I suppose ghouls were a possibility with a few of the latter, but it wasn't like we were counting on them - or dealing with them.
Note, this doesn't mean I haven't dealt with ghouls - just not for disposal/food/etc.
Just has me thinking of a ghoulish Tarantino-expy chewing out the runners about "dead trog disposal."
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Wyrm brings up a good point - I'm sure there are lots of people out there in the shadow community that can handle body disposal without being Tamanous. I picture the the Wolf from Pulp Fiction.
(http://cezl.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/wolf.jpg)
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Wyrm brings up a good point - I'm sure there are lots of people out there in the shadow community that can handle body disposal without being Tamanous. I picture the the Wolf from Pulp Fiction.
Oh, for sure. Even some of the most hardened criminals might feel iffy about working with an organization as dark as Tamanous. Just a bunch of ghouls is probably something more "moral" (if feeding someone you murdered to others could be called such a thing) but yeah, especially if you have a contact in a different syndicate like the Mafia, they probably have more "reputable" ways of such things.
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Just remember - Tamanous is pretty much designed to be The Group You Love To Hate That Isn't Aztechnology For Once. They don't do medical flights of mercy; they cut organs out of still-living people, people who need the organs they're cutting out. And they don't necessarily bother to spend money on sedatives, either. Nor are they ghouls; their chapters often have agreements with local ghouls, sure, and I'm certain there's a number of ghouls in their structure, but these are standard people who look at other humans the way a chop-shop mechanic looks at cars - 'parts' and 'money on the hoof'.
IMO, doing business with Tamanous should automatically get you a -2 'cold-hearted bastard' modification to your karma multiplier ...
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Thanks for all the answers.
What i ended up doing was to throw away the models of the missions and make it by myself (i mean, 8k for recovering an ancient artifact?) and im gonna start setting up a reward for the adept soon as they are finishing 99 bottles adapted for seattle so more or less they are saving the Yakuza mafia from being pickles.
As for the threat of the player derailing the whole campaign after i concede to do all that i also remind him that where he try to rob a bank i would take my gloves off with the group as a DM there's a BUNCH of stuff i just let them ignore. For example they never have to burn a SIN or have various safe houses.
So we reach an agreement
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That's usually the best way to handle it, Shamie. Reach a balancing point with your players - the general rule that I use for my table is that if the players swing first, I swing second. Basically, if they start doing something that I'm not currently doing with them, then it becomes fair game.
Which is what I want, actually - at my table, with my new campaign, I'm hoping my players broaden their skills and equipment for a long time before they start ramping up their dice pools. This is easier over all, and probably more realistic. So I tend to give a little more Karma than nuyen in general, simply because I want to encourage that growth. And for the non-mages in my group, I will hand them upgrades and equipment rather than handing them money.
It's all about balance, and it sounds like you've found one that works well for your table. Awesome. :)
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What i ended up doing was to throw away the models of the missions and make it by myself (i mean, 8k for recovering an ancient artifact?)
Missions Rewards are based about a low-power campaign, and even then the rewards aren't that bad in SR4. SR5's Missions rewards are also not bad, but with 1 big flaw: The runs give after Negotiation what the book says should be the base pay BEFORE Negotiation.
If you follow the base rewards the game system suggests, you end up with quite decent payment. The problem is that that means you actually have to design some default enemies and figure out what you'll throw at them, so you know what dicepools to base the rewards on.
But then again, that can be as simple as "they're facing at least 1 enemy with an offensive 12+ dice, and no enemies with an offensive 16+ dice" and "I intend to throw a lot of weak mooks at them in one scene", and you got the whole Yakuza-involvement and bam, x3 from the dicepools, x1 from the 3-to-1 outnumbered scene, x1 for the risk of a raised profile, and the base reward is 15k, with 500 per net hit (you'll want to set a maximum of 4 or 5 on that, with 4 it's 17 grand per runner.) So if you're doing Yakuza runs which involve either a lot of Critters in a scene, multiple Spirits usage or an attack by loooootsa weak mooks, your runs are likely to all be 15k + nethitsx500 and 6 karma.
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A good explanation Michael, and I like that the rules highlight the need for a face for negotiations. Really gives even the least subtle runners a reason for a face.
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You can also take into account the 'big score' runs. Should, actually. I'm possibly going to be playing/running in a game in the near future, and if I run, I intend on having the 15-20k per individual 'standard run'; if the characters are smart, they can save 5 or 10k per run, with an eye towards their goals. And then, every five or six runs, there is a whopper of a run - one of those whirlwinds of chaos, betrayal, and destruction, such as Queen Euphoria or some other high-paying run, published or not - that gets them a nice karma harvest, but a great cash injection.
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I still use the suggested rules laid out in the sourcebooks of 2nd and 3rd edition. Base the runners' pay off of their lifestyles. If a runner goes to a fixer looking for work dressed in ragged clothes and smelling like the dumpster he slept in then he will get crap jobs that involve really shady people and really bad pay. A man who drives a EuroCar Westwind and wears an Actioneer suit just runs with a different crowd. He finds work with higher class Johnsons which are more involved runs and pay more money. So a runner with mid lifestyle needs to make 5k a month to stay afloat. As a GM, I assume the runners will go on one big run per month so in this case the jobs he does for his fixer pay 5k per run. A run takes some legwork and planning then the run itself. After the run the group needs some downtime to wait for the heat to let off, fence the loot, etc.. All in all 1 run per month seems right. If the team can squeeze in more runs then all the rest is bonus money. Also, every so often a big run comes up with a much larger than normal payoff. In this case maybe it pays 25k instead of the usual 5. But in general you want the team hungry. You don't want them the have every toy on their list after 4 or 5 runs. If they want more toys they really have to step it up. If they can save up money to 'represent' themselves to the shadowrunner community as something worth paying more money for jobs then those jobs will come. You must dress the part. The problem is always this: How can we go up in lifestyle if we can just afford the ones we have now? Here's the best way.
Team Lifestyle ~~~ If the team has been running for a little while and getting along well then forming a permanent professional team is the next step. A lifestyle (identity) is set up for the team. A property (office) is rented and the rent is split up according to the WAR on sharing lifestyles. This is the easiest way for someone with low lifestyle (2k/month) to start making 10k per job!
The next step the team should take is to start creating their own jobs. Say a small corp(a) wants data that's stored in another corps'(b) mainframe. That data would allow (a) to know when (b) is going to be ready to release their product. If (a) can release their similar product, they stand to make millions of nuyen. It's worth it to them to spend a good deal of money to make those millions. So someone from corp (a) might be willing to spend 100k nuyen for that data. A willing fixer sets up an operation with a budget of 200k. Anything that's not left over is the fixers pay. So if he can get a team of 6 runners to do the job for 5k ea then he can pocket 70k the easy way. If the runners can set up their own missions then they can keep all the money. They must have enough cash to bankroll teh job though.
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So a runner with mid lifestyle needs to make 5k a month to stay afloat. As a GM, I assume the runners will go on one big run per month so in this case the jobs he does for his fixer pay 5k per run.
So income and basic expenses are equal? This seems very problematic. First, if on that run someone is hurt badly enough to need medical attention, they're screwed. Second, you're denying a fundamental aspect of progression for an extended period of time, which places an entirely undue burden upon the tech characters, being as they are more reliant on money than on Karma.
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Hmm. RHat brings up a good point. I like the idea of using the Lifestyle costs as a baseline, but I'd probably be inclined to offer up to twice Lifestyle cost per month, either as raw nuyen or in trade. This allows the runners to gradually move up in their Lifestyle, pay for replacement gear, medical needs, etc.
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Team average lifestyle has been recommended in the books as a baseline previously, and it's a good idea. It's also a baseline, and could be adjusted as per the guidelines in SR5.
Honestly, payment has always been a major thorn, but a wise GM does something of the above, and offers the total amount, not 'X per runner'. X per runner is for Missions and pick-up games, so that everyone knows it's being balanced out. The smart GM doesn't get into distribution, just like a smart Johnson wouldn't care to. "It's 80k. Okay, 90, but that's all I got." Sure, it may be +500 per hit per runner, but work out how much that's gonna be total-per-hit ahead of time...
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Honestly, payment has always been a major thorn, but a wise GM does something of the above, and offers the total amount, not 'X per runner'. X per runner is for Missions and pick-up games, so that everyone knows it's being balanced out. The smart GM doesn't get into distribution, just like a smart Johnson wouldn't care to. "It's 80k. Okay, 90, but that's all I got." Sure, it may be +500 per hit per runner, but work out how much that's gonna be total-per-hit ahead of time...
Pay-per-mission is something very distinctively Shadowrun. I agree with Wyrm on the preparation angle. I don't mind it too much when a Johnson pays per runner, but I prefer to let the team decide how to divvy up the pay. And whenever possible, I determine the incremental pay in advance for the same reasons that Wyrm brings up.
Also, damn - 10k improvement at 500 per runner is 20 runners. Or a LOT of negotiation hits. :P
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I had a 20k-jumps run once, that contained extra follow-up stuff. All in all, they ended up getting paid spread over 3x or so, including the advance, each with a maxed Silver credstick. Since the first credstick didn't split in 7, they ended up giving the bartender 50, and later used the other remnants as donations. So even though all totalled it was 20k per runner, they ended up with 19.950 each. ^_^'
It's a nice trick and I forget to employ it occasionally. Then again, last run was a military operation so each runner got their own wage. But normally we're talking a budget yes, and I've used a total budget a few times.
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Hmm. RHat brings up a good point. I like the idea of using the Lifestyle costs as a baseline, but I'd probably be inclined to offer up to twice Lifestyle cost per month, either as raw nuyen or in trade. This allows the runners to gradually move up in their Lifestyle, pay for replacement gear, medical needs, etc.
Of course, the question does become "whose lifestyle". And, for that matter, there's issues with regard to people gaming that system by taking High lifestyle and when people decide that a Street lifestyle most suits their character.
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Well you don't have to tell the players how you calculate their pay. And if you suspect that someone is metagaming like that, there are lots of ways to handle the situation. One thing that I love to do sometimes is make it so the runners are barely squeaking by. Especially when they start getting to the High lifestyle. Once they do that, rent is expensive, and the pay for their runs may not cover the bills every month.
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Payment in favors or marks can be useful in certain circumstances. Sure, nuyen nice, but having a gang leader or high level exec owe you one could pull your hoop out of the fire!
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Well you don't have to tell the players how you calculate their pay. And if you suspect that someone is metagaming like that, there are lots of ways to handle the situation. One thing that I love to do sometimes is make it so the runners are barely squeaking by. Especially when they start getting to the High lifestyle. Once they do that, rent is expensive, and the pay for their runs may not cover the bills every month.
Problem is, just scraping by brings us back to the progression issue, both in terms of perceived and actual. Plus, its not like that system is that hard to figure out. Plus the varying lifestyles and street/squatter lifestule issues remain.
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I don't like to make them barely squeak by all the time. Only when they jump a rung of lifestyle too quickly. If someone saves up to buy one month of Luxury lifestyle, but doesn't necessarily earn the income already to keep it going, then they're going to lose that lifestyle real quick.
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Well you don't have to tell the players how you calculate their pay. And if you suspect that someone is metagaming like that, there are lots of ways to handle the situation. One thing that I love to do sometimes is make it so the runners are barely squeaking by. Especially when they start getting to the High lifestyle. Once they do that, rent is expensive, and the pay for their runs may not cover the bills every month.
Problem is, just scraping by brings us back to the progression issue, both in terms of perceived and actual. Plus, its not like that system is that hard to figure out. Plus the varying lifestyles and street/squatter lifestule issues remain.
I know I wouldn't move up to the high lifestyle unless I thought I could afford it and if the gm suddenly dropped the pay or the like I'd be very annoyed and if I were a mage may even retire that character as they sold out for a high paying job because really if I'm always jut scraping by i may as well do it with a beginner character than my highly skilled legend one where it makes no sense that they've always only got just enough month to monrh, forget better gear you have to rob the local sstuffnshack for dinner.
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I don't like to make them barely squeak by all the time. Only when they jump a rung of lifestyle too quickly. If someone saves up to buy one month of Luxury lifestyle, but doesn't necessarily earn the income already to keep it going, then they're going to lose that lifestyle real quick.
There's another issue, and one that's always puzzled me... Even when they're a criminal, a Luxury lifestyle draws a lot of attention, both public and not. Go back to the criminals who lived that lifestyle... generally, everyone knew their name. They didn't get caught, but they pretty much had public awareness high enough they were often known in every household. It really bugs me that Shadowrun doesn't reflect this.
Then again, I would have a runner buy a permanent middle-class lifestyle instead of going Luxury. Just enough for comfort, not enough to get really noticed. And I can always upgrade the security myself ;)
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There's another issue, and one that's always puzzled me... Even when they're a criminal, a Luxury lifestyle draws a lot of attention, both public and not. Go back to the criminals who lived that lifestyle... generally, everyone knew their name. They didn't get caught, but they pretty much had public awareness high enough they were often known in every household. It really bugs me that Shadowrun doesn't reflect this.
I disagree that it doesn't reflect it. Consider the Luxury lifestyle: 100,000 per month. That's above and beyond what's needed to reload the guns, fuel the getaway car, pay the medical bills, and put something aside for improvements to the 'ware and gear. You'd have to do a 10k-paying run every three days, or a 25k paying job for every one of the four allowable weeks in Missions, just to keep up with the lifestyle. Any runner making that much money is going to have skills out the wazoo, which means karma earned out the wazoo, which means an earned amount of street cred out the wazoo, which means public awareness out the wazoo. Most earn-mucho-dinero runners who decide to start living the ultra-high-life are probably the same ones who don't mind that whole 'household name' aspect of PA.
I came across an old run tracker spreadsheet just the other day, and out of nine players, I was the only one who was paying close attention to their Street Cred, Notoriety, and Public Awareness. Everyone else was in the 'every cop has heard your name, and every shadowrunner-wannabes too' category around 9-12 (Public Awareness = 20 - Street Cred - Notoriety), while mine was still in the 'if you have street cred, everyone who knows who you are keeps that a quiet secret out of respect for your professionalism' zone at 19. Every time the team was burdened with Notoriety, I burned Street Cred to get mine wiped out. Plus, the GM allowed us to burn street cred in order to permanently reduce our Public Awareness; -1 SC for -2 PA (-1 for the burning, and the natural -1 for being down 1 point of Street Cred.)
IMO, it's stuff like this that matters to a Johnson - but then again, he wouldn't be looking to hire that character for a simple facility bombing ...
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There's a crapton of cartel bosses that live the Luxury lifestyle, and most people don't know who they are. Or at least, they're not capable of being caught. Hell, look at Brackhaven. He's guilty as sin, but he's untouchable.
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There's a crapton of cartel bosses that live the Luxury lifestyle, and most people don't know who they are. Or at least, they're not capable of being caught. Hell, look at Brackhaven. He's guilty as sin, but he's untouchable.
Those are examples of lifestyles for Johnsons rather than runners.
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Lifestyles are lifestyles. Doesn't matter if it's a Johnson or not.
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I think Brackhaven has a very high Public Aware score, given what I've seen written about him...
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I think Brackhaven has a very high Public Aware score, given what I've seen written about him...
He certainly does after Splintered States...
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Lifestyles are lifestyles. Doesn't matter if it's a Johnson or not.
Well, it's not the lifestyles themselves more that the examples you used have the pendulum swinging towards being more Johnson-material than runners. Hell, one might be able to even say they're the ones that hire the Johnsons to hire the runners.