[brasso]

Apologies if this has been thrashed out already, I'm just wondering roughly how much GMs might charge for various services, eg. a decker changing ownership of an item, etc? I realize it's quite a wide question, but just wondering if there were any rules of thumb - maybe the contact favors section?

The reason why I need to give this a little thought is that as soon as the runners establish how much NPCs charge for services, they'll start hiring themselves out between scenarios for the same services!

There's a catch with magical services like quickened spells, etc. due to magical signatures making them traceable... I don't think PC magicians would be keen to do this for strangers.

[Namikaze]

There's some info on Coyote fees in the book aptly titled Coyotes.  There's also a small section of prices for various parts of vehicles in Run & Gun.  As far as fees for other stuff, you'll have to wait for the appropriate book(s) to come out, or refer to older material from 4th edition.

[Reaver]

I use the tables from 4e still for things like that.

[LordGrizzle]

I use the tables from 4e still for things like that.

4E had tables for hiring npcs? Can you give me some reference on where that was? I have read a lot but I don't remember to have ever seen something like that.

If there are tables from 4E I would take the value and increase it by like 50% since prices seem to have increased in 5E for most things.

[Namikaze]

Hacker services: Unwired.  Medical services: Augmentation.

[Herr Brackhaus]

Stolen Souls has some info on hiring riggers for certain things, and you could always default to the Missions rule to prevent abuse.

From the Missions FAQ:
How much do instructors cost?
Instructors will charge (10 x Instructors Skill Rating) nuyen per day. They follow the standard rules for Instruction (p. 105, SR5) and need a minimum skill rank of 3 or the skill rank you are training to, whichever is higher. Note that this is a tweak
to the standard training rules, since they neither list a minimum skill level requirement nor list standard training times. Instructors may train individual skills, groups, or train specializations.

I'd also point out that if your players are spending time selling their services between missions, why are they running at all? Also, if they are selling their skills during downtime they're not spending time improving themselves. Frankly, I'd say a simple option is to allow karma to nuyen exchange also as per missions rules. A flat 2000¥ for a point of karma for a week's work is pretty decent for most runners, after all.

[cyclopean]

Yeah I use the karma to nuyen & vice versa as an abstraction for players doing downtime work, and like it quite a lot. For NPC's it depends whether they are contacts or not, in which case loyalty should decrease price, though high connection might increase the timeframe. I usually base hiring price on how much risk a task entails, so an NPC might request anywhere from a full share in the job payout to just a handful of nuyen. I try to keep them cheap enough that players can hire extra talent when they actually need it, but not so cheap that they just outsource every aspect of the job.

[Mr. Black]

When charging for NPC experts, I usually go with 1 of 3 formats: Low for info, mid-range for dangerous tasks, and an uncomfortable amount if it is needed for a Run.

If the runners just need info, $1000 or less is usually about right, depending on the amount of time it takes to get the answer. $1-200 a day is good and the runners usually won't hesitate to pay it.

Dangerous tasks (flying a helicopter to the run site, providing illegal medical care, renting a boat to a bunch of well armed runners, etc.) starts at $5-10,000. These folks are going to jail if caught, lose their boat/helicopter to impound, etc., and will need a payment that overcomes self-preservation. The amount should be within the runners range of nuyen, but should remind them that there are real life costs other than money involved. If they need the service repeatedly, $5-10K should be an amount that makes them want to buy instead of rent. Taking money and karma from the runners in this way is one of the prime directives of good GMing (money to buy a boat, karma to learn to drive/repair it, and also the contacts in the marina to keep an eye on it).

If the runners need a person on site (a decker, a mage, a demo man, a lock/security specialist, etc.), it should be an amount that makes them pause. Not so much that they can't pay it, but enough that they may think it would be cheaper to go without. You want your players to have to make a tough decision, money over safety. Please note we are making the players uncomfortable, not their characters. $10,000 is the minimum. An equal share is better. If Mr. Johnson is paying by the party member, he may not be happy to find out there is an extra person to pay, which will also cause discomfort to the players. This level of money however should earn the runners a new contact with low Loyalty, unless some life-saving went on during the run.

[Andy]

There are daily costs for the hospitalization lifestyle (500/day basic care), usable as a ball park figure for other "shadow professionals"
The rules for contacts give a +/-10% negotiation test for black market services.

Alternatively you could just hire them for a shadowrun and pay them the 3 grand 

[cantrip]

Another option is to barter services - or owe a favor. This can lead to additional runs or other plot hooks for your game.

I've toyed around with offering a NPC a cut or percentage of the teams take -- that way your players can make the call if they want more nuyen or better support during a run.

[Darkstar]

The listed prices in Unwired (p. 93) are based on the skill of the person/hacker being hired (which makes sense), but are pretty expensive, here's a few samples:

• Hacker Services - Availability - Cost
• Hacking a passcode - 12R - Hacking skill x 500¥
• Setting up a hidden account - 16F - Hacking skill x 1,000¥
• DOS attack on an individual (1 hour) - 8F - Hacking skill x 200¥
• Tracing a datatrail - 6R - Hacking skill x 100¥
• Anonymized commcode (calls/messaging) - 4 - Number of reroutes x 5¥ per day

There are more in there and a few other examples in various other pieces, personally I would just GM fiat it based on how much time it normally takes (vs how quick your runners need it), how much skill it requires, & (most importantly) how dangerous the person they're hiring perceives their offer to be.  In terms of (as others suggested) roleplaying out what contacts want instead of a strict monetary compensation, I would read through Contacts and Adventures (4e) for ideas though, pretty much every contact prototype there has things they want listed (some contacts want nuyen, others data, others sample corp IDs for reproduction, etc...).  Makes for some interesting ideas.

[brasso]

Yeah, I know it's a bump 

Just wondering how much a change of ownership on an item should cost - judging from the posts, it's 1-2k, because, yeah, there's risk and it takes quite a bit of time. Reason I'm reaching out to get a fix on this cost is because:

- it determines what the runners are gonna bother to steal (Predator: No, cyberdeck: yes)
- pc deckers are going to want in on this action

[Shaidar]

I'd go with roughly 300% cost of the typical item to set-up the capability to handle on a regular basis, then charge something like 10% of specific item cost for each individual item processed.

[Herr Brackhaus]

Change of ownership requires a skilled and/or talented individual, the appropriate tools, and time.

Example 1: assuming a lone individual with Skill 6 + Specialization 2 + Logic 4 for a starting dice pool of 12 and using only mathematical averages when rolling, it will take this person 9 hours to get 24 hits.
Example 2: assuming the same individual as above but add two assistants with Skill 4 + Specialization 2 + Logic 4 using teamwork for a starting dice pool of 18 and using mathematical averages, it will take this team 5 hours to get 24 hits.
Example 3: assuming a team lead by highly skilled individual with Skill 12 + Specialization 2 + Logic 6 and four of the assistants from example 2 for a starting pool of 32 and using mathematical averages, it will take this team 3 hours to get 24 hits.

So, at this point you've got a baseline for how many people it takes of a certain skill to get the job done. The players should have a choice; do they go to Discount Dan who runs a toaster repair shop around the corner, or do they go to the professionals?

Run Faster includes suggested cost for labour, ranging from 8¥/hour for unskilled personnel to 50¥/hour for highly skilled personnel. Rounding these off to 10¥*skill rating gives us an indication of cost for skilled labour that I feel adjust better than simple flat values. Using this value for the above examples yields the following.

Example 1: (Skill 6 + Specialization 2) * 10 * 9 hours = 80*9 = 720¥
Example 2: ((Skill 6 + Specialization 2) + 2 * (Skill 4 + Specialization 2)) * 10 * 5 hours = 200*5 = 1,000¥
Example 3: ((Skill 12 + Specialization 2) + 4 * (Skill 4 + Specialization 2)) * 10 * 3 hours = 380*3 = 1,140¥

To my mind, 10¥*skill rating seems a little low, so let's up the cost to 25¥*skill rating.

Example 1: (Skill 6 + Specialization 2) * 25 * 9 hours = 200*9 = 1800¥
Example 2: ((Skill 6 + Specialization 2) + 2 * (Skill 4 + Specialization 2)) * 25 * 5 hours = 500*5 = 2,500¥
Example 3: ((Skill 12 + Specialization 2) + 4 * (Skill 4 + Specialization 2)) * 25 * 3 hours = 950*3 = 2,850¥

Now, keep in mind these are just labour costs. I'm guessing someone like the team in the last example aren't going to waste their time on swiping handguns. With their abilities the team could be working for a syndicate with serious turnover on stolen goods, or working as fences themselves dealing exclusively with high-value items. As previous posters have suggested, asking for a percentage value of the item in question might be a good idea to add on to pure nuyen costs. Anywhere from a 1% to a 5% commission seems fair, as any high value item will net a tidy sum.