[Shamie]

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?

[TormDK]

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

[Shamie]

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

[Senko]

If their living hand to mouth how do they upgrade their gear?

[Voltron64]

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.

[SlowDeck]

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.

[JimmyCrisis]

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.

[Michael Chandra]

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.)

[Shamie]

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.

[HarshRhettoric]

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.

[WellsIDidIt]

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).

[SlowDeck]

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.

[Shamie]

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.

[Namikaze]

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.

[JimmyCrisis]

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.