[kevin perrine]

    One of the things that I see as very important in Shadowrun is the "economy" of the game. Because (correct me if I'm wrong) but the NEED to do missions/Shadowruns all comes down to the payment. If you HAVE everything you need for resources/gear, etc... Why take missions (especially the harder/scarier ones)??

    That said.
    I'm new to GMing Shadowrun 4E.
    So...
    I'd love any advice on ideas, shortcuts, hints, help on HOW to pay-attention to, "manage", plan, or give out resources. Ideas for NOT "overpaying" the Shadowrunners, or having them get *TOO MUCH* too quickly. (note - I don't want to need to "plan" Mr. Johnson screwing or stealing from the PCs to "fix" this all the time, if I give them too much).

    On that note.
    What are the things I need to watch and have the Shadowrunners "PAY" for monthly? Such as their Lifestyles, etc...
    Do you keep a tight-reign on the resources like AMMO? How do you plan that best? and what other "minor" resources are there (like Ammo) to consider??


    any simple techniques?
    are there any spread-sheets or checklists or anything for a GM to use to manage this?
    anything else?

    thanks!!

[All4BigGuns]

First off, don't do this "lump sum and then make them divide" stuff. It is just a needless hassle. Secondly, figure out which of your players has the most expensive lifestyle and make the pay for each mission at least double that. That way they'll have enough left after lifestyles to save up for gear upgrades. Don't be stingy on karma either, the Awakened characters need that more than anything else to advance.

[Nebular]

Unless the character has a High Lifestyle or better, I tend to see them as needing to run to earn a living. If they've got a High or Luxury Lifestyle, they don't need to do it but are probably doing it for the thrill.

I think I average about 5,000 Nuyen per run with each run taking roughly one game week. If it takes longer then it will usually be around 7,500 Nuyen. I try to give them enough to cover their monthly Lifestyle expense and still have some left over to buy a new toy or two. Nothing too major. If they want something big and expensive, they have to save up their allowance. They usually run for 3 weeks every month with one month for spending Karma and improving a Skill, learning a new Spell, etc. They'll also need enough Karma to actually improve their characters, buy Spells, etc. Awakened characters seem to chew through it the quickest.

I never used to keep track of ammo since it was such a pain in the butt. This might seem like a shameless plug, but since I started writing Chummer which lets both myself (for NPCs) and my players track exactly how much ammo is in each weapon, it's much easier and more amusing, especially when someone yells "aw crap! I'm out!" in the middle of a firefight. It can really add to the fun and the tension of some fights. The same goes for all other consumable items. If you have something that can make tracking that information easier, it's less of a headache to track it and keeps resource management viable.

As far as techniques, I don't think I have too many. If they're not major Tests, like a Healing Test when the character is resting or trying to remove Stun damage, I use the rule to buy hits where a character can buy Hits by tossing 4 dice out of their Pool (you can buy multiple Hits by tossing out more dice). Basically if the Troll has 16 dice to try and remove his 4 points of Stun damage, I'm not going to make him roll it. He can just buy the Hits.

If you want to make the lives or you and your players easier, you might want to look at some of the character management options out there. There are 3 that are in a working state that I'm aware of:

• Hero Lab by Lone Wolf Development (Windows application)
• Chummer by me (Windows application)
• Upgraded Character Generator by DamienKnight (spreadsheet that works with Excel and OpenOffice)

[Crash_00]

Ammo (and the tracking of it) is a topic that has seen a good bit of discussion here. There are many different opinions, which really just depend on your play style. There are several good suggestions in there for tracking it if you wish to, and there is always just the option of flat out ignoring anything that isn't a high cost ammunition.

I personally make them keep track of everything. I'll assume they were able to pick things up that there character would have thought of (water proof satchels for going on a high seas journey for instance), but they still gotta shell out cash. Half of the game is trying to make ends meet in my campaigns. That said, I tend to run a lower power gritty style game. Many people play a much higher power action movie style where its mostly about the combat challenge rather than the survival in a dystopian world. It's all about how you want your game to feel in the end. Every SR GM has a different world in the end. Meeting your fixer to pick up a couple dozen rounds of APDS might be standard in one game, while in another it just gets mailed in with your recent subscription to Guns and Ammo and is treated as part of your lifestyle.

Pay really varies on several key elements: Who the Johnson is, the Johnson's resources, the Johnson's Experience, the group's experience, the job itself, the speed with which it needs to be done, how much recon will be required, etc. A couple rich guys having fun might pay runners several k a piece to deliver an all meat (real meat not that soy crap) pizza to an address just outside of touristville, while a cold and experienced johnson might only pay a couple k a piece to break into a local facility and steal an unsecured data file.

General rule of thumb I use is that the players should be able to make their ends meet at a low lifestyle and save back at least 1k per month. That's assuming one run a month. The more they run, the more excess they'll have, but I bring a lot of background into play too. Those contacts the players call in favors from will call in favors, and the like, and some sessions will involve "running" just to keep their contacts at the status quo.

[Tsuzua]

The bigger concern in my opinion really isn't how much PCs get paid but rather how do they derived their income.  Unless breaking into car lots is way more dangerous than breaking into research facilities, side jobs like car theft are preferable to shadowrunning if your pay is bad.  I recommend using Mission's fairly harsh 10% for hot items no questions asked policy.  It's simple and discourages looting. 

There's also the fact that even the Sample PCs in the book are fairly competent individuals compared to the other NPCs around him.  They should be able to get a steady job of the low to middle with savings somewhere.  They should have a reason to run other than "my player wants to play the game" if pay is terrible.  You can make it work if they're such bunny ears lawyers that they can't ever get a job somewhere or are kept down by THE MAN.  But that either cuts out a lot of common character archetypes or can lead to very antagonistic games.

Obviously you should scale pay to the danger of a job.  Small time brute squad stuff like wrecking up a low security office building might only be 1000-2000Y a runner.  Stealing macguffins from a facility with decent security should pay more in the 10000-15000Y per runner range. 

I wouldn't worry too much overpaying in SR.  While money equals power, most PCs are going to start play with a huge amount of capital anyways.  Typically a mundane PC is going to need at least 20,000Y or so before their next upgrade and even then it's going to be on the order of an extra die most of the time.  Eventually they might consider stuff like Move By Wires II for 88000Y for its +2 reaction, but that's going to be 6-9 runs of pure saving, not counting lifestyle costs.

Magical characters and technomancers can easily reach the point of where they don't really care about cash.  They just need karma.  Thus you don't need to worry about them getting a huge boost of power with good pay.  Since magical characters are generally the most powerful characters especially when people are learning the game, favoring pay over karma isn't that bad of a decision.

Unless pay is truly terrible, money sinks like drugs and ammo shouldn't matter.  If you're only making 1000Y a month after rent, then yeah the 300Y you spent on medkit supplies and 30 rounds of SnS is noteworthy.  However even then you're still taking home 700Y of the 1000Y.  It'll take you 14 runs instead of 10 to save 10,000Y for that reflex recorder but that's still forever (3-4 months real life if you meet once a week IRL).