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Message no. 1
From: shadowrn@*********.com (James Zealey)
Subject: Training rules and Moonlighting
Date: Tue May 29 19:35:01 2001
> also, how do you guys handle charecters "moonlighting" as shadowrunners
> from their normal jobs. for example, in my planned "in the gutter"
> campaign, where the highest lifestyle allowed will be low (and only ONE of
> them in the group), most of the charecters are doing something else to
> earn them the nuyen to eat, eg, the street mage sells healing via magic,
> communication and espionage via spirits, and dispelling/assensing
> services to the street, the decker uses his matrix knowledge to rig up
> free matrix accounts, research for detectives, etc. this works fine most
> of the time, as they can run out of "office" hours, but I'm wondering how
> to handle the income - I was tempted to say that the work they do pays
> thier living costs, but noting more, so if they want to improve themselves
> (buy training, hell even a new coat), they have to either go into debt or
> shadowrun. what do you think?

If you're gonna say their work only pays their living costs, then they'd better all be
mid-lifestyle or better. A street mage who sells his services will make a bomb, as will a
decker, even bad ones.
If you're going for a gutter level campaign then the people in the situation are either:
a) Not anywhere near runner potential. The mage has a sorcery of 1 and no magical theory
and noone to train him. The decker has similarly low computer skills and a shop-bought
deck with minor mods (the lowest level deck costs a few grand i think though...)
b) Already in crippling debt with insane interest rates or on drugs/beetles.


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Message no. 2
From: shadowrn@*********.com (shadowrn@*********.com)
Subject: Training rules and Moonlighting
Date: Wed May 30 05:20:01 2001
On Wed, 30 May 2001, James Zealey wrote:

> > also, how do you guys handle charecters "moonlighting" as
shadowrunners

snipped for brevity

> > them in the group), most of the charecters are doing something else to
> > earn them the nuyen to eat, eg, the street mage sells healing via magic,

>
> If you're gonna say their work only pays their living costs, then they'd better all
be
> mid-lifestyle or better. A street mage who sells his services will make a bomb, as
will a
> decker, even bad ones.

I thought about this, but I wasn't sure how much they would *actually*
make. sure, the charge for a Heal or antidote spell will be quite large
(no access to MiTS right now), but how many street level people will be
able to *afford* this, so will he be able to charge that if he wants any
work? and assuming he does charge full price, how often will people take
him up on it? I was assuming that he wouldn't get much high cost healing,
but what he does get, combined with other services he offers, pays enough
to cover the rent (and he's squatting, too, which contributes to the low
demand and people able to pay stuff I mentioend earlier). his long term
plan is to set up a talismonger shop, and I was wondering how to handle
that, also - I was thinking paying upkeep like middle costs, but only
getting a lower lifestyle to reflect the premisies he was paying for, plus
the cost of purchasing the talismongering shop gear 100,000 nuyen, I
think?, so, expensive to run, but what would it generate?

any ideas?

> If you're going for a gutter level campaign then the people in the situation are
either:
> a) Not anywhere near runner potential. The mage has a sorcery of 1 and no magical
theory
> and noone to train him. The decker has similarly low computer skills and a
shop-bought
> deck with minor mods (the lowest level deck costs a few grand i think though...)
> b) Already in crippling debt with insane interest rates or on drugs/beetles.
>

his is how i approached it, as they don't have more than 20,000 (newer
starting charecters have more, buts its going to be fun for the rigger :-)
with the old sr1 rules, the mage only got three spells, and they were
mostly healing, so he wasn't instant shadowrunning potential, and the
decker couldn't afford a deck & programs (although someone else's comment
about thier decker renting a deck is a good idea - what do you reckon they
would rent for? 1%/day?), but I allowed him to design his own using his
b/r and computer skills (didnt have the sr3 matric sourcebook then, only
the sr1 stuff), anyway, what he did end up with was fine for a short
non-problematic run, or data gathering, but you wouldn't want to really
deck with it. should improve as he writes better programs though...


--
jconstable@*****.com
Diagonally parked in a parallel universe

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