- Certified Sticks
- Sure, they can be traced from the Mr. Johnson's
Credstick, but more than likely he'll use some credstick that is not
personally his, perhaps pull the money out of the "corporate miscellanea
bin" credstick. Besides, how is corp Y, who the run was against, going
to check corp X's, who financed the run, financial records?
Banks will happily double-blind certified credsticks, for a fee.
And the corp has every reason to make sure the payments to shadowrunners
are un-fraggin-traceable.
- Corporate Scrip
- More likely than not, Shadowrunners will refuse this
type of money. It's just bad business, like dealing with Free Spirits. :)
Why? Because it is so volatile. More likely than not, they will not receive
scrip for the AAA megacorp that acts as the parent, since many times corps
wish to remain anonymous. Anyway, most smaller corporations (id est, anythin
g not AAA) have rather volatile stocks. Also, most Mr. Johnsons (again for
the purpose of anonymity) will work either without telling their corporation's
identity or working through several fronts (fixers).
Another thing to consider, Corporate Script is valuable on the street. A
rating 1 Credstick Terminal (think 'cash register') costs 12,000 Nuyen.
You ain't going to put one of those on the side of a Sausage cart. Cash
will survive, with Corp Script having a street value relative to how useful
it is locally.
- Regular Credsticks
- If a shadowrunner has one (just one will do), pay
him through the stick. He can disperse the money from his "legal" stick
to the rest of the group's certified sticks at his own risk. :)
- Information
- It's what's worth the most. If a corp has some new ware
out, the Runners might be the first to know. Or, the corp just tells the
party where information can be found (in the target corp, of course), and
lets the characters keep a copy.
- The Hiring Company's Stock
- Sure, it motivates the runners to do well,
but not really. Most Shadowruns are meant to be SILENT. Therefore the
stock price won't change much (at least initially) unless word gets out.
This motivates the Shadowrunners to squeal. Astute observation, correct?
Also, why should a corporation let its stock fall into anyone's hands?
More likely than not, the Shadowrunners will SELL the stock, and, more likely
than not, the buyer will be an enemy corporation. Sell stock, your enemy
gets it. And that gives them a small more amount of control.
But then again, not all stock has a vote. There is stock that will only give
dividends to the owner, so the Corporation does not have to give away
voting stock.
- Another Company's Stock
- All companies have the secret goals of
getting >50% of a rival's stock. So why give it away to Shadowrunners
when they would prefer Cred anyway?
Unless there is something big that I have missed, paying in corporate
stock is not as hot as it seems...
- Target Company's Stock
- (Suggested by Carl Rigney)
The most inventive payment method I've seen was for the Employer to
give the runners put options on a large number of shares of the target
corporation. if they hit their target its stock would drop and they
would make a lot of money; if they failed the options would expire
worthless. The options were transferred ahead of time so the runners didn't
have to meet anyone afterward and didn't have to worry about not getting
paid.
Of course, this trick only works for runs with effects visible to the
outside world, but a similar principle can be applied in other
cases. Instead of paying the runners in cash, give them something that
will go up in value if they succeed.