Johnsons on PRPs
One thing that's come up a lot is the situation with people asking for gear instead of cash as a payout for a run, from the Johnson or Fixer who's essentially offering the pay. They point to the '50% value' rule for gear as payouts for runs, and expect to be able to buy things for half-price.
This does not work. The 50% value rule applies only for the purposes of the OOC PrP payout limits. It doesn't mean that the fixer sells you things for half price. And the rule about bypassing availability only applies to gear acquired during the course of the run. It has to be highly reasonable for it to be there, as well. Otherwise, availability and negotiation rules apply.
However, when you're doing the run for a fixer or a Johnson, that Fixer or Johnson has a vested interest in you succeeding. You may consider a Fixer or Johnson for whom you're doing a run to be an automatic Level 1 contact for the duration of the run (or +1 to their contact level if they're already a contact — max of Level 3). In addition, they may help you out in the following ways, entirely at the discretion of the player running the plot and the approving admin:
1. In some cases, they will shorten the base time to 'what's needed for the run', if you can get one success on the availability. They may very well charge extra for this, however.
2. They'll subtract your gear from the payment for the run, effectively 'paying in advance' a little bit to make it more likely that you're successful.
3. They may let you roll Etiquette, figure out what your highest roll is, and *then* let you increase street index to lower the availability or base time, as per '+hr general gear'.
4. They may loan you the item, with an option to buy later, after the base time has expired.
5. For low availability or low-cost items, they may just give you the item at book price, without making you roll for it.
6. Street Index may be lowered or even, potentially, bypassed for items that the J specializes in: for example, an Ares Johnson giving you Ares products. Those are a lot easier to acquire and make 'disappear' on the books. (SI still applies for PrP payout calculations).
These options are put into place to help streamline plots. J's and Fixers who are running plots are not Stuffer Shack, and attempting to use them as such may increase the price. After all, they're out for profit. Also, corporate J's, especially those working for Ares (Knight Errant) or Lone Star, may be reluctant to give 'runners really high class or dangerous gear, because chances are… someday it'll be used against them.
As always, the player running the plot, and then the admin, must approve all gear acquired from a playerplot. Using more than one or *MAYBE* two of the above options together, or pushing the envelope (i.e. asking for monoswords, heavy milspec armor with all the trimmings, etc), may result in the item getting denied. Keep it in reason.
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