[ich.pdf]

For Realm Works, you can purchase the GM Edition and then buy player edition(s). Those Player editions each need an own account. You can technically set up those accounts and give away username and password, so you can transfer them later to other players. However, every person with access to the account can change the password. But I guess, trust is not or at least should not be a big issue in a gaming group. However, you purchase a GM license and multiple player licenses

Herolab works different. You buy Herolab and maybe extra content. For Shadowrun and most of the other systems, supplements are extra cost, but I don't think this applies for Pathfinder. To this version, you can have multiple keys for multiple devices, beginning with two and up to five. But you will need to for yourself if you use herolab on a desktop PC and a notebook. So for Herolab, it would be one licence but multiple keys. Those keys can be transferred to other devices once within 180 days or upon a customer request with good cause.

EDIT: So you see, RW works account based and herolab device based. You can of course have each player buy his or her own version of herolab but if there is extra cost for supplements, the financial effort can exceed the benefit if the player uses herolab only to keep track of one or two characters.

I do love both RW and HL although I am using them only for 3 or 4 weeks now and I never regretted the investment. But I am a GM and for a player this solution might be to costly. I strongly suggest my players to invest there money in a RW player edition. Hero Lab versions for them are rather useless, because everyone would have to bring a notebook and in the end, my version is the one that counts as I manage encounters and combat with them and save them again. Though, Shadowrun is a lot of micromanagment (keeping track of every bullet etc.) so it might be different for you.