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Posted by: emo samurai May 2 2006, 04:41 AM

I'll start. If a person had a really traumatic childhood, would it be right to modify his memories?

Does loyalty to one's company/tribe/gang/Johnson justify what you do in any way whatsoever?

Is corporate espionage okay? What justifications do people use?

Posted by: mfb May 2 2006, 05:18 AM

you may mean vagueries, which isn't really a word. but we'll set english aside for the moment.

part of moral vaguery is the fact that there isn't a single answer for moral questions--sometimes, not even a single right answer for one person. if there were an answer, morality wouldn't be vague anymore.

a more relevant question, for most runners, would be "can i live with having done morally questionable action X?" does loyalty to your gang allow you to look in the mirror the next morning? does the fact that you're making fat sacks of cash money off your rival's prototype assuage any feelings of guilt you may have?

Posted by: emo samurai May 2 2006, 05:24 AM

Dude, "vagaries," plural of "vagary," is a word.

In my campaign, I'm sort of avoiding the question by setting them up to take out bad people. I'm not sure if this is right; and the thing is, in Shadowrun, and maybe even RL, there isn't an effective way to work for the good of all humanity; the work you do will benefit only your family/company/gang/Johnson, not humanity as a whole. There is no unifying force of good, only a whole host of large self-interested entities that happen to be made up of people.

Follow-up question. Do you think this balkanization as essentially a good/necessary thing, with people finally able to live as their traditions see fit, (For example, the NAN, Manchuria, the Australian outback) or is tradition really no more valid as a unifier than rational selfishness? Is it, perhaps, more oppressive?

Posted by: mfb May 2 2006, 05:39 AM

yes, but i'm not certain that http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=vagary means what you think it means. it has nothing to do with http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=vagueness, a word which seems a more germane to the questions you're asking.

regardless. moral grey areas--or, rather, the near-complete lack of moral shading to any action--is a staple concept of cyberpunk in general. cyberpunk is all about doing bad things and then maybe wondering whether or not you should feel bad about it. though just as important, if more subtle, is the idea that there's something wrong with people like that--people who commit crimes for money. there's something fundamentally flawed in their mental makeup.

i don't view the Balkanization of the SR world as 'good' or 'bad'. in terms of the sheer number of people who could be negatively affected by a few big countries versus a lot of small countries, the scales seem pretty even. in practice, at least in SR, i suppose i would probably say that the Balkanization as been bad for humanity as a whole. everything in SR has been bad for humanity as a whole. that's cyberpunk.

Posted by: emo samurai May 2 2006, 05:48 AM

But vagaries are items of whimsy; that pretty much encompasses what I want to say.

Anyway, here's another question. The megacorporations do "good" stuff, like aquaculture, and they make the tools that runners and gangsters use on a daily basis. On the other hand, these exploits are mostly PR blitzes to cover up the fact they are polluting and exploiting like hell. Would helping the corporations be a good deed, or would it be a bad one? And is it even rational for a runner to hate the corporations while he/she praises it for its products and ingenuity?

Posted by: mfb May 2 2006, 06:05 AM

one of the main 'points' of cyberpunk is that there is no right or wrong. you're asking about good and bad as if they're absolute concepts. in a cyberpunk setting, they're not.

Posted by: Nidhogg May 2 2006, 06:32 AM

Posted by: mfb May 2 2006, 06:36 AM

good? bad? i'm the guy with the entree.

Posted by: Glyph May 2 2006, 06:41 AM

A lot of the conflict from shadowrun comes from the 'runners being people who try to be good, but have to make moral compromises to get ahead, for the greater good, or just to survive. One of the other themes is that they can't always change things that much.

And Emo, setting up the PCs to take out "bad guys" isn't really that non-canon. There is a very strong "Robin Hood" flavor to how shadowrunners are presented. And heck, nothing wrong with romanticizing them a bit. Make them too "realistic", and you would have a bunch of unpleasant criminals that would be utterly unsympathetic as protagonists. Although some people play that way.

One of the keys, though, is that it isn't good guys against bad guys, so much as morally ambivalent but sorta-good guys against the much-much nastier guys. The runners may be criminals, but they do some good, and have some lines they won't cross. Their adversaries, on the other hand, are bug shamans who have sold their souls to humanity's enemies for power, or corporations who dump toxic waste and perform evil experiments on captured squatters, or criminal organizations that implant personafix chips to create slaves for the sex trade.

Of course, different people approach SR in many, many ways. Some play idealistic crusaders like your campaign, some play lowly street punks doing nasty things just to survive, some play cold pros who minimize damage but don't have many high ideals either. So the degree of moral ambivalence can vary a lot, depending on the game.

Posted by: Kanada Ten May 2 2006, 06:43 AM

Seriously, these questions can only be addressed from an in-character perspective, and each character will have a different outlook. However, cynicism and apathy are pervasive themes in SR among the poor masses. Escapism merges with nationalism/corpism among the middle classes. And elitism in the most machiavellian sense saturates the strata of the higher class. There is a general "the value of one life is less than a good cup of coffee" mentality, but only if that life is distant and alien. The problem, then, is just how distant and alien everyone is from one another.

Posted by: Voran May 2 2006, 06:48 AM

While ignorance doesn't shield people from responsibility for their actions, in a way you have to feel sorry for the serfs of the megacorp. They're infused with a twisted sense of 'nationalism' and bombarded with constant propaganda and tests to their loyalty. They're not really evil, cause they make decisions without full knowledge, but their handlers and the higher ups in the corp that decide the actual course of their corps can be held more or less accountable, since they're making more informed choices.

Once you come from that angle, stuff like corporate espionage is pretty understandable, much like spying between nations today.


As for changing someone's memories cause they had a traumatic childhood, hard to say. Some people use their trauma to become better people, some people crack and freak out.

Sorta related I guess, but think about what sorta art, literature, etc we may have missed out on if people we consider great artists were all put on mood stabilizing drugs or given grey humdrum memories.

Posted by: ChuckRozool May 2 2006, 07:29 AM

Posted by: stevebugge May 2 2006, 03:16 PM

Inconceivable!

Posted by: eralston May 2 2006, 03:32 PM

I think what you're looking for is "nihilism" (and I know how everyone loves playing English professor around here)

1. Philosophy
a. An extreme form of skepticism that denies all existence.
b. A doctrine holding that all values are baseless and that nothing can be known or communicated.
2. Rejection of all distinctions in moral or religious value and a willingness to repudiate all previous theories of morality or religious belief.
3. The belief that destruction of existing political or social institutions is necessary for future improvement.
4. also Nihilism A diffuse, revolutionary movement of mid 19th-century Russia that scorned authority and tradition and believed in reason, materialism, and radical change in society and government through terrorism and assassination.
5. Psychiatry A delusion, experienced in some mental disorders, that the world or one's mind, body, or self does not exist.

Describe a couple runners you know?

I must certainly shoot the "there is no right or wrong" path because in SR you cannot be tortured or directed by such thoughts (As a character), because that will ultimately lead to you retiring or violently retiring.

Also how is corporate espionage morally objectionable, it's not like they were going to justly compensate the person who actually thought up the original idea

Posted by: ChuckRozool May 2 2006, 03:46 PM

"Nihilists! Fuck me. I mean, say what you like about the tenets of National Socialism, Dude, at least it's an ethos."

that will be all...

Posted by: Platinum May 2 2006, 05:15 PM

Posted by: John Campbell May 2 2006, 05:33 PM

Today I made an appearance downtown.
I am an expert witness - because I say I am.
And I said, "Gentlemen - and I use that word loosely -
I will testify for you.
I'm a gun for hire, I'm a saint, I'm a liar,
Because there are no facts,
There is no truth,
Just data to be manipulated.
I can get you any result you like -
What's it worth to you?
Because there is no wrong, there is no right,
And I sleep very well at night.
No shame, no solution,
No remorse, no retribution.
Just people selling t-shirts.
Just opportunity to participate
In the pathetic little circus
And winning, winning, winning."

Posted by: mfb May 2 2006, 05:34 PM

sounds more like nymphomania to me.

Posted by: Fire Hawk May 2 2006, 05:57 PM

There are a number of good points here, but in my mind, if you're that worried about "right versus wrong", then go play D&D, where something as arbitrary as Alignment actually factors in (at least, if taken the way the game was written in previous editions).

Shadowrun is a moral "gray area". Sure, there are a things that might make some of the more well-thought-out characters shudder or lose sleep, but someone like Sturm Brightblade would all but have a damned heart attack if he didn't stick his head in the sand, and focused only on smaller aspects of the Sixth World.

Posted by: hyzmarca May 2 2006, 06:42 PM

Does anyone ever run for the cause of Antidisestablishmentarialism?

I think a hardcore Antidisestablismmentarialist would make an interesting runner.


The way I see it, every runner is a Robin Hood with a worthy cause even if that cause is the runner himself. Is not a philanthropist who is his own one-and-only benefactor still a philanthropist?

Posted by: James McMurray May 2 2006, 07:08 PM

Posted by: emo samurai May 2 2006, 07:09 PM

Philanthropists like people; a runner isn't people.

Posted by: nezumi May 2 2006, 07:26 PM

Posted by: hyzmarca May 2 2006, 07:29 PM

The term specificly refers to the Church of England. An Antidisestablismmentarialist is someone who is against the disestablishment of the Church of England.

I don't know what yu'd call someone who is against the disestablishment of any other entity.

Posted by: James McMurray May 2 2006, 07:49 PM

It started as that, but ever since it became "cool" to know the word it has expanded its usage to more general areas.

Posted by: ChuckRozool May 2 2006, 08:08 PM

Posted by: James McMurray May 2 2006, 08:09 PM

It was only invented so that some poeple could use it and make other people go "huh?"

Posted by: nezumi May 2 2006, 08:39 PM

Posted by: hyzmarca May 2 2006, 10:46 PM

As long words go, it is hard to beat pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis, a lung disease caused by inhaling silica. But technical terms rarely count. If they did the name of a certain enzyme would top the charts at 1,913 letters.

But keeping the CHurch of England is a great cause for a hermetic druid to support.

Posted by: Fire Hawk May 3 2006, 05:07 AM

This reminds me, I still need to come up with a good definition to "gakfoyiheminarian"...

Posted by: emo samurai May 3 2006, 05:15 AM

Okay, to segue from this back to the topic, do you think the Newspeak from 1984 resembles the way that slang term is slowly replacing normal speech in SR?

Let me expand on this. Even with the advent of balkanization and "postmodernism," isn't thought and the way that people are connected to reality in SR becoming more and more narrow? Everything is a job, a contact, or hard, hard fun to forget the job. Maybe that's just the result of this being a game with a very serial plot structure; everything must be quantified. Or maybe people really are becoming dangerously limited in their connection to reality. "Professional, meet problem. Problem, meet professional."

Posted by: John Campbell May 3 2006, 05:47 AM

Posted by: emo samurai May 3 2006, 06:29 AM

Hmmm... true... So do you think modern newspeak is pretty much limited to corporate slang and political slogans?

And that tunnel-vision issue; how about that?

Posted by: mfb May 3 2006, 07:39 AM

to an extent. it's only natural, really; in the world of SR, everyone is being subject to constant future shock. once a decade, at least, some major event occurs that could easily shake up the paradigm of everyone on the planet--this, on top of the widespread local changes and disasters. there are a number of ways to deal with being constantly bombarded by new things; the most common is probably just shutting down and focusing on what you know, treating everything new as strange, untrustworthy voodoo.

i'll note that the UCAS general population seems to have taken the opposite approach, welcoming anything new and strange as being automatically a good thing. witness the fact that despite the terrible destruction which the nation had been through over the past few decades, they elected a dragon to the presidency. i tend to see the UCAS as not being the inheritor of the old US; rather, the UCAS is where all the lunatics and wackos go, both ultraliberal and ultraconservative. the CAS, to me, is where the more middle-of-the-road types have gravitated to. they seem more willing to look before they leap, embracing change only after checking it thoroughly.

Posted by: Kanada Ten May 3 2006, 08:31 AM

It's hard to judge, but I think an important factor in SR language development will be the influence of simsense. Roughly half the SIN population has a datajack, which says something about how important the technology is. We use it to connect with everything (the matrix), you can drive a car with it (virtual dashboard), and it provides entertainment.

In tight corporate enclaves, the media is censored and controlled. This would lead to simsense that resembles newspeak - only includes emotions, values, and rest of the human experience. It really is a corp manufactured way of life. This incest of ideas resulted in the bratpacks just as the fear of change and instability made the wageslaves before them.

But in the real world, outside the firewall, competition for ideas and the melting of cultures would be accelerated. I think it's a given that we do pick up language from television and movies and the net, things like
"dude" and "meh", and so on become part of culture after a time. Now imagine that with simsense... You wouldn't have grown up in the UCAS without having felt Old Yellar, and you can identify with the local mage because who hasn't lived as Jack Blackhand, the eager young mage growing up in the mid-west. You've spoke Chinese, and even understood it on an emotional level, while kicking Yakuza ass in LA. You have friends all over the world, each adding a tiny bit to your vocabulary; and then your neighborhoods are filled with every ethnic group on the Earth crammed into sprawling apartmexes. You have to learn "Excuse me" in fifty different languages just to make it up stairs. Not to mention educational simsense. I imagine, they give you a VTC for Etiquette(Corp) when you first start a job, inducting you into their jargon as well.

Posted by: emo samurai May 3 2006, 02:29 PM

Okay, so the people outside the corps are becoming more urbane. Are they becoming more capable of individual thought? All your examples of urbanity are done through programming; very literal programming, in fact. Does this mean that people are able to think outside of "I am Johnson I sit in shadow and talk about associates" or "I am Rigger I make cars move weird?"

And how is the CAS good for not being accepting of magical newness? They hate metahumans and magic; the UCAS at least accepted sasquatches as citizens and stuff. I don't think the thing with sasquatches was bad, and neither was electing Dunkelzahn president.

Posted by: Kanada Ten May 3 2006, 04:43 PM

Posted by: emo samurai May 3 2006, 04:47 PM

It would definitely help them be more open-minded... and it's different from the vidscreens from 1984 in that they often invite you to question them and find your own interpretations and reactions.

Posted by: mfb May 3 2006, 05:16 PM

Posted by: emo samurai May 3 2006, 05:27 PM

But how is magic screwing up UCAS society now? There's really no reason for them to resist magic anymore. As long as it's not blood magic or invae-based. And there was never a good reason for the CAS to resist it, either. Those were all cases of other people having magic, people not themselves.

Posted by: mfb May 3 2006, 05:46 PM

...okay. if i punch someone in the face for ten minutes, and then stop, do you think they'll still be crying and cowering (or otherwise reacting to being punched) a minute later? should i wonder why they're still lying on the ground, bawling? after all, i stopped punching them over sixty seconds ago! it's not like Bug City happened during a different generation than the one that voted for Dunk. Bug City was still going on during that election.

Posted by: emo samurai May 3 2006, 05:51 PM

It's like hating technology in general, though. Insect magic isn't "magic" in the general sense. It's like hating plows because some people turn them into swords.

Posted by: mfb May 3 2006, 05:54 PM

the common man doesn't understand enough about magic to tell the difference. read your Shadowbeat. magicians, in the mind of the common man, come in three types: the wise shaman, the klutzy but loveable sidekick, and the main villain.

Posted by: emo samurai May 3 2006, 06:06 PM

Heehee, Garthganar, Dark Sorcerer of Darkness.

Posted by: Voran May 3 2006, 09:53 PM

I could see a feeling of detachment setting in. Or the feeling you're just 'going through the motions' with the general populace. Simsense would be a start, when you're relying on others to provide you with feelings of excitement and various other stuff, I'd say your will to go seek out your own excitement would decrease. When you can program your home to give you environments of nature, far away places, etc, that may also jade you from going there yourself.

I don't even know how much the 'work hard, play hard' mentality would continue through to 2070. Among sinless and runners, I'm sure it still would, as they deal with more tangible daily stuff than a corp drone, but a corper would probably participate in corp-only functions or tone down their funseeking cause the corp tells them it might hurt the bottomline, etc.

Posted by: Kanada Ten May 3 2006, 10:15 PM

Corp fun is mandatory: Everyday you must spend one hour in recreational activity, such as group cleaning where six not-so-random members of your peer group are selected to race around a residential area (with actual mops and sponges, dusters and dust busters!) in a competition with the cleaning bots. After thirteen days of work, you must spend three hours with your family or a selected group of eligible singles in the park, and then three hours with your corp elected buddies watching corp sponsored sporting events. Once a month you run in a marathon, and yearly you participate in a triathlon. Is that clear, citizen?

Posted by: SL James May 3 2006, 10:51 PM

Don't forget the mandatory overcomsumption and that 40% of your take-home must go to paying off debt (preferrably only the minimum payments) to banks and credit cards owned by Ma Corp.

Posted by: ronin3338 May 3 2006, 10:57 PM

Posted by: Voran May 3 2006, 11:17 PM

And add that to meatpuppet sorta situations where even 'individual people' don't have to be individual anymore, you just do a little plastic surgery and implant the chip and voila, you have 16 Jenna Jameson clones, or whatever. You have access to whatever your desires are, pretty much on demand, and a relatively low cost.

Posted by: ronin3338 May 3 2006, 11:30 PM

Ms. Jenkins, come in and shut the office door.

As part of your yearly review, I'll need you to slot this chip so we can, umm, assess your capabilities. Really.

Posted by: Nidhogg May 4 2006, 01:27 AM

Posted by: mfb May 4 2006, 02:10 AM

i'm talking 'conservative' and 'liberal' in a more literal sense, rather than the current political definitions. basically, the guys who are foaming at the mouth to maintain or regress the status quo (ultraconservative), and the guys who are foaming at the mouth to embrace any and every change that comes along (ultraliberal) all gravitate towards the UCAS.

i mean, look at the political parties in the UCAS. you've got the Archoconservatives (Klan with class), the Democratic Party (granola party #1), the Libertarians (corporate shills), the New Century Party (granola party #2), the Republicans (New Revolution), and the Technocrats (least insane because they don't know what they want).

compare that to the CAS. you've got the Republicans (the Archoconservatives that no one likes), the Democratic Reform Party (metahuman rights activists), the Southern Dems (corporate shills), and the Southern Conservatives (the other Archoconservatives that no one likes).

i mean, heck, the sheer number of viable parties in the UCAS speaks to the spastic nature of the population. basically, the CAS is more conservative, but they're less... volatilely conservative. the UCAS is volatilely conservative and volatilely liberal.

Posted by: Shanshu Freeman May 4 2006, 03:45 AM

Posted by: mfb May 4 2006, 04:32 AM

we always draw ourselves? damn, my tits are a lot bigger than they look in the mirror.

Posted by: Shanshu Freeman May 4 2006, 04:55 AM

Posted by: emo samurai May 4 2006, 05:07 AM

So you think of yourself as crude and unrefined in your tastes, mfb?

Posted by: Nidhogg May 4 2006, 05:20 AM

Posted by: emo samurai May 4 2006, 05:21 AM

Agreed. It's the modern Newspeak.

Posted by: mfb May 4 2006, 05:45 AM

i prefer to think of my tastes as rugged and primal. i am like a lion, only with less fur and other lion-like characteristics. and more manly. like a furless lion lumberjack that doesn't have a tail. rawr.

regardless of the terminology involved, my point is that the UCAS seems to collect the extremists from both ends of the spectrum, while the CAS is being settled by the more middle-of-the-road voters.

Posted by: emo samurai May 4 2006, 05:48 AM

"i is da mfb. i likes da boobies and da beer, even if da beer has some dirt in it."

Posted by: mfb May 4 2006, 05:51 AM

da mfb: accept no substitutes.

Posted by: emo samurai May 4 2006, 05:52 AM

*wha-pow*

Posted by: Voran May 4 2006, 07:20 AM

Posted by: Shanshu Freeman May 4 2006, 08:37 AM

Posted by: mfb May 4 2006, 06:54 PM

a tentacle is never just a tentacle. they're so multipurpose!

Posted by: emo samurai May 4 2006, 07:13 PM

Especially not THOSE tentacles.