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Dumpshock Forums _ Shadowrun _ They Burned the Drugs!
Posted by: Wolfgar Jun 1 2011, 05:54 AM
Just got done running my first Shadowrun session, and my players acted too good. The mission was simple- Break into a biker compound out in the sprawl and shut down their 'Jazz' operation. Johnson just wanted the place destroyed, and no more bikies in the area. (I wanted a cut and dry mission to start things off, with a simple twist- innocent bystanders.)
The job was going good, until the players realized that there were innocents in the compound- some of the biker's families in nearby houses, and a few Jazz addicts roped into manufacturing the stuff in the lab itself. The group had botched a few aspects of recon earlier, and were planning to simply toss grenades/summon fire spirits/get the heck out. Players abandoned their plans and set about evacuating the place/stunning the bikers, even explaining their actions to the biker leader.
Here's the part that blew my mind. When it's all over and all they have to do is toss a few grenades in to finish the job, they blow up the Jazz as well. All four of them, in an instant, agreed to blow up the drugs. I was like "wut?"
Anyone else have players act just too darn nice before?
EDIT: Woot, looks like I've stirred something up with this one. Came home to find four pages of comments, a personal best. My replies on page 4.
Posted by: TheOOB Jun 1 2011, 06:01 AM
That kind of stuff is worth good street cred. They did their run well, and Johnsons will be willing to hire them out more.
Posted by: CanRay Jun 1 2011, 07:28 AM
On the one hand, they're not going to get good reputations for being ruthless and stone cold killers.
On the other, those are a dime a dozen, this shows they have thinking skills, morals (Of a sort. This is still an industry based on face shooting for fiscal returns.), and are less likely to attempt to garner secondary income from Shadowruns (Which Mr. Johnsons do enjoy, as it does give a less risk percentage to the operation being blown or discovered because some greedy Decker/Hacker took some Datafiles that were just lying around.).
They might get called "Goody Two-Shoes" by some folks in the Shadows, but the people that are heavily anti-drug (And, let's face it, there's a lot of them even in the Shadows!) will respect the group all the more for it. Street Cred indeed. It's a "Good thing" they did.
Posted by: Machiavelli Jun 1 2011, 08:21 AM
Definitely. Our team is known as "Fight Club" and we (unintended) do collateral damage wherever we go. So nobody is hiring us anymore to do "sneak in and steal something without sombody noticing it"-runs. If you turn in a specific direction, the only thing that should be happening is that Mr. J is not giving you "unsuitable" contracts anymore. No team can do everything. If your team is fine with this reputation...go for it.
Posted by: Fatum Jun 1 2011, 09:03 AM
Also, most groups I've ran with or GMed for were strictly on the G side of the alignment chart: one used a truckful of drugs to frame a stained politico and gain some favours from the face's contacts, police destroying the drug, instead of selling them; another jumped a bunch of insect spirits to save whatever poor soul they had caught, and now have an orphan ork girl in their hideout :\
Posted by: hermit Jun 1 2011, 09:52 AM
Anyone else have players act just too darn nice before?
What's so terribly suprising about this? That they gave up on a somewhat noticable profit (really, Jazz is a ceap-ass drug, and they get to sell it at some 30% list price by the rules) for self-respect? It's not a bad thing. Explaining who they run for to the biker leader is, of course, but telling hiom moral stories is not, especially if they destroy the gang's lab and maybe rough them up a bit to scare them, it has a nice Batman/Rorschach/vigilante vibe. Gives the group a recognisable feature to stand out from the bunches of gangers who off people left, right and center, and may help their street cred. If they overdo it, and botch jobs for morality, just give them notoriety and dial back the qualityof their jobs.
But yes, I have done this too, as a player. If it fits the characters, what's to complain?
Here's hoping she's housebroken.
Posted by: Ascalaphus Jun 1 2011, 11:34 AM
Any group of shadowrunners is going to gravitate towards a specific "level" of nastiness. Some are stone-cold and wouldn't blink at massacring an orphanage, others are "moral" and only take jobs that they can defend ("Taxes are unAmerican! Smuggling is an act of patriotism!"), others are somewhere in the middle ("Killing people in the Business is okay, but no harm to bystanders who didn't know what they were getting into"). None of these is wrong.
After a while, you'll get a reputation for your particular style, and that lets Johnsons know if they should hire you. A Johnson who wants you to do something you'd be ethically comfortable with, can expect you to do the run with fewer complications. This can make doing business much easier.
On the other hand, now and then there could be an adventure where Johnson is trying to set up the "softies", thinking to exploit their naivety. If the players find out, then you could spin an awesome payback-for-Johnson adventure off of it. Time to teach Mr. Johnson that just because you're not a total bastard doesn't mean you're harmless!
Posted by: suoq Jun 1 2011, 11:41 AM
I'm missing the problem.
The vast majority of my characters are NOT psychopaths. Although I don't tend to take the pacifist trait (because, quite frankly, at least one person on the team is usually playing someone with zero regard for (meta)human life), my characters tend to prefer NOT killing people, not destroying property, and not making society worse. Alas, that tends to be what they're paid to do.
A team with ethics could easily attract loyalty. Think Burn Notice if you're young, or if you're an old fart, like me, think Stingray. Heck, even A-Team featured ethical criminals who only blew up the bad guys.
Posted by: Machiavelli Jun 1 2011, 11:47 AM
100% agree. Unfortunately this is something the GM has to handle, because "pissing a Johnson off" is always rewarded with a point of notoriority, no matter if he earned it or not. I already had to pay off 3 points of not. because of this...and have still 3 ones left.^^
Posted by: Irion Jun 1 2011, 11:51 AM
Well, the pacifist quality is not that bad. Non-leathal ammunition is better than normal. So here goes BP for free. Mostly.
Posted by: Machiavelli Jun 1 2011, 11:54 AM
Non-lethal ammo is more expensive^^
Posted by: Fatum Jun 1 2011, 12:05 PM
The vast majority of my characters are NOT psychopaths. Although I don't tend to take the pacifist trait (because, quite frankly, at least one person on the team is usually playing someone with zero regard for (meta)human life), my characters tend to prefer NOT killing people, not destroying property, and not making society worse. Alas, that tends to be what they're paid to do.
A team with ethics could easily attract loyalty. Think Burn Notice if you're young, or if you're an old fart, like me, think Stingray. Heck, even A-Team featured ethical criminals who only blew up the bad guys.
Posted by: Machiavelli Jun 1 2011, 12:13 PM
IMO the typical runner is a self-serving calculating bastard because either his start in life was very bad or he had to turn into the shadows because of a happening something later. They do what they have to do, but this doesnīt mean that they lost the respect for life completely. If you donīt get paid to hurt somebody, why should you? Hellboy is a tough bastard but his love to kittens is nothing i would mention "strange".
Posted by: Irion Jun 1 2011, 12:21 PM
Lets put it like that: The rules make it possible to be very friendly because it is mostly the most effective road.
Posted by: Makki Jun 1 2011, 12:28 PM
why the hell burn the drugs? they all have a fixer or smuggler connection. Just get them out of town and sell them. That's the only thing I was confused about. I would even make a your life for your drugs trade...
Posted by: suoq Jun 1 2011, 12:46 PM
The mission was "shut down their 'Jazz' operation". Burning the drugs definitely sends a message that this is not a good place for anyone to run a Jazz operation.
Personally, I don't see why simply having a fixer or smuggler connection would be enough to be able to unload the drugs. I'm sure there are fixers and smugglers who don't touch the stuff. From a fixer standpoint, he has a corporate rep to keep up and moving drugs isn't going to make that rep particularly better. From a smuggler rep, the question is, what do they smuggle? Weapons? People? Food? It could well be that whatever connections the team has are more life relief workers than hardened criminals. (Henry Rollins and Ice-T's characters in Johnny Mnemonic come to mind.)
Posted by: Makki Jun 1 2011, 12:52 PM
Personally, I don't see why simply having a fixer or smuggler connection would be enough to be able to unload the drugs. I'm sure there are fixers and smugglers who don't touch the stuff. From a fixer standpoint, he has a corporate rep to keep up and moving drugs isn't going to make that rep particularly better. From a smuggler rep, the question is, what do they smuggle? Weapons? People? Food? It could well be that whatever connections the team has are more life relief workers than hardened criminals. (Henry Rollins and Ice-T's characters in Johnny Mnemonic come to mind.)
I'm sorry. The only thing your saying is, that either loyalty rating or the share isn't high enough. If he still refuses to handle it, I ask him to find me somebody who will.
The discussion was whether the team was too nice, I wonder how they were not greedy?
Posted by: suoq Jun 1 2011, 12:58 PM
For your playstyle, what you are saying is fine. However your playstyle, my playstyle, and the playstyle of the players in the original post are different playstyles. I'm trying to help the OP come to grips with his players style of play.
Posted by: hermit Jun 1 2011, 01:00 PM
Not if it's about setting themselves up with a certain reputation. At least, if they do things cleanly and preferrably nonlethal, they also get called for the kind of run where they can't just blast their way into a place, grab something and blast their way back out. The kind of run with a favourable nuyen gain/enemymotivation rate.
Plus, if you don't shoot people left, right and center, that much less people will stalk you in a dark alley and kill you for revenge. Not killing people for the lulz pays, IMO. As does not dealing in large quantites of drugs, which only pisses off an important part of the underworld whose business you are just interfering with.
Posted by: Irion Jun 1 2011, 01:07 PM
It always depends on. If you try to keep a low profile and might be going in a AA or even AAA district you won't carry drugs on you. Because every god damn chemsniffer finds them.
And selling them does not turn in a great profit. (Due to the rules. Only 30% and a discount because it is stolen and illeagal)
Posted by: hermit Jun 1 2011, 01:11 PM
Plus, selling them is likely to piss off local drug lords. For ... change, at best.
In the OP's scenario, burning the drugs certainly was the professional choice. Now, if there had been, say, 100 doses of Deepweed lying about? To burn that would be ... well, a bit on the self mutilation side.
Posted by: Blade Jun 1 2011, 01:11 PM
I've once had a NPC the PC killed ask in his last breath for the closest PC to give a credstick to someone.
There were 20K nuyens on the credstick. Digging a little deeper - in hope it'd help them understand what was happening in the adventure - they discovered it was for the guy's girlfriend and they dropped the credstick in her mailbox.
Posted by: Yerameyahu Jun 1 2011, 01:38 PM
Honestly, I blame you for making it too easy. 
They were able to be 'good' because they could afford the risk, right? Stunning all the gangers and only destroying the drugs is a lot harder than the initial plan of just wrecking the building.
Posted by: Irion Jun 1 2011, 01:57 PM
@Yerameyahu
Yeah, becase this generates so much more heat.
Posted by: Yerameyahu Jun 1 2011, 02:07 PM
I dunno what you're saying, sorry. 
My point is that throwing grenades and sending a fire spirit is easy and safe. Evacuation and nonlethal takedown of the whole building? Not easy, not safe. If the run were harder, they couldn't *afford* to do it the nice way.
This is a pretty simple concept. As an analogy, only the expert shot can afford to go for a wounding but not maiming shot, whereas less skilled shooters have to just aim center of mass and see what happens.
--
Anyway, Wolfgar, this is just a fun challenge for you and the group. You can tempt them with money, and put them in more desperate situations where they have to choose between survival/success and goodness. Their inevitable moral degradation will be a great theme!
Posted by: Irion Jun 1 2011, 02:14 PM
@Yerameyahu
Yes, if you just look at the deed itself.
But as soons as you look at the aftermatch it looks quite different.
Not many people will look twice for a bunch of burned drugs. (Maybe the guys the drugs belong to)
But the explosion of a drug lab with several civilian casualties.
Posted by: Faraday Jun 1 2011, 02:15 PM
In the OP's scenario, burning the drugs certainly was the professional choice. Now, if there had been, say, 100 doses of Deepweed lying about? To burn that would be ... well, a bit on the self mutilation side.
What would you do with 50 kg of novacoke and specific contacts who are potentially interested in buying in bulk?
Posted by: Machiavelli Jun 1 2011, 02:21 PM
Enhanced skills give you more options, thats for sure. If you are a low level runner you cannot afford accepting risks because you want to be nice. If you want to survive (which is difficult enough) itīs them or you. So we all should start powergaming to make the world a safer place.^^
Posted by: Yerameyahu Jun 1 2011, 02:23 PM
I *am* just looking at the deed itself. That's what we're talking about. Anyone suspicious enough to care about the drugs wouldn't believe they were really burned anyway, and presumably Plan A called for the whole place (drugs included) to be burned in the first place. I'm also assuming they didn't choose Plan B in order to burn the drugs, but instead to save the collateral.
I assume the explosion of a drug lab with 'civilian' casualties is dog-bites-man for gangland, so we're not talking about them deciding on the option that involved less aftermath. They're deniable assets. So. They made a bleeding-heart plan, and followed it with a non-greedy chaser. The former enabled the latter, and the former would be impossible if the run were harder.
Posted by: hermit Jun 1 2011, 02:25 PM
That's assuming you have a contact in the drug trade. If you only have a generic fixer (who arguably is not deep in the drug trade), possibly burn it, because we'b be talking about some 10% of listed price, which is peanuts for the effort needed, and not worth attracting the attention of mobsters who don't like anyone messing with their drug trade.
If you happen to have a contact with the local drug ring, who deals in this anyway and is interested in buying, sell it if I get a price that makes it worth transporting 50 kg of drugs across the sprawl. Otherwise, it's probably just not worth risk and effort you'd have to invest.
Posted by: Machiavelli Jun 1 2011, 02:26 PM
I agreed with you on that. Maybe i didnīt make it completely clear.^^
Posted by: Yerameyahu Jun 1 2011, 02:28 PM
Sorry, Machiavelli. I was still responding to Irion, not you.
Anyway, runners need Jazz for themselves! Who cares about selling drugs? Hehehe.
Posted by: Machiavelli Jun 1 2011, 02:46 PM
Now itīt getting clear. Isnīt Jazz this "gives an additional IP"-thing? In this case: right.^^
Posted by: Ascalaphus Jun 1 2011, 02:48 PM
And of course people's ethics don't have to be consistent. You can be a guy who kills people for money, and yet feel bad for accidentally saying a racial slur to someone sitting next to you on the train.
People don't like to think of themselves as Bad Guys, so they compartmentalize, and rationalize: "shooting this guy is acceptable, because he's really a nasty piece of work, and I need to make a living too", while also being a decent guy the rest of the time.
Posted by: Irion Jun 1 2011, 02:54 PM
There are examples for that. People who keep their privat and professional life sperated. (To the extream)
But staying on one level is more than impossible.
You always try to justifiy your acts. And to justify the last you commit the next. And it is getting worse and worse.
Posted by: James McMurray Jun 1 2011, 03:03 PM
No such thing as "too good." If they want to be loner heroes in a dystopian future, let them. The world will react according to their actions.
This part is my only concern:
Did they rat out the Johnson? That can get them in some deep drek. If they just said "somebody doesn't like your kind in this neighborhood" then there's no problem. If they said "Clarence Townsman doesn't want you here" then they're in trouble.
Posted by: suoq Jun 1 2011, 03:09 PM
Maybe that's what you do.
Some people seek redemption. To atone for their last act, their past mistakes, they commit acts of self-sacrifice and try to make the world a better place. They take the bad thing that happened to them as a kid and instead of using it as justification as evil, they use it as inspiration for good. They try to see that the world isn't as bad for the next kid as it was for them. They regret their mistakes and while they can't change the past, they can make different decisions in the future.
Characters don't have to be bastards.
Posted by: Irion Jun 1 2011, 03:19 PM
@suoq
So somebody how does not kill, does not justify it. O lord, I would have never thought of that.
Yes, there is always a way out. It is just hardly possible to remain at one level.
The best example is often vigilanty justice.
You start by killing a druglord or some childkiller. It is good, because you saved Children/made the world a better place blablabla.
But it mostly does not keep that way. There will be an other druglord, an other murderer.
So you kill him too. Becaues if you don't the first kill won't be justifiable.
And so on and on.
For that you would need to admit, that you are bad first. Thats not that easy.Most people can't.
Posted by: LurkerOutThere Jun 1 2011, 03:52 PM
I do love all this binary thinking. You can choose never to kill anyone, Shadowrun gives you a variety of non lethal but ridiculously effective take downs. Further it also provides a variety of non-lethal but permanent ways to deal with people. Want someone never to pick up the drug trade again the right ware, brainwashing, or spells can make that a reality, it's all about the level of effort your willing to put in.
Truth be told as others said I think the runners made the tactically correct decision, they'd rather not complicate their mission and sit on a bunch of drugs for potentially minimal profit, that makes sense to me. As for giving the gang leader a good talking to, depending what was discussed that seems fine too, some people only understand violence and dictates of strength.
Personally I can understand people having aversions to killing, even in shadowrun, I can also believe that a person can kill without being a bad person, especially by the dictates of the setting. They don't need to justify their actions to anyone but themmselves, their teammates, and their J in that order. Those are the three requirements for work, everything else is just details and quality of life.
Posted by: suoq Jun 1 2011, 03:58 PM
No. You don't have to admit you are "bad". You just have to decide to be something different than what you were.
Here's a quote from a man who's been in every penitentiary in the state of California and was the welterweight boxing champion of San Quentin: "When I devoted my life to helping other people, that's when things started getting better for me". - Danny Trejo
http://movies.netflix.com/WiMovie/Champion/70038785
Posted by: Irion Jun 1 2011, 04:10 PM
So you say to yourself: Killing people is good, but now I am doing something else good?
To change your live you first have to want to abbandon your old life.
Posted by: LurkerOutThere Jun 1 2011, 04:16 PM
Anyone else having trouble understanding the point Irions trying to make here? Could you clarify?
Posted by: James McMurray Jun 1 2011, 04:21 PM
I think he's saying that changing your life is hard and that you can't do it unless you want to. As to what it has to do with imaginary people burning a bunch of imaginary drugs? No clue.
Posted by: hermit Jun 1 2011, 04:29 PM
I think he's trying to say that by wanting to change your life, you have to recognise the evilness of your old ways before, or else you would not want to change your life, after all.
And I have to say I diagree. There are a lot more motivations to change your life from being a mass-slaughtering gunbunny to a sworn user of tasers, gammascop and sticknshock than "good" and "evil" (which are very subjective concepts to begin with). Like, having to flee from your one criminal life in one city for shooting the wrong person in the face and not wanting to repeat that mistake. Doesn't mean you think shooting the don's baby boy was evil (necessarily, at least), could also just be a notion of "gee, people get so damn upset when I nshoot their kids in the face and so much less when I just taser them!"
Said (rather extreme) sociopath doesn't consider shooting the Don's son in the face evil, but he considers it a mistake he doesn'T want to repeat for the heat it brought down on him.
Posted by: James McMurray Jun 1 2011, 04:31 PM
Or having read all the studies and realized just how powerful nonlethal weaponry can be compared to the lethal stuff. If you're knocking them out with your bullets you have a lot more time to kill them slowly with your scalpels.
Posted by: Irion Jun 1 2011, 04:32 PM
Simple statements:
There are not much options out there.
If you have accepted a certain level of crualty you will very likly drift down.
The only possibility to change direction is to admit, that what you did was wrong.
Thats not very easy, because nobody sees himself as evil.
It is like every unstable balance it will fall, sooner or later if you do nothing to stabalize it.
Kill, possibly. Murder? Very unlikely.
@hermit
Well, you just found a more effective way. You will still fall back to your old ways if it seems the better part.
Posted by: hermit Jun 1 2011, 04:44 PM
Not to mention interrogate them, loot their accounts dry, thoroughly test the limits to which they'll get mortgages, then douse them with Laés, and arrange it like they were out on a severely drunken night. Really, why kill people and leave all the money on their accounts?!
Moralising much?
The difference between intended killing (we're not talking about car accidents here, are we?) and murder being?
Of course, I never said this was the kind of moral shift you obviously think is necessary. If you're a killer who has to remain in hiding, though, resuming to kill left, right and center is a phenomenally bad idea.
And unless you have some cmpulsion killing people, why should you kill more than necessary anyway. Killing people is a messy business and usually attracts fare more trouble than is worth, from the corpsec swearing oaths to the kami to bring chief Kobayashi's killer to justice to an angry kid devoting themselves to grow up a killer and get you just desserts, to what happens to copkillers. It doesn't need superior morals to not kill loads of people. It just needs an awareness that the best path in crime usually is the path of least resistance.
Posted by: LurkerOutThere Jun 1 2011, 04:45 PM
And what do you base this on your conjecture seems wodnerfully free standing.
There are habitual criminals that never cross the murder barier instead doing a variety of petty crimes their whole life. There are soldiers who come back from war and never kill again (and those who keep killing to be fair). There are those who rape but don't murder, even when it is chillingly in their best interests to do so.
As hermit said, you don't even have to admit that what you did was wrong, you just have to conclude that there are reasons not to do it anymore.
Posted by: Irion Jun 1 2011, 04:57 PM
@hermit
Killing might be self defance etc. etc. etc. Murder is defined a bit stricter.
@LurkerOutThere
If you have 1000000 people capable of murder. Only a very small percentage of those will murder someone.
If somebody killed his wife he ran out of wifes to kill a time. The question is, if he would do it the same way again?
Well, and most of them need pschological care to deal with what they did and saw.
Posted by: CanRay Jun 1 2011, 04:59 PM
All my characters have their limits. Most are in the "Yeah, I'll kill someone, it's the job" category.
A few are a little bit more twisted. Surprisingly, the one whose religion involves killing your enemies has a Masters Degree in Business Ethics.
One would destroy every chemical drug he could get his hands on, but doesn't balk at Chips. After all, someone can force drugs into your veins and get you hooked, you have to willingly get a datajack for BTLs (I don't think Trodes give enough of a OOMPH for BTL to work right. It's a gateway method to BTL, however.).
Another is just angry as hell and would destroy things more out of spite than any real moralistic intentions. And it's really, *REALLY* easy to slot him off.
Yet another smuggled drugs for a living until an electrical fire set a half-ton bundle of prime Hawai'ian Deepweed on fire and hotboxed the GMC Banshee.
It's all about the individual and their own moralistic code.
Don't forget Twist, the infamous Pacifistic Shadowrunner who only carried a Narcojet Pistol. Yes yes, not everyone likes him, but he's cannon and a good character in a lot of ways.
Posted by: hermit Jun 1 2011, 05:07 PM
Irion
Well, that depends on a whole lot of things, not least perception of the defendant (is it a handgun, or merely a screwdriver?), skin colour of perpetrator, victim, and jury. That is to say, the difference between one act of intended killing is highly subjective and completely arbitrary.
The question is rather, does he have another wife that did/owns whatever made him murder the first missus? And if a woman (or a guy for that matter) murders the man who raped her/him a year ago, does that mean she'd do it again, and what would it say about her?
Only the post-Vietnam generation got care. Oddly enough, things did not spiral totally out of control before, with a generation who had seen (and done) things nobody before or after had to.
CanRay
Which religion doesn't?
My characters never are pacifists, but most, save for the sprawl gangbanger, are in the "kill only when really necessary, otherwise it's too much of a hassle" camp.
And their willingness to take risks.
And a right bastard ith the ladies, dumping Chung like he did for your average elf slut (if he were a PC in my group, he'd permanently lose a magic point for that, because DOG man, not rat!). But yeah, he shows how a pacifist can work in the shadows.
Stick'n'shock (in SR2 terms: the Yamaha Pulsar taser) still trumps Narcojet big time.
Posted by: CanRay Jun 1 2011, 05:22 PM
There used to be Sanitariums filled with old soldiers that are no longer around. Also, how many of them came home and were "Quiet" in the violence they did? Look for long sleeves and lots of make-up in the '50s and '60s. Things just weren't talked about then. We're willing now, which changes perceptions. They still happened, just that no one "Knew" about them.
I know quite a few tales (I collect them from Vets and families of Vets for some reason beyond my understanding. I guess someone has to remember...) about what happened when they came home: One tale was that a WWII Commando came home, quietly buried his combat dagger in the back yard, and vehemently told his entire family that it was to *NEVER* be dug up again, or asked about. Ever. He could also fall down stairs, completely stone drunk, and not make a single sound.
That's just one.
Of course, there's also the stories I have of soldiers who came home, and had happy, productive lives, and were victims of muggings. Well, I should say the mugger was the victim in this case, but I don't feel sorry for the bastard at all.
Posted by: CanRay Jun 1 2011, 05:28 PM
*Headdesk* I can't believe that I haven't thought of this before...
The Original "Gone In 60 Seconds" scene with the car full of Heroin! The protagonist burned it because that's not his gig, stealing cars is. The insurance pays for replacement after all.
Posted by: suoq Jun 1 2011, 05:33 PM
Correction for accuracy. From http://www.omaha.com/article/20110530/NEWS01/705309919 , an article about 3 WWII vets.
“Sam went through hell,” Claudio says later, by way of explanation. “Rich went through hell. I had it the easiest. . . . All I had to do was see a (military) psychiatrist for a while.
Edit: Just find this. Taking the kids to the pool so I'll finish watching it later. - Shades of Gray: Treatment of Mental Disorders in WWII Documentary (1947)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjKJq9KMuVM Looks fascinating.
Back to the topic....
Posted by: HeckfyEx Jun 1 2011, 05:39 PM
Considering that this orkish girl was a high point of one extremely botched session we feel tha we were justified in saving her.
Posted by: hermit Jun 1 2011, 05:42 PM
Well, my grandparents arguably saw (and did) worse things. But psychological treatment wasn't necessary, and certainly unavailable to Nonamericans. Didn't know this goes as far back with the US armed forces though.
Also, that bomber gun crewman. Ouch. Lucky him he wasn't burned alive, because that also happened.
Posted by: Irion Jun 1 2011, 05:43 PM
@hermit
Of course not. Things do not tend to spiral out of control, if you have ruined the life of a few tausend people.
Thats just wrong.
The same you may say about the character of everbody if you limit your self to a single fact.
Posted by: hermit Jun 1 2011, 05:54 PM
Some of the most appaling mass murderers went to live perfectly calm, murder-free lives when they had to. Mengele, Pol Pot, several italian Mafiosi ... so yes, it's perfectly possible.
Because?
Posted by: LurkerOutThere Jun 1 2011, 06:20 PM
That is to say, the difference between one act of intended killing is highly subjective and completely arbitrary.
Thats just wrong.
No it's more or less accurate, shades of gray quite common. The only absolute distinctions come from a religious or personal belief level and are hardly univsersal. I'm sorry you can't recognize any belief but your own as possible, but there's overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
Posted by: Irion Jun 1 2011, 06:34 PM
@hermit
Murder is defined quite precise.
So? Even the worst pschopath is comittting no murder in isolation.
What should Mengele do?
Kidnap people to conduct medical experiments?
And if you look at his writings from his final days, there is no doubt, that he would have done it again given the possibility.
If they would have been acting only on impulses, they would not even be guilty of anything. (Mentally insane)
Of course there is no reason for a sociopath to kill someone if they do not have a reason. Thats self explaining.
Does not mean they would not have done so, if given the chance.
Mengele and Pol Pot did not step down, they were chased from their position.
If Mengele had seen a way to resurrect the theird reich, he would probably have done so.
Posted by: hermit Jun 1 2011, 06:47 PM
The states' definition of murder is irrelevant in any other juristiction (lots don't differ between degrees, some exempt certain motives, ect).
What should Mengele do?
Kidnap people to conduct medical experiments?
And if you look at his writings from his final days, there is no doubt, that he would have done it again given the possibility.
So by your own reasoning, he should have, because he did not repent.
Are you, then, saying that it does not need repentance and insight into one's "evil" deeds, but only a conceivable reason not to, even if they remain the same nasty customers? If so, glad you agree with me.
Posted by: redwulf25 Jun 1 2011, 06:53 PM
That's why you sell the drugs to them. Then they mark them up to street value and sell them through their normal channels.
Posted by: Yerameyahu Jun 1 2011, 06:54 PM
TLDR, but I wasn't saying SR4 doesn't offer lots of nonlethal options. I was saying that using those options, along with evacuation, etc., is inherently *harder* than just blowing up the building. It takes longer, it takes more skill, it exposes them to greater risks and points of failure, and so on and on. It has nothing to do with destroying the drugs or not (in the situation I've outlined, anyway), because the default is destroy everything in the first place. If they'd chosen 'evil' (greed, anyway), and tried to steal the drugs, that would still be harder than simply blowing the building.
Therefore, the fact that they were able to choose this harder path is only because the run wasn't too difficult to stop them from choosing it, see? 'Good' is what you do when you have the luxury of a choice.
Posted by: hermit Jun 1 2011, 06:55 PM
That's bound to make the guys whom they usually get their drugs from incredibly happy.
What does SR4 say happens on a normal glitch with explosives?
Also, it may be faster, but it's not necessarily easier. Rigging up a building to be thoroughly destroyed usually requires more than one bomb in more than one place inside said building. Otherwise you punch a hole in the Jazz factory and rought up the people in it a bit, and that's that.
Posted by: Yerameyahu Jun 1 2011, 07:21 PM
There's no rigging. The OP said 'throw grenades and send fire spirit'. I give them the benefit of the doubt that it's enough grenades and enough spirit, and a small enough building, yadda yadda. That's not the point. The point is carefully saving all the 'civilians' (apparently the bikers are Marines) is harder than not doing it, so the only way it's an option is if the bikers aren't numerous or dangerous enough. I'm just saying: if they were scarier, the team couldn't do the run the happy clean way. That's all.
Posted by: hermit Jun 1 2011, 07:50 PM
If the bikers were heavily fortified Marines, you mean?
They could just have gone in and blasted everyone with SnS. Grenades are totally killer in SR4 because War! fails both logic and common sense forever, but the Fire Spirit will already cost them a few grand ... so it'S probably not that much cheaper. Barring one of them gets shot up, it'S either a couple clips SnS each, or several grenades and a bound spirit.
Posted by: James McMurray Jun 1 2011, 07:59 PM
Why bound? Summoned works just fine, and you can get it at higher Force since it's resistance roll is lower.
Posted by: Yerameyahu Jun 1 2011, 08:06 PM
hermit, certainly those options exist. I didn't and wouldn't say they don't. I'm saying that the ability to abort from a 'straight destruction' plan to a 'save hostages and nonlethal takedown' plan only exists because the team was already well beyond the required power level; because the encounter was weak, they had the luxury of the complex plan.
And I meant more like, 'if the bikers were more numerous, tougher, etc.'.
Posted by: hermit Jun 1 2011, 08:10 PM
Personally, I think the ability to wreck the place utterly with their ressources instead of going in and getting themselves dirty is the luxury. As you say, well above power level.
Posted by: Yerameyahu Jun 1 2011, 08:12 PM
*shrug* Possibly. There are many factors. I'm not going to have us waste more space on my little side point, though.
Posted by: Ascalaphus Jun 1 2011, 08:29 PM
HE grenades cost 45 
apiece. They can be detonated through a wireless signal. Just get them to open the door, a spirit chugs a shoebox full of them in, hacker presses a button on his commlink. Boom.
Blowing something up isn't all that hard nor is it all that expensive. A building without serious perimeter defenses is easy to destroy.
---
Brute firepower in SR is fairly cheap and fairly available. An operation without collateral damage is generally harder.
Posted by: Irion Jun 1 2011, 08:31 PM
@hermit
Yeah. No motive and no possibility. Right so they did not commit crimes.
(Pol Pot were sentanced to prison by the way)
@Yerameyahu
Well, it depends. Non lethal methodes are just far more effective than lethal ones.
You shoot at someone, he will shoot back. You use your squirt gun, he goes down.
First one alarms the gang, second is a silent takedown.
Posted by: CanRay Jun 1 2011, 08:42 PM
Some of them are. I've seen a few "Biker Bars" that were heavily entrenched. (And this was early in my RPGing/Militaria life, I barely knew what to look for!). And a number of them are former military. That's how Motorcycle Clubs started for the most part.
Of course, the place I saw had to deal with a larger, more organized, more heavily armed force that was trying to rule the crime in the streets. Two guesses who they were, and the first two don't count.
Posted by: Yerameyahu Jun 1 2011, 08:43 PM
It's not lethal vs. nonlethal. It's general vs. selective. Selective is harder, that's all there is to it.
Posted by: hermit Jun 1 2011, 08:56 PM
Yeah, I know.Hell's Angels over here had a fight with the cops a few years back where they used RPGs. Didn't do them much good, of course, but damn, RPGs! It's biker wars here anyway. Banditos, Hell's Angels and since recently a predominantly immigrant/turk outfit named Mongols. They could at least have called themselves Huns ...
See above? ^_^
(Pol Pot were sentanced to prison by the way)
Yeah, and Mengele assassinated. Still, in the time between their apture/death and running off they did not revert to their old ways. That's the point.
Posted by: Irion Jun 1 2011, 09:08 PM
One was in prison and the third reich ceased to exist.
How could they return to their old ways?
They would have, if they had the chance.
And as far as I know Mengele drowned/had a stroke. As a matter of fact I do not believe he was assassinated. (He would have been worth much more taken alive.)
Posted by: Whipstitch Jun 1 2011, 09:16 PM
And precise legal terminology often means extremely little to people who aren't lawyers given that law is often concerned as to what the responsibility of the state is in a situation as opposed to what makes someone a decent person vs. a right bastard. The whole concept of provocation is a particularly thorny issue.
Posted by: CanRay Jun 1 2011, 09:20 PM
The definition of murder depends on which side of the noose you're on, I think.
Posted by: suoq Jun 1 2011, 10:07 PM
Yerameyahu - Your recon must work better than my recon. How do you know which gang members are punks and which are ex-marines with freaking Panthers in a secret compartment behind the all too well armored underneath bar?
Posted by: James McMurray Jun 1 2011, 10:29 PM
Easy. Your team Face walks in and asks "excuse me, is anyone here an ex-marine with a freaking Panther in a secret compartment behind the all too well armored underneath bar?" She then rolls her 22 dice against their 6.
Posted by: Makki Jun 1 2011, 11:17 PM
apiece. They can be detonated through a wireless signal. Just get them to open the door, a spirit chugs a shoebox full of them in, hacker presses a button on his commlink. Boom.Blowing something up isn't all that hard nor is it all that expensive. A building without serious perimeter defenses is easy to destroy.
---
Brute firepower in SR is fairly cheap and fairly available. An operation without collateral damage is generally harder.
switch the HE grenades with Flash-Bangs (30
) or Pepper Punch Gas Grenades (25 ) and everybody is down while the loot is still intact
Posted by: redwulf25 Jun 1 2011, 11:44 PM
) or Pepper Punch Gas Grenades (25 ) and everybody is down while the loot is still intactI'd go with neuro stun. Let them have a nice snooze.
Posted by: Ascalaphus Jun 1 2011, 11:55 PM
But wouldn't the neurostun gas do damage every round, quickly moving into overflow?
Posted by: redwulf25 Jun 2 2011, 12:15 AM
Use a low concentration and come in with a fan. Or an air spirit.
Posted by: Wolfgar Jun 2 2011, 12:37 AM
OP here, ready to describe in detail just what went down when my runners burned some loot. When I presented the 'Jazz' to my players, that's just what it was-- loot for their shadow runners. It was the end of the adventure, the technomancer had just finished looting a small drone from the burning biker compound, and the players we're asking what else the found. I said, "Well, there's a case full of Jazz." They said "Burn it," "Yeah," and "Whatever."
I was genuinely surprised. One of the players even noted my surprise after the session. They had instantly turned down the loot, with no discussion of possibly selling it or keeping some for themselves (I had even shown the usefulness of the drug- the bikers they had just fought had taken some). I'm not saying their is anything wrong with this- If they want to play moral characters, I'm all for it. I'm just surprised.
For one reason, in-game two of the characters have addictions themselves. The street sam Raid is addicted to BTLs, and the shaman has Focus addict. Yet neither of their characters could see themselves turning a profit on this.
For another reason, out of game, I've been playing with this group for a while, and moral characters are not the norm. Through D&D, Star Wars, nWoD Mage and Changeling, we've seen necromancers, mercenaries, racists, fanatics, thieves, greedy punks and even an executioner as characters. I'm just wondering why the picked Shadowrun to play the good guys.
As for the "Explanation to the Biker leader," there's more to that. In a later post. Gonna eat dinner first.
Moral degradation is now first on my docket! The players didn't even kill one biker! For their next run, I had already planned for the new Ms. Johnson to be more forceful and ruthless. Seeing their no blood policy, she's gonna require proof that they'll use traditional violence- by paying them a grand right then and there to beat up some 'random' corp middle manager dancing across the club. (Course it's a rival of Ms. J, but the player's may not know that.)
Posted by: CanRay Jun 2 2011, 12:58 AM
They way they walk and behave.
Training never goes completely away. If you know what to look for, you can tell. Especially if you got another Marine watching.
Lack of training is also telling, and is a different form of discipline. If you know what to look for, you can tell. Especially if you got another Punk watching.
Posted by: nezumi Jun 2 2011, 01:20 AM
This sounds like an excellent situation.
Your players had fun and got engaged.
They role-played out characters against stereotypes and worked together as a group.
They achieved their goals.
As a GM, your job isn't to get the players to play how you want. Encourage them to play 'good' characters. Your job is to take those aspects of their play that they take for granted and twist and strain them until their tiny golden hearts groan for pain, and even if they don't stab the little old lady down the street in the eyeball, they at least consider it. Don't make it a lynchpin of the campaign, but make sure there's at least one mission where 'shoot the kid' is the easy answer and they have to struggle to stay good.
Meanwhile, encourage them to be good. Let them get jobs from the community, or from organizations which (at least outwardly) are working for the better. You can play with this too. For example, set them to work clearing out a troubled neighborhood so Manus for Metahumanity can get that new church and commune running (note: Mans for Metahumanity is an Aztechnology affiliate). Invest them in the people they're working with. Encourage them to take up political causes and establish real, moral enemies and causes they can rail against. Help them start a band. This is a good way to play Shadowrun, perhaps the original way to play Shadowrun (check out SR1 and Cyberpunk 2020 for inspiration). Run with it. Invest them in it. Enjoy.
Posted by: Faelan Jun 2 2011, 01:21 AM
Training never goes completely away. If you know what to look for, you can tell. Especially if you got another Marine watching.
Lack of training is also telling, and is a different form of discipline. If you know what to look for, you can tell. Especially if you got another Punk watching.
Completely true. If you pay any attention to body language, and general movement the people with training stand out. Trying to hide it is really hard, and the ones acting like they know something but don't really also stand out. If you have been trained picking people out of a crowd becomes a game to play.
Posted by: CanRay Jun 2 2011, 01:36 AM
Body language and vocal patterns are two ways that a lot of intelligence agencies are able to ID people. I've read in a few places that they can pinpoint an accent down to a few blocks in New York City. Not sure if that is hyperbole or now...
Posted by: Yerameyahu Jun 2 2011, 01:56 AM
suoq, what are you talking about? I didn't say anything about telling if bikers are Marines.
Posted by: suoq Jun 2 2011, 02:19 AM
When I make that decision, I frequently don't know how difficult the run is going to be. I find the difference between pacify measures and nuke measures to not be very large. I find that the things I don't discover during recon to have a greater impact that pacify vs. nuke.
----
Training never goes completely away. If you know what to look for, you can tell. Especially if you got another Marine watching.
Lack of training is also telling, and is a different form of discipline. If you know what to look for, you can tell. Especially if you got another Punk watching.
Having spent too much time on the streets where most of my friends had yellow sheets and having served for four years, I have to admit that I have no clue what you're talking about. Heck, half the marines on Top Shot season 1 could have been rednecks from their behavior. Was there ANYTHING about Adam on that show that made you think he could even find the safety on the gun? Meanwhile the kid is shooting a smiley face with his rifle.
To me this sounds like Gaydar, Some people swear they can tell, but when asked which of the local rollergirls swing which way, they're not accurate.
Edit: Corrected above name to Adam. The guy who wrote "RAT FINK" on the pool table.
Posted by: CanRay Jun 2 2011, 02:27 AM
Really? Can you also not tell when someone's a cop?
Maybe you grew up in the wrong neighborhood.
Posted by: suoq Jun 2 2011, 02:56 AM
Out of uniform, if I don't know them? No. I can't. I'd be more likely to suspect Henry Rollins of being a bad ass with a gun than any of our local cops, on or off base. Half of the local cops/guards I'd suspect of being more at ease behind a barstool than behind a firing range.
I'm mentally running a list through my head of friends and relatives who served in combat and in elite units and I'll be danged if I can think of any traits they have in common. I think unless you actually get them in that specific situation, that persona isn't the one they're using at the moment. They're using another, more appropriate, persona. (At work, we call them "hats" as in "I'm going to put my manager hat on now".)
Posted by: zend0g Jun 2 2011, 03:10 AM
Maybe you grew up in the wrong neighborhood.
Oh yeah, that must be why police undercover assignments always fail. As for the spotting a marine thing, there are more factors to consider. A marine that spent twelve years in the service, saw front line combat as infantry will stick out if he is still physically and mentally healthy. A marine that only spent fours years active, never saw combat, was in a non-infantry MoS and then went back to his previous gang lifestyle when he got out would be harder to pick out if at all.
Posted by: Yerameyahu Jun 2 2011, 03:24 AM
Ah, I see your confusion, suoq. They would *find out* that their choice was bad only later, if the opposition was too strong for the selective approach. I wasn't saying they made the decision intelligently. I was saying that they survived because the bikers were too weak.
Posted by: CanRay Jun 2 2011, 04:34 AM
Lots of training goes into Undercover work, to get rid of the "Tells".
And you just described a clerk.
Guess they're still a marine even if they were a desk jockey. 'Course, I should be the last one to talk, shouldn't I?
Posted by: Ascalaphus Jun 2 2011, 09:46 AM
You could have a "rival" team of shadowrunners. They don't seek out fights with the PCs or so - they just see each other across the bar from time to time. And while the PCs get all the "moral" jobs, the Other Team gets better-paying, less-moral jobs.
Just as a way of tempting the players, when they see the gear the other team is stocking up on. And it's always interesting to have a rival.
Posted by: hermit Jun 2 2011, 12:19 PM
So would bin Laden. Did he die from a stroke, too?
Decency, of course, being hardly clearly defined, just as being a right bastard.
That's a pretty good reason to turn down a job, so you may want to prepare for that, just in case it happens.
Posted by: Faelan Jun 2 2011, 12:45 PM
To me this sounds like Gaydar, Some people swear they can tell, but when asked which of the local rollergirls swing which way, they're not accurate.
While I will never claim to be able to tell sexual orientation or occupation 100% of the time, give me 30-60 minutes of covert or not so covert surveillance and I will be able to tell you with 90% certainty whether someone is a threat or as had training. I spent 8 years in the Marine Corps and half of it was as an Instructor at the School of Infantry. Needless to say I did not pick these skills up teaching kids how to kill other people, however I did a lot of coursework and personal research into the subject, I was planning on moving into the Intelligence field when personal issues got in the way. I cannot claim you can tell where someone received training or how long ago most of the time, however assessing the degree of threat is possible, and probable training based on observing. If you cannot tell then you simply have not been paying attention to the right things.
Canray called them tells and much like in a poker game they give you away, unless you have been trained and practice hiding them they will give you away every time. Each perceived item is not going to explain anything to you however taken as a whole you can know with fair certainty whether someone is telling the truth, hiding something, or in this case trained. Things to look for off the top of my head and there are more, once you start doing this as an exercise things stick out to you that normally would not. 1) While watching the subject in question how do they hold themselves? Remember your mom giving you crap about posture, well posture is a good indicator of confidence. Confidence comes from two places, ignorance or training. I am not saying you should ignore the slouchers, but when you do surveillance you need to prioritize, the longer you have to do it the more info you get the better your assessment. 2) People with weapons always reach and touch it from time to time, just to make sure it is there. It is kind of like checking to see if your wallet is still there, you don't realize you do it, but most people do it fairly regularly. If you watch long enough you can see a pattern of behavior that tells you what is where. If you watch someone for a period of 4 hours, you should have a very good idea of where any weapons are, what they most likely are, where any comm equipment might be, and also where his wallet is. 3) How do they look at their environment. Do they move around furtively? Likely hiding something. Do they look around in sections, is there a pattern? Guarding something possibly trained to a degree. Nervous man is more dangerous he is unpredictable, of course he can be used against calm guarding man if needed. Observe how they react to loud noises, traffic, pedestrian activity. The guy who does not look like he is looking at anything in particular, has his back to the wall and seems somewhat relaxed is probably the one you are looking for. 3) How do they walk outside of their posture? I mean everything here, how do they move their arms, how do their feet hit the ground, how much knee flex, the cant of their torso, head tilt, all of these things can tell you whether this guy is going to be a problem, or if he is a push over and you will pound them into gravy if need be. 4) Watch their interactions with others and the perceived social dynamic. Who is the Alpha? If you watch for any length of time you will know their social order, and usually top dog is the toughest dog, or at least the one willing to commit to violence with real dedication. 5) If you can listen to them, do so. The way things are said, how they are said, and their content build patterns that you can find if you listen long enough.
Anyway I could keep going on about this, but really it takes a lot of practice and a lot of study, and a lot of actual recon or surveillance to make it a useful skill. Most people suck at it because they simply don't pay enough attention to their environment, and what other people are doing. Can I look at someone and say "Yup, yup, he is a Marine." No, absolutely not, I could and be dead wrong, but give me some time, and I could be spot on. Every second of additional assessment time makes a difference, how they grab drinks, do they hesitate as if they were going to field strip a cigarette, how do they light their cigarettes, what kind of idiomatic phrases do they use, "Good to go is it not?". Everything you have done or learned is expressed in your mind, and it all comes out on your face, body, and interactions for anyone who is paying attention to use. Anyway I gotta go to work.
Posted by: nezumi Jun 2 2011, 01:10 PM
Like Faelan said, when you live certain behaviors for a while, they tend to show. I can generally tell cops from marines due to the haircut and the dominant asshole level (at least, I think!), but more broadly, you can tell the people who normally operate at code yellow/orange, trained to walk at military stride, and used to working out every day (or to eating 2,000 more calories than the normal person).
That said, as you move away from Marines into groups where individuals are permitted to be beautiful and unique flowers, that skill falls off. I (of all people!) have been confused with military because I use NATO letters and military time. I'm just sick of people mispelling my name or being late to appointments! I doubt I could pick a naval officer from a crowd if he's not in uniform, and my only clue for USAF is they oftentimes have pictures or old casings in their cubicle.
Posted by: Irion Jun 2 2011, 01:34 PM
Nobody claimed the kill. Why not give all his victims closure if you went to the trouble killing him?
As you would be accused of anything.
It is not like the mossad did not admitted if he killed some Nazis.
http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/news/ex-mossad-agent-we-let-nazi-doctor-mengele-get-away-1.253046
Sometimes bastards get away because they are lucky bastards.
There are a lot of moments in history, when Hitler could have died.
Posted by: CanRay Jun 2 2011, 03:58 PM
That said, as you move away from Marines into groups where individuals are permitted to be beautiful and unique flowers, that skill falls off. I (of all people!) have been confused with military because I use NATO letters and military time. I'm just sick of people mispelling my name or being late to appointments! I doubt I could pick a naval officer from a crowd if he's not in uniform, and my only clue for USAF is they oftentimes have pictures or old casings in their cubicle.
And I've had more than one person who is peripherally interested in the military in some way mistake me for military as I have "The Soldier's March". I can't do lockstep, however, so that gives me away (My "Tell") every time. I also use NATO-Phonetics, but that's from my tech days when you had to be sure about letters when talking about MAC Addresses and such.
A certain bunker with a bomb in a briefcase comes to mind... A British Sniper (From the "Ungentlemanly Warfare Department") had him in the sights for a few crucial seconds before being called off for some reason... A few others...
Posted by: suoq Jun 2 2011, 04:45 PM
My problem with Tells is that you're making a binary decision on A based on B.
Using Faelan's example, you can recognize the Marines if you've been a marine. I'm fine with that. But that doesn't mean you can recognize a threat. Watch the first two DVDs of Season 1 of Top Shot. Kelly Bachand is a 22 year old. When I was younger we would have used the word "preppie" to describe him. He's not particularly confident. His eyebrows are locked in a permanent state of "I'm out of my element" and his forehead has wrinkles that scream "worried". ( http://www.history.com/shows/top-shot/videos/playlists/season-1-bios#meet-kelly-bachand ). His teammates don't take him seriously, think he's not an asset, and nominate him for elimination 3 times, where he sends home 2 marines and a USPSA Grand Master. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top_Shot ). No one else that season won three elimination challenges and the only guy who won 2 was the Grand Master he sent home.
I'm fine with someone saying that they can identify some threats and I'm fine with that in Shadowrun as well, but when someone has not identified a threat during recon, that does not mean the threat isn't there. Thinking one's assessment is completely accurate, to me, is fallacy.
Posted by: hermit Jun 2 2011, 04:48 PM
A lot, actually. There were some 40 attempts to kill him from the German military alone (half of which hated him for various reasons, from him being lowborn to objections about the war against the USSR).
Posted by: Faraday Jun 2 2011, 05:27 PM
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ptitlekz83hawz *TVTropes warning*
Posted by: CanRay Jun 2 2011, 05:45 PM
Bah, idiots all of them.
Prevent the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria. See what that will do.
Or cure Robert A. Heinlein of his pulmonary tuberculosis and... Oh, wait, that's been done as a story.
Give Mozart mirrorshades?
Posted by: James McMurray Jun 2 2011, 05:58 PM
Or go back and become your own father. Wait, Heinlein did that story, too.
To hell with Mozart and shades. Imagine Beethoven with a hearing aid.
Posted by: CanRay Jun 2 2011, 06:08 PM
http://project.cyberpunk.ru/idb/mirrorshades.html
Posted by: Faelan Jun 2 2011, 06:56 PM
Using Faelan's example, you can recognize the Marines if you've been a marine. I'm fine with that. But that doesn't mean you can recognize a threat. Watch the first two DVDs of Season 1 of Top Shot. Kelly Bachand is a 22 year old. When I was younger we would have used the word "preppie" to describe him. He's not particularly confident. His eyebrows are locked in a permanent state of "I'm out of my element" and his forehead has wrinkles that scream "worried". ( http://www.history.com/shows/top-shot/videos/playlists/season-1-bios#meet-kelly-bachand ). His teammates don't take him seriously, think he's not an asset, and nominate him for elimination 3 times, where he sends home 2 marines and a USPSA Grand Master. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top_Shot ). No one else that season won three elimination challenges and the only guy who won 2 was the Grand Master he sent home.
I'm fine with someone saying that they can identify some threats and I'm fine with that in Shadowrun as well, but when someone has not identified a threat during recon, that does not mean the threat isn't there. Thinking one's assessment is completely accurate, to me, is fallacy.
1) I would never say any threat assessment is 100% accurate. 2) Anyone and everyone in a target area is a threat, the degree is what varies. 3) The example above is irrelevant. He can shoot, granted, that makes him a threat. A 5 year old with a gun is threat. The fact the other competitors took his age for granted is not a mistake most people will make in a combat or potentially hostile environment. In the end Top Shot is a TV show, not a combat zone or a target. Also just because you can shoot does not make you capable. 4) Thinking you have accounted for everything will get you killed. 5) You do surveillance and make a threat assessment to give you a starting point for a viable plan to accomplish your mission objective.
@ Canray: I hope you don't think I was picking apart your use of the word "Tells" it is the generally accepted term, if I offended mea culpa.
Posted by: CanRay Jun 2 2011, 10:35 PM
Nah, is all good. That's how most people would have heard of the term, so it was a good way of explaining it. I should have done so myself, so thanks for correcting my possible error.
Posted by: Faelan Jun 2 2011, 11:04 PM
Good, I guess I don't have to worry about a certain Dog Shaman gunning for my ass.
Posted by: CanRay Jun 2 2011, 11:17 PM
I'd have to play first.
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