I'll just weigh in here. On the dehumanization thing. Killing people is a pretty natural thing for people until Society says "Thou shalt not!". Honestly, watch what happens when you tell people "its aok to kill these folks - you get a by for them, actually hey we'd like you to go kill them for us." Mostly they set to it with a gusto, and the response for succeeding is more along the lines of watching a touchdown crowd than any thoughts of "oh, but it was a regrettable necessity." It doesn't matter if we're talking African Genocide, the occupation of the west, LA gangs in the 90s, or legitimate military action. The human reaction to killing who your allowed to is almost always a "hell yeah!" and not a "oh...oh..but why?"

Given that, shadowrunners (aka, professional purveyors of high stakes espionage, burglary, kidnapping, and violence) being aok with killing someone that the society of 2072 has pretty much said "meh, we don't really care" about doesn't seem particularly outside the realm of likelihood. Especially as, being by and large SINless, the runners probably came up from a background with a lot less "life is a sacred flower" and a lot more "Life starts cheap; you gotta work to make it expensive".

Plus, you know, it is game. With very detailed rules on killing people and taking their stuff. Entire sourcebooks of nothing but better ways to kill people. One of the high end goals is to be able to kill really important people, and get away with it. It kind of breeds in a bit of a mindset.

If such is the case, then I see that I need to either...

1. Speak with my GM about how he wants the game to be played vs how I want to play the game.
2. Point out all the notes people here made about how SR4 is not a dystopia anymore, but a post-dystopia.
3. Find a new game.

Thanks for the opinions & thoughts people.

1 and 3 are the only options that actually matter, and of them, #1 is the way to go. Pointing to an internet thread and saying "See? Your core understanding of the game world is wrong! The internet says so!" isn't going to convince him of anything. Go with #1. Sit down, talk to the dude, and get on the same page about what kind of feel/attitude your Shadowrun is -- not Dumpshock's Shadowrun, not the writers' Shadowrun, not the Shadowrun from the novels, or anything else, just your game table counts.

Where is that +1 button?

Different website.

I plan on talking with my GM in a few weeks. We aren't playing this weekend, so I have some time to properly word my points and issues in a peaceful, non-threatening, non-bitching manner... I hope. I would rather not leave the game as its the only SR game I've found in NYC.

If it helps any, Fields of Fire spent a lot of space in the fluff text discussing runner behavior and morals.

"Bite My Snake"

A down on his luck shadowrunner shot in the head, is also just a dead body with a hole in his head.
And finding out who shot your sister you did not care about in the head, somewhere in a dark ally? Good luck with that.

I dislike fucking PC because you do not like their style of play, if done to obvious.:devil:
The hooker thing is so bound to blow up in the faces of the players, anyway.
And to kill some guy in your car... Well, some guys were caught because of parking tickets...
They sent in a girl, knowing nothing about shadowrunning after (I suspect) quite a high target.
She might just be a pawn to the players, but even a pawn is able to ruin your game if it is just standing in the wrong place at the right time...

Goes without saying, probably, but it's a fine and blurry line between runners and street scum, and there is no 'right' or 'wrong' answer.

The problem isn't really with the GM running a crapsack world - that's well within the tolerances of the game. And it can be fun and challenging to play a character struggling with his conscience in such a world. I'm only getting the player's side, so the following may or may not be accurate:

But the problem doesn't seem to be with the game world, it's with the GM stepping outside of his bounds to tell the players how they should be playing their characters. Yeah, the GM should set an overall tone for the game - but it should stop short of imposing D&D-style alignments on everyone.

Mine is "Chaotic-Shooty".

Beware overgeneralisation here. Although this holds true in some parts of the population, some demographics over others, it's not as much a given as you make it sound.

Mine is "Lawful-Puncher".

Hey, we could star one of those "back-to-back opposites" trideo shows. _o/

I had a longer and more eloquent response but it was eaten by my works internet. It basically boils down to while GM's shouldn't impose a hard alignment system neither should they feel obligated to run a violence/combat/rape simulator. In fact a lot of the dillema's involved in storytelling, revolve around an audience who frankly won't just con, lie, mind control, and demolish their way to all objectives. Take the classic case of a grieving parent wanting to have those responsible for their offspring's death brought to justice. What could be a fairly satisfying yet still paying moral quest could theoretically be solved into mind control puppeteer a hobo into confessing to the crime in gory detail, editing soem trid footage to have co-aborating evidence and then throwing the "Guilty" on fire off a bridge. Twenty minuets work tops not counting driving time.

For me a question as interesting in solving the Shadowruns laid out to me has always been "What won't my character do and why."


In any case I think it's important to set what sort of game world your expecting to play in up front, I tend to shoot for shades of heroic in the shadows but others tastes may vary.

As a thought experiment I think i'm going to offer bonus karma, up to hundred for characters playing at the next game I run. The caveat is the players have to explain to me what sort of ethical code the runners live by and how they gave it. 100 points would be for the most extreme, stringent, and actually hampering code, less points would be for more flexible doctrines or those based on less morally sensitive contexts like honor or family or organization loyalty. If the player ever violates their code their going to loose access to what their code bought them until they atone.

The end idea being if you want to play a good guy your life should be harder, but there should be that little somethign that helps even the odds. Plus if done right it should lead to some good roleplay fodder which is always a plus.

As the GM of the game in question, it seems to me that this is a classic case of player/GM mis-communication.

Yes, the SR world that I run is very dystopic, individualistic, corrupt, dark, bleak, inhabited by many immoral, ruthless and cruel individuals. There are few social safety nets, the gap between the rich and the poor are huge and the average American saw their standard of living drop dramatically during the 21st Century. Law enforcement is lacking in many "working class" areas. Drugs, organs and human trafficking are rampant. Most of the citizens are barely scrapping by, having to endure long working hours, low wages, food based mostly on soy and artificial flavors, tiny living quarters subjected to random water rationing and little prospects for improving their lives. It is a world full of chipheads, child prostitution, street kids, pimps, mobsters, loan sharks, smugglers, con-artists, serial rapists, insect spirits, ghouls and worse.

This is Shadowrun to me. This is how I see the world when I run my games. Other GMs might see/imagine SR world differently, and that is fine.

However, I never said that the players have to be like that. I have no issue with the player characters having a honor code, being idealistic, altruistic and just plain kind. Of course, there is a cost for being a "good person" while dwelling in the underworld and shadowworlds. As Shadowrunners, you will be exposed to and have to interact with the worst meta-humanity has to offer. Many of your customers, contacts and even allies will be scumbags of the worse kind. You will be asked to do some pretty distasteful things. Can you walk away, turn your back on such offers? Of course! Just be aware that there are consequences for doing that, just like there are consequences for being a sadistic psycho-killer.

Based on the fact that you had to open this topic here , it is obvious that, as a GM, I have not done a good job explaining that you have options and that you do not have to play as an "amoral" character. Also, you might want to consider that a lot of the pressure you are getting to play the "amoral" character might be coming from the other players and not from the GM.

At any rate, we can discuss it further during our next game session.

Like so many others have pointed out a lot of this comes down to personal preference in play style. I've played Shadowrun since shortly after it was introduced, and have played off and on ever since. It's my favorite game system because it's very flexible.

In my own games it varies-depending on the themes we want to explore the PC's can be stone cold killers who adhere to one code-anything goes-to gang-bangers who are too busy trying to survive to worry about code, to National Geographic photographers who are just normal people to mercenaries who have Bushido style codes. Each campaign is different.

As a Game Master I have a few personal preferences, and luckily most of my players most of the time agree with me. They include but are not limited to:

• Slapstick and Pink Mohwak has a very limited presence in our games. We're not against humor, we just don't like this kind most of the time.
• We love a good 80's action flick as much as the next bunch of dudes but there are realistic consequences for mayhem and murder. As a GM I like to let this build a little-so one day things are going well, the next it's raining trouble.
• The rules serve the game, and are not the sole purpose-we limit rules lawyering to 45 seconds during game time. We can debate a field ruling after the game is over.

At any rate back to the topic at hand-professional's vary, as do the definitions of them.

This is easily even more interesting (or actually, ONLY really interesting) if not doing something will actually bring hard or at least disadvantage to a character...

My personal rule for what makes a Shadowrunner vs "street scum" is basically pretty simple: once it's a regular job, you're a runner. You might suck at running, you might murder all the guards and be a psycho, you might be the most ice-cold pro ever... but to me, street scum are the ones who moonlight as runners to fund other pursuits, while runners are the ones who have consciously decided to ride that train as far as it'll take them.

Then again, I like my runners and street scum on a gradiated scale, rather than a more binary one.

Like the sliding scale of 'hawk?

Very much so, except it's more like a sliding scale of invested they are in their work.

I mean, Joebob the ice-cold pro fixer with his 6 grand suits and fifty grand bmw can still be street scum, if his primary role in the shadows is helping smugglers move hookers from thailand into Los Angeles. Conversely, the guy with the pink mohawk who brands security forces with his personal seal and works for chump change and drugs because he loves his work that much (and hates MCT passionately) is a hard-core shadowrunner, because he's decided, "I'm gonna run the shadows cuz SHIT, bro, I got nothin' else I wanna do."

See in my own games the latter would last exactly one game. We like that sort of harsh noir feeling to our games though!

So give him a fedora and a trenchcoat. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

That'll be a little akward, although the fedora will cover the large caliber exit wounds in his head... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

No complaint about how my houserule would be super unfair and force people to play THEIR characters a certain way, man dumpshock, your slipping.