Well - not all of them do. Those that require blood or flesh aren't required to kill to get it, it just has to be from a metahuman. As far as Essence needs go, base loss is 1 point a month... that's not going to kill any "essence source" unless they're all cybered up.... and given the mystique surrounding some of those infected it's reasonable to believe they'd be able to find plenty of willing "victims" (even discounting the use of influence and alter memory).

That's not to say I think "Infected Rights" is terribly reasonable... people as a whole are easily frightened and swayed to prejudice so anyone seen as having a "infectious disease" that requires the victims to "feed on human flesh/blood" is going to get them quarantined at the very least... especially the ones who can infect you just by touching you (though I think writing it that way was a bit extreme... realistically HMHVV II and III would spread through every major city like wildfire)

My issue with having them as playable characters is that Regeneration is somewhat unbalancing and, while they may be drawn to the shadows, who's honestly going to want to hire them or even run with them barring other infected? Remember the degree of fear and prejudice against people with AIDS back in the 90's? Now imagine if those AIDS victims had to feed on other people (even just a little) to survive.... Vampire "mystique" might get you a hopeful goth here and there to keep your essence up but it isn't going to land you a job.

And, of course, as you said... there's already a game where you can play a vampire. I suspect the resurgence in interest in the genre is what triggered them being added as playable in the first place.

OK, the Infected don't eat people... THEY JUST EAT PEOPLE'S SOULS!

That's going to look well on the "Hug A Windigo" posters. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

One more and I can get a specialty!
Moving back to topic, I can see Ghoul rights. They don't essence leech and don't need to kill to feed. The non-feral ghouls are people. I can easily see that bill not getting passed at all. Try to sell the image of an upstanding ghoul and humanis shows you a warehouse full of ferals. You ain't winning that fight.

I could see it as a "sick people are people too" kind of thing, where they're campaigning for humane treatment until a cure can be found. But being infected isn't "equal" in the sense that it's "okay" to be infected; just like people don't think that being disabled is a good thing, even though they support humane treatment of disabled people.

That, of course, is the nicest you can hope for: being considered a victim of a disease. If there was a cure, only wackos would want to remain a ghoul, and society might not tolerate that.

Vampires face tricky odds. Since they don't look quite as much like they're suffering, it's harder to be sympathetic. On the other hand, they can be somewhat glamorous, like gangsters or mob bosses - rationally, we know they're bad for society, but a lot of people think they're cool.

Oh yeah, CAS Humanis Policlub at its finest.

Dead people. So what?


What vampire rights? In some (unspecified) countries vampires may now register themselves for constant monitoring in exchange for not getting shot on sight. In other words, probably some weirdo countries like Amazonia or Yakut allow vampiric Infected who manage to get by without killing people to live, and will monitor them closely to make sure they stick to the rules...


And I will nevertheless voice my criticism if you bring it up here. Or do you expect only claqueurs?

That's kind of a blanket answer, and I'm not sure an entirely accurate one. Sure some of the Infected probably consume essence, flesh, blood or what ever in a civilized fashion. But I can't imagine in the Dystopian World as presented that there isn't a significant number that don't do that.

Now the rest of this is not specifically directed at Sengir, but is inspired by some of his comments:

Now, for the record, I'm not entirely in agreement with Patrick's position. I do think that as presented the Infected are kind of a mixed bag. I do not like removing options from the game-I think you should be able to play a Ghoul, maybe even a Vampire. But I think there should be real world style consequences for doing so. One of the things Shadowrun, and it's players, do a terrible job of in my opinion is giving reasoning as to why a team of pink mohawked criminals, with an ork who looks like a 15 year old dressed up as 75 year old cartoon character, and their buddy who carries his sword everywhere get hired by anyone to do anything.

I get why the punk aspect is there. I get the idea of individualism, and rugged assertive personalities. But frankly a lot of people who spend an awful lot of time seriously debating a lot of other things seem really willing just to hand wave that sort of thing. As someone who works in Law Enforcement, with a group of players who also work in the field, or work in professional fields that require a certain attire I get my views can be a little biased.

But yeah, I agree that sometimes the various metavariants and optional stuff is seen as too common place. How many hundreds of whacked out nut job characters have we all seen on this site? Now, absolutely I'd agree it's their table. They do what they see as fun. But yeah for my part I'd welcome some house cleaning-yeah there a lot of magical threats, but it seems like everyone here just assumes every citizen of the Sixth World logs onto Shadowland every day, which to me cheapens the game.

So beat on me if you have to, but I for one welcome some restrictions-but I do want those restrictions to be done in an exciting fashion. A clear and internally consistent fashion.

And of course the good news is if we don't like it, we won't use it. At my table you'd be pretty hard pressed to make a fringe character like a Vampire or Strawberry Shortcake Ork and live that long. And that's how we like it. Maybe at your table, or someone else's it's different.

Eh. The infected are just that, Infected.

Normally if you have a virulent disease, you quarantine the victims.

You don't let them roam free and allow them un-infected people flesh to eat.



-k

That's it exactly. Patients can ask for such rights as a clean hospital bed, but a right to infect other people or eat them isn't going to happen.

Never mind this "second generation not infectious" nonsense. Are we really going to risk public health with that? Who knows, it might become infectious again in conjunction with the flu.

Well, there's always Asamando... the Infected country

Depending on the fluff (or even certain rules), outlandish looking eye-catching people are so common they pass by unnoticed. Not really a view of the SR world I'm fond of but I can see some tables adopting it. As to who would hire them... in my view that would be the Fixer who they know from (insert back story here). I've never understood all this fluff about characters meeting the Johnson... the whole point of hiring a shadow runner is they are deniable anonymous assets. Meeting them (especially in the 6th world) would seem to nullify your reason for using them.

Personally I see shadow runners as somewhere between the characters from the TV show Leverage and the characters from the movie The Expendables.
Well, to be a little fair to the wacked out nutjobs... the runners are supposed to be the protagonists of the story; so as a singular metavariant or some other "alternative" (with a convincing back story to explain how they ended up running the shadows in whatever base city your campaign is in) then I'd say it fits. Now, if you were running in Seattle and your GM started throwing armies of Cyclops, Giants, and Minotaur at you then yea - that's abusing it. A table with a single Oni who fled to Seattle as a boy to escape the Yakuza who had killed his parents... that's fine. It seems "all too common" to us because we see characters from multiple tables... if this was an MMO, where all tables were part of one contiguous world, then I'd agree. Since each table is a unique version of the SR world unto itself then really they're fine.

Absolutely, but even those seem marginal to me. But then this is a personal preference thing-and I'd say our views aren't so different.



Agreed. We actually do just what you mentioned. The Fixer maintains a stable of employees. it's rare for my players to meet a Johnson. I think I get why it was built that way, a story telling technique.



If we keep agreeing we can't have an internet fight damn it! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)



Crap we still agree. Well so be it. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

What's wrong with the 15-year old ork dressed as a 75-year old cartoon character? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

Do I start alphabetically? Or do I go in the order of importance? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

In all seriousness at their table? Nothing. And I appreciate the gal or guy who plays that character having a good sense of humor about it all.

Now back to my semi sarcastic answers: At my own table we'd laugh the player away from the table, and heap upon them scorn. Assuming the other players didn't straight up murder some character like this. (We wouldn't laugh. Seriously. But yeah I'm pretty sure they'd murder this character almost as fast as she showed up.)

How rude... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)
But a bullet to the back of the head would solve the problem quite nicely.

Remind me sometime to relay a story about a player who's character was a serial killer. That was a great arc...for those that lived...

Ghouls are not necessarily the ones vampires can turn to. Persecuted groups often kick down on others with similar problems, so maybe the GLL actually lobbies for a tougher stance on everything which has to drain living people. Given the eugenic leanings of their queen, Asamando seems even more likely to act like that.

I agree with this.

That's a good point... though Vampires and Nosferatu (and maybe Banshee) have an entire subculture of non-infected dedicated to their worship and look "nearly identical to regular humans." to boot so as long as they keep it to themselves (and don't get assensed) I suspect they can get along living in the shadows without too much difficulty.

The other infected however... I'd see them as near unplayable since they are easily spotted visually just going out in public. With the possible exception of Bandernatchii being all invisible and what-not.

An invisible (aka "it could be everyone") threat, a youth subculture which can be connected to that, it keeps getting better

GLL Spokesman: I have here in my hand a list of individuals in the State Department who are known to be secretly part of the vampire culture, yet continue to work there and shape its policy. Furthermore, I want to remind you that the head of the Ghoul Extermination League has not responded to repeated requests to prove that he was born 50 years ago and is not a 200 years old vampire from Kenya. Where is the birth certificate?


Cybereyes, Minor Biosculpting, Clean Metabolism bioware and you look perfectly fine. Not on the astral, but that is a problem many runners suffer from.

How's that?

Assensing detects cyber...

And most other things, depending on the # of hits.

I wouldn't consider having your cyber assenssed (or rather, lack of aura in those spots) necessarily a problem. It won't tell them what the cyber is, just that you have something there. Lots of people have cyber...

Meh. I'd say that you could tell a lot of things from location, and size. (Several of the novels make reference to just this sort of thing) And after a while experience would likely help too.