Like I said, it's a major plot point in Interview with the Vampire, for one. (I think, heh.)

What else does purging internal organs means?

I don't know about you, but part of College is "Puking one's guts out", yet I still have internal organs.

...

Or is that just a Canadian thing?

Um…no. Your reasoning is officially rejected.

The Infected are not allegories for AIDS victims, or [insert group X as you please]. Such comparisons are ludicrous and totally invalid. Why? Because none of those people have been turned into creatures that are compelled to hunt down other sentient beings, murder them, and then EAT them.

This isn’t the World of Darkness. This also isn’t some Anne Rice, Stephenie Meyer, or Charlaine Harris angst-fest about being a lonely, misunderstood, immortal creature of the night. Such people have picked up the wrong game – try Vampire: The Masquerade (or Requiem, if your standards are that low) or Twilight the RPG or something. This is Shadowrun, and here the Infected are monstrous predators who, in the case of ghouls especially, are sufficiently predatory and infectious that George Romero ought to be invited to GM a few sessions at GenCon some year if the developers would actually start taking that into account instead of just sweeping it under the rug.

So, again, wanting to see them wiped off the face of the planet is not an instance of Fantastic Racism – it’s about wanting to contain a plague the likes of which has the potential to give Resident Evil a real run for its money. It’s about survival for all the rest of the non-Infected…those who haven’t (yet) been killed and eaten by the Infected.

I repeat – without apology – they’re monsters, not people, and they should be burned off the face of the planet.

Some of them? Sure. Most of them? Possibly. All of them? If they had another option given to them?

Don't forget that Dunkie's Will even gives them a chance. Gotta wonder what the reasoning behind that is...

Well Janessa at your table that may be chip truth. The rest of us aren't obligated to buy into your opinions.

Holy crap. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) I guess all that stuff about ghoul food banks and sapient Infected didn't happen. Oh well. It *is* much easier to consider everything in black and white, after all. Mostly, I just can't imagine caring that much, it looks exhausting.

I'm basing this off of what I've read in canon - I fail to see how it doesn't back me up.

Purging means "to empty" not "to remove."
As CanRay indicated, "Purging your internal organs" is another way for saying "Puking your guts out." (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)
Used in other interesting temrs like "Binge and Purge."

Just because you choose to see Canon as backing your play doesn't mean that Canon isn't open to interpretation.

All roleplaying games have a long history of allowing people to customize the setting as they see fit. And since you've clearly made up your mind I fail to see where it'd be productive to argue with you. Simply put I don't think Canon backs your play a hundred percent, any more than it backs any ones play. But if you're having fun, good for you. I'll keep doing what's fun at my table for my players.

The fact that canon is changing indicates that you have little ground to reliably stand upon. Your opinion is obviously shared by MOST of the civilized world in Shadowrun, but not ALL of the Civilized World. Especially by those who are not the way that you portray them to be. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Yeah, that's the part I had objections with.



Errata it away?

Please? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Banshee's being hemovores ruin the canon-inity of my Banshee hispanic elf ganger Carlos who believes he's a vampire and thus drinks the blood of his victims because he thinks he has to...

It's just something of a hot button issue for me - the whole, seriously annoying trend by the developers (and players) of Shadowrun to continually angst and moan about the treatment of the poor, oppressed monsters who want to kill and eat them. Makes no sense, yet it keeps going on and on...

Next up will be Horror Rights. So they want to torture, maim, and kill everything on the planet. Is that so wrong? Aren't we just imposing our values on them? We should try to look at things from their perspective and correct our unenlightened attitudes. Just because they're a race of pure evil incarnate demons from the netherworlds who want to gleefully rip us to pieces for their own enjoyment doesn't mean we can't be friends. Geez...

I think the theme of 'carnivore with a conscience' has been adequately explored in our culture that I don't need to say anything, though. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) No one's saying, 'allow murderers to run free'. And, thanks to Patrick Goodman, they even tweaked the RAW infectiousness to be more sensible.

The point was never that everything is teddy bears and roses, just as much as the point *is* that everything isn't mindless monsters.

TJ, if that's the case then… why would it even be in there? It's a totally meaningless description, even if your faulty linguistic analysis were right. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif) 'Purge' can mean *either* one: removing organs makes sense from vampire lore, while 'clearing the system' is just extremely awkward and unnecessary. Either is possible, depending on the magic. The former is inconsistent with other fluff, and the latter is just awkward writing. Alas. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Luckily you're not required to abide by it. I mean seriously, if you don't like something don't use it. I mean I like some fo the people developing and writing for the game-hell some of them have sat at my table, and hoisted cold drinks with me. But they're just people like you and I.

I personally use it for what it's worth. Some Vampires in my game are monsters-others aren't I'll use them in a way that furthers our fun.

But definitely I hope they listen to your input and compare it to everyone else's.

I'd say it was in there because they did not want to use the more common "puke your guts out" terminology. I agree with you in that it is just bad/awkward writing. *shrug* (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Well, I certainly can't say that you haven't been an exceedingly civil debate opponent. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Hopefully they will indeed listen to both of our viewpoints the next time something official is written up on the Infected.

Ah, we're not opponents. You just see something you don't like. Isn't that your right as a customer?

Well, that's certainly one way to look at it, I suppose. Canon does bounce around on this issue like a ping-pong ball - I think almost more than anything I'd like a clear answer on this. Some books go on about the "gains" of the Infected in gaining more civil rights worldwide. Others, like Feral Cities (Lagos), IIRC, talk about the truckloads of people rounded up daily in Africa by slavers and murdered to provide food for the ghouls of Asamundo. I read entries like that and think that Thor Shot target practice followed by a good wide-area crop dusting of FAB III sounds like a real good idea...

Ironically, if they puked their guts out… they'd be purging those guts from their body. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif) Hehehe.

The English Language is a wild and harsh mistress... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

You know, the more I think of it, the more I'm reminded of this!

I think technically it would refer to emptying the "Guts" since they are able to hold a thing rather than being the thing themselves so the out would be the emptying of the "guts". Maybe?

Vampires and their ilk ARE the victims of an uncurable disease, however. They are still people (well, some of them are, at least). Those who are still fully sentient beings, and who do not use their condition as an excuse for glee-filled killing-sprees, can get by without killing people. You can sort of compare it to people with diseases that will kill them unless they get bone marrow transplants, organ translants, or whatever. If they find a donor, they can live. Same goes for many of the infected, except they need donors all the time.



...except that in several of the sources you quoted, vampires can survive just fine on animals - they CHOOSE to kill and murder, which make them a lot worse than Shadowrun vampires. Plus, in the above-mentioned sources they are undead, i.e. not human anymore (and often ridiculously powerful) -- much more fitting of your 'monster' description.



I agree - it's not a case of 'fantastic racism', because they are not a race - it's a disease. So, wanting them burned off the face of the planet is somewhat similar to wanting Ebola victims - or those of any highly contagious disease - to suffer the same fate. Most HMHVV II victims, and feral ghouls, I'll agree are a very serious problem (especially without the unofficial errata for HMMVV II - now there's a plague waiting to happen...)



That's only ONE opinion, albeit one shared by large parts of the sixth world. Canon-wise, there have been speakers for ghoul rights since 1st Edition, and they grow more numerous all the time. So you might as well say that by canon, ghouls 'are people too'. They need fairly low amounts of metahuman flesh to survive, and there are a lot of ways to feed ghouls without having them go around and kill people. Of course, many of them are tasteless at best and often morally and/or ethically debateable -- just like many other practices.

Vampires and their ilk pose a different problem, but there has been canon speakers for their rights for a long time as well, just fewer of them. Some nations have bounties on them, while others give them SINs - this has been true since at least 2nd Edition (if I remember correctly), so it's not 'new'.
Supplying vampires with Essence is a more difficult matter - especially with those types of vampire require eating of the flesh or organs of still living subjects to do so--no way around that, really. Ethically, those people would probably have to be 'treated' with euthanasia.

But even if you support the view of them being non-humans (often false, strictly canon-speaking) you can't just legally go on a rampage and put them down. If they are animals, they have to be treated according to the laws that apply to all other animals dangerous to mankind. That is, you can't kill them off-hand because of what they are. In theory, populations could feed off of each other and leave metahumans well and alone, and you would only have to 'put down' those who prey on humans - and that can only legally be done after the fact (well, unless you're in Quebec...).

By 'canon', the rights and treatment of the Infected is a complicated matter that different countries and cultures have chosen to deal with in different ways, and this has been 'canon' for pretty much 15-20 years now.

In reality, focus should mostly lie with combating the virus, and working on a cure - NOT on executing those who happen to have been infected by it. The torch-and-pitchfork approach has been used countless times in human history towards that which humans either cannot (or will not) understand, or what they fear--be it lepers, natives, infidels, witches, wolves, or whatever.

Well it looks like you get to fight some one. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)