Kind of like KFC offering a "live chicken option" in place of regular or extra crispy. While amusing, and I'm sure that the Colonel would enjoy doing that to people, it wouldn't be particularly popular. If a ghoul wants to buy meat at all, it's because he wants something that has already been slaughtered and aged. If he wants to slaughter, age, and butcher his own meat he can just do that - there's no particular shortage of metahumans. If you take some living orkish gang boss to some ghouls and ask them to eat him, you'll have to pay them to do it. On the other hand, if you already killed, butchered, and dried the ork gang boss yourself, you can take the pieces over to some of the more civilized ghouls and get them to pay you. Unfortunately, that involves spending several days with metahuman parts dripping on things in your house or storage unit. And I know from experience that that smell gets all over everything and the stains are hard to get out of things.

It's a tough call. But probably your best bet is to take recently dead bodies and hand them over whole (if naked) to some ghouls and pay them off with a small bribe to shut the hell up about it. Like 50 ¥ and a metahuman body and you'll never hear about either ever again.

-Frank

I have two pacifist characters who's ethical code is constantly challenges by 'running. Though they are 'hooders and not total pacifists the moral conflicts are what makes playing the characters interesting. And by pacifist i mean the SR3 flaw definintion.
Hell they even sold two company men corpses to the ripper docs as a favour to another team, who had done the killing, has drastically changed how they view that team but real friends help you move bodies.

Weirdest stance I saw was with my very first group. The runner team we had then did no wetwork, but defined wetwork as "hired expressively for killing a specific person". "Collateral damage", revenge killing, killing to escape or erase traces, etc. was all fine and dandy, but they'd rather start a firefight during a meeting, killing a dozen bodyguards, instead of agreeing to a wetwork run.

I had a pacifist mage once. She had a gun she used about twice in a spray and pray capacity when she was being shot at, and the only offensive spell she knew was stunbolt, which she only used when she was attacked. The biggest obstacle to her pacifism was the rest of the team who were, to a man, cold blooded killers. The rest of the team quite liked her though because she was quite gullible and naive and generally too nice for her own good, and was tremendously handy to have about, so they toned down the violence around her, and she was typically none the wiser that the street sam was discreetly "leaving no survivors" after she'd left the room.

I'm currently running a game, and while none of the characters are pacifists, they prefer not getting into fights 'cos in fights you can die. Last run was completed with no casualties, and nary a bullet being fired.

It's funny, I've seen runner groups like this.

It seems like to them, 15 corpsec guards 'trying to kill them, so it's self defense when we throw that frag grenade' buying the farm doesn't matter. But Wetwork seems to leave a bad taste in alot of runner's mouths. One of the things I can think of is that the person they are being hired to off, well over half of the time, is some suit/politician/guy who just can't really defend himself. And wetwork seems to have a bad enough rap as it is on the streets. And it's still funny-because the same runners who might be like ''whoa, you do assassination for hire?!?!'' with a look of disbelief might have just detonated the 10 kilos of C4 they strapped on the Citymaster full of sec-guards chasing them and watched the chunky salsa festivities commence.

I don't get it too much, myself. If anything, ''More Moral'' shadowrunners would be BETTER with icing just one corp guy who happens to-unknowingly to the rest of the corp-be a dirty child-smuggler than his 30 or so guards who are probably only working at the place for the paycheck. Yeah, i have no clue, either. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif) Personally, I'm more likely to play the guy that hits the guards/cops with flash-bangs, non-lethal melee, and stun rounds, and then snaps the neck of the actual, real, nasty person in charge and drags his corpse in for the payment. Most of my characters have nothing against the guys just doin' their wage thing.

It's funny when runner pacifism is bandied about on DS, everything turns to gel rounds, narcoject, blackout, Gamma S, and stun spells. Pacifism would be more in the practice of avoiding conflict. A pacifist runner would likely have large stealth and athletics pools in place of combat skills, so that the character can avoid confrontation, and if need be, run for cover. You don't have to knock that guard on the front door if you climb in a window.

Bingo!

Okay, I obviously don't know diddly about martial arts. What's the form where you use the attacker's momentum against him and toss him away? Like judo without actually reaching out and grabbing the guy. I want to say hapkido but that isn't right...

I think you misunderstand, I know a guy who's been doing judo for years, and he can keep me from doing anything meaningful in combat without hurting me, but it is still fighting, and fighting is, no matter how you spin it or how much you smile doing it, not pacifist...
And I think you mean aikido?

You prolly mean Aikido, which is about as soft a martial art as you can get, but still involves throwing people to the floor and twisting their limbs in ways they were never designed to twist.

In SR3 there were different levels of the pacifist quality, and at the lowest level it was just not using force unless in self defence, and even then it must be non-lethal, which is workable. Noone I know would take the more restrictive, "if you hurt anyone receive a -ve modifier until you somehow atone".

There is certainly an argument that a pacifist could not be a runner, and I'm not about to institute an SR4 pacifist -ve quality. If you want to eschew violence in my game, then fine, but you aren't getting any points for it beyond RP karma.

Well, only one solution for it.

Find out where the Sec Guards drink, get them all drunk, steal their uniforms and do the job (Mage with Physical Mask really useful!).

There, no violence, aside from a hangover.

Score.

Just hope none of the guards are orcs or trolls or your paycheck for a good run will have already been spent keeping them in Hurlg!

My player group's Face man always tries to find out as much as he can about the regular security and where the corp gets its uniforms so that he can give infilitration a try.

I would completely refuse to run with a true pacifist. Now, if a team member is opposed to killing, and would rather user tasers, narcoject, etc., I'm fine with that. But when the shit DOES hit the fan (and it will at some point or another), I DO NOT want dead weight on my team. Someone who will not kill is one thing, but someone who will not FIGHT is a whole different beast. If you are in my team, you WILL fight, even if that means suppressive fire, stun balls/grenades, or just drawing fire. You WILL actively participate in saving your own ass, my ass, and the collective asses of the rest of the team. If you don't, then you are dead weight and will just end up getting the rest of us killed. If I know that ahead of time, I can exclude you from the run. If you keep it a secret, and I find out about it while we are under fire, I will put two in your brain pan and move on.

Again, I can totally respect a character that has convictions against killing. But someone who refuses to fight/defend themselves is about as useless as a submarine with a screen door.

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." - Edmund Burke (Attributed)

While not about pacifism, seems relevant...

"Do unto others before they do unto you."

Shadowrunner's Creed: "Do unto others, then run."

My ex was a pacifist, and would rather take a beating than lift a hand to defend herself, and did actually interpose herself between an aggressor and his victim. Of course, if the aggressor had not had compunctions about beating on a girl, it's hard to see what would have happened other than both victims getting beaten up.

In a nutshell pacifism is not synonymous with fear of pain or suffering, but is ineffective in the face of brutality.

Me, I'm more practical. Whatever is best for me and mine goes, regardless of the pain or violence required.

I'm curious about your last quote, TheOneRonin. The attribution got lost. Who was it?

What horribly simplistic binary thinking. "If you're not with us you're against us". Also the use of the incredibly subjective term "evil" destroys any intellectual credence to the quote.

Those shifty pacifists. They're don't agree with our own idealism of conflict, so they must be aiding and abetting evil. It's all a communist plot to subjugate us and taint the purity of our bodily fluids.

One of the hardest things I have / had to deal with is a stubborn player who refuses to kill people in game no matter what character he plays.

Pacifism is a flaw for a shadowrunner and even more for the rest of his team.

If you want to play a crippled character please let everyone else know (Same goes for the psychopatic Sam going on a rampage every 5 minutes) and ask if they are OK with it.

Why? Aren't dealing with surprises supposed to be part of the fun?

Yea, but this isn't what I consider a surprise. It's constant grievance, because their character commands the way you have to run.

And while shooting another character is actually fair game when I GM, this does not hold true for most I had the 'pleasure' to play with.

Yes, aikido. Thank you. The argument can be made that there are shades of pacifism and the definite extreme would be don't lift a finger even when your life is in danger. But like any kind of fundamentalism that's a dangerous philosophy to live by. I suppose the definition I work from is avoid physical conflict at all costs and when it does come down to it, do nothing assertive, only defensive and only so that you don't physically harm the attacker. But your mileage may vary. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

While I agree that fighting to defend is a valid option for a shadowrunner, it can only be applied properly if you are the superior fighter. If you are a bad fighter, pacifism and unwillingness to hurt (I agree with you here, these two issues have to be looked at seperately) will eventually get you killed.