![]() |
![]() ![]() |
![]() |
![]()
Post
#1
|
|
Immortal Elf ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 11,410 Joined: 1-October 03 From: Pittsburgh Member No.: 5,670 ![]() |
morality is an interesting thing in any RPG, because the premise of most of them is that you spend a lot of time killing things. it's pretty easy to bypass the weirdness of a character who can put an entire village of intelligent beings to the sword and not be impacted emotionally or psychologically in the least, but it is weirdness if you think about it at all. in SR, it's especially interesting because you can't fall back on the old "they're evil" crutch. the gangers or secguards you wipe out aren't any more "evil" than the PCs, most of the time.
but the whole killing thing--honestly, that's old ground. it's been covered over and over again. what i'm really interested in is the other immoral activities runners could conceivably participate in, and how players would respond to a character who does so. i'm not, generally, talking about crime-related stuff; selling bodies to ghouls is as boring as killing people. and, likewise, i'm not talking about the extreme stuff--serial killing, bug shamaning, blood magic, whatever. that stuff is too over-the-top to be really interesting. but how about beating up your wife/SO/kids? this can't be uncommon in the shadows. it's rampant today, when there's law enforcement that nominally cares, hotlines to prevent abuse, big societal pressure, and so on. how about in the shadows, where all of your friends are multiple murderers? think they'll give two shits about giving your pregnant girlfriend a shiner? moreover, if someone at your gaming table decided to play a character who beats his wife, what would you think? how about racism? racism in SR is all cute and fluffy, partly because it's applied only to things that don't exist (orks, trolls) and partly because most of the material on racism presents it as "bad". even the voice for the 'reasonable Humanis guy' is patronizing and fake--you can't generate any sympathy for him at all, possibly because he's presented as the 'reasonable Humanis guy'. shadowrunners are, for the most part, presented as being equal-opportunity guys who buck the system by accepting their trog brothers. the only racism in SR is in the corporations and some of the governments--not us, not anybody who'd actually be playable. hell, racism isn't even an available flaw. so what would you do if someone sat down at the gaming table and said "my ex-ganger character is a card-carrying member of Humanis. he'll work with metas, but he won't like it." there's other "bad" behaviors that the shadows should, reasonably, allow or encourage. what of 'em? would you have a problem with them at your table? would you play them? understand, i'm not criticizing anyone who chooses to keep their games "clean". but is there anyone else who likes pushing the moral envelope in realistic, believable ways? |
|
|
![]()
Post
#2
|
|
Uncle Fisty ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Admin Posts: 13,891 Joined: 3-January 05 From: Next To Her Member No.: 6,928 ![]() |
I've had a few games where things went into the gray areas and a bit beyond. Characters who have killed S.O.s for cheating, characters that have been raped, or raped, pressured in to putting out, putting out for drugs, using people for their own ends and discarding them. There's a lot of room in SR, especially with tech, for controlling people, exploitation,and abuse.
You really have to know your players but I find it really interesting to push in to these gray areas. I never make things just out right happen to characters. But I give them the moral slide, where they have the oppurtunity to make moral choices and can go farther and farther down the scale. Some have gone down, some have come back up, some have died from it. Makes for very interesting games. |
|
|
![]()
Post
#3
|
|
Shadow Cartographer ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 3,737 Joined: 2-June 06 From: Secret Tunnels under the UK (South West) Member No.: 8,636 ![]() |
The thing with someone giving their girlfriend a black eye is that it is uncomfortable. People will quite happily play someone who machineguns security guards. That player is never going to actually do it, no-one at that table is going to wonder if the player is really living out his fantasies in doing so. If the same character belittles his girlfriend and says "I smack her around a bit to teach her a lesson," then you can almost see the chairs edging away. Of course it's not realistic. A lot of the characters that get played are certainly the sort that could also do such things. But because of its immediacy to our very real lives, it's very much does not lead to a fun game. Speaking from personal experience, when you have seen a man kick his girlfriend in the stomach, it's just not something you want to include in a game. At least for a lot of us. You can run a very dark game successfully which is fine if you have strong role-players who are comfortable with that. As to racism, no-one who plays with me is conciously racist, but I'm comfortable with them playing a racist character. Racism occupies a special place in my game. But I think it's realistic that Shadowrunners would generally not be racist. They are on the whole marginalised sections of society and don't get the opportunity to isolate themselves in little racially "pure" communities. And racism is about isolation, whether the walls are built out of national borders or violence of extremist members of different groups. A humanis shadowrunner might be racist when they join the team. I don't see it surviving a fight or two. At least not where the particular metahumans in the team are considered. |
|
|
![]()
Post
#4
|
|
Moving Target ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 181 Joined: 29-March 07 Member No.: 11,342 ![]() |
Very interesting thread.
I used to game master 7thsea, a cloak and daggers game with pirates magic and mousqueteers ... It was all about being a heroe, but once you had some experience, players had to think about their actions their motivations and their consequences. Not all players like it, they sometimes want just to chill out and not think about that stuff. Shadowrun is in my opinion not a game where you can just blast everything with little consequences (like in D&D style of games). I always push my players to have a clearly defined code of conduct, not in an honorable sense, but just to think about who his/her character is and what he's willing to do or not. Having a racist character is imho the same as a drug addicted character : its in a way a "flaw". I always say that the more flaws and problems a character have, the more interesting it is to play it. So i always encourage it. All my players and myself used to do a lot of LARP, so if a player creates a racist character, then i know he'll play it to the end even if it could harm his character. In exchange, i always try to reward this sort of good roleplaying : a player that plays his character to its limits deserves some kind of reward. As rewards i dont mean karma or cash (well not necessarely), but i've noticed informations and contacts usually where more than enought for the characters. Lets say you have a racist character. The player makes good roleplaying, risking his char's life for his beliefs. On the long run, he'd meet important humanis npcs. He could meet Alamaise, or general Yeats and be part of the grand scheme of things. You could give him the opportunity to go far into his way of thinking. As for roleplaying, it could be excellent, the player could find out that humanis is really really bad and messed up with powers above imagination, and try to get out of it. Again good RP possibilities :) For more "mundane" misbehavior, i'd go for a totally different approach. I'd push the player to go farther and farther on the "dark side" giving him some opportunities to do meaner things. Once he starts to be really "dark" then i'll go to the first option i mentioned. Whatever the case, i always tell the players that every actions will have its consequences, for good or bad. |
|
|
![]()
Post
#5
|
|||
Immortal Elf ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 11,410 Joined: 1-October 03 From: Pittsburgh Member No.: 5,670 ![]() |
isolation breeds racism, true, but isolation comes in many forms. in the modern US, different ethnic groups isolate themselves, intentionally or not, through cultural barriers. "black people" nominally have their own dialect of american english--that creates huge barriers to true integration. given how orks and trolls made their entry into the world, i don't find it hard at all to believe that anti-trog sentiment crosses all class barriers--matter of fact, i have a really hard time swallowing the opposite concept. i mean, if you want isolation, orks and trolls are isolated. they're going to be some of the most racist people out there, which in turn is going to generate a lot of anti-trog sentiment; nobody likes to be hated, and that includes non-trogs. but what really gets my goat about SR racism is this idea that runners are the good guys. "we may kill and steal, but at least we don't discriminate based on metatype!" malarky. criminals are a breeding ground for racism, not a beacon of light. i mean, what about the yaks and the mob? i understand and agree with the idea that a character giving his girl a black eye is uncomfortable because of how close to home it can hit. like i said, domestic violence is rampant; most people have at least second-hand experience with it, if not first-hand. if people don't want that sort of thing in their games, i'm not going to say anything against them. but for those of us that do... how big a part of your game is it? anybody ever decide that they've got a character racist enough to warrant a flaw? or take the Friends in High Places edge because they've got big friends in Humanis? |
||
|
|||
![]()
Post
#6
|
|||
Prime Runner ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Banned Posts: 3,732 Joined: 1-September 05 From: Prague, Czech Republic Member No.: 7,665 ![]() |
How so? You yourself said that the characters most likely do kill people. So what's the big deal if the characters gain magical power from their murders? Is blood magic so very different from assassinating people and using the money to buy power foci? Is being an insect mage so different from assassinating people and using the proceeds to hire assistants? In short, once you kill people by shooting them in the face for money, by what possible standard could you disapprove of people profitting magically from the death of another person? Indeed, I would think that a man who took a contract to kill a man and then used the victim's death to summon a spirit would be less reprehensible then another man who took the same contract and left a lifeless corpse in an alley. It is at the very least less wasteful, which is comparatively a good thing. Blood Mages and Insect Mages are totally on the table as playable characters, and anyone who carries flechette ammo and says otherwise is a hypocrite. -Frank |
||
|
|||
![]()
Post
#7
|
|
Immortal Elf ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 11,410 Joined: 1-October 03 From: Pittsburgh Member No.: 5,670 ![]() |
it's not that they're not playable, it's that the ethical questions surrounding them are boring--pretty black and white, cut and dried. ritual murder, investing innocent people with life-devouring bugs--where's the moral dilemma in that? you could play them as conflicted people with realistic goals and emotions, but even then, the path you're going to follow in playing out their lives/careers is pretty predictable. fun, on occasion, but predictable.
|
|
|
![]()
Post
#8
|
|
Great Dragon ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 6,640 Joined: 6-June 04 Member No.: 6,383 ![]() |
I don't know why everyone's so squeamish. I don't really have a problem with the abstract concept of a racist or girlfriend-kicking player character. Hell, I have played a pretty evil character.
Later I wrote some fiction from the perspective of that character for a contest on this board and a lot of the respondants seemed to agree that the character was evil on some level: http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?show...3334&hl=harvard http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?show...3335&hl=harvard I say, the darker and more depressing the better. |
|
|
![]()
Post
#9
|
|
ghostrider ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Retired Admins Posts: 4,196 Joined: 16-May 04 Member No.: 6,333 ![]() |
I don't have a whole lot to add at the moment, just this one thought.
Where do SR players get the idea that characters aren't racist? It isn't spelled out in the books. In fact, in the earlier days of SR material, where racism was more present in both rules and the source material, I'd say that it's just as expected that a PC be racist as not. I'd say that any idea that "shadowrunners aren't racist, they're above that" comes from the players' discomfort regarding the subject. I've played a racist character and GMed for several. Racism is part of the SR world, and so are the characters. |
|
|
![]()
Post
#10
|
|||
Running Target ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 1,180 Joined: 22-January 07 From: Rochester, NY Member No.: 10,737 ![]() |
None of my personal PCs are racist or sexist--it's not professional, efficient, or intelligent to discriminate on gender or racial grounds; ability is the defining factor. My NPCs, on the other hand... I have this pair of NPCs that I'm seriously looking forward to using; one is Humanis, the other is a Son of Sauron. Why these two in particular? Because they're half-brothers, and they both know it. [Groucho Marx accent] talk about your family feuds[/Groucho]. |
||
|
|||
![]()
Post
#11
|
|
Moving Target ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 181 Joined: 29-March 07 Member No.: 11,342 ![]() |
My opinion always was that "most" runners where more leaning towards a neo anarchist mindset.
A runner need to accept the fact he is a criminal but also that there are rules he must follow (a runner cannot be just a criminal living by the law of the strongest, else his employers would really doubt his loyalty). A racist runner would have a hard time working for a non-human or a non member of his race, and even a harder time working WITH such people. Not because he could not get along with them, but that THEY would not get along with him. Now the racist character could hide his thoughts, but what the point then ? it needs to be played in someway, so other characters would notice at some point. The philosophy behind Shadowrun always felt very humanist ( in a sense of opposing seggregation of any kind) as shown by comments of people laughting at the 20th century racism when you consider facing an 8 feet tall troll ... In fact it always showed the idiocy of being racist by pointing out stupid behaviors in shadowrun and making an easy parallel with our world ... One of my players play an Elf from Tir Nan Og and raised in the belief he was of the superior race etc ... (clearly some kind of neo nazi education) He's playing quite well and distrusts any non elven person, even if he realises that those that truely mean to harm him are of his kind (he escaped his "educators") While this is an easier way of playing racism, i dont really think that plain racism is the kind of "flaw" a character could have and stay a long time alive in the shadows. |
|
|
![]()
Post
#12
|
|||
Immortal Elf ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 11,410 Joined: 1-October 03 From: Pittsburgh Member No.: 5,670 ![]() |
none of SR's main characters or shadowtalkers are racist. any time a shadowtalker does display racism, his comments are accepted only grudgingly, if at all--and those few times a shadowtalker displays any racism, it's always an unintelligent cliche. being open-minded is always presented as what the cool kids are doing. the SR writers say that racism is a problem in SR, but they never actually present any racists that you can take seriously. |
||
|
|||
![]()
Post
#13
|
|
Midnight Toker ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 7,686 Joined: 4-July 04 From: Zombie Drop Bear Santa's Workshop Member No.: 6,456 ![]() |
There are two different types of people who beat their spouses. Idiots with anger management problems and nice people who are making calculated attempts to give a deeply masochistic person exactly what he/she wants.
Take, for example, the third season episode of The Shield in which Vic roughs up a prostitute and forces her to fellate his pistol. Now, we know from previous experience that Vic isn't the sort of dude who gets off on that but it is quite obvious from the scene that the prostitute is getting off on it. And it works. After that, she becomes very co-operative. She isn't co-operative because of fear, however, but out of some bizarre sort of love. And this is the difference between domestic violence that is stupid and domestic violence that is acceptable at the gaming table. The former type of domestic violence is the hallmark of someone who shouldn't last three seconds in the Shadows. It's the kind of thing that gets you shot in the face in your sleep by your life-partner. The latter is, in some cases, heroic. If she likes being beaten, if it makes her wet, then the only things you have to worry about are knocking her out too soon and causing more physical damage than can be healed with a first-aid or a spell. That isn't being an asshole. Thet's being a nice person with an unusual relationship. There are two types of people who stay in violent controlling relationships. People who have lost all of their self-worth and people who want to be violently controlled. The former is the kind of person that a nice individual would help up rather than continue to beat down. These are the kinds of people who eventually snap and get off on Battered Woman's Syndrome if they don't commit suicide after. The latter, however, is the kind of person who you have to violently control is you want to have a good healthy relationship and is you don't she'll seek out someone who will. The former kind of spouse-beater is nothing more than a bully and being a bully is, in general, uncomfortable for players. Bullies aren't smart people. They're idiots just asking to be put into place because they can't control their need for violent ego-gratification. Being a bully is very unshadowrunnery. |
|
|
![]()
Post
#14
|
|||||
Moving Target ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 181 Joined: 29-March 07 Member No.: 11,342 ![]() |
I'm sorry if this is an easy sarcastic comment, but how could one take seriously a racist ? |
||||
|
|||||
![]()
Post
#15
|
|
Moving Target ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 181 Joined: 29-March 07 Member No.: 11,342 ![]() |
Excellent point Hyzmarca :)
I'd like to have characters like that on my table :) |
|
|
![]()
Post
#16
|
|||
Manus Celer Dei ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 17,012 Joined: 30-December 02 From: Boston Member No.: 3,802 ![]() |
Do you have any idea what you're talking about? Really, do you have studies you can point to backing up this idea? Any at all? This smells strongly of the "wisdom" of repugnance. I think treehugger is also tapping into the same source of "wisdom". ~J |
||
|
|||
![]()
Post
#17
|
|
Genuine Artificial Intelligence ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 4,019 Joined: 12-June 03 Member No.: 4,715 ![]() |
I think it would be fun if someone really wanted to explore playing a racist, sexist, whatever character, but everyone at the table would have to be clear that it was strictly play.
I had a player in one game once who submitted a character with the flaw, "Hatred: Fags" which I promptly vetoed. As a matter of fact, that game died shortly thereafter and I haven't gamed with him since. If he had really wanted to explore the issue of playing someone who had a real problem with homosexuality, that would've been fine, but he was just trying to get free points and justify being a bigot with the excuse of "roleplaying" at the same time. Not cool. edit: Oh yeah, and for our friends across the pond, we're not talking about a hatred of cigarettes, here. ;-) |
|
|
![]()
Post
#18
|
|
Moving Target ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 181 Joined: 29-March 07 Member No.: 11,342 ![]() |
Racism is used most of the time instead of the better term of "xenophobia" or even better "ethnophobia".
Xenophobia could be translated as "mad fear of strangness" ethnophobia as "mad fear of different ethnic". Like other "phobias" it is a pathology, a mental illness, nothing more. So the average Humanis member is Xenophobic, he just "hates trogs" and that's all. Racism, is a belief that the other races are evil/weak/inferior/dangerous etc ... This belief has always been used as a political tool to hide other problems, unite a people to fight another regardless of "good" reasons, make potential rivals dissapear etc ... using hate and fear to drive the masses. In both cases i dont see how i could take someone racist or xenophobic seriously ... |
|
|
![]()
Post
#19
|
|
Manus Celer Dei ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 17,012 Joined: 30-December 02 From: Boston Member No.: 3,802 ![]() |
Fags are pretty obnoxious, but that's what we have fagging for. That way it doesn't need to be you who gets all fagged out.
treehugger: I'll make a longer answer hopefully after I've finished the work I've got now, but the short answer: look back fifteen years, then look back forty years. ~J |
|
|
![]()
Post
#20
|
|||
Genuine Artificial Intelligence ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 4,019 Joined: 12-June 03 Member No.: 4,715 ![]() |
I have no idea what you just said. :( |
||
|
|||
![]()
Post
#21
|
|
Manus Celer Dei ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 17,012 Joined: 30-December 02 From: Boston Member No.: 3,802 ![]() |
It's the other British use. Look up "fagging"—if it has a reference to British public schools (that being the British use of that phrase, too), you've got the right meaning.
~J |
|
|
![]()
Post
#22
|
|||
Ain Soph Aur ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 3,477 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Montreal, Canada Member No.: 600 ![]() |
If he has 10 of his buddies, clubs, rope and a nearby tree, you'd better take him seriously. |
||
|
|||
![]()
Post
#23
|
|
Midnight Toker ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 7,686 Joined: 4-July 04 From: Zombie Drop Bear Santa's Workshop Member No.: 6,456 ![]() |
QUOTE (Kagetenshi @ Apr 24 2007, 10:17 AM) QUOTE (hyzmarca @ Apr 24 2007, 09:39 AM) There are two different types of people who beat their spouses. Idiots with anger management problems and nice people who are making calculated attempts to give a deeply masochistic person exactly what he/she wants. Do you have any idea what you're talking about? Really, do you have studies you can point to backing up this idea? Any at all? This smells strongly of the "wisdom" of repugnance. I think treehugger is also tapping into the same source of "wisdom". ~J The wisdom of repugnance works very well at the gaming table; after all, it is the repugnance of the act that is at issue. It is, of course, a simplification, just as damage codes are. I didn't get into things like provocation, violent arguments, and mutually abusive relationships because they are highly unlikely to come up in a gaming session. If the GM has an NPC girlfriend provoke a PC into a violent argument then that is a hell of a lot different from a player just randomly announcing "I make a melee attack against my girlfriend for the fun of it." When the GM provokes the conflict, it is a very grey thing. If the NPC SO is verbally abusive then many would see physical retaliation to be justified. However, this situation isn't going to come up very often and it is very difficult to roleplay. You need a very good group, not just a comfortable one, or else you risk the players coming to physical blows. It is easy for players and GMs to be coldly dispassionate when the characters are just shooting at each other. When you have a verbal argument it isn't throwing numbers at numbers, anymore. It is real abusive words coming from a real person's mind and mouth directed at a real person's ears. When that happens, the line between character and player can blur in some very bad ways. Its why heated abusive verbal arguments between characters are most often caricatures of a real argument consisting of lame putdowns that would not anger any real person, rather than a well role-played passionate violent thing. For the record, my statement that wifebeaters are either bullies or doms in a BDSM relationship assumes a lack or reasonable provocation. The term "anger management issues" was an unfortunate oversimplification. Like bullying, unprovoked domestic violence is mostly about exercising control. |
|
|
![]()
Post
#24
|
|||
Moving Target ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 386 Joined: 2-January 04 From: California Protectorate Member No.: 5,949 ![]() |
Try asking anyone in Germany who is 75 or older. They might be able to give you an example or two of a few people who can take a xenophobic quite seriously. Honestly, it's a sad fact that our history is riddled with these kinds of divisions. Whether it's by race, religion, sex, nationality, ethnicity or anything else you can think of, humans naturally tend to settle into an "us vs. them" mindset. The qualifications for the "them" change with the years, but the basic goals stay the same. So, seeing a Shadowtalker get shouted down for racism, while satisfying, isn't very realistic, given the amount of support those sort of ideals tend to have even in an "enlightened" society. |
||
|
|||
![]()
Post
#25
|
|||
ghostrider ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Retired Admins Posts: 4,196 Joined: 16-May 04 Member No.: 6,333 ![]() |
mfb, James had similar comments in response to my post. Here's my response, since it applies somewhat here as well.
I'd add that I'm using the cartoonish aspect even though it hasn't been directly mentioned this time, yet. I'd actually also expand my thought that racism isn't more realistic or prevalent or "encouraged" in the books because either the authors or the editors were also uncomfortable addressing it any more "realistically". Then, there's the sub-discussions regarding whether it was a conscious choice since it's a game, whether the SR portrayal of racism should be more realistic and it shouldn't matter because there's death and killing and blood magic, ad infinitum. I understand that there are several people that feel like there isn't enough or isn't a realistic enough portrayal of racism in the SR material/canon. I get your point(s), and can agree with some of them. I still think that at the table level, the degree to which racism is addressed, the realism or lack thereof, etc. is fundamentally a choice to be made by the GM and players at that table. |
||
|
|||
![]()
Post
#26
|
|
Uncle Fisty ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Admin Posts: 13,891 Joined: 3-January 05 From: Next To Her Member No.: 6,928 ![]() |
I'll give a few examples of characters that have passed through my games, mine and others. A lot of these go around the racist pieces.
The first is Titan, your standard BFTroll street sam. He's nominally connected to the Sons of Sauron, doesn't get along with most humans, and is generally very abbrassive to most non-trogs. He's also one of those closet trolls that really likes the idea of being with the idea of an elf or human woman, and has never been with a troll or ork woman. He was born a human to a huan family, wage slave type. Younger sister, working paretns the whole bit. When he was 15, he changed in to a troll. The change was a huge drain on his families resources, he was mocked at school, because of the pain coming and going, and the socail problems, he tended to get frustrated quickly. He often broke thing on accident because of not being used to his new bulk, whic of course made more frustration at home. His parents started looking for ways to un-troll him. He way away at 16, hit the streets. He lived there on the streets in the ghettos with other orks and trolls. Due to his size, he was able to get basic muscle work, going up the scale over the years until eventually becoming a full fledged street sam. He was pretty smart to being with, and invested in cerebral boosters. But everyone expected him to be a big dumb trog, so he acted like it. His actions made people dismiss him as a big dumb trog of course. He'd been refused service at Lordstrom's before in game, he'd had crushes on female human and elf characters that were never even noticed, etc. He became a lot more violent towards humans and elves than he was to orks and trolls, who he'd tend to assume were more likely to be his friends. Nightshade was from the Tir. He was born to a minor noble family (chivalry) except that due to some freak genes, he was born as an albino human. Rather than just discarding him, they kept him, but ket him hidden. Over the years of hiding, his magical ability began to manifest. of course, it manifested as adept powers that enabled him to "fit in" such as Facial sculpt, melanin control , and boosting stealth powers to hide. Eventually he joined the Peace Force and did well. All the time he was masquerading as a true elf. His adept abilities (that they knew about) made him more than worth while to have. He eventually decided to go for the Ghosts. He started the training, and then was "found out". Hed had the masking and false siganture metamagics for quite a while , using them to disguise his aura. But the kind of thorough going over they'd given him for that exposed his secret. he was washed out. Of course, he was kicked out for lying on his applications and deceiving his commanders and comrades. It may have had something to do with the fact that he was really a human, but that he would lie to everyone that had to be able to trust him was the main issue. That wasn't how he saw it. Instead he took his training and went to Seattle, became a runner and an assassin. he would wear other people's faces and use various disguises to do his work. During his "off time" he would be an elf (elf poser flaw and dark secret). He was always the "mroe elven than elven" looking down his nose at others, especially orks, who he had total disdain for. The race he hated most of all was humans, although he didn't show it overtly. He hated what he saw as his own weakness. He absolutely laothed the Tir, but at the same time, wanted nothing more than to prove him self worthy to it. He was extremely racist to a lot of differnet metatypes. Character had very bad social skills when he wasn't playing a role. Billy Bedlam was just a ganager with the 405 Hellhounds. His story is a lto less complicated. He got his arm lopped off by a troll fro mthe Spikes once, and barely survived (naturally). Ever since, he became a trog hater. he dind't join Humanis or anything, because he very much wanted to be a "real street samurai" one day. he wanted to be a "professional shadowrunner" that everone would take seriously. Of course, on Shadowland, everyone pans the humanis guy, even if what he says makes sense some times. That was his sole reason for not joining humanis, or hanging with the Night hunters from time to time. But when ever he'd get work, he would come down hard on any trolls that crossed his path, and even walked on a run with a troll on the team. These aren't the rule by any means to the types of characters we've had, just some examples of racism in play. We allow Racism as a flaw similar to allergies in points and effect. It comes up with NPCs as well. The most common racist problems are ususally with trolls and elves. Another example that covers a lot of differnet areas, one of my player's characters, an elf named Sinn. He hates orks, lives in New Orleans. Not a good combination. He's a voodoun. He's trashed an ork bar once because they talked trash to him, has a rep across the city as an ork hater. On a run once a group of 5 orks were all ready to take him down as he was coming out of a meet. The ork on the PC team talked them down, being big and heavily cybered with a great street rep (as a kick artist). They came bacl alter and hit him in a drive by. He wound up in the hospital, only two boxes from death. He was the one that was raped, by a female Grand Zombie of Erzuile that he inadverntantly created. The same Grand Zombie later blew up his house, with his wife and kids inside out of jealousy. One of his kids survived (twins) albeit badly burned. Ironically, he had doted on the one that had died, because he showed a lot of magical potential, and had basically ignored the one that ended up living. Later, he was pressured in to a hmosxual realtionship by someone that had offered to help pull his bacon of the fire, as things were really starting to ocme down on him from a lto of different directins. That one wasn't so bad for him, since the Spraw Surv Guide basically says that hmosexuality in the 6th world is no big deal anymore. Not a taboo in most parts of the world. He played it out well. The guy has really been through the ringer, but everything that happened to him was because of the character's actions, and moral quandries where he decided one way or the other. The Grande Zombie for example was the result of multiple murders and torture he did after deciding to take a job that called for that. One of the people he killed was possessed by a loa spirit of Erzuille, and he had her in a site he had been using that was aspected towards voodoo magic. He'd been working amateur blood magic there for a while, and never realized it was specifically aligned towards Erzuille. |
|
|
![]()
Post
#27
|
|||||||||
Immortal Elf ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 11,410 Joined: 1-October 03 From: Pittsburgh Member No.: 5,670 ![]() |
it's not just cartoonish, it's all but non-existant. once every few books, tops, some guy will log on and post some ridiculous racist crap, and either his post will get cut off or the reply will get cut off. the only sign in the entire game i've seen that racism isn't limited to a few, loud extremists is the fact that Karl Brackhaven made it to the presidential election ballot. and even then, it wasn't a regular election, it was an emergency thing where everything was up in the air. it seems to me that the only minority in SR that actually get discriminated against are racists. but they shouldn't be the minority, not by a long shot.
as others have pointed out, you might very well seriously fear a racist, if nothing else. another example would be a card-carrying Humanis guy who's very good at his job and who doesn't go out of his way to cause problems with metas. you can see in the way he looks at metas that he has no respect for them, but he otherwise keeps it to himself and does his job well. some runners would refuse to work with him, of course, because they wouldn't want to be associated with Humanis. but most runners, i think, would swallow their disgust and allow him to run with them because he's good at his job. of course, if the world ran the way i'd run it, they'd be glad to get to run with him, because not only is he competent, he'd be well-connected.
haha, i think i like that Sinn dude.
the fact is, there are people who will allow themselves to get beaten on. i'm not saying it's their fault, i'm not saying they deserve it, i'm saying it's a documented fact that certain types of people will go back to, and even defend, their abusers. a lot of things change in 2012--but i don't think that's going to be one of them. the thing that brought this thread on is the fact that i recently put together a character who beats his wife. it's not his defining trait, or anything; there's no flaw on his sheet related to it (unless the fact that i didn't give him the dependent flaw counts), it doesn't affect his work in the shadows. i basically decided to do it because my last big character had a real family that he loved and took care of, and i kinda wanted to go the other way. and then i realized i'd never actually seen anyone make an abusive character. so, y'know, i thought i'd ask around. |
||||||||
|
|||||||||
![]()
Post
#28
|
|||
Uncle Fisty ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Admin Posts: 13,891 Joined: 3-January 05 From: Next To Her Member No.: 6,928 ![]() |
A lot of his recent stuff has been in the Welcome to the Shadows area. |
||
|
|||
![]()
Post
#29
|
|||
Immortal Elf ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 11,410 Joined: 1-October 03 From: Pittsburgh Member No.: 5,670 ![]() |
that's another one that weirds me the hell out. what kind of dystopia is this? |
||
|
|||
![]()
Post
#30
|
|||
Moving Target ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 777 Joined: 22-November 06 Member No.: 9,934 ![]() |
that's because it is a gradual slope, they get hit once, and he apologizes...tells her he loves her...etc... then it happens again...and again...and again... they make the codependance of their dependant a focal point "I can't live without you!" so they feel guilted into staying until they just accept and defend the life. when they defend their abuser they are indirectly defending themselves and their choice. not the abuser directly. then again I like to play unrealistic characters, who fill their squirt guns with soapy water just for the bubbles...I get to much reality in real life |
||
|
|||
![]()
Post
#31
|
|||||
Moving Target ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 386 Joined: 2-January 04 From: California Protectorate Member No.: 5,949 ![]() |
One that is very careful not to offend any groups that actually exist today. :-D Personally, I'd have wished that they had just left that entire issue alone. There are good arguments both FOR including (heavy) prejudice against homosexuality and against it. It all comes down to preferences, and what you feel is right for the group as GM. Are you running a bunch of 12 year olds who are JUST getting into RPGs as a whole? Or a bunch of fully grown adults who have spouses, kids, and decades of RP experience? Obviously, there will more than likely be vast differences in the playstyle of those groups, and having the book rule one way or another is a little insulting. Which is better: prematurely exposing youngsters to awkward situations, or frustrating older gamers by hedging areas that allows for some deep roleplaying? Frankly, I'd say just avoid the whole issue in the books. There are so many issues like rape, racism, persecution of all kinds that exist in the game, but how prevalent and important they are in your game is totally up to you. |
||||
|
|||||
![]()
Post
#32
|
|
Uncle Fisty ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Admin Posts: 13,891 Joined: 3-January 05 From: Next To Her Member No.: 6,928 ![]() |
My thought was that it actually sort of makes sense. I compare it to dating interracially today. Where I lvie at least, no one's going to think twice about an asian girl and an indian guy dating. No one cares. Go back fifty or a hundred years and in a lot of places, a white person and black person dating would be scandalous. We're at the point now a days where there's plenty of places where homosexuality is no big deal. I see that sort of equating.
I'm sure there will be lots of places where its' still an issue. Really conservative groups for example, the deep south, mafioso, probably radical muslims and christians. I sure don't see mormons changing their views, and I am one! I think it comes down to those "broad statement" things. Like it says about racism about color in the 6th world, when your neighbor has horns, who cares about skin color? |
|
|
![]()
Post
#33
|
|
Moving Target ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 749 Joined: 28-July 05 Member No.: 7,526 ![]() |
i'm there with ya, mfb! the stuff you mention is all good. I'm a mature person and like the mature themes. What's important to me is that those serious, immoral activities aren't trivialized. It's the sociopath characters that I can't stand.
More humanity, please! |
|
|
![]()
Post
#34
|
|
Moving Target ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 548 Joined: 21-December 06 Member No.: 10,416 ![]() |
All of the Elf characters I would play were born to human parents and goblinized in their teens. The families would freak out and the elf got surgery to look human (Looks Human trait). That way, they wouldn't stand out much in the general public and could explain the situation to any elves that didn't like humans.
A lot of the rest I don't get though, aside from possible legal issues. They say racism and sexism are still a problem but never really do anything with it, aside from having Brackhaven turn up now and then (which in my opinion is mildly racist in itself). Older canon had it that the corp world was so thuroughly indoctrinated that those things didn't happen much, at least not overtly. But out on the street, anything goes. Indeed there even used to be a racism table in an earlier edition to see if an NPC on the street had any biases. I'm sure they probably avoid this issue for fear of offending someone and their lawyer and getting sued. As for the other things. I've enver played a character with a significant other or a spouse for the simple reason that they would be in too much danger. After retirement sure, but not while actively running. Though I never got dealt with the matter in detail, if one of them needed, shall we say companionship, that's what escort services are for. Runners just have to be careful not to end up on blackmail video or having their proclivities used as a trap. Mages could also project just about anywhere in the world to mage "hook up spots" and do the deed on the astral. I've been on teams where a member's So got taken hostage or killed, so my characters never went there. |
|
|
![]()
Post
#35
|
|
Uncle Fisty ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Admin Posts: 13,891 Joined: 3-January 05 From: Next To Her Member No.: 6,928 ![]() |
I don't have a problem with sociopaths. Another player in one of the games I'm in is playing one, and really well. As in, seriously distrubing. Actually did research and such. No, what bothers me is the players that just do random crap and write it of by saying that their character is a sociapath. If a character is goign to kill somone, they'd better either react to it, or have a damn good reason for not reacting properly. I'm not saying they have to go drown their sorrows everytime, but there should be something.
As for lack of S.O. , taht one bothers me, unles it really fits the cahracter. That just stinks of metagaming "I don't want my S.O. used as a plot device in some nefarious trap." That being said, I hate it when a GM uses a S.O. as a plot device in some nefarious trap. There are instances when it makes sense in game, but they're a lot less common than when GMs actually do it IMO. |
|
|
![]()
Post
#36
|
|||
Moving Target ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 548 Joined: 21-December 06 Member No.: 10,416 ![]() |
It did fit the characters. Some just wouldn't put people in danger because of them while others just didn't like people enough to have someone else around all the time. My longest running mage was mildly autistic and totally clueless socially and had had always been treated badly. Hell, the first group I played in with him even treated him badly. So to him, the entire idea of an S.O. was nice, but not seen as possible. That did change eventually though, but still, nothing serious until semi retirement. |
||
|
|||
![]()
Post
#37
|
|||||
Midnight Toker ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 7,686 Joined: 4-July 04 From: Zombie Drop Bear Santa's Workshop Member No.: 6,456 ![]() |
That is true, but that kind of relationship does tend to end in the death of one or the other. That is why domestic violence intervention is very important. Assuming that the abuser doesn't kill the victim, there tends to come a point where the victim just can't take any more and decides to kill the abuser. Paradoxically, there is no anger or hatred in most of these cases. The victim still loves the abuser completely and totally and, somehow, murder often seems like less of a betrayal than going to the police does. It is not a lifestyle that can reasonably be maintained indefinitely. Of course, there are many types of domestic violence. We usually think of the classic drunk guy in a tank top wailing on the Mrs. because she cooked the wrong thing for dinner. We might also think of the Stockholm-syndrome breeding total control situation in which the home is more like a prison. Mutually abusive relationships follow similar patterns and sometimes end in murder, but they often have their own little nuances that don't match the traditional abuse cycle. Playing domestic violence as a background trait rather than bringing it up in the game is probably the best way to do it. But I am quite curious as to how you'd characterize this character's relationship. There are a many different paradigms for domestic violence, only a few of which are the outright unprovoked battery that most groups would find so repugnant (which happens to be what I was addressing in my original post). Edit:
People never godlinize into elves or dwarves.
|
||||
|
|||||
![]()
Post
#38
|
|||
Prime Runner ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Banned Posts: 3,732 Joined: 1-September 05 From: Prague, Czech Republic Member No.: 7,665 ![]() |
I see a lot of characters who simply don't invest enough into other people to really have SOs, having instead a series of one-night-stands or short failed relaionships. This makes a lot of sense when you consider the fact that the characters' work is illegal, secret, and sketchy. -Frank |
||
|
|||
![]()
Post
#39
|
|||
Moving Target ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 777 Joined: 22-November 06 Member No.: 9,934 ![]() |
and yet the human condition makes you yearn for people to be your strength someone in the void of chaos you call a life to look to for truth, trust, and honesty. |
||
|
|||
![]()
Post
#40
|
|||
Uncle Fisty ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Admin Posts: 13,891 Joined: 3-January 05 From: Next To Her Member No.: 6,928 ![]() |
I've thought about it, and decided that I would love to godlinize. What are my godhood options? @Frank/Thane: To clarify, my problem isn't with people who don't have in game S.O. for one reason or antoher. my problem is the ones that don't for metagaming reasons (maybe they saw Spiderman a few times too many or something). |
||
|
|||
![]()
Post
#41
|
|||
Immortal Elf ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 11,410 Joined: 1-October 03 From: Pittsburgh Member No.: 5,670 ![]() |
i guess i feel that if sexuality is seen by the writers as a topic that is okay to bring up in a game book, then it's okay to present sexuality in a dystopian light--ie, non-"standard" sexuality is largely discriminated against. if you want to make your game okay for 12-year-olds to play, don't bring up sexuality in the first place, y'know? if they'd left sexuality out completely, and just had metatype be the only discrimination mentioned, that'd be one thing. but to actually bring up sexuality and then not make it fit the dystopian mold seem really weird to me.
i think you may have extreme cases in mind, where the abuser is causing serious damage on a frequent basis. if a guy gives his wife a black eye once a month or so, or just leaves a handprint on her mouth once or twice a week, that's still spouse abuse, and it can go on for the couple's entire lives. many of my characters, honestly, i don't play enough to really explore how they deal with what they do for a living. the ones i invest in, i tend to spend a good bit of time in their heads, figuring out what makes them tick. my first 'main' character is an ex-Mafia hitman. he has a knack for electronics, but if he gets hired, it is because there is a fight coming. he has killed a lot of people. but he comes home to a wife and stepkid that are his reason for living--he's a good father and a good husband. he's almost got two people in his head (i thought about having his personality split, but decided it'd be too cliche). he flips the switch on, he's Italy--professional, lethal, never takes off his shades. he flips it off, he's Marcus--likes to laugh, takes his son to Little League, pretty handy with a grill. but there's bleedthrough; he can't always keep his peanut butter and his chocolate from mixing. the first time he went through the Arco, his team found a huge mound of bodies, including women and children; he got pretty shook, because he kept seeing his own wife and son in the pile. he kept his cool and did his job--after being so sickened by the sight that he had to open up his helmet and puke. |
||
|
|||
![]()
Post
#42
|
|
Great Dragon ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 6,640 Joined: 6-June 04 Member No.: 6,383 ![]() |
PC SOs must look like Leah Ayres (sp?) character in Bloodsport. They must have giant blond hair, boxy clothes, and not know what they're getting themselves into. They must also laugh while blind and leaking Van Damme spin kicks Bolo Yeung with his ultra-twisty hips.
|
|
|
![]()
Post
#43
|
|||
Immortal Elf ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 11,410 Joined: 1-October 03 From: Pittsburgh Member No.: 5,670 ![]() |
forgot to address this part of your post. the character i'm playing, Holden, is pretty psychologically healthy, by SR standards. he doesn't have many compunctions about killing, even kinda enjoys the danger of a good firefight, but he doesn't actively enjoy the actual causing of death. he comes from a family that maintains extended ties (he'd have the Pirate Family edge, except that his family mainly operates in the Carib and points south), and he respects those ties--if anybody in his extended family needs his help, he's there for them. that includes his girlfriend, Molly, who he's had at least one kid by. the kid is elsewhere, i haven't decided where yet. Holden's got a temper, which he can control; it helps him work (high Intimidation skill). he grew up in a violent life, and lost friends and family in it. he's not a sociopath, but he's very callous; he tends to divide the population of the world into sides--Holden's side, and everyone else. if you're on Holden's side, he'll take care of you; if you're not, he'll kill you if you get in the way. he and Molly don't see eye to eye on a lot of things. Molly is extremely loyal to the family; everything she and Holden make, she wants to share with the family. Holden's more pragmatic; he'll help the family, even without being asked, but he's got his own interests and he doesn't like to share. when he and Molly argue about it, he gets physical. he doesn't see it as abuse when he knocks Molly across the room during an argument--hey, she's tough, and they've both seen what real abuse is. they fuck when he wants to, and he's generally got one or two girls on the side. if he ever caught Molly screwing around, he might kill her, but otherwise he'd probably never seriously injure her--no broken bones, no extended beatings. he takes care of her, buys her nice things, and won't take much of her lip. he's a bastard. but like i said, i'm not going for the extremes of morality, here. he doesn't get drunk and beat her half to death, he doesn't use a rubber hose so there won't be any marks. and you know what? truth be told, he's not so bad. in a world with blood magic and insect shamans, one chick with a black eye isn't exactly something to write home about. Holden's never going to 'get his due'. that's what makes dystopia--the fact that there's so much worse stuff out there means that guys like Holden just don't register as 'evil'. the fact that you and i live sheltered enough lives that we can emotionally afford to find Holden repugnant is how i mark the difference between SR and reality. |
||
|
|||
![]()
Post
#44
|
|||
Midnight Toker ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 7,686 Joined: 4-July 04 From: Zombie Drop Bear Santa's Workshop Member No.: 6,456 ![]() |
Some people would see a country where gay is O.K. to be a dystopia. Those people would be idiots, but there is a point hiding underneath their bigotry. Don't think of it as a utopia level of sexual tolerance. It goes far beyond that. Think of it as the total collapse of sexual morality. This isn't just a world what a couple of Hell's Angels can get away with holding hands. This is a world in which anyone can do anything with anything; short of kids, rape, snuff, or interracial (and it is questionable exactly how taboo the former three are). Do you know the old joke called The Aristocrats? In this kind of world it isn't a joke; its an actual family act. And they do everything from every version of the joke ever told; they even do some stuff that is so perverse that no one ever thought of it before. And are people shocked by this? Are they outraged? Of course not. That would be bigoted. They cheer and and they applaud and they request an encore because are are enlightened and sexually tolerant. Tolerance for alternate sexualities isn't a slippery slope, despite what some may suggest, but it does have its extremes. In a world where any sex is okay so long as it doesn't harm a non-consenting sentient creature you might just drive down to Mr. Rogers's AAA Neighborhood one Saturday morning and see the old fellow out on his lawn buttfucking his dog while strangling himself with a nylon noose in full view of everyone. And anyone who thinks that anal bestiality, autoerotic asphyxiation, and exhibitionism might not be the best things to try out in a family-friendly neighborhood on a Saturday morning is a bigot and should be killed. Is this a good thing? It is it bad thing? I don't know. I really don't. But it can certainly see how it could be dystopian. A world that treats sex so casually ultimately encourages a certain type of sexual dysfunction just as extremely repressed societies do. It could help alienate people more by encouraging meaningless sex, one-night stands, and empty relationships. |
||
|
|||
![]()
Post
#45
|
|
Moving Target ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 113 Joined: 5-January 03 From: Butte County, CA Member No.: 3,836 ![]() |
h - Good post.
|
|
|
![]()
Post
#46
|
|
Immortal Elf ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 11,410 Joined: 1-October 03 From: Pittsburgh Member No.: 5,670 ![]() |
i like that take on it. the problem, of course, is that even if it's okay for an RPG to tell 12-year-olds about sex, it's not going to be okay to make them sick of sex. which i guess is okay--i'd rather not see rules discussions on how to handle damage dished out during BDSM sessions.
|
|
|
![]()
Post
#47
|
|||
Great Dragon ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 6,640 Joined: 6-June 04 Member No.: 6,383 ![]() |
Yeah, the whole base M stun thing really cuts BDSM sessions short. |
||
|
|||
![]()
Post
#48
|
|
Moving Target ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 181 Joined: 29-March 07 Member No.: 11,342 ![]() |
Seems like i had a vocabulary problem.
When i said i couldnt take seriously a racist, i meant that i cannot follow their idea or give them any credits. Now i understand what you meant by taking seriously, and i totaly agree. But on that point, i think that some Shadowrun characters are to be taken seriously regarding racism : Alachia (i dont remember her 6th world name) is truely racist, and truely dangerous. From what i can recall she was associated with Nazis during the WW2 ... (in my campaign i decided she was Eva Brown during the war - Hitler's girl friend - ) |
|
|
![]()
Post
#49
|
|||
Moving Target ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 548 Joined: 21-December 06 Member No.: 10,416 ![]() |
Good post. I think what we would see is a return to the Victorian era as it really was: an outwardly stuffy and prudish Upper and Middle Class (Corp management and what is left of the Middle Class) and wilder lower classes. The upper classes at least tried to appear moral and proper, but lots of stuff went on behind the scenes. With the lower classes, not all of them were baudy types, but many were. Life was cheap too, and no one much cared about anyone else, including children. So, the things you say would be taboo, like kids, rape and snuff, probably wouldn't be, at least not in the Barrens and other badlands. Just like the Victorians: the AAA zones will at least appear to be straightlaced, but the Barrens, anything goes. I do think, however, that it will be a bad thing. What you say in the last paragraph is how it will most likely turn out. |
||
|
|||
![]()
Post
#50
|
|||
Neophyte Runner ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 2,078 Joined: 26-February 02 Member No.: 67 ![]() |
I want to echo hyzmarca's post. My take on the Sixth World (which is what I take into my writing), is that sexuality in the sprawls is highly liberal. Not liberal in the happy, free love sense, but liberal in that there are very few taboos and limits. This could be seen as good for some people (certainly makes life easier if you are homosexual), but it could be seen as really dystopian by others. How do you know that woman you just hooked up with in AR club isn't really a 400lb. man with a hot avatar? Or that the street corner joygirls and joyboys aren't ten year olds smuggled in from a third world nation and rushed through puberty by garage-made hormones that will kill them in three years? Non-standard sexuality doesn't have to be discriminated against to have a dystopian setting. Though I'm sure that still happens in some parts of the Sixth World. But the sprawls are generally more free-wheeling, as the cities are today. As for racism, I've found it a very difficult thing to present well in the format that the books have. Just like it would be hard for a racist to pop up in the Dumpshock forums with a racist post and not sound out-of-place if not entirely ridiculous, it's hard to present it in the forum-based format of Jackpoint. Unless that's the topic of the piece, which just isn't something we've had much chance to address yet in Fourth Edition. It's usually more subtly implied in setting material because that seems to be the only decent way to present it. When I mention repeatedly in Runner Havens Hong Kong that the foreigners are pushed out to Kowloon and that the people of Tsim Sha Tsui fear what their neighborhood could become if the foreigners moved south, there's obviously an element of racism there. And not an entirely unjustified feeling either, given that Kowloon is riddled with crime and violence. That feeling of discrimination has made the disenfranchised foreigners equally resentful and you end up with groups like 9x9, who are fed up with the corporations that exploit them and simultaneously silently encourage their mistreatment. Given that the actions of 9x9 are likely to determine the next Executive Council Chairman election, I'd say that racism is an important topic in the Hong Kong setting. |
||
|
|||
![]()
Post
#51
|
|
Midnight Toker ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 7,686 Joined: 4-July 04 From: Zombie Drop Bear Santa's Workshop Member No.: 6,456 ![]() |
Humanis and Night Hunters as the face of racism is deceptively comforting because humans who live in the suburbs and have never had an actual conversation with a troll once in their live can point to those groups, say "I'm not racist", and actually believe it.
The thing is that crazy people who burn giant crosses on front lines are pretty harmless compared to the form that most racism takes. It is natural for people to have a positive initial reaction to people who are similar to them and it is natural for people to have a negative initial reaction to people who are different. This is an evolutionary programed genetic survival trait. Usually, people look similar because they have similar genes and if you cooperate with people who have the same genes that you do then those genes have a far better chance of being passed on to the next generation. So the human manager is far more likely to ire a human over any other metatype if they all have equal skills and experience. The ork is more likely to hire an ork. The elf is more likely to hire an elf. And the human is more likely to go out for drinks with the human and his network of friends will consist mostly of humans. We end up with a great deal of voluntary social segregation and people point to humanis and say "I'm not racist." The same thing happens today. If you look at social networks that people form you'll find a great deal of voluntary segregation. People don't think much of it. It is an instinctual response. Most of their friends are similar to them. That's just natural. But then they point to the KKK or the Ayrian Nation and say "I'm not racist." |
|
|
![]()
Post
#52
|
|
Neophyte Runner ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 2,078 Joined: 26-February 02 Member No.: 67 ![]() |
Yes, and that type of racism is difficult to portray in the format that SR books take unless the piece were covering that particular topic.
For the record, a number of the core shadowtalkers have various biases and prejudices, but in many cases there just hasn't been an opportunity to highlight that yet. I suspect that Emergence will show off a few. I know I had a piece in Street Magic that portrayed one core shadowtalkers as a misogynist, but it was cut. Due to formatting, not content. |
|
|
![]()
Post
#53
|
|
Moving Target ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 181 Joined: 29-March 07 Member No.: 11,342 ![]() |
Hyzmarca, while i guess it might be true in some countries, it isnt in all, so its no inherent to mankind, just to a few cultures.
I dont like such demonstration, but i'll cite my exemple regarding racism : I was raised in a foreign country, and had friends from all over the world there (every religion/race/culture) because it was the norm back there. Once i came back in my home country at 13, i took me monthes to understand why some people dont get along with some others just because of their colour ... (i know it must sound stupid but i still dont really understand). Anyway living in a comunity with people being of the same race/culture isnt the norm. So why assume that people would have natural prejudice against other races in Shadowrun ? Especialy since for exemple a human could have an orc mother and a troll brother (both having the same father). Now since most human beings like to find a scapegoat to all their problems, i suppose that SR politicians would put the burden of their failiures on the shoulders of metahumans, and that the people would just follow and buy it. I think i lack the american point of view regarding comunities (in france it is actualy forbiden by law to have any kind of "official" group based on race or religion or origins : the republic is one and undividable, so is your citizenship.) Maybe i tend to go on stereotypes when i master a game when it comes to racism : the orc will always be the one to have his ID checked by the lonestar once in Bellevue for exemple. Again, appart from the elves, i dont see how people could live in race communities : they have nothing in common except from their appearence. They can mate with others, and have family from other races. Your culture/education is much more important than your aspect, SR's awakening is much too recent to have any kind of subculture specific enought to create race communities. |
|
|
![]()
Post
#54
|
|||||
Immortal Elf ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 11,410 Joined: 1-October 03 From: Pittsburgh Member No.: 5,670 ![]() |
it doesn't necessarily have to be subtle--it just shouldn't necessarily be disputed. if someone makes an offhand racist comment in the next location splatbook, like "the food at Joe's Bar is great, but they always seat the trogs right next to the norms," don't follow it up with any anti-racist comments. the implication will be that most people agree--trogs are kinda gross to sit next to when you're eating.
there are good points to that. a lot of people want to maintain their own distinct culture but retain equal rights. that's understandable and even commendable, but the problem is that 'separate but equal' is a difficult balance to maintain. |
||||
|
|||||
![]()
Post
#55
|
|||
Uncle Fisty ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Admin Posts: 13,891 Joined: 3-January 05 From: Next To Her Member No.: 6,928 ![]() |
That sucks. So is there any reason you can't put up the unedited versions on your site? I'd love to see the uncut (of course technically non canon) versions of what a lot of the freelancers have put in somewhere *cough* holostreets *cough*.And you know, since you've got a site and all already... |
||
|
|||
![]()
Post
#56
|
|||
Prime Runner ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Banned Posts: 3,732 Joined: 1-September 05 From: Prague, Czech Republic Member No.: 7,665 ![]() |
Who said anything about innocent people? This is Shadowrun, you do kill people. Maybe it's for some great reason (like "He's destroying the planet!"), maybe it's for some small minded and selfish reason (like "I was paid like 500 :nuyen: and the bullets were free!") and maybe it's for no reason at all ("meh.. he was there.") - but you do kill people. And when those people die, they generally lie there as rapidly cooling meat until entropy gradually gains the upper hand and leaves them unrecognizable even as that. Now an insect or blood magician can get more from killing someone. They can perform a sacrifice that allows them to channel a more powerful effect, or invest the victim with a spirit that will serve in gratitude for as long as day follows night and night follows day. They don't just leave the corpse there, they extract some utility from it right there at the very point of death. In short, whatever else a Blood Magician happens to be doing with his time or what kinds of runs he happens to go on, he has the ability to accept payment for all his kills from another source. It's like being in GTA2, where your money just went up from general mayhem in addition to mission completion. But like in GTA2, he's not actually required to kill random people, and the kill payments come in for mission related kills as well as random ones. So by saying that Blood Magic is anathema for a Shadowrunner, you are basically taking objection to the idea of over selling a run and getting paid by two Johnsons for the same work. And while that can potentially leave you in a sticky situation, it hardly seems a black and white moral question. If Mitsuhama and Ares are both willing to pay your team some nuyen to sabotage an Aztechnology facility, are you really telling me that it is a moral imperative to take the payment from only one of the companies? If you're going to be paid in nuyen to kill a mafia don and in spirit services to kill somebody, is there some particular reason why you wouldn't take the opportunity for both payments (assuming for the moment that yo were inclined to take either)? -Frank |
||
|
|||
![]()
Post
#57
|
|
Uncle Fisty ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Admin Posts: 13,891 Joined: 3-January 05 From: Next To Her Member No.: 6,928 ![]() |
I'm actually working on that last one at the moment. I remade a bug shaman I had a while back, giving it another stab. Our first job out, we had a J that sold us a terrible line, and we walked, so he tried to have us killed. We got away, hacked his commlink, and posted all his personal info on Shadowland (calling it ShadowSea just feels ridiculous to me). Our new job is from his former employer who cut him lose and now wants us to kill him. It could be a double cross, but I can't see why they would bother paying up front cash to off some runners taht are more than happy to walk away.
So my quandry is whether we can still collect on the guy if rather than out right killing him, I can take him home with me and invest him. Mantis shaman BTW, so he's going to end up dead eventually. Was considering be a roach shaman instead.... frankly they just didn't seem as neat. There is a certain appeal to being the one of the few things left alive after World War III. But being lumped in with twinkies and Keith Richards just ain't my thing. |
|
|
![]()
Post
#58
|
|||
Immortal Elf ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 11,410 Joined: 1-October 03 From: Pittsburgh Member No.: 5,670 ![]() |
you're not hearing me, man. i completely agree that bug shamans and blood mages make fine runners. it's just that the moral questions surrounding their activities are... well, they're all about killing, and killing is a moral issue that, in RPGs, just generally isn't an issue. |
||
|
|||
![]()
Post
#59
|
|
Uncle Fisty ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Admin Posts: 13,891 Joined: 3-January 05 From: Next To Her Member No.: 6,928 ![]() |
"Generally" that's true, I agree. One of our players on IWTF, Deva , has been doing a great job of it though. Character was formerly a marine, but he still tries to avoid any sort of blood shed, especially killing. He's been donig a great job off it, and I've been awarding him for good RP. I think the exceptions are the ones that really shine, because they do a good job of it. The PC that just pop someone and walk away better be played as seriously cold hearted bastards, or very good at compartmentalizing. Otherwise it's just very bland.
|
|
|
![]()
Post
#60
|
|
Immortal Elf ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 11,410 Joined: 1-October 03 From: Pittsburgh Member No.: 5,670 ![]() |
definitely, definitely. it can be done--hell, it's done all the time. which is why it doesn't interest me, personally. there are all kinds of stories about guys who deal with killing. there are far fewer stories about guys who deal with being spouse abusers, or who deal with working with a spouse abuser. it's hard, to me, to evoke a sense of dirtiness and cynicism when it comes to killing in RPGs.
|
|
|
![]()
Post
#61
|
|||
Neophyte Runner ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 2,078 Joined: 26-February 02 Member No.: 67 ![]() |
Well, that's not so easy. It'd be one thing if they were large edited-out sections, those I could probably put up without a problem. But when it comes to lines here and there, they'd be pretty pointless without the surrounding material. And the surrounding material I can't put up anywhere since FanPro bought it from me and owns it. In this case, they were specifically short in-character fiction lines at the heading of sub-chapters. Similar to the in-character quotes in the earlier Grimoire books. Not terribly useful on their own. The design of Street Magic had no place for those in-character sub-chapter headings, so they were cut. There's also the chance I may use the line in future material. If I put it online, I can't use it again. |
||
|
|||
![]()
Post
#62
|
|||
Moving Target ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 548 Joined: 21-December 06 Member No.: 10,416 ![]() |
All that is so much fun, isn't it? Been there, done that, lost a job for asking for questioning points of policy. |
||
|
|||
![]()
Post
#63
|
|
Uncle Fisty ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Admin Posts: 13,891 Joined: 3-January 05 From: Next To Her Member No.: 6,928 ![]() |
Yes, that all makes sense. Too bad, but thanks for the explanation.
I would say , "would it be possible to list the cut off points before the text and let us find it and connect the dots on our own". But that sounds like it would be rather frustrating for you, and , as you say, keep you from being able to use it later. Oh well. |
|
|
![]()
Post
#64
|
|||
Shadow Cartographer ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 3,737 Joined: 2-June 06 From: Secret Tunnels under the UK (South West) Member No.: 8,636 ![]() |
It sounds like the only real taboos in Shadowrun 2070 would be love and monogomy. Now that's dystopian.
It's not similar to them. It's similar to those they are already familiar with. There's a difference. An arab person who has grown up with a lot of white friends will not be inherently racist against white people because they look different to him. It will be a non-issue. A white person who grew up in a small white town where there isn't a single arab person is the one who is more likely racist. Judging people by skin colour is ridiculous and easily refuted with logic, but lack of familiarity is a dangerous thing. I wrote a Shadowrun piece on my site here which I thought showed how convincing Humanis could be. |
||
|
|||
![]()
Post
#65
|
|
Target ![]() Group: Members Posts: 35 Joined: 20-April 07 Member No.: 11,505 ![]() |
In general the more people you kill the more jaded you become. In a society like Shadowrun's I imagine people become immunized to violence pretty early through the Trid and such.
By modern standards, many Shadowrunners (or even people on the street) are probably clinically insane, and at least partially sociopathic. It's sort of like how when the Veitnam Vets came back, and how the experience of getting used to clearing people out of tunnels with flamethrowers, and burning villages and such changed them. Shadowrunners are like that, except there is no "normal" society to adapt back to. Sure, killing his first person might have fazed a Shadowrunner, but it got easier from that point on, and it probably wasn't as hard to begin with as it was for many other people. Since most Shadowrunners are beginning the game "Established" a "first kill" is rarely going to be an RP element unless the player is setting their character up as "talented, but Naive" which is a potential character theme. Given that in Shadowrun your character usually makes a living by killing/kidnapping/stealing at the request of anyone who can pay, and without caring why, morality is more or less irrelevent. What's more society is so jaded from the things I've read that only the most intense experiences and images have any effect even on "Joe Average". Hence the heavy trade in bloodsports, snuff, and general weirdness. It's a very dark future. At any rate, Morality can be inserted into Shadowrun, but usually it requires inserting something really over the top and evil into the game as an enemy (and making it very apparent). That can cause characters to choose sides and usually come out as the good guys. Otherwise, it's more or less irrelevent to the setting. Shadowrunners deal more in honor (keeping ones word, fulfilling the contract, watching the backs of your friends) than actual ethics. "She's only 15, and already she's aquired a taste for torture..." Especially in Shadowrun you also have consider that there are other things akin to murder that are also moral issues today that are probably relatively "mild" in the setting. I mean how do your PCs react when they need to interrogate someone? How do your PCs react to the (meta)human trade? There are places where the line can be draw other than murder. Indeed I've found more than a few groups who won't torture people (under any circumstances) even when it would be to their benefit (and fitting with the setting). I also gave the party the jeebies at one point when a Johnson promised to pay the PCs in "Cash or goods of an equivilent value" and then gave them to 13 year old girls kidnapped from a corp enclave and with their SINS erased "untouched and perfect for resale". The point is that if you think your PCs are being too callous and evil, you can always introduce situations where they are likely to make a (positive) moral desician if you want to see them reaffirm themselves as the good guys. >>>----Therumancer---> |
|
|
![]()
Post
#66
|
|||
Moving Target ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 548 Joined: 21-December 06 Member No.: 10,416 ![]() |
For some people maybe. Most people have a limit though. The Nazis used to use firing squads to kill off the people they didn't want but had to stop. The problem was that most of the men involved had mental breakdowns after a while. Even Himmler almost threw up the first and only time he watched a mass shooting. A percentage of people wouldn't be overly affected by it, but they would be rare. However, they would probably be drawn to the shadows and so would be common there. That is probably why canon and Cyberpunk(ish) movies have so many of them. |
||
|
|||
![]()
Post
#67
|
|
Manus Celer Dei ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 17,012 Joined: 30-December 02 From: Boston Member No.: 3,802 ![]() |
Well, the problem with the firing squads (from the accounts I've read, I am not a Final Solution expert) weren't so much that the firing squad was having breakdowns because of how many people they killed, but because of how many people they didn't kill—which makes some sense to me, I can imagine being much less traumatized by painting someone's brains across the wall than by painting some of someone's brains across the wall and then listening to them moan and breathe wetly for a few minutes.
(Most people don't think about this, but killing people on the kind of scale of the Final Solution is very difficult to do in an efficient (both in terms of time and money) manner. One of many cost-cutting measures they tried that didn't work so well was to line people up to get multiple kills off of a single bullet. Most of the trauma stories I've heard have been from either those attempts or from the times they tried to pack a large number of people around an explosive charge and set it off.) As a result, you can look at it several ways in Shadowrun. The comparative lack of ways to die instantly increases the horror, but the speed with which people die decreases it again (your normal human takes twenty-seven seconds to die, which is long in some ways, but they don't sit around slowly dying over multiple minutes or hours), while the increased accuracy afforded by things like Smartlinks and Improved Ability can reduce the chances further of having a dying-but-not-dead person in a horribly maimed condition. ~J |
|
|
![]()
Post
#68
|
|
Target ![]() Group: Members Posts: 26 Joined: 24-April 07 Member No.: 11,525 ![]() |
The title of this topic pretty much says it all; morales are relative. Trying to incorporate common everday ethical questions concerning the shadowrun universe won't work when the ethics of our society are so different, and vice verse. You need to find some strings to stroke that you know the players actually care about. For example, in one mission we had to make sure some cargo wasn't compromised by authorities. We didn't find out until the end of the session(after all our hard work) that the large cargo container was filled with children to be sold on the slave market for labor and pedophilia activity. We could either save the kids and become the most wanted for the next few months or take the cargo to its destination and get a fat pay check. It actually raised some heated debate around our table between those that wanted the money and those who wanted to save the kids. It was a good session.
So leave Shadowrun's social problems for Shadowrunners. If you want your players to strain, you gotta hit em where it hurts. |
|
|
![]()
Post
#69
|
|
Immortal Elf ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 11,410 Joined: 1-October 03 From: Pittsburgh Member No.: 5,670 ![]() |
indeed. that's actually why i view stuff like killing to be basically boring. once in a while, sure, it's fun to play a guy who agonizes over the death of other humans. but all the time? personally, i enjoy putting fictional rounds into fictional skulls too much to waste too much time with in-character angst.
when i choose to strongly incorporate morality into my games, as a GM, i generally make it my goal to make my players want to spit. i want the things their characters do, the people their characters have to associate with, and the situations their characters are involved in to leave a dirty taste in the players' mouths. i want nothing to be clean--i want there to be no right answers, and no clear distinction between bad and worse. that's just me. |
|
|
![]()
Post
#70
|
|||||
Great Dragon ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 7,116 Joined: 26-February 02 Member No.: 1,449 ![]() |
Personally, I would have deep, deep moral reservations about doing a 10,000 :nuyen: run with a guy that I could turn over to the Draco Foundation for a 1,000,000 :nuyen: reward. I feel... very strongly about this. |
||||
|
|||||
![]()
Post
#71
|
|
Manus Celer Dei ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 17,012 Joined: 30-December 02 From: Boston Member No.: 3,802 ![]() |
Well, the thing is that then actual morals come into play. Do you really feel comfortable helping the Draco Foundation do whatever the hell it is that old wormy wants it to do?
~J |
|
|
![]()
Post
#72
|
|
Immortal Elf ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 11,410 Joined: 1-October 03 From: Pittsburgh Member No.: 5,670 ![]() |
sirrah, are you suggesting that an organization which purports itself to be metahumanitarian in nature could be up to no good? for shame! it's not like Dunk had a huge chunk of Aztechnology in his pocket at the height of their use of blood magic, or anything. no, sir!
|
|
|
![]()
Post
#73
|
|
Great Dragon ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 6,640 Joined: 6-June 04 Member No.: 6,383 ![]() |
I remember one of the SR sourcebooks had a little blurb on "the secrets of FASA". I feel smart by association that people on this board have probably figured some of the "secrets" out ahead of time.
|
|
|
![]()
Post
#74
|
|
Cybernetic Blood Mage ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 3,472 Joined: 11-March 06 From: Northeastern Wyoming Member No.: 8,361 ![]() |
>>>>> Aye, that is one of the reasons that every mage even thinking about considering researching the hidden wonders of Blood Magic needs to explain that no, the Draco Foundation will not pay you even if you manage to survive long enough to bring me to them alive. After all I'm not on any of their lists. <<<<< -Bot
|
|
|
![]()
Post
#75
|
|
Moving Target ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 256 Joined: 26-February 02 Member No.: 1,709 ![]() |
I'm a little confused as to what you guys mean when you say "relativity." I'm as much a relativist as the next heathen utilitarian, but what's ambiguous about racism or spousal abuse in most situations? I'm not saying there aren't stories out there that might explore such issues, but a game of Shadowrun usually isn't the place that it happens. When my buddies and I get together, it's usually not to explore racism. Maybe an otherwise decent character could have such traits, and struggle with them. That could be interesting, although it takes pretty disciplined roleplaying to do it justice.
Of course, it's also possible that you just mean characters could have these traits to emphasize their scumbag traits. Or even just for the sake of having them. There's nothing necessarily wrong with that, but it runs the risk of trivializing or fetishizing things that are pretty deadly serious to real people. |
|
|
![]()
Post
#76
|
|||
Genuine Artificial Intelligence ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 4,019 Joined: 12-June 03 Member No.: 4,715 ![]() |
As opposed to playing a character who just shoots people in the face for money. That's fun for the whole family! Why is racism or hitting someone unthinkable but killing people is par for the course? |
||
|
|||
![]()
Post
#77
|
|
Immortal Elf ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 11,410 Joined: 1-October 03 From: Pittsburgh Member No.: 5,670 ![]() |
yeah, Moon-Hawk pretty much nailed it. relative to murder, racism and spouse abuse would generally be considered lesser sins. i mean, how about this for a character concept: a wife-beating Humanis pacifist?
|
|
|
![]()
Post
#78
|
|
Moving Target ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 256 Joined: 26-February 02 Member No.: 1,709 ![]() |
Whoa. Did I say it was unthinkable? Sheesh.
I simply questioned what the purpose was. I think it's pretty well-established that killing people is, generally speaking, not cool. But in the context of stories, sometimes violence is a part of the story. This is a no-brainer--a signficant portion of entertainment these days is devoted to people killing each other. Better there than in real life, I suppose. Shadowrun is generally one of these types of entertainment. In violent combat, there is some inherent drama--who lives, and who dies, and how successful are they? In contrast, the dramas of racism and spousal abuse are not so--cinematic. What exactly does an effectively roleplayed session of Shadowrun about spousal abuse look like? Do my friend and I sit there and yell at each other about who takes out the trash? I guess what I'm aiming at is that these ideas in and of themselves are not very interesting. You say "What about a wife-beating Humanist pacifist?" and I say, "Yeah, and now what?" A character trait in stasis is only interesting insofar as it illustrates something about the character or the character's development. |
|
|
![]()
Post
#79
|
|
Immortal Elf ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 11,410 Joined: 1-October 03 From: Pittsburgh Member No.: 5,670 ![]() |
depends on how you want to do it. personally, i'm less interested in rping a guy beating his girlfriend than i am rping a guy who beats his girlfriend. but yes, you could yell at each other about who takes out the trash. say you've been hired for something, and you stop by the apartment to get your good armored jacket, and on the way out your shrieking nag of a wife starts bitching about how you haven't taken the damn garbage out for three weeks. not a character-defining moment, sure--just another piece in the mosaic of scenes that comprises your character.
|
|
|
![]()
Post
#80
|
|
Bushido Cowgirl ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 5,782 Joined: 8-July 05 From: On the Double K Ranch a half day's ride out of Phlogiston Flats Member No.: 7,490 ![]() |
...though it is not a true quality in that it is not worth any BPs, KK has a moderate distrust of elves due to what she experienced growing up human in the TT. I have played her wary of both PC nd NPC elves in that she rarely turns her back to them and if she doesn't know them that well will not let them approach her too closely (even if it is to cast a healing spell). On the other hand, she doesn't purposely go out of her way to argue with or pick a fight with elves just for the hell of it.
If there is an elf member of the team, she will help him or her (such as covering them during fights, pull them out of harms way if they're injured, etc.) inasmuch that it benefits the team as a whole and she does have a sense of honour. However they shouldn't expect to receive a card from her on Dunkelzahn Memorial Day. |
|
|
![]()
Post
#81
|
|||
Genuine Artificial Intelligence ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 4,019 Joined: 12-June 03 Member No.: 4,715 ![]() |
No. I was mostly replying to the part about "trivializing or fetishizing things that are pretty deadly serious to real people." You seemed to be putting those things in a different category than murder, which I thought was odd. I think maybe we weren't understanding each other. Don't worry, no one's attacking anyone. :-) I don't think the purpose of this thread is really trying to motivate people to go out and play racists or domestic abusers. I think it's more of a thought experiment about why it is that we can be so blase about playing a murderer, but as soon as a character in a game slaps a particular NPC all the players would look at that character's player like some kind of moral leper. It's just a bit odd. And it's interesting that so many people make a character who lives a murderous life of crime and who grew up on the dark, lawless streets, and yet EVERY ONE of these characters is a champion of human rights, equality, and tolerance. It's an unlikely combination of traits, really. It seems that, in general, we've drawn a very strange line in the sand between what is okay and what isn't in a game, and we're exploring why it is that the line has been drawn there, as opposed to anyone else, and talking about different peoples' experience exploring the other side of that line in their games. At least, I think that's the point of this thread. |
||
|
|||
![]()
Post
#82
|
|
Immortal Elf ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 11,410 Joined: 1-October 03 From: Pittsburgh Member No.: 5,670 ![]() |
that's definitely one point i was trying to make. mostly, though, i'm just interested in discussing it, seeing if other people do it and talking about why.
|
|
|
![]()
Post
#83
|
|
Genuine Artificial Intelligence ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 4,019 Joined: 12-June 03 Member No.: 4,715 ![]() |
I would definitely like to try a campaign with some darker elements, but the tough thing for me is rounding up an entire group that would be comfortable with that. It seems like there's always at least one person who would be uncomfortable with that sort of thing, so it always gets pushed off.
|
|
|
![]()
Post
#84
|
|
Moving Target ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 256 Joined: 26-February 02 Member No.: 1,709 ![]() |
What I'm getting at is that the more... mundane aspects of spousal abuse and racism probably hit closer to home than fantasy violence does to a lot of people. Most people have not affected by running gun battles with ork gangers, or coprorate assassins, and it probably doesn't faze most people. Spousal abuse on the other hand is a very intimate betrayal, far more likely to unintentionally strike a nerve than more stylized violence. Throwing it in just for kicks might be crude for a mixed audience.
In a group of friends who are comfortable with each other, no harm no foul. I can see why it's not something that comes up in published materials much though. |
|
|
![]()
Post
#85
|
|
Immortal Elf ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 11,410 Joined: 1-October 03 From: Pittsburgh Member No.: 5,670 ![]() |
i agree, to some extent. and i'm not advocating forcing this sort of thing onto groups that don't want it. i'm kinda lucky, in that by playing online, i've got a really big group of players and GMs. if some of them aren't comfortable dealing with stuff like this, i can simply not interact with them using that character.
one of the problems i have to deal with is that in the past, when i've seen people 'exploring' behavior like this, it's generally been a thinly-veiled excuse to fantasize about taboo behavior. participating in someone's murder-rape fantasy is not something i want to do, and fantasizing about abusing women is not why i'm playing a wife-beater. so i kinda worry about people getting the wrong idea. |
|
|
![]()
Post
#86
|
|
Cybernetic Blood Mage ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 3,472 Joined: 11-March 06 From: Northeastern Wyoming Member No.: 8,361 ![]() |
Well Skeptical Clown I guess I approach it from the other direction, the very fact that racism or spousal abuse isn't the 'fantasy violence' that is dime-a-dozen on TV and Video Games is exactly why it should be mined and explored in the dark, gritty, corupt, and quite simply broken Sixth World.
It should shock, offend and distrube the sensabilities of my players (In fact I'd be worried if it didn't.), but to simply gloss over the fact that metahumanity has fallen so low that the fact that Little Sally's drunken father sells chips of himself molesting her every friday night is so mundane and common that it doesn't even raise eyebrows anymore is to do a grave diservice to the genre of Cyberpunk which Shadowrun is still a part of. |
|
|
![]()
Post
#87
|
|
Moving Target ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 256 Joined: 26-February 02 Member No.: 1,709 ![]() |
Yeah, ok. That's great. Except for two things.
One, what the heck does it add to a character or game? I'm serious. Does any shocking or depraved act inherently add something to character? If my street samurai molested children on the side, does that effective communicate some sort of useful or interesting character aspect? Or does it just disturb my fellow players for no particular reason? Does the argument over the garbage that culminates in slapping the life partner add a meaningful context to the game? It's a game... not a movie or a novel. Most games I've been in rarely have the kind of narrative arc which allows individual characteristics and moments to build up to some sort of conclusion or point. They just sort of go on, serially, until people get tired of the game. And even in novels and movies, a certain economy is used for fictional elements--we don't follow our character into every mundane aspect of their lives. We focus on the elements that are interesting. So, what is it providing that is interesting? And two, not inconsequentially, is it fun? If these things DO add something to the game, I wonder what exactly they would look like. The infrequent domestic squabble might offer a small bit of variety, but the novelty would quickly wear off, for me. If Method Gaming, however, is popular, I wouldn't try to dissuade anyone. I probably just wouldn't partake. De gustibus non disputandum, I suppose. |
|
|
![]()
Post
#88
|
|
Immortal Elf ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 11,410 Joined: 1-October 03 From: Pittsburgh Member No.: 5,670 ![]() |
if it doesn't add anything to the character, or especially if it's not fun, it shouldn't be in the game. i completely agree about that. being fun includes not disturbing my fellow players more disturbed than they want to be.
what's it add to the game? in my case, i'm trying to add flavor. not a pleasant flavor, obviously, but i don't see SR as a pleasant place to live. the fact that there isn't any narrative structure makes adding flavor more important, to me, not less. is it fun? dunno yet, i haven't been playing this character long. what i do know is that i'm bored with playing 'good' characters--nice guys in a bad profession, hardened professionals with a secret soft streak, stuff like that. i wanna play an asshole. a womanizing, drug-abusing jerk. not, as i've said, because i want to roleplay doing bad things, but because i want to roleplay a person who does bad things. |
|
|
![]()
Post
#89
|
|
Uncle Fisty ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Admin Posts: 13,891 Joined: 3-January 05 From: Next To Her Member No.: 6,928 ![]() |
You should really join my mob game mfb.
|
|
|
![]()
Post
#90
|
|
Immortal Elf ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 11,410 Joined: 1-October 03 From: Pittsburgh Member No.: 5,670 ![]() |
yeah, well, you should really join my Entourage ga--er, wait...
|
|
|
![]()
Post
#91
|
|
Uncle Fisty ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Admin Posts: 13,891 Joined: 3-January 05 From: Next To Her Member No.: 6,928 ![]() |
Yeah, then I could play a racist punk slowly trying to turn him self into a cybered killer, and ... hey ... wait...
|
|
|
![]()
Post
#92
|
|
Cybernetic Blood Mage ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 3,472 Joined: 11-March 06 From: Northeastern Wyoming Member No.: 8,361 ![]() |
It adds to the cyberpunkish flavor of the Sixth World, you know the one where the following are true...
'To the death Bloodsports' from Aztlan are number one sellers on Pay-per-View. People actually have to worry about being kidnapped off the street and persa-fixed/body sculpted into custom ordered whores. The 'police' are nothing more then the lowest bidding jackbooted thugs who will smile and do nothing to save you if you aren't covered under one of their contracts. The corperations are really nothing more then feudal kingdoms waging a neverending cold-war against each other. If you don't have a valid SIN you are a non-person and have less rights then a stray dog. Now if you want to avoid the logical conclusions of such a broken society in lue of meaningless 'fantasy violence' where the characters are otherwise good, moral, and upstanding citizens who just happen "to shoot people in the face for money" then whatever floats your boat, but I still say that you are doing a diservice to the setting and genre, Cyberpunk worlds are supposed to be dark and distrubing places that make normal healthy people's skin crawl. However, don't think that the irony that playing characters who "shoot people in the face for money" is somehow less distasteful then playing a racist or wife beater just because the popular culture is flooded with such violence is loss upon me. The only difference is that in the Sixth World the filth that floods the popular culture is much, much worse, with corasponding results in the people's attitudes. |
|
|
![]()
Post
#93
|
|
Midnight Toker ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 7,686 Joined: 4-July 04 From: Zombie Drop Bear Santa's Workshop Member No.: 6,456 ![]() |
The difference between beating one's spouse and shooting a stranger in the face for money. No one really cares about strangers. If you hear about a stranger being killed on the news, you might just think that it is terrible but it won't change our life and you'll probably forget about it the next day. While you may know intellectually that the stranger's life has value you can't know it emotionally because you don't have any emotion invested in a stranger.
And really, there is a very short leap between not really caring if a stranger lives or dies and not really caring if you kill a stranger. The only thing that stops this leap in most people is their own self-images. Murdering a stranger changes the way that people see themselves. Spousal abuse is quite different because there is a strong voluntary familial bond. Presumably, you love this person and would be extremely upset if this person were hurt in any way. It is so disconnected from emotional norms that most people can't accept it. |
|
|
![]()
Post
#94
|
|
Immortal Elf ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 11,410 Joined: 1-October 03 From: Pittsburgh Member No.: 5,670 ![]() |
of course, what's 'funny' is that it works out the exact opposite. familiarity breeds contempt as often as it breeds love, which is one reason spouse abuse is way more common than murder.
|
|
|
![]()
Post
#95
|
|||
Moving Target ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 256 Joined: 26-February 02 Member No.: 1,709 ![]() |
But I don't think that domestic abuse IS the logical conclusion of a "cyberpunk society." It's something that has existed for about as long as there has been domesticity. There's nothing inherently "cyberpunk" about it, and I don't think that it logically follows from any of the themes of the genre either. Ditto racism--although racism does have another cause which may have at least some purpose in Shadowrun. Racism stems from the fantasy elements however, rather than the cyberpunk elements. I suppose you could try to make a case that the Shadowrun world inherently makes people more likely to beat their spouses. That would be a very significant and debatable claim however. Even were it the case, I would think that there are other themes that are far more closely tied to the science fiction themes of cyberpunk that would be more useful and interesting to explore. I also admit that I don't fully understand the appeal of playing a wicked person, either. If I am playing a character, or playing with a character, I prefer that they have some redeeming qualities. I don't buy that Shadowrun characters are bad people--I think that goes against the grain of the game and the genre. There is a certain genre of story that revels in the exploits of truly bad people; it's that exploitation genre that guys like say Tarantino so love, and that all his imitators aspire to. You can certainly run a game like that in Shadowrun, and it would work, but I would not say that it is central to the game. It's a variant. Justice is an important concept in cyberpunk, and in Shadowrun. There are different takes on justice of course; some protagnists could be misfits who striking out for justice against the larger society that would prefer to squash them. Others might be people who struggle to be decent, but are trapped in a profession in a world that doesn't care very much about justice. More often than not, things might not work out for them--but that kernel of idealism is key to even the most hard-boiled of stories. Again, my objection to introducing domestic abuse or racism in a character isn't puritanical; I just think it'd be pretty hard to wedge these traits into a story that works well. Shadowrun games have hard enough stories to tell as it is--to try to tell a decent cyberpunk story about a character who really is bad is even harder. I wish you luck with it, but it's not the kind of challenge I'm leaping at right now. |
||
|
|||
![]()
Post
#96
|
|
Cybernetic Blood Mage ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 3,472 Joined: 11-March 06 From: Northeastern Wyoming Member No.: 8,361 ![]() |
To each their own then, because I have a very hard time imagining wanting to play a classic 'good guy' in a Cyberpunk game myself, in my mind heroes and classic morality belong elsewhere, but your mileage may vary.
|
|
|
![]()
Post
#97
|
|||||
Immortal Elf ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 11,410 Joined: 1-October 03 From: Pittsburgh Member No.: 5,670 ![]() |
that's your game, go for it. i've played a lot of good guys, though. i've played a lot of guys with redeeming qualities. i've enjoyed it, but it lost its shiny newness a long, long time ago. i don't wanna play Miami Vice, anymore--i wanna play The Shield.
i really, really disagree with this, though, for several reasons. the point of having something 'right' or 'good' in a cyberpunk story should, generally, be to destroy it. it's not even strictly necessary that the element has to be in the story itself--the good thing that the story destroys can be the reader's expectations. that said, just because a guy is a racist wife-beater doesn't mean he doesn't have redeeming--or at least likeable--qualities. the fact that he's got deep-seated character flaws, but is still worthy of respect in some areas, makes him interesting. |
||||
|
|||||
![]()
Post
#98
|
|
Moving Target ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 256 Joined: 26-February 02 Member No.: 1,709 ![]() |
What's the point of illustrating a dark future, if not to illustrate something that we shouldn't want? We don't stomp on the rose-colored glasses to the future just to get a kick out of crushing someone's dreams--we do it to shake people and say "Hey! If things keep going this way, we're screwed!" Or occasionally just, "We're screwed!"
But most working in the genre don't do that simply by painting as bleak a picture as possible; even the darkest story has to have contrasts. To abandon any notion of justice or possibility of redemption, however faint, is not cyberpunk--its nihilist fantasy. If there's no justice or idealism whatsoever in humanity, why should anyone care if the future is bleak? Cyberpunk sometimes makes a pretense of nihilism, but I don't think that it really is nihilist. Pessimistic, yes, but not nihilistic. Its protagonists are proponents of a much different brand of beliefs and justice than we might agree with, or beliefs that are incompatible with the world they live in. That's where some of the ambiguity comes from. I don't disagree that a cyberpunk hero could have such dire flaws though. It could be a very good character for a cyberpunk story. I just have a hard time imagining it playing well in a tabletop RPG setting. I don't get the Vampire LARPers either though, so I may just lack imagination. :spin: |
|
|
![]()
Post
#99
|
|
Immortal Elf ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 11,410 Joined: 1-October 03 From: Pittsburgh Member No.: 5,670 ![]() |
maybe it wouldn't work in a tabletop setting. the venue i play in is more of a long-running collaborative fiction than traditional tabletop, which allows for a lot of character development that a tabletop game might not see.
the reader retains his or her own ideas about right and wrong, justice and injustice, happy endings and sad endings. that means that the characters in the story don't need them in order for the writer to illustrate something unpleasant--he can just make it unpleasant, and leave it to the reader to react to it. |
|
|
![]()
Post
#100
|
|
Manus Celer Dei ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 17,012 Joined: 30-December 02 From: Boston Member No.: 3,802 ![]() |
Cyberpunk is fundamentally about tearing down the social order. That's it (from an interaction-with-society-at-large perspective, at least). Sometimes the people doing the tearing have higher principles in mind, sometimes they don't.
~J |
|
|
![]() ![]() |
![]() |
Lo-Fi Version | Time is now: 26th July 2025 - 02:16 AM |
Topps, Inc has sole ownership of the names, logo, artwork, marks, photographs, sounds, audio, video and/or any proprietary material used in connection with the game Shadowrun. Topps, Inc has granted permission to the Dumpshock Forums to use such names, logos, artwork, marks and/or any proprietary materials for promotional and informational purposes on its website but does not endorse, and is not affiliated with the Dumpshock Forums in any official capacity whatsoever.