Genocide-centric SR campaigns, when the body count just needs more... Options

[Wounded Ronin]

I've spent a few hours toying with the idea of making a shadowrun campaign that takes place in a developing country where there's either a genocide in progress or a massive genocidal campaign is about to happen. I first got the inspiration when I met an old professor of mine who is busy advocating for UN-circumventing military action in Darfur to stop t3h genocide there. (Since the UN has an abysmal track record of timely action in the face of a genocidal situation.)

The basic idea in my head is that a crazy ex-military university professor with a lot of money decides that the nations of the world won't stop a genocide occuring somewhere far away and the professor goes and hires a bunch of shadowrunners to assassinate the leaders of the genocidal regieme and/or conduct a guerilla terror campaign against the machete-wielding genocide grunts on the ground who are mostly just expecting to butcher a mostly harmless population.

Another idea is that a national government has in interest in preventing the genocide but since the UN is t3h suck when it comes to quick interventions decides to deniably use a bunch of shadowrunners to delay or obstruct the course of the genocide while a multinational peacekeeping force slowly gets its rheumatic ass in gear. This would probably be logistically easier for a GM to run since the government could plausibly air drop the PCs (hope you have the parachuting skill, ketchup) in country and you wouldn't have to spend too much time messing around with ways to get in-country.

I think that the ideal length for such a campaign might be one to two months of real life time, if you play for say 5 hours once a week. I think any longer than that and it would get tedious.

The campaign itself would probably be heavy on resource management (food, water, ammunition, maybe medkit supplies?) and would probably end up being pretty tactical, since you'd need to have a terrain map of the country with major towns and military entities marked out. I think that the unique aspect of this campaign was that it wouldn't just be enough to fight well and kill lots of guys. You'd have to do strategic damage that would hurt the ability of the state to carry out the genocide, so maybe you quickly kill off a bunch of leaders all at once, or maybe you blow up all their motor pools so they have to walk all the way to their genocide, or something like that. Then again if the players want something less strategic you can always have the Johnson give them a specific mission objective on the premise that there are other teams deployed in country with other objectives that together will accomplish the goal of messing up the genocide.

There's also a lot of potential for friendly fire, which is always amusing. In the first place, probably a lot of shadowrunners were hired for various objectives. There could be friendly fire between shadowrunner teams. ("Boy, these guys with Wired II and rating 7 elementals are sure tougher than all those mundane machete wielders we butchered a few miles back...") There could also be massive deadly friendly fire when the UN peacekeepers arrive. ("Look sarge, it's a cybered, magic wielding local death squad!")

Do you think it could work? Any thoughts?

[Kyoto Kid]

...In the last campaign I ran, I had set it in in the Balkans. At the outset, Croatia had been occupied by the Serbs for nearly a decade. There was a new brand of "Ethnic Cleansing" being perpetrated by the Serb forces, however I cannot discuss any details since it would be a huge spoiler (I am going to run this campaign again). Suffice to say, the atrocities suffered by the Croatian people in the 2050's - 60's made even those of the 1990s war pale in comparison. Before running the campaign I did extensive study on the 1990's conflict as well as the history of ethic tensions between these two nations. One of the most eye opening accounts I read was that of a physician who volunteerd to go o the war torn region and witnessed first hand the level of depravity the Serb Army had sunk to. To tell the truth, it was appalling what people can do to their fellow man.

Make sure to hammer the point across that Genocide or Ethnic Cleansing is a sick and depraved act. Bone up on some RL history (Angola, Ethiopia, The Balkans, The Stalinist Purges etc). Make it grisly, make it scary, make it tragic, make it gut and heart wrenching. Above all, make sure the runners looking over their shoulders every waking (and sleeping) moment for they could be next.

(Please excuse any mispellings since the Web Browser I am using does not suport PHPspell)

[Trax]

Putting your setting in Africa is a good choice for Genocidal campaigns. Africa is bad enough today with Tribes vs Tribes without tossing the 6th World into the mix.

[Crusher Bob]

Where's the fun in preventing ye local genocide. The Corporate Court needs an excuse to send in the troops and do some regime changing. Your team is to pose as local milita and cause a humanitarian crisis.

Despite the repuation of you and your team, we doubt they will be able to cause a humanitarian crisis all by themselves, so we are hiring other teams as well. In the spirit of competition, the team whose activities are most gruesomely reported by the international media will receive a monthly bonus.

[ShadowDragon8685]

Ah, Crusher Bob is running a soulless "All cash, Karma hates you" campaign, apparently.

I like the stopping the genocide mission, myself. It's as bloody as the most munchkin cybered up troll Panther-Cannon-Bunny could want, but it's still doing massively good deeds.

[Asheron]

I like the idea of preventing genocides, but one of the reasons I like shadowrun is the exploration of morals and good and evil.

I think it would be interesting if you cast the players as hired help BY the dictator who feels the target religion/ethnic group doesn't deserve to live or having them as soldiers belonging to a corporate or military peace-keeping/aid mission, but are ordered not to attack the local militia unless fired upon. The characters would have to decide between following orders and struggle with their own consciences, or defy their leaders and help the oppressed people.

[hyzmarca]

Child soldiers are what makes anti-genocide peacekeeping campaigns fun. Anyone can open up a full-automatic grenade launcher on a crowd of blood-thirsty machette-weilding adults. It takes a special someone to open up a full-automatic grenade launcher on a crowd of blood-thirsty machette-weilding eight-year-olds.

[Critias]

Not really. Y'just lead 'em a little less.

[Asheron]

Lotsa crazy sociopaths here. *Sniff* It would bring a tear to my eye if I wasn't one too.

About the child-soldiers, I agree with Critias; blood-thirsty machette-wielding kids can't run as fast or jump as far as blood-thirsty machette-wielding adults.

[SL James]

It takes an even more special someone to lead them into battle against unarmed women and children.

Actually, that gives me an idea.

[Samaels Ghost]

Give back that idea. Put it down and walk away slowly.

[SL James]

Given the horrible people I play on a regular basis as a GM and Player, that's the one you want me to give back?

[eidolon]

[mfb]

same. i might give more karma for doing the 'good' thing, simply because it's harder to accomplish, but the base karma rewards are the same in my games whether you're the Son of God or the Son of Sam.

[Demon_Bob]

The runners being able to intercept international newscasts would add some interest as well.

Say after some of their work through the shadownet they find that prices for Firearms and equipment in neighboring countries has gone up.

What does the team do when they discover the family treated at a local hospital is caring a disease designed to target some ailment more common in Orcs and increase its debilitating effects and population frequency among Orcs.

It's not the blood-thirsty machete-wielding kids that I would have problems with, at least not at the moment of the attack. It would be the kindly hospital staff inoculating the unwanted with something that turns deadly after a few weeks or maybe just sterilizes them. You know the ones the runners saved last week from the blood-thirsty machete-wielding kids.

However, having the runners stop the secret police from rounding up people for interment camps, does make for a better game.

[Wireknight]

[mfb]

oh, Goliath!

[Witness]

I'm wondering how a university professor would be able to afford runners of the caliber required. Where's his money come from? Why's he so free with it? That's something I'd be trying to check out if I was one of the runners he hired.

[mfb]

what i prefer to do with stuff like genocide is to use it as a situation in which the run (or campaign) is set, rather than making it the point of the run/campaign from the get-go. drop the players into the middle of an ongoing genocide with a mission that's unrelated to it. don't give them a side to be on; that directly offers them the choice of taking (or leaving) the moral high ground. if you just throw them into the situation and don't give them a clear-cut side to be on, it's more fun because they have to make the decision of what to do about it themselves.

[Nidhogg]

[SL James]

[ShadowDragon8685]

Sure, that's one way to look at it.

Me, I'd drastically cut back on Karma for those who do truely rotten things, (by about 1/2 or more,) while giving up to a 1/2 increase for those who go out of their way to resolve things in a way that lets them sleep peacefully at night.

There's two reasons for that. One is because Karma is a kind of cosmic balance. If you're doing rotten things, you're going to get better at what you do, but the universe dosen't like that.

Two is because people who will do anything for the right price tend to get that price, and thus they will have accesss to vastly superior equipment. So those who don't need a way to balance out, because I won't run a game for wannabe sociopaths. This may not be Heroic Fantasy, but if you don't try to change things in whatever small way you can, you're part of the problem.

[Nidhogg]

[Moon-Hawk]

Hmmm, I never really thought about it, but I guess I award "good" a little bit, but not too much. I always give an extra point of karma if the team can pull off a run without killing anyone. But that's only partially because of the "goodness" and mostly because it means they were quiet, efficient, and professional. I'd probably award a Mr. Blonde moment, too, but I'd put it more under the RPing category, I think. I guess I just try to reward whatever is making the game fun, but I think I do tend to reward "good" a bit more readily.

[bigdrewp]

Tears of the Sun is a good example of how to put the players in a situation where they witness the atrocities of genocide, but are told to not do anything about it, and how badly it can go for you if you do the right thing, which is why doing the hard right should be rewarded more than the easy wrong.