Wetwork Options

[MadDogMaddux]

I recently posted the possibility of giving my characters an assassination assignment because it fit the party (2 gunslinger types) and received a lot of negative responses.

Today I picked up the SR4 GM Screen and in the contacts and runs section it lists an example of an assassination job - so now I'm intrigued and slightly confused.


If Assassinations are viewed so poorly, why provide resources for them?

And where does it SAY in SR4 that such jobs are looked on as being in poor taste? Why NOT give an assassination contract?

[Fortune]

I personally also don't buy into the seemingly overwhelming prejudice against wetwork. Seems to be a perfectly viable type of job that normal shadowrunners would take. Now, there are always exceptions that are unwilling for whatever reason to kill, but that is more of a case-by-case, in-character thing.

I chalk it up to the ingrained set of morals that most of us possess on an unconscious level. It can be somewhat difficult to divorce ourselves from it, even when playing a fantasy-type game. This same kind of thinking is what makes PC rape incidents a rare thing, and what gives people pause when discussing topics like organlegging.

[mfb]

it depends on the character. personally, i don't see many characters having strong compunctions against wetwork jobs, though those who specialize in them probably get a certain reputation--not a bad reputation, per se, but a reputation as someone you kinda want to avoid. after all, there are lots of jobs available; the fact that someone would specialize in killing people when there's other work to be had says something about them.

was it the players who had a problem with the job, or was it their characters?

[ElFenrir]

Yeah, I mean, i know some characters who would frown on it. Depends on the personal views, of course. Some of mine have had a problem, some haven't, some never did it but don't know where they would stand.

Now,if you players are playing in character...you have a blessedly rare group there. :grinbig: Most groups ive seen froth at the mouth for their characters chance to shoot someone in the head.

[Blade]

[Fortune]

I think he's more referring to a perceived preponderance of posts on Dumpshock (and possibly elsewhere) condemning players who's characters take wetwork assignments. Not quite as loud a voice as those who preach that only stun damage should be done to security guards, but almost.

[ElFenrir]

Yeah, it does seem that people get looked down on for taking the jobs....that i dont do. if characters do it, characters do it. People dont seem to always look down on the killing of some black ops goons in a firefight usually, but they do tend to take the view on wetwork...

[Faelan]

I have never had a problem with handing my players the opportunity to do some wetwork. The way I see it the world of Shadowrun is about survival in a world where all the laws are designed to insure you are a cog in the machine or you will be doing illegal shit by dint of breathing. So ultimately it is about making money, because that is what increases your survivability. If you are down the foodchain, sometimes you have to take what falls off the table, and often it is something disagreeable. Wetwork is simply the final answer in failed negotiations. People don't generally get whacked for shits and giggles. They did something to bring down the hammer.

Anyway they are just one more type of dirty little job for Shadowrunners to perform, not a morality play. If you are running the shadows chances are you left those behind you a long time ago.

[Triggerz]

Not every runner sees himself as some kind of awakened/cybered Robin Hood. If your runners' contacts don't have any reason to believe that the characters would look down on wetwork, I see no reason not to offer them such jobs if they pop up (i.e. if you feel like it). My group has done a lot of wetwork and they haven't had any moral objections to it. My own character was a Yakuza hitman before his relationship to the Yak changed and he became a shadowrunner in the usual sense of the term (taking jobs from a variety of employers and working with other runners most of the time). Now that he has more resources and connections, it is easier for him to be more picky about the kind of jobs he will take and he has moved away from wetwork that doesn't suit his own moral/political agenda.

What I am trying to say here is that, in SR's world, morality is often a luxury that not everyone can afford. It's also one that not everyone with money wants to buy. ;-) If you feel like it'd be interesting to offer wetwork to your players, then go for it. If their characters don't want to do it for any reason, then their contacts will know and the next time, they'll offer those jobs to someone else. But, you know, there's a lot of wetwork going on in SR's world (just like in ours) and somebody somewhere is pulling that trigger. It could be (or not be) the PCs. Nothing wrong with it one way or the other, as far as I'm concerned.

One last thing... Wetwork comes in all shades of gray, all the way from the rather good - "That tyran must be stopped at all costs!" - to the really bad - "That baby just happens to be worth a lot of money to me if he turns up dead sometime soon." Some runners might be ok with wetwork at one end of that spectrum but not the other. Nothing wrong with that either. ("Well, that would be, like... morally good!!! Find yourself another guy!" :P ;-) )

[blakkie]

[yesman]

I've never seen the prejudice against wetwork as particularly moral. Rather it always seemed to me that folks were percieving wetwork to require less thought than for example extraction, or corp espionage; and therefore the territory of novice runners.

[blakkie]

[PlatonicPimp]

Oftentimes the compuncion against wetwork is that difference between murder and self defense. The players perceive shooting the guards as self defense, but assassination as being unfair or unappealing somehow. I personally don't get it: in real life and in SR I'd prefer to kill someone from a great distance away with little chance of retaliation. The Idea of killing in self defense is distasteful to me: it means you victim got to fight back, which is bad.

If you really want to run a wetwork mission, tailor the target to the players. I think few people will have any moral compunction about assassinating a Blood mage before he completes the ritual to bind a great form blood spirit.

[IvanTank]

But remember the first rule in assassination. Kill the assassin. If you take out someone important, they are going do some serious investigating, and your employer might want to eliminate any possible way of bringing that investigation back to him. It's not so much a double-cross as it is the correct procedure for eliminating high-profile targets.

[PlatonicPimp]

You know, THAT might be why wetwork is avioded in the runner community.

[ShadowDragon]

The last mission I sent my PCs on was wetwork. I made sure there was an in game context for offering the job first though. On previous missions, the team had been quite bloodthirsty. They never even bothered with gel rounds, and usually finished off guards rather than running when it probably would've been a better option (I blame this on DnDs XP for killing everything). The only reason the Johnson offered the job to the team was because they're somewhat notorious for murder. If they had been using nothing but stealth, I would offer more of those missions. If they had been using more social solutions, I would offer more of those missions. It's my way of trying to make the world react to the PCs as if it were real.

[eidolon]

IME, it has always just depended on the character. If they personally had a problem with it (IC), then that would just be part of the role playing, however it ended up playing out.

I've never had a player that had any kind of OC problems with stuff like that in games.

[MadDogMaddux]

Yeah, the question was in reference to responses here on Dumpshock. I'm pretty sure the characters will be fine with it.

[hyzmarca]

[Penta]

Quick thoughts:

1. While both killing the guard and wetwork are murder 1, most people know that wetwork would be more certain to get you the needle than killing the guard.
2. You can ascribe having to kill the guard as something you simply happened to have to do, regrettable but necessary; There's always the possibility he might survive, after all. (Something I think players and GMs neglect; It would not be stupid to shoot a guard, then cast the lightest of heal spells on him so that he doesn't in fact die, but won't wake up before you're gone) Straight wetwork, the entire point is that the target is dead.

[Slump]

Most of my characters havn't minded wetwork, but they always killed through 'accident' unless the Johnson specified that it needed to look like a hit.

In one hit, the target was killed in the crossfire of a gang war, and one hit somehow got infested with an insect spirit and had to be purged. Our best hit, however, had to be the one where we found out one of his co-workers had a BTL habit, so we cooked up some modified BTLs that caused a total freakout at the sound of the targets voice. Nobody is quite sure how the gun got past security.

[MadDogMaddux]

Sweet creative solutions, indeed.

[Konsaki]

I hope you guys got mad Karma for those unorthidox ways of doing thing. I know I would have if I was your GM.

As for people the people who dont like wetworks, you can always have a run where the objective is to keep the target from being somewhere or doing something. (Keep the star quarterback from playing in the slaughterball championships to make the mob alot of cash, and the PCs too if they are smart enough to bet correctly)
This opens up the posibility of either doing an allout frag job where you just kill the guy, or other options to incapacitate him. (stun damage, kidnaping, infecting him with a virus, dope him up before the game to get him kicked out or whatever)

[Paul]

This may or may not help.

I work in a super maximum security prison. Several of the individuals we deal with are men who have killed with a frequency. Men who would meet the loose definition of hit men, for their respective organizations. (And in once case a guy who just likes killing people.)

Amongst other convicts these individuals are feared, and fairly well known. They receive names, much like street names in Shadowrun, that are descriptive of something they've done.

We have 666 convicts, yes I know the magic number-but that is seriously our count, and out of those maybe 45 or 60 are seriously dangerous. Most of these men are quiet, and generally they are no trouble for staff. Most of them are polite, well read, and used to the enforced isolation that has been deemed the only way to house them.

I've seen some of these guys in action, and a few of them are really truly heartless-but most of them have some sort of morality, even if it seems flawed by societies standards. For instance I know of one guy who would likely beat, even kill someone over card games and debts, but would never imagine hurting a child, and has a reputation for seriously injuring pedophiles.

Another guy we have is the epitome of ruthless. He'd kill anyone for any reason, even no reason. when we move him, for any reason, he has to be placed in high security escort restraints, and we have four cops, a supervisor, and a camera man present at all times. In order to move him, even to the shower, we have to have permission from the Shift Commander.

Shrugs.

[fistandantilus4....]

Damn Paul, you get hazard pay or what?

Gave me a great idea for a game BTW. Thanks for the POV.