 General Idiocy - Loot, Organlegging, Power Gaming, Rants and Raves. |
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 Oct 31 2007, 02:31 PM
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Moving Target  Group: Members Posts: 393 Joined: 2-July 07 Member No.: 12,125  |
I have been lurking a bit, reading up on the various threads and the like. I have a few grievances to air out, some opinions to write down and a few points to make. Read on at your own peril. Payment on a run There seems to be great deal of discussion on the boards about what to pay for a run or ways to squeeze more money out of a GM who a player deems is being too stingy. ¥5,000 is just a bit under what the forum goers have decided is a decent payment, risk vvsreward, for a born-to-lose SINless illegal who can't get a job and has to resort to a life of crime to get by. Lets review that, shall we? SINless - can't get a conventional job regardless of skill set. A corporation may go out of their way to work with the UCAS or whomever to get you setup with a new identity... But do not think it is good business for a corp to hire on tons of felons or SINless on the books. Shadowrunning is Shadowrunning because you are off the books and plausible deniability is it is all about. There are still laws regulating the better business practices of corporations, they just find ways around them. Any investment a corp makes in terms of PR risk, monetary losses or cyberware installed, they expect to recoup these losses. If you were to die in extraterritorial space of another corp, caught red (bloody) handed in the midst of some nefarious deed, I sincerely doubt that the political fallout would be worth the investment they put in (nuyen, favors, law firm billable hours) to get you "legal". This is built into the game and players do not need to think about it much, which is unfortunate. I take it as a sign of talented developers and writers. Five grand is a godsend. That is a month of a medium lifestyle. That is nearly a cyberlimb replacement. All for what, several days work? Even several weeks work? Truncate that out over a year's worth of running... Nice little salary. Organ Legging Cash Crop – So You Want to be a (Hero) Businessman There is an entire thread that has wandered off to discuss the virtues and practices of organlegging. There are some pretty good justifications for why a player does it, can do it, and most importantly can get away with it. Some of it was clever, some not so clever, and most just sort of illogical. Organlegging is bad business. Its biggest player is Tanamous, feared and loathed. To successfully extract cyberwear without damage would require skills similar to its installation - you go to a doc to get ware taken out and put in, don't you? This would resemble someone with a bigass Medical skill group with specializations in Cybertech. They would have a knowledge skill battery based around Medical Science and Cybertechnology. Something like Medicine 5 (Cybertechnology) and Knowledge - Cybertechnology 5, Knowledge - Cyber-Surgery 5 (or whatever the scientific skill set of studying the medical interface between man and machine would be called). Anyways, what I am getting at is that if a character meets these skills and wishes to rip cyberware out of people for fun and profit... WELCOME TO LIFE AS AN NPC! Congratulations, you qualify to be a member of Tanamous or become a full on street doc. If you can make so much more money doing something else why even Shadowrun. If money is not the issue, then why degrade yourself by doing it in the first place? If you still will not relent then enjoy getting the hell out of my game. Your character is now attainable as a contact. Roll up someone who is motivated to be shadowrunning and be getting paid the wages given. As I have reviewed on other posts about gear - in fact, let me quote word for word -
Allow me to return to the statement “organlegging is bad business�. When I say bad business, I mean bad business. No one wants to touch that kind of crap because its low, nasty, bloody and dangerous. To get second hand cyberware means that someone had to die in a nasty fashion and the ware had to be ripped out. Never you mind the complicated cyberware and its distribution throughout the body which would make “ripping it out� nigh on impossible, the simple fact of the matter is that you murdered someone and now have parts of theirs for sale. These parts have identification on them, both genetic and physical. Someone had suggested fry the RFID tags. Close, but no cigar. I am going to wager a guess that most cyberware has “Evo Cyberdine model number 001481A27X� stamped on every nano fiber, branding every piece and bit. Ubiquitous advertisement is indeed one of the main tropes of Shadowrun. I am not even leaving canon assuming this. In fact, it reinforces the game world. Welcome to the world of logic. Its bright in here, rather pleasant. Back to “bad business�. So you have a chunk of cyberware with fried RFID tags... It is probably missing (lets just make up a percentage) 20% of its working parts if removed improperly (never you mind damage incurred when KILLING the owner). So you have a busted piece of cyberware that is fresh from a murder scene and dripping with the blood of the fallen. It also has a VIN number stamped all over it like a car. Anyone seen Crash? Remember the slimey guy who refuslimy buy the SUV off the pair of young guys because they “ran over a chinaman� with it? Allow me to find another quote:
The parts are numbered, they are traceable. They are coated with forensic evidence that makes a pretty little paper trail all the way back to the scene of a murder. Owning, dealing, possessing these parts makes you an accessory, witness or participant in the crimes committed. For some reason, I would guess, just guessing here, that most contacts that value their reputation would be very wary of dealing second hand 'ware. Bad fucking business. Bad business. No one wants to be a part of that who is not decked out to deal with the consequences. Tanamous is Tanamous because they likely have a host of hackers and machinists, cybertechs and engineers, that can take care of these problems for them. They can do this because their business is not shadowrunning, it is organlegging. Everyone else would like not go anywhere near this nonsense unless they were hard up. Even then, I sincerely doubt that anyone would pay more than a tiny fraction, say 10-20% (more made up numbers!) for a piece of hot and bloody cyberware. Turn to goo my ass. Same problems – different origin. In fact, the (profit) value of a product or specialist is inextricably linked to its insider knowledge and niche skills. A product creates and retains value due to its ability to meet specific needs of a specific party. This also applies to specialists who support or produce products. Extend this to shadowrunners trying to double as organleggers – if you are unable to meet the specific needs (the enormous skill requirements for medical quality cyberware installation / removal) of a market, then your profitability suffers extraordinarily. If you are able to meet those needs you are a specialist in a field tangentially related to shadowrunning that is specifically not shadowrunning. Shadowrunners produce the bodies, they do not produce the cyberware from the bodies (at least not effeciently). Another quote! YAY!
Lastly, if the word gets out that you carry a hacksaw with you into combat, you will likely suffer from Notoriety. Further, what happens when someone catches you up to your elbows in someone's chest cavity? An extension of this problem – when do you and how do you work on the bodies? HRT teams take minutes to reach their targets. Do you have time to tear chunks off (and if you are rushing, I am just guessing here, you will likely ruin the parts you are “extracting�). Logistically speaking, most runners extracting parts are probably going to increase their exposure time at the scene of a murder. Probably not a good idea. Cops and HRT tend to show up and crash the (organlegging) party. Also, transport of these kinds of goods is a messy and nasty process. How do you explain to a cop, or to anyone for that matter, that sees you / stops you / talks with you while you are toting around hunks of a street samurai, shrinkwrapped and covered in butcher paper, sticking out of a rucksack. Phat Lewt – Too Much Gear Given in Game My opinion on this matter was summed up already by:
Expensive gear that does not fit the player's street level draws big and nasty buzzards out to make a quick buck. The shadowrunners may find themselves the target of another shadowrunning team looking to make some fast cash if they don't move their goods fast. This also can make for an interesting RP situation. Yay. Everyone wins (and maybe a few die). Meta-Gaming as a Matter of Course The lack of self awareness to meta-gaming on the boards is astounding to me. While entirely believable (I have inordinately little faith in most gamers), it is no less disgusting. A friend of mine and I were discussing the general state of meta / power gaming that goes on here and he came up with a funny idea. A Meta-Gaming Detective as an NPC / PC. "Well, we're pretty sure the perp is a mage, since we found this Colt Manhunter..." “Well, the GM grabbed his battlemat. Spidey sense is tingling. I pull out my predator.� “Shoot the dwarf, he is 85% likely to be a mage! (maybe that was HIS colt manhunter?!)� “9 out of 10 murders by something other than gun or spell are death by katana.� Related to this sort of problem, to meta gaming, is the larger issue at hand. There is a certain short sightedness that infects gamers as a culture. We see only rules, character sheets, dice and other abstract gaming objects. Sometimes it is difficult to step away and above these things and inhabit the game world, to get into the idiom, and understand how things are, why they are that way and what it is that any given character actually does. It is difficult to see things from a literal standpoint, to extrapolate and create where the fluff or rules are thin (maybe even nonexistent). Challenge yourselves. If it seems like players are breaking out of the accepted game metaphor – ie are acquiring large amounts of goods “for some reason� or otherwise creating conflicts that are tangential or not even related to the act of shadowrunning – review the situation. If it is adding to the game, live and let die. If the game itself is starting to lose continuity and logical grounds, step in. Continuity is king in RPGs. Without it, players spiral off into the realm of pure (statistical / logical im)possibility (read: meta / power gaming), GM's lose focus and generally the world starts to break apart. Consistency and continuity are the prime commodities of gaming. Its the job of the GM to maintain these two things, literally at any cost. This leads into the next rant. Starting Characters Continuity. Consistency. These are baseline requirements for character creation. There needs to be a standard set amongst players and the GM for the rough level of play. If 4 out of 5 are playing jet setting well dressed killers, the game is going to feel a certain way, require a given kind of encounter set, contacts list etc. The game is made by the characters. It revolves around them and the people they know, the things that they do. If the characters are not in some form of agreement logically, there are going to be significant problems. This can be an abstract issue like throwing 50% more dice at a problem or simply a conflict of interests. Either way, the campaign is likely to suffer. Great players can manage these discrepancies, as can a good GM. A lot of them can be side stepped by being pro active. Interview the players, set character creation guidelines that suite the general feel of the game you are creating. These can be a simple as tweaking the mins and maxes set forth in the book. You can even go so far as to require that the group have at least Skills X Y and Z and levels A B and C. Anything in between. Be a GM. Manage things. Its your job. Tongue firmly in cheek. Yours truly, - der menkey "Certainly there is no hunting like the hunting of man and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never really care for anything else thereafter." ~ Ernest Hemingway |
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Oct 31 2007, 02:31 PM
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 393 Joined: 2-July 07 Member No.: 12,125 |
Given that I am an opinionated lot, I imagine this list will likely expand.
- der menkey "Certainly there is no hunting like the hunting of man and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never really care for anything else thereafter." ~ Ernest Hemingway |
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Oct 31 2007, 02:47 PM
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Hoppelhäschen 5000 Group: Members Posts: 5,807 Joined: 3-January 04 Member No.: 5,951 |
Ironically, after the SIN amnesty programs after the second crash, the majority of the SINless is so by choice.
That's not even enough to find a nice cleaner to get done the neighbour that constantly parks on your lawn IRL.
So everyone fairly competent gets another job because it's more profitable and suddenly, the corps don't get their runs done properly. Until it's more profitable to run, again. |
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Oct 31 2007, 02:50 PM
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 393 Joined: 2-July 07 Member No.: 12,125 |
Find a desperate criminal and flash five grand at him. If he does not kill you and take the money right then and there, you may likely have a proverbial fish on a proverbial line that is willing to kill for five grand. Either case, ¥5,000 per runner is part of a net fee of around ¥20,000-¥25,000 per (team rating 1) run + expenses that gets split. So take a portion of the larget net fee and don't split it amongst runners since you have only one hit man. Bingo Bango Bongo. ¥10,000 to ¥15,000 for a hit. Maybe even ¥25-30+. I had a group of two players for a while that would split the 20-30 grand per run. They had some wicked expenses, however. - der menkey "Certainly there is no hunting like the hunting of man and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never really care for anything else thereafter." ~ Ernest Hemingway |
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Oct 31 2007, 02:58 PM
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Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,246 Joined: 8-June 07 Member No.: 11,869 |
No one on the forums has the attention span to read a 30 paragraph diatribe. Can you sum it up in one sound bite, so we can all whale on you for being too simplistic? :D
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Oct 31 2007, 02:59 PM
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 745 Joined: 13-April 07 From: Houston, Texas Member No.: 11,448 |
5K APIECE (~20-25K to the johnson) is hardly worth a run, unless most of the work has been done for you already, and then its hard to turn down an easy paycheck of any amount.
Johnsons dont necessarily have to pay in cash either. I see this all the time IRL. Johnson can pay you in goods counted at market value, but in reality he got them much much cheaper. |
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Oct 31 2007, 02:59 PM
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Hoppelhäschen 5000 Group: Members Posts: 5,807 Joined: 3-January 04 Member No.: 5,951 |
If you actually did the latter, you would have noticed that the last thing you would want is a 'desperate criminal'. Not only for the obvious reason... but to avoid the hassle of him getting caught and singing like a bird. |
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Oct 31 2007, 03:11 PM
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 393 Joined: 2-July 07 Member No.: 12,125 |
Diatribe it is. Unapologetically. Further, the attention span issue is likely a prime culprit in what causes General Idiocy.
A corp pays 5 grand a runner because it is taking a dive of 30 to 50 grand on a low level run in Shadowrun terms. If there is only one recipient of payment, he stands to recieve the entirety of their investment. A run that retails to shadowrunners for 25-30 probably costs a great deal more before everyone involved takes their cut (fixxers, contacts, spooks etc.). If the run is a cool, clean hit, the corp is likely to be shopping around for something a bit slicker than a TR1 runner or group. This increases the costs associated and by way of increased investment on the corp, results in more money ending up in the runners hands. There was never a lack of understanding that a "desperate criminal" is not what you want for a hit. A clean, cool and skilled professional is the order of the day. Skill sets cost cash. They also factor into Team Rating (regardless of whether or not it has to do with rep - that pesky logic rearing its head again). - der menkey "Certainly there is no hunting like the hunting of man and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never really care for anything else thereafter." ~ Ernest Hemingway |
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Oct 31 2007, 03:12 PM
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ghostrider Group: Retired Admins Posts: 4,196 Joined: 16-May 04 Member No.: 6,333 |
Re: opening post
http://youtube.com/watch?v=z5yT3oQYVn4 (just the audience reaction, not the title ;)) |
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Oct 31 2007, 03:17 PM
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#10
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Runner Group: Members Posts: 3,009 Joined: 25-September 06 From: Paris, France Member No.: 9,466 |
Amen to that.
For the first one (payment), I agree with you but I can understand that some people don't consider it that way. Actually, it depends on a lot of facts that are up to the GM. For the second one, I won't restrict it to organlegging. For example a PC with a high enchanting skills can spend his life doing orichalcum or focus/fetishes. Actually, most starting characters are good enough to be valuable as company men (mages, faces, hackers), so they need a REALLY good reason to be shadowrunning (and that excludes "he wants to have fun" or "he doesn't like to have a boss", would you become a criminal just because of that?) For the fourth one (metagaming) I'll add in rule lawyering and prefering to apply the rule rather than the idea behing it. |
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Oct 31 2007, 03:20 PM
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#11
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Neophyte Runner Group: Members Posts: 2,453 Joined: 17-September 04 From: St. Paul Member No.: 6,675 |
Or, I could just tailor my game so that my players and I have a lot of fun on a Saturday night. 50000 :nuyen: , 5000 :nuyen: , let them have the loot. you know, whatever feels right.
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Oct 31 2007, 03:24 PM
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#12
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 393 Joined: 2-July 07 Member No.: 12,125 |
Yay! Fun! Thats why we play! If it works for you, it works for you. Different strokes and all that jazz. My issue is with those that come onto the forums and debate the topic without a rational that holds water. Its sort of an internal politics thing. *shudder* Fun is exactly what holds water. That and cups. Anyways... If your game is a great time and everyone wants to play next Saturday, then thats exactly what works for you guys. In the words of a rugby ref "play on". - der menkey "Certainly there is no hunting like the hunting of man and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never really care for anything else thereafter." ~ Ernest Hemingway |
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Oct 31 2007, 03:27 PM
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Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,326 Joined: 15-April 02 Member No.: 2,600 |
I disagree about run payment, disagree about organlegging, agree about loot and meta-gaming and I don't have a strong opinion about starting characters. For those of you keeping score.
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Oct 31 2007, 03:28 PM
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#14
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 393 Joined: 2-July 07 Member No.: 12,125 |
Zing! Glad to have you weigh in, Mercer. :) I like your cool. - der menkey "Certainly there is no hunting like the hunting of man and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never really care for anything else thereafter." ~ Ernest Hemingway |
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Oct 31 2007, 03:36 PM
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 941 Joined: 25-January 07 Member No.: 10,765 |
Lets see if I can handle this in reasonable fashion.
First: Shadowrun postulates that the runners are more or less experienced career criminals, not just random thugs pulled off the street. You can play random thugs pulled off the street, but that is your choice. Consider the prevelance of former mercenaries, professional ninja, guys with organized criminal ties and the like. These people are used to being criminals, and many of them are used to getting paid well for their services. 5k a month or even every couple of weeks is chump change compared to what they could get paid in a month... say... pimping hookers out, or working as a buttonman for the local oyabun, or running BTL's out of the trunk of their car. There is a lot of ways to make money as a professional (rather than incidental) criminal, even today. Organlegging: It doesn't take medical skills to five to remove organs if you don't care about the patient surviving. Hell, a sharp knife and a single point of 'anatomy related knowledge skill' is almost excessive. Selling second hand cyberware is a bonus if you are seriously considering organlegging. Primary income comes from the meat itself, both organs to desperate donors who can't get, or can't afford clonal organs, then everything else to the cannibals. As for the tracking of vin numbers, recall that the very best cyberware is probably illegal or damn shady. Stuff that the average shadowrunner doesn't want known he has, who's gonna care that it's hot? That's like worryign that your kilo of Cocaine is 'hot'. Possession is bad enough that no one really cares what other crimes MIGHT be linked to it. THough I agree with your assessement that ripping out most SHadowrun cyberware is a might simplistic. THat sort of thing makes more sence when cyberlimbs and other gross alterations are commonplace. Still, gouging out eyes with a spoon is gonna net you a decent amount of money in second hand cyber for not much work/skill. If four out of five players want to play 'jet setters' and one guy is a street thug, that isn't necessarily bad. That's good tension, a chance for some harmless interparty roleplaying as the jet setters groan about the thug and the thug insults the non-street jet setters (plus the addition of a different skill set (street) might turn out to be just what the party needs to accomplish the run... provided teh GM is on the ball....) In short, while I can see where you are coming from, I find your perspective hopelessly short sighted and overly... eh... snobbish. Its a game, its supposed to be fun. |
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Oct 31 2007, 03:43 PM
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 393 Joined: 2-July 07 Member No.: 12,125 |
Tongue in cheek, friend. Hyperbole is an accepted form of sarcasm the last I checked. ;)
Runners that can get paid better doing other things should have a good reason to not be doing those other things. Anyone can slave themselves to a task and get paid. Not everyone wants to. 5k a run for a life of freedom, without having to clock in and out, to be able to move around and do what you want... That is heaven to some. Organlegging is its own can of worms, but I stand by my statements about cyberwear. Lastly, player diversity does create tension that drives games. The biggest problem with jet setters mixed in with lower level characters is that, as players, people tend to feel inadequate when tossing far less dice at problems. I have had players regularly change characters to suite the needs and setting of the group. These were failures on my part as a GM to make sure that things would work out well. So, it would seem that we are in agreement. Your fashion was most reasonable and well received. :P - der menkey "Certainly there is no hunting like the hunting of man and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never really care for anything else thereafter." ~ Ernest Hemingway |
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Oct 31 2007, 03:51 PM
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#17
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ghostrider Group: Retired Admins Posts: 4,196 Joined: 16-May 04 Member No.: 6,333 |
Shadowrun might allow for that, and examples might even cater to that, but it's hardly the One True Wayâ„¢. The assumption that Shadowrunner==perfect badass is ridiculous and isn't even supported by the fiction a good lot of the time. |
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Oct 31 2007, 04:14 PM
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Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,246 Joined: 8-June 07 Member No.: 11,869 |
My point exactly. Ironically, if you had read my second sentence, you would have realized I was joking. |
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Oct 31 2007, 04:17 PM
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#19
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Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,109 Joined: 16-October 03 From: Raleigh, NC Member No.: 5,729 |
I actually had the patience to read your whole post. 8-) Let me see if I have an opinion about some of your points...
Not bad...but that's your game...not mine. In the games I usually run, the characters are well trained (most ex-military), highly skilled, and worth a lot of money. There are always reasons/justifications for them to be running the shadows rather than working for a corp or gubmint, and those justifications fit within the framework of my campaign world. A team of 5 ex-SAS/CAG/DEVGRU operators is gonna command WAY more than $25k for an extraction. Maybe Pablo and his hommies in the barrio might be your $25k team...but like all things, you get what you pay for.
The "why" is VERY important here. Perhaps the runner was involved in some bad business and had to fake his/her death to protect family/friends. Maybe the runner was blacklisted or possibly used as the scapegoat for someone else's crimes. "I was framed..." is always popular as well. These are all reasons to go underground...and none of them required the runner to be on "the gangbanger" skill level.
I'm not sure I follow. Corps usually won't bother with giving you an identity and hiring you on perm...you are a much better investment as a deniable asset. Not to mention, you aren't likely to be SINless AND be a convicted felon. If you are a convicted felon, you will have a SIN (albeit a criminal one). If you are truly SINless, then there will be no record of any crimes you MAY have committed anywhere in the matrix that connects back to you.
Right. I agree with that part.
But a corp hiring shadow assets only really has to cope with the monetary cost. PR risk isn't an issue since the runners usually won't know who they are working for, and aren't really credible anyway if they start pointing fingers. And normally, at least in my games, corps don't fund cyberware installs...it's up the characters to do that. And on the rare occasions where a corp does cover the cost of implants, it's as compensation AFTER a run is successfully completed. That's a return BEFORE the investment.
Players generally don't think about it because they generally don't play corp-sponsored shadow teams. They play deniable assets. All the corps have to do is pay them. That's it. And that seems pretty logical to me.
A godsend to whom? Maybe to Pablo. But not to Mr. Clark who is out there risking his $3,000,000 CIA trained ass to pull off covert work for Mr. Johnson. 5 grand pays rent, utilities, and puts food on the table for a month. It doesn't cover anything else, and doesn't leave any room for shit like medical bills, replacing lost equipment, covering the money he had to drop on his contacts to be able to get the job done, covering expenses in the event there isn't any worth for the next month or so, or even leaving anything to put in his savings so he can eventually get out of this dangerous business and retire to an island in the carib league. To Mr. Clark, a $5000 job is one where some wage slave pays him to gather evidence that his wife is cheating, or where Mrs. Wage Slave needs someone to deal with the teenage punks that have been beating up her son after school. Breaking into a secure facility to steal a prototype is NOT a $5000 job. At the end of the day, your game is YOUR game. Run it like you want. But you need to be aware that the way you handle things like run payoff will seriously influence the way the players behave in your game. Like it's been said 1000 times on Dumpshock, if the characters make more money selling stolen cars than they get paid for runs, don't be surprised if they start stealing cars instead of prototypes or corp scientists. |
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Oct 31 2007, 04:22 PM
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#20
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 617 Joined: 28-May 03 From: Orlando Member No.: 4,644 |
I've got to agree with Organ legging being a no no. I have recently started GMing (giving our GM a chance to play) and I have to figure in the monthly costs of living, repair, bribes, and contact upkeep when I throw out a figure for a run. I am considering using the Rules Tweak in Aug about Healing. I have noticed that when the runners get shot/cut/hurt on the run the healing times are well broken. Using the rules tweak to include the die modifiers with damage on healing tests lets me figure in healing costs and downtime for my players. So if use 15% of the cost for hospitalization/medicine in my payouts it keeps the necessity of butchering the opposition down. Plus if reinforcements are incoming due to corporate goons Biomonitor going off, well that is also a perk.
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Oct 31 2007, 04:24 PM
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#21
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Neophyte Runner Group: Members Posts: 2,453 Joined: 17-September 04 From: St. Paul Member No.: 6,675 |
While I strive to make my games fun, I do like to take into account the real world (or as real as it gets in 2070), so I do try to discourage game-breaking pursuits, etc. In fact, I agree with much of what you have said, sometimes my players just want to be over the top... |
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Oct 31 2007, 04:40 PM
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#22
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 393 Joined: 2-July 07 Member No.: 12,125 |
@ TheOneRonin:
Jet setting games and Mr. Clark deserve fatass salaries. Also, I would peronally stat a Mr. Clark type character with a bit more than 400 bp. He can be done at 400, but I'd prefer to have more meat on his bones. Up to interpretation on that. As far as the interaction between Corps and runners, from what I was reading of your responses, we have remarkably similar views on the reasons why corps don't just hire on runners and instead use them as deniable assets. Glad to know that someone else thinks in a similar fashion. If there are RP reasons in the background of a character to justify things then they are justified. No arguments from me there. An ex-CIA/SF/DEVGRU/Spetsnaz type is going to be a stone cold MFer with a MBA in BA (Massive Bad Ass in Bad Assery). But as far as payment goes, the way that SR is setup in the fluff and by the book, it tends towards a street level game. And ¥5,000 is a lot of money. Period. Its not adequate compensation for someone with expensive tastes, a resume as tall as the Eiffel Tower or other such qualifications, but its a helluva lot of raw cash to just hand someone. I'd love 5 grand. But yeah, the game is about what you want to play. Happy gamers are the best kind of gamers. - der menkey "Certainly there is no hunting like the hunting of man and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never really care for anything else thereafter." ~ Ernest Hemingway |
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Oct 31 2007, 04:43 PM
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#23
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 393 Joined: 2-July 07 Member No.: 12,125 |
And sometimes over the top is totally awesome. SR3 played more like a Comic Book or Anime than a gritty cyberpunk game. Sometimes it is totally fun. Every once in a while you want to play a character out of a Frank Miller graphic novel - a stone cold killing machine who drops one liners like most people take a piss: with great ease and regularity. Though, the fluff and system of SR4 leans more towards a different kind of game. A more desperate one in line with the Sprawl Trilogy. A darker, nastier one where people die in nasty ways regularly and without recognition. [parrot]different strokes...[/parrot] - der menkey "Certainly there is no hunting like the hunting of man and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never really care for anything else thereafter." ~ Ernest Hemingway |
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Oct 31 2007, 05:17 PM
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#24
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 398 Joined: 16-August 06 Member No.: 9,130 |
Why not just do both. Organleg and shadowrun. I like to mix things up a little bit when I shadowrun. We just so happen to have a street doc in our group and he has all the resources, knowhow, and people necessary to rip someone up, nice and proper. He spent a lot of his BP towards this, but his character is one of the more interesting ones in our group. While on a run, we will help ourselves to as much paydata and stolen property as opportunity allows us. Organlegging, grand theft auto, magical goods manufacturing, and any other endeavor does not have to be completely divorced from shadowrunning. There is not any reason someone would not want to shadowrun just for the adventure or exhilaration. Maybe this person shadowruns because it keeps them well trained and sharpened, or they have not thought of the prospects a full-time organlegging, theft, manufacturing, etc. Maybe shadowrunning is their full-time position because it is all they have ever done and known. All that other stuff is opportunism or hobbies.
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Oct 31 2007, 05:21 PM
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#25
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Target Group: Members Posts: 76 Joined: 12-September 07 Member No.: 13,233 |
Regarding the game not meshing with the fiction, I don't think that's important. To paraphrase Stephen King, movies made from books often diverge from the storyline because books and movies are very different things. Similarly, games and books aren't going to be the same because they have different goals, such as character progression vs character development. In the game, we want our characters to battle, improve, and battle again. Let's see how that works for a book: "Then he shot some more bad guys, got some money, and bought DELTAWARE wired reflexes, freeing up some essence to get shiny new platelet factories." Ummm...this paperback sucks. I want my $5.95 back. A skillful GM can turn a game into a story, but realize that following a good story is not the only goal for your players. Of course, I think we're all idiots for telling each other how to play this game when we're just going to do whatever we want anyway. Still, I think you should play my way. |
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Lo-Fi Version | Time is now: 10th July 2025 - 04:12 AM |
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