Ultimate Grossmanian warrior as fleshed out PC, let's piss off storygamers again Options Track this topic Email this topic Print this topic Download this topic Subscribe to this forum Display Modes Switch to: Outline Standard Switch to: Linear+

[Wounded Ronin]

So, the classic shtick when we're talking about RPGs including Shadowrun is how there's a primal and eternal conflict between the "storygamers" and the "munchkins" which may never be reconciled. Part of this paradigm includes the fundamental idea that "storygamers" spend all their time talking about their character backgrounds and writing 10 page backstories only they care about whereas "munchkins" all invariably role play the T800 and spend all their time writing 10 page long character sheets where nobody but themselves actually knows all the rules referenced by that character.

Clearly, we have a philosophical imperative to create an ultimate munchkin character AS A FLESHED OUT PC. Thus we can have munchkin in stats, munchkin in tediously fleshed out 10 page backstory, and thus make non-munchkins cry by kicking them in the philosophical jimmy.

Today, no joke, I felt a little bit sick, so I went to a Borders bookstore, sat down with a cup of coffee, and I actually red Grossman's "On Killing" in its entirety in one sitting in a couple of hours. I realize that Grossman has been criticized for an un-scientific method of data collection but I'm not actually writing this post to critique or exonerate Grossman. The point was rather that a person could use Grossmanian ideas about psychology, calling briefly on Freudian concepts (which always make for good storytelling) and write up a character which psychologically would be the ultimate fictional killer.

There are many better men here on Dumpshock who will always write a better statistical character than I. But just in terms of the wishy washy background crap, I've thrown together the following outline you can use to justify your super munchkin terminator in storygaming terms and resume your honest roll-playing.

1.) The character must not have recieved "proper" social conditioning regarding the restraint of lethal behavior in any way, shape, or form. Therefore, the character should have been a small child growing up in a brutal African civil war at the height of its bloodthirsty atrocities and inducted as a child soldier.

2.) The character must have continued the lifestyle of the child soldier, complete with intense quantities of combat experience, successfully for years. According to Grossman, US soldiers in WWII started to come apart mentally after more than 2 months of constant combat without breaks. So we have to frame this character in the sense of being normalized to precisely these sorts of long spells of killing, death, and stress. The concept is that rather than having been forced to shift mental gears and endure stress, the gears never had to be shifted in the first place. As Hyzmarca has pointed out these child soldiers probably have seen more combat than just about anyone on the planet.

3.) Perhaps the character should be female? There's be no questions of pride, ego, or biological behaviors associated with violent conflict (fight, flight, submission, posture, all from Grossman). It'd just be pure, clean reality of violence without social filters or biological pre-programming towards non-lethal outcomes. No surrender, no expectation of mercy, no attempt to mitigate the horror. Zero to surreal nightmare machine in 1 second flat.

4.) The character needs to have a reason to have left or been able to leave the conflict which spawned him/her, and appear in the setting of the game campaign. Perhaps the character, living in a world of completely normalized violence and terror, just doesn't think much of risking life and limb on a whim just to walk somewhere else and see something different leaving a trail of bodies behind if necessary. Perhaps the character is just being very calculating and ends up seeking out places where violence is safer to commit in the long run and has bigger payoffs.

5.) Very importantly, I think the character must be a perfect strategist and tactician. It's one thing that can be used in terms of story or character development to explain why this particular character survived as long as he or she did. You can also argue that an almost superhuman detachment from normal emotions in combat situations has allowed for a nearly contemplative perfect distillation of essential strategies.

[Critias]

It's worth pointing out that, in the Shadowrun setting, African child soldiers are hardly the only young people thrust into violence that never stops. You could easily do the same thing with someone brought up as a second or third generation member of any Barrens gang.

[Ryu]

Yep. We might change to the Yucatan conflict. We have perfect loyality to the own group with hardly any care for everyone else. He was captured of course, and avoided the blood mage faction only to be put into an Universal Omnitech experimental bioware-lab.

[FrankTrollman]

Is the goal to have people make a legal starting character or a progressed character?

In any case, I do think Africa is the best place, because it can go cleanly from the reckage of Zimbabwe to the Universal Omnitech enhancement lab and then back to the wilds without ever leaving a fairly tight cultural area. You can also have her leave fairly easily after joining with the pirates.

You may also want to give her a deep seated fear of leadership positions after seeing her family executed RUF style and then outliving all her commanders in all the fighting. This way you can help justify her Intelligence of 10 and her Charisma of 1.

-Frank

[Kyoto Kid]

...hmmm, the original Leela (#89) almost fits most of the criteria

For one she was orphaned at 8 when her family was killed during the Serbian Invasion of Croatia. She was taken in by the Resistance with whom she spent a good part of her preteen - teenage years.

Leela had no qualms over handing a Serbian soldier a grenade she had rigged with a micro radio detonator while innocently saying she found it while playing, only to set it off after he went into whatever facility he was guarding. She often shot first & asked questions later and her weapon of choice was an FN AAL Gyrojet she took off the body of a dead British mercenary. Her leaving was not of her own accord, having been pulled out of a mission gone bad by a UCAS merc group who took her to the UCAS. (as a PC she never really learned the reason why they saved her). While in Seattle living with the niece of the merc group's leader, she looked at the shadows as being a just a different type of resistance movement and often drew parallels between the SINless vs. Corp struggle to what was happening back home.

The only condition she doesn't really meet is the strategist/tactician unless her demolitions skill, related knowledge, and ability to pull off the "innocent little girl" act would suffice.

She was a dead shot with the Gyrojet, an expert demolitionist (including related Knowledge skills), and a very resourceful individual for someone her age. To the Serbians she was a mysterious and elusive figure known only as as the "Queen of Diamonds" which was the code name the SSID assigned to her.

Leela also struggled with flashbacks relating to the invasion and a performance block that kept her from playing piano with an audience present (the attack came during a family celebration at an outdoor café following a phenomenal piano recital that she performed).

Even after her retirement from the shadows (and as PC) Leela has no regrets for her actions while with the Resistance.

As to backstory, 10 pages is the "Reader's Digest" condensed version.

[Lindt]

KK, we have heard of the epics you write.

The namesake is the closest thing I have to the above nut case. Mostly do to poor impulse control, and a rather twisted sense of humor.

[Kyoto Kid]

...yeah, the Short One (#90) is pretty unique. A Dain Bramaged 4'10" kid running around with two nasty ass revolvers and a Katana, I'd definitely give her a wide berth.

Now Leela (#91) on the other hand is a product of her environment and when discussing the child soldier, I think she comes even closer to the model put forth in the OP. While KK is also a product of the environment she grew up in, her outlook and attitude is based more on the treatment she received living in the TT rather than being forced to take up a violent lifestyle just to survive.

[Enigma]

On a slightly similar vein, having watched Dexter avidly I wanted to see what the group thought about the following.

Sociopaths (now more correctly known as those with Antisocial Personality Disorder), in the simplest terms, think of people as objects and cannot either connect emotionally with people nor have strong connections with particular emotions within themselves.

Ignoring the whole chicken and the egg debate about adept powers, I am creating a character at the moment who is a sociopath face. The reason this is not quite as insane as it sounds is I am giving this character the adept power Empathic Sense.

My reasoning is this. The character has a background of being a sociopath, disconnected from emotional connections with others from a young age and so on. In his early teens he expresses magically, and learns/gains the adept power of Empathic Sense. Now he can disguise his sociopathy because whilst he does not himself feel emotions, he can detect and assess the emotions of others. This combined with acting talent means that he becomes highly adept at understanding the emotions of others and is able to fake normal emotional responses with great skill because he has experienced them from others through his adept power.

Given the focus and drive which is often part of a sociopath's psyche he develops this ability to mimic or act emotions he does not himself feel, and the huge advantage of being able to sense and coldly assess the emotions of others, he develops significant skill as a face. The background includes intelligence training which recognises this unique skill and ability set and enhances it.

Any thoughts on how outlandish this idea is?

[Wounded Ronin]

[mfb]

the evidence i've encountered suggests that no, you don't necessarily need to be able to empathize in order to manipulate the emotions of others. my understanding is that guys like Dahmer can be fairly good at eliciting from others a desired emotional response--getting their victims to like and trust them, for instance. not to say that everyone with antisocial tendencies has the ability to fake a connection with others like that, but it's not at all outside the realm of possibility.

[Kagetenshi]

I'm going to concur—we're wired to pick up cues from other people, and that wiring is independent from the wiring that makes us give out cues (and the wiring that makes us feel things). Consider, for example, the opposite issue—the reduced (sometimes drastically so) ability to interpret emotional cues that can come with disorders in the Autism spectrum, while no reason exists to believe that individuals with such reduced ability have reduced range of emotion themselves.

To put it another way, for most of my life I didn't know how a calculator worked, and even now I certainly don't operate like one, but I could press buttons to get specified numbers just fine.

~J

[Synner667]

[Synner667]

[ElFenrir]

Hmmm....gears are turning, here. Ok, im not too busy, well, save for a couple videogames and usual work stuff.

Ive skimmed this thread; i have an idea here. Ill re-read all of the points thoroughly first, and then, i think by Saturday before i leave for Stockholm for a weekend getaway, i might just have a character ready. :grinbig:

i'll try, anyway.

[Critias]

[Synner667]

Yes, you're quite right..
..And those stories do highlight, to some degree, the levels of poverty and lack of facilities such people have - food, shelter, availability of items.

However, gangers with guns are hardly deprived or poor as they actually have food, clothes, ammunition and shelter..
..They are, in some ways, the poor person's family - the next level up from being very poor and deprivedd.

[Kagetenshi]

[Critias]

[ElFenrir]

Ok, i re-read the thing, and while i had a concept, it had more to do with a hired killer than a soldier, and a male rather than female(since i already had this basic concept from before,minus the child training part, im just going to twink it out.) However, in this updated version, he was starting his training as a child, so maybe it counts.

I'll still post it when im finished up, though, if anyone is interested.

[hyzmarca]

Well, right. I'd say that most African child soldiers have food, clothes, ammunition, guns, shelter, and a fucked-up surrogate family, too. That's what I'm, y'know, saying here.

The messed-in-the-head-horribly-violent backstory of a real-life 20th century African child soldier is certainly valid for being this sort of "Grossmanian warrior," but I'm just pointing out that in the 2050's, 60's, 70's, and whatever, there are other backgrounds that can be just as blood-soaked, violent, and depraved from an early age. It's not just an Africa thing, in The Sixth World. You can (and will) have characters who are drenched in blood and raised to believe that's perfectly okay, who are fighting and killing for survival on a near-daily basis, and all the rest of that, lots of places (and some of them even right in the middle of Seattle).

I'm not shooting down the African child soldier theory. I'm just pointing out it's, in the grim, bloody-fisted, setting as presented to us, hardly the only option.

The difference between the African Child Soldier and the Barrens Child Ganger is really one of mission and purpose. The barrens child gang is more Lord of the Flies. It is self-organizing and ultimately focused on individual survival and prosperity. Multi-generation gangs become more like street tribes or street families, with the older members taking a real parental role. Thus, while violence is certainly present, the young members of such groups are socialized normally, loved and cared for.

With the African Child Soldier the child is taken away from family life and thrown into a semi-rigid military hierarchy. They are generally the lowest grunts, disposable fodder for the war. They don't have any sort of parenting and their life is based entirely around accomplishing missions and winning battles, no matter what the cost.

[Kagetenshi]

Why, though? I mean, you've read the books, semi-rigid military hierarchies exist in the Barrens. The scale tends to be small enough that you don't get the same level of disposability, but otherwise…

~J

[hyzmarca]

Why, though? I mean, you've read the books, semi-rigid military hierarchies exist in the Barrens. The scale tends to be small enough that you don't get the same level of disposability, but otherwise…

~J

The big issue is that a second generation barrens ganger is likely to have a real parent and a real extended family who would be motivated to at least try to raise the kid right, even if their only concept of parenting comes from a trideo show. Ubiquitous matrix access makes this even more likely. At the very least, they'll have some idea of what parents are supposed to do. This also means that they'll protect the kids from violence as best as they can, rather than sending them out to be slaughtered. Most importantly, the parent-child bond encourages the development of empathy, which also encourages an aversion to killing. While they may be taught violence and may experience violence, it is less likely that they'll become desensitized to it compared to the child who has been forcibly separated from all parental figures.

[mfb]

i'd agree that most Barrens kids aren't going to end up anything like child soldiers. but i think the potential is there for some of them to end up that way. their parents' gang gets wiped out when they're only a year old or so; they get raised by the gang's kids, who are struggling to survive and get revenge. survival and fighting are all they have time for, so that's all they teach the kid. there are plenty of chances for the process to get derailed, sure, and have the kid end up relatively normal. but there's also a solid chance that the kid will spend enough time in what is effectively a low-intensity warzone that s/he ends up with the kind of mindset that's being discussed.

[Method]

On the subject of sociopathic / antisocial behavior-

I worked for years in behavioral health with all kinds of messed up kids. I'm talking teen sex offenders and kids that watched their parents kill each other and shit. Usually at an early age they are diagnosed with "reactive attachment disorder", which is a profound impairment of their ability to form normal human relationships, a fundamental component of empathy. It should be noted that having parents doesn't save you from this if they are crappy parents- having parents that are abusive or act violently can be just as bad as having no parents.

Also, I always found it interesting to work with the real sociopathic / antisocial kids, especially sex offenders. The predatory psychology of a sex offender is very interesting, and it is very much about faking empathy so that people like you. In the mind of such a person trust is a power game and their goal is very often to build trust by faking empathy until they can offend without people suspecting them. Most of the time this has nothing to do with sex. It also has a component of narcism because you spend so much time trying to be everything to everybody that you start to define your identity by what people think of you. Its all very complicated.

Point being, yes, some people that lack empathy can understand and fake it very well to manipulate others.

And having parental figures doesn't necessarily enable healthy attachment and empathic development.

[edit]: Reactive Attachment Disorder
Narcisistic Personality Disorder

[djinni]

Point being, yes, some people that lack empathy can understand and fake it very well to manipulate others.

And having parental figures doesn't necessarily enable healthy attachment and empathic development.

without getting into a lengthy discusion, they have empathy, they can empathize, they just don't beyond what it gets them. they get ar eward for acting that way so they continue to perfect it until they are scary.