Blood Mages and playing them Options

[kzt]

If I was playing that blood magician, I'd take my GM aside and ask if I could keep roleplaying the character as he' at the Draco Federation. Then I'd keep up taking table time and leaving them without a magician on their team.

GMs who want a game to fall apart can try that. What do they get out of it? And it's one less magician, as we found over time more people playing mages and less playing cybersams.

[hyzmarca]

A smart GM just gives the Blood Mage a Day Job. Remember, because it's a negative quality you can't be fired unless you pay karma to buy it off, but they might jsut send a retrieval team after you if you're late.

[HappyDaze]

Remember, because it's a negative quality you can't be fired unless you pay karma to buy it off

Sure you can be fired or just given indefintie unpaid leave. You can even then owe money back for those uniforms you've ruined or whatever. Just covert the BP to another negative quality. Making it as though you can't be fired and the income won't go away is absurd.

[hyzmarca]

I take the term wage-slave literally. If you don't report in for work they're going to send a SWAT team after you, capturing you alive if possible but dead is alright, and then sending you to a Contract Court which is a mere formality before subjecting you to some rather horrific punishment and forcing you to perform your job duties while being quartered in the dankest of dungeons under the watchful eye of a young adult dragon who couldn't get any better job than security guard and a cyberzombie with more guns than hands.

And that' just if you're a burger flipper. You don't want to know what they do to the people with important jobs when they skip work.

[HappyDaze]

Sounds more like Paranoia than any game of SR I've ever played (or run), but to each their own.

[Sir_Psycho]

GMs who want a game to fall apart can try that. What do they get out of it? And it's one less magician, as we found over time more people playing mages and less playing cybersams.

I was being facetious, commenting that it doesn't seem right for the other players to force the mage to do up a new character sheet, especially if they're enjoying role-playing a blood magician, as long as the magician isn't ruining everyone else's fun.

There's a lot of runner types that could be valuable to some-one. Some characters have HMHVV, some play drakes, some play free spirits or AI. Many runners have a particular corp they pissed off who would pay a bounty for their capture. But it's valid for a team to sell of the blood magician?

[Starmage21]

I was being facetious, commenting that it doesn't seem right for the other players to force the mage to do up a new character sheet, especially if they're enjoying role-playing a blood magician, as long as the magician isn't ruining everyone else's fun.

There's a lot of runner types that could be valuable to some-one. Some characters have HMHVV, some play drakes, some play free spirits or AI. Many runners have a particular corp they pissed off who would pay a bounty for their capture. But it's valid for a team to sell of the blood magician?

There are a lot of dickhead people who will actually try this crap, and then try to justify it as "playing his character". I always call bullshit on those peeps. Honestly, I dont let it fly when elected as GM. I tell them it aint happenin and if they want it to make sense they need to make a change to their character's personality to rationalize that.

[GreyBrother]

Well... yeah, it's dickery if they just kill the character off because the players don't like the concept.

The other side is something i experienced in a Werewolf the Apocalypse game some years ago. A new player joined and wanted to play a vampire instead of a werewolf (Not advisable). Yeah, we could've gone all "soft and cuddly" on it and ignore a centurylong War against the corruption of earth and the heralds of said corruption and let it do. So what?
Problem was that my character "suffered" from the Flaw of hatred against vampires, which the GM knew and i even pointed it out to him. Ruleswise there was a chance my character would fly into Berserkerrage and try to kill the bastard. And there wasn't any way you could rationalize it. It would've been perfectly in character to say "no roll needed, he throats the leech". My GM played the Flaw down.

I'd say, if nobody in the group actually has something against bloodmages and their only reason to sell him out would be "Yeah well... he is evil." then talk to the players about it... if they actually find out one day. How i read it, the character would actually look for "redemption" on his own. If he realizes that, give him another metamagic technique to compensate and explain it fluffy.

[Starmage21]

Well... yeah, it's dickery if they just kill the character off because the players don't like the concept.

The other side is something i experienced in a Werewolf the Apocalypse game some years ago. A new player joined and wanted to play a vampire instead of a werewolf (Not advisable). Yeah, we could've gone all "soft and cuddly" on it and ignore a centurylong War against the corruption of earth and the heralds of said corruption and let it do. So what?
Problem was that my character "suffered" from the Flaw of hatred against vampires, which the GM knew and i even pointed it out to him. Ruleswise there was a chance my character would fly into Berserkerrage and try to kill the bastard. And there wasn't any way you could rationalize it. It would've been perfectly in character to say "no roll needed, he throats the leech". My GM played the Flaw down.

I'd say, if nobody in the group actually has something against bloodmages and their only reason to sell him out would be "Yeah well... he is evil." then talk to the players about it... if they actually find out one day. How i read it, the character would actually look for "redemption" on his own. If he realizes that, give him another metamagic technique to compensate and explain it fluffy.

Actually, in Werewolf there is a high-cost merit that grants the character an NPC vampire ally. Yeah vamps stink of the Wyrm, so theres a natural Garou dislike of them, but all that adds up to a mere stereotype. It exists for a reason yes, but that doesnt mean that they cant get along, even in the long-term.
In your case though, you had a flaw that precludes you actually growing to like said character. That doesnt mean you kill him the first time you get the chance. Comic books are filled with Hero-Villain team-ups and even Hero-Hero and Villain-Villain team ups that feature characters that hate each other with a passion, and somehow a task that is central to both gets completed through teamwork, and it's almost always a very interesting read.
Just because of your example, you fit perfectly in with those others accused of dickery, simply because you absolutely refused to consider another option that might have allowed another player to play the character he wanted to play.

This same situation exists for shadowrunners and blood-mages.

[Kanada Ten]

So one player making another player change his character is dickery, unless it's the other player?

Double standard much?

[Starmage21]

So one player making another player change his character is dickery, unless it's the other player?

Double standard much?

No, I'm just saying that they have equal right to be there, and so something has to give.

[Kanada Ten]

No, I'm just saying that they have equal right to be there, and so something has to give.

And so which one's the dickhead for not wanting to change their character concept?

[Starmage21]

And so which one's the dickhead for not wanting to change their character concept?

The one who has to make the smallest change for the sake of the group and refuses to. Who that is, exactly, is usually pretty evident. Especially when the amount of change required doesnt affect the overall whole much, versus the guy who now has present an entirely new concept to the GM.

[Kanada Ten]

LOL. Actually the answer is the GM for allowing the player to create a character that doesn't mesh with the rest of the group. Good guess though.

[GreyBrother]

I rest my case.