cont'd: Infected as PC Options in SR, Vampire the Shadowing - a good idea? Options

[Grinder]

Trying to say that the PC wendigo has nothing that - as has been canon before - forces the creature to engage in ritual cannibalism. He may engage in it, but he doesn't have to. The player can just decide his character is the Drizzt among the wendigo, who doesn't corrupt others because that is not nice, and thus become a viable PC (unlike the corruptor, who is guaranteed to stir up trouble in the group as he dooms and ultimatly eats all other PC). Also, the path of the nonconformist wendigo almost demands various angsty clichés, like the creature being persecuted on false premises despite being the only of a type of creature not being a monstrous corrupting cannibal cultist; angsting about the urges he has but brushes away to blend in and how little acceptance he gets by evil mainstream society and other, similar problems (not a 'must', either, though).

If the RC rules were designed with keeping canon in mind instead of streamlining by retconning, as they seem to me, there would at least be a compulsion (must form cannibal cult) flaw associated with the wendigo 'edge'.

Ah, I see. As I wrote earlier: you want (need?) hard rules for that. MMV, as I think that such matters can be solved between GM and player, but I see where you're coming from.

[hermit]

Ah, I see. As I wrote earlier: you want (need?) hard rules for that. MMV, as I think that such matters can be solved between GM and player, but I see where you're coming from.

Let's say I learned hard rules on such matters are a boon. Maybe it's me being cranky and paranoid, could well be, but I know a number of players where a good thwacking with hard rules every once in a while is nescessary to cut down endless 'but nowhere is written this is forbidden!' type discussions.

So yes, it's at least half need. But full want, if you will. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[Grinder]

Fair enough - and it explains a lot about your postings and point of view. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Semerkhet]

Ah, I see. As I wrote earlier: you want (need?) hard rules for that. MMV, as I think that such matters can be solved between GM and player, but I see where you're coming from.

As much as I generally agree with Hermit's stance that PC Infected are "bad" I also stand by Grinder's point that what this issue mostly boils down to is communication and the social contract in use(or not) at the table. The authors and developers have more important uses for their under-paid time than trying to word the rules to stymie every conceivable munchkin with a disruptive character concept.

[hermit]

Fair enough - and it explains a lot about your postings and point of view. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Yeah. I may be a bit unfair there, but my experience is that you before long need such rules.

Besides, I still do not think Shadowrun is the right system for an in-depth roleplay about the dehumanisation (or keeping your humanity) as a vampire. VtM or CP2020, who both have a humanity attribute, are far better suited for this. Shadowrun, where essence refers to ED patterns and holistic body integrity and says zip about your humanity, just lacks any gauge for this.

And I firmly believe not everything is better with vampires (or elves, cthulhu, or lasers, for that matter).

The authors and developers have more important uses for their under-paid time than trying to word the rules to stymie every conceivable munchkin with a disruptive character concept.

Sure, but to keep retcons to a minimum and to avoid the more glaring problems isn't that much to expect, is it?

[Sengir]

(meaning why if one wants to play a wendigo it basically has to be dumbed down non cannibal hairy ghoul type wendigo that misses the central idea of being a wendigo) mean

1.) Scroll up to the top
2.) Hit search
3.) Enter "infected" as keyword and "hermit" as name

...

[hermit]

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/ohplease.gif)

Provide a quote or don't claim there is one.

[Patrick Goodman]

"Gore" + "porn" = "gorn."

Ah. We Trekkies were there first. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) Personally, I prefer "torture porn" or "guro," now that I know what we're talking about.

[hermit]

Ah. We Trekkies were there first. smile.gif Personally, I prefer "torture porn" or "guro," now that I know what we're talking about.

The creature Kirk blasts with his makeshift bamboo tube, charcoal and sulfur powder bazooka? Digging up half forgotten childhood memories ... been a long, long time since I watches TOS.

Torture porn or guro. Will keep this in mind.

[Sengir]

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/ohplease.gif)

Provide a quote or don't claim there is one.

Vampires only result in
angsty gothy crybaby chars or food for the gorn trolls
(because there is no other way to play Infected). Even worse,
you can easily build Twilight vampires
(and the "mundane" twilight cast, too.) The consequence is clear:
The rules are crap
because playing Infected comes down to
comes down to emoness, gorn and nothing else

And that was just one thread...

[Rasumichin]

That is not the impression I have, though it would indeed make sense (until you'd have to come up with a way to feed the Ghouls, that is). Granted, there're Ghoul Caps, but whether they actually work or not is debatable (and it would be a bit cheap of a cop-out again IMO).

Ghoul caps that allow anything besides painlessly starving to death seem to be an urban myth. I don't expect anything official in that direction.

My impression is, however, they're going for Integration. And that makes no sense whatsoever. Same with the other Type 2 and 3 Infected, and doubly so with those who need to consume the souls of intelligent beings to sustain themselves - vampires, wendigos, banshees, dzoonooqua, and goblins.

The UCAS find it hard to let go of bounties. The biggest ghoul community in the country is located in an urban wasteland where central authority has collapsed almost completely. Cabrini Green was described as a total hellhole back in the day. Infected rights are always described as a hotly contested topic.
In contrast to this, we do not have a single description of mainstream culture fully accepting the infected.
We have to piece the picture together ourselves, but all hints point towards the leper colony version.
A more humane way to contain the plague than to shoot on sight, nothing more.

Even if you could force everybody to turn over their corpses to ghoul feeding and all medical waste too, it'd not be enough.

Which is why Feral Cities describes that the moderates among the ghoul community, those who only feed on willing donors, are universally close to starvation.

It's the same as with bugs, really. Bugs are clearly sapient creatures too. Bugs also used to be human. Busting bugs is just the same as busting Ghouls - taking out an awakened threat.

Bugs are about as human as a xenomorph. They are an entirely alien, incomprehensible threat solely intent on overtaking the material plane.
All that remains of the host is merely there to impersonate a human being or to add a set of skills to the hive.
We could as well discuss tyranid rights.
From the beginning, ghouls have been eager to help in the fight against the bugs (and got nothing but FABIII in return, thanks a lot Ares aka Weyland Yutani).
So it doesn't rely belong here to compare the two.

BTW, regarding the whole wendigo issue :
older editions never provided more exact rules for them than SR4.
It has always boiled down to "they prefer to eat their cult members, but there's nothing that says they have to, and the only rule we give for this is the Influence power."
Here's the text from the SR4 BBB :

Wendigos feed on the flesh of humans and metahumans,
from which they also derive psychic sustenance. Typically
they induce victims to participate in a cannibalistic feast. This creates an apparent psychological
dependence in the
victim, who then helps the
wendigo in spreading its
habit, thus creating a secret
society of cannibals. The
members of the groups are
unaware that they ultimately
will become meals for the wendigo, which seems to prefer
the Essence of such corrupted spirits.

Exactly what we had in older editions and there's nothing in RC or RW that contradicts this, so it's still valid.

[hermit]

Exactly what we had in older editions and there's nothing in RC or RW that contradicts this, so it's still valid.

Yes. It is sufficient for NPC. For PC, hard rules are needed.

Bugs are about as human as a xenomorph. They are an entirely alien, incomprehensible threat solely intent on overtaking the material plane. All that remains of the host is merely there to impersonate a human being or to add a set of skills to the hive. We could as well discuss tyranid rights.

Point being: it is the same with the Infected, at least the Vampiric infected who have died during infection. Whatever they are, it isn't (meta)human anymore. Ghouls and their ilk are perhaps different, as Patrick's proposal discussed, because their infection does not involve death.

Ghouls and other Type 2/3 may be eligible for leper colonies (though that would really be more gulags to starve them to death than anything else). Vampires and their ilk are more well served with the bug and shedim treatment, because in essence, they are the same thing - a foreign, parasitic lifeform taking over a formerly human body.

From the beginning, ghouls have been eager to help in the fight against the bugs

I hear the Necrons are opposed to Tyranids eating their favourite hosts. Does that make the Necros a plausible ally? Ghoultown in Chicago wasn't interested in non-Ghouls any further than eating them, according to Bug City.

[Sengir]

Point being: it is the same with the Infected, at least the Vampiric infected who have died during infection.

And you are accusing the devs of adopting too many pop culture elements regarding the Infected? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

HMHVV I victims are NOT undead, and neither has their body been taken over by another hostile intelligence as it would be the case with bugs.

[Dread Moores]

Yes. It is sufficient for NPC. For PC, hard rules are needed.

Clearly not for everybody's PCs. I get that you feel they are needed, but I'd feel otherwise. That's not a hard rule that's needed there to handle what you want in play. It simply needs a GM who's willing to be clear to his players about how he wants particular aspects of the world handled. The players either accept that, or don't play that type of character. I'm not sure what more in the way of ruling would be needed.

[Grinder]

As much as I generally agree with Hermit's stance that PC Infected are "bad" I also stand by Grinder's point that what this issue mostly boils down to is communication and the social contract in use(or not) at the table. The authors and developers have more important uses for their under-paid time than trying to word the rules to stymie every conceivable munchkin with a disruptive character concept.

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[hermit]

Clearly not for everybody's PCs. I get that you feel they are needed, but I'd feel otherwise. That's not a hard rule that's needed there to handle what you want in play. It simply needs a GM who's willing to be clear to his players about how he wants particular aspects of the world handled. The players either accept that, or don't play that type of character. I'm not sure what more in the way of ruling would be needed.

You clearly are more fortunate with your players than I am. Hard Rules are about the only thing to end an hour long 'but nowhere is written it is FORBIDDEN!' discussion. Might well be a cultural issue, though. Americans are far more willing to accept a ruling than Germans, who tend towqards consensus through incredibly long-wound discussion. Not exactly a fun way to pass an afternoon.

[Grinder]

Seems like I'm gaming with Americans only. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

[Semerkhet]

You clearly are more fortunate with your players than I am. Hard Rules are about the only thing to end an hour long 'but nowhere is written it is FORBIDDEN!' discussion. Might well be a cultural issue, though. Americans are far more willing to accept a ruling than Germans, who tend towqards consensus through incredibly long-wound discussion. Not exactly a fun way to pass an afternoon.

It's not just Germans. Back in the early 90s playing SR1/SR2 we got into endless discussions of this nature. Eventually we matured out of that tendency and painstakingly constructed a social contract that works for us. Now I have the luxury of gaming with a group of people in their mid-30s, with whom I've gamed for twenty years. It's important to note that we still have disagreements about rules, but we accept a GM ruling on the spot and argue about it later if we feel that strongly about it.

I can sympathize that you are stuck with a group like this and I can only urge you to point out to your fellow gamers that you're having these arguments instead of playing the game and probably having less fun because of it.

[Rasumichin]

Yes. It is sufficient for NPC. For PC, hard rules are needed.

Like Addiction (Cult Member Meat)?
RC suggests addictions like this for the infected.
But that's up to the player to decide, as the infection's impact on the victim's mental condition varies from case to case.

I would have appreciated some more precise information towards how widespread such changes are.
Or even a resistance test as back in SR3, to determine individually how well the victim handles the transition.

But it's pretty obvious that no infection entails an automatic and predetermined change in behavior.

[hermit]

Like Addiction (Cult Member Meat)?
RC suggests addictions like this for the infected.
But that's up to the player to decide, as the infection's impact on the victim's mental condition varies from case to case.

I would have appreciated some more precise information towards how widespread such changes are.
Or even a resistance test as back in SR3, to determine individually how well the victim handles the transition.

But it's pretty obvious that no infection entails an automatic and predetermined change in behavior.

I would think a Compulsion to drive others into cannibalism would work better (and maybe coupled with eventually eating them). But an Addiction might work too.

Yes, more precise ruling or information on how often the Infection results in Psychosis would have been a good idea.

As for the last, a sudden cannibalistic nature and murdering people for food DOES constitute a massive behavioral change in my book, even if this apparently doesn't need to have any influence on the Infected's psyche for sparkles.

I can sympathize that you are stuck with a group like this and I can only urge you to point out to your fellow gamers that you're having these arguments instead of playing the game and probably having less fun because of it.

Well, yeah ... maybe. Still, hard rules never hurt anyone.

I'm of amind to drop that group anyway. Discussing in great length not only THAT SR3 errata limit the skillsoft expert system to level 3 but also why we do not WANT that is really tiring.

[Muspellsheimr]

Well, yeah ... maybe. Still, hard rules never hurt anyone.

When determining a character's capabilities, yes, hard rules are needed. When determining how to play the character, fixed hard rules are the single worst possibility. Hard rules for addiction are good. Forcing an addiction to Hot Sim on the hacker is not. That is precisely what you are trying to do with the Wendigo - as far as I can tell, it has never at any point been that they must promote cannibalism, or that they must eat cannibalistic meat. It has always been that they prefer that, and I would guess that is not universal. I know more than a few people who would prefer to eat something, but cannot due to allergies, diabetes, & even personal choice.

[Rasumichin]

As for the last, a sudden cannibalistic nature and murdering people for food DOES constitute a massive behavioral change in my book, even if this apparently doesn't need to have any influence on the Infected's psyche for sparkles.

Well yes, that is a massive change. If the victim's psyche remains mostly unaffected, he will not want to eat others. He simply has to, or he'll starve.
When he goes out and murders people, instead of becoming a scavenger, he's also clearly lost it.
There's infected who do not act this way. I'd also say that among them, there's quite a few who just kill themselves after infection (though less than one would expect, self preservation is a pretty strong instinct).

We can't tell how many emerge from the transformation without becomming feral, or how many who remain able to reason still develop strong predatory instincts, sadist tendencies or the schizoid nature commonly asociated with nosferatu.
There's simply no reliable sources that outright tell us the cold, hard facts. Especially not in SR4.

BTW, actual psychosis in the medical sense seems to be rare, at least i cannot recall any sources for infected suffering hallucinations, delusions and similar typical psychotic symptoms in SR material.
Persecutory ideation seems to be common among nosferatu, as well as the aloof, antisocial behavior exhibited by many schizophrenics.
But at the same time, they appear to be able to act rationally and assess situations correctly (in fact, more so than before the transformation- just look at their mental stats) in a manner that does not fit psychotic symptoms.
RC also labels them as schizoid, not schizophrenic.
Big difference, actually.

[Patrick Goodman]

We can't tell how many emerge from the transformation without becomming feral, or how many who remain able to reason still develop strong predatory instincts, sadist tendencies or the schizoid nature commonly asociated with nosferatu.
There's simply no reliable sources that outright tell us the cold, hard facts. Especially not in SR4.

Some of the fiction to the contrary, I see it as actually fairly rare that many of the classically non-sentient Infected, like the dzoo-noo-qua or the goblin, survive the transformation process without going feral. I haven't really sat down and run hard numbers for the Infected, but my guess at the moment (and I reserve the right to change my mind later if my math doesn't support it) is that, if you met 500 goblins, probably 499 of them would be feral death machines intent on making your lifespan considerable shorter than it might have been otherwise. The other one would be a death machine that could have a reasonable conversation with you while it was shortening your lifespan.

Either way, it's not good for you to be in the company of 500 goblins.

It's not all that common for Infected ghouls to be non-feral, either, though it is increasing. Now, bred ghouls...that's a different story altogether. One I'll address some other time.

[hermit]

Well yes, that is a massive change. If the victim's psyche remains mostly unaffected, he will not want to eat others. He simply has to, or he'll starve.
When he goes out and murders people, instead of becoming a scavenger, he's also clearly lost it.
There's infected who do not act this way. I'd also say that among them, there's quite a few who just kill themselves after infection (though less than one would expect, self preservation is a pretty strong instinct).

Or starve themselves to the point of food rage, wake up in the midst of a torn body, and run away screaming and starve themselves again. Yeah. I think Patrick Goodman's entry in RC mentioned such behavior, too. However, someone who becomes a hunter - as the common cliche'd child of the night is - is showing a massive change of behavior towards the antisocial.

We can't tell how many emerge from the transformation without becomming feral, or how many who remain able to reason still develop strong predatory instincts, sadist tendencies or the schizoid nature commonly asociated with nosferatu.

I suppose not very many Infected end up like this; we could use the Ghoul transformation rules as a rough guideline for how many do not make it.

BTW, actual psychosis in the medical sense seems to be rare, at least i cannot recall any sources for infected suffering hallucinations, delusions and similar typical psychotic symptoms in SR material.
Persecutory ideation seems to be common among nosferatu, as well as the aloof, antisocial behavior exhibited by many schizophrenics.
But at the same time, they appear to be able to act rationally and assess situations correctly (in fact, more so than before the transformation- just look at their mental stats) in a manner that does not fit psychotic symptoms.
RC also labels them as schizoid, not schizophrenic.

Nosferatu are, from the behavior they show, all antisocial in high degrees, often with sadist and paranoid tendencies - Bruckner-Langer seems to change them like this, explaining their high mental stats and debased behavior. To a maybe slightly lesser degree, Vampires are, too, with some who degenerate into pure hunting machines because it's easier not to think at all.

It would be interesting to know whether HMHVV does indeed cause neural changes that hardwires the Type 1 and B/L infected towards a more antisocial and/or schizoid mind.

[Patrick Goodman]

It would be interesting to know whether HMHVV does indeed cause neural changes that hardwires the Type 1 and B/L infected towards a more antisocial and/or schizoid mind.

That's long been my belief, but I haven't had the opportunity to really explore it yet.