Bizarre Player Questions, When players take your breath away... Options

[Runner Smurf]

I love GMing Shadowrun games. Putting out a problem for the players to solve, and watching them as they come up with a plan (good or bad) is one of the most enjoyable things about the game, as far as I'm concerned. Most of the time, I have absolutely no idea what the team is going to come up with - those times when I think I know what they will do is generally when I'm about to be most surprised.

And what always surprises me are the questions that the players come up with in the course of coming up with a plan. Just this last session, there was a real gem:

• "How many crows are there in Seattle?"

Other questions that have come up over the years:

• "How many gallons per hour flow through the Puyallup River?"
• "Is all of her art evil?"
• "How many music tracks can I fit on my deck?" [For you pre-4th edition folks...]
• "Can I jump into the airplane after it's taken off?"
• "How many road repair crews are working each night in Seattle?"
• "How many Mexicans are there in Texas?"
• "Can we call the cops now?"

Mind you - and this is the disturbing part - these were all entirely valid questions, that the team needed the answers for in order to plan a run.

Anybody else have similar experiences?

[Tyro]

Why did they need to know each of these? I'm curious.

[Abstruse]

One of my fellow players came up with "How big is the action figure?" in last week's session.

[Lugburz]

"Are there any Chechen bars in this city?"


And they didn't even bother to ask me if they could load their submachine-guns with AV rounds, heh. (Couldn't see why not, but why would you bother? I thought that's what assault cannons were for.)

[Runner Smurf]

Short answers:

• Crows - they needed to know if having a crow fly over the target site would be unusual.
• Puyallup River - I think they were planning on putting a chemical in the river to cover their tracks and needed to know how much they needed.
• Evil Art - Well, they found this statue that a shadow spirit was living in, and started asking questions about the artist.
• Music - One of the PCs was a DJ, and was planning on getting hired to gig a party the team was infiltrating, and they needed to know what sort of attack software they could load into his music gear.
• Airplane Jumping - To this day, the player blames me, saying "I threw an airplane at him."
• Road Repair Crews - I'm frankly not sure. I think they were planning on hijacking one, and sabotaging the rest.
• Mexicans in Texas - They were trying to gauge the potential impact of starting a race riot in Dallas to cover an exfiltration.
• Cops - My current team has a disturbing habit of calling the police whenever they run into the metaplot. Any big threats show up, and they immediately bail out and try and call in the authorities. It makes sense, but is a serious pain in the neck.

[Cain]

"Can I get a snowplow?" came up a few times in game.

[Tyro]

I know I would call the cops if I saw shedim, or a ghoul nest in an area they covered, etc. All assuming it didn't interfere with the mission, of course.

[Veynom]

"Does the Troll have a sodomy pool?"... I never know if the answer will freak me out more than the question itself...

[LonePaladin]

These are the sort of questions that make me answer in ways like, "How long is a piece of string?" or "How many is spaghetti?"

[ggodo]

"Can I shoot it with an arrow?"
They were discussing a truck's engine block.

[SpellBinder]

Short answers:

• Crows - they needed to know if having a crow fly over the target site would be unusual.
  ...

Made me think of an adventure where the party found a trinket made with what was supposed to look like a crow's feather to throw any pursuers onto a false trail. After one player identified the trinket as the red herring it was, and even stated that the feather was a fake (which it was), another immediately asked if the feather came from the tail or wing of a crow (citing something about importance and difference of meanings in where it came from).

Mind that this same player also asked what a curtain cord was made of in an effort to decide if it could be used to hog-tie a guy for a forced extrication from a hotel, or if it would be better to use a telephone cord (SR4, so I figured there was no telephone in the hotel to begin with). He then proceeded to argue the benefit of using the power cord from a lamp instead. *head smack*

[Cain]

"Can I shoot it with an arrow?"
They were discussing a truck's engine block.

Believe it or not, I've had this happen a few times, under SR4.0. They not only shot it, they destroyed the armored truck. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

[ggodo]

Believe it or not, I've had this happen a few times, under SR4.0. They not only shot it, they destroyed the armored truck. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

Tree trunk right through the engine block. The Red Samurai inside weren't amused.

[Fortinbras]

[*]Mexicans in Texas - They were trying to gauge the potential impact of starting a race riot in Dallas to cover an exfiltration.

It depends on what you mean by Mexican. Forgetting that in the Sixth World ethnic hostilities have been replaced by racial ones, Mexican nationals are much more rare than second generation latinos whose families are from Mexico. The substantial growth of the latino population in Texas from 2000 to 2010 was mostly from internal growth within the latino community, and less from immigration. Many of these second generation latinos do not consider themselves Mexicans, but others might. Second generation children of immigrants are more likely to speak English at home than Spanish.
Statistically, by the time third generation descendants of immigrants come around neither they nor anyone else considers them anything but Americans, regardless of ethnic origin. At third generation, most latinos speak Spanish rarely, if at all.

For the record, the latino population is about 25 million or 38% in the state as a whole. It's more than that in the city of Dallas, about the same for Dallas County and a little less if you include Tarrant County and other, outlying areas like Collin County.

The idea that we might start a race riot over latinos is absurd and a little insulting(just a little). Many latinos fought in the rebellion for Texas independence, including the reputable Juan Seguin and the less reputable family of my aunt Robbie, who, while ethnically latino, have been in Texas since the 1830's.
While there are plenty of nuts talking smack about immigration, DFW has been far more of a place for cultural diffusion than television would like to admit. Heck, every Texan has to know a little bit of Spanish just to order a hamburger. Latinos aren't those people over there, they are the people whom we work beside every day and the idea that any large number of people would want to overthrow a staple of our economy and culture seems absurd.

Now a riot over African Americans in South Dallas; that could totally happen. Our suburbs and schools systems are still an institutional form of segregation. That would be the way to go!

[The Shuhite]

It depends on what you mean by Mexican.

Cool post, do you mind if I ask your source in case I have to quote it to a more serious audience?

Unfortunately "some guy guy said so on Dumpshock" is not as convincing as it should be.

[Mardrax]

Cool post, do you mind if I ask your source in case I have to quote it to a more serious audience?

Unfortunately "some guy guy said so on Dumpshock" is not as convincing as it should be.

It's a pattern one will often see in all but the most insular of ethnical groups.
You're born and raised in a country/city/whatever, you will likely consider yourself a part of that country/city/whatever.

If I'm looking at all the varied nationalities my country has immigrants from (Turkish and Maroccans are notorious poster children for being "those foreigners", like latinos in the US, but we have massive ammounts of Indonesians, people from the Antilles and Surinam as well), after three or four generations, there's barely anything but skin colour to tell them apart from originally Dutch people.
The generally lower social standing the second and third generations in some populations have had are resolving themselves as younger generations take advantage of the schooling system they can get along with as they understand our language just fine. There's just the matter of what I'd almost call regional dialects, arising from ghetto-forming (in the traditional sense of the word, same origin people living together) to really tell them apart from originally Dutch people. But then, their Dutch contemporaries living in the same areas use pretty much the same language, with smatterings of all kinds of languages thrown in, and grammatical correctness being a problem left by the wayside long ago.

City speak, omae. It's everywhere. And will probably be lost by a lot of them as they grow into proper sararimen.

Really, our government might have a backseat driver who might not approve of the idea, but segregation of that type won't persist for too long, statistically. As long as people don't go all "resistance is futile" on the immigrants anyway.

[Rasumichin]

It depends on what you mean by Mexican. Forgetting that in the Sixth World ethnic hostilities have been replaced by racial ones, Mexican nationals are much more rare than second generation latinos whose families are from Mexico.

The end of ethnic hostilities that has been in the fluff since SR1 is mostly about skin color not being relevant anymore on a large scale.
Racism based on nationalism is still very much a part of the setting, though, and a prime example for that has always been the border conflict between Texas and Atztlan (which has been adressed at least since the old Atztlan sourcebook). Relations are extremely strained since Atztlan occupied parts of Texan territory.

Now, this could make it doubly important to clarify what you mean by Mexican- someone still referring to himself as Mexican in SR is openly opposed to the Atztlaner government, and may very well side with Texas on issues like this.
But i could imagine that the whole situation has led to the rise of increased tensions between latinos and anglos in the southern CAS as well.

[Fortinbras]

Cool post, do you mind if I ask your source in case I have to quote it to a more serious audience?

Unfortunately "some guy guy said so on Dumpshock" is not as convincing as it should be.

The sheer numbers are from The 2010 Census
They aren't concrete, but it's the best we've got after only a year of analysis.

In terms of generational integration, that's a pretty well documented occurrence amongst American immigrants from all cultures. Pew Research is just one example, but any number of inter-governmental agencies will tell you the same thing, as will most students of American cultural diffusion. Immigrants absorb VERY quickly in America compared to other Western nations. No one really knows why. Most think it's because one cannot be ethnically American, thus race isn't an impediment to naturalization as it would be in, say, France. There aren't any numbers to back that up, so I won't pre-suppose.

The idea that foreigners will come in and make America the new Germany/Ireland/China/Mexico is as old as Benjamin Franklin, who worried we would all be speaking German by 1800. Notorious bad-ass Theodore Roosevelt even remarked upon the dangers of "Hyphenated Americans." Heck, there was a time when folks were worried all the Germans in New Braunfels were going to start taking over the Lone Star state.

As for other comments, most are from my personal experience. Most of the non newspaper jobs I've had in my life have been in the restaurant industry, from which I've made a decent living. Without immigration, I'm out of a job tomorrow. My family came to America in 1607 and we did it VERY illegally. My brother is getting married to a latino woman. Two folks in my Emergence game are latino. As the old saying goes "Californians live next to Mexicans and call them Americans. Texans live next to Americans and call them Mexicans."

To try and steer this towards Shadowrun, in 60 years, such trivial things like ethnicity will be irrelevant compared to cyberware, dragons, UGE, SURGE, goblinization and magic volcanoes. People as less likely to identify as "Mexican" or "American" as they are to identify as "human" or "metahuman." Even so, in 60 years, we probably won't be able to differentiate between latino Americans and non-latino Americans any more than we can differentiate between German and non-German Americans. Most people probably won't even know what they are. Combine this with the fact that a great many Mexicans hate Aztlaners and we have a whole new pot a-brewin'.

This isn't to say that I don't know my fair share of racists. It's why I don't think Humanis is as over-the-top as others do; because I've actually met some people who make Humanis look down right three dimensional. Heck, I'm related to some of them. But, at the end of the day, it's all 4chan racism; lots of talk with little to back it up. True racism is institutionalized, like a Humanis Governor of Seattle.


The point I was trying to make was that if your players ask "How many Mexicans are in Texas?" say "None. They all consider themselves Texans... but those trolls over there look none too happy!"

[Prime Mover]

When the player say's... "So if I drop the vial of Doom down the elevator shaft will it kill everyone in the museum?"

[LonePaladin]

When the player say's... "So if I drop the vial of Doom down the elevator shaft will it kill everyone in the museum?"

Oh, I love it when players ask me hypothetical questions like this. My default answer tends to be, "You don't know."

Sometimes, though, I get a little snarky. "Y'know, I've been praying for years, but God has never warned me about the consequences of my actions, at least not that specifically."

Or, "There's only one way to find out, ain't there?"

[James McMurray]

Or "roll Logic + Medicine (3)."

"I don't have Medicine."

"Huh."

[Dreadlord]

Or "roll Logic + Medicine (3)."

"I don't have Medicine."

"Huh."

LOL! Yes! I have done this!

Also, when they don't have a non-defaultable skill, I give them OBVIOUSLY false info, and my players have a ball playing someone totally convinved they are 100% correct in their obviously wrong conclusion. One of the funniest was one player tried to come up with an answer to a problem, even though he lacked the Knowledge Skill (and was a low LOGIC Troll to boot). I told him he was positive it could be done easily. Another player then tried to do the same, who ALSO lacked the Knowledge Skill (a low LOGIC razorgirl), and I told her the exact opposite (but equally incorrect!) information. The two characters arguing over two completely erroneous "facts" had the whole table in stitches.

[SpellBinder]

Oh, I love it when players ask me hypothetical questions like this. My default answer tends to be, "You don't know."

Sometimes, though, I get a little snarky. "Y'know, I've been praying for years, but God has never warned me about the consequences of my actions, at least not that specifically."

Or, "There's only one way to find out, ain't there?"

Emphasis mine. The one I usually give to the above kind of hypothetical questions I'll be asked.

[Bushw4cker]

Do Tampons have RFID Tags? Umm...Probably (There was a mess in the Woman's Restroom involving an interrogation and cranial bomb)

I posted this a while ago and Laughed my ass off at this reply

This is your friendly Mega-Mall Network. Your tampon has just reached 75% capacity you do not seem to be carrying a spare one. Proceed two aisles down to your right for this week's special offers in female hygiene, with NERPS for perfect protection in all situations.

Can I fly him up in my Rotor Drone (Rigger to the Dwarf)? Sigh..you can try.

Are they going to be checking every ear, if we're short, could we cut off the ears of some squatters for the bounty? No, they have to be ghoul ears, I think they are going to check.

[James McMurray]

What's the penalty for using a zip line while pushing an aquarium that's being levitated?