[X] My Assistant

[Wolfgar]

Just got done running my first Shadowrun session, and my players acted too good. The mission was simple- Break into a biker compound out in the sprawl and shut down their 'Jazz' operation. Johnson just wanted the place destroyed, and no more bikies in the area. (I wanted a cut and dry mission to start things off, with a simple twist- innocent bystanders.)

The job was going good, until the players realized that there were innocents in the compound- some of the biker's families in nearby houses, and a few Jazz addicts roped into manufacturing the stuff in the lab itself. The group had botched a few aspects of recon earlier, and were planning to simply toss grenades/summon fire spirits/get the heck out. Players abandoned their plans and set about evacuating the place/stunning the bikers, even explaining their actions to the biker leader.

Here's the part that blew my mind. When it's all over and all they have to do is toss a few grenades in to finish the job, they blow up the Jazz as well. All four of them, in an instant, agreed to blow up the drugs. I was like "wut?"

Anyone else have players act just too darn nice before?

EDIT: Woot, looks like I've stirred something up with this one. Came home to find four pages of comments, a personal best. My replies on page 4.

[TheOOB]

That kind of stuff is worth good street cred. They did their run well, and Johnsons will be willing to hire them out more.

[CanRay]

On the one hand, they're not going to get good reputations for being ruthless and stone cold killers.

On the other, those are a dime a dozen, this shows they have thinking skills, morals (Of a sort. This is still an industry based on face shooting for fiscal returns.), and are less likely to attempt to garner secondary income from Shadowruns (Which Mr. Johnsons do enjoy, as it does give a less risk percentage to the operation being blown or discovered because some greedy Decker/Hacker took some Datafiles that were just lying around.).

They might get called "Goody Two-Shoes" by some folks in the Shadows, but the people that are heavily anti-drug (And, let's face it, there's a lot of them even in the Shadows!) will respect the group all the more for it. Street Cred indeed. It's a "Good thing" they did.

[Machiavelli]

Definitely. Our team is known as "Fight Club" and we (unintended) do collateral damage wherever we go. So nobody is hiring us anymore to do "sneak in and steal something without sombody noticing it"-runs. If you turn in a specific direction, the only thing that should be happening is that Mr. J is not giving you "unsuitable" contracts anymore. No team can do everything. If your team is fine with this reputation...go for it.

[Fatum]

That kind of stuff is worth good street cred. They did their run well, and Johnsons will be willing to hire them out more.

I wouldn't count on that after "even explaining their actions to the biker leader".

Also, most groups I've ran with or GMed for were strictly on the G side of the alignment chart: one used a truckful of drugs to frame a stained politico and gain some favours from the face's contacts, police destroying the drug, instead of selling them; another jumped a bunch of insect spirits to save whatever poor soul they had caught, and now have an orphan ork girl in their hideout :\

[hermit]

Here's the part that blew my mind. When it's all over and all they have to do is toss a few grenades in to finish the job, they blow up the Jazz as well. All four of them, in an instant, agreed to blow up the drugs. I was like "wut?"

Anyone else have players act just too darn nice before?

What's so terribly suprising about this? That they gave up on a somewhat noticable profit (really, Jazz is a ceap-ass drug, and they get to sell it at some 30% list price by the rules) for self-respect? It's not a bad thing. Explaining who they run for to the biker leader is, of course, but telling hiom moral stories is not, especially if they destroy the gang's lab and maybe rough them up a bit to scare them, it has a nice Batman/Rorschach/vigilante vibe. Gives the group a recognisable feature to stand out from the bunches of gangers who off people left, right and center, and may help their street cred. If they overdo it, and botch jobs for morality, just give them notoriety and dial back the qualityof their jobs.

But yes, I have done this too, as a player. If it fits the characters, what's to complain?

another jumped a bunch of insect spirits to save whatever poor soul they had caught, and now have an orphan ork girl in their hideout :\

Here's hoping she's housebroken.

[Ascalaphus]

Any group of shadowrunners is going to gravitate towards a specific "level" of nastiness. Some are stone-cold and wouldn't blink at massacring an orphanage, others are "moral" and only take jobs that they can defend ("Taxes are unAmerican! Smuggling is an act of patriotism!"), others are somewhere in the middle ("Killing people in the Business is okay, but no harm to bystanders who didn't know what they were getting into"). None of these is wrong.

After a while, you'll get a reputation for your particular style, and that lets Johnsons know if they should hire you. A Johnson who wants you to do something you'd be ethically comfortable with, can expect you to do the run with fewer complications. This can make doing business much easier.

On the other hand, now and then there could be an adventure where Johnson is trying to set up the "softies", thinking to exploit their naivety. If the players find out, then you could spin an awesome payback-for-Johnson adventure off of it. Time to teach Mr. Johnson that just because you're not a total bastard doesn't mean you're harmless!

[suoq]

I'm missing the problem.

The vast majority of my characters are NOT psychopaths. Although I don't tend to take the pacifist trait (because, quite frankly, at least one person on the team is usually playing someone with zero regard for (meta)human life), my characters tend to prefer NOT killing people, not destroying property, and not making society worse. Alas, that tends to be what they're paid to do.

A team with ethics could easily attract loyalty. Think Burn Notice if you're young, or if you're an old fart, like me, think Stingray. Heck, even A-Team featured ethical criminals who only blew up the bad guys.

[Machiavelli]

100% agree. Unfortunately this is something the GM has to handle, because "pissing a Johnson off" is always rewarded with a point of notoriority, no matter if he earned it or not. I already had to pay off 3 points of not. because of this...and have still 3 ones left.^^

[Irion]

Well, the pacifist quality is not that bad. Non-leathal ammunition is better than normal. So here goes BP for free. Mostly.

[Machiavelli]

Non-lethal ammo is more expensive^^

[Fatum]

I'm missing the problem.

The vast majority of my characters are NOT psychopaths. Although I don't tend to take the pacifist trait (because, quite frankly, at least one person on the team is usually playing someone with zero regard for (meta)human life), my characters tend to prefer NOT killing people, not destroying property, and not making society worse. Alas, that tends to be what they're paid to do.

A team with ethics could easily attract loyalty. Think Burn Notice if you're young, or if you're an old fart, like me, think Stingray. Heck, even A-Team featured ethical criminals who only blew up the bad guys.

Well, your stereotypical runners are self-serving calculating bastards, not homicidal psychopaths. So runners helping kittens down the trees kinda seem strange.

[Machiavelli]

IMO the typical runner is a self-serving calculating bastard because either his start in life was very bad or he had to turn into the shadows because of a happening something later. They do what they have to do, but this doesn´t mean that they lost the respect for life completely. If you don´t get paid to hurt somebody, why should you? Hellboy is a tough bastard but his love to kittens is nothing i would mention "strange".

[Irion]

They do what they have to do, but this doesn´t mean that they lost the respect for life completely.

Lets put it like that: The rules make it possible to be very friendly because it is mostly the most effective road.

[Makki]

why the hell burn the drugs? they all have a fixer or smuggler connection. Just get them out of town and sell them. That's the only thing I was confused about. I would even make a your life for your drugs trade...

[suoq]

why the hell burn the drugs?

The mission was "shut down their 'Jazz' operation". Burning the drugs definitely sends a message that this is not a good place for anyone to run a Jazz operation.

Personally, I don't see why simply having a fixer or smuggler connection would be enough to be able to unload the drugs. I'm sure there are fixers and smugglers who don't touch the stuff. From a fixer standpoint, he has a corporate rep to keep up and moving drugs isn't going to make that rep particularly better. From a smuggler rep, the question is, what do they smuggle? Weapons? People? Food? It could well be that whatever connections the team has are more life relief workers than hardened criminals. (Henry Rollins and Ice-T's characters in Johnny Mnemonic come to mind.)

[Makki]

The mission was "shut down their 'Jazz' operation". Burning the drugs definitely sends a message that this is not a good place for anyone to run a Jazz operation.

Personally, I don't see why simply having a fixer or smuggler connection would be enough to be able to unload the drugs. I'm sure there are fixers and smugglers who don't touch the stuff. From a fixer standpoint, he has a corporate rep to keep up and moving drugs isn't going to make that rep particularly better. From a smuggler rep, the question is, what do they smuggle? Weapons? People? Food? It could well be that whatever connections the team has are more life relief workers than hardened criminals. (Henry Rollins and Ice-T's characters in Johnny Mnemonic come to mind.)

I'm sorry. The only thing your saying is, that either loyalty rating or the share isn't high enough. If he still refuses to handle it, I ask him to find me somebody who will.

The discussion was whether the team was too nice, I wonder how they were not greedy?

[suoq]

I'm sorry. The only thing your saying is, that either loyalty rating or the share isn't high enough. If he still refuses to handle it, I ask him to find me somebody who will.

That's not what I'm saying. That's just the only thing you're hearing.

For your playstyle, what you are saying is fine. However your playstyle, my playstyle, and the playstyle of the players in the original post are different playstyles. I'm trying to help the OP come to grips with his players style of play.

[hermit]

Well, your stereotypical runners are self-serving calculating bastards, not homicidal psychopaths. So runners helping kittens down the trees kinda seem strange.

Not if it's about setting themselves up with a certain reputation. At least, if they do things cleanly and preferrably nonlethal, they also get called for the kind of run where they can't just blast their way into a place, grab something and blast their way back out. The kind of run with a favourable nuyen gain/enemymotivation rate.

Plus, if you don't shoot people left, right and center, that much less people will stalk you in a dark alley and kill you for revenge. Not killing people for the lulz pays, IMO. As does not dealing in large quantites of drugs, which only pisses off an important part of the underworld whose business you are just interfering with.

[Irion]

It always depends on. If you try to keep a low profile and might be going in a AA or even AAA district you won't carry drugs on you. Because every god damn chemsniffer finds them.

And selling them does not turn in a great profit. (Due to the rules. Only 30% and a discount because it is stolen and illeagal)

[hermit]

Plus, selling them is likely to piss off local drug lords. For ... change, at best.

In the OP's scenario, burning the drugs certainly was the professional choice. Now, if there had been, say, 100 doses of Deepweed lying about? To burn that would be ... well, a bit on the self mutilation side.

[Blade]

I've once had a NPC the PC killed ask in his last breath for the closest PC to give a credstick to someone.
There were 20K nuyens on the credstick. Digging a little deeper - in hope it'd help them understand what was happening in the adventure - they discovered it was for the guy's girlfriend and they dropped the credstick in her mailbox.

[Yerameyahu]

Honestly, I blame you for making it too easy. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif) They were able to be 'good' because they could afford the risk, right? Stunning all the gangers and only destroying the drugs is a lot harder than the initial plan of just wrecking the building.

[Irion]

@Yerameyahu
Yeah, becase this generates so much more heat.

[Yerameyahu]

I dunno what you're saying, sorry. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

My point is that throwing grenades and sending a fire spirit is easy and safe. Evacuation and nonlethal takedown of the whole building? Not easy, not safe. If the run were harder, they couldn't *afford* to do it the nice way.

This is a pretty simple concept. As an analogy, only the expert shot can afford to go for a wounding but not maiming shot, whereas less skilled shooters have to just aim center of mass and see what happens.

--
Anyway, Wolfgar, this is just a fun challenge for you and the group. You can tempt them with money, and put them in more desperate situations where they have to choose between survival/success and goodness. Their inevitable moral degradation will be a great theme!