Bunraku math..., things you do when bored.. Options

[CanRay]

You could find many, many willing - without quotes - participants, everywhere. Male, female, young, old. In many cases, people would prefer this to conventional prostitution.

It's how Molly Millions paid for her cybernetics.

[Glyph]

Yeah, everyone seems to automatically think Bunraku = nonconsensual, when it is just another, slightly creepier, form of prostitution. For both, there will be places that are legitimate businesses (remember that vice laws for things like prostitution are virtually non-existent in the game setting), and places where they abduct their "workers".

[Christian Lafay]

Think of all the strippers that are paying their way through college. Lot of workers there.

[Seriously Mike]

Drop the commlink (and any internal weapons... keep the Puppet "legal") and add in a datajack and Skillwires. The Puppet needs to know how to dance and to properly service their clients.

The Skillwires can also be used as an ad hoc defense force/meat shield.

Datajacks are so last year. Also, how do you tell if an implanted commlink was modified or not? I believe a good hacker would be able to mask that somehow...

But still, all this solves my little storyline problem. Now, where do I go from here?

[CanRay]

Where do you want it to go?

One of the characters that's in the ShadowSkool stories spends his spare time rescuing Catgirls from Bunraku Parlors.

[3278]

Datajacks are so last year.

Yeah, but I still don't use wifi on my main computer: last year's technology always has a place. They invented clubs, like, at least a decade ago, and I still get some use out of the development.

But still, all this solves my little storyline problem. Now, where do I go from here?

Say what, now?

[Seriously Mike]

Where do you want it to go?

The problem is, I don't know. There's just... too much to do in LA. You got the Mob, and the Triads, and Kosh, and Anasazi, and Aztlan saboteurs, and toxic avenger terrorists, and shedim, and then the usual stuff like Corps shafting each other.

[CanRay]

The problem is, I don't know. There's just... too much to do in LA. You got the Mob, and the Triads, and Kosh, and Anasazi, and Aztlan saboteurs, and toxic avenger terrorists, and shedim, and then the usual stuff like Corps shafting each other.

And a poor little Bunraku Puppet whose stings have been cut and has no memory of who he was before he was a plaything for others... Just a body full of second-hand cybernetics and a shot up club full of criminals...

[hobgoblin]

Sounds almost like the opening of Black Lagoon...

[CanRay]

Sounds almost like the opening of Black Lagoon...

Possibly. I have so much crammed up in my head that I have no idea which thoughts are mine or not at times.

[kzt]

Think of all the strippers that are paying their way through college. Lot of workers there.

It's also likely cheaper when you look at the hidden costs. For example , every day there is small but non-zero chance of a KE team kicking the door of your establishment down, which is quite possibly followed seconds later by you and your fellow slavekeepers getting killed while "resisting arrest".

[kzt]

Datajacks are so last year. Also, how do you tell if an implanted commlink was modified or not? I believe a good hacker would be able to mask that somehow...

A high resolution high powered CT. An high enough T MRI would work too, but it would also probably kill you by cooking your brain, the CT at worst would probably just produce radiation burns on your scalp.

[kzt]

Think of all the strippers that are paying their way through college. Lot of workers there.

There is a difference. Not always, and sometimes things get ugly and go places that were not planned, but most strippers doing things like paying for school are not doing guys in the back room. There is some percentage that might do things for "gifts", but I suspect that most do not think of themselves as prostitutes.

However, if you had a sufficiently safe environment and removed the part where they had to interact with the clients it might well be different. Say it's as safe as working in a convenience store, but pays a lot better.

[Christian Lafay]

There is a difference. Not always, and sometimes things get ugly and go places that were not planned, but most strippers doing things like paying for school are not doing guys in the back room. There is some percentage that might do things for "gifts", but I suspect that most do not think of themselves as prostitutes.

However, if you had a sufficiently safe environment and removed the part where they had to interact with the clients it might well be different. Say it's as safe as working in a convenience store, but pays a lot better.

I understand there is a difference but most people choose not to do things because they "don't want to remember it". Imagine waking up with no bruises, no mess, no memory, and a fistful of cash.

[kzt]

I understand there is a difference but most people choose not to do things because they "don't want to remember it". Imagine waking up with no bruises, no mess, no memory, and a fistful of cash.

Yup. I suspect it would be easier. Plus I don't seem to remember any obnoxious STDs in SR, and a trivial virtually instant blood test should be able to spot any anyhow.

[Irion]

Ähm guys, I do not know if this is really all that healthy for your mental wellbeeing.
To always think: Did I have sex with that guy/women who is smiling at me? What kind of sex was it? Or what was it at all? Was there something...

[Hound]

Ähm guys, I do not know if this is really all that healthy for your mental wellbeeing.
To always think: Did I have sex with that guy/women who is smiling at me? What kind of sex was it? Or what was it at all? Was there something...

yeah but would you trade those awkward moments for a ticket out of the slums?

[3278]

It's also likely cheaper when you look at the hidden costs. For example , every day there is small but non-zero chance of a KE team kicking the door of your establishment down, which is quite possibly followed seconds later by you and your fellow slavekeepers getting killed while "resisting arrest".

Cheaper to run a strip club than a bunraku parlor? That's true of most crime, but it doesn't stop us. If the criminal does that mental algebra at all - and a surprising number do - they're weighting it with values you're not, is all.

There is a difference [between stripping and bunraku].

You're right, there's a huge difference. I was going to jump on Christian's statement, too, until I read the wording: he's not saying "Every stripper is willing to be a prostitute," and that's definitely not true; I know a lot of strippers who have no interest in prostitution, who look down on it in the same way most non-strippers look down on stripping. But what he's saying is, "There are lots of strippers who would be a prostitute if they didn't have to remember it," and that I agree is true: not all, not most, but a lot, yeah, particularly in Shadowrun.

Ähm guys, I do not know if this is really all that healthy for your mental wellbeeing.
To always think: Did I have sex with that guy/women who is smiling at me? What kind of sex was it? Or what was it at all? Was there something...

You're absolutely right. If anything, I think the case has been understated for how incredibly emotionally damaging any kind of data filter, much less one oriented around intimacy and sexual activities, would be. We're kind of blowing it all off as interesting or half-funny, but we all know that in real life, the sex trade - even willing, certainly unwilling - is a difficult emotional weight to bear. Some people have no problems at all, but as a rule, the more unwilling the prostitute, the more emotionally damaged they'll be. Bunraku boys and girls come in the full spectrum of willingnesses, and thus the full spectrum of emotional damage.

I understand there is a difference but most people choose not to do things because they "don't want to remember it". Imagine waking up with no bruises, no mess, no memory, and a fistful of cash.

It's going to depend on the parlor, obviously, but there's pretty much always going to be a mess to clean up, and the bruises don't wash away. The house may or may not tolerate visible bruises - most won't - but people just aren't that gentle or careful when they're having sex with a prostitute, so females in particular often end up bruised pretty badly. But! For the fistful of cash, with no memory of the event, there are a lot of people - some of them desperate, some of them just with personal moralities which allow it - who would do it anyway.

[Irion]

@3278
Let me rephrase: If a datafillter is not applyed due to medical reason and supervised by professional doctors, I would go as far as saying: It is damaging for everybody. Some people might be already "damaged" beyond that point. (I am not talking about a girl who works as a prostitute. I guess there are many reasons and actually there is nothing immoral about that. So I would not call judgement here)
I am talking about the feeling of not beeing able to trust your own head.
I can't even imagine what this must feel like. (If you are not a full scale sociopath to begin with or to stupid to realise...)
Yes, if there are clear contracts and securities on the side of the company who offers, it tends to get better. (You also do not know what you do in your sleep, afterall)
But to not have severe emotional impact a huge portion of trust will be needed.
And we all know, thats not happening.
Thats why I mostly dislike this "we rescue some poor girls" kind of adventure, because most groups would just dump them on the streets.
If you will really address a topic like that, I think you should those characters not treat as "quest iteams", it makes the whole thing cheap.
(I did not want to suggest you are doing something like that or anybody else here. I am just trying to give my opinion about it in general. )

Oh, man I feel like I stepped on all the toes in the room, but I guess thats the matter with topics like that. (Thats why I prefere not to have those in games I run. Very difficult to handle and it might upset a lot of people...)

[Paul]

One of my first couple of games was an extraction run, in which the PC's extracted a Doctor who'd lost his license to practice in Japan because a drunken accident. He was brought to Seattle, and forced to work for the Yakuza. They snagged him and transferred him tot he Vory. My point being that there's definitely doctors out there now that are less than scrupulous but in the world of Shadowrun it's pretty common place.

I see where you're going Irion and I think that you're correct some people would object to these sort of procedures for this very reason. But a lot of people won't have a choice, or won't see it that-people who are in a bad place, often don't make logical decisions like you and I would.

[3278]

Thats why I mostly dislike this "we rescue some poor girls" kind of adventure, because most groups would just dump them on the streets.
If you will really address a topic like that, I think you should those characters not treat as "quest iteams", it makes the whole thing cheap.

Most roleplaying groups don't want to get too heavy, and most are inspired not by real-world issues but by comic books, action movies, science fiction, and so on, in which the plot nicely wraps up at the end of the session. But there definitely are groups that would take the issue of sex slavery, and of the psychosis that could easily follow being taken from a willing or unwilling bunraku parlor, and make a completely serious recurring theme out of it. [Some groups would make months' long torture porn out of it, but that level of wallowing seems self-indulgent to me.]

Personally, I'm a big fan of taking heavy topics seriously, but I often come at roleplaying from a slightly different angle than other people. If you're looking to have beer and pretzels with your buddies and hang out in the future together and blow some shit up - which is 100 percent a perfectly good reason to play Shadowrun - Memoirs of a Geisha isn't going to be a real hit, much less Holly. But even with a more casual group, you can give the issue gravitas without bumming everyone out: it's not an unbridgeable distance from Heat to Eastern Promises.

[MortVent]

A lot of issues are not really touched, but they are out there.

And the first thing they will have to deal with is trust issues. Not being able to trust yourself leads to major issues trusting others.

It also leads to building of walls between yourself and others, because not only can you not trust them to a point you don't trust yourself not to do something wrong that you will not remember

In a way the data filter is one of the most evil items out there to implant in someone, you take away their ability to trust themselves and others as well as set up situations where paranoia can set in hard as they know folks smiling at them know things they can't remember. Or they wonder why people look at them with disgust or fear. When you can't remember being a monster it's very hard on someone, you might remember a trigger but nothing till you are standing there with someone talking to you soothingly while holding a gun with white knuckles telling you it's okay you can relax it's over.

It's one of the implants that should be forbidden or a lot more restricted than it is really. Especially since it can be hooked up and paired with a personafix/skill cluster and turn someone into a monster/joy toy with a push of a button.

[3278]

Yeah, if I were writing the Shadowrun TV show, this would be a major sub-plot. The possible abuses of a data filter are many.

[Seriously Mike]

And a poor little Bunraku Puppet whose stings have been cut and has no memory of who he was before he was a plaything for others... Just a body full of second-hand cybernetics and a shot up club full of criminals...

Actually, the first job involving the character is bringing her, still comatose (or not, depending on how long it takes and if the players want to wait) to the guy who ordered her. She's thirteen and he's a porn director. The fifth mission involves killing him, and his boss, and blowing up the studio, and all the recordings.

[Christian Lafay]

You're right, there's a huge difference. I was going to jump on Christian's statement, too, until I read the wording: he's not saying "Every stripper is willing to be a prostitute," and that's definitely not true; I know a lot of strippers who have no interest in prostitution, who look down on it in the same way most non-strippers look down on stripping. But what he's saying is, "There are lots of strippers who would be a prostitute if they didn't have to remember it," and that I agree is true: not all, not most, but a lot, yeah, particularly in Shadowrun.

Thanks for catching the difference.