I return from the blasted wastes of reddit bearing gifts Options

[LurkerOutThere]

I've been browsing the Reddit Shadowrun board a lot at work lately. Don't judge me the've got Dumpshock blocked. This little gem was out there.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Shadowrun/comments...ner_team_trust/

There's a lot of interesting stuff here and people could infer a lot about the nature of online games and their increased likelihood of potentially falling to dickery.

[Sendaz]

That is some interesting reading.. will be sure to follow this. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Thanks for sharing

[FriendoftheDork]

I've been browsing the Reddit Shadowrun board a lot at work lately. Don't judge me the've got Dumpshock blocked. This little gem was out there.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Shadowrun/comments...ner_team_trust/

There's a lot of interesting stuff here and people could infer a lot about the nature of online games and their increased likelihood of potentially falling to dickery.

My post vanished in making, but I agree with Glyph and Sengir on this one. Have fun playing alone with the GM, FNG player.

[Glyph]

I wouldn't call that "Bastardy at its finest". The problem I have always had with PVP is that it is easy, and cheesy - just attack by surprise when the other players are unsuspecting and vulnerable. Especially when you are a more experienced player bringing in a combat-oriented character because the group needs some muscle. To me, it reads like a griefer setting out to deliberately ruin a game, then justify it on the grounds of the (newish) group playing the game wrong.

Even from a black trenchcoat perspective, the glaring flaw, to me, is that this guy betrays the team, then doesn't get betrayed or blackmailed in turn when he hands the technomancer/shifter off - they just apparently smile and hand him close to half a million Nuyen, rather than just shooting him, or getting him on audio/video and blackmailing him. Not to mention, if he set the deal up with his fixer, why isn't the fixer getting a cut? How is he getting this amount with no negotiations involved? And his fixer, the guy who gets him jobs in the first place, now knows that this guy, who works as a shadowrunner, will turn on the rest of his team if given enough financial incentive. Of course, the twin problems with the GM were that he was a new GM, and too nice about not nipping shenanigans like this in the bud.

[Sengir]

For those of you wh,o might be unaware, being any of the following means that a Megacorp has some form of standing offer for said thing to be turned into the corp for a nice-sized reward:

SURGE, Blood/Insect/Toxic Mage, Rare Metasapient, Shifter, Otaku/Technomancer, Prototype Transhuman, Type O system, E-Ghosts, A.I's, and probably others.

So basically, the OP has his own ideas on the SR universe, with bounties on changelings and TMs, and his own ideas on roleplaying which seems mostly centered around griefing others. He joins another group as a guest, sees they don't share his vision, and proceeds to ruin the game for them.
Sure, like all griefers he will claim to have merely acted in character -- as seen when his character goes alone and without any ace in the hole to a meeting with Tamanous types, because he is so in character as a paranoid type who believes everybody is just waiting to backstab everybody else...


Also, there's people taking Dark Resonance as an authoritative source for anything? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[bannockburn]

Also, there's people taking Dark Resonance as an authoritative source for anything? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

I just threw up in my mouth a little.

Jokes aside: It's interesting and telling that the author starts playing "spot THAT guy" before the griefer is even introduced.

[Sengir]

Jokes aside: It's interesting and telling that the author starts playing "spot THAT guy" before the griefer is even introduced.

What#s so interesting about that, the writer makes no pretense that he does not support Mr. Asshole (who may or may not be the same person).

[LurkerOutThere]

Yea that was pretty much my read, it's not that there arn't bounties out there, it's just they arn't that high with so few strings attached to make even some of the more amoral runners really come down on the negative side of selling out of their teammates.

I mean realistically a combat character will almost always run roughshod over a non combat character, especially with the benefit of suprise. If every team has to be that paranoid no one can get any work done. Setting stops working. So certain liberties have to be taken even if the book suggests very often that there is a certain level of healthy paranoia.

But honestly a lot of these guys are young, poorly socialized, and in an online setting. It's not a huge suprise they are going to be little bastards and think they are doing the world a service.

[Wounded Ronin]

Interesting read. I concur with a lot of the stuff people have commented on so far.

I would think that if someone were a well respected runner back in Seattle they would walk away from the poorly planned low paying job instead of backstabbing their team.

I mean, who would want to work with a known backstabber? Better to work with an honorable idiot than a smart sociopathic backstabber.

That's just common sense.

[JanessaVR]

I can’t believe some of the defenders of this jerk over at Reddit, who excuse or even endorse his griefing behavior as being not only justified but essentially required by the setting. They’ve apparently appointed themselves the guardians of The One True Way to Play Shadowrun ™, and are out to enforce their vision of the SR world/game with fanatic devotion.

“The setting is what’s important! You’re only allowed to play according to the canon version of Shadowrun, with no deviations! (As interpreted by us, naturally, not you.) Your “fun” doesn’t matter! Who cares if you’ve spent hundreds of dollars and invested much of your personal time on this game? You owe it to the setting to show up to the table every gaming night and play according to the strictly canon interpretation of the game even if you’re completely miserable doing so! Your silly “enjoyment of the game” doesn’t matter in the slightest! And if you don’t, then you’re just not real Shadowrun players, and shouldn’t even be allowed to own the books!”

There’s a reason I call these guys “The Cult of the Holy Rulebook.” Their dogma is simple: “Yea, verily, for the rulebooks are holy writ, and the developers sacred prophets. Thou must play strictly according to their rules, and never question them. He who shall deviate from this holy law is a heretic and a blasphemer, and shall be cast into the Outer Darkness, wherein there are neither gaming shops nor other gamers available to play with. So says the sacred law!”

And what kind of crack is the OP smoking with saying there are bounties on changelings? I’ve never come across that in any of the books. I’ve seen bounties on TMs, and Infected, and Shapeshifters, but never on changelings.

[bannockburn]

It echoes a lot of the attitudes I've seen on 4chan, actually.

[Sendaz]

@ JanessaVR: I wonder if you might have felt the same way if the party had turned out to be all emo-vamps and he had staked and baked the lot. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Just teasing, I know you would have either played along or told them politely to go sit out in the sun before departing for greener tables.

As for the Changeling bounty, it's not so specifically spelled out but there are questions raised.

In Year of the Comet, pg 31 ALL Yamashima corp changelings up and vanished and their records erased after the corp instituted a ban on them.
Whether they were shown the door or buried in R&D remains a question.

There are references scatterd around about 'nicer' corps line Wuxing and Yamatetsu approaching the changelings and offering them special employment oppurtunities, which implies that the not so nice corps (really? like anyone can tell them apart most of the time) might not have been nice in their approach.

Also remember SURGE brought about a slew of new paracritters like Demon rats being SURGED Devil Rats and o on, so the OP's/Killer Player's table may have been lumping all changeling types, both metahuman and critter, into the same category in regards for bountys.

[Stahlseele]

I'd have been on FNGs side.

[JanessaVR]

@ JanessaVR: I wonder if you might have felt the same way if the party had turned out to be all emo-vamps and he had staked and baked the lot. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Just teasing, I know you would have either played along or told them politely to go sit out in the sun before departing for greener tables.

LOL. Indeed, I'd have tried to keep a civil tone, and not actively sabotaged them, but I'd not return for another game.

As for the Changeling bounty, it's not so specifically spelled out but there are questions raised.

In Year of the Comet, pg 31 ALL Yamashima corp changelings up and vanished and their records erased after the corp instituted a ban on them.
Whether they were shown the door or buried in R&D remains a question.

There are references scattered around about 'nicer' corps line Wuxing and Yamatetsu approaching the changelings and offering them special employment opportunities, which implies that the not so nice corps (really? like anyone can tell them apart most of the time) might not have been nice in their approach.

Also remember SURGE brought about a slew of new paracritters like Demon rats being SURGED Devil Rats and o on, so the OP's/Killer Player's table may have been lumping all changeling types, both metahuman and critter, into the same category in regards for bounties.

Huh. I always assumed that meant they were quietly fired for the "disgrace" of turning into metahuman freaks (and no Japancorp wants that), but that's certainly a valid theory.

[binarywraith]

I wouldn't call that "Bastardy at its finest". The problem I have always had with PVP is that it is easy, and cheesy - just attack by surprise when the other players are unsuspecting and vulnerable. Especially when you are a more experienced player bringing in a combat-oriented character because the group needs some muscle. To me, it reads like a griefer setting out to deliberately ruin a game, then justify it on the grounds of the (newish) group playing the game wrong.

Even from a black trenchcoat perspective, the glaring flaw, to me, is that this guy betrays the team, then doesn't get betrayed or blackmailed in turn when he hands the technomancer/shifter off - they just apparently smile and hand him close to half a million Nuyen, rather than just shooting him, or getting him on audio/video and blackmailing him. Not to mention, if he set the deal up with his fixer, why isn't the fixer getting a cut? How is he getting this amount with no negotiations involved? And his fixer, the guy who gets him jobs in the first place, now knows that this guy, who works as a shadowrunner, will turn on the rest of his team if given enough financial incentive. Of course, the twin problems with the GM were that he was a new GM, and too nice about not nipping shenanigans like this in the bud.

Of course his fixer doesn't do business with any of the other characters' contacts, who don't now have a serious axe to grind with this asshole... I mean, there's a reason Hung out to Dry is a flaw.

Really, the whole thing reads as the FNG player needing to have had a more in-depth discussion with the GM and his fellow players to determine what kind of game they were trying to play. The fox shifter's player chimes in partway down the thread and runs their character down, and it's pretty clear that the story vastly misrepresents the actual characters at the table to make the poster look good.

[DeathStrobe]

Well, I completely agree with most of the people on dumpshock. I refrained from commenting one way or the other on the post to avoid showing my bias. But FNG is a dick and the GM is an asshole for playing along.

I have no problems with snowflake characters, and if everyone is going to have one, you might as well play along rather than derail everyone's fun because your bias of the Sixth World makes it so you think that snowflake characters are dumb. I mean, seriously, what the hell does it matter? And it's just being a dick to demonstrate your mechanical mastery of SR4, which is easy to game but difficult to make a believable character.

I debated just removing the post. But I felt the discussions in the comments had some merit. So I left it for people to come to their own conclusion, even if I strongly disagree with some people.

[binarywraith]

The only snowflakes I get angry about are ghouls, because as written HMHVV makes it too easy for everyone in the team to end up as snowflakes.

[Sengir]

“The setting is what’s important! You’re only allowed to play according to the canon version of Shadowrun, with no deviations! (As interpreted by us, naturally, not you.)

Well, that's the problem with people who want to follow some text without the slightest deviation: The corollary of such a belief is the belief that there must only be one correct interpretation of what that book says, there cannot be a "some read it this way, others that way, they all have valid arguments".


@Lurker

But honestly a lot of these guys are young, poorly socialized, and in an online setting. It's not a huge suprise they are going to be little bastards and think they are doing the world a service.

Insufferable players have probably been around as long as the hobby exists, no reason to start ranting about them youngins with their techno-doodats (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

[ShadowDragon8685]

FNG is an asshole who should be shown the door.
GM is an asshole for letting it happen.

[Wounded Ronin]

It is pretty funny how some people on the thread are articulating in so much detail how the characters "should have" acted, or that what the turncoat guy did was "realistic".

Dude, we're talking about a fantasy setting that only exists in the imaginations of the players and the GM. It's not science. Nothing "should" happen except that the people gathered to play a game are able to recreate.

I mean, I wonder what they'd say if some people got together for a party, got drunk, and stumbled through Food Fight with pregenerated characters, getting plenty of rules wrong along the way. Would they be outraged and spraying spittle on the internet, explaining why logically Food Fight "should not have" been run in this manner, or why if you play drunk you're at odds with the official Shadowrun fantasy world, so your game was wrong?

[ShadowDragon8685]

The Stop Having Fun Guys just can't stand Snowflake characters, they piss them off to an irrational degree.

[binarywraith]

Eh, I get them on that point to an extent, but it really doesn't apply in this particular game. Everyone involved knew what they were playing except for the FNG.

Snowflakes only get really problematic when they come with players who can't play nice with the spotlight, or by their nature make the game all about themselves.

[Glyph]

From the other accounts, it sounds like FNG did enter the game knowing what it would be like. And I think the other accounts sound a lot more plausible - the original post has a distinct tone of trolling and hyperbole.

Snowflake characters can be spotlight hogs, but to me, they are a lot less so in forum games, where instead of possibly interrupting other players, all they do is make posts that might be a bit long and overly-detailed.

[Mantis]

My dislike of snowflakes comes from personal experience wherein almost no one who has ever tried to play one did it for 'interesting story' or character reasons. They just wanted a bunch of stat boosts and to play something no one else was. Generally they would shoot for things like Formori (why are these things even an option in 4th ed? Seriously overpowered for the cost.) These same players got right annoyed when they got hit with distinctive style penalties and weird NPCs suggesting very inappropriate things of them. But hey, you wanna play a freak, you gotta deal with the other freaks.

Now if someone came along with a cool concept that called for a snowflake and had previously demonstrated an ability to play interesting characters, I'd be all for it. In fact the only really good snowflake character I've ever GMed for was one I forced on the player. Sort of. He thought he was making a sacrifice for the team and it would result in his death. Instead he became a banshee. But he also played the hell out of that.

Oh yeah, GM and FNG, assholes, yadda yadda yadda. Honestly, don't people communicate when setting up a game? Like establish parameters and expectations? That should be where you start, not something that gets mentioned after the game has gone to hell.

[binarywraith]

This thread made me look it up, and I note I can't find it. Does anyone have an actual page reference for there even being a bounty on shifters, much less a 200k (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) one?