Shadowrunners, Bystanders, Security, and You, the Myth of the Moral Shadowrunner Options

[hahnsoo]

[lorthazar]

Not when you have chemistry 6 and biotech 6 and a 300,000 chemistry/biotech workshop. God I love chemicals.

[Talia Invierno]

Then again, sometimes shadowrunners just seem to act as karma in action :D

[Foreigner]

How about a Gamma Scopolamine/Dimethylsulfoxide mix in the sprinkler system?

Of course, the same carrier mixed with almost any other nonlethal substance capable of incapacitating a Metahuman would also work.

(Ipecac or laxatives, perhaps?)

I know, I know--it would make an AWFUL mess, but you wouldn't have to kill anyone.

Not to mention that the guards--and anyone else not wearing protective clothing--would be too busy crying, vomiting, or whatever to get a really good look at the 'runners.

For example, in one of Shapcano's stories, Owen Glendower used specially-made grenades which not only emitted a blinding smoke, but were also filled with a combination of tear gas and DMSO mixed with some form of emetic. The victims were not only unable to see (I don't recall whether or not they had vision enhancements), they were too busy vomiting and/or crying to fight.

--Foreigner

This post has been edited by Foreigner: Apr 22 2005, 09:12 PM

[Nikoli]

That's awesome.

Hrmm, exlax in gas form + DMSO.......
who needs the now debunked Brown note?

We have Brown-rounds now...

[Kagetenshi]

Given that ipecac works by chemically irritating the lining of the stomach, I can't see much sense in allowing application with DMSO to induce vomiting.

Though I suppose that could be said of a lot of things that are used with DMSO in the game.

~J

[Charon]

Just out of curiosity, who plays Shadowrun with PC that believes a single gunshot ruin the run? And who never kills?

I never was under the impression that these players were numerous enough to justify trying to dispel the myth of ''Moral shadowrunners''. Perhaps we need to dispel the myth that such players are a significant portion of the base, hmm?

[hahnsoo]

[hahnsoo]

[BitBasher]

On the other hand, some runners are paid to fire shots and make things go boom. There would be a market for these "exclamation point" style runs, but they better be DAMN good at what they do to survive.

[Kagetenshi]

[Talia Invierno]

Hmm. (Glanced at those linked threads, Kagetenshi.) I've said before, I've seen in action, and I remember hearing several times (possibly even in this thread, I didn't review) that law-enforcement personnel (which in Shadowrun could include some security personnel but not others) quickly learn to divide the world into three types, sheerly as a survival mechanism:

* the Sort-of-Good Guys (us, we've got our warts but we're still on the side of Law or whatever currently passes for Right)
* the perps
* civilians (potential perps)

Me, I've usually approached this from the pov of the law enforcement person, and how absolutely important it is for that person to keep connected within a social community that expands beyond the brotherhood of law enforcement personnel. From a shadowrunning perspective, the point is that a law enforcement person quickly learns to see everyone who is not one of Us as guilty (or potentially guilty) until proven innocent. I can't see that this would be less so, during a time where entire subdivisions and conclaves are even more gated from the everyday community than they are now.

The more general topic, however, seems frequently to splay into the extremes of either no killing or it-doesn't-matter-anyway killing. I'd argue that there's quite a bit of gray space in the spectrum covered, conditionals covering room for situational variables.

However, if any member of the team involved in a killing has been marked (even if not specifically identified), law-enforcement or security personnel recognising someone known to have killed before will still have a different future response than for someone who is recognised as someone known never to have killed (even though there will always be that "yet" factor). In other words, even though every shadowrunner will still be treated as a potential killer -- just too many examples of that out there -- any shadowrunner with a chance of being recognised based on past deeds (or with the Reputation edge/flaw) will be responded to slightly differently thereafter. It won't make a difference to SOP -- but it might make a difference to the tenacity with which SOP is followed.

For this purpose, it makes absolutely no psychological difference from the pov of the average law-enforcement person whether one member of the team they're dealing with is squeaky-clean while another is the psychotic killer. Collective reputation, collective responsibility.

[Kagetenshi]

To expound on that us-vs.-them idea, would it not make sense for that to apply at least as much (probably significantly more) with regard to Shadowrunners? For example, take a Johnson. Some people would say that you shouldn't betray a Johnson because it's unprofessional. Others will say the same thing but more pragmatically and say that you shouldn't betray a Johnson unless you have to because it will make other Johnsons less likely to work with you. Others will say it's wrong.

But does morality apply to a Johnson? You're in the shadows, in the biz, while they're some suit from the corps. You're an individual, they're a part of the almighty collective The Man. When it comes right down to it, what's one more or less of them? They practically aren't even people.

Likewise I would not be surprised if the old con-man lingo was alive and well in the Shadowrunner community. When you're sleazing your way into an office building and you look at that guard standing by the door, is he a person or is he a mark? What about that secretary you pass chatting it up with her friend the office drone? Are they people?

I submit that they are marks.

~J

[Talia Invierno]

Absolutely -- in the generality.

But no one -- not law enforcement persons, not shadowrunners, not Johnsons -- is cast from a single mold. I happen to play one shadowrunner who'd agree absolutely with the statement that Johnsons "practically aren't even people", and another who'd vehemently and possibly violently uphold the opposite. (Interestingly enough, the difference to a large extent seems to arise from the degree of determined seeing of others as individuals.)

Ultimately, the morality of one's actions is only measurable against two criteria: those set up by the (N)PC for themself, and those set up by others (which may vary, depending on the specific subset of "others"). And these may -- or may not -- intersect.

[Kagetenshi]

Oh, of course. I am submitting possible common viewpoints, not claiming that this is or should be true for all.

~J

[Cynic project]

[FrostyNSO]

Maybe you hadn't thought about it before you posted, but you're already going to be pissing off "Deus Ex Corp" because you are there to destroy/steal/maim/etc something of theirs anyways, which is likely to cost them a lot more in the long run.

[scoundrel]

It doesn't really matter how many people the runners kill, no corporation interested in profit would take a hit personally enough to send assassins after them.

[DrJest]

There's the other aspect of that situation to consider. Jane SecGuard is probably not exceptionally stupid. She's going to know that the runners had her stone cold, and that she could be wormfood by now - but she isn't.

Sure, she isn't likely to be grateful to the runners. But grateful for seeing another sunrise? Probably. And before she seeks revenge for losing her job (and that's actually quite a big intellectual step to take for the average security guard, I would imagine - from "defending property and rarely if ever having to draw your weapon" to "assassin hunting down professional combatants") she has to be thinking - these guys had me. They've already beaten me once.

I'd actually expect to see more motivation for revenge from the colleagues of murdered guards.

As for cops, well, copkillers paint targets on their heads when they do it. With non-lethal rounds, odds are the best they can get you for is Grievous Bodily Harm, and they won't be anywhere near as motivated to do it.

[Crusher Bob]

If you want to, you have have certain corps have different policies in regard to runners and thier actions, which, if the policies are generally followed would change the runners actions.

Assuming a corp wants good sec guards, this means that it must pay they higher salaries, larger insurance benefits etc... Therefore the corp would wish to avoid runners killing sec guards...

So it applies the following policies to runners:

If we catch you and you haven't killed anyone, you can do one of the following:

Do one run for us, for free. Then we will let you go, no strings attached.
Or
Give up the people who hired you. Then we will let you go, no strings attached.

If you have killed someone, then things get unfortunate...
You must pay XXX per person killed, + interest, etc. This may come from us harvesting your organs or from you doing runs for us, depending on the number of people you killed, etc.

Now, you are cornered by some guards of company X, you can either try to shoot your way out, or just give up. Notice that if the corp sticks to the above policy, just giving up sounds pretty attractive, dosen't it?

Of course, corp Y could have the policy of torturing captured runners to death, as a dis-incentive to other runners...

So who are we running against?

[Kagetenshi]

I'll get to the questions Doctor Jest raises shortly, but I personally have always thought that the idea of putting captured runners on missions that were anything but Judas Goats was absurd.

~J

[Taran]

It depends on how mercenary the "shadowrunning culture" is, I think. By corp standards any shadowrunner is pretty faithless: they don't give their lives to a single organization. Corp types might think that the runner catch-and-release plan would work, because after all runners have no sense of loyalty so why would working for their enemies bother them?

...yeah, I'm not convinced either.

[Kagetenshi]

I like the sig ;)

~J

[Sheffield]

One thing people are overlooking here is degree of consequences. Somebody made a case that 12 counts of manslaughter aren't that much worse than 12 counts of assault when stacked up with the other felonies a runner racks up in the course of a run.

However, any murder committed during the commission of another felony is murder one. In this light, the sentence for killing 12 guards in the course of robbing a corp is a very different animal from the sentence for sedating 12 guards while committing the same crime.

The real "morality" bind here is that most characters have already crossed over a certain criminal threshold before they're out of CharGen.

To go back to the Heat comparison somebody made in the guards thread: Once Waingro shoots one of the armored car drivers, the entire crew is up for the death penalty, so there's no reason not to kill the rest of the witnesses. They can't be executed twice, so they go all the way to cover their tracks.

But for 99.99% of all players, *any* jail time is equivalent to a death sentence. The difference between a 5-year sentence and 12 consecutive life sentences, while enormous to a real person, are meaningless to a player because odds are that they're going to retire their character the second they go to prison, whether for a year or a century.

Now because the runner probably has either some illegal magic or 'ware, odds are that they've already crossed the Waingro line the second they're created. So there's no reason for them not to kill because from the player's POV (not the char's), there's no difference between an illegal 'ware charge and an assault charge and twelve counts of murder one.

Leaving aside all issues of whether or not it's inherently bad to kill another person, what makes sense to a player doesn't necessarily make sense to their character. It becomes a risk-reward question about whether killing a witness reduces the chance of being caught sufficiently to risk an extra 20 years in jail. Irrelevant to a player, but extremely important to the character.

[Kagetenshi]

From the character's POV it makes sense as well. Who cares if you're only in jail for five years if the 'ware that lets you live gets stripped out of you on day one? The instant that happens, you're as good as dead anyway.

~J