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

[Tanka]

[DrJest]

Mmm, actually I was thinking of the spell Makeover. Some outrageous styling on the way in - purple mohawks and red tribal facepaint, for example - coupled with the basics of goggles and breathers will render you, realistically, unrecognisable. Everyone will remember the purple and red, bugger all will be able to pull the real you out of a lineup.

[Nikoli]

They have that, it's Physical Mask

[Cain]

Physical Mask is visible on the astral, identifies you as a mage, reveals your astral signature, and can be dispelled. Makeover has none of those drawbacks, if you take the time to prepare.

[Cain]

Attack of the double-post!

[kackling kactuar]

Kage:

There's a difference between screwing over someone's professional reputation and flat out killing them. Forsaking one part of your morality doesn't mean that you have to forsake the rest. A shoplifter isn't always a child rapist. So yeah, the argument "it's the right thing to do" does hold water, though whether or not it's the smart thing to do is debatable.

Also, charges aside, Lonestar will no doubt bring down more heat on you if you massacred every single guard in the place as opposed to just knocking them all out.

That said, there are reasons why Pacifist is listed as a flaw instead of an edge, and you've pretty much hit all of them.

[Shadow]

Lets not forget ammo cost money! That 20 rounds of EXE you burn through on full auto cuts deep into the profit margin.

Are my characters cold blooded murders who kill anything that gets in tehre way? no. But they arn't afraid to either. I think that if you can pull of a run with a zero body count and no one knew you where there, then that is a success.

If you ahve to get into a fire fight to get out, well it sucks, but that doesn't mean the run is hosed.

[BrazilRascal]

Everything dpeends on the situation and each particular run, but I believe that keeping it less-lethal does, in the end, help. Just think: If some crazy kid walked into a 7-11 and tazered all the patrons, it would get minor headlines and a "Isn't is amusing, wacky kids these days, Connie MacPrettyAnchorette?" line on the evening news. If the same kid took an AR-15 and gunned everyone down, there'd be breaking news across all channels, lines of pundits wanting to posthulate on the violence of the inner city, on how vide games and RPGs are behind it all, and plenty of worried voters writing their congressmen demanding better security.

It's a flawed analogy, of course, but I think some of the rationale still applies. Less lives lost means that the corp doesn't have to pay life insurance to maybe dozens of guard families. Johnsons might appreciate the team's ability to keep misisons from becoming Waco-style bloodbaths. And shrewd execs like Miles Lanier might recognize proper use of force even when employed against them, and try to learn/profit from it.

Remember, corps know that shadowrunning is a factor. If they mass-fired their security staff every time there is a break-in or an extraction, their operations would soo turn chaotic. I think a more realistic approach would be a stint in re-training, maybe a heavy reprimand to the guards who might have comitted the most glaring slip-ups, and re-working the system to make it always less vulnerable.


Also: unlike governments, corporations are not really accountable to anyone on what they do to "criminals". That cuts both ways; jus tlike the runners can't count on the fair trial by a jury of their peers (Hell, they won't even get a phone call), it also means that the corp just might thing "Very well, there will always be shadowrunners around, and the next team that hits us probably won't be as slick as this one. Maybe it will pay off if we send them on a few trial runs, bugged to the ears and under blackmail, and start recouping those damages."

In a way, runners can be like the researches they so often extract from other corps; just because they were working for the opposition doesn't mean they can't be rather useful to their former-target corp.

[frostPDP]

It all depends on the type of run and who its against and which guards get killed.

Killing a few border guards at the Trans-Polar Aleut border tends to make you a wanted felon there. Period, provided they have any chance of getting your DNA (And they do.)

Killing a few Shiawese security forces will make Shiawese not like you, but it won't be a death sentence.

Doing both in the same run can get ugly. Not killing them, though, doesn't make your legal situation any better. You've basically commited a terrorist incident one way another, lethal or not. If your job is to break a prisoner out of jail and you do it without killing anyone, that's great - But if that prisoner turns around and kills people later, you're still liable for an accessory charge.

Shadowrunners ARE, as has been pointed out, a walking jail sentence. By the nature of their gear, spells and actions you're lucky to get off with twenty years. Corporate policy basically says to treat all runners (even those who have proven to be relatively rational) as potential threats.

So the bottom line? Do whatever makes sense to you! If you have a gun drawn on you, its either fight back or go to jail - And going to jail might well equate to death, considering you've got the same amount of rights as a slave in the 1800's. Killing old ladies is wrong and unnecessary, and thus gets you visted by far more heat unless the old lady is a witness to your killing twenty Renraku guards. If you've already commited a helluvalotta crimes against Renraku, chances are killing a few more of their guards means nothing in terms of the great balance of crap.

And as for ruined lives, you don't dump a million nuyen into a guard and fire him unless he's a titanic screwup. Simple math - He's gotta be pretty good to warrant the surgury, unlike the beat cop who scrounges three paychecks for Boosted 1. We don't impeach the President based on one mistake (unless of course its overt treason or the like...) but then again, maybe we should...LOL sorry, I'll refrain from that in the future.

[kevyn668]

1) There are no rules for long (or short) term investigation. If LS catches you based on foresic evidence its GM fait. Period. (if your face is on the sec cam...well, ya pays yer money and ya takes yer chances.)

2) There are no rules, that I know of, that handle crimimal prosecution. Lots of Negotiation, perhaps?

3) Being SINless does NOT mean that you get a bullet to the noggin.

4) Kage is 100% right. Shadowrunners ruin lives. Corps actually do provide services that are used by the general populace. They may be heartless but someone has to hook you up with cable and SloppySoy™ (and clothes, and a job, and health care, and a place to live, and drugs to make you work more, ect...)

So what's the beef with killing people? Its what shadowrunners do. They're criminals. Ends justify the means and all that.

I don't know if Kage's post was supposed to be saitre or not or if I missed the real meaning but I always snicker when I see the Shadowrunner with the Pacifist flaw or the Heartless Killer with the "No women, no kids" thing.

Its cool if its your RP vision of your character but its a little played out. Shadowrunners are MERCENARIES. Like in Gross Pointe Blank, they kill for money.

Look at it as an occupational hazard. :)

Using non-lethal methods doesn't let you slide. Think of like this way: if you taser (or NS7 or whatever) someone in the course of a Shadowrun you didn't just stun that person. You are a TERRORIST.

Geek 'em all. Let the Maker sort 'em out.

[Kagetenshi]

My post was entirely serious. I think parts of it are being misunderstood, which I'll clear up after I'm done running the session I'm in the middle of, but you appear to have gotten most of the idea.

~J

[Pthgar]

Blame Twist.

[fistandantilus4....]

Darn Twist.


I see where your coming from. I see most runners more like the characters in Sin City (great movie BTW), than comic book heroes (except maybe good ol' Wolverine). Do what they have to when they have to. If they cared so much about such things, they'd likely be dead or behind a desk.

[lorthazar]

Actually from the standpoint of a Player/GM who would like to see ShadowRun get back to it's roots a little more. I say I have to agree with the main message of this post. Use the most efficent method of making sure you don't get caught. If that means blowing up the building and including Humanis Policlub fliers, so be it.

[Sharaloth]

Yes, back to the way I played Shadowrun when me and my friends first got our hands on a copy of SR3, and thought the whole point was killing every poor NPC who got in our way and didn't offer to pay us. When even the thought of hiding our identities only occured in passing, since we were going to kill all the people and trash the computer system anyways. A body count of 300+ after the second run, most of them harmless R&D wage-slaves, and man was it ever a ball.

Ah, the memories. The horrible, horrible memories.

edit: Yeah, I was being slightly sarcastic, but really, I like what Lorthazar said, if you're going to blow the building anyways, why not plant evidence to direct attention away from you? It's only good sense.

[Kagetenshi]

Not all killing is unprofessional. Not even most killing is. That does not mean that killing is never unprofessional.

Edit: you're right, though, misdirection is definitely a tool I'd like to see used more often. Target is a meta? Plant Humanis stickers! Target is the CAS? Plant Azzie gear! So on and so forth.

~J

[ef31415]

Yup. Its the big fun problem of Shadowrun. Unless you're just nasty, you play people in a nasty business trying to live with themselves at the end of the day.

That's the big reason not to kill everything in sight -- the person looking out from the mirror the next morning.

Very noir-ish. The dark knight, that walks in the muck but keeps his head above it.

[Critias]

Or, alternately, the disassociated killer, whose long-term training and combat augmentations make ending another human life (when his life is even tangentially threatened) a trivial thing to him, but who feels genuine human guilt over everyday little stuff, otherwise, and who has a nagging concern that he's done something wrong if someone he cares about sees him maim, murder, and kill.

That's the route I took, at least.

[Glyph]

The fun is Shadowrun is playing characters whose moral code conflicts with some of the things they have to do. I agree that it's too simplistic to think that merely not killing the guards makes the character a good guy. Shadowrun is a game where the bad guys can have a soft side, and where the good guys have to do bad things for the greater good sometimes... or even do bad things just to survive. It's fun, though, to play characters who think they are "good" guys, so that you can explore their rationalizations and little inconsistencies.

Also, not every "good" guy will be a pacifist. Some of the more idealistically-motivated runners might be more likely to kill the "jackbooted thugs working for the foul corporations who despoil mother earth!". ;)

[Demosthenes]

[Critias]

All of which is why you don't get caught, as opposed to why you don't commit crimes.

[Capt. Dave]

[Demosthenes]

[hermit]

Well, whoever runs in a way that his face can be easily recognised is not too professional anyway. A mage with the physical mask spell should be a minimum requirement for infiltration runs.

Also, as mentioned above, not all shadowruns are hit-and-run, infiltrate and blow shit up, or get item and shoot your way out. When on a bodyguard mission, gunning down anything that moves may get you not paid at all (bad publicity of some higher-up's bodyguards mow down his entire audience). When sneaking into somewhere and changing some stuff, like production data in a factory, as opposed to blowing that factory up, not being detected at all is crucial. When doing a reconnaissance mission, not being detected is even more crucial.

Of course, that depends on your group's style of game. If you favour in-and-out-and-blow-stuff-up ops solely, and that doesn't get stale for you, go for it. I surely do think that's boring, and tend to play otherwise (and with people who share my style). Ultimately, that's what it all comes down to.

But yeah, for the nitial point, Shadowrunners = god guys just doesn't fly. It's not what cyberpunk s about anyway, being as antiheroic as it is.

[Critias]

In a way it can be a somewhat "heroic" game -- remember much of the early stuff (even in cyberpunk, not just Shadowrun specifically) had a very Robin Hood feel to it. If you were to go out of your way to play up the inhumanity (rather than businesslike efficiency) or megacorps, the brutality (rather than "normal guy with a crappy job") of Lone Star, and the desperation of the general populace... you could probably pull off that same sort of game, even today.

If you wanted to.

But where's the fun in being the good guy, anyways? ;)