Honor Among Thieves?, or rather...among Shadowrunners? Options

[Swing Kid]

There would undoubtedly be a number of "unwritten rules" regarding the Do's and Don'ts of Shadowrunning, particularly among the runners themselves, or even client/operative relations. I am curious as to the thoughts of this forum. Basically, like a thieves or pirates code. Basically the stuff that separates the posers from the professionals. If the unwritten rules of Shadowrunning Etiquette were to be written, what would they be?

Just a couple that we use in our campaign that might or might not be used in most campaigns, just to throw a couple of examples out, might be:

* Runners don't take hits out on other Runners.

* Runners don't take jobs and then offer the package to other interested parties for more money.

Naturally, even these rules could be debated, depending on the nature of the gaming group.

[nezumi]

I don't agree with the first, but I do agree with the second.

When it comes down to it, the idea is just to act professional. That's how you tell the difference. The job comes first, before petty squabbles, before looting rights. If you can do it quickly and cleanly, that's the best way to do it. There are very few things that come before the job, and it's always the most serious, priority 1 drek (wife kidnapped, J backstabbing you, etc.)

[Charon]

1 - Keep your word
2 - Don't screw over your team mates.
3 - Protect your contact

That's pretty much it. Accepting a hit on another runner is certainly okay.

You should keep your word simply because if you don't no one will hire you.

You shouldn't screw over your team mates because if you do, no one will work with you.

You should protect your contacts because if you don't you'll lose them.

Easy enough, I think. Violate these rules and the GM has a duty to make your life as a runner miserable. Any other rules of conduct are a matter of personal taste, IMO.

[Kagetenshi]

I don't agree with either of those. You do what you do to make cred, and the smart ones will think long-term. You don't organleg the J and sell the package because then you won't get hired again, but if you can organleg the J and sell the package without anyone finding out, well… what's stopping you? It's certainly not unprofessional.

~J

[Bearclaw]

-If the job is supposed to be in and out with no one knowing, DON'T LOOT.

[Charon]

[Swing Kid]

[nezumi]

Killing the J and/or selling the package is unprofessional, but might not be against the 'honor code' this thread was built around.

Killing the J is not a good idea unless you know no one will know or care, and the J won't hire you again anyway. For instance, if he betrayed you and everyone knows it. Otherwise, it's simply not worth it. How much would you get for him anyway, a few K? Not worth the risk of never working again.

As for selling the package... Depends on the price tag. If you can get a cool few million out of it, sure! That's part of being a thief. Then you don't HAVE to work ever again. That, or use it for ransom to jack of the price to the J a few notches.

There are always exceptions, but for the most part, the idea is to keep on running.

I disagree with you, Kid. Runners span the spectrum. There are some who are just kids with guns hired to do delivery runs, and some rocket across the world doing high level extractions. Sure, the kids might decide it's never nice to wax old ladies, but that's their decision, no 'runner's code'.

There's certainly no rule against running against other runners. It's a very competitive field. Dog eat dog, and all that. They're regularly hired to compete against each other. If they decided runners couldn't kill other runners, the ones who broke the rules would be the ones who generally got paid. It's an untenable rule then. Runners WILL compete, and they will kill each other. They just try not to geek anyone else who's currently on their team (some even go so far to not geek anyone who's ever been on their team, but lets not be too idealistic here, eh?)

[BitBasher]

Well, all the "codes of conduct" in all my games could be boiled down to the phrase "Be professional".

As long as the runners and the johnson keeps it professional all is well. Runners will do wetowrk, they will kill women and children and they will mass murder, but they maintain a professional attitude and get the job done.

Those that cannot act as professionals will have a much harder time interacting with johnsons and have much more difficult careers. They will find it harder to build working relationships and garner trust of contacts.

This is what separates the real runners from the wannabees.

[Smiley]

I don't agree with not killing other runners. Whatever pays the bills, pays the bills. If a PC has a problem with it, that's different. But shadowrunners in general... I don't think anyone in any group I know would refuse to kill another runner.

I do agree with protecting contacts and not screwing teammates over, however. It's just good business and goes back towards paying the bills.

EDIT: And now that I think about it, what's "professional" is going to differ depending on who's running and who's in the campaign.

EDIT again: Not screwing Johnson isn't iron-clad, either. If you find out he's lying or the run blows up, or any of that stuff, all bets are off.

[Swing Kid]

Now we are getting into the spirit of the topic. How would you all label professionalism?

Another question, if it is as Dog-eat-Dog as all that, then what would keep runners from targeting other runners for profit? Decks generally are worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. Sams often carry enough hardware to fund a small college, and mages, selling their gear could be a career. This is not meant to argue any points, as much as to explore how things would work.

One of the biggest reasons for this topic is not so much a code of conduct for the actual players playing the game, as much as to get an idea of how a GM should have the other Shadowrunners act towards them from a NPC standpoint.

[mfb]

everybody throws around "professional" like it means something concrete, yet they all mean different things by it. rather than jumping in and providing my own definition (which would be no more correct than anyone else's anyway), i'll just stick with "wise" and "unwise".

selling the package and organlegging the J: generally unwise. only worth doing if it brings you significantly closer to retirement, or if the J deserves it (by whatever standards you hold "deserving it" to)

looting: generally wise. unless there's a specific reason not to, take difficult-to-trace valuables. don't grab everything that isn't nailed down, and don't jeopardize the actual job in favor of the loot (unless said loot will bring you significantly closer to retirement).

taking hits on other runners: generally unwise, unless the pay is good. you're going to have a more difficult time than usual collecting enough good intel to make a hit on any runner that's worth hitting; if you could, they wouldn't be good enough to be worth hitting. as far as honor among shadowrunners, though? *snort* i'll see you on my wall, carebear.

[Charon]

[Hitomi]

[Smiley]

[Arethusa]

Honor amongst thieves is not as silly as many of you are making it out to be. The problem isn't that it isn't real so much as it isn't honor at all; it's professional, intelligent self interest and mutually assured destruction that ends up looking like honor.

If I kill my Johnson, I not only risk my life and the lives of my teammates; I also pretty much killed my career and theirs, not to mention invited additional attention from legitimate authorities. And my former friends'll probably kill me.

If I kill my friends, I'll get some money in the short term; I'll also have pretty much alienated myself from the only community that offers me any sort of protection.

If I start preying on members of the community purely for profit, I have again turned that entire community on me. Thus, killing deckers for cash is goddamn stupid.

Honor amongst shadowrunners is a very nihilistic expression of systemic self interest and survival. That's all. But it is real. And, well, some runners are still human beings, I guess, so maybe they won't be quite as pragmatic, but at the end, the crazy hardass psychopath runners that people around here often glorfiy as realistic are just as silly as honorable street samurai.

[mfb]

right, that's what i'm saying. going up against other runners is a bad idea for its own sake, not because of some lofty ideal. the reason you don't drive your car into a wall isn't that you have respect for the car spirits, it's that you don't want to eat a steering wheel.

[Smiley]

There are circumstances which call for Johnson's head on a party platter. They have to be pretty extreme, though. It all comes back to how you play it. In some groups a dead Johnson is going to mean more trouble than in others.

[hahnsoo]

Still, as far as murdering other runners, it's not like the so-called "shadowrunner community at large" (if it even exists within the context of the campaign setting in any particular gaming group... we'll assume Seattle for now) will psychically know your motivations and actions. A team who got screwed over by a rogue decker and geeked that decker in revenge can still be considered "dishonorable targets, open season", while a team that is out solely to wipe out the competition may never hit the Shadowland boards if they keep a low profile (i.e. get away with it). I think one general "rule" for shadowrunning (and probably any profession) is "No matter how clever you are, no matter how thorough you are, you will screw up eventually. Always prepare for the worst."

Most of the ethical conflicts within the shadowrunner "profession" are between staying alive (survival) and keeping your job (professionalism). The rest tend to be ethical conflicts that pertain to personal codes of morality and cultural norms. There are some things within the subset of shadowrun and the Sixth World that could be considered acceptable cultural standards, I guess: "Never deal with a dragon" "Geek the mage first" etc.

[Smiley]

That is a good point. Even if there is a reason to kill Mr. J or another team, the SR community isn't going to automatically know. It goes both ways, though. If a Johnson you're working for disappears, the SR community isn't going to automatically know it was you. Shadowrunning is a dangerous business, accidents happen. If EVERY Mr. J you work for winds up floating in the sound, people are going to know something's amiss, but if a team with a good track record misplaces an employer, I doubt the repercussions are going to be too severe.

[hahnsoo]

[Swing Kid]

Thanks for the input, especially the grammar concerns.

To clearify my statement that threw you off. "not meant as a shot," means that I wasn't knocking the mercenary trade, like saying "not meant as an insult to mercenaries". Then I noted that my favorite character is a blatant mercenary, of the same description that you wrote (though most likely more cold blooded than your version), to emphasize the point.

I have to say, however, that I do not agree in the slightest with the idea that Shadowrunners are seen as below mercenary soldiers in the eyes of the public. Everything that I have read has led me to believe that the trid and music industry completely idolizes the craft. If this is the case, then public opinion would hold runners in a pretty fair light. "They would like us."

On the other hand, many of the answers that I have gotten do show me that my interpretations of Shadowrunner honor (save for a few responses) are completely different than what is common among SR gamers.

I would like to point out again that if all of this were real, then the profession of Shadowrunning could only exist if it were handled better than simply acting like hit-men, terrorists, and cutthroat maniacs with agendas. If runners made a habbit of killing everyone on a target site, usually because it is easier than remaining unseen, then Hahhnsoo's (han solo?) view would be completely correct. The corps would find the Shadowrunning community as more of a liability than as an asset. I do not doubt that there would be (much like there are today) pleanty of people who would do exactly that sort of work for money (Mercenaries, Hit Men, etc.), and these characters are great to play, but I believe that they would be completely different professions.

Sorry Hahhnsoo if this seemed like a shot, but I love a good debate.

[Wounded Ronin]

I would argue that in the context of the 80s you need some honorable asian dude running around, or else the universe implodes.

[Swing Kid]

:D I couldn't agree more

[hahnsoo]

Whoa, just a sec. My EDIT: was regarding my last sentence, not yours. Typically, when someone does an EDIT: it's to clarify something that editing person said. I wrote a bad sentence, and my EDIT: explained that I changed it because I wanted it to sound better. I'm sorry if I've unintentionally offended you with that statement, but believe me, I wasn't trying to correct your grammar or pick a fight.

Shadowrunners don't have their own public corporations, like MET 2000 and 10,000 Daggers (both of which are at least A rated). Granted, the sections out of the front of Fields of Fire and out of SOTA: 2063 (p54-72) admittedly lionize the profession of Mercenary and are written from the perspective of two Mercenaries who take pride in their profession. Also, from Sprawl Survival Guide, Shadowrunners in the mass media are romanticized, although they are equally portrayed as heartless villains. However, the main difference is that Shadowrunners are not legitimate and mercenaries are. Why would anyone see a SINless criminal under a better light than a legitimate solider-for-hire, especially someone who is seen every year at the Desert Wars (one of the most popular Trid events in the Sixth World)?

Another example is the attitude of the Johnson toward the runners portrayed on pp 52-58 of the Shadowrun Companion, specifically "TREAT THE SRS AS HOSTILE" section on p56 (ironically, Shadowrunners are described as "mercenaries, living merely for the next payment"). "Even if they appear wholesome (a statistically improbable occurrence), assume they are willing to kill you for any trivial reason should the opportunity present itself. These people are hardened criminals who commit heinous crimes for nuyen."

The other main thing is that shadowrunners are expendable and deniable. A corporation who hires shadowrunners doesn't care about a shadowrunner's professionalism aside from how it furthers its own goals. They are fully able and willing to throw away the lives of the folks that they hire, and cover it up afterwards. Before you argue that "no sane shadowrunner would go on a job for a corp that screws over shadowrunners", how would any shadowrunner know who they are really working for? Misdirection and false identities are the NORM for Johnsons, precisely because they typically intend to screw the shadowrunners over after all is said and done.

On a side note, the name is Hahnsoo. It's my Korean name. Please don't tease it, okay?