 Some unusual Shadowruns?, Or: How to frag your DocWagon Contract. |
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 Sep 29 2005, 06:33 AM
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#51
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Freelance Elf  Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 7,324 Joined: 30-September 04 From: Texas Member No.: 6,714  |
Oh noes! The big nasty Shadowrunners delivered a poor drugged up cyberzombie to the mean evil corporate-man! You arbitrarily gave them character flaws for their amoral activity, I hope!
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Sep 29 2005, 07:38 AM
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#52
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Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,283 Joined: 17-May 05 Member No.: 7,398 |
The ironic thing in my gaming group is that the most moral character has the biggest body count of 'innocent' people. He claims it was an accident, but my sammie doesn't believe him. ;)
For the record, our group has 5 characters in it: Katklaw, my street sam sniper Lilith, the street sam DMPC Fu Manshu, the troll physad monk ??- psychotic assassin sorcerer ??- Raven shaman, and a university professor who studies paranormal animals. (big body count) How did it happen? Basically, when we were doing the first SR Missions run (the one where you gaurd the building in the park), he used Levitate to throw the the bomb-drone onto the freeway, so it would be destroyed by a passing 18-wheeler truck. The failsafe went off, and the bomb exploded, destroying the freeway and killing 350 people. He claims he thought it was a surveillance drone. |
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Sep 29 2005, 08:19 AM
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#53
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 934 Joined: 26-August 05 From: Earth - Europe - AGS - Norddeutscher Bund - Hannover Member No.: 7,624 |
Better then my group. They just turned the drone on its back. About 15 meters away from the building they had to protect. After that they ignored all my hints. >KABOOOM< Building destroyed. Fixers dead. Run messed up. Runners dead. One of the few times when I felt some kind of satisfaction while killing a group.
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Sep 29 2005, 02:09 PM
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#54
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Horror Group: Members Posts: 5,322 Joined: 15-June 05 From: BumFuck, New Jersey Member No.: 7,445 |
That was helping someone who wanted to die to die, (And getting paid twice for it,) not delivering a drugged up girl to perverted murderer. There's a difference. They did the good thing and got the mega :nuyen: in the process. Bravo. |
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Sep 29 2005, 02:26 PM
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#55
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 150 Joined: 31-August 05 Member No.: 7,660 |
Is there is reason that you must attack when you see someone who's playing the game differently than you? Are you that insecure in yourself? |
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Sep 29 2005, 05:50 PM
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#56
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Freelance Elf Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 7,324 Joined: 30-September 04 From: Texas Member No.: 6,714 |
Just amused, actually. I mean, here's a game about professional criminals, where in a specific session of aforementioned game the GM invites the characters to do something bad, gives them (from the sound of things) no reason not to do the bad thing but their imaginary characters' imaginary moral code, and then harshly punished them for accepting his invitation to do bad things for money.
If you don't want your players doing horrible things (instead of just illegal things), don't invite them to do so. If pedophilia keeps you up at night, maybe instead of opening your game up to it, you should avoid it. If kidnapping makes you break out into a cold sweat if it's carried out upon a young girl (instead of a middle-aged researcher), then maybe you don't offer the job to your players. If you want to play in a good-guy moral game, tell people ahead of time instead of smacking them down in-game. Most of the time that a Johnson or Fixer (read: GM) offers a job to a group of 'Runners, they look at two things: danger involved, and payoff. If you offer them a milk run for a lot of cash, don't get your panties all in a wad if they accept, and hand out Flaws like candy. |
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Sep 29 2005, 06:06 PM
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#57
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 150 Joined: 31-August 05 Member No.: 7,660 |
Depending upon which part of the rulebook you're reading, one can easily make the rational decision that SR isn't about such characters in the least. Nor did your post indicate a need for pre-game communication of expectations. It just slammed someone's game in a very snarkly way. Many GMs make their expectations known upfront- and still have players attempt to end-run it. I myself kick such players from the game, others withhold rewards or assign negative rewards. Nor does presenting an evil option from an evil NPC to the players open the expectation that said players should select that option. Such events are part and parcel of nearly all heroic fiction and any GM playing the role of such a villain will likely found such a offer passing his lips. Basically you came off as someone who was seriously insulted that another GM would play the game differently- actually resorting to the type of language one would expect from playground bullies. This is the last I'll say on the subject unless someone has a question about my viewpoint. I just wanted it known that there are other ways of approach problems and running games- given how little information we have we have little reason to paint someone in such bad light as was done here. |
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Sep 29 2005, 06:07 PM
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#58
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Midnight Toker Group: Members Posts: 7,686 Joined: 4-July 04 From: Zombie Drop Bear Santa's Workshop Member No.: 6,456 |
Why, what dirty minds everyone has. Ophis just says that the runners delivered an underage (which could mean 20) girl to a polititian and that she was killed. Everyone assummes that it was something sexual. I assumed that she knew too much. There is no way any sane child mollester would hire a bunch of runners to find his victims for him. He could easily have gone down the the barrens and picked up a preteen joygirl for :nuyen: 20. There would be less witnesses and it would have been much cheaper. The only logical explination is that the girl knew too much.
Of course, I see nothing wrong with playing an amoral and immoral SR game so long as the PCs avoid commiting graphic rapes and keep the interaction with their Scarlet Women to a level slightly below softcore porn. People play RPGs to do things that they wouldn't do in reality. I must ask, what is moraly objectionable about delivering a fully censenting druged up girl to a perverted murderer? It isn't like they were taking her against her will and it isn't like they knew that he was a murderer. At worst, they knew that he was a pervert and I could rail against age of consent laws for hours. Illegal doesn't equal immoral. |
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Sep 29 2005, 06:09 PM
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#59
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 908 Joined: 31-March 05 From: Georgia Member No.: 7,270 |
I like how the solution to "I'd rather die than go back there" was to euthanize him, not set him free. |
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Sep 29 2005, 06:10 PM
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#60
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 150 Joined: 31-August 05 Member No.: 7,660 |
Don't you think this is a question best answered by the individual group and GM? And doesn't current law note that a drugged up girl cannot give consent? |
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Sep 29 2005, 06:28 PM
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#61
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Midnight Toker Group: Members Posts: 7,686 Joined: 4-July 04 From: Zombie Drop Bear Santa's Workshop Member No.: 6,456 |
In many jurisdictions, an intoxicated person cannot give consent for sex. However, the law also notes that you are fully responsible for everything you do while you are intoxicated. It is a wierd double standard. A person who kills someone while drunk is just as much a murder as someone who kills while sober in most jurisdictions. The fact that he wouldn't have killed while sober it irrevelant, all that matters is that he shose to become intoxicated. The runners weren't having sex with her, they were transporting her. They were not kidnaping her because she did agree to go with them. The fact is that her intoxication had no legal bearing on that agreement unless the runners drugged her against her will. And yes, I think that question is best answered by the group in question, but others seem to find the group's actions atrocious without having all of the facts and I would like to understand why. While I agree with people should play the kind of games that they want to play, I find it difficult to understand the mindset that condems players for something so harmless. Of course, I advocate selling babies to ghouls. I march to the tune of my own twisted moral horn. |
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Sep 29 2005, 06:37 PM
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#62
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 150 Joined: 31-August 05 Member No.: 7,660 |
It's not a double standard at all. One is rightly forced to take responsibility for being intoxicated and the actions that results there of (assuming the girl in this case willing intoxicated herself). However taking advantage of someone who is intoxicated is a different matter. Now responsibility for action is upon a different party, one who is a) aware of the reduced capacity of another (and a minor at that in this case) and b) decides to illegally act to their own desires and interests even so. Generally those calling double standard upon the law don't really understand the standards that produced the laws.
I find it interesting that one is more likely to face this type of comment on today's internet for holding to traditional morals (i.e. one doesn't hand underaged drugged girls over to scum for money) than any other viewpoint. For example I would expect no comment at all about your selling babies to gouls. |
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Sep 29 2005, 07:09 PM
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#63
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Midnight Toker Group: Members Posts: 7,686 Joined: 4-July 04 From: Zombie Drop Bear Santa's Workshop Member No.: 6,456 |
No, it is a double standard. If you have sex with someone who is intoxicated and just happen to be several times more intoxicated than that person, it is still a crime. It doen't matter if either of the actors have the capacity to take advantage of the other, both ar erapists because they both chose to become intoxicated and both are rape victims beause both were intoxicated. The standard that allows all parties to simultaneously be rapist and rape victim is certainly a double standard.
One shouldn't mistake Shadowrun for reality. The morals of the Shadowrun universe are far different from the morals of the real world. The entire concept of "underaged" stupid to carry over onto the Sixth World. As I said in another post, there are no children in the streets of the Sixth World, only people who die and people who make other people dead. Anyone who doesn't recognize that deserved to be shot by an 8-year-old ganger. Their extraction target was intoxicated. So what? For all they knew the polition had her best interests at heart. |
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Sep 29 2005, 07:38 PM
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#64
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 150 Joined: 31-August 05 Member No.: 7,660 |
I strongly disagree, even given your newly modified example. Given this isn't a board specific to legal debate and that further examination of this would go too deep into specific legal details, I imagine that's the end of this part of the exchange. We disagree and that's the end of that.
One shouldn't assume that another person who you've never even met in real life has the same view of Shadowrun morals as yourself. I can tell from our limited exchange for example that you and I have very different visions on this subject. For the GM in question, it is a simple fact that this element of morality still applies in his campaign (to the players if not the world they game in). It is an assumed concept of his world, and one would also assume (unless given reason not to) it is also a concept communicated to his players.
What I find disappointing in this exchange is the condemning air that has been taken. It's not as stated 'failing to understand the mindset'. Rather it seems to be a complete and total disapproval of the mindset, as if there is a required vision of how SR should be ran. Your calling the concept "stupid" above for example. Not "unexpected", Not "different", but "stupid". If one doesn't understand a mindset, it is better to ask honest questions exploring it before condemning. After all, if one doesn't understand, how can one be certan they disapprove? And if one isn't really interesting in understanding, perhaps it's better to simply pass the subject by. |
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Sep 29 2005, 07:49 PM
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#65
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Midnight Toker Group: Members Posts: 7,686 Joined: 4-July 04 From: Zombie Drop Bear Santa's Workshop Member No.: 6,456 |
I am only condemng a single concept which causes a great deal of problems when interfaced with the normal canon material, specificly Otaku. Thae idea that ever 20 year old is automaticly less capible than ever 21 year old is quite absurd and it certainly isn't one that reasonable Shadowrunners would take. That the extrectee was "underaged" shouldn't matter especially since we didn't know what age she was under. |
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Sep 29 2005, 08:13 PM
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#66
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 150 Joined: 31-August 05 Member No.: 7,660 |
You've condemned more than that in this exchange. And again I point out, you have no knowledge of the campaign you are calling stupid. You don't know how close to canon that campaign is. You don't know the status of Otaku in that campaign. You don't know the mental and physical difference between Otaku and normal children in that campaign. You don't know the agreed upon gaming enviroment for that campaign. You don't know the stated goals of the GM in that campaign. You don't know the exact details of the actual event. But yet you are willing to lay judgement upon it. Not state "The way we play it wouldn't have been a problem...". No, to call it stupid. I don't really think there is anything else to say about the subject. Frankly, you've said it all. |
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Sep 29 2005, 08:35 PM
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#67
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Midnight Toker Group: Members Posts: 7,686 Joined: 4-July 04 From: Zombie Drop Bear Santa's Workshop Member No.: 6,456 |
I wasn't calling the campaign stupid, I was calling the reactions of other to events in that campaign stupid. Namely, the idea that the player's actions are somehow worse because the girl was "underaged" which may mean she wasn't around in the Fourth World for all we know. And yet, other players are praised for poisioning a cyborg so that they can turn him in for money and not feel bad about themselves when they could have just walked away and let him remain free.
I would like some more details of the run, personally, but from what I heard It seems that a respectible polititian hired the runners to pick up someone he knows, who happens to be a drug user and who certainly doesn't fear him, and then has her killed so she won't make him look bad. Yet, the runners have no clue that she is to be killed. Why is this immoral? Because the Johnson wasn't forthcoming with his intentions? Because the players didn't read the GM's mind? |
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Sep 29 2005, 08:43 PM
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#68
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 150 Joined: 31-August 05 Member No.: 7,660 |
You specifically called concept of in that campaign "underage" stupid. You did so twice. I think we're at an end of our exchange at this point. Nothing more to say expect that we disagree. |
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Sep 29 2005, 11:06 PM
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#69
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 132 Joined: 24-August 05 From: Luxembourg, Luxembourg Member No.: 7,611 |
I thought the whole “mess with the guy with the telescope” run by fistandantilus3.0 was one of the coolest things I’ve seen in awhile.
Our group had to run a telesma shop for two days for a talismonger contact. Was pretty funny since we only had one person with astral perception, and they were a physad. The shop had a number of spirits hanging around that messed with us, and some spirit possessed items as well. One of the items returned itself to the shop each time we gave it to the customer. This caused all kinds of problems for us. Anyone else have any unusual things they’ve had to do to repay contacts? |
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Oct 1 2005, 06:55 AM
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#70
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 279 Joined: 21-March 05 From: Freeport NY Member No.: 7,205 |
First post in a while, so lets see if this is rusty.
"Underaged" in some countries is 12. In others its 18. I can be sent to war at age 18 but I can't drink (or, a county over, get a SMOKE), so what is underaged? I would say if this were some child consenting to her kidnapping, it might be morally objectable. If it were a 20 year old...Yeah, sorry, its not immoral. Its also not immoral unless the PCs are fully aware of what they are doing. Shadowrunners are PAID to kidnap people, drugged or not, coherent or not, adult or not, and deliver them to other people on a regular basis. It is part of the game. To quote the Captain, "crime is our meal ticket." You could punish them with an enemy instead of Bad Karma. Bad Karma sounds like an action so cruel it makes Middle Eastern regiemes look like Marx's dream come true. IF the Runners knew that this man was going to rape a 12 year old girl and then kill her, the runners might have some Karmic debt. If they think its just a normal snatch and grab, they're okay. They may make an enemy or a name for themselves, but I think there are better ways to retaliate. Example: A few months down the line, politician in question is found out. The names of the runners are implicated, or their Johnson or Fixer is. They now have a Lone Star record they can either get rid of or run from, or (suicidally) try to fight. |
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Oct 1 2005, 10:04 AM
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#71
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Mystery Archaeologist Group: Members Posts: 2,906 Joined: 19-September 05 From: The apple tree Member No.: 7,760 |
okay as the ref who ran the game in question some details.
Girl was about 12. (I have am not a fan of age of consent issuses because it fails to take into account subjects maturity.) The party were working for a madam of a brothel with a bad rep. She was a contact to group had got to help train one of their mages. They had to deliver the kid to one of her clients. The girl was clearly off her head on something. (I have big moral issuses about this sort of thing.) The reason the group got bad karma is because two team member went "urgh I have a bad feeling about this, this is bad shit, we should drop it. Okay you you guys want to go ahead? I'm out then." The remaining team members were going "hey we asked her she seemed a bit stoned but she said cool. What could go wrong?" It was the blasais additute to it that got me. They got bad karma because they didn't think it thru, and glossed over the problems that where pointed out to them. I can and do run games for characters who are evil, they could have all taken it and gone fuck the consequences. I could have lived with that, there would be different consequences for that. But no they took the job with starry eyes and freaked when it went bad. The group it should be noted where novice runners, this was there second or third job ever I would not normally run this sort of stuff for an experienced group as the sort of characters I tend to run for would have some rep for not taking this kinda job. Lastly, and perhaps most importantly is how BAD KARMA!!!! works in my games. Bad karma the flaw exists. No player ever takes it it's to nasty. If a PC earns a point of bad karma during a game (eg killing innocents or at least delivering them to something nasty in a callous manner.) I have a one shot drop shit on you card. I do use it as an excuse for soemthing random and unpleasent to happen to you, eg when one of the party gets bitten by a rabid HMHVV infected weasel(bad example, its still early for me) your bad karma makes it you!! This happens once then it's gone (until you do something else. Just to reiterate I did not give them one of the nastier flaws in the game just because they did something I see as wrong. Thank you for your time. I suggest we unhijack this thread and move it elsewhere. |
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Oct 1 2005, 02:10 PM
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#72
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Immoral Elf Group: Members Posts: 15,247 Joined: 29-March 02 From: Grimy Pete's Bar & Laundromat Member No.: 2,486 |
I still call horseshit! If the situation (the details of which they did not know about in advance), was that bad, then there should be logical in-game consequences, not some arbitrary cosmic smackdown by an oversensitive GM who set the players (not the characters) up for the fall in the first place.
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Oct 1 2005, 02:27 PM
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#73
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Mystery Archaeologist Group: Members Posts: 2,906 Joined: 19-September 05 From: The apple tree Member No.: 7,760 |
actually there were consequences. Consequences the group managed to alleviate by some quick thinking. The group learnt from their stupidity. They managed to get the politician removed from power by co operating with people investigating the situation. They also made the authorities aware of the situation in the first place.
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Oct 1 2005, 04:25 PM
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#74
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Horror Group: Members Posts: 5,322 Joined: 15-June 05 From: BumFuck, New Jersey Member No.: 7,445 |
Now, see, Ophis is too generous.
I'd have been handing out the Bad Karma flaw to everyone who did that. If they want to clear it, they'd have to make cosmic restitution (like they did for Ophis,) and buy it back with about 20 Karma points. (Which, ironically, they will get slightly faster than they would have before because every 10th/20th point becoming a karma pool point now becomes every 20th/40th point, meaning they'll get a few more karma points.) |
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Oct 1 2005, 08:00 PM
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#75
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Midnight Toker Group: Members Posts: 7,686 Joined: 4-July 04 From: Zombie Drop Bear Santa's Workshop Member No.: 6,456 |
They were escorting a porstitute to a client. The prostitute happened to be on drugs. Fair enough, it isn't uncommon for prostitutes to be drug users. Prostitutes start taking drugs to make their jobs easier and continue to do their jobs to get more drugs. It is a vicious cycle.
Reasonably, however, they should have stayed around to watch and make sure that everything went okay and to, eventually, escort her back. Reasonably, the only reason someone would hire muscle such as shadowrunners to escort a prostitute is to make sure that the Johnson doesn't get out of hand. The politition probably wouldn't have noticed a projecting mage is his bedroom while the rest of the party waits outside. Add some video and it is prime blackmail material, as well. They really did drop the ball on this one. A half-completed job AND a missed blackmail opportunity may just be worthy of bad karma. |
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