 Some unusual Shadowruns?, Or: How to frag your DocWagon Contract. |
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 Oct 1 2005, 08:21 PM
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#76
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Mr. Johnson  Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 2,587 Joined: 25-January 05 From: Berkeley, CA Member No.: 7,014  |
So if the NPCs do something despicable, they don't get Bad Karma, but if the PCs do something despicable, they do? I also cry foul. A better way is to keep a cumulative track of "points" based on how many times a PC descends into darkness, and only give them an "appropriate" flaw if they hit certain thresholds. If every single "sin" results in a cosmic consequence, there would be no shadowrunners in the Sixth World.
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Oct 1 2005, 09:16 PM
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#77
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Freelance Elf Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 7,324 Joined: 30-September 04 From: Texas Member No.: 6,714 |
So all the NPCs in your game world that do bad things, they run around with half as much karma pool (if not less) than your PCs, right? ...right? |
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Oct 1 2005, 10:17 PM
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#78
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Horror Group: Members Posts: 5,322 Joined: 15-June 05 From: BumFuck, New Jersey Member No.: 7,445 |
Pretty much. I find it to be cosmic justice, especially since most NPCs have effectively limitless resources, given that I can just make more NPCs. Karma Pool are the PC's equalizer.
Plus, I had an old Starwars RPG DM who had his bad guys eat up force points like candy. It was really stupid, because they just exploded and went nova on us with FPs. |
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Oct 1 2005, 10:39 PM
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#79
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 279 Joined: 21-March 05 From: Freeport NY Member No.: 7,205 |
Alright; Essentially, its not the worst thing if "Bad karma" is essentially "okay, so this chick is dead and her ghost is gonna get back at you in some way."
That's it for me, I guess. Some sort of punishment was probably in line in terms of Karma, the cycle (not Karma, the game function) so if its paid up its paid up. |
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Oct 2 2005, 04:12 AM
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#80
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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 don't see the need for any 'punishment' whatsoever. The runners were hired to do a job. They completed the job according to the terms of the contract. In the fullfilment of their contract, they did not directly harm any innocents in any way. What's the problem?
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Oct 2 2005, 05:39 AM
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#81
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Horror Group: Members Posts: 5,322 Joined: 15-June 05 From: BumFuck, New Jersey Member No.: 7,445 |
They delivered a drugged-up twelve year old to a horrible death.
If you don't see a problem with that, then you need to slot a sensitivity training skillsoft. |
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Oct 2 2005, 07:42 AM
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#82
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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 |
Personal attacks aside ...
They were contracted to deliver a girl (who may have possibly been drugged, the source and type of drug being unknown), who was conscious enough to give her consent, to a specific destination. The end result of the job was also unknown to them. Unless the players could read the GM's mind, they did not know any more than that (from what the GM in question has written). Every Shadowrun causes problems for someone, either directly or indirectly, maybe even death. Does that mean that characters can expect to arbitrarily receive major Flaws every single time that the players sit down at your table to play? |
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Oct 2 2005, 05:37 PM
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#83
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Horror Group: Members Posts: 5,322 Joined: 15-June 05 From: BumFuck, New Jersey Member No.: 7,445 |
They picked up a TWELVE YEAR OLD girl who was blitz'd out of her mind FROM A WHOREHOUSE, and delivering her to a politician. If THAT dosen't send alarm flags straight up the flagpole of anybody, they need a wake-up call.
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Oct 2 2005, 05:49 PM
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#84
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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 |
There is nothing to indicate that this is not a normal occurance in the Sixth World. Hell, in a lot of places nowadays, nobody would blink an eye at this activity.
So they picked up a girl from a whorehouse, who was apparently drugged. It could have been the politician's neice, who had run away from home, gotten scared, and then subsequently found by a madame with a heart of gold, who gave her a sedative to calm her nerves before returning her to her kindly uncle. They didn't know the story. They didn't know the purpose of their contract. Even if they had, what makes this worse than the mass murder that a lot of shadowrunners seem to commit on a weekly basis? I think you are using your moral outlook to paint an entire (game) world. The problem is, these kinds of things do happen, both nowadays and in 60 years. |
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Oct 2 2005, 05:57 PM
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#85
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Freelance Elf Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 7,324 Joined: 30-September 04 From: Texas Member No.: 6,714 |
Why do they get "bad karma" for that, but not for putting a double-tap of Ares Predator ammo into Joe Security Guard's brainpan five or six times an adventure? Or ruining the life of some Renraku R&D scientist whose research project they steal? Or conning their way past a secretary and getting her fired when she's trying to work her way through college? Or intimidating their way past that bouncer to get a gun into a Meet, and ruining his rep and ability to work a door?
Morality's all well and good. Selective morality, complete with harsh and GM-fiat handled punishment, is a pile of horseshit. |
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Oct 2 2005, 06:21 PM
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#86
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Horror Group: Members Posts: 5,322 Joined: 15-June 05 From: BumFuck, New Jersey Member No.: 7,445 |
Joe security guard is carrying a gun, he's a combatant. If Joe Security guard is begging and blubbering and throws down his weapon, then it's wrong.
The Renraku R&D scientist is going to be just as well off at his new corp as his old. The secretary can find another secretary job. The bouncer, again, can find another job. Or he can start running the Shadows. The twelve-year-old girl, however, is an Innocent for two reasons. One: She's too young to make choices like whether or not she wants to die, two: She's too drugged up to competently make choices as to whether or not she wants to risk her life. |
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Oct 2 2005, 06:27 PM
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#87
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Target Group: Members Posts: 77 Joined: 27-September 05 Member No.: 7,782 |
Is killing someone because they stepped on your big toe worse than killing them because they burned down your house with your family still inside it? Is executing a child worse than murdering an old man? Is offing a security guard with a quick shot to the head worse than slowly torturing a nun to death with a razor blade, a blowtorch, and the affections of a five hundred pound troll named Bubba? ...Despite what Critias said, all morality is selective morality.
Meh, as the GM, that's his prerogative. While I don't agree with his philosophy, as long as he makes his rules clear to the players from the outset, I fail to see the problem. |
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Oct 2 2005, 07:37 PM
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#88
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Mr. Johnson Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 2,587 Joined: 25-January 05 From: Berkeley, CA Member No.: 7,014 |
Shadowrunners are paid to do jobs that are both illegal and immoral (though not necessarily both at the same time). They do the dirty work that no one else wants to do (usually for fear of reprisal) and they get paid a lot of money to do it. If they totally messed up the job professionally, did morally despicable things in the process, and got exposed to the Law and the Sheriff, then maybe they'd earn that Bad Karma somehow.
It's a question of what kind of game you are playing, not a solely a question of the "Innocence" of the hypothetical 12 year old girl in a whorehouse. If the GM and the players have agreed beforehand that "murder is okay, but delivering 12 year old girls to perverts is not", then why the hell is the GM running that sort of game? There is a major disconnect here between the expectations of what is fair and the GM's use of power. If you wanted to get into "moral dilemmas", why are you playing Shadowrun, a decidedly amoral and even immoral game? If this was an "altruistic" campaign from the outset (a la "Wolf and Raven" or comic book style), then it's a much different story. But there is no indication that this situation isn't your typical Shadowrun "I kill people for lunch money" campaign. |
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Oct 2 2005, 07:55 PM
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#89
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Target Group: Members Posts: 77 Joined: 27-September 05 Member No.: 7,782 |
Because Shadowrun isn't a decidedly amoral or even immoral game. The shades of gray are what make it fun. :) |
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Oct 2 2005, 08:59 PM
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#90
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Running, running, running Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 2,220 Joined: 18-October 04 From: North Carolina Member No.: 6,769 |
but the problem there caramel, is that, when the "shades of grey" amount to shit, or poop, and stages inbetween, it's still gonna be at best, immoral... i think... the "shades of grey" only works when its a decidely good action to do a job one way, and decidedly bad to do it another, and theres multiple ways in between to do it as well./
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Oct 2 2005, 10:23 PM
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#91
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Target Group: Members Posts: 77 Joined: 27-September 05 Member No.: 7,782 |
It's not really a question of good or bad as it is of how far you're willing to go. Having two clearly distinct paths is the very antithesis of gray.
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Oct 3 2005, 08:30 AM
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#92
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 165 Joined: 30-September 04 Member No.: 6,715 |
The PCs are hired to insert a tracking program into a local power plant by the Johnson.
Combined with the insertion of another program at a second location means that the power for the city is cut. The end result is the power to the city is cut and untold numbers of deaths, shoot outs, thefts ... Should the PCs get the bad karma flaw for that? (And as an added note, just how many GMs on these boards have run their players through the Brainscan adventure?) |
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Oct 3 2005, 05:36 PM
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#93
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Horror Group: Members Posts: 5,322 Joined: 15-June 05 From: BumFuck, New Jersey Member No.: 7,445 |
Any PC stupid enough to frag with a power plant won't have to worry about Bad Karma. He'll be far too busy catching bullets to notice (or care.)
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Oct 3 2005, 06:17 PM
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#94
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Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,088 Joined: 8-October 04 From: Dallas, TX Member No.: 6,734 |
That's not really an unusual adventure because it's in Brainscan. |
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Oct 3 2005, 06:43 PM
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#95
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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 believe that was Westiex's point. |
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Oct 3 2005, 06:47 PM
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#96
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Freelance Elf Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 7,324 Joined: 30-September 04 From: Texas Member No.: 6,714 |
Okay. So if you kill someone before they can start crying, it's allright. If you give them a chance to defend themselves, and they get in a fight, and they don't like how the fight is going (and start crying), then it's wrong. I got'cha. Makes sense.
What new corp? I'm not just talking about an extraction (unwilling or otherwise), I'm talking your classical Shadowrun datasteal job, here. Break into the facility, steal files, break back out -- what about the guy whose work they're stealing? What about the trouble the security guards get in (those that survive) for their incompetence? What about the life's work of a scientist that's now public (or, at least, their rival's) knowledge, making him obsolete and worthless to his parent corp? Though, fine, if you see my type "research project they steal" and assume I'm meaning (somehow, out of that sentence) an extraction of an actual researcher -- how do you know that scientist is as good off with his new employer as with his old? You think Renraku won't punish his family for his disloyalty? You think a few lives won't be ruined? What about his son who's trying to be a Red Sammie, gets kicked out for his father's turncoat nature, and himself turns to a life of crime and violence (he might even -- gasp -- rape a child, and it would be all your runner's fault!) out of frustration? What about the working conditions for the researcher with his new corp (the ones that payed to have him kidnapped and brought to them)? What if he's fed protein paste, IVs for fluids, and sedatives for his off hours? Because he's an adult (that, let's say, was drugged and kidnapped by your team) that's delivered to clinical and unfeeling corporate masters who (literally) just want to strip his brain (or maybe just pull out his headware memory?), it's more okay than doing the same to a little girl? Huh.
She can? What about the spot on the job application where it asks for contact info for a previous employer, and that ensuing phone call? When they find out she got fired for letting any sweet-talking scruffy Faceman stroll into the facility and commit nefarious deeds, do you really think anyone else is gonna give her a job like that again? How do you know she won't need that very paycheck to pay her rent, or her parents' hospital bills, or to pay for her last chemotherapy treatment, or to get her kid a fingerpainting set that will someday give birth to him being the next generation's brilliant artist? What if losing that job turns her to a life of prostitution, beatings, rapings, and BTL addiction?
He can? So when everyone at the club laughs at him for getting browbeaten, he loses his self-perceived manhood, and he goes to get another job somewhere else...he'll be okay? His confidence broken, his reputation ruined, his nerves shot, his attention unfocused; how do you know your team didn't kill him, in the long run, just by punking him out, one time? Butterfly effect, and all that.
Oh, right. My bad. No, you didn't ruin his life at all, then. Nevermind. The freedom to play Robin Hood in the urban sprawl is just what everyone must want, in your game(s). Super.
One: So if she was fourteen it would be okay? Sixteen? Thirteen? Where's the cut off point, where it's okay to kidnap someone and give them to a rapist/serial killer? I'm curious. Two: So being drugged up makes it bad. What if she'd just been unconscious when they got her? Beaten 'till she blacked out, stuffed into a duffel, and then tossed in the trunk of their car? Better? Worse? About the same? We can play this game all day long. The simple fact is that just about everything a Shadowrunner does can horribly ruin, or violently end, someone's life. Period. From conning your way past a rent-a-cop to putting a sniper's bullet into a target while his bodyguard helplessly watches his client die, to staring down someone who's ability to work depends on their rep. If you start to selectively pick and choose, as a GM, when something is right or wrong, and slap people down (due to your own moral compass) for taking a job [i]you fucking offer them[i] (and without prior warning as to the happy shiney fairy tale moral nature of the game)...? Well, then. Maybe you should be off teaching Sunday school, instead of running a cyberpunk-plus-fantasy role playing game. 'Cause that "cyberpunk" half of the formula, it's a dirty, gritty, nasty, vicious, place (which isn't to say the fantasy half of the equation can't be just as nasty, but it's rarer). |
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Oct 3 2005, 07:11 PM
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#97
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Horror Group: Members Posts: 5,322 Joined: 15-June 05 From: BumFuck, New Jersey Member No.: 7,445 |
Critias, the butterfly effect is not on the runner's heads. They aren't responsible for unforseeable consequences. In the girl case, however, the consequences were entirely forseeable. PAINFULLY forseeable, given that two Runners walked out on the J, on the spot. It's on their heads.
And the thing about her age is more of a "two crimes, only one execution per man." Thing. Delivering anyone to rape and murder is worth the Bad Karma. The fact that she was twelve just makes you extra Evil in the eyes of whatever Judgement comes your way. (And, I'm not entirely a dick. Your Bad Karmas would be concurrant, not consecutive.) |
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Oct 3 2005, 07:20 PM
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#98
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Freelance Elf Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 7,324 Joined: 30-September 04 From: Texas Member No.: 6,714 |
What unforseeable consequences are there about killing a security guard while his back is turned? "Oh, wow, shit, man. I just thought he'd fall over, asleep, and then wake up with a better job. But now that we rolled this corpse over and I saw what was left of his face, it finally hit me that those were hollow points I put into the back of someone's skull. Huh. I never thought he'd die from it!" I just foresaw plenty of consequences, in the time it took me to type up a post. None of them are all that "out there" or improbable, given the "corporation = family/god/king" theme cyberpunk settings hold to. If's it's hard-core canon truth that survivors of botched extraction/kidnapping jobs (and with some companies, their families) are interrogated, questioned, lose security clearance, etc, etc...and if in today's world people lose their jobs and fall on hard times every day for truly trivial bullshit, why is it such a stretch for you to imagine that Shadowrunners, by the very nature of their work, wreck people's lives in ways just as horrible (and, in fact, longer lasting and farther reaching) than just delivering 12 year olds across town? My point isn't that being a delivery service for pedophiles is okay. My point is that most of what professional criminals do is just as bad, and that a GM has little business arbitrarily smacking people down with random character flaws for some infractions (especially when, as mentioned, the job was offered by the GM himself in the first place). |
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Oct 3 2005, 07:38 PM
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#99
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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 |
Really? I have already given one example of how it could possibly be not as obvious as you claim (which you summarily ignored). Here's another ... It might have been that the girl was the victim of a kidnapping. The political favor had already been performed, or the ransom had already been paid (off screen), and the runners might have been hired to merely pick up the girl (who had previously been drugged by her former captors) from a neutral location (the whorehouse) and return her to her politician benefactor. The reason runners might be used instead of normal Law Enforcement is that publicity of the incident might be damaging to either (or both) the politician and/or the kidnappers. Everything may not be as cut-and-dried as you propose. The runners were not given enough information to automatically assume that the girl was eventually destined for death (and/or worse). |
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Oct 3 2005, 08:13 PM
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#100
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 150 Joined: 31-August 05 Member No.: 7,660 |
I think it would be best to drop the debate. The people you are dealing with do not run the same type of SR campaign as you do, nor do they run the same type of campaign as the GM in question, nor were they at the gaming table to have enough information for a rational judgement in any case. Instead they are making a knee-jerk reaction based upon a value system that either exists within a different gaming campaign, or perhaps just plain a different value system period. There is no place for this debate to go. It is best dropped as a result. |
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