Wanting to do the right thing =\= afraid of feeling icky about doing the wrong thing.

Just one guy's opinion though. We're talking philosophy here, and the eternal debate rages. Somehow I doubt it will be solved by two guys blathering on an internet RPG forum.

So, I voted other. Situational ethics with a personal honor code makes sense to me. When I played a lot I had amoral characters with situational ethics up the yin-yang, but at some point there was a line. I also played Dog shamen a lot, so there is a built in pack mentality there.

Seems to depend on the group I'm with.

When I was still running Leela, the team she was with thought it would be nice to steal her best girlfriend's deck to use on a run (the two were almost like sisters). Not only did it torque off her friend but it pretty much ruined the relationship and a contact as well.

This is the same group who's collective hides she saved back in Seattle by agreeing to be adopted by a British noble who was the mother of one of my other characters (big convolouted plot involving another contact of hers that ended up with a fairly nasty firefight in the FB Field neighbourhood). Effectively this pretty much ended her active running career.

This is what finally soured her on shadowrunning and she retired for good.

Needless to say, this team are all Persona non Gratis in the UK. Her mother Dame Meggan has seen to that.

you're trying to say that fear of consequences has to be stretched beyond believability in order to cover all situations, and that while it's certainly a workable model for the behavior of some humans, it doesn't work as a model for the behavior of all humans. or, at least, those are the words i'm putting in your mouth!

Um, kindof. I'm not a very intelligent guy so I'll roll with that.

Frosty if you want to some good info about the psychological aspects of violence you should read Lt. Col. Dave Grossman's On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society. I don't agree with his causal link of violent video games and violence in society, but his theory of how human beings learn to kill in modern society is fascinating to say the least.

As to Garland's Sniper. Shame on him. Normally I don't judge, but this way definitely a wrong way to act. I've read and run Corporate Punishment and how any of your players escaped after that can only be through GM grace. I personally would not be so nice. To quote Principal Skinner: "Bart in some ways I'm petty man." This instance would be one of them. I HATE player killing unless it is absolutely justified. This was not one of those cases.

Sure the sniper’s player may have thought he had principals but by doing what he did he compromised the safety of the whole team. Of course he may have had an ulterior motive.

I once had a player that didn't like a new player who came to play with our group. Don't ask me why he just didn't like him. The new guy was playing a Spanish Troll ganger who played with us for a few sessions. The player had to play a few game sessions earning trust of the team and he did a great job, but this other player didn't think so. Anyway, they were leaving the Arcology in Seattle (FYI: 2052 SR timeline) and the Troll was providing a rear guard against some red sammies. The Troll fell back to the stairwell leading to a launch pad where the players had a bird waiting to get them out. The human sammie, the other player who hated the Troll's player, double-tapped two rounds to the Troll’s chest as he ran through the door. Now none of the other PCs saw. The rest of the group was pissed to say the least. The human sammie told the group that the Red Samurai had got him. Oh they tried everything to find out the truth but all of it would have been Metagame thinking. I had to explain to the elven mage he had no reason to mind probe the sammie. He had never thought about doing it before why would he do it now?

The Troll’s player quit coming and I don't blame him. It was a shitty thing to do. Of course being the nice guy that I am I made some rolls for the Troll and before he died of his Deadly wounds the Red Samurai caught up to him. They stuck him in a hospital to try and get some info out of him. So I told his player what happened and asked what he wanted to do. Here is what he did.

Spilled his guts about the whole team, the run, and the Johnson. He did this on one condition. He asked Renraku to rebuild him and let him take revenge on the team especially the human sammie. (In his mind the whole team set him up.) Renraku said sure we can do that. They put experimental cyberware and bioware in him. He said bring it on. They gave him a cortex bomb. He didn't care. They told him he would have to kill his old gang as proof of loyalty. He did. He became almost a cyber-zombie, and two years later after he became a Red Samurai Team Leader he took his revenge. Only one character made it out; the elven mage. Ended up in a wheelchair who became an interesting NPC Fixer.

(Before you start flaming me with Evil GM posts I basically told the other players what was going to happen before it went down, except the one who started the whole mess, and they were pretty cool with it. I gave them some nice bonus stuff for their next characters, even the jerk player.)

That is frigging textbook.

Bravo.

Frosty, do you mean that some people avoid violence not out of a moral compunction but because they themselves are too cowardly to face up to it, both physically and emotionally?

Some people, yes.

Some people like a quiet little world of their own, and they shirk at anything that would possibly harm that quiet existance. I always likened it to an Ostrich with their head in the ground.

I think Frosty's big point is that even if you simplify all of human motivation to pleasure and pain (or greed and fear, or plus and minus, or whatever the heck you want to call it), there's still no guaranty that screwing over others is going to give you any pleasure. Doing the "right thing", that is following the guidelines that people within society are conditioned to follow, brings pleasure in and of itself.

Not all reinforcement in society is negative. There's a whole world of positive reinforcement that is at least as powerful in its effects on peoples' motivations and actions. Remember, money only has value because of societally based conditioning that goods and services should be exchanged for it - the same conditioning that says you shouldn't rape or steal.

The simple fact of the matter is that for the vast majority of people, stealing money brings the same pleasure (and for the same reason) as not stealing it. However, stealing is more work than not stealing - so you could justifiably say that the motivation for following society's rules is sloth. It's just easier and confers the same advantages as anything else you'd do.

-Frank

@Lazarus:

That seems to be a textbook case of character a hating character b, a fairly common issue in Shadowrun. In my experiance, this has always lead to one killing the other, and then his player making a new character that better suits the group dynamic. Let's face it, shadowrunners live outside the law, and generaly speaking, they kill people they don't like- I mean, they do it for money, why not for convenience? In most games I have played, sociopathy is par-for-the-course though, and noboby get terribly attached to thier character (that's not to say we don't roleplay, but we do play deadly enough campaigns that we average about one character death per two runs).

Frank's got it, I think.

We are socialized from birth to a set of rules that, in our society, includes a "non-violence clause," in the same way we are conditioned to wear clothes, eat certain animals but not others, and so on. These rules are by no means set in stone, but they are built in to the way our brain is wired, (which, it is generally beleived, happens in the first six years of our lives or so.)

I suggest the possibility that morality, etc. is a function of conditioning. That is, it is good for society to have fewer psychotic killers out there, so it tells us as children that killing is wrong. We grow up with that idea imprinted on us and it takes drastic circumstances to go against that imprinting. (A traumatic experience or months of intense military training, for example.)

Of course, this all goes out the window when we get to fantasize about it in the context of a game. So it makes me wonder: Why do so many of us fantasize of being characters who are coldly pragmatic?

2 karma points to anyone who gets this one.

actually nidhogg, it seems more a case of player that dislikes player. We have a player right now that we dont like, but because he is the friend of one member of the playing group we cant just say, "No you cant play, go away." because it would cost us the other player. The good thing about the situation is that the player ends up putting his character in situations that give us good reasons to shoot him. We've been using DMSO/Narcojet or GS/DMSO in squirts or capsule rounds, but he doesnt seem to get the message to straighten up or not play. i dont think that he will unless we put a couple of bullets into his characters brainpan for being highly annoying or doing something exceedingly stupid. I mean, sorry once we get into our character's persona's, were professionals, and you dont just off someone for being annoying, no matter how gratifying it would be.....

I think the reason we play so many characters who are coldly pragmatic is that one of the most pervasive and insidiously oppressive elements of everyday life is common, mostly meaningless pleasantry. You are constantly pressured, consciously or unconsciously, to be "nice," even, or perhaps especially, when people don't genuinely feel like it. Much of our moral compass is, ultimately, extrinsic. Extrinsic motivations don't work very well when you get to make your own rules. In fact, most of them are very annoying when you don't make your own rules. So when you are in a game world without consequences, most of the stuff about not thinking bad stuff is funny or even fun gets utterly destroyed. You mouth off to people, you shoot the dumbass, you take the little kid hostage. The only reason most players are even pragmatic and not simply overblown characters from GTA is that the only rules that are even necessary are those of basic physical necessity.

I think a failure of imagination is the reason why so many RPG characters people play end up being psychos or, at best, antisocial jerks. Either the world their characters inhabit isn't well realized, or the players themselves can't get beyond the idea that it's "just a game", or they just had their perceptions on how adventures should look like molded by too much shitty fiction, and they simply aren't expecting realistic cause and effect.

I've never been one for method (over)acting, but any character I've played for a while and that I actually care about, in a game I enjoy, is actually going to think about the implications of what they're doing, and act accordingly... Because I wouldn't have any fun playing in a world populated with cardboard cutout NPCs, anyway.

A few replies:

Garland: I don't think Grossman is an opportunist of the worst sort. His scholarship is pretty solid and his theories are sound enough. You're right, and I don't agree that DOOM makes kids into sociopaths, but the military did and does use games like DOOM in their training, or at least they were testing it when I was in the Marines. I think that violent video games are correlation rather than a causation of violent behavior. (Basically violent kids like to play violent video games. They don't become violent because of the game.) I think the book I mentioned previously is excellent study on violence and the effects of violence in combat.

As to the sniper’s actions. One the one hand I would tell the player as a GM it was a great thing to think of a moral line for your character. It gives him depth and that is good. I would pulled him aside at that moment though and say, “Are you sure you want your character to do this? I mean this is good to explore after the run but your training might kick in and leave him in an indecisive state. Think how cool it would be to role-play that guilt later.” If he still wanted to do it then let the characters deal with it in game. Not saying you did anything wrong as a GM, but you should have let your players have it at that point. (IMHO) I mean it’s Portland. You already have Tir Ghosts on the scene, and if there is security at a bank it probably isn’t punkass like bank security today. And once they’ve entered the bank you have Tir Peacekeeping Forces and maybe a few Paladins on the way. That would not be the time to start shooting at each other’s character. The bank scene in HEAT comes to mind except add in Special Forces guys, two SWAT Teams, and mages. Yeah nasty stuff.

Nidhogg: No this wasn't a case where a character didn't like another character for in game behavior it was simply a person didn't like another person for whatever reason. Player X decided to take out his frustration at Player Y in game and then made up a reason after the fact. We’ve had cases where a player played an annoying character for some reason, myself included, and their characters died as a result of it and it was fine. (I played an elven gangbanger whose true to life gangbanger mentality gave him a very short life span. One the awesome things he did was set up a meet to buy some weapons and decided to cap the gun seller to steal rather then buy the guns. He also killed two UK cops in a run before that. So basically he had to leave the London Campaign shortly thereafter. I think he ended working for the Resistance in Tir Na Nog as an elf. Go figure.) The point though was in most instances the player said before he made this character, "Hey I'm going to play a f**k up character so if at some point you want to cap him feel free." Mostly it was just a way to let off some steam from playing a professional character.

Warrior: I would suggest that in-game you Role-play out your problems with that jerk character. Let him know he's messing up. If you have already tried that then there is the one instance I would use Metagame stuff. Ask the GM to take care of the problem, unless he is friends with the GM. And even if that is the case you should voice your concerns. If that doesn't work will then you might want to think about forming another group. I know this sounds like a drastic step but if you aren't having any fun playing then what's the point?

Post reply: Being a philosopher rather then a psychologist I’m probably going to approach the question at different angle. I think that there are many varied reasons that people become violent: environment, abuse, head just wired wrong, whatever. I think with playing games like Shadowrun it’s a cathartic release from the day to day pressures of life. Like Emo pointed out you can't just pop someone who cuts you off in traffic. Society sort of frowns on that kind of behavior. Now the reasons for this release are of course varied, but when it comes to violence I think a great lesson in role-playing is to provide consequences for you character's actions. I mean you can play that rogue criminal who is out bounds from "normal" society but you should get all the pain that comes with it. That way your game doesn't become GTA style. There has to be a reason white suburban kids like Gangsta rap, myself included. It’s not so much I want to live a Gangsta lifestyle but really it’s just a release from living in a world where social pressure expects me to act a certain way, consume, think a certain way and in the process strangles my humanity.

Do I get that 2 karma?

I like the poll it's almost a 50/50 on honor and lip.

no one told me Karma was being handed out.

You sure about that? (mostly kidding)

Anyway, the karma is still up for grabs. The Freudian "steam-engine" model of human psyche is passe, in my opinion.

What I was thinking of was power. The essential root of male-adolescent stories is a power fantasy. (Okay, I'm thirty, so sue me.) So why play a cold-blooded, merciless, super-pragmatic person if you're enacting a power fantasy?

Honor is just a word.

I don't know Kagetenshi. I agree with you but I can see how one can make the argument that video game training could be used for violent behavioral conditioning. Grossman's argument is that the basic purpose for military training is to condition a person to kill in combat and the consequences of that conditioning. I agree with him on that. I don't think it's the spin they throw out that they train people to "survive" combat not necessarily to kill people. Bullshit. As a Marine I wasn't trained to survive combat so much as I was trained to break things and hurt people in a sound military manner. That is how I "survived" combat by killing them first.

And Dog I wasn't throwing out a Freudian approach so much as a more Aristotelian notion. For me role-playing is cathartic experience similar to when people watch a play or a movie. It's a purging of emotions that I normally wouldn't be able to do. It's not so much a power trip. I think for your munch players it's that, but the moment you give a character faults and weaknesses it's not so much anymore. If I wanted a power trip I'd a play a dragon or D&D. Shadowrunners are more like Ronin in Feudal Japan. They live outside of society and are really tragic characters and to most people, myself included, there is something romantic about that.

The motives as to why people play and what they play are going to inevitably be as varied as the people who role-play these games. Some do it for power, some for escape (ME! ), some because… well they don’t know why. Like most human questions I don’t think there is a single universal answer for that question.

Some put to much thought into this, but i just post to make post's.

Don;t worry Dog, i'm an older runner my self.

I'm saying that the "pragmatic" part is merely a compromise, the most basic and shallow compromise that is necessary to exist in the world of Shadowrun. And wouldn't the whole "power fantasy" be the same as the "steam-engine" view?

Grossman's major point - that in previous wars, a tiny percentage of soldiers actually fired their weapons to kill, compared to how many did so once they were "trained to kill" in more modern times - is, I believe, based on the writings of one S.L.A. Marshall ("Men Against Fire"), who made his "conclusions" based on research he claimed to have conducted by interviewing soldiers during WWII, post-battle.

To say Marshall's methodology has been revealed to be garbage is to be kind... Among the least of his sins is the fact he didn't even try to differentiate between soldiers who had a shot at the enemy but didn't fire, and those who were stationed at a point of the battle line that saw little action, or had no clear view of the enemy forces, when coming up with his figures of how many people actually fired in combat. The worst would include never actually conducting the huge bulk of personal interviews he claimed to have made.

after seeing this thread a couple of times, honor does not belong in the shadows, it will only be bound to get you in trouble.

It will maybe bring you in trouble, but for some runners that's fair deal.

Lazerus, maybe we are thinking of different things when we refer to a power fantasy. My current players aren't munchkins. (If you got that impression it was my faillability, not theirs.) Rather, I've never met a player who played someone weaker and less influential than themselves.

Every player-character I've ever seen has had the ability to do things that the player could not: fast-talk angry trolls, shoot a sniper rifle, seduce rich/powerful/gorgeous women. Through the magic of fiction, they all have a lot more influence in their little world than any of us expect to in real life. That's where the power fantasy comes from, not from playing the most powerful character, but from playing a character with "powers" other than onesself.

Having said that, I agree with you otherwise. Catharsis I understand, although I don't know much about Aristotle. (Perhaps not even enough to spell it correctly!)

Anyways, what I had in mind were the folks who frequently claim that their characters are invariably "get the job done at any cost" types who claim that morality has no place in a scenario where the stakes are high and assault rifles are being aimed. I sometimes see these folks posting on Dumpshock, and occasionally, one joins my gaming group. In the latter situation, they usually don't last long. I don't think they contribute much, so if they keep it up, I stop inviting them.

Where I was going with this was here: I suspected that perhaps these folks just can't relate to situations that challenge their sense of right and wrong when it involves fantastic amounts of power and challenges. As a result, we can't apply our morality and somehow "default" to logic (or what passes for it.) For me, this isn't a fully developed idea yet, so I threw it out there incomplete to see if anyone else would draw the same conclusion.

What the hell, everyone gets karma.

Oh O.K. Dog. Sorry I didn't understand what you trying to convey.

Yeah but you do bring up some good points. There is a running joke that people in a D&D world play a game called "Lawyers &... something" <crap can't remember> Anyway it was sort of a parody of what you were talking about. High Level mages would play office workers in our world.

I have played games where we stat our RL selves and play it, but you always try to improve yourself once the game starts. It's funny to see a couch potato go from never working out to doing it everyday, taking hardcore martial arts, and playing with guns.

I think at that point it would be more Darwinian. You have to do things as a character in order to survive in that world or you die.

The power fantasy as you described is a valid point. I wonder though how many people play characters that are not in line with their basic personality.

I actually played Lazarus as a character who has a "get the job done at any cost", mentality but it really f**ks with him. Lazarus didn't go to the shadows by choice and his ethics come from his career as a Force Recon officer in the CAS Marine Corps. I play it that his mentality is sort out of step in the SR world. In reality most runners aren't running for higher cause than themselves. Lazarus won't refer to himself as a Street Samurai. as he would say "A Street Samurai would imply that I am a loyal servant to the Street. An abstract concept that is certainly lacking in merit. I am a ronin, pure as simple." He's a flat character <And trying to play that seriously is tough!> I do understand your frustration though it that seems to be sort of the default shadowrunner mold, and I go with that when I GM games. However I make as though that ideal is something you see in Sim Movies and not how life "really is" on the street. That is why for Lazarus I play it as a hindrance.

<Note: Catharsis is described by Aristotle in the Poetics. Basically Catharsis is why people come to see plays, and philosophers have debated its meaning ever since. Its most popular interpretation describes it to being a purging of emotion that wouldn’t or couldn’t do in normal everyday life.>

Just face it: You're Neutral Evil.

I am.

Neutral Evil gets the chicks but Lawful Evil has a harem of unwilling slave girls.

It all comes down to how you want your vanity stroked; do you want your love life to be a testament to your intangible seductiveness or your ability to coerce massive amounts of people?

Clearly the latter

When most people, male or female, come home from a long hard day of stealing souls, slaughtering babies, and writing briefs they don't want to have to bring home flowers and romance their partners into performing horrific perversities. No, they want dinner cooked, the TV tuned to their channels, and their slaves entangled in a Cthuloid sexual position straight out of the Necronama Sutra.

So what kind of chicks do the Lawful Good aka Lawful Stupid guys (or gals if that's your thing) get?

The ones that are saving themselves for marriage.

...But, give the Neutral/Lawful Evil types a little time with them and they'll shake 'em of that little formaility.

edit: Paul beat me to it...sortof. Damn websense won't let me see his linky goodness though.