Leaving team members behind. In a recent game 3 of the teams members got shot up and captured by Lone Star cops working for the UB. Anyway, the two others managed to escape and quietly walked down the street as if they knew nothing about it. The cops let them go, knowing they couldn't take all of them on at the same time.
The remaining two, when I asked them OOC if they where intending on going after them they just shrugged and said why should they.
Now, Plastic Rat's rule of shadowrunning
A1) NEVER leave a LIVING team member behind. For 2 reasons.
1) They know stuff about you. People can do scary things now days with mages and drugs. The bad guys WILL be able to pull whatever details they want out of them.
2) They're an asset. It takes a long time to find good, reliable help in the biz. Are you really going to throw one away for no reason?
Unfortunately in this game I had a co-gm. He lost his rag and used one of his ubber munchy NPC's to force them to go after their buddies.
Personally I was quite happy to quietly sit there and kill there entire team over the next session as the bad guys put 2 and 4 together and got "kill -9". Taking out the 2 remaining 'runners shouldn't be a prob for a few true forms, and it would neaten up any loose ends the UB may have feared.
What do you guys think about this? How would you have handled it? Do you care if 'runners leave their comrades behind? And what do you do about it?
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UNLEASH YOUR INNER ABILITIES!
grimshear
From: Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
Registered: Feb, 2002
Re: Leaving team members behind. Posted: Jan 23, 2003 9:05 AM
Reply
Don't leave anyone behind, simply because 1)They'll get tortured into telling eveything they know about you, 2)they'll rat you out.
There's also the "He left his partners to rot" rep that people can end up with... Can we say 'Hung out to Dry'?
Grim Shear
"Bad karma."
MrSandman666
From: Hell
Registered: Feb, 2002
Re: Leaving team members behind. Posted: Jan 23, 2003 9:07 AM
Reply
Well, fortunately I haven't been in the situation so far. Not really, at least. When the team got seperated the others usually went to rescue that guy out of pure loyalty, if they couldn't find another reason.
And even if they would leave him to die, I would probably let it slide. After all, it's their problem. The character probably will manage to escape (I'm going to take care of that) and might manage to take revenge, if he doesn't forgive the team and returns to them. I'd let the players play that out.
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Mr Sandman bring me a dream...
BIG BAD BEESTE
From: Earth
Registered: Feb, 2002
Re: Leaving team members behind. Posted: Jan 23, 2003 9:21 AM
Reply
Never had a group that willingly did that, unless the runner was a complete no-no who constantly screwed everything up. Actually, they rescued that one paid him off, let him go and then the yakuza-affiliated physad assassinated him on the sly to prevent any leaks later on. (That was the player's personal decision and due to an in-character grudge/prejudice against the no-no.)
The other times when a team has been in such a situation, then its debated and they usually go and get them back. Group loyalty counts here. The only occassion when they refused was because the job came first and would have left them in a worse situation - the runner captured was a hostage and they could mount a rescue operation later on.
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MOOOOAAAAHHHHHH-HAAAAA-HAAAAA-HAAA-HAAA-HA-HA-HA-HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!
TrixyBlueEyes
From: Australia
Registered: Dec, 2002
Re: Leaving team members behind. Posted: Jan 23, 2003 10:05 AM
Reply
One thing about being a team is teamwork, and being an actual team, and when you form that team you expect everyone to support each other, and if you begin leaving people behind because you cant be bothered going back or for whatever reason you will get a reputation that you wont save your team members and reputation is everything, because no one will run with you again or friends and contacts wont be to happy think that you might one day leave them hanging to save your own hide.
Ive had a player who was basically a coward and wouldnt help another team member that was in trouble, and was treated appropriately.
We had a run where one player stood outside while the rest of the team was arrested and made no attempt to help, later on some mages tracked them down and killed them no questions asked.
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My you have alot of books here!. Well it is a book shop!.
BloodMagician
From: Clearlake, CA
Registered: Jan, 2003
Re: Leaving team members behind. Posted: Jan 23, 2003 10:59 AM
Reply
There's always the bad Karma associated with that, also.
KYA
From: Graz | Austria
Registered: Feb, 2002
Re: Leaving team members behind. Posted: Jan 23, 2003 11:25 AM
Reply
well if the situation makes it too dangerous to go and rescue him, and they've not been running together for a long time, why bother?
and if some player refuses to help his mates, i, as GM, wont make his life any harder
but maybe the players will
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i need a girlfriend, anybody please HELP!
The Burning One
From: Toronto
Registered: Feb, 2002
Re: Leaving team members behind. Posted: Jan 23, 2003 11:32 AM
Reply
Our team has gone pretty far out of their way to track down lost/captured team members. I think in one case it cost us almost 200,000Y of equipment/gear/vehicles and nearly killed 2 of us but we eventually did recover the runner in question who was in the process of being mindwiped using that bloody simsense programming technique (GMs should not have access to certain books). The worst part is even after all that the character had so much damage done to his mind that he was essentially unplayable and had to be retired anyway.
Still it's the principle I guess. I know I don't want to be left behind if I'm the one captured.
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When winning isn't an option, revenge makes an excellent consolation prize.
The death of one is a tragety. The death of millions is just a statistic.
Chaos, panic, & disorder - my work here is done.
Cray74
Registered: Jun, 2002
Re: Leaving team members behind. Posted: Jan 23, 2003 12:23 PM
Reply
Plastic Rat wrote:
In a recent game 3 of the teams members got shot up and captured by Lone Star cops working for the UB. Anyway, the two others managed to escape and quietly walked down the street as if they knew nothing about it. The cops let them go, knowing they couldn't take all of them on at the same time.
The remaining two, when I asked them OOC if they where intending on going after them they just shrugged and said why should they.
Now, Plastic Rat's rule of shadowrunning
A1) NEVER leave a LIVING team member behind. For 2 reasons.
1) They know stuff about you. People can do scary things now days with mages and drugs. The bad guys WILL be able to pull whatever details they want out of them.
2) They're an asset. It takes a long time to find good, reliable help in the biz. Are you really going to throw one away for no reason?
Good points. And, of course, reason 3: the hit on the escapees' rep could be a bad one.
Unfortunately in this game I had a co-gm. He lost his rag and used one of his ubber munchy NPC's to force them to go after their buddies.
However, that's cheese.
Runners are not automatically "good guys." By definition, they're criminals for hire. Many of them have to be sociopathic or outright psychopathic to kill as many people as they do. (Yeah, there're some pacificist/non-lethal runners out there, but many aren't.) The dynamics within the team of "runners" in the movie Heat is a choice example: the recent hire turned out to be a nut who was a liability and who would not stick his neck out for the other runners.
"Never leaving a teammate behind" may be good policy for the above 3 reasons, but it would be perfectly in-character for many runners to abandon and/or betray teammates.
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Mike Miller, Materials Engineer
"I have a sickness of the brain. I'm allowed to make no sense to you puny mortals with your fully operational head-meat." ----Spider Jerusalem in The Transmetropolitan
Frelaras
From: Vancouver Island
Registered: Feb, 2002
Re: Leaving team members behind. Posted: Jan 23, 2003 1:24 PM
Reply
Cray74 wrote:
"Never leaving a teammate behind" may be good policy for the above 3 reasons, but it would be perfectly in-character for many runners to abandon and/or betray teammates.
On a slight tangent to this is how you treat the artificial notion of the "group". Unless your group of runners knows each other well enough, going back for the other guy would be a totally OOC and artificial move. Even if they do care about what they know (obviously a huge variable) the risk for some guy they met a week/month ago wouldn't be worth it to many characters.
I've just been thinking about how much we make characters do stuff because otherwise it would alienate another player in the RPG group, even if the action would be IC.
This after a major feud with another PC mostly IC. Heh.
/Frelaras/
Iconic Wage Mage
krishcane
Registered: May, 2002
Re: Leaving team members behind. Posted: Jan 23, 2003 1:36 PM
Reply
Some SR groups make team loyalty a given by just saying "You've all been working together for years. You're buds from way back." After all, it's understood that you've all been shadowrunners for some time and had time to build up contacts, gear, and skills, so why not assume that you built it up together and enter the game with loyalties?
Plastic Rat wrote:
Personally I was quite happy to quietly sit there and kill there entire team over the next session as the bad guys put 2 and 4 together and got "kill -9".
kill -9 I wonder how many people here get that reference? Maybe more than I would expect.
--K
Diesel
From: San Jose Dead Zone
Registered: Jul, 2002
Re: Leaving team members behind. Posted: Jan 23, 2003 1:37 PM
Reply
It's easier to kill a captured bud than it is to rescue him That way you don't have him ratting you out, he's not tortured, and everyone...well everyone but the dead guy...is happy!
On a (slightly) more serious note though, it all depends on the character I'm playing. If he is someone with loyalty or honor, then boom, one for all and all for one. If he's just trying to make a buck and happens to be talented in blowing shit up, oh well, no rescue from me
I usually GM, and I let my players do whatever they want, as long as its RP and not RL. If they want to leave men behind, shoot nuns, pour acid into the eyeballs of orphaned puppies and burn down homeless shelters, go on ahead. Everything catches up with you eventually
[ Edited: Thu Jan 23 13:38:01 EST 2003 ]
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Do not read signature if seal is broken.
Urgewyrm
From: Aurora Barrens, Denver FRFZ
Registered: Dec, 2002
Re: Leaving team members behind. Posted: Jan 23, 2003 1:43 PM
Reply
In my games, since 1st edition, this has come up many many times...
It's all pretty much situational..but I can make some broad generalizations.
1) Lone Star
If a runner get's picked up by the Star, or by Knight Errant, or whoever is pretending to be the cops at the time...they're basically hosed. The team will probably make a half assed attempt to do something about it, but it's basically the cops. It's a risk we take as runners.
We don't worry too much about them ratting us out, as it's worse for them reputation wise being known as a stoolie, than it is for us to dodge the Star.
2) Corp Security
If one of our guys get's picked up by corp security, we go to great lengths to get them back. A) cause the corps are known to hold more of a grudge and do horrible terrible things to runners and B) we can usually score more cash on the breakout
3) Aztechnology
If we can't get them out, we waste'em. Better dead than the alternative. Same goes for the bugs.
This thread just reminded me, I have an sammie that should be getting out of prison any month now. ( Bagged in 2051 for B+E, A+B Deadly, A+B Deadly on a LEO, assorted weapons violations, Fleeing from a LEO and GTA. He was sentenced to 20 years, but would be eligible for parole in 2060 )
( oh yeah, don't forget the 50 dollar fine for running a red light! )
Shard O'Glase
From: San Mateo, CA
Registered: Nov, 2002
Re: Leaving team members behind. Posted: Jan 23, 2003 2:18 PM
Reply
that's a lot of sota you got to catch up on if you've been in prison for 10.
As for the main topic.
Basic policy is making an escape is a given, everyone getting caught is jsut being dumb.
doing legwork to see the feasability of a rescue is also a given.
The rescue itself is not a given. You're reduced in numbers and who knows what kind of cash you have to hire some backups, and the security may be insane. Make a honest appraisal of your chances, if you think you have a chance of success go for it, if not don't.(and leave town)
Hunter
From: Cincinnati, UCAS
Registered: Feb, 2002
Re: Leaving team members behind. Posted: Jan 23, 2003 2:43 PM
Reply
As a general rule of thumb, leaving team members (live or dead) behind tends to dramatically shorten your career.
1) Mind probe spells can pull your identity out of a captured team member's head. Nevermind that it's not admissible in court, you probably won't make it that far anyways.
2) DNA samples can be retrieved even from dead corpses. (i.e. not all the blood around will belong to the same person.)
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Always beware of dragons for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.
Griffin Industries
"A Shadowrunners Corp"