i only have had one character and he tends to go out his way for childern no matter what the reason... which is probably why he has candy in his pockets all the time.

I have multiple characters whose moral codes and personalities run the full spectrum from slightly disillusioned do-gooder to zealous sociopathic terrorist. Their reactions to kids range accordingly, from lowering payment demands or even doing jobs involving saving kids for free to specifically targeting kids because they get more press coverage as victims.

Same here. Some characters would stop a run to save a child, others would strangle a child to complete a run.

Voted no due to the caveat "no matter who or what they are".

The soft spot for kids cliche's applicability depends entirely on the character.

Wow, uh....I don't know, that's never really happened!

Unless, you know, you count those diabolic spirits that only look like little children.









......screw those guys.

Strict policy, no women no kids among the survivors.

~J

Hardened killers unconditionally going nuts over children is such a cliche. I disapprove of it. Unless your shadowrunner is actually 1980s era Michael Jackson, in which case it would be a funny cliche.

As opposed to 1990s MJ?

I charge extra for kids.




Not because I actually give a damn about the snot-nosed little brats, mind. I give a damn about getting paid more, and the "kids" thing makes a good excuse for upping my price.

...three characters of mine in particular have a soft spot for kids

Leela, who herself is very child like in nature due to the severe emotional and physical trauma she suffered during the Serbian Blitz of Zagreb in 2054. As an NPC after her retirement, she established a foundation to help homeless and abandoned children, from not only her own country of Croatia but Serbia and the other Balkan nations as well.

Gracie, who was a former orphan and even had an orphanage director as a level 2 contact. After every run she would donate a percentage of her pay to childrens' concerns. Didn't matter if she got karma for it or not.

Violet, who was forced to grow up too quickly and basically missed most of her childhood and is trying to recapture those lost years.

my main char is a consumate professional. he doesn't generally do kids partly because he's got a kid of his own, and partly because he believes that creating collateral damage and/or making things personal is unprofessional--and killing kids is almost always going to be one of those two things. that said, i can't see him refusing a contract on, say, a dangerous otaku hacker. if you make yourself a player, you're a player.

the character i'm currently building up would have no problem putting a kid in the hospital if s/he got in her way. but killing one... she likes to think of herself as a good guy; she only accepts contracts on people who 'deserve' it, in some vague and undefined way. kids don't normally fit that bill.

so, basically, my characters tend to differentiate between targets and non-targets based on their involvement in the business. low age generally retards involvement, so kids are generally off the hook.

The CBS show "The Unit" a few weeks back had an ep where they went to south america or something to get/steal back some SAM's from a local cartel dude. And the cartel dude had a buncha pre-teens mixed in with his crew guarding his complex. Something about pre-teens carrying AK's makes me a bit scared.

It was a nice ep, even though at the end the unit ends up betraying one of the kids who turned coat, they lied and promised to take him back to the USA, but when it came time for them to go, they instead gave him some cash, wished him luck, and left. pretty much knowing he was going to get caught and executed. Harsh.

Two characters would need a lot of convincing to go after a kid. Dangerous Otaku hacker? Maybe. Kid just witnessed something? Not likely. They might actually bodyguard the kid, in fact.

The other two.. well.. one has a lover, and would probably reject any contracts because she'd disapprove, but if it came down to take out the kid, or something bad would happen, he'd take out the kid. The last, I have no idea of, not for that. He might do it.. he might not. Would depend on which side of his totem is calling stronger.. hunter/killer or healer.

Why did they give him cash? God-damned bleeding hearts.

~J

As opposed to Bravo Two Zero where the only reason the kid didn't get killed was because he was too far for a knife and the Americans had taken all the silenced weapons before McNab's team got to them.

We had a run where we were poised to make millions... millions... (sigh). Then we got double-crossed (of course) and were trapped - swat-team pinning us in underground, police on the way. We were in a tunnel system. We found several cells of expensive goodies, and one cell with three kids (the owner dabbled in the white slave trade). Our choices were to make a clean get-away, with some nice, expensive goodies, or to rescue the three kids and be pinned in a cellar by the ubber-swat team and the police.

We rescued the kids and called in a HUGE favor to get extracted, lost our mage in the fight (although he was the rat-bastard who double crossed us, as we found out later, so the swat team just saved us a bullet later on) and several of us ended up needing some hospital time...

Although our characters didn't have much choice - at the time, two of our players were moms with newborn infants. And the women in our group would have skinned the men alive if they had voted to abandon the poor little kids. (Actually, considering the amount of sleep we were getting, we'd probably just have shot their characters. Don't mess with new moms.)

Apparently, we'd rescue kids no matter what. Still, I mourn the loss of all that pretty, pretty nuyen.

Kids are like dwarves with less hair, which would make them gnomes. All gnomes are munchkin magicians so there is only one sane philosophy. Geek the children first.

I thought they were all munchkin illusionist, meaning that when you thought you were shooting at them you were really shooting at your teammates.

I like kids. But if they bug me too much I WILL put a round through their face.

In the game I mean.

Every time I run a group through Universal Brotherhood, the first flesh-form they meet is a little girl with pigtails. Sometimes she's holding an ant farm, sometimes she's just dropped her ice cream, and sometimes she's trying to pick the player's pocket...

think about how fast kids today are growing up and maturing.

now fast forward 50 years from now.

children will not be that innocent anymore. especially orks, who call people over 20 "middle aged"

Now I remember why I read Dumpshock.

When I've been up for over 42 hours, everything you guys say that is completely and wholely immorally, soulless, soul-suckingly wrong makes me giggle.


And just about everything to come off your keyboards is completely and wholely immorally, soulless, soul-suckingly wrong. Y'all a bunch sick fucks, you know that? I love you guys.

I'd be fascinated by the existence of any team which trusts children after going against a hive or into the Arc circa Shutdown.