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SL James
War Nerd

And to be fair, I'd suggest the same thing for the Russian front except, well, the Russians have/had more nukes.
krayola red
Hmm, interesting column. Guy seems a bit bitter though...I think he should enlist in the military or something to cheer himself up.
SL James
One of my favorite columns was about the Mexican civil war, and the battle between Pancho Villa and Obregon at Celaya.

QUOTE
That night Villa got the boys together and announced the plan. It was dead simple, way too simple: at dawn, everybody attacks. That was it. When some cooler heads mentioned that their ammunition trains still hadn't arrived, Villa said some crap to the effect that "our courage will be our ammunition." Here's a helpful hint: if you ever find yourself under a commander who talks like that, flee. The night doesn't belong to Michelob, it belongs to deserters. Just wait till it's nice and dark and head for the hills, because anyone who says courage is your ammo is just going to get you killed.
krayola red
"El Perfumado." Man, that's still cracking me up. biggrin.gif
Butterblume
QUOTE (SL James)
War Nerd


That's an interesting read.
Ryu
The random security guard just doing his job is usually killed. Thats quite fine within the game context, even with the player in my group who will likely become part of the german police FRT.

Hyzmarcas "our team vs. their team"-philosophy might indeed make a moral code of "no wetwork" consistent with that attitude. Perhaps its an internal way to de-personalize the act of killing. A way of copeing. Conceded.

IŽd still call it unlikely in the case of most characters. There is a difference between doing whats necessary and outright killing whenever it is the easy way. Yet I get complaints about wetwork jobs from a player that happily kills in close combat with a katana. The line of "I donŽt do wetwork" usually is said before the target is known.

IŽd be fine with that if it was part of a developed code on behalf of the character. It is however just a knee-jerk reaction from the player of said character. Because some characters have a consistent reason not to do wetwork on innocent targets, all targets I offer as a GM wil be on some level be deserving. The attitudes can be roleplayed discussing if the target is valid, they must not be discussed on the level of accepting at all or not.



@SL James: Pancho Villa vs. Obregon was linked here before and is very funny. Are any of the other articles as good?
Grinder
QUOTE (Butterblume)
QUOTE (SL James)
War Nerd


That's an interesting read.

Yeah, really good. smile.gif
Snow_Fox
QUOTE (Ryu)
The random security guard just doing his job is usually killed. Thats quite fine within the game context, even with the player in my group who will likely become part of the german police FRT....
IŽd still call it unlikely in the case of most characters. There is a difference between doing whats necessary and outright killing whenever it is the easy way.

right. My characters regularly would not do wet work- a contract kill to take a life (and that po'ed my team because I was usually the spell slinger). But she often killed in a run because of the way things go down.

There is a difference between trading shots with a guard or gang banger who tries to stop your main goal. they may get killed in the exchange but you did not purpose his death and if he goes down but not dead, well, there's no need to keep it up. Very different than plotting to take a life.
Grinder
I have characters that refuse to do wetwork, while others would sign a wetwork contract if the pay is good.
PlatonicPimp
Damn. War Nerd almost made me Vomit. Good insight, but he gets so.. Happy about civilian casualties. At least the dude is honest. He's in it for people dying, he likes others suffering, and he admits it. God what a horrible person.
Austere Emancipator
I'd suggest reading his article on the Eastern Front.
SL James
QUOTE (Ryu @ Nov 22 2006, 03:42 AM)
@SL James: Pancho Villa vs. Obregon was linked here before and is very funny. Are any of the other articles as good?

I know. That's how I came across him. Also, remember that he is writing for English-speaking natives and expats in Russia. I honestly do think that influences his writing style because the number of American alt weeklies which would even think of carrying his column can probably be counted on one hand. But to answer your question, yes. The ones about Israel are really good. He doesn't suckle from the breast of IDF-worship.

Anyway, back to wetwork. One of the things I was just thinking about when discussing the UCLA tasering was an old conversation I had that ended with, "I can't believe more LAPD officers don't get killed every year." Look at a metroplex like Los Angeles, which has at the high end around 17 million people, and even just in the LA basin are around 8-10 million. Of those, how many have one strike? Two? And of the ones with two strikes, how many are on probation at any given time? Hundreds? Thousands? People who will go to jail for the rest of their lives for doing something that would normally be a misdemeanor like stealing some VHS movies on parole will put them in prison forever. So what happens if they get pulled over for, god forbid, DUI? If you let them arrest you, you're fucked. If you shoot them (or even one), you may get away.

Apply that to the world of Shadowrun. Murder becomes very pragmatic, and very simple, for a lot of people. So if you will murder someone to maybe escape into the Barrens, what moral difference is there in taking money to kill anyone? It's not like if you turn down that job killing Little Johny Sonofabitch that he's going to grow up to be a self-centered business asshole like his parents working for a megacorp. Someone is going to kill the little bastard because people will do anything for enough money. If you're so moral, at least be the one to kill him quickly and painlessly as opposed to letting Billy Kincaid have a good old time with Little Johnny.

And let's not kid ourselves: killing in self-defense when on a job is a crock of shit. The law calls it Felony-Murder and treats it the same as that oh-so-evil assassination job. On top of that, the corps have a whole laundry list of other offenses which fall under the heading of shadowrunning which have the death penalty (e.g. Espionage). How moral is it to take a job where you may as well not leave a living witness because the very act of your PC being there is a hanging crime? Heat practically spells out this very concept (If they explained it any simpler, they'd need hand puppets) when Vincent Hanna is explaining why they executed the third guard. Killing the second guard was easily an act of self-defense, but the law doesn't care. And with felony-murder applying to everyone in that crew the second the first guard gets shot, like he says... "What difference does it make?"

So the whole idea that there are shades of murder where it is somehow acceptable to think that "Hey, even though I committed a bunch of felonies and went in armed with the foreknowledge that if someone tries to shoot me, I'm going to do my damndest to kill them" has even the slightest difference of moral culpability as shooting a 4 year-old in the head while he's riding his bicycle and getting paid for it is assinine. Your PC is a whore and an assassin by virtue of their shadowrunner status, and the second they pull the trigger on a guard they cede any moral high ground above that of an assassin. "Hey, it was him or me." Guess what, asshole. if you hadn't broken in to steal the widget, he would still be alive. His death - his murder - is on you. At least the assassin can walk away from the job without deluding him into thinking that his act of murder is any less reprehensible than Quickdraw whose team is speeding out of a lab with one less guard on shift.
krayola red
Hey, it could just be an honor thing. You know, shooting a man in the face versus shooting him in the back. While I personally don't see the difference, I can understand how some people could. Is it logical? No, but morality in general doesn't lend itself to being a matter of logic very well anyway.

I would definitely say that there are shades of murder though, at least through the lens with which I view the world. I wouldn't equate a soldier who kills an enemy on the battlefield with a serial killer who seduces green-eyed blondes and then slits their throat after sleeping with them, but that's just me.
Vaevictis
QUOTE (SL James)
And let's not kid ourselves: killing in self-defense when on a job is a crock of shit. The law calls it Felony-Murder and treats it the same as that oh-so-evil assassination job.


Just because the law makes no distinction doesn't mean the runner's don't. We already know that the 'runners have a non-standard moral/ethical code; if they didn't, they wouldn't be running, would they?

So here's a question: are soldiers necessarily murderers?

(Before you answer, remember that certain elite forces are basically the functional equivalent of teams of shadowrunners.)
krayola red
Well, not all soldiers kill people, and even for the ones that do, I would usually say they're not murderers, mainly because of the distinction I mentioned in my previous post. For the purposes of this discussion, however, I think that adopting the viewpoint that they are is more useful and relevant.
Vaevictis
QUOTE (krayola red @ Nov 23 2006, 04:37 AM)
Well, not all soldiers kill people, and even for the ones that do, I would usually say they're not murderers, mainly because of the distinction I mentioned in my previous post.

Well, not all soldiers end up killing people, but if you sign up for the job, you have to accept that sooner or later, you might get called upon to shoot someone.

Lines get overrun, bases get infiltrated, you caught in a firefight during transport, etc.

From what SL James said, since the soldiers knew when they signed up that they might end up in a situation where they have to kill someone (even if in self-defense), they're murderers, right?

(note that I'm talking from an ethical/moral point of view here, not a legal point of view.)
hyzmarca
Well, with a very good lawyer, a very crooked judge, and a very gullible jury one could successfully argue that the shooting of the guard was completely separate from the robbery and therefore not felony murder.

The key question is why was the guard shooting at you. Was it because you were robbing the place or was it because he was a sadistic SOB who would have tried to kill you even if you weren't robbing the place.

And we know that the latter is the case because Chewbacca is a Wookie from the planet Kashyyyk; but Chewbacca lives on the planet Endor. Now think about it; that does not make sense!
krayola red
QUOTE (Vaevictis)
Well, not all soldiers end up killing people, but if you sign up for the job, you have to accept that sooner or later, you might get called upon to shoot someone.

Lines get overrun, bases get infiltrated, you caught in a firefight during transport, etc.

From what SL James said, since the soldiers knew when they signed up that they might end up in a situation where they have to kill someone (even if in self-defense), they're murderers, right?

(note that I'm talking from an ethical/moral point of view here, not a legal point of view.)

Sure, but they're killing for their country, which includes all their friends and family, and I think that's what makes the difference. Others may disagree, but that's just my point: to say that there are no shades to murder is the equivalent to saying there are no shades to killing, since murder is just killing that happens to be illegal. And if you go there, you're so far removed from the concept of human morality that you have no business in the discussion anyway.

Why is killing your friend just because she annoys you with her squeaky voice bad, and killing a child molester who's trying to hurt your kids not bad? There is no objective, logical answer to that, because there are no universal standards for morality. It's all up to personal interpretation. Just 'cause you don't agree with or understand someone else's interpretation don't mean interpreting itself is an erroneous action.
hyzmarca
Because you could simply cut out your friend's vocal cords.
krayola red
Are you kidding? Then you'll be stuck with an angry wench with an electronic voice synthesizer who's constantly calling you up to bitch at you for cutting out her vocal cords. Could drive a guy to the nuthouse, that.
hyzmarca
QUOTE (krayola red @ Nov 23 2006, 05:23 AM)
Are you kidding? Then you'll be stuck with an angry wench with an electronic voice synthesizer who's constantly calling you up to bitch at you for cutting out her vocal cords. Could drive a guy to the nuthouse, that.

Here's what before she gets out of the hospital (which may as well be your basement medical dungeon) you buy her an electronic voice synthesizer that has a pleasant soothing sound that you like. You gift-wrap it with a nice little bow in her favorite color and with paper that has her favorite animals on it. When she opens you tell her that you are sorry that she made you cut out her vocal cords and hope that this will be come consolation. You then tell how how much you love her and how much she means to you and offer to take her out to her favorite restaurant for a nice romantic dinner so that she can show off her new voice synthesizer which sounds much better than her mangy old vocal cords did. And you tell her that since she no longer has an annoying voice that you'll never have to do anything like this again because you know that she is a good person and you know that she won't make that kind of mistake again because she is so good.
If you do it right she'll be so moved by your kindness and your mercy that she'll apologize for having had such an annoying voice and making you cut out her vocal cords.
Aemon
QUOTE (Vaevictis @ Nov 23 2006, 04:43 AM)
QUOTE (krayola red @ Nov 23 2006, 04:37 AM)
Well, not all soldiers kill people, and even for the ones that do, I would usually say they're not murderers, mainly because of the distinction I mentioned in my previous post.

Well, not all soldiers end up killing people, but if you sign up for the job, you have to accept that sooner or later, you might get called upon to shoot someone.

Lines get overrun, bases get infiltrated, you caught in a firefight during transport, etc.

From what SL James said, since the soldiers knew when they signed up that they might end up in a situation where they have to kill someone (even if in self-defense), they're murderers, right?

(note that I'm talking from an ethical/moral point of view here, not a legal point of view.)


I think it's hard to make a discussion on morality without involving law, since one is the basis for the other. The definitions of morality are very much linked to the definitions of law, from which they are derived.

I think what you are all missing when discussing the morals of an RPG (ROFLMAO) is intent. Half of a criminal case is figuring out intent. Murder is simply defined as taking another human (in our case, metahuman as well) life as covered in law. Since in most of the situations we are discussing, Shadowrunners/player characters are actively participating in killing, then one can define, regardless of situation, anyone they kill was effectively murdered.

The only situation where this might not apply is accidental deaths, where the player, in their actions with no intent whatsoever, caused a death. This could be gross negligence ("What'd'ya mean there was someone smoking under the piano when it fell??"), accidental or manslaughter ("Honestly, I didn't know the gun was loaded!").

You guys are talking in circles without examining intent. Shadowrunners, when they are on a run and cross a security guard who dares to fight back are committing murder when they shoot him/her. Simultaneously, if they take a job that is specifically to kill someone... well, that is self-explanatory I imagine.

Now the question I pose is; why does anyone care?

We watch movies and TV where untold hundreds of shot, exploded, stabbed, gouged, burned and otherwise rendered into inert meat. We laugh, we ooh and ahh and we walk away. Why? Because it is Entertainment. Shadowrun, the game, is just that. Entertainment. We are entertained by the idea that we can act as these shadowy figures of the night, stalking high security facilities, armed with weapons and gadgets we cannot possibly possess in real life. Just because our characters are willing to kill, doesn't mean we are.
krayola red
QUOTE (hyzmarca)
Here's what before she gets out of the hospital (which may as well be your basement medical dungeon) you buy her an electronic voice synthesizer that has a pleasant soothing sound that you like. You gift-wrap it with a nice little bow in her favorite color and with paper that has her favorite animals on it. When she opens you tell her that you are sorry that she made you cut out her vocal cords and hope that this will be come consolation. You then tell how how much you love her and how much she means to you and offer to take her out to her favorite restaurant for a nice romantic dinner so that she can show off her new voice synthesizer which sounds much better than her mangy old vocal cords did. And you tell her that since she no longer has an annoying voice that you'll never have to do anything like this again because you know that she is a good person and you know that she won't make that kind of mistake again because she is so good.
If you do it right she'll be so moved by your kindness and your mercy that she'll apologize for having had such an annoying voice and making you cut out her vocal cords.

Out of interest, are you married? A guy who possesses such an uncanny understanding of the female mind must at least have like ten wives, although it might only be eight if you calculate based on their physical wholeness. biggrin.gif
Ryu
And here I was thinking that laws express the morality of their makers.

In the case of our beloved runners, law is not the basis for moral code. At least not the written law. And what I was asking in how making a point of killing the guards (possible witnesses) can be aligned with rejecting wetwork on principle.

Snow Foxes example is consistent, as there is a difference between killing necessary for survival and killing on purpose. This is no longer the case if you play last-man-living with any guard you encounter, a standard tactic for most players I know. (Me thinks PC RPGs with experience based on killing the oposition are to blame. Pretty much all of them so to speak).

@krayola red: Hyzmarca is obviously wise in the way of women. He might be able to hold on to ten of those, but he will restrict himself to two who like each other wink.gif
Penta
And here I was thinking "Y'know, I like my sanity. One is fine, thank you." wink.gif

A thought: In SR4, Laes is available on the street, right?

Load up syringes with standard dosages. After you knock the guards out (and apply a trauma patch so they don't die), inject em with Laes.

All the no-witness benefits of killing em, without the murder charge.
Fortune
QUOTE (Penta)
Load up syringes with standard dosages. After you knock the guards out (and apply a trauma patch so they don't die), inject em with Laes.

So, even assuming I am using a cheap method of knocking the guard out in the first place (as opposed to the very costly toxin alternatives), you advocate that a person pay out 500„ for a Trauma Patch, and the Dog-knows how much more for Laes ... per guard?

Um, no thanks. Most people actually like to make a profit when they do a job.
Grinder
Use gel ammo instead wink.gif
Vaevictis
QUOTE (Aemon)
I think it's hard to make a discussion on morality without involving law, since one is the basis for the other. The definitions of morality are very much linked to the definitions of law, from which they are derived.

What is moral and what is not moral is not necessarily derived from the law; usually, it goes the other way -- when implementing the law, the lawmakers will tend to implement laws that reflect their moral and ethical standards.

However, this is clearly not always the case. In many states in the good old USA, there are laws which provide for lesser penalty for child molesters if the molester is a parent. Does that mean we think it's less immoral for a father to rape his daughter in the middle of the night than for a stranger to do it?

If you want to really get at the moral and ethical standards of a group, the laws are not the correct place to look. The laws will often nominally reflect the ethical and moral consensus of the group or its leadership, but only on the surface. Plenty of devils lie in the details of the law.

hyzmarca
QUOTE (Ryu)
@krayola red: Hyzmarca is obviously wise in the way of women. He might be able to hold on to ten of those, but he will restrict himself to two who like each other wink.gif

Exactly, because ten is just too many to reliably control without resorting to personafixes. With that many you are sure to get politicking, jealousy, and possibly murder. Two is good if they like each other, although three can work if they are triplets and four can work if they're quadruplets. Twincest is always good. You just have to decide if you are going to tattoo and mutilate them in unique ways so that you can tell them apart or if they are submissive and trustworthy enough that you can dehumanize and deindividualize them by giving them a single name and treating them as if they were all a single person. biggrin.gif


Not married, no. But I do find that the twin psychological phenomena of battered person syndrome and capture-bonding to be quite interesting, so some of my characters may choose to take advantage of them. Remember, consent that results from capture-bonding is just as valid as any other form of consent. Even groups that are squeamish about rape(or characters that are) couldn't really object if your character has a loving consensual relationship with a brainwashed former enemy. Just do the brainwashing right and don't rely on personafix chips.
I find that mundanes are the easiest since Sixth World medical technology allows you to just cut off their arms and legs without causing any lasting harm. You can give them a new set when they earn them. Meanwhile, the resultant helplessness and total reliance on you is perfect for developing a strong loving bond, even if you did just murder their children in front of them (in fact, murdering any children that they may have is preferable and makes the procedure go much more smoothly in the long-term despite potential short term setbacks that it may contribute to).

To sum it up, I support amorality in Shadowrun. It is, after all, only a game. But, you should also play within the boundaries that your group finds comfortable. If your group holds to certain absolutes then, for God's sake, play it Lawful-Evil. If they can't stomach rape and your character wants a sex-slave then simply cut off the arms and legs of a captured enemy and take care of him or her until her or she falls in love with you. But if your group can stomach it then feel free to have your Fenrir-follower berserker violate the corpses of his slain enemies.

QUOTE (Vaevictis)
However, this is clearly not always the case. In many states in the good old USA, there are laws which provide for lesser penalty for child molesters if the molester is a parent. Does that mean we think it's less immoral for a father to rape his daughter in the middle of the night than for a stranger to do it?

Yes, it does. All moral systems must be based on either a hierarchy of good or a hierarchy of harm. The same is true for a legal system. The general consensus amongst those responsible for making laws is that the incestuous rape causes less harm than the stranger rape does in most cases, therefore it is less immoral.
I'm not going to agree or disagree with this other than to say that some incestuous rapes cause less harm than some stranger rapes and some stranger rapes cause less harm than some incestuous rapes. Trauma, both psychological and physical, is extremely difficult to quantify and both forms of rape are bad.

Of course, there is also a concern with keeping nuclear families intact, which further contributes to the lesser sentences for incestuous rape, since imposing long prison sentences for incestuous rapists necessarily damages the integrity of the nuclear family those who prioritize the family may see long prison sentences for incestuous rape to be contrary to the greater good while long prison sentences for stranger rape are fine and dandy. This is especially true when the rapist is also the primary earner as it can force the remaining family members into destitution, forcing them to either go onto welfare or to sell each other into sexual slavery if welfare isn't available.

Either way, it relects the moral beliefs of the lawmakers, either that incestuous rape is a lesser harm than stranger rape or that breaking up nuclear families is a greater harm than incestuous rape. Take your pick, either eay it means that the lawmakers believe that incestuous rape is the lesser evil.
Crowley
Gel ammo and facemasks when taking on the guards means that people know you were there (which a pile of dead bodies will anyway) and nothing more- a reasonable precaution for runners who don't want to murder every corp wageslave who gets in their way.

I think the wariness towards wetwork may have more of a psychological basis than an ethical (i.e, logical) one (with the disclaimer that I've never killed a man, and am speculating). If you go into a corp compound thinking you will ideally never be spotted and are sneaking, sneaking, sneaking, and oh crap a guard's shooting at you, the in-the-heat-of-ness of it makes it much less harsh on your psyche when you kill him. Contrast this to the lack of empathy needed to peform more premediated forms of killing, and you can see why those sociopathic enough to take wetwork in any sort of regular fashion might be feared or hated by the larger population of shadowrunners.

QUOTE (hyzmarca)
Either way, it relects the moral beliefs of the lawmakers, either that incestuous rape is a lesser harm than stranger rape or that breaking up nuclear families is a greater harm than incestuous rape. Take your pick, either eay it means that the lawmakers believe that incestuous rape is the lesser evil.

Law can be (ideally, strives to be) a reflection of the ethics and morality of the governed, but it is not always a perfect reflection. You cannot point at any law and immediately derive the moral precepts of those it applies to (or who passed it, rather); instead, it is merely an indicator. Since laws tend to lag behind sensibility, and to have politics affecting them as well, they are at best a distorted mirror of the ethics of the populace.
Aemon
QUOTE (Vaevictis @ Nov 23 2006, 05:54 PM)
What is moral and what is not moral is not necessarily derived from the law;  usually, it goes the other way -- when implementing the law, the lawmakers will tend to implement laws that reflect their moral and ethical standards.

However, this is clearly not always the case.  In many states in the good old USA, there are laws which provide for lesser penalty for child molesters if the molester is a parent.  Does that mean we think it's less immoral for a father to rape his daughter in the middle of the night than for a stranger to do it?

If you want to really get at the moral and ethical standards of a group, the laws are not the correct place to look.  The laws will often nominally reflect the ethical and moral consensus of the group or its leadership, but only on the surface.  Plenty of devils lie in the details of the law.


Ahh, see there is the catch. Law is written based on the morals of the law makers, but once written, laws rarely undergo drastic changes in direction unless the civilization goes kaput. And thus, those who are born under those laws have their morals inevitably influenced by the laws.

Since our original law makers are all dead, the question about whether law influences morals or morals influences law now becomes a chicken and the egg question.

My argument to you was not to use law as a basis of questioning morality, but rather that law cannot be avoided when questioning it. And back to this whole shabang about wetworks and murder, I don't quite understand why it was such a huge deal to begin with. Some jobs some Shadowrunners will take. Some they will not. What's the problem? Let each individual group decide for themselves and have fun in doing it. Why are people foaming at the mouth over what other people choose to play?
Ryu
The foaming at the mouth-thing happens only when the real-life discussion disturbs game time. Again.

And while discussion of morals is fun on its own (because its based on history rather than laws of nature), it can be interesting to question the consistency of a fictional moral code.

What I have experienced recently is a discussion where even the player of a wetworker is berated based on his willingness to do wetwork. And thats a good reason to ask why there is a line between intentionally killing every guard and taking on wetwork. Especially if it is obvious that the comfort line of the players in question was not crossed. They just "play out" a percieved notion of a code against wetwork. On every character they know. Thank god my girlfriend is different.

Maybe the reason is too little personality in my/our NPCs. Maybe the target of a wetwork is different because it has a name. That can (and will) be tested, I already printed out Blackjacks random name table.
WhiskeyMac
What I find funny is that with all this talk about law no-one has really mentioned how the law defines self-defensive killing. Killing in self-defense is basically a no-other-fucking-choice-but-killing-the-motherfucker-shooting-at-me situation. If you can runaway, you must. If you have any possible avenue of escape, you must escape or it's manslaughter/murder/homicide/whatever. You literally have to have NO way of escaping (or a very, very persuasive lawyer) in order for you to get off on a self-defense clause. Especially if you are packing restricted and/or forbidden cyberware that allows you to move 3x faster than the average person, shoot a weapon with deadly accuracy and hack into databases with your thoughts. Besides, that cyberware could have been used to escape 3x faster anyways wink.gif.

As a security guard myself I find it very fucking hilarious that a lot of replies find it a necessary evil to shoot and kill a wageslave guard packing a radio, flashlight, clipboard and pepper punch because that guard saw them commit a crime. And yet they find capping somebody in the back of their head, either from 100 yards or 1 yard away, repulsive. From my point of view, all locations except high-risk sights will have non-lethal (pepper punch, glue gun, nausea gas, etc.) security as it's MAIN security. Heavier response only happens based on what reaction the PCs have to the security guard catching them. A shot with a narcojet pistol in the neck will probably just have an alarm go off or nothing happen while a full-auto blast of automatic fire will have the secguards packing serious heat show up within 10 combat rounds. Robbery gets you 10 years while first degree murder gets you life.

The best shadowrun is the one without anyone knowing that anything happened until the shadowrunners are back at their favorite bar clinching beer steins together in a toast or later. My 0.02 nuyen.gif
hyzmarca
Well, if the PCs get too murderous on the guards you could pull out the random consequences table that I made up a while ago and make some adjustments to it.
Really, the probability that the guard you just killed will rise as a master shedim before his body hits the ground is enough to make players understand that murder is murder If it is not then finding the letter from the adoption agency that proves that the dead guard was actually your long-lost baby brother certainly will.
SL James
QUOTE (WhiskeyMac)
As a security guard myself I find it very fucking hilarious that a lot of replies find it a necessary evil to shoot and kill a wageslave guard packing a radio, flashlight, clipboard and pepper punch because that guard saw them commit a crime. And yet they find capping somebody in the back of their head, either from 100 yards or 1 yard away, repulsive.

Thank you!

Christ, I was beginning to think I was the only one who sees how stupid that is.
kzt
QUOTE (WhiskeyMac)
The best shadowrun is the one without anyone knowing that anything happened until the shadowrunners are back at their favorite bar clinching beer steins together in a toast or later. My 0.02 nuyen.gif

We always found that these mysterious artifacts called MASKS were helpful in avoiding allowing security guards to ID us, on the rare occasions that were were detected. I don't remember ever deliberately killing any, though on one occasion where it turned into a full blown battle I'm not going to promise that the frag grenades thrown down the hall didn't kill anyone.

I'm pretty confident the only real assassination gig we took was to whack an western dragon who was interfering with another dragons plan. I think the 4th AVR did him in, slightly before he would have killed most of us.

The two times a straight forward operation turned into mass murder both had to do with blood mages. Ok, we thought they were blood mages. One was, the other was just a mage who was going to give the two naked and beaten girls to the crew of the smuggling vessel for entertainment purposes.
SL James
And?

Remind them of that next time a PC fucks a whore.
kzt
QUOTE (SL James)
And?

Remind them of that next time a PC fucks a whore.

Nah, he kept Barbie and Trixie after they followed him home.

The rest of us tended to be successful shadow runners with social skills, so we had the money to do thing like pay cover charges at the local bars and pick up chicks.

The "grab them off the street and gang rape them" technique just lacked a bit too much of both class and finesse for us. It seemed to have worked for the street gang, until we showed up looking for the mage and the head ganger.
Grinder
QUOTE (kzt)
The "grab them off the street and gang rape them" technique just lacked a bit too much of both class and finesse for us. It seemed to have worked for the street gang, until we showed up looking for the mage and the head ganger.

It works for most street gangs, I guess.
Aemon
QUOTE (WhiskeyMac)
As a security guard myself I find it very fucking hilarious that a lot of replies find it a necessary evil to shoot and kill a wageslave guard packing a radio, flashlight, clipboard and pepper punch because that guard saw them commit a crime. And yet they find capping somebody in the back of their head, either from 100 yards or 1 yard away, repulsive.


If it makes you feel any better, my Shadowrun character uses non-lethal weapons in most engagements where possible wink.gif

Oft-times, I find a wetwork job has to do with who the target is. If it's Grandma Josephina at 123 Flowers-are-Pretty Ave., where her only crime was making maple syrup and refusing to sell the recipe to a megacorp, then yes, my Shadowrunner character would have an issue with it.

The last wetworks we did was against the leader of a humanitari (spelling?) sect, and advocating all sorts of nastiness towards metahumans, of which there are many in our SR group. So... much less qualms doing that.

I imagine it isn't the idea of killing someone that bothers people - it is the idea of killing someone who doesn't deserve it that bothers them. What the definition of "deserves" is, well, I leave that to the individual.
Iscariot
QUOTE (Demerzel)


Ultimately there is no right or wrong answer to this one. Some groups it is okay, some groups it is not. Any argument that says that every shadowrunner should be an assassin if that’s the job is wrong, and any argument that says assassinations are not right for the game is also wrong.

This is the best line so far...so I quote it for truth.
redwulf25_ci
QUOTE (WhiskeyMac)
As a security guard myself I find it very fucking hilarious that a lot of replies find it a necessary evil to shoot and kill a wageslave guard packing a radio, flashlight, clipboard and pepper punch because that guard saw them commit a crime.

As a player in Shadowrun I have never met a guard so poorly armed. My runners kill guards who are SHOOTING at them, you know, with BULLETS. If the wage slave guard is armed with a radio and pepper punch I have the hacker jam the radio and laugh at the guard while going about my business. On the other hand if the job is that easy then why is the Johnson paying me so much?
WhiskeyMac
The security guard would be that poorly armed because he's an inside patrol. He expects the outside defenses of an electrified razor wire fence, motion activated lights, gel-ammo equipped autoguns, and high altitude drones to keep all but the most eager out. He's there to make sure that the windows and doors are locked and the hallways are clear at 3 am. There are places that have top secret security clearance that just have a roving guard with that kind of equipment, maybe a pistol with orders to shoot IF someone shoots first. Just because a guard's shooting at you doesn't mean he's going to hit or even kill you. He's just doing his job, just like you. If you were sitting at some desk, watching video monitors and some guy came up behind you and shot you in the back of the head, would you be mad? Besides being dead, you just got killed because. And that's the reason, because. Because you were sitting there doing your job. Wow, that sucks.

It's purely based on what the GM feels is too little or too much weaponry for a wageslave guard. I think arming them to the teeth with a SOTA HK with APDS ammo, IP grenades and a monosword as well as a panic button to bring in the troll decked out in heavy security armor wielding a minigun just to guard a top-secret prototype (that nobody knows about) on the 53rd floor of a 70 floor skyscraper a little much. The main point of security is access control. If you control access, then nobody can get anywhere. Security isn't suppose to have running gun battles with well armed illegal aliens trying to lift something from a lab. They're suppose to control access to those areas and when that's breached, they are to follow security protocol for that site and radio it in. After that, it's up to the GM what happens.
mfb
WhiskyMac's got a point, but it's worth remembering that, no funnin', SR is a dark future. crime is rampant and the police are owned by a rival corporation; when you hit that panicbutton, you're probably summoning guys from the other shifts of your job. so i think it's fair to say that the average security guard in SR is better-equipped and better-trained than the average RL security guard. the guys with the pepper spray and the flashlights would be pretty low-end.
Cold-Dragon
That makes me laugh, just a little, imagining a toy store Security officer packing this kind of SR-accurate ammount of potential.

- Somewhere in a Toy Store in Seattle, a guard and a thief are face to face -

guard: I know what you're thinking: Did I just grab one of those toy automatic "Sargeant Slurry Commando's" off the wall, or is this the real real thing, "Pop Your Ass Full of Blue Grass"?

thief: Dude, I just wanted to get my kid one of those pissing dolls!
PlatonicPimp
For Shadowrun, I'd amend Whiskeymac's list to include a light pistol, because it's been intimated in canon that even parents arm catholic school girls with hold outs for fear of crime.

You know the old joke: "at my school we were searched for weapons every morning, to make sure we had them."

The idea that any sec. guard walks around with only pepperspray in SR is inconsistent with the world. Because of extrateritoriality and the culture it creates, even places that aren't prtected by it would have the mindset of "my Property, my rules" and lethal force would be the normal response to tresspassing. As if the whole world was texas.

Also, the idea that guards have biomonitors that will tell the dispatcher when they are hurt or dead is sheer genious, and so inexpensive to implement, that every guard in my games will be so equipped. It would even report unconciousness. This will force the players to either be creative or fast. Whichever.
hyzmarca
If you are confronted by three security guards, one wielding an Ares Alpha, one wielding a Panther Assault Canon, and one wielding a flashlight and pepper punch but you only have two bullets left in your gun, what do you do?

Shoot the one with the flashlight twice and reload. You'll probably be geeking both the mage and the light source at the same time.

A guard that is underarmed is extremely suspicious. You'll have to wonder exactly why he's underarmed and while there is one obvious possibility in which he's just harmless all of the convoluted paranoid possibilities are extremely unpleasant.
SL James
People do that? What the hell is the point of uniformity of mooks if they aren't, you know, uniform?
Glyph
I agree that it's a bit hypocritical to shun wetwork but have no problem geeking security guards, but I would still run a lot of my characters that way. Most people are hypocritical and/or inconsistent, and I like to exagerate that for my PCs. So you will have one who despises BTL users but has no problem with BTL dealers - hey, they're just selling stuff to stupid people. Another one will feel sorry for BTL users, because they were just trying to get away from their cruddy lives for awhile, but they got manipulated by those evil BTL pushers when they were vulnerable.



By the way, on the question of penalties being lower for child molesters who are family members, it's not really a question of it being considered a lesser crime when a family member does it. Rather, lawmakers are worried that lengthy penalties would make it less likely that other family members would report it at all. So it's more of a trade-off between punishing them enough vs. bringing their crimes to light. And there's a lot of arguments about whether it works that way, but that's the rationale (and I know this, because there were some strenuous debates in my area recently, regarding a law they were trying to pass which would raise those penalties).
Grinder
Equipping guards with a HK, some ammo and a kevlar vest is not that expensive, roughly 1,000 nuyen.gif or so. I think that's reasonable for a dark future setting like SR where corps expect shadowrunners to be well-armed and willing to kill guards.

And hell yeah, uniformity all the way! Same weapons for every guard! wink.gif
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