As a general rule, if someone is willing to pay six figures to have someone killed then you are probably doing the world a very big favor. If someone is paying less than that it isn't worth the risk.

There is a very big difference between the caliber of people who would hire you to take out Angela Colloton and the caliber of people who would hire you to kill the 14 year old stepdaughters that they accidentally impregnated and that difference shows in their wallets.

As for semantics, killing a hundred people because they were there (leave no witness alive or undead is my motto) and killing one person because he did something so bad that a bad individual is willing to finance your high lifestyle for a year in order to get back at him are completely different things. In the former the individuals were innocent victims of Fate, which simply used you as its sword. In the latter the individuals were victims of a rather rich fellow or group that was using you as its sword, and they probably got what was coming to them.

Soylent Green: Not just for ghouls anymore!

Seriously, do you honestly think anyone in the Sixth World has the slightest qualm about feeding poor people other poor people? Hell, if it wasn't for those pesky laws against murder, it'd be a booming business right now.

Hmm.

"I will kill a sec guard if he engages me"

vs.

"I will accept money to kill someone".


Both are murder, but the first is worse. You most times have a choice to not kill the sec guard that still allows for accomplishing the target. Yet your gun is loaded with ExEx because its the best.

If you only accept the former, a consistent moral code demands that you avoid killing if it can be helped. Nothing I´ve seen often in 10+ years of playing. I´d rather be grateful for characters who do use the possiblities their moral code offers, instead of mirroring the players code.

Rape is an exception. Do it once (ingame or god forbid offgame), and you need another group. That is not close to any comfort zone.

I like this String......

All this talk, questioning morality and social norms makes me warm inside.

Assasination, Murder, Torture and acts of qualified as inhumane are usually associated with Antisocial Personality Disorder AKA Sociopath


See if you fit the bill go to

WIKI

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisocial_pe...nality_disorder

Personally, I think that the behavior is a survival mechanism that directly relates to how dangerous a childhood 1-15yr of age is. Those hitmen see the world very differently than you and many others. They are usually gifted in someway whether it is astute perception ie habits, personality typing or other things that the normal person cannot see or atleast doesnt it recognize its importance.

These people either lack emotion or turn it off lock it up and forget about it.

One of the runs I like to start off new players who are used to alignment systems is wetwork. I want to make it clear to them up front that they are not the good guys.

Of course if they get too violent then I fully expect the other PCs to kill them for their own safety.

Follow the Grey Line all the way to Hell!

What about the "hair gel" from There's Something About Mary?

Technically, it's NOT hair gel.

open wide, sweetie. i've got some hair gel for you! and it's non-dairy!

hahaha

I can just see it now... And it is funny beyond words.

I'd just point out that assuming that the target is a very bad guy just because someone is willing to pay a lot of money to have him killed is rather naive.

Let's say you are willing to pay 100k to have someone killed.

Why? Because you don't like him? Hardly, unless you have the mentality and the wealth of a decadent roman emperor.

Normally, you'll be willing to pay 100k for someone's head because his continued existence is harmful to you or because his death benefit you. That's it.

Here are some example out of the top of my head :

• The target is a witness for the prosecution against you.
• You will inherit the wealth of the target
• You are a leader that lead through fear and intimidation and the target did something that harmed your reputation ; unless the target dies and your reputation for ruthlessness is confirmed, you may face mutiny.
• The target is a rival (which doesn't make him a crime lord unless you are a crime lord) and is competetion is killing you.

Fairly standard reason for ordering a hit. So tell me, in how many of these situation can you assure me that the target is necessarily an evil person deserving of getting wacked?

Maybe he does, mind you. Maybe he doesn't. Probably he doesn't. But the target isn't being targeted because he is a bad man in any case. He is being targeted because the guy willing to pay 100k for his death is a bad man. And if you accept the hit, you are working for him.

Not that there's no wetwork in my campaigns. It is certainly an option. But the target will rarely be "deserving". It'll be a Journalist who is digging too deep, a Business partner who refuse to get with the program, a business rival who is too good for his own good, a rich husband who is just not dying or a wife you can't divorce without losing more money than you are willing to part with.

Most of the time, the group decided against it. So in recent months, the only times the PC have outright executed a "bad man", it was actually for free ; they were avenging themselves from a previous betrayal.

Can you get a good juicy target with no moral ambiguity like a crime lord? It could... But most of the rivals of a crime lord won't need extra deniability and are more likely to use their own hitmen instead of hiring out runner.

It's just more likely that most of the offer for wetwork made to runner are going to be a moral challenge. Unless the GM is using cheap cop out and for some reason they keep landing fun contract like killing terrorists, crime lords and crooked politicians.

Speaking of politicians ; Who do you think got murdered the most, historically ; crooked politicians who accepted bribes or idealistic politicians fighting with the system out of principle?

And there you have it in a nutshell. It's certainly possible to get a "feel good" contract but a GM who is going the wetwork road should make sure to offer some more normal hit against more normal target for substantial amount (like twice the usual going rate of the team) just to feel the player out, to inject some grit and force some though choices.

Or you could be like that one psycho girl who hired a killer over myspace to get her boyfriend for having to many girls on his page and got caught cheating on her. Wetwork could be anybody

My suggestion is, if you're trying to introduce this type of run to your group, give them a run without too many details about the target. If the group looks into the targets private life, have them turn out to be a real sicko. A bad, bad man. That way, they'll whack him and your plot is good. If all they care about is where he'll be at what time and they don't care to investigate what kind of person he is or why someone wants him to die, then fine. Now you know that this group won't ask, and their next wetwork assignment can be against the nosey reporter.

The same people who frown on wetwork in a game where you play (primarily) criminals and disassociated society members must not have played any other RPG ever. How would you justify playing a D&D game, where the basic premise is your character barging into the lairs of other creatures to kill them and take their money? Is it because teh D&D creatures are "not human"? How to you judge their humanity and right to live? I mean, you are supposed to be heroic and you end up slaughtering goblinoids because they "are different". Most other RPGs are the same way, in a general sense.

Now, if you can play games where you are supposed to be heroic and engage in wanton slaughter and greed, how can you play a game where your character is a criminal who is afraid to even harm someone else?

I agree with Charon.

Basically cinematic criminals usually have a line they will not cross. Am I recalling correctly or was the Godfather shot because he was not willing to sell Heroin. Even cinematic assassins have boundaries. How many times did Leon in the Professional say, “No women, no kids. <BANG>”

If as a GM you present an assassination mission many players will follow along because they feel it’s the game, and regardless if they think their characters would participate they are here around this table to play. And if the GM prepared an assassination they would be excluding themselves, and roleplaying comes second to playing.

Consider how many criminals there are in the world, and then consider how many of them have killed. If you are claiming that this is a game about criminals and therefore everyone should have the stomach to do some wetwork, or they are being losers because they don’t “get” what the game is about, then you’re over simplifying the criminal mind.

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.

Note that what I'm about to post is in reference to "standard, by the core rules, D&D". Of course there are other ways to play, as I state all the time. They are not, however, the "assumed" way to play D&D.

Even totally ruthless PCs might help the old lady being mugged right now on the other side of the street by a few gangers. That might be bad news for the gangers, but to the old lady the PCs would still be heroes.

Oh god. Are we delving into D&D morality?

Would it help those naysayers to know that in D&D, there are absolutes in alignment? That is to say, there are divine forces of pure Good, Evil, Law, Chaos and Neutrality? Clerics in D&D do not necessarily have to worship a deity, they can instead draw power directly from these undefined, yet existing divine powers.

Yes, it makes for an interesting story twist if you find a goblin with a heart, or a drow with a conscience - but that is very much the exception as opposed to the rule. Typically a goblin isn't "misunderstood" or "behaving badly because it is lashing out against a society that rejects him"... Rather, they're just evil little critter who enjoy skewering human babies on a red hot poker and then gnawing off tender strips of their flesh.

Capiche?

Why, exactly? It nearly mirrors most SR games that I have seen. The PCs are almost always the "better" criminals.

Perhaps you could provide a more thorough alternative view?

What the???!!! Those farmers have levels???

Oh! NPC classes...whew. You had me worried for a second.

Hey I have an idea lets not debate moral relativism of D&D in a shadowrun forum.

The group I'm in tends to exersie restraint. If we an take out the guards through non-lethal means with minimal increase in risk. We'll go the extra yard. In the long run, leaving security guards and cops alive keeps the heat off your back. A trail of bodies makes your pursuers just that more eager to catch you. Hell last corp mission we did required we avoided killing any of the security or face a pay cut. Often times not using lethal force can keep you alive far better then the using of lethal force.

We have no quams about using lethal force againts things like gangers(mafia, and yaks included as well as the holloweener type), enemy shadowrunners, and of course paracritters. Or almost anyone else you decides to come after us.


Players should be rewarded for finding non lethal ways to finish runs. And from what I've seen of offical material they are.

No beat cop will come after you to preserve his street rep. But that Halloweener you beat up might want to prove how much of a man he is so you're better off not giving him the chance.

yeah, I was gonna say that James's post was great, except that the last paragraph ... well.. yeah.. it was special

Oh no, I thought that last paragraph was the best one out of the lot. It really provides a lot of insight on a type of people who play this game.

...War Nerd?