Wow, this thread got going fast!
Anyway, let me try to clarify what I meant. What I was trying to get at wasn't theft, murder, or even torture, but that a lot of runners seem perfectly willing to ignore collateral damage, to cut their losses when a friend is in trouble, to use the homeless as trap fodder, ect. Perhaps it was a form of dark sarcasm when I've heard it on these boards, but it seems like a great many shadowrun characters are fully prepared to act as if no one else in the world matters at all.

Well Pyrite, that point of view does seem to be somewhat prevalent in spite of the fact that it very well could become self destructive in nature. Shadowrunners do seem to be typically out for number one, so cutting their losses might be IC appropriate in the event that a rescue or what have you would not be 'cost effective' when the benefit is weighed against personal risk. They are just as likely (if not more likely in some cases) to think 'how hard would it be to replace this person whom I've invested time and possibly money into in order to engender loyalty and camaraderie?' as they are to think 'My friend Michael is in trouble, I have to save him because its the right thing to do.'

As for the homeless trap trippers and the like, I think that that is more players being more cutthroat than they should be and/or not thinking through consequences than any IC decision. Drek like that draws attention, and attention is death for a shadowrunner. So while a runner might really only care about themselves, they aren't going to always act that way because they need to have a Rep that says 'you can trust me' in order to continue to do biz.

Maybe those sort of hijinks are mostly due to player predelections developed by prior gaming... for example, here are the players/characters in the game I'm playing in:

1. Shirley Scmitt = the Face. (mostly D&D / Iron Heroes player) - The player's first time playing a talker... she mostly defers to other people when decision making rolls around. The character doesn't get her hands dirty - but asks other characters to do it for her. Sarah asked her to handle a distraction to cover the sound of thermite burning through a wall during an extraction. Shirley's solution was to drive a truck through the wall of the building and remotely detonate a claymore under its gas tank as she and Thugly bursted out the back on a harley machine guns blazing. In playing good-cop / bad-cop on a captured ganger, she was supposed to talk to the guy and then hand him over to Sarah for 'attitude adjustment.' She told Sarah to continue until she came back. After the screams continued for twenty minutes, Shirley still hadn't decided he'd had enough - until Sarah stopped and said "Are you sure I should keep going? I'm going to run out of nerves to slice if you don't talk to him soon... but you're the expert on talking to people". Shirley is the most liked and least trusted in the group.

2. Chan = the Phys Adept. (mostly World of Darkness player) - Chan is the ultimate straight man. The character is just getting into the shadows, and his player has him act appropriately naive until he gets smacked with the D'oh stick. He doesn't like unnecessary violence, but follows others' lead as to where the line is drawn. He has cleaned up Shirley's mess at least once, and he's the middle of the road as far as likability and trust goes.

3. Thugly = the Troll ganger. (mostly diceless RP systems player) - Thugly is a ganger with a philosophic streak. He is blunt, but he doesn't resort to violence if he can help it - unless of course his street cred is on the line. If it is, then he'll take on any opponent - be it cop or humanis policlubber. The only person who trusts/likes him more than as a peice of muscle is Sarah. When Shirley suggested it, his response was 'I always wanted to drive my bike out the back of a moving truck... sounds cool'

4. Julius = the Technomancer. (1st ed 40k player - IE: power-munchkin) - Julius has become comic releif - and sometimes a liability. He always brute-forces his way into systems, declares 'jyhad' (his term) on the system if it beats him once - so he returns with a veritable army of sprites. Julius has no depth, and if consulted is of the 'kill them all and let god sort them out' mindset. Right now Julius is in a coma due to a nasty experience with Black Hammer. The player is making a boom mage temp character whose answer to every situation is either powerball or stunball... including full stealth ops. The rest of us are contemplating how hard it will be to geek this character as a service to society after he makes a run go fubar. Nobody likes or trusts Julius, but Sarah is very friendly with him because she figures that he could be useful in the future.

5. Sarah = the Covert Ops Street Sam. (Me - I play all systems, but at heart I'm a writer - so 'In Character' is king). Sarah is the group's actual bonafide sociopath. She is also the most outspokenly against destructive hijinks, but if it is less dangerous for someone to be dead than to be let live for whatever reason, she pulls the trigger without hesitation. She has cold heartedly murdered people whom overheard incriminating evidence - even after those people accepted bribes - because she didn't want to take the risk. She is the second most liked and the most trusted out of the group, and Chan described her as the least psychotic aside from himself - actually going so far as to say that she is the only one he would be comfortable being alone in a dark alley with. She is adamant about no killing cops unless absolutely necessary, having stated "the only thing that mobilizes a police force faster than a donut sale is a cop-killer." No matter what she does, she has a logical - if amoral - reason for it.


Analysis: the two characters responsible for the most destructive hijinks are the DnD player and the Power-Munchkin. The others are self-centered, but are reasonable in their self centered-ness.

- Scope

My short answer: This is a game the runners should be as normal or as insane as the player is comfortable playing, as long as it doesn't wreck your group.

Every game group will have different tolerances, if you group can't agree on what those tolerances are your group will have problems.

As a long time D&D (and chainmail) player, I would have to say one thing about stereotypes...

Note all D&D players are srtaight forward players.


In the olds days (admitedly less games available), plenty of us did plenty of more social / subterfuge / etc style games.


And if they live by the 'rules' of the shadowrunner society are they Socipaths?

Perhaps I should mention my current group has something of a rep for using non-lethal methods. Though there have been a couple situations where they decided to kill people. The first was pretty much running into a group during a run that were 'Sanitizing' the same facility they were in. The second was the mage finding himself alone in while astrally soaking.

Second Frank's comments. Actually, Frank, you saved me a lot of typing.

Edit: Eidolan beat me to a lot of it.

Other issues then:
Things like a willingness to feed prisoners to ghouls, summon blood spirits to do their bidding, exploit homeless people by strapping explosives to them, etc.

How many players do that sort of stuff?

In our game, we ran into a black market organ legger. There was a bit of discussion about whether or not it would be okay to work for him. It helped that our GM is a goofball, and named the doc "Da Rippa" and played him for comedic effect. It's a lot easier to work for Da Rippa than it is for a scary organlegger.

And its exactly that type of "morality" that I enjoy portraying in the Cyberpunk genre.

With all of the scholarly theses on sociopathy and psychopathy I thought I might chime in from the other side. My father is almost a true sociopath, while I myself have been diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenic, which I belive is a type of psychopathy. Sorry about the run-on, but I digress. My father's behavioral attitudes and motivations I belive are very much in line with sociopathy, e.g. whatever my father does, he does with an ulterior motive. He never really emotionally evolved beyond the pain/pleasure decision making process. The only reason he will stop an otherwise antisocial and destructive behavior is if somehow it is viscerally connected to a negative response. I'm trying to come up with a suitable example, except it's really hard to come up with something that does not require far more typing than I am really up for. Let me just say that with the tendrils of manipulation he exudes, summing up anything about the man succintly is rather difficult.
On the other hand, I have a different view. It's rather interesting because while I am schizophrenic I can still recognize right and wrong. And I still have to control my impulses. That is partially what my disorder is about. My friends and family have likened my mood swings to flipping a light switch. One instant my emotional state is at even keel, then suddenly I become enraged, or morose, or ebullient, or even calm. No one has really been able to tell what my triggers are. Also, there are the sudden irrational, nearly uncontrollable impulses. Usually violent. Imagine riding a bus. Your mental state is at an even keel. Suddenly for no apparent reason you have the powerful impulse to hurt/maim/kill. You don't because it is wrong and you know this. In fact the mental images of grisly torture sicken you. Yet they persist. My entire personality is focused on control of myself. I am a nonviolent person. I don't like to hurt people. Quite the contrary, in fact. Yet actually causing pain to others is extremely pleasurable, yet at the same time sickening. By the way, I am in treatment, so no worries. I guess what I am getting at is that one can be an extremely moral person, like myself, and have a nearly debilitating mental illness. Trying to pigeonhole those of us in the disputed camps is not really helping anything. Bottom line, a sociopath or a psychopath is unstable true, however that does not necessarily make them immoral or evil. And thank you Scope for your attempts to shed light on the conditions.

BTW I really do talk like this