Why is it that we instinctively, as players, throw on at least a secure long coat (maybe with some gel packs, to boot), and holster at least one troll-killing heavy caliber pistol?

Is the threat we face daily from overzealous and vindictive gamemaster's of smg wielding waiter-assassins so great, that we can't enjoy a movie or a drink at a bar in jeans and a t-shirt? Do we really need the Smartlinked (Mark II, of course) Colt Manhunter with EX-Explosive rounds to take down that ever present charging troll physad?

Yes, we are Shadowrunners, many of us hardened criminals, baptised by blood. But don't we ever resort to our resourcefulness, our tactics and our skills when the going gets tough in an unexpected situation? Rather than blowing out the kneecaps of the assailing drunkard out with a browning max power in a light pub brawl (I actually did this once, as a non-lethal and considerate take-down, go figure).

Where I'm trying to get with this diatribe is I understand that we live in a rough world, and survive by being the roughest, shadowiest and often amoral or even immoral skags there is, but when your hold-out is really an APDS Predator-III and your Light side-arm is an ARES HVAR, haven't we gone a little overboard, and brought our uptime into our downtime, having our eggs easy over AND sunny-side-up?

How do you, as players, GM's and runners feel about our loaded for bear (and maybe the occasional Piasma) attitude to going to a restaurant, the movies, the shops, dive bars and various meets with contacts. And why the hell did you bother with that Wildcat 6 anyway?

Personally I'd like to tone down, maybe go out not wearing armour and a hold out pistol in my boot. Your average everyday assailant perhaps shouldn't be wearing body armour (and there's always called shots) and should have a lower proffesional rating than I, so really if I sink a shot or two into his midriff, he should probably drek himself and bolt, if he hasn't doubled over in pain. Or better yet, I'm sure that ganger will look the other way with his rusty knife if I chop him in the throat or dislocate a shoulder with my Karate skills. Perhaps I will thud that parking fine wielding skag with a slap of a shock glove, rather than say, aerating him and hanging him out to dry from the rear bumper of my westwind.

Contributions and hilarious exaggurations appreciated. Get to it.

If I personally was in the situation where I made my living by regularly breaking the laws, and maybe a whole lot more, I wouldn't even take the trash out without packing a weapon, if not more than one. I don't see any reason why this would be strange. Add in a society where there are indeed rampaging trolls and hyped-up physical adepts, not to mention lightning bolt-wielding mages, some of whom might be quite upset at me personally for past indiscretions, and the donning of armor in order to walk the dog just doesn't seem all that excessive.

But maybe that's just me.

Well the group I have right now killed three members of a close knit, four member shadowrun team. I suspect she's looking for the group even as we speak. They also had the hostage killed so it's also possible that Ares is currently hiring. The group put a Lone Star officer in the hospital so they're on the hunt. They kidnapped a girl from an ex-military guy who has close ties to a three member assault team _and_ the girl was assassinated. The girl's mom has Yakuza connections and works for Federated-Boeing so _they_ might be hiring.

Heck, they have to be careful just going out for a soyakaf latte at Soybucks.

Carl

Hrm, i never go out without my trsty form-fitting full body armor . . if the weather is bad(come on, this is seattle *g*) i take the armored trench-coat . . As i play mostly Combat Characters (mainly Trolls) it ain't even too much out of character to be at least lightly armed(taser, dart-pistol, forearm-snap-blades, hardliner gloves, shock-glove, telescoping staff and if i expect to go to parts where i am not every day or going to a meeting with a johnson there's at least a savalette guardian and an ares viper slivergun in there too . . GM is happy that i leave the long arms at home most of the time *g* . . else i'd be packing a Franchi SPAS-22 and a pole-arm ^^

Considering what I carry with me everywhere, every day, when I'm not a professional criminal by trade, I never felt like a hold-out (packing EX) and some thunderwear or armored clothing were uncalled for for my Adepts and Street Sammies.

heh, yeah . . urban camo-clothing, heavy leather with some hardened plastic plates, security boots with steel toe cap . . and to some parts of town i don't go without at least a knuckle duster . . in shadowrun, this is every day clothing as it is for me today . . professionals who KNOW (and don't just suspect) how dangerous that world is are bound to wear a little bit more protection i'd think . .

There's a much simpler explaination, and a way to get it.

Have your entire team kit out in their civvies - T-shirts, no armor, jeans, maybe a leather jacket, and carry the lightest pistol you can find that's not a holdout... I forget the name of it, I never bothered.

Now, say this team of friends has the munchies bad. Well, that's what they made Stuffer Shacks for.

I hope you've seen where I'm going with this. Run through Food Fight with only a light pistol (and Ball ammo) and leather jacket, and if you survive, you probably won't walk out the front door again carrying anything lighter than an Ares Predator III, Smartlinked, and loaded for bear with Ex-Ex or APDS. And I doubt you'll want to walk out in less than an Urban Explorer, if not full sec armor, and carrying at least an Ingram Smartgun.

The fluff seems to show that most people wear reinforced clothing, even non shadowrunners. It's even fashionable, as long as it's subtle enough.

Besides, the C rating neighborhoods have always been described as neighborhood where you can walk around without a gun... most of the time.

So if the average SINner walks around with armored clothes and an Aztech BattlePEZ gun, no wonder the runner won't go out without his trusty Predator and armored long coat.

Me and my plain ol' CCW feel a lot cooler all of a sudden.

CCW?

If memory serves on of the Guides had entire production lines for hidden or otherwise unstated armored clothing. Most of the clothing listed is armored to a slightly degree, and there are few reasons to avoid at least armored clothing.

If they made it easy, I suspect I'd be wearing it as well. But that's more as a Scout thing than any real need.

I was under the impression that things like armored dusters were common. That was why starlight dresses and armored suits existed. For a 'social' evening each character has a 'normal load' that they are asumed to have on them at all times.

If it is moreof a run we go up to 'run mode' SMG's and shotguns and "Combat mode "Assault rifles and MG's. But other than the normal load we have to tell the GM what we are packing in each of those.

This is not so uncommon as you might think. In RL my husband usually carries a gun most times. So does Snow Fox.

In Colorado, where I live, we have an open carry law. I've been tempted to buy a gun and walk around with it strapped to my hip just to see how people react. Quite frankly, I hate guns and would never keep it loaded, but I think it would be an interesting social experiment since it's legal here.

Pennsylvania it is a concealed carry. They have to keep it out of sight. I think that is Why SF has so many comments about concealing weapons. She has lots of practice.

Some of the characters in a group I GMed used to wear civ clothes, no armor and carry no guns when doing downtime and fluff talk. -like going to the SS- They liked to play it cool and most of the times nothing happened.
Of course, once those runners got important enough to have their enemies actually go looking for them that trend changed.

Of course, having the elf almost kidnapped by a bunch of thugs in Tenochtitlán helped them change their casual wear notions.
Nowadays all players have dutifully handed out maps of their apartments, including notes to where all the guns are hidden and emergency escape routes. The ork tank, for instance, has many shotguns and rifles piled up in his bathtub. He seldom used it anyway.

Cheers,

Max

When not working, the only thing my character takes with him is a Leather Jacket and maybe a flashpack. (Actually, my current character is in SR4, so its a little easier to get by without serious ballistic protection. In previous editions I'd be unlikely to go anywhere without at least a lined coat and a heavy pistol.)

Of course I wasn't talking about runner's laying low from the heat. They of course have every reason to sit on their safehouse rooftop with an Ingram valiant blowing away suspicious looking postal workers, while the decker removes every trace of them from every database, everywhere.

But in all seriousness, the reasons for my reaction lie in a few places.

Subjectively, I'm an Australian, so of course there's no open carry or concealed carry laws. The majority of people just don't have guns. The only time I've ever seen a gun was when I was out on a farm and the owner handed me a .22 bolt action rifle, a clip and a box of rounds and told me to go have fun.

Also, I'm pretty well versed in canon, like most of you, and I understand the inferences from the armor section in CC, although most of that armor I believed to be intended for high-fliers, who were perhaps in marginal risk of extraction or even wetwork. Corp executives, teenagers from corp enclaves heading to Dante's Inferno for the night.

Also, I'm known to gear my characters differently from most dumpshockers, and I don't play in big groups, so most of my characters have exorbitant Stealth and Athletics skills. If I get into a confrontation that I'm not positive I'm likely to survive, you'll see my characters vaulting a table and leaping out the door. Of course, when combat is necessary, I always engineer it into a favourable ambush, where I have ample opportunity of victory, and a decent escape route if the target, say, happens to be a cyberzombie. So obviously, confronted with Food Fight, I would have most likely taken a dive out a window instead of taking on six gangers.

However, the rules seem to contradict this. I've never seen any character, ever use a light pistol, especially not a holdout. The fashion armour lines may protect a punter from a moderate wound from a light pistol, pretty easily. But without a far above average body (5+, i'd say) a heavy pistol will waste you, quick smart.

Because of this (very rational) fear of the ubiquitous heavy pistol, we all pack heavy armour, a heavy pistol of our own and make sure we have a high body, regardless of our characters style or role.

My main issue is that the favoured "casual" or "social" gear is disruptive of role-playing, which is paramount, isn't it?

I just can't seem to keep away for more than a day at a time. So:

At present I am living in Sydney (and I see guns in all types of suburbs, especially King's Cross, Surry Hills, Redfern, Cabramatta, Penrith, Blacktown, Woolloomooloo, and the like), but I have also had those types of experiences with guns in places such as Darwin & Alice Springs (again pretty much anywhere), Brisbane (in the Valley and the West End, as well as in the outlying suburbs and some of the inner ones given over almost exclusively to public housing and halfway houses), Adelaide & Port Adelaide (especially near the docks), Perth (again, pretty much all over), and Melbourne (which is the most open of all). Those are just the cities ... the outback is even more unrestricted. The place I have seen the least guns is Canberra, but they were still present.

Maybe you just hang out with a nicer crowd.

Honestly I've never seen a runner group that hasn't placed themselves in the nastiest part of the Barrens as their HQ. I mean really where the ghouls, and the mutants play. So armor is more a normal survival instinct than anything. Since it will end up being needed at some point, and its better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it.

The trouble with basing in the barrens is when you want to come up for air in the more refined areas, like B security zones, you are gonig to have trouble. We usually have gear for going into the barrens but it's not where we live, at least not my characters.

The barrens are where my characters go to evade heat.

As for living there? I thought the point of Shadowrunning was so you could live a better life than the barrens would afford you. I mean, I dunno about you, but even if the inside of your Fuhrerbunker... Err, Riggerbunker, is palatalial, you're still essentially living in a fortress in the middle of Hell, under a state of constant siege warfare.

Or perhaps, black man with a snickers? Black man reaching for his keys? Or perhaps his wallet?

Oh, I wouldn't actually do it except as a sociological experiment. And even then, I first need to get in a PHD program and clear the trials with the board.

I'd like to note that while I hate guns, I do know how to use one thanks to my right wing grandfather.

I should add that while I don't consider it necessary as such, I do wander around in real life on a daily basis with fairly sizable folding knife and cut-resistant sleeves, and I don't even engage in regular illegal activity (well, ok, speeding and jaywalking) or go to "rough neighborhoods". You can bet that if a major highway around me was considered central gang turf I'd at the least be packing heavier armor, if not heavier weaponry.

In case anyone's wondering why on earth I do that when I don't have a day-to-day need for it, it's the old saw about how if I'm not used to being properly equipped on a daily basis, I'm probably not going to be if I ever have cause to actually use it.

~J

About a year ago I was in an artsy little town on the Delaware. (New Hope if you knoew the area) I was wearing my legal gun under a light jacket. One sweet little old lady saw me and said 'oh take that jacket off honey, you're making me feel warm."
I could only think "and if I take it off I'm sure you'll feel worse."

I was in one store looking at some paintings and thing as I gestured up and think the owner caught sight of the gun on my hip. Like he couldn't be sure but he seemed suddenly less warm. I'm usually pretty good about keeping my left arm down, to avoid that. Certainly no police arrived but it made me think. Walk around with a non-concealed wepaon and I'm sure it owuld get worse. Legal or not, I see someone wearing a gun openly and I'll be making sure my hand is kept unencumbered.

I'm surprised that Australia doesn't have open carry laws. Between venomous platypuses, rabid wallabies, horny emus, man-eating koalas, and tornadic Tasmanian devils (not to mention snakes, spiders, crocodiles, and kangaroos), I'd think that carrying would be a daily necessity.


The basic rule of carrying a weapon is simple: it is better to be safe than it is to be sorry, or: always be prepared. Yeah, you probably won't need it. But, if you do you'll be glad that you brought it.

ironically, it's somehow easier to get a sharp ninjato than it is to get one of those nifty telescoping stick thingies around here . . i'd take one of those instead of the sword any time, . . just they are freaking expansive and i have looked all over town and only found one shop who has them so far . . and no, i don't like to show off . . i'm kinda shy <.< . . i am not nearly confident enough for such stuff x.x . .

In our current campaign, set in Miami, most of the runners rarely wear armor outside runs - it's not suitable for the beach, and not too chic in the current clubs either.

that's why, if you can't WEAR armor . . you ARE armor . . Dermal-Tech or Ortho-Tech and maybe some Bone-Works . .