I really think Wendigo's are more related to serial killers or perhaps addicts.

Does the serial killer HAVE to kill people? Well no. Does he do it compulsively, without switching MO's so the cops can't connect the dots? Not really what they do.

Can an addict stop whenever he wants? Technically, yes. He could just walk away and go cold turkey. Will he? Evidence shows not terribly likely. Will he desperately be wanting a fix? Yeah.

I don't think canibals are so much a "favorite food" as like being a drug. We are talking about a magical virus that seriously screws up your DNA, gives you special powers, and makes perfectly ordinary individuals into serial killers who are ring leaders for cults.

Well, I concede that there is decent margin to interpret wendigoes' preference for cannibals both as an addiction or a preferred food. However, "preference" is not the word I'd use to describe an addiction or a compulsion akin to the one of a serial killer. And rules for addictions do exist in the RAW yet they were not used to create the wendigo template. So I have strong doubts about this interpretation.

Although, ultimately, it boils down to what you want to do with Infected characters. I reason from the viewpoint that from now on, wendigo ought to be seen as legitimate options for PC or recurring NPC, not as one-shot "cannon fodder" or "monster of the week" NPC. IMO the cannibal cult element is the main obstacle to make such a character concept believable and manageable, so the "favorite food" interpretation is the one to be favored, as it allows wendigo characters to set aside the cult stuff and manage their own feeding needs in a manner similar to the other sapient Infected.

Well I see no big change coming. In years of playing or telling SR stories, I remember to habe met only 1 metavariant (including npcs, though the one was played). In fact I've seen more concepts and campaigns using "beings" not optet for play by the rulebooks, than metavariants. Still that number hasn't been disturbingly high.

It all depends on the group. Catalyst can put out what they want, if your group doesn't want it it won't get played.

This is maybe the wisest thing said on this topic.

Which is why you choose your team members carefully. And no, wendigos aren't likely to be chosen.

Also, if your infected team member is worth the equivalent of two SR4 runs' pay (20K), why not taser it and sell it (dead) to the DF or Quebec? It Shadowrunners are such dog-eat-dog guys, that's something the wendigo should be worried about, and thus seek a means of controlling the runners. Easiest way for it to do this is to make them part of it's cannibal cult.


Personally, I think this is where house rules should be made for the few players interested in playing Infected who wouldn't turn them into the stupidity chars discussed above.


Click this, so next time you know what you write about.


Sure, you can make the Infected decent characters if you somehow decide to magically make all their bad traits go away. I recommend we call the game from then on Shadows: The Masquerade. Now with more r-Factor than Vampire!

Seriously, such a change in the game world would be a very stupid case of retconning, propably the dumbest in almost 20 years of SR publications. I sincerely hope Ancient will do better, but ultimatly, it's Synner's decision.


No, but it will be discussed to great lengths. And it will make games at conventions all the more annoying to play (or run).

Yeah, maybe in Luxus-Run-Ville, Iowa, but in reality you don't get to be very picky, especially when concerning awakend support.

It will only be discussed if there are players in the group who want to play such a character. And if that's the case, then that's a good thing.
And at conventions, every SL is free to not allow optional rules such as these, and people can pick their games accordingly.

As Hermit pointed out before, there might not be a consensus on using those rules.
Which is a problem for the group that is usually not explained by "Catalyst put out that crapfest of a sourcebook and now formerly reasonable players have become spotlight-hugging goth munchkins".

The type of gamer we are discussing here manages to play every character in an embarassing and incredibly trite and unoriginal way, and will, in fact, undertake everything possible to turn the game into a one-man-show (or, more likely, a one-pubescent-and-obnixious-boy or one-mediocre-GF-show).

It might depend on the given rules, both written and unwritten, how he does it- by overacting a flaw hurtful to the other PCs, by insisting on introducing broken houserules to beef up his poorly build character, by producing a trite copy of some pop culture icon, by producing a build full of stupid "i win"-buttons or one that is only good for causing trouble.
RC might give him a new fad to strife for, but without it, he would just embarass you with his leather coat wearing, Neo-sunglasses sporting elven hitman.
Same difference.

In a functional group, a consensus on using the options in RC will be found.
Wether they are taken or not will depend on the group.
Wether the latter depends on balance issues, style or both will depend on the writeup presented in RC, but that's it.

I do have to wonder though, does allowing monsters make the world seem more gritty? More dangerous or serious? Or does it detract from that? I personally am not sure.

It's also interesting to note that, in SR1, something like 70% of PCs were humans, with the remaining being primarily elves and trolls. In SR2 it shifted to about 50/50. In SR3, I can't believe more than 20% of PCs are humans, but probably 85% are standard metahumans. Is SR4 going to reduce humans to an even smaller percentage, but now begin reducing the number of standard metahumans? In SR5, will the only human left be the zookeeper? Oh the humanity!

I do have to wonder though, does allowing monsters make the world seem more gritty? More dangerous or serious? Or does it detract from that? I personally am not sure.

It's also interesting to note that, in SR1, something like 70% of PCs were humans, with the remaining being primarily elves and trolls. In SR2 it shifted to about 50/50. In SR3, I can't believe more than 20% of PCs are humans, but probably 85% are standard metahumans. Is SR4 going to reduce humans to an even smaller percentage, but now begin reducing the number of standard metahumans? In SR5, will the only human left be the zookeeper? Oh the humanity!

Depends.
If we get wendigos and nosferatus who are not that much more sinister and monstrous than normal runners, or banshees who are not complete nutcases, it takes away from the grit, at least IMO.
Personally, i'd prefer to use these three in infected-themed campaigns, oneshots and as NPCs.
This would not necessitate to create a de-clawed, cuddly version of them.

On the other hand, having such miserable creatures as goblins, ghouls or dzoo-noo-quaas certainly adds to the grit- so much that it becomes to lowlife for a standard campaign.

We should view the options in RC as what they really are- options.
And in many, if not most cases, options for alternative campaigns.
Legwork-heavy run in an upper-class CAS campaign?
Looks like a bad place for a ghoul.
In one of the places to be featured in Feral Cities, on the other hand, this might be a completely different issue.


As far as vampires are concerned, they might work best if they don't add grit- see, when i play, moral qualms are usually suspended the same way they are in an average action movie (this is a fine consensus for any group that actually wants to use all those fancy big guns in the game, BTW).
As long as everyone agrees on "he's ill, he has no other choice but to suck one of the bad guys dry every couple of months" and leaves it at that, grit is nothing but mere scenery, as usual for this style of play.

If you want to go full noir, gory and hardboiled, a vampire in the group will increase the sense of depravity and moral disorientation among the PCs and probably add to the game.
Probably add just enough to the game to freak everyone out, i don't know.
This stuff can get fuckin' intense and, frankly, quite sick, which is why i usually stay away from it.

The vampirism aspect I could deal with - assuming his take is 'hey, I need to live, and that means someone else needs to die. So this whole 'moral ambiguity' drek I'll leave to the exinstentialists'. He'd just not think about it and go about the business of living. It would be the same as someone who can buy food only by stealing organs from living people. That's fine. It's when it becomes "I am special and have super powers!" that I begin to wonder. In CP2020, you had people who made themselves into rabbits or cats or whatever through cyberware. They struggled to become special and thereby became freaks, and that was okay, since it's an intentional selling of humanity for something some might consider a basic need. But these people are naturally special (well, some moreso than others. I like the example of the corp girl who got bitten but didn't get any magic powers), and being special isn't something they had to pay for.

i wonder, could a wendigo pass for a sasquatch if it dyed his fur?

Straw doesn't bleed, hermit, no mater how many times you hit it.

No one has suggested taking away their bad traits or their disadvantages. What people are suggesting is to not add absurdly moronic disadvantage on top of what is already canon.

A GM saying "You're a Wendigo, you have to turn your teammates into a secret society of cannibals" is like a GM saying "You're a Street Samurai, you have to commit seppuku."

How about a Wendigo social adept. Man, now I got an awesome NPC concept. My players will hate me.

I really think the most important part while making 'monsters' PCs is to keep them at what they were before. So, no difference between PC ghouls and NPC ghouls, or shifters like we had in previous versions of the game. That would be just lame.
We also should not make up some bullshit rules to keep them in check more than NPCs of the same kind are kept in check.


And seriously, if you encounter a wendigo (or any other nutjob) as part of your team at a con: frag him. Sure, the player might be pissed. But this isn't some fluffy bunny fantasy game. Getting shot is part of the game. Especially if you play someone who freaks out others.
Most of my chars would take out a wendigo on sight (given a reasonable chance to win). But the same is more or less true for Cyberzombies (less chance to win there though), technomancers and social dice pool monsters.

I disagree. Such discussions aren't fun. And that's my main intention when playing.


Not nescessarily. But that kind of gamer is magically drawn to vampires. I can already see the plucky goth/emo kids asking whether they could join an SR game, and how they never were interested in SR before it allowed vampire characters ... it's not withoput reason that almost every Mary Sue test gives MS points to any character concept that is a vampire of sorts.


Sure, which is propably why Wanderer suggests taking away the corruption to cannibalism thing that is at the core of the wendigo of legend. Dye him so he looks like a sasquatch, and your character won't have any problem, even moreso if the Wendigo initiates and learns aura masking. Yeah, that perfectly covers all the flaws in canon.


No. It's like a GM saying "you're a troll. Everyone escapes throught he air vents, but YOU DON'T".


In CP2020, you also had playable vampires.


Of course, playing nonsentients ceases to be fun fairly soon ....


Save for Pornomancers (where I see no reason ingame to kill them), I'd second that (it's reasonable ingame, at least for my one SR4 character who both heavily dislikes the infected and had a rather troubling arcology experience (played through Brainscan).

I wouldn't frag technos with any char, of course, simply because some chars may be oblivious to the fact they're Node Network 2.0 - but for the infected? Zero Tolerance.

Of course, this can very quickly end in even more arguments, and really, I don't play the game for arguing about characters.

I see..."That girl over there looks pretty- too pretty! Gotta be a pornomancer adept or something! Oh god, she's trying to talk to me! BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! Phew, that was close..."

Oh, and you forgot to mention mind-controlling mages (they can control your mind- scary, huh?), stealth adepts (shoot them before they sneak up on you!) and juiced-up sams (friggin' killing machines- what if they've got cyberpsychosis? Better not take any risks!) as possible shoot-on-sight-targets.

Or any other concept that is dangerous enough to other people to remotely qualify as a worthwile teammember.

That's right. If they don't do it on their own, they aren't role-playing hard enough.

What legend ? Human legend typically in SR has got some basic fact right, but all the details wrong. The wendigo legend also tells that you can turn into, or be possess by, wendigo if you indulge in cannibalism, which is totally wrong, since wendigoism is a magical, viral disease which you cannot ever get if you lack the ork metatype and you are not infected with HMHVV. As hyzmarca has remarked, the wendigo has plenty of problems and disadvantages besides the cannibal cult which won't go away by removing this last bit. With the all-important difference that the other disadvantages are well-represented by specific flaws, whileas the cannibal cult is but a fluff description which may or may be correct. I just advocate removing it and it alone because I perceive it as incompatible with having thew character concept as a PC or recurring NPC. Pardon me, but I'm beginning to suspect you want to make the cannibal cult mandatory just because you don't want the character type around anyway and know the cannibal cult would make it unplayable. Which is rather intellectually dishonest. Don't buy RC, don't share the info of its existence with your gaming group, veto "exotic" PC if you are in the position to do so, but don't ask that they be burdened with a disadvantage which would make them unplayable. "You cannot play this in my story" is honest. "You can play him, but he must shoot himself in the foot every 24 hours" is dishonest.

And no, using a combination of mundane and magical disguise to cover one's Infected nature won't solve all the disadvantages of the wendigo (there's still the need of metahuman flesh a few times a week, and Essence once a month, and the painful allergy to sunlight, which disguise won't help in any way), but again I fail to see where the problem is. Using clever strategems to minimize the impact of one's inborn disadvantages seems to me correct RP of such a character, since it is what any NPC with half a brain would do if he wants to have any interaction with society at all. Or is your idea of correct playing a wendigo more like along the lines of wearing a placard "I'm wendigo. I eat the flesh of your children. Shoot me", like Bruce Willis in Die Hard III ???



Being bigger and stronger than any other metatype won't stop a troll from having associates, contacts, teammates, a place into runner society, a social life, and to be a PLAYABLE runner character type. Being compelled to turn associates into cannibals and future snacks will. Again, you don't want Infected PC, don't use them, and do your best to keep them away from your group. But don't be an hypocrite and grab pieces of fluff like dear life and tell they can be played as long as they eat all of their associates.



And GURPS, and Hero system, and Mutants and MAsterminds, and BESM, just to name a few. The vast majority of the RPG systems nowadays won't bat an eye at treating vampires as PC. So I sincerely find all this outrage at Infected PC in SR rather weird. You had a few annoying experience with the goth angsty emo WoD-fanboys ? So I did, and I share your pain, but that's a problem of the players, not of the character concept.



Again, that's ypur prerogative as a gamer, nobody is coming to put a gun on your head and force you to buy and use RC, but it is abusive to accuse those who choose to use RC character options to be munchkins and attention-whores, and it is hypocrite to state that such character options can only be used as long as they are played as utter and complete suicidal morons.

You mean as in 'you can get cyberware fangs and bite people'? Or genuine undead? Where was that?

edit: I ask because listing off "And GURPS, and Hero system, and Mutants and MAsterminds, and BESM, just to name a few" is a little unfair. GURPS, BESM and, I believe, Hero, are designed specifically to let anyone play a wide range of characters in a wide range of settings. M&M clearly features monsters, so that's expected. I don't know a lot of games set in a specifically dystopian setting which include vampires, except those where vampires dominate the game (like WoD).

Probaply in the WOD book for the game(and no i have no idea what the name of that book was)

all of those games are typical superhero/power/effects based games.

one can say that mutants and masterminds are the D20/true20 version of heros system.

First, the Infected in SR aren't "genuine undead" in the "supernaturally-animated corpse" sense, either. They are people with a chronic magically-active viral disease. Second, RC isn't going to let the Infected characters "dominate the game" by any means. They will remain but an handful of possible character types among almost a double dozen options possible. The Ordo Maximus is as much as they have come close to social domination, that is, not at all. Third, vampires don't dominate the setting in WoD, either. They have to share the spotlight, and the behind-the-curtain influence of mortal society, with another handful of equally-powerful and entrenched supernatural races. Fourth, SR is a rather unique mix of near-future sci-fi and urban fantasy which does not compare well to pure cyberpunk or to pure dystopian settings (which typically are of the post-apocalyptic variety and nothing like SR), but in its hybrid elements most closely resembles grim & gritty superheroistic settings (like the ones that may be done with M&M and Hero) and "anything goes" systems (like BESM and GURPS). Both options leave ample place to play vampires. CP2020 is not an appropriate comparison since it's a "pure" cyberpunk setting with no magical elements at all, the closest is the nanite-powered kinda-superhumans of Cybergenerations.

White Wolf magazine publish a CP2020/V:TM crossover supplement that has been floating around the internet for some time, but that extremely unofficial and uses WoD mechanics.

Night's Edge SB. Though on second thought it *may* have been one of the alternative settings. I've never been much into CP2020, myself.


As I said. Remove the truely crippling disadvantages and retcon a lot, just so the character is playable and you get lots of cool powers for your orc, with little to no drawbacks that cannot be averted.


Yes. Because the troll is NOT A MONSTROSITY by favour of being a cannibalistic, life force-draining and often downright psychopathic monster. Still, trolls already suffer a number of disadvantages, including social ones,a nd they're one of the normal and by and large accepted races in SR.


No offense to you, but since that concept draws that kind of player like shit draws flies, yes, it must be something about vamp characters. Possibly the "dressed in tragedy/by design immortal" combination. angsty and supperpowers at the same time, can get away with wearing what they wear, and can sulk about being an outcast, cursed and hating their existence while shagging and killing people like you wouldn't believe.


Why? Because that drawback actually would MATTER, unlike rather easily-averted Allergies (like sunlight - sleep through the day, act at night, and moderate allergies aren't too drastic anyway)?


Yeah, I just stop playing at conventions, I guess. Or really anywhere where players aren't hand-picked by me. Sorry, but it WILL become an issue, since I every once in a while actually play with people I don't put through a hour long interview.

Out of curiosity Hermit, could you list these drawbacks that do or do not matter as perceived by you?

as someone that have the "habit" of flipping the sleeping pattern so that he sleeps away most of the day, doing so is a pain in the social ass. ok, so wendigos are amoral sociopaths anyways, but being up when most of the world around you sleeps is less then practical. and being a big furry creature would stand out, even in seattles night life imo.

wendioes are by "nature" non-urban creatures. but shadowrunners do most of their work in urban areas...

i basically dont see the problem. but then that would not be the first time.

and to go totally off the trail, i have seen three different nicks using the avatar that hermit uses, and all of them where people that dredged up one negative thing about SR after the other. either said avatar is cursed, or there is some strange pattern here

As I said. No way of sensible compromise at playing the wendigo character that will let it be playable at all will ever satisfy these overexacting qualifications, since what is truly wanted is these characters to be a thoroughly crippled mess that any player in his right mind will shun horrified, so one can keep them be "monsters of the week" and never taint one's precious "metahuman-only" play style. Again, there's nothing bad about refusing to use a character concept, but let's be honest about it. The cannibal cult is about as necessary to play Infected PC as for ork characters to have a compulsion and shoot down everyone that does not speak to them in strict Or'zet.

Without the cannibal cult, wendigo PC are about the same amount of drawbacks as vampires, banshee, and nosferatu, with a comparable power set to nosferatu and slightly better to vampires, with the compensating factor that wendigo cannot pass as metahumans in their natural form and need extensive technological or magical disguise to cover their nature. So it all balances out. Of course, in this draconian view, a drawback that the character can counter with extensive, ongoing effort and precautions is not a true drawback at all, to qualify it must be an unavoidalbe curse that screws the character so bad that any player in its right mind would throw away the sheet in disgust and return to play "proper" character types...



And the Infected will have much worse social difficulties, which they will have to manage with much effort. You can have all of that without the stupid cannibal cult compulsion to wreck any chance of playing them in a non-solo game.



A sunlight Allergy will still put significant limits to the character's effectiveness and lifestyle, but it allows them to be a functional part of a runner team, that is to be playable at all in a normal game. Here "matter" really reads "nobody will be able to play it". Let's be honest, again, it's not about proper RP or game balance, it's about loathing the character option so bad that one tries to make it so unplayable that nobody will want it, so it won't bother one's play style. The cannibal cult fluff gets grabbed like dear life and waved like a banner because it gives an excuse to cripple wendigo, but if at all possible, the same would be done for all the Infected, and gods know how many other upcoming character options of the RC.

I'm ready to bet heavily that the proper answer is "nothing matters that won't screw the character concepts I don't like to an unplayable ubercrippled mess".

Perhaps so, but the objective of such a question is to get the arguer to really list these greivances in hopes that they will go back and read them. This gives them the chance to realize how unreasonable they are

The Allergies - they all can be avoided without much effort, and actually, many ordinary PCs have allergies against stuff they're more likely to happen upon (soy products, pollutants) than sunlight (as I said, easily avoided) and ferrous metals (that have, by and large, been replaced by plastics and nanotech stuff, courtesy of Arsenal). Yeah, being hit with a sword hurts a bit more (as in -2 DP), but then again, if someone skilled hits you with swords, you propably have more pressing concerns that the itch around the wounds.

What's left? Essence drain and need for human flesh are easily satisfied. Also, that's what the essence drain power is for. Also, they're not really that hampering, unless you happen to be stuck with your trusted runner team of wendigo-friendly associates at the south pole for half a year.

The allergies don't make ferrous-metal-based weapons more effective against the Wendigo, as the severe allergy against wood would be for vampires, and unlike vampires, ALL wendigos are magicans BY DEFAULT. Wendigos already have more powers and less weaknesses than vampires. The only thing balancing is that they're feral and antisocial.

And what does it gain you? A free magican quality, natural powers Fear, Influence, and enhanced senses (a nice samurai package of senseware-equivalent), regeneration, and DV5P physical attacks.

Oh, and here's a nice tidbit about other infected from the BBB :

This DOES imply that wendigos don't have much choice in acting like, well, a wendigo. Also, please note the critter vampire has the "sapience" power. The wendigo doesn't.

And no, I am not saying that vampires would make good PCs. It's just they at least have more serious drawbacks than wendigos.

Why does either need to have major drawbacks? So long as the point cost to be either is appropriate, it shouldn't matter how many cool powers each gets, as they'll still be balanced with the other runners.

Their powers are that cool, they HAVE to have fitting drawbacks/weaknesses, yes, or else, they won't be even close to beng balanced.

Other critters with the sapience power in the BBB are (on a side note): Merrow, Naga, Sasquatch, Ghouls (!) and (big surprise) dragons.

not shapeshifters?

Like Banshees, they're not in the BBB any more. I presume they'd be sentient though.

well, ok, just because they transform into humans does not mean they have to be sentient . . i know people that i would not describe as sentient . . yes, i work in techsupport, why do you ask?

I guess they employ wendigos there. Tech support is evil, after all.

Besides, they get to work indoors, stay away from ferrous metals, and can eat a middle manager once a month easily (with tech firms' turnover). Perfect for wendigos! I guess Horizon pioneered this. They love to introduce 'kewl new options for PCs' by giving them the safe haven of Horizion citizenship.

Wendigos have always been sentient in SR (in previous editions indicated by both fluff texts and the format for the mental stats, nonsapients being marked by two Intelligence scores seperated by a / ).
This is either a mistake or a massive retconning.
My money is on the former.
How does a nonsapient critter become a full-blown spellcaster by default?
Or set up a secret society of cannibals?
I don't see how this nonsense should work out.

Innate spells? Spirits can do that too.


Influence power. A corpselight can do that, and it's not sentient either.


True, but back then, they had severe allergies to sunlight and ferrous metals, so it's been retconned anyway.

are spirits sapient?
aside from the sapience"power"?

No, they're not. Just as a Rating 6 agent isn't. Both can gain sapience through spontaneous stuff happening (becoming a free spirit respectively an AI), though, so they're damn close, but not there. As the saying goes, a near miss is still a miss.

In my BBB, all of the spirits are sentient (just looked it up).

You're right o the wendigo, though.
No sapience mentioned there.

You're right on the spirits. Weird that the wendigo doesn't have sapience then. Propably IS a mistake.

So let me get this straight. If a regular human joe PC had the exact same allergies would you be complaining as much that theyre easy to circumvent? Makes perfect sense to me that they'd try to. After all, have you known anyone with severe allergies to certain foods or other materials?

Free magician quality? Probobly accounted for in the BP cost of the metavariant, as well as all other "powers".

So far everything is balanced as far as SR4 can make it be.

All that you really have left to argue over is the social aspect, where a Wendigo might not exactly fit-in to society. The same could be said of all shadowrunners, though it may be in different ways not to fit in. The Wendigo doesnt have to go about advertising his status after all, especially since it's been said that a Wendigo could rather easily pass himself off as a sasquatch.

Also, any motherfucker that would kill another PC in any group is exactly that in all regards, and they dont deserve to be playing with that particular group. As SR proves time and time again, even the bad guys need "friends".

I rather like to see it as: "bad guy" is a matter of your point of view. I can understand the urge to kill a Wendigo on sight. Still I see it as the hole groups job to make it easy to include new members (that includes the storyteller). If the teller approves the concept, I expect him to know that it will fit into the team. Either he or the whole group can then arrange a good entrypoint for the character. Also this should be easier right at the start of a campaign. After all...I asume that the goal would be to play together as a team. To me, "shoot all and everyone" type of characters, appear less compatible with a team, than most of the infected or other options do.

We all should know by now, that the wendigo are sapient, as they have been described as such. Also it might be hard for something nonsentient, to actively build cults and use some social engineering to corrupt people. The sentience of the wendigo is however not really the problem here, is it.

If Wendigo will have to be magically active and how it might be included in the cost is still to be seen but everything has it's price during character generation.

The Runners Companion will probably have the most detailed description of the wendigo SR has ever had in a rulebook and will thus supposely solve most questions.

Before we see that book it's somewhat senseless to ramble on about something like "mage for free" and so on. I'm still looking forward to reading that book and that's not because of the infected.

Yes. Actually, a close friend of mine almost died because of a bee sting. Allergic shock that chokes you certainly does physical damage. And mind you, she was stung in her finger. Also, I know two people who suffer the same effect with peanuts and fish protein.

Or were you talking about PCs? In that case, I have one with Severe Allergy (Bee poison), yes. I cannot recall another, but then again, many PCs opt to not have an allergy at all.


Infected =/= metavariant.


All this talk about how runners are social misfits makes little sense in a game where missions are about more than shooting goons and picking the treasure. As soon as any kind of infiltration is nescessary, the social misfit kill'em all trog runner with distinctive style is just not gonna get hired.


Sorry, but that kind of m,etagaming in regards to Infected PCs is just fucked up. If it was an NPC, it would go down in a hail of bullets the second it was sighted, but as soon as it's a PC it has PC protection? Bullshit. PCs are treated on in-game terms, not on "but I'm a PC, metagame so I fit in". If it's an infected, the only sane decision is to dispose of it ASAP.

Well it would most probably come down to poor judgement on the ST side, and / or a poor group climate. Completely understandable in a convention-game though, they tend to be superficial and random. The clever wendigo should disguise it's nature anyways...but that wouldn't appear as a reasonable and acceptable survival technique to you, would it.

I have some understanding for that point however... my character would most certainly react in about the same manner faced with a wendigo (aggressive in any case). But I am quite sure, that my ST knows that and wouldn't simply have a wendigo join the team (not only for that reason however). There are other cases that would yield the same result. I remember, a few years ago (different ST) a Hacker was supposed to join the team. He tried to prove his worth to us in pointing out, that he knew where we lived. A Wendigo wouldn't have been out faster (as it's appearance would at least have made us blink in disbelieve). It was a perfect example of poor planning on ST side. Our characters had a quite paranoid erm...let's call it a phase... and the Hacker we allready had was quite jealous and territorial (sort of). No one liked the turn out, but a Grinning Wendigo would have had more of a chance to be accepted at that point, than a hacker with that phrase.

Uh...sorry for sidetracking.

Your GM PLANS your PCs actions? oô Are you, like, given a script then?

And the hacker would have to roll the hacking (on the fly, since he had no way of knowing which runners to check out beforehand) in my sight. This is why I like to play with some rules. They fuck up sich nonsense fairly good, nonsense that storyteller gaming is prone to.

This would be a killing offense to my PCs though. Not kick him out, but shoot him dead and dump him into Rat's Nest. Excluding his commlink, that would be burned.

You still have to pay BPs at character creation to account for all the various boons and flaws you get. In that regard, they are exactly the same.



I mean that for ALL characters, not just the infected. If anyone ever said "Im just playing in character" theyre using it as a cover to be an asshole to your face, nothing more.