Yes. You also pay BP for skills. Your point being?


No. They're every opnce in a while acting how their characters would LOGICALLY react, according to the character's personality, and not according to "it's a PC, don't hurt it no matter how offensive it is" metagaming.

I love a good debate, but a couple things:


Both character options have a BP cost, true. However the Infected will be Qualities, while the metavariants are not. Yes, this means you can play metavariant who are Infected.

Second: One thing I did not do was tell people how to play their characters. The Infected have certain downsides and requirements, and those needs and weaknesses are addressed. That doesn't mean you have to be a Bela Lugosi or Lon Chaney clone (I mean, unless you really want to be). A wendigo's predilection for starting cannibalistic societies has a basis (they prefer the taste of cannibals), but that doesn't mean they all do it. You define your character, and have fun with it.

Hunh. One question: What about an infected technomancer orc? Do we get - finally - a union of mage and mancer in one character? As the BBB says any infected orc gets the mage quality by default, I'd like a word on that.

I think the BBB is pretty clear that Magic and Resonance are mutually exclusive.

Good to hear that ... also, was leaving out sentience in the wendigo's stats done on purpose or a mistake?

AKA if you gain the Magician quality (through Infection, for example), you loose the Technomancer quality. At least, I am assuming Magic overrides Resonance - could be the other way around, I suppose...

I didn't write the stats in SR4, so I couldn't really say what the rational was. Despite the changes they've been through, the Infected are still metahuman (or close enough) and so are sapient. The transformation does sometimes cause brain damage or cause significant psychological shifts, but those are not mandatory - truly feral Infected aren't valid PCs, so they aren't included as an option.

Okay. What with half the critters sentient and the Wendigo not, it makes sense ...

So no joy for infected dwarves and trolls?

And yes, I wish I had been at the chat. Sadly, I couldn't.

Every metahuman species can be Infected.

is it still that funny bit of logic where anyone can become a vampire but only a metahuman of the correct type can become one of the other types of infected?

Vampires are human only.

Sure, I was more referring to the 'playable' part.

...and playable.

not if one was playing SR2 or there about. then it was something that could be added to any metahuman

That was a misreading of the Critters booklet from SR3. It has been corrected.

Ah yes, you really love to get things wrong... No he doesn't plan our actions... but this action was to actually introduce that guy into our team and that is something, that should be somewhat planned by the ST, to keep such things from happening. You know like making teams fit somewhat, so they have more reasons to stick together rather than to shoot each other... but I am starting to repeat my self. Against your returning joy of suspecting major crappiness everywhere and under the bed as well: I did not mention that the hacker did it on the fly as he didn't. However I do not intend to make that story any longer.

Back to the infected... making them quallities makes sense I guess. It will be interesting to see how you worked all that stuff out... and now...publish that book will ya?!

No, I know one storyteller type GM who actually does that. And were would the hacker know from which runners he needed to check out?

as for the infected .... thanks for the info ancient.

You mean as in railroading to the max? What'd be the point of playing, over reading it then? I had a few ST in the past that couldn't handle a group that wouldn't keep to "the path" but scripting the whole thing sounds odd. I am however a friend of prologues, which still a different from handing out scripts.



That would lead as a bit to far off topic I guess (we certainly allready are ) but that was part of our concern as well... you can explain everything if your paranoid though. All of that setting (with or without detail) was everything but helpful to integrate a new character (which we simply couldn't that way), thus it was poor planing. That is what I see a the base of every campaign/team/character concept, a good plan how it all can fit together. This includes Metahumans, Infected, Shifters, Dracoforms, Gods walking the earth and what ever else you come up with - a good concept can make everything work in a brilliant and enjoyable way, while a bad one can turn everything into the allfamed CRAP™. Ofcause you need to allow your self the luxury of being picky but from my experience it pays.

What is good and what is bad, is however, allways a matter of personal preference. We all have to live with people that do not share those preferences, but luckily I do not have to play with them if I do not like to. When I start a campaign, I allways handpick the players one or the other way. As I play mostly with friends, they know what to expect by now and do not tend to argue, when I am set. If there are fundamental problems with the entertainment I present, then no one is forced to take part.

Either I see infected as a fitting option or I don't and that's all there is to it.

*deep sigh*
Ever heard the term "social contract"?

I don't give a rat's ass on what a character would "logically" do if it is detrimental to the fun had by the group.
Metagaming is a valid play stile for a lot of groups, i'ver fared well with a moderate amount of it for almost two decades of roleplaying and know many other groups who have made the same experiences.

This might very well be different for you- if your enjoyment of RPGs is based mainly around simulating a fictional world, this aspect of the game being prioritized over any other aspect because "unfitting" portrayal of a PC would ruin your immersion into the game world, then metagaming is clearly and always inapropriate and PCvsPC-because-they-HAVE-to-act-like-this might be the way to go (even though determining beforehand wether the PCs are compatible with each other might still be the better choice).



If the whole group manages to agree that PCs killing other PCs for the sake of "character integrity" or whatever and that a group should consist of characters who are likely to kill each other, go for it.
But PvP is a heavily emotional issue and wether it is tolerated should either be determined before start of play or the GM should call a timeout if such a situation arises and let the group sort out their opinion on the matter before play is resumed.
If everybody is fine with a certain level of PvP, great.

If not, killing of each others' characters simply equals being a complete jackass.

Exactly. If the unfitting character's player insists playing that chatracter, he will be given a warning. If he, despite the warning, plays that character, well, her fault, her loss.


I disagree. Take the example with the hacker who omniously hacks and ttraces all assets of all other PCs and brags about it as an initiation into the group. When the player announces openly he intends to do this, a fair warning would be in order from my side. If he pulls this through regardless (or behind my back), sorry, his char is offed, possibly interrogated before about what the hell that was all abput. He will be killed regardless, on a "knows way too much to be left alive" basis. All this would be in the warning, but if that player does things like that behind my character's back, he has broken the social contract on fair play anyway and cannot expect fair treatment else in return.

Please note that I would not let someone who wants to play his Infected in my group walk into a PvP kill without warning. However, hould the warning be ignored, I see no reason not to act like my character (any sane person, really) would, and shoot the thing before it eats my char's soul.

I see your point.
Besides, from your description, it is quite obvious how such issues are handled in your group.
Everybody knows that certain actions will lead to PvP and can deal with this.
However, i've read one to many forum discussion where this was not the case, resulting in the premature end of the game session.

Of course, this needs to be settled beforehand. Especially with highly dubious characters, like Infected. And of course, warnings must be issued before pvp action, either via offplay talking at the table, or via PM / offplay thread on forum games.

Unannounced pvp killing in a group where infected were openly allowed are just trolling, I agree with you there. Noone is forcing me to play in that group, anyway.

I think that the solution, really, is to meet in the middle. The person who wants to make an infected character, first, should ask the other players whether or not they- or their characters- would have a problem with it. If it doesn't make sense for those characters to work with an infected character, and without any regard for his fellow players, the player goes on to make such a character, that player is, in fact, imposing himself on them. I feel that players should have input into eachother's character creation, and it's always important to make the characters as a team, together.

Or at least inform others of their premade chars' problems with various normal and abnormal character types, yes. I'm no big fan of making new characters every few adventures, so I understand if someone wants to import their favourites ... but if those are infected, drakes, or any other kind of "Me Special!" chracters, it's best to clear this in advance before inserting the character. Same with any new character; stunts like the hacker mentioned above pulled really shouldn't happen. If they do regardless, it's the new player's misbehavior - assuming it's done hidden from the other players - and the character must live with the consequences of this, which likely means he won't.

Of course, the poster there then was right; coordinating this is the GM's task.