Ok, so my question is fairly simple..ish.

In the Runners Companion the 'blind' negitive quality is presented (under reduced senses). Now, the 10BP version says the person can still see if they hook themselves up to some trodes and a sensor. The 15BP version means that it is something wrong with the person's brain and not even that will let them see.

So, my question is this: Can anyone think of a reason for a character to have the 10BP version of this?

Let me expand on that just a little bit. The 10BP version gets canceled out if you go and buy cybereyes, for the obvious reason of it makes the quality pointless. But with cybereyes at a meager 500 is there really any reason a blind person -wouldn't- have cybereyes if it could cure them?

Sure they can get around the problem with sensors and such, but that is really alot more hassle then it is worth, especially since all that stuff would cost about the same as the cybereyes. So, baring the character being dead broke, any reasons?

Sensitive System comes to mind, as does a whole slew of personal issues with having ones eyes carved out and replaced by machinery.

True, sensitive system could manage it, but I was hoping for a method that didn't involve the character completely shunning 'ware. And honestly, I think any blind person would gladly trade their 'broken' eyes for mechanical ones, despite misgivings about having their eyes carved out.

Two reasons I can think of. One would be that the character has some sort of desies/medical condition that makes ocular surgery not an option, but doesn't necessarily prevent other surgery. Second would be that the character could get some kind of benefit out of people thinking the character is blind, but I would imagine you could get a set of cybereyes that look like a blind person's eyes.

There are two types of blindness. First, where your eyes do not function or you do not have eyes. Second, where the visual center of your brain does not function.

That being said, who would still be blind falls into two kinds of people.
1) Those with malfunctioning/missing eyes, & cannot afford a replacement (be it Nuyen or Essence costs)
2) Those with malfunctioning visual cortex & cannot afford genetic treatment (be it Nuyen or Essence costs)

#1 certainly exists, but would be by far the minority of blind population.
#2 covers most who are blind, as only the upper class typically even has access to genetic therapies, let alone the funds for such treatment.

I realize 1) and 2) I included that in my OP. people who have 2) are easy to explain. People who have type 1) don't seem to have a reason to exist. I mean seriously, virtually anyone can afford 500 especially for something as important as being able to see. And I don't see essence generally being a problem. Even a mage would likely take them because he can't see to cast spells without them (Yes, I know, ways around that, go to the blind mage thread if you want, don't post about that here, I don't care)

You'd also think that any person would want to immunized against disease but for various reasons they don't and/or won't let their children.

Sometimes the reasons are religious, other times it's ignorance, and sometimes it's the result of misinformation. Some people refuse to get immunizations because they believe it causes autism, I have no doubt that something as invasive as ocular surgery would generate a similiar belief. And it is surgery... people are squemish about getting blood drawn, surgery for them might be out of the question or at least something they are currently putting off out of a fear of the blade. Cybereye surgery might be cheap and outpatient but if you're getting along just fine with trodes and a pair of sunglasses... why bother?

As a general rule I'd certainly have to agree that the vast majority of blind people would certainly ditch their broken or missing wetware for cybereyes.

Oh and I think what you mean to say "Virtually any 400bp Shadowrunner can afford cybereyes or equivalent intervention" 500 bucks + the associated cost of surgery and recovery is something I'd imagine 90% of the Sixth World can't afford.

Some very good thoughts on the reasons to stay blind, though alot of them still aren't quite what I want. Hoping for something that doesn't put 'wares entirely out, just the eyeware (Besides the OOC reason of lost karma)

But no, I didn't mean 400BP Shadowrunners, I meant anyone. Given that your average person has a medium lifestyle which is 5k a month, or low which is 2k a month, I'd imagine that the person could budget for 500 over the course of a few months without alot of trouble. I mean heck, a commlink, which everyone has costs 100 for the link, 200 for the operating software, and another few hundred for the basic programs to make it do anything.

You need to get more fresh air, Rapunzel. Your average person doesn't have anything close to a middle-class lifestyle. 500 is a month's rent for lots of people, people who are living hand-to-mouth (meaning they don't have two pennies to save for some big purchase down the road). I know I, IRL, couldn't afford to shell out a month's rent for anything, especially if I raised that money without it in the first place.



A used link is 50, you can pirate that OS for 20, and you don't need anything else for basic functionality. Personal communication and PAN management are part of the OS, and barebones matrix services are included in your lifestyle costs. Sure, your EvoGoogle searches won't turn up anything they can't sell you, but it's still there when you want the traffic & weather report.

Eh... I don't think that "average" (50% of the population) person in the Sixth World has a medium lifestyle or even a low lifestyle. I think most of the worlds population is sitting around at squatter. Also you've pointed out that low lifestyle (which accounts for a place to live, some food, and some basic ammenities) runs a person 2k a month. That likely eats up their take home paycheck and possibly a little more (mmm... debt). That's just surviving money nevermind budgeting for the future or taking care of their little ones or parents.

But that's neither here nor there when it comes to blindness. I just think that you're envisioning a very uh... pleasant future for humanity or ever city dwellers (I for one would be overjoyed if the "average" human made 2k a month and had some place to live that with indoor plumbing).

As to commlinks I tend to think those prices represent brand new commlinks at your local electronics store. Most people are tooling around with 2 or 3 year old models that they bought second hand from that creepy guy down the street. Or they've bought them on credit and haven't paid off their commlink yet. If it's a big purchase I'm sure there are PLENTY of organizations willing to help you get that brand spanking new 'link.

I don't know, my personal experience is that people who have a system that works (trodes with glasses) who are poor are going to make cuts in healthcare before they make other tough budgeting decisions. If they're getting by (which the 10bp quality insists they are) they'll just keep on trucking.

I guess the example I'd also use is lasik surgery. I wear glasses and make a fair amount of money yet I've never actually budgeted for surgery to correct my vision. Glasses are a pain in the ass but they're cheap and I've used them for years so I'm used to it. Going through all the trouble to get surgery to have my eyes fixed just hasn't outweighed my inherent laziness. A person who has been blind for years but has an easy and functional workaround (throws on a pair of glasses) might be just as lazy as I am.

Of course this is all trying to bring RL in SR which can have limited utility.


Ah and to return to your original question. I think that people tend to demand more rational thought from a character than they do from real people. Being lazy, making poor life decisions, and so forth are all perfectly reasonable explanations for negative qualities. They're not just flaws in a characters body, they can also be flaws in their mind or world view.

There are also all sorts of things that can go wrong with the optic nerve. If that puppy's shot, then it doesn't really matter how many eyeballs you add.

Yeah, remember that in the Sixth World the cops aren't really paid enough to cover a full year's lifestyle costs for his/her family without taking bribes, ect...

Conceivably if you have the tech to replace someones eye you have the tech to fiddle with their optic nerves. I will to accept that futzing around with their optical centers is a bit more complicated but the nerves just... piping... we can do piping.

@Ravor: Well of course they don't get paid a full wage, they make it all back on "tips"...

I suppose perhaps my vision of Shadowrun is perhaps a bit lighter then some others. I realize that yeah, there probably are a ton of people in the ghettos and whatnot, but your average corp worker in the city (Which is who I mean when I say Joe Wageslave) at least lives in a place where they can keep their suit clean for work the next day, which suggests at least a low lifestyle to me. Using the advanced lifestyle rules, have the person drop down their entertainment by 1 to squatter for two months and boom, you've got your new cybereyes. Heck, even a squatter can go without entertainment or comforts or something for five months and be able to afford them.

I do very much like the modern day eye surgery example, there are indeed tons of people who don't get it because of cost/don't like the idea of laser eyes/just can't be bothered. But I'd also think that the worse your vision is when you lose your glasses, and the more expensive your glasses are and the cheaper the surgery is, the more likely you are to get it. If your blind when you lose your glasses, that's really bad. And if your glasses are costing you over $100 each (Which I'm sure they are actually) and the surgery only costs $500, I think you'd be highly motivated to get it.

Still, a very good reason for Joe Average to not get it, he can't be bothered because he already has a good setup with his glasses, and I suppose that could work for Joe Shadowrunner too.

So, we have the following so far:
Unable to afford it
Unable to be bothered to do it
Damage is in the optical nerve itself, making the surgery much more difficult and/or expensive and/or dangerous.
Belief reasons such as Religion or paranoia from bad rumors.
Handwaved 'something makes it physically impossible to do, but trodes still work'.
Viewed as an advantage of sorts thanks to people underestimating them. (Like the butler guy from Zoro, he pretended to be deaf so people would talk about secret stuff around him)

I got a lot of stuff written down here and I'm going to leave it because it's carthartic for me but to directly comment on your post:
I like your last idea best. It's the option that shows the most about who a character is (and not just that you're a player looking to squeeze 10 more bp out of chargen). I remember reading an article that reported that some blind people were lamenting the loss of "Blind culture" following improvements in vision restoring therapies. It's entirely possible that a person actively chooses to be blind because they feel it's an intrinsic part of who they are and how the interact with the world. From a neuroscience perspective your ability to actually "see", derive useful information from raw visual data, by a certain point in our development. After that point your brain gives up and decides to use that area for something else. There was a case I read about where a person had been blind since early childhood but had his vision restored in his 40's or so. The seeing world baffled him to the point where he perceived stairs as a collection of odd straight lines and shaded colors. In essence his mind had never learned how to see and indeed it never really did. Once the initial novelty of "seeing" wore off and he realized that he couldn't do anything constructive with it, it bothered him greatly. He'd made a living as a masseuse for years, a profession he enjoyed immensely. "Gifted' with sight he now became aware of all the visual imperfections of the people he was working on (and in himself). Where before he only felt flawless skin he now saw age spots, moles, and other blemishes. This along with his inability to actually use his vision actually caused him to spend a great deal of time... with his eyes closed. IIRC he later lost his vision near the end of his life and he considered it a blessing, glad to be rid of this "gift" he didn't want anymore.
His specific case would be better for a the 15 bp negative quality but that mentality could be something that a character has developed or nurtured on their own. Maybe it's a decker who considers the meatworld to be crass and unrefined, preferring to view things only through the lens of his favorite AR overlays. Maybe it's a rigger who prefers to view the world ONLY through his omnipresent drone network. Another favorite is the blind magic user (extra cool points for adept) that vastly prefers viewing the world's "true" nature through astral vision. Well those are some ideas at least. And now on to the pseudorant followed by the honest to goodness rant.



Without belaboring the point I think all I'm trying to say is that, as in real life, the "average" human being would flay the flesh off their children to have a place to keep their suits clean for the next workday. I think one of the central themes of Shadowrun is that the fall of America broke down the cultural insulation we enjoy today. "Third World Problems" are now something you see from the freeway as you drive from your gated to corp enclave to your emerald tower in Downtown. Sure you might only be taking home 2k a month but goddamn, I hear they eat devil rats down there.

Or more likely poverty is something that wakes you up every night. The crackle of automatic gunfire reminds you that it's been a couple weeks since your last run.

I don't play a horrifically dystopian Shadowrun but given my real life world view... I consider a low lifestyle to be a goddamn near utopian ideal for most of the worlds population (thus: The average person). I imagine Seattle circa 2070 to be something like Rio De Janiero today. Walk around the tourist/business districts and it's all glitter and glam, look up into the hills and it's a place where cops move in fire teams, fearful of IED's and RPG attacks. The gap between "rich" (I get to eat at least twice a day) and "poor" (I get to eat if I'm lucky) is wide and pronounced, it's easy to end up in the later category if you're not the right kind of person. It's a bleak world but it has to be if we're to accept that otherwise outwardly rational and talented people (A 400bp meta beings is pretty goddamn exceptional when you think about it) willingly commit felonies for heartbreakingly small amounts of money. Even if you play crusader characters who want to right the ills of the world... A crusader character who attacks and steals from corporate facilities looks very much like a terrorist in a world where most people get to feed their family every night. The same character in a world run by organizations that systematically ensure that there will always be a pool of cheap disposable labor... well that's just a moral person trying not to go crazy.

I'd again like to remind you that a squatter considers his entertainment and "comfort" a bit more important than a new set of cybereyes that some ghoul might whack him over the head for tomorrow. A person living with a squatter lifestyle (chargen shadowrunners aside) probably hasn't considered deeply what they're doing next week let alone half a year from now. A luxury for them is having the 20 nuyen it costs to bribe the city cops to let him sleep in the shitters by the park so he doesn't have to sleep in the acid rain. 500 bucks for food and board isn't doesn't go very far. You can either eat well but have nowhere to stay or have a terrifyingly bad place to stay and not eat at all. I envision most squatters splitting the difference and getting mostly fed and sorta housed.

My glasses cost quiet a bit but I have a job and can afford them (actually they're free. However, I consider that part of my "compensation package" for agreeing to work a salary job with potentially unlimited work hour. Go Navy!). If I was living on the street there are a number of places I could turn to get cheap/free glasses (and medical/dental care). I might have to wait a couple of weeks/months but eventually someone would hook me up. Meanwhile all that money I would have wasted on new glasses (that I might have lost or had stolen)... well hell, I can spend that on another armful or two meals one day!

Since I seem to be hammering the "Homeless don't have cybereyes" and you mentioned the Zorro thing I'll give you another scenario. Homeless guy is a prolific pandhandler, has a couple good corners staked out, pulls in enough to eat, feed his dog, whatever everyday. Homeless guy knows that disabled folks get the better sympathy change so he considers his options. He's blind, lost his eyes in a ganger initiation years ago and found out that gangers don't exactly have disability programs. It's pretty gruesome what with the sores and what not but he takes care to nurture them... keep them dirty enough to stay good and infected but not from eating his whole goddamn face. He spend some of his squatter budget on the antibiotic creame that lets him do this. The church downtown hands out little tubes of it every Saturday clinic, so he knows to slip the door guy a couple nuyen for the hookup. Anyways, since he's been keeping those sores open, he reasons he's significantly increased the amount of money he gets. I mean wow! Most people actually believe the corp propaganda that cybereyes are so cheap even a caveman can afford them! Reasoning that he still wants people to feel sorry enough to shower him with money but that being blind sucks, he decides for a compromise. Trode glasses! Cheap tech he can score from his usual guy for a 100 nuyen. Hell, he might just nick a pair of camera shades off a tourist or something, those are even cheaper to convert. Now he gets to see when he wants to but he can still cash in on the sympathy vote during "working hours". Everyone goes home happy and that 500 he could have spent on eyes can now be put aside for other things... like getting himself some new shoes, a stun baton for protection, food, a hovel to sleep in for a month. Jeez you know what? He hasn't been laid in months! 500 nuyen will buy him one HELL of a good time! Or maybe he'll use it to feed his kids, or buy into a drug empire, or purchase some online classes so he can learn a trade. There are all kinds of things that a squatter with a pair of stolen trid glasses (who can functionally see) can do with 500 nuyen that doesn't involve getting cybereyes. I'm not saying he never will. He just hasn't and the bp he gets for it is reflected in his unwillingness to go out of his way to get his eyes fixed.


RealLifeRant: Now before anyone jumps all over me for painting homeless like leeches on society let me point out that I consider panhandlers a tax on the stupid and indifferent. If you actually cared about the well being of a disabled vet, or a mentally handicapped person, or whatever, you could save all that pocket change you give to panhandlers and donate it to a vetted charitable organization. Better yet (and cheaper) you could volunteer a couple hours of your time every month to physically ensure those donations are being used properly. Panhandlers are just trying to make a living, I don't begrudge their methods and salute them for their work ethic (I sure as fuck don't like dressing dirty and standing out in the weather 12 hours a day all year round). I do however, find something fundamentally wrong with people who throw money in their cups. It's like they want to help them but... nah it's too much trouble to actually make a commitment, here's 50 cents so I feel better about myself because I "helped the homeless" today.
Hell buy them actual food! That's a real goddamn eye opener! Buy a homeless person food and you'll either be rewarded with some poor starving bastard breaking into an honest smile and scarfing it down or some crazed drug addict flip out on you for not playing the game that lets them get more drugs. One will at least make you feel good, the other is an excellent object lesson. If that experience really has an impact on you, consider how much real food that 8 bucks you spent on McDonalds could buy.

Yes, I'm bitter because I threw money in those cups for years before it finally dawned on me that I was being had. I was faced with the classic "My car broke down and all I need is a few bucks to get a bus" deal and I relented. A week later the same guy hit me up with "My wife is sick an-" yeah I asked him what the fuck he was doing. He just smiled, shrugged, and moved on to the next guy. God bless that guy for remembering that he'd met me (I've worked with people who couldn't manage that) before and being honest enough to move on and scam someone else. I'm still going to fling pennies at his head if I he's still working that same Del Taco in San Diego./RealLifeRant

I saw a recent thing on discovery about a guy who had gotten his sight back. He seemed to love it, but he did have that 'What is all this color and stuff?' thing at first, and it took him a while to learn about stairs and curbs and whatnot. But it is something to think about.

Overall I suppose we have to agree to disagree to some extent on the overall state of the population of cities. I mean MegaCorps have massive amounts of wealth, and produce all kinds of stuff. The thing is they have to have people to sell this to. If more then half the population can't even afford food, and most of the remaining can only afford a meal or two a day, then the corps aren't going to be able to make any money. I mean if virtually everyone is poor, and virtually everyone is purchasing second hand stuff, who is buying the stuff in the first place? But market economics aside, I'm looking for reasons a runner would have this, because a runner can easily afford a pair of cybereyes.

I too rather like the 'leverage the disability' method the most, and agree completely with you about the beggars. Don't think I've ever given... maybe to one playing an instrument, because they're at least doing something.

The corps sell things to the 1-2% of the population that has more money then they can spend while the remaining 98% are busy selling their internal organs...

But where do those 1-2% get their money?

Meh, shouldn't have replied but I did, not going to respond to more comments about the general wealth of the SR population.

The same place that feudal lords have always gotten their money of course. The Mega's aren't really the capilist entities they claim to be, they are really a bunch of feudal kingdoms right out of the dark ages.

Although a better question would be where do the rich get their money in societies that have a huge gulf between the rich and poor in today's world?

I don't know lore-wise but there is no reason there can't be a thriving middle class in SR without breaking the feel of the gameworld provided the middle-class don't live in the sprawl itself. Maybe the Sonohomish and Bellevue-esque communities are the consumers driving them. Its a quandry.

What does this never seen middleclass do to support itself?

A thriving middle class is considered a marker for a healthy society with a "fair" distribution of wealth between rich and poor. It also means that poor people have a fairly clear path that they can take into a burgeoning middle class. Barriers to education, financing, and employment are low and the poor need not necessarily remain poor. This is a world that I wouldn't mind living in, it's the classic American dream of "Study hard, work hard, and have a good life for yourself and your family."

Shadowrun, being cyberpunk, typically espouses a world where there really isn't much of a "free range" middle class. Corps have a middle class but they live sequestered lives behind thick walls and corps sec. By canon Japanacorps actively promote creepy marriage programs that ensure workers "keep it in the family". They do this to ensure that they have:
1. A loyal workforce that is almost totally reliant on the corps for survival.
2. A captive audience to purchase their goods and services. ie. "I sold my soul at the company store."


The corps pays you, but docks your pay for "social services": healthcare, food, lodging, etc. Whatever is left over is yours but you are "encouraged" to reinvest it with the corps as part of a retirement program. You live in a corps enclave right? Well any "extra" food or entertainment you desire can be purchased at reasonable rates from stores that are subsidies of the corporation and conviently located within your housing block. In other words you lead a tightly controlled life where you are viewed by Mama Corps as an organ, something that is fed but with the expectation that it will continue to provide it's two fold function of generating productivity and reinvesting in the corps. Corps pay their workers just enough to be dumb and happy but make sure that the system is essentially a closed loop, money never really escapes and so the corps really isn't uh... paying you. at leas as far as the books are concerned. Corps will of course want to have as many people on their payroll as possible but the fact remains that this system only works so long as you're producing more than they're effectively paying you for. They aren't going to pay you just to spend money at the company store but they may pay you to work a suboptimal job because over the long term you'll end up owing them anyways.

And as bizarre as that lifestyle is, 90% of the Sixth world would happily kill you for your job and security. This demand for a safe corps life in turn generates a never ending wave of Z-Zone inhabitants trying to make their big break into corporate living. I envision corps recruiters heading out to the edges of the Barren's to hold "Job Fairs" where they stand on a street corner and say "I need 20 bodies". These 20 people are processed to work at some shitty, dangerous, menial job (hooray for deruglation!) where there is a very high wash out rate (due to injury or simply quitting). They pay them a meager or almost non-existent wage but they provide them with housing and 2 meals a day (all of which are deducted from their base pay). These new employees are encouraged to "invest" their money into a "Improved Housing Deductible" and "Future Family Finance Fund". The IHD and 4F are designed to show which employees are willing to play the game (make money just to give it back to the corps) and which ones aren't team players. Through various methods the team players are promoted and transferred to better jobs... not much better but butter than sorting used condoms or whatever the initial job is. The process repeats. The employee gets food, housing, healthcare, and wealth beyond their squatter imaginings. The corps, if it's smart, is grooming perfect employees that truly and honestly believe that the corps is responsible for saving them from a life of destitution. Employees who will always think of the corps first in all their actions and happily sing the corps anthem every morning before jumping into another 14 hour work day.

This of course is assuming that corps aren't actively trying to force their people into a perpetual state of debt and ensure that employees couldn't leave if they wanted to. That's certainly dark setting material but one with a strong historical precedent.

I'd also imagine that corps vary in terms of how brutal they are. I think you'd have Horizon on one end, where they pay a decent wage and encourage employees to live a "good" but corps friendly life. Somewhere in the middle you'd have Ares Macrotech teaching it's corporate citizens that they should be: Proud to be a Canadian-American... where at least I know I'm free! And at the extreme end you have Renraku and the the other Japanacorps, brainwashing and culturally intimidating their employees into behaving "properly" and respecting the corps that have given them everything!

Given that this employee/corps relationship is totally legal in 2070 I can only imagine that there are very few options to become middle class that don't involve welcoming a corporate overlord into your heart. Your best bet is probably to find an AA or lower corps that doesn't have the economies of scale to absolutly own your every waking moment.

Or there's always... the shadows...

Now I suppose you could use all this to stipulate a "huge middle class" Sixth world scenario but I would argue that it's a middle class totally unlike you and I are familiar with. It's not a middle class that just happens because someone finally got promoted into a middle management position... it's a middle class that it's groomed and one that has all the social mobility of a caste. Will this middle class get cybereyes? Maybe not if trode glasses work just fine, cybereyes may be consider elective surgery in that case and not be covered by the corps healthcare. Want to save up for it? Sure thing but keep in mind all the markups that enclave prices will have. Want to get it done outside the enclave? Well you coooould do that but do you know that some surgeries out on town actually invalidate your corporate healtchare package? You'll need to re-enroll at a higher rate to accommodate your unauthorized cyberware...

I fall into the corps forcing their wageslaves into an ever increasing debt.

Well it certainly makes sense and dramatically reduces the likelihood of legal corporate poaching. It also might mean that corps are more inclined to nurture and train their people. If you effectively own them... you might as well train them. If they try to run off you can wave their 500k worth of debt before the corporate court and demand extraditions.

And like you said, there is a reason they're called wageslaves.

Actually the term is used in present day, just means the person works for a paycheck. Though I'm sure it could have much more literal implications in 2070.

I'd love to make more comments, but instead I'd like to suggest a new thread for the whole discussion (Which I do find quite interesting) as this was originally more for the matter of 'why would a Runner be blind' then 'why would Joe Wageslave be blind'. Though I admit I did leave it somewhat broad in my initial asking.

People, Karaden was asking why Joe Wageslave would be blind. To answer his question I take two different takes on this:

1) Not as dark as some people have it
2) A Really dark view of Shadowrun.

The answers for 1 have been gone over by a lot of different people. Now my second view is that EVERY single Wageslave who is blinded is going to get a "free" pair of cybereyes. His wages will be docked a little bit each month, but nothing that he won't really miss (20 a month). Now here's why the Corps would do this:

While the poor slot is under the knife you install the eyes and a sound recorder as well. You then have your Matrix security people set the 'ware up in a cluster and have it running in hidden mode with them having the access codes. Then run the following programs: Face Recognition 2, Visual Spotter 2, Noise Analysis 2, and Voice Recognition 2. The Wageslave doesn't know he just became a spy for the higher ups. The Wageslave also becomes a mobile sensor platform for the corp for just 1000

If I argued that the average wageslave (ie. Employed person with a low or higher lifestyle) didn't have cybereyes, I'm apologize. I was merely trying to say that the Joe Average person in the Sixth World is probably not gainfully employed in the same sense that we think of gainful employment.