And remember: If they're a vampiric pawn, physically addicted to the enzymes in your saliva, it doesn't count as "willing".

Snoof

Think outside the box. WHY do people have lots of things in common? Either there are a vast number of coincidences, or there is a reason.

Don't sweat the real world. I don't plan to make converts to any philosophies here. But think of it in game terms.

Ok, first off I just want to say... and I'm telling you this because I consider you a friend... there are plenty of decaffinated brands on the market that taste just as good as the real thing.
(Can you name the movie?)

Now, just because I use WOD vampires in my SR games doesn't mean that all the angnst, gothic BS is there as well. I'm right there with you in the feeling that its totally retarded. Most WOD groups I've played with would agree and don't do it.

The nice thing about importing the Camarilla is that it gives you secret societies within one big secret society. It adds character to something in SR that is relatively cardboard in appearance. There really isn't anything in SR that gives you any kind of concrete, in deapth info on any kind of vampiric society striving to keep the vampires alive in the modern world. WOD already has all of that, fleshed out and ready to use. Granted, it requires a little bit of conversion work on my part, but at least the fluff is already done. It still saves me a ton of time. Frankly I think they make a better threat when the players get higher up in reputation. And it'll definitely put the fear of God into even the hardest street sam when they have a run in with a Sabbat pack.

In some ways, it's the villian that defines the hero. Without a villian, the hero has no adversary upon which to defeat, grow and evolve. Megacorps are no different in SR, as are the cookie-cutter security cops that get gunned down on a regular basis. How many of them have had a freind ply the shadows to exact revenge on the runner who put a bullet in his freinds brain?

Good stories are just as much about the depths of the villian as they are about the deapths of the runner. A villian with something beyond just being the "bad guy" makes for a much better adventure. Especially if that villian is a powerful enemy come back to haunt the character.

Real Genius.

Woo hoo. Jrayjoker gets a karma point.

Screw google, I knew that quote off the top of my head! I just left the office for a few so I couldn't reply in time...

And First off, sorry for the rant earlier... no offense was intended to anyone.

I'm just going off of every single black eyeliner wearing black hair dying black wearing wallet chain using people that get off on that stuff. It may not be everyone, but it's everyone I've ever met in real life that evangilizes The Masquerade.

Well, My issue lies in that I feel shadowrun needs none of these things. The real world is not about conspiracies and secret organizations, and since I want my game world to be believable then my game world is not about these things either. A "secret scociety" based on a type of individual whose aura is clearly discernable by a goodly chunk of magically active poeple (who aren't all that rare) I just see as totally implausible.

And thank god for that! There doesn't need to be, and it serves no purpose! It's the vampire freemasons and Illuminati! Vampires stay alive in the modern world just like all other folks do.

As the game gets higher up a party in my game would have the fear of god from a single competent vampire, the pack is wholly unnecessary. A person with an 15 (or higher) strength, body, and quickness that may be an adept and can pretty easily kill them if it gets the chance is very sobering. Regeneration is just gravy. Plus odds are it moves faster and can take far, far more damage than them.

<cough>Bullshit!<cough>

Are you saying that you as a person have never grown and evolved because you have no great nemesis or adversary? (most people don't!) A character's evolution is from the changes that happen because of the trials they go through just living life, making them from the person they were into the person they need to be. It doesn't require an overshadowing bad guy not a single defining event. Raising money to pay the rent, the comfort in knowing your financially taken care of. The necessity to make hard moral choices and finding out where in fact a character draws that line, and finding that it wasn't where he or she thought it was. Those are the events in which a character grows and evolves.

The single end all be all nemesis to be defeated is a staple of bad fantasy writing IMHO.

Oh... But you're so wrong. That's the easy way out. The "plot element" way. It's so much better to have the wife carrying the 3 year old son of the slain guard track down the runner and role play out the session in a restraunt with a hysterical crying woman while a crowd of folks watches while the woman asks why the character killed her husband, and the kid doesnt understand why you killed his daddy. People watch this go down. Friends, coworkers, contacts. Consequences. She just needs to know why this happened. Why he was taken from her.

There are no faceless nameless NPC's in my game. Those are living breathing people whose job is to protect something. Don't dehumanize the opposition.

You don't hire a hitter, that desensitizes the player against the death. You want to force the player and the character to see the horrific emotion aftermath of the event to make them realize the impact of what they do, to put a face on all of the faceless lives they destroy. You want to make them aware of it. It is those emotional interactions that makes a character grow. It's not the pulling the trigger that's hard 9 times out of 10, it's the aftermath.

Megacorps themselves are inhuman entities run by very human people.

See, the thing is that my games have no villians. There world is not about good guys and bad guys. Hero and Villian are just titles you assign to that which you morally or conceptually agree or disagree with. There aren't evil guys and innocent guys. It's just. It's just a bunch of guys. (movie quote, points for who names it). These guys may have motives that are at odds with yours, but there is no evil just for the sake of evil.

This is where we fundamentally differ in outlook, I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree.

Woo! I'll mail you a cookie

BitBasher already disputed this, but I would like to point also to the really cool Short Story/Novella by Richard Matheson published in 1954 called I Am Legend. It was the basis for lots of bad SF like "Omega Man" starring Charelton Heston, and even inspiration for White Zombie songs, but it was a pretty cool story, in which the cause for Vampires was a Bacteria. I thought is was a great, but short read.

And I do agree, as do most real roleplayers I know. Those that take it to far have forgotten that its a game.

SR doesn't need any of these things? Evidently you haven't read Threats or Threats 2. And by the way, humans all over the world form into groups based on "something" that they share in common (can you say Alamos 20K?)... so Vampires forming secret socities to survive is just as plausible as liberals and conservatives forming lobby groups to further thier own goals.

Actually, it does serve a purpose in a 'real world' sense that you mentioned before. Vampires are hated beings, just like ghouls. Forming societies to pool thier resources helps them to manipulate within the shadows and stay alive. Among other things it would provide a network of safe houses, feeding grounds, disinformation groups, etc. That's part of how the modern world works.

I disagree. A single competent vampire is going down in short order against an entire group of high powered runners. Even if the vampire had hired help, unless he has his own high-powered runners, he's still up a creek. One against many is never good odds. And in the 'real world' as you like to put it, everyone recognizes that there is safety in numbers.

Evidently you need to re-read what I wrote. I specifically said, every HERO needs a villian.

Most runners are not 'normal' people by any stretch of the imagination. A shadowrunner is not a runner without some catalyst that pushed him or her into the lifestyle that they have chosen. Running is by no means an easy nor rewarding job. With some, it could be a corp that screwed them, or maybe even a specific person within that corp. And that's just one of a million such stories that are out there for potential backgrounds. There's always some kind of ghost in thier closet haunting them. Come to think of it, a lot of 'normal' people are like that too.

Yea, but that ain't the way the 'real world' works. Revenge is the biggest motivator in human existence. Revenge is 'real world'. Those that don't choose revenge choose apathy and grief. Rarely does what you show above ever happen... with the possible exception of the court room jury where the runner to be caught and tried.

I agree, hence the reason for my position to use the Camarilla in SR. I don't dehumanize and cookie cutter the opposition. They have backgrounds and motivations beyond JUST being a vampire. They have goals and aspirations just like the runners do. It prevents to vampire from becoming dehumanized.

Some do hire a hitter, probably even more in the dark world of SR than today. Even today you see news reports of someone who was caught trying to hire a hitman to rub someone out. Let's face it, in the big world of shadowrunners, it would be even more of a reality. That's real world for SR.

Yes, and more often than not you'll find that inhumanity rubs off onto the people running those corps. That's the typical dark, inhumane picture that corps get painted with in SR fluff.

Um, someone is always a villian in someone else's eyes. The human ecology revolves around good vs. evil, me vs. them, us vs. them, etc. Are they evil in thier eyes... no of course not, but someone else will disagree. Hence the descriptives. Titles and descriptives help get across points of view. A villian is not neccissarily evil and if you look at the definition;

1 : an uncouth person
2 : a deliberate scoundrel or criminal
3 : a scoundrel in a story or play
4 : a person or thing blamed for a particular evil or difficulty

You'll notice that evil is all the way down at the bottom of the list. Your 'villain' doesn't always have to be the same person or the same group. Nor do they always have to be truly evil and twisted... but he/they are the adversary for the 'heroic' runners (and for some runners heroic should be used lightly ). After all, the story is about our runners trials and tribulations.

If you really look at the debate, I think you'll find we don't differ as much as you may think.