There's a big difference between someone who will kills easy and a joykilling pyscho. I'd rather have someone who I can count on to have my back and will rock and roll when needed than someone who won't take out those guards that have the rest of the team pinned down because they might have families or puppies or an ant farm.

Is that a psycho who kills joy or who kills for joy? :/ I guess both?

They don't even have to enjoy killing to be scary. Someone who just doesn't really mind killing is just as bad. Why would you trust such a person not to stab you in the back for money? They're willing to do it to everyone else.

There isn't a big enough difference between the two for me to want to work with either or them. Remember we aren't talking about pacifists here, we are talking moral boundaries of some kind. Like I don't take jobs like kill every orc in that building because rent control is driving me out of business. Or look out those kids spotted us, damn time to cut and run instead of hey lets kill all of those kids so we can complete the objective. I mean sure if the objective is disable that nuke on the countdown to destruction that is one thing, if the objective is remove incriminating DNA data from the storage so mr x isn't tied to little orphan anny I don't feel like going on a killing spree.

Psychos have their place on the team.

It's called 'point'.

On the other hand, we all know that every action hero doesn't mind killing hundreds of faceless mooks, and will also never betray you. So it's not like 'psycho-killer' (qu'est-ce que c'est?) and 'useless pacifist' are the only two options here.

There are choices that are (fa-fa-fa-fa fa-fa-fa-fa) far better.

Oh, crap. Doc, you always make everyone run run run run run run run away.

Oh oh oh, ay ay ay ay WOOOOOOoooooo

Is what the psycho killers say.

I'll try to phrase my thoughts better... I would personally rather have someone on my team who will do what it takes to get me and everyone else out alive than someone who I'm not sure would for what ever reason. If both are equally loyal who would you rather have at your back?

Either one of them are going to be walking point to make sure I get out alive.

'Why does the party even exist?' is the timeless question of RPGs, and the proper thing is to simply ignore it. If your group can build a party that has solid, non-stupid reasons for staying together, doesn't constantly turn on itself, and is dramatically interesting, then that's just gravy.

Yah. By the time the characters ask that question, their involvement in the arc is generally about to end.

Hehe. Theoretically, Shadowrun handles this well, but things do get silly when it goes from 'random mercs hired for the job' to 'a crew sharing everything' without great reasons.

The last players > 4 campaign I played in started as mercs, went to tight-knight group, then back to mercs and outright animosity by the time I exited. Then again, it got up to like 10 people. Anyone tried to hog the spotlight for more than two minutes and the rest of the group went off to take naps or something.

That didn't have anything to do with the shift to animosity. Nooooooo.

My point. I mean, there has to be some consistency in the world in order for it to make some sense. But if the GM starts to make everything "easy" and serendipitious for the players, you have to ask yourself two things:

A- Is the GM experimenting on illegal drugs during game time?

B- When will the shit hit the fan BIG TIME?

The loyalty is the thing.. why are you so sure the sociopath is loyal? He's only in it for the money, right? If he's loyal to the team for other reasons, we might be heading into "morals after all" territory.




Our Vampire party got sent 529 years back in time by a botched ritual. They're the only people who understand when I'm coming from. We might not like each others' characters, but it's amazing party glue.

On the other hand, we've had a D&D party where people constantly made new characters with wildly varying goals. There was little reason for the party to be together, until we dedicated ourselves to killing the gods of a nearby country. (It was kinda like stargate, except we were the savages living in mud huts.) People still kept changing characters all the time, but they knew that to fit into the group they needed to somehow link their own personal goals to the crusade.

In Shadowrun, it should be just as easy to to come up with good party glue; "we grew up together in the Barrens" to take on old cliche. Or "he saved me from X, and now I'm teaming up with him."

Sometimes. Usually it's just a mismatched collection of minmaxed specialists. Half have trust funds, the other half are vanishingly-rare meta-mutants.

Yeah... I'm kinda fed up with those.