So, i'm working on a Face character, who i was original developing as sort of a Michael Westin mold, but after all the death he saw, he took an oath to "only" kill in self defense (pacifist level 1), then, i had the idea planted in my head (stares at Hermit) to make him a drone rigger/face. so I thought about the idea, completely ignoring the whole pacifist bit. If i'm outside the building, doing physical overwatch, with drones in the building i'm not REALLY responsible for any deaths that may occur so i'm not breaking my pacifist quality, right? is this like slice, not individually wrapped american cheese? or some good stuff, like freshly grated Parmesan Regiano ?

Total cheese, not even the good stuff. If you are in control of the drones jumped in, remote or simply ordered, you are responsible for their actions. If your drone kills someone, you've broken your Pacifism.

Just my 2 NuYen.

if its your drone, and you armed it with lethal force, its as good as if you killed him in the meat from an ethical standpoint. your cheese is called denial. a smart GM will give you bad consequences if you try to avoid negative qualities with faulty logic.

I think that the Code of Honor from RC is more appropriate to this 'minimum force required' approach, than trying to use pacifism for something it isn't intended.

I also think that any sane GM will have you violate your pacifism every time you tell your drone to kill someone. Your toys are your responsibility.

So you guys are saying that if I let a tiger loose in a day-care centre I'll be morally responsible for the grisly deaths? Fascists!

There are so many 'better' NQs, anyway.

Come on, no one wants to step up and argue against me? For the record, i agree it's not very good cheese, but i'd like to see someone try to argue it.

Didn't they? It's not pacifism if you cause it. It looks like… everyone said that.

So just give your drones gel rounds (or some other non-lethal/less-than-lethal weapon). Ta da.

I don't often argue against flat earthers either. There's not much to argue when one side is wrong.

Using drones to get around pacifism is like using a gun to get around it, in either case it was a machine that did the physical act, but you intentionally used to machine for the purposes of violence.

Strange - Not that I'm trying to argue your point Aku, but I JUST had a discussion with a co-worker about the "level of abstraction" of killing someone - how disconnected from your target are you when you kill them? Knifing someone is so immediate, shooting someone is a little more removed...then up to fighter pilots having reported not feeling like their bombings are very "real killings" and so on...it makes a sort of (morbid) sense that the more removed from your target, the less real it would seem and the easier it becomes...

Using TheOOB's example, it's YOU pulling the trigger on the gun, likely you can see your target, see the effects of the bullet hitting them. Very real, visceral. Telling a drone to shoot people? Maybe more possible for a pacifist...

A pacifist character will actively avoid violence and only kill in self-defense. The quality as written is specifically a matter of principle, not level of abstraction. Letting a pacifist get away with any kind of remote-controlled murder opens the floodgates for "pacifist" demolitions experts, spirit summoners, riggers, and indirect fire snipers.

Isn't there already enough wiggle room for munchkins? "Well, those guards are firing at me and my teammates - I guess they consider blowing up the front gate and storming in with assault rifles to be some kind of hostile act on our part - so since they're firing at me, I'm justified in, um, defending myself!"

Cheese it is indeed, and IMHO of the worst, artificially colored and flavored pase-in-a-tube kind... I guess nobody argues for it because it is unarguable.

The quality say "avoids needless violence and will not kill unless in self-defense". If you take that negative quality that's not the level of personnal implication in the violence you oppose, it's the violence itself.
Think about it : the desription of the 5 BP version explicitely states that you cannot participate in premeditated murder or wetwork - simply involving yourself is enough to break the negative quality.

In fact a pacifist is likely to use drones (with non-lethal hardware) to avoid being in a self-defense situation where he would need to possibly kill another metahuman, but definitively not to kill by proxy so he does not feel bat about it.

And when you toss someone off a building, they were perfectly fine when you let go of them. In no way were you responsible for the damage that the pavement did to them.

It's not even cheese. It's more like you read the name but not the actual description.

Eh... what the others said.

I mean: Technically you already violate your pacifism when you order/program a drone to "Attack anyone not carrying an legitimate ID chip in this area". Sure it is GUARD duty in your place. But still, anyone breaking and entering might die because of you. Instant gm-hammer *g*

This approach to circumnavigating the pacifist quality is, as so many have already put, completely ineffective. If you want a character who can't handle pulling the trigger himself but is quite happy for others to do it for him then just play it that way - it's not worth any bonus BPs. Ultimately, as the book specifies, a negative quality has to be a detrimental one.

Here are some other options:

Combine with the delusion quality. Your character could believe that all megacorp employees (say) are some kind of mind-controlled puppets or machines that don't have families, friends, hopes or feelings. Though you should be in for a world of psychiatric hurt if and when the delusion is unravelled.

Take the multiple personality disorder quality and make just one of yourself a pacifist. It makes for a complicated character, but perhaps an interesting one.

Be an AI or a free spirit then convince your GM that you don't care about biological life. This option is a bit out there, but it might be fun to play a hacker who won't crash, attack, corrupt or in any other way defile anything with a Pilot rating, be it drone or IC. Sprites should probably be off-limits too.

I have a Free Spirit PC, Bryneir, who was once a Valkyrie, but for some reason (Amnesia 1 - the GM has cooked up something 'special' for her) she has rejected some of the violence inherent in her past (Pacifist 1). She has combat spells, but all do Stun damage only. She recently saved from drowning an enemy who had tried to kill her and her team. This enemy has now turned into an arch-rival bent on the destruction of her team. She encourages her teammates to use SnS ammunition (not a bad idea anyway) and Unarmed Combat if fighting is necessary.

The only entity whom she is possibly seeking to destroy is another Free Spirit, who runs a whorehouse in Las Vegas, using mentally dominated metahumans as her stable of employees. A recent run-in between the two has left Bryneir disgusted with the depraved use of these innocents against their will, and she is collecting the resources to bring about the permanent Banishment of the 'Madam'. Otherwise, she will have to go to the Madam's home plane and take her down there. One way or another the depraved domination must stop.

I believe there is no evasion of the Pacifist 1 Quality in this.

This would be the equivalent of a Michael Westin who decides to leave deadly traps for all the criminals he faces. Sure, sometimes he puts the bad guys in a compromising situation and their bosses kill them, but he is not going to put a cyanide gasbomb in their car, or a brain frying tazer in their phone. He may not be present when the traps murder people, but he would still feel responsible.

Remember, the point behind pasifism is that your character doesnt want to kill other people. Its not a phobia of seeing death, its a real passion for life that wont let them murder with a knife, gun, remote detonated bomb or trap, or even a drone they are not currently rigging.

That passion for life is what makes this an interesting quality. They wont just run with a shadowrun team and look the other way when murder happens... they will buy Gel and Stick and shock rounds and distribute them to other team members before the job. They will turn down flat out wetwork. They will be the one who speaks up when interrogations start to go too far. They play the good guy that gets on the heartless mercenaries nerves... but is too useful to ignore.

Yes, this is very much the case. Well put.

Just for the record, this was a late night semi coherent idea. I wasnt planning on actually using this as cheese I wanted to see if anyone would actually make the argument for it working though, but as i had suspected, there really IS no argument :\ that was a boring discussion DS!

Not so much. Fikealox gave me the idea of putting a trid show similar to "Fast Animals, Slow Children" in the 6th World.

Alas, that isn't quite true. A number of the qualities aren't detrimental.

Sensitive system is 15 free points for a character who was going to be minimally cybered anyway (< .5). Likewise Hung out to Dry is 10 free points if you're not starting out with any contacts. If you don't have the BPs or the character concept suggests passing on a group of items, there may well be a quality that pays you for what you were going to do anyway.

10 points of Amnesia can actually be downright fun to play.

Records on File. Distinctive Style, etc. has (so far in my experience anyway) been free points for anyone playing Missions. Someone let me know if they ever add a trace roll to a Missions mod.

This is an Idea I was mulling about in the back of my head. The only twist to it I had was that the other personality would have the Combat Monster NQ and be the crazed kill-em-all type. Kind of a Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde kind of deal with a specific key that would cause the switch, like intense fear and pain (i.e. being shot).

If the GM is allowing a character with a negative quality that is in no way detrimental to the character the GM ain't doing its job right.

I don't think this character idea qualifies as having the pacifists quality, on the plus side it seems he would be a good fit for one or more psychological disorder qualities instead.

Code of honor or similar is also a good suggestion, although 'only my drones may murder you' is more of a code of dishonor.

Exactly.

An interesting variation on this idea would be the guy who sets things up so his opponents kill themselves.

I don't mean like tripwires setting off bombs either. I mean like the guy from Saw, where the victims have a choice, but to get what they want the victims have to knowingly take an action that may kill them.

I'm pretty much sure this wouldn't quality as Pacifist either, but it might qualify as Sadistic Bastard.






-k

I'm just going to sum up the idea in the original post so that it's really clear cut.

You're going to arm you drones with bullets, and then claim ignorance.

This isn't "Pacifism" but rather "Aversion to Direct Violence". Or perhaps "cowardice" especially since he's willing to let drones do his killing.

Talk with your GM, he'll probably give you a penalty for being shot at personally though.

It's really more like "Combat Paralysis" though.

What do you do at your table with a technomancer or mage who has taken sensitive system? Do you ban the quality, turn down the character, deliberately implant something in the character, change the rewards in a run to implants only? How do you, as the GM, do the job "right"?

You roll up a newspaper and hit them with it while loudly proclaiming "BAD PLAYER", then you crumple up the character sheet and rub thier nose in it.

They really need to have two versions of this quality. One that is 15BP for mundane characters, and one that is 5BP for awakened characters.

Unless they implant something into them to include at least one augmentation, then yes, I'll say know to this character. Same thing if a player picks one of those negative qualities for hacker and said player also picks uneducated for instance, I'm willing to do what Fauxknight said.

Agreed: there's plenty of precedent for disallowing any NQ that isn't a negative, and for reducing the BP value of a mitigated NQ.

Not really being able to take ware is IMO enought of a negative quality in it self to justify both of those.
In other words, them not having any ware is the detriment.

That's fascinating.
http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?showtopic=35279 - July 1. No one has issues.
http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?showtopic=35235 - Jun 27. No one has issues.
http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?showtopic=35205 - Jun 22 (the paladin). No one has issues.
OK. This one is just funny. http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?showtopic=35194 - Jun 20. It's in the deer. No. I'm not kidding.
http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?showtopic=35145 - Jun 13 (post #15). No one has issues.

I'm willing to bet there are characters right now in Welcome to the Shadows that have this.

I'm not going to argue if it's "right" or not, but I will state that it's endemic, even on these forums.

For a technomancer or a mage with less than .5 essence worth of ware. It's not a disadvantage. It's free build points. That was the term used back in 2008 according to one of my searches. No one disagreed then.

For a character who doesn't want a lot of ware, it's not much of a disadvantage, certainly not as much as the BP implies. In the end it's still free build points. How many free is up to you to decide.

But it's being endemic doesn't surprise me, because the system is filled with free build points. Restricted Gear and Muscle Toner 4 is a staple of character building. It's 40 points of super metahuman agility for a hair over 11 BP. If there is anyone here turning down characters using Sensitive System as free BP, that would be a surprise to me. If they are, I have to wonder if they're turning down Muscle Toner 4 as well.

In the end, it's just different flavors of cheese. The game is so unbalanced that it seems funny to watch people suddenly drawing a line in the sand over something that's been right before them the whole time.

Its between the player and thier GM. I know in a serious game I don't like to take negative qualities that have absolutely no effect, I don't like my players do so, and none of the GMs I know do either.

"Stop being a munchkin man. Replace that with something that actually impairs you."

There is a difference between "Nobody on Dumpshock objects to this" and "Nobody on Dumpshock who read those threads and had enough impetus to actually post about it objects to this."




-k

Explain to them that you don't think it's a very negative Negative Quality, and ask them why they took it. Ask if they'd mind if you lowered the value of it to encourage them to take something else, find out if they have it as part of their character's back story, see if they think it might actually come up in-game, find out if they misunderstood how it works...talk to 'em, and see what's what.

For what it's worth, I'm a big fan of Qualities (both positive and negative), and it's very, very, easy for me to -- in a perfectly reasonable fashion -- put 40 or 50 points worth of them onto a functional character, all just by being left alone to flesh out his back story (and coming up with more and more Qualities). I invariably "boil it down" after that and find a way to fit all the really absolutely essential ones into the build point limits, but not everyone that takes NQ's is out to game the system. One of my favorite characters ever had Amnesia as a central point of his character, and quite a few of my other characters, both in games and just fiction over the years, would have had "illegal" builds if I'd given myself points for every NQ they had listed on their sheet.

I find plain old communication is the answer to about 75% of gaming's problems.

IMO "Character has sensitive system" is pretty much the only good answer to the question "Why doesn't the character have any ware"
After all there are pretty much 0 character consepts that wouldn't be better with some ware.

"Why doesn't the character have any ware?"
-"Character has sensitive system"
"How did he find out?"

When I take Sensitive System I also take a datajack, just to make the char know and feel the pain of cyberware. The rest will be Bioware then...

When he was awakened he didn't understand what was happening to him so he went to a street doc thinking it was AIPS or something. The docs tests were inconclusive but the doc advised him that his body wasn't a good fit for cyberware in case he was planning on modding my body in the future.

Sensitive system is one of those flaws that is a negative quality because it imposes a barrier to the character's potential. Obviously, qualities like that are taken by players who might have been disinclined to pursue that avenue of growth in the first place. Just like someone with Logic of 2, and Impaired Attribute, is not likely to be strongly affected by having a limit of 5, instead of 6, for his Logic.

The GM can make whatever tweaks he feels are necessary for the game. If you don't like the flaw, either lower the number of points that awakened characters get for it, make it affect bioware too, or simply disallow it. There's no need for pejoratives like "munchkin" for someone taking a logical flaw for their character (hell, the Combat Mage archetype has this flaw and two allergies), or passive-agressive crap like having the bad guys kidnap the character and implant some 'ware in him. Just explain your house rules to the player, and have him pick something else.

Regardless, there are some qualities that are more ridiculous than others. The GM should definitely consider them carefully, and make appropriate adjustments. Many people *are* munchkins, who *would* take 'Allergy: Lutetium' if they could.

Lutetium?

Why would you want to?

Cuz it barely exists. It's the same as taking Geas: Being Alive, or something.

Ooh, I never thought of that one before.
I did use Geas: In Dracoform once, though.
Also, Geas: In Adept Centering Stance.

I would not say that it barely exists. The abundance of Lutetium in the Earth crust is about 0.5 mg/kg. While not overly abundant, it is not exactly "barely existant." But I do get your point...