Don't want to get rid of them from the setting. I rather like them in the setting. I don't believe they have a place as playable races, though, and I think the notion of "Infected rights" is ludicrous on the face of it.

I want them to be a part of the setting...and I believe they should be monsters, straight up no chaser. Scary ones.

Now, like I said, some will love me for this and some will despise me. You'll despise me, Sengir, and I'm okay with that. At the end of the day, if someone doesn't hate something I've done, then it probably wasn't worth doing.

I would say the same for just about all of the "alternative character concepts" in Runner's Companion... about the only one's I'd keep would be the meta-type variations and even those are a bit sketchy in spots.

Now, while you're at - can you speak to whoever wrote up the rules on spirits and have them crank back their power and/or availability about a hundred notches? Spirits are many groups "instant win" button (and sometimes, instant death)

They're just people. That eat other people. Remember that.

If the Dragon Lotto about making artificial HMHVV-Food had been won, I could see some people trying to have the "Hug A Ghoul" thing going, but it hasn't at all.

They should be like Dragons in my mind, unplayable. When used as NPCs, they should be creepy at best (Like the Vampire PI that Argent dealt with in "Run Hard, Die Fast") all the way to Total Monster that would give Alice Cooper (The character, not the man) nightmares.

Which isn't that bad an idea, a third Nightmare album would ROCK!

Toss me in the pile of Anti-Infected rights, but I'm also a GM that bans a lot of the alternate character types. Not a fan of how AI and Spirits were handled, and a firm believer that I don't want to have to deal with Vampires and the playability issues they bring up. I mean, What happens when the team meets their first mage? He assenses the vampire and calls for Tons o' backup? That's going to be too much of a hassle for everybody. I'm a little more forgiving on Drakes, mostly because they can pass as human and tend to be a BP sink for little benefit. Plus, I like the idea of getting hunted by dragons for existing. Short of playing a monsters campaign I don't need playable infected. If I were doing a monster campaign you can bet DeVries would feature prominently. Maybe I'm too vindictive on some things, but I'm not allowing much of Runner's Companion.

If you're running a Monster's Campaign, I call dibs on Wolfman.

Only stuff that I don't like which bothers me, actually, is stuff that I will try to change. Ryan Mercury doesn't particularly bother me, so even though I don't particularly like him, I'm not going to try and do anything about him.


It's absolutely okay to ignore them, as I said over in the thread you're referencing on the official forums. Where you and I seem to have some difference is that you insist on ignoring them and saying they never happened, and then insist that you're talking about the canon SR universe. You aren't. As soon as you say that they didn't happen, you're talkling about a parallel universe...and that's perfectly okay, especially at your own table. Just don't try to pass it off as the canon universe. It's not.

And "using a position as a freelancer to change something he dislikes" is actually one of the ways to become a freelancer in the first place, and a not-insignificant reason for wanting to do so. It's sure not the money. But wanting to correct a perceived problem was part of why I got involved in trying to write for SR to begin with, and yes, it's something I'm trying to do now. And I'm not apologizing for it.

One of these weekends, we need to arrange to meet over at Hatter's and try to actually talk this out instead of flinging things on forums. I'm probably not nearly the asshole you think I am.

Don't like the product? Try to write better product and get it published.

The former is easier than the latter (though self publishing is getting easier every year)

I don't write. Technical documents/test cases/instructions sure. Coherent sentences otherwise? My three kids give me enough frustration for free I don't need to go looking for more thanks.

Thus the word "Try" being right in front. But back when fan websites were big rather than forum, that wasn't too hard a thing. Just write up your stuff and put it up on the free space your ISP gave you. Or Geocities. Or where ever else you could get free space. Harder to do now. And there lies the other problem. Not many people are able to write/draw and so on.

I mean, hell, imagine a hack like me trying something professionally?

There's not like this brooding dislike or anything That particular subject happens to be my biggest irritation in SR I guess.

And I happen to disagree that novels represent canon, because there are many instances of it not be, but that's for another thread sometime.

And I'll meet ya at Hatter's anytime, I actually haven't been in there but once since moving. My wife will kill me if I wander out there with a quarter of the crap I wanted after being in there for 20 minutes the first time.

Not many? What exactly are you doing on this forum to communicate?

There are three things you must do to become a writer.

1. Write.
2. Write.
3. Write.

Novels are canon when canon says they're canon, and even then, I will ignore it at my table if I deem it too painful. One big problem with the novels is that they tend to break in-universe rules on occasion, and that's not counting Dirk randomly getting an arm.

*Cough*

Maybe they were simflicks like "Dead Air"?

What a tweest!

For my own preferences I assume if it's written and published it's cannon. However I feel no obligation to cannon, which means at my table if you encounter a Great Dragon you're dead. Period. I don't care what the stats are, I don't care why, I don't care what your counter argument is-it just is. At my table manga and anime based characters are pretty much taboo. At my table you'll never run into an established and published NPC. I just don't like them. And I can do all of this because no one's going to show up at my table, or on my doorstep to tell me how wrong I am. And as long as my players keep showing up-I'm good!

Maybe you do, but Infected rights are part and parcel of the setting and writing them out would be like throwing away the bugs. And since the shadows make an ideal harbor for Infected (while conveniently providing feeding opportunities for the HMHVV I variants), it also makes sense to have them as playable races.


...because scary paranormal threads are in short supply?

Things change, Sengir. People, places, perceptions, legislation. They change. And the shadows being a harbor for the Infected makes it a heck of a lot easier for me to want to get rid of "Infected rights." Now they'll have a place to go and a reason to run the shadows if I can't get rid of PC Infected.

However: The Infected eat people. Giving them rights to eat other people is ludicrous. They're a late addition to the setting (except for ghoul rights, which goes back a ways, but vampire rights is as far back as Runner's Companion, and was as dumb an idea then as it is now, my personal feelings and respect for Bobby and Peter notwithstanding), and they can go away as easily as they were added. It just takes leverage.

I am working on levers in my copious unstructured free time.

I will say it over and over again: You don't have to like it. Your not liking it will in no way affect my attempting to do it. Odds are I will not get everything I want to do in this endeavor, but I'm going to make the most of the changes I do get to make.

So, the Infected eat people. More exactly, Essence. And Augmentation introduced Essence regaining therapy (involving handwavium). Is it just me, or did someone get carried away inventing this crap to create a potential justification for that one?

That's always the hard part of multiple hands at the rudder. The ship changes course all too often.

Yeah, I've gotta do something about that, too, now that you mention it. Ah, well, one thing at a time. Maybe it causes cancer, like program carriers did back in the day....

Oh, and not all of them eat Essence. Some of them, most of them, actually subsist on metahuman flesh as well.


You ain't just whistling "Dixie" there....

Considering the price tag and time constraints of those therapies, only a very marginal fraction of the infected would be able to take advantage of it and say 'see I don't harm anyone with my feeding'. Which means that 99% of them will will be stuck with the 'I kill peoples to feed' tag. Worse, a siginficant fraction of the infected are basically little-to-no-brained maneaters that will never look good on an 'infected rights' poster, not matter how much spin doctoring is applied.

Ooooooh, posters! I gotta remember to put posters in some of this stuff....

Would you want this eating your daughter? Help with the Licensed Ghoul Culling! Register at any City Hall or Post Office!

+1 Karma!

Well - not all of them do. Those that require blood or flesh aren't required to kill to get it, it just has to be from a metahuman. As far as Essence needs go, base loss is 1 point a month... that's not going to kill any "essence source" unless they're all cybered up.... and given the mystique surrounding some of those infected it's reasonable to believe they'd be able to find plenty of willing "victims" (even discounting the use of influence and alter memory).

That's not to say I think "Infected Rights" is terribly reasonable... people as a whole are easily frightened and swayed to prejudice so anyone seen as having a "infectious disease" that requires the victims to "feed on human flesh/blood" is going to get them quarantined at the very least... especially the ones who can infect you just by touching you (though I think writing it that way was a bit extreme... realistically HMHVV II and III would spread through every major city like wildfire)

My issue with having them as playable characters is that Regeneration is somewhat unbalancing and, while they may be drawn to the shadows, who's honestly going to want to hire them or even run with them barring other infected? Remember the degree of fear and prejudice against people with AIDS back in the 90's? Now imagine if those AIDS victims had to feed on other people (even just a little) to survive.... Vampire "mystique" might get you a hopeful goth here and there to keep your essence up but it isn't going to land you a job.

And, of course, as you said... there's already a game where you can play a vampire. I suspect the resurgence in interest in the genre is what triggered them being added as playable in the first place.

OK, the Infected don't eat people... THEY JUST EAT PEOPLE'S SOULS!

That's going to look well on the "Hug A Windigo" posters.

One more and I can get a specialty!
Moving back to topic, I can see Ghoul rights. They don't essence leech and don't need to kill to feed. The non-feral ghouls are people. I can easily see that bill not getting passed at all. Try to sell the image of an upstanding ghoul and humanis shows you a warehouse full of ferals. You ain't winning that fight.

I could see it as a "sick people are people too" kind of thing, where they're campaigning for humane treatment until a cure can be found. But being infected isn't "equal" in the sense that it's "okay" to be infected; just like people don't think that being disabled is a good thing, even though they support humane treatment of disabled people.

That, of course, is the nicest you can hope for: being considered a victim of a disease. If there was a cure, only wackos would want to remain a ghoul, and society might not tolerate that.

Vampires face tricky odds. Since they don't look quite as much like they're suffering, it's harder to be sympathetic. On the other hand, they can be somewhat glamorous, like gangsters or mob bosses - rationally, we know they're bad for society, but a lot of people think they're cool.

Oh yeah, CAS Humanis Policlub at its finest.

Dead people. So what?


What vampire rights? In some (unspecified) countries vampires may now register themselves for constant monitoring in exchange for not getting shot on sight. In other words, probably some weirdo countries like Amazonia or Yakut allow vampiric Infected who manage to get by without killing people to live, and will monitor them closely to make sure they stick to the rules...


And I will nevertheless voice my criticism if you bring it up here. Or do you expect only claqueurs?

That's kind of a blanket answer, and I'm not sure an entirely accurate one. Sure some of the Infected probably consume essence, flesh, blood or what ever in a civilized fashion. But I can't imagine in the Dystopian World as presented that there isn't a significant number that don't do that.

Now the rest of this is not specifically directed at Sengir, but is inspired by some of his comments:

Now, for the record, I'm not entirely in agreement with Patrick's position. I do think that as presented the Infected are kind of a mixed bag. I do not like removing options from the game-I think you should be able to play a Ghoul, maybe even a Vampire. But I think there should be real world style consequences for doing so. One of the things Shadowrun, and it's players, do a terrible job of in my opinion is giving reasoning as to why a team of pink mohawked criminals, with an ork who looks like a 15 year old dressed up as 75 year old cartoon character, and their buddy who carries his sword everywhere get hired by anyone to do anything.

I get why the punk aspect is there. I get the idea of individualism, and rugged assertive personalities. But frankly a lot of people who spend an awful lot of time seriously debating a lot of other things seem really willing just to hand wave that sort of thing. As someone who works in Law Enforcement, with a group of players who also work in the field, or work in professional fields that require a certain attire I get my views can be a little biased.

But yeah, I agree that sometimes the various metavariants and optional stuff is seen as too common place. How many hundreds of whacked out nut job characters have we all seen on this site? Now, absolutely I'd agree it's their table. They do what they see as fun. But yeah for my part I'd welcome some house cleaning-yeah there a lot of magical threats, but it seems like everyone here just assumes every citizen of the Sixth World logs onto Shadowland every day, which to me cheapens the game.

So beat on me if you have to, but I for one welcome some restrictions-but I do want those restrictions to be done in an exciting fashion. A clear and internally consistent fashion.

And of course the good news is if we don't like it, we won't use it. At my table you'd be pretty hard pressed to make a fringe character like a Vampire or Strawberry Shortcake Ork and live that long. And that's how we like it. Maybe at your table, or someone else's it's different.

Eh. The infected are just that, Infected.

Normally if you have a virulent disease, you quarantine the victims.

You don't let them roam free and allow them un-infected people flesh to eat.



-k

That's it exactly. Patients can ask for such rights as a clean hospital bed, but a right to infect other people or eat them isn't going to happen.

Never mind this "second generation not infectious" nonsense. Are we really going to risk public health with that? Who knows, it might become infectious again in conjunction with the flu.

Well, there's always Asamando... the Infected country

Depending on the fluff (or even certain rules), outlandish looking eye-catching people are so common they pass by unnoticed. Not really a view of the SR world I'm fond of but I can see some tables adopting it. As to who would hire them... in my view that would be the Fixer who they know from (insert back story here). I've never understood all this fluff about characters meeting the Johnson... the whole point of hiring a shadow runner is they are deniable anonymous assets. Meeting them (especially in the 6th world) would seem to nullify your reason for using them.

Personally I see shadow runners as somewhere between the characters from the TV show Leverage and the characters from the movie The Expendables.
Well, to be a little fair to the wacked out nutjobs... the runners are supposed to be the protagonists of the story; so as a singular metavariant or some other "alternative" (with a convincing back story to explain how they ended up running the shadows in whatever base city your campaign is in) then I'd say it fits. Now, if you were running in Seattle and your GM started throwing armies of Cyclops, Giants, and Minotaur at you then yea - that's abusing it. A table with a single Oni who fled to Seattle as a boy to escape the Yakuza who had killed his parents... that's fine. It seems "all too common" to us because we see characters from multiple tables... if this was an MMO, where all tables were part of one contiguous world, then I'd agree. Since each table is a unique version of the SR world unto itself then really they're fine.

Absolutely, but even those seem marginal to me. But then this is a personal preference thing-and I'd say our views aren't so different.



Agreed. We actually do just what you mentioned. The Fixer maintains a stable of employees. it's rare for my players to meet a Johnson. I think I get why it was built that way, a story telling technique.



If we keep agreeing we can't have an internet fight damn it!



Crap we still agree. Well so be it.

What's wrong with the 15-year old ork dressed as a 75-year old cartoon character?

Do I start alphabetically? Or do I go in the order of importance?

In all seriousness at their table? Nothing. And I appreciate the gal or guy who plays that character having a good sense of humor about it all.

Now back to my semi sarcastic answers: At my own table we'd laugh the player away from the table, and heap upon them scorn. Assuming the other players didn't straight up murder some character like this. (We wouldn't laugh. Seriously. But yeah I'm pretty sure they'd murder this character almost as fast as she showed up.)

How rude...
But a bullet to the back of the head would solve the problem quite nicely.

Remind me sometime to relay a story about a player who's character was a serial killer. That was a great arc...for those that lived...

Ghouls are not necessarily the ones vampires can turn to. Persecuted groups often kick down on others with similar problems, so maybe the GLL actually lobbies for a tougher stance on everything which has to drain living people. Given the eugenic leanings of their queen, Asamando seems even more likely to act like that.

I agree with this.

That's a good point... though Vampires and Nosferatu (and maybe Banshee) have an entire subculture of non-infected dedicated to their worship and look "nearly identical to regular humans." to boot so as long as they keep it to themselves (and don't get assensed) I suspect they can get along living in the shadows without too much difficulty.

The other infected however... I'd see them as near unplayable since they are easily spotted visually just going out in public. With the possible exception of Bandernatchii being all invisible and what-not.

An invisible (aka "it could be everyone") threat, a youth subculture which can be connected to that, it keeps getting better

GLL Spokesman: I have here in my hand a list of individuals in the State Department who are known to be secretly part of the vampire culture, yet continue to work there and shape its policy. Furthermore, I want to remind you that the head of the Ghoul Extermination League has not responded to repeated requests to prove that he was born 50 years ago and is not a 200 years old vampire from Kenya. Where is the birth certificate?


Cybereyes, Minor Biosculpting, Clean Metabolism bioware and you look perfectly fine. Not on the astral, but that is a problem many runners suffer from.

How's that?

Assensing detects cyber...

And most other things, depending on the # of hits.

I wouldn't consider having your cyber assenssed (or rather, lack of aura in those spots) necessarily a problem. It won't tell them what the cyber is, just that you have something there. Lots of people have cyber...

Meh. I'd say that you could tell a lot of things from location, and size. (Several of the novels make reference to just this sort of thing) And after a while experience would likely help too.