Hey there !

TL;DR: I tried to find a Karma value to the ghoul quality, in the event a runner gets infected in play. Can you tell me if it makes sense to you? See bolded numbers below

Let's say a player walks into a ghoul-infested underground network, a bit like the sewers where Reapers lurked in Blade II. Well, since HMHVV-III is so fraggin' contagious (at least according to 4th Ed.), almost any flesh wound is potentially going to infect the character. And this might lead to the whole transformation process becoming a hindrance (or a boon)... Given 5th Edition lack of rules for player character ghouls, the rulebook basically implies "turn them into NPCs", which I find highly unsatisfactory. This is a pretty anti-climactic story twist if the player has no choice in losing his/her character, and it makes no sense from the perspective ghoul NPCs might be well organized, talk, reflect upon moral dilemmas, ... you know are sapient.

Since ghouls and the other infected didn't suddenly disappear from the Shadowrun setting when 5th edition came, how do we represent a PC getting infected by -- let's say -- HMHVV-III (a.k.a. Krieger's Syndrome or Ghilani Wichtiviridae) ? If we only followed 5th Ed. rules, Ghouls can't even infect anyone (they don't have the Infection power), which makes no goddamn sense with the fluff !

Runner's Companion suggested, back in 4th Ed., a 35 BP /70 Karma cost to the Infected (Ghoul) Quality. This could be used as a sort of Karma "tax" for wanting to still play an infected ghoul character. You pay X karma, and you get to keep your runner. All would be fine and dandy, but the rules have somehow changed, and ghouls are a bit different, and arguably a bit more powerful too. So cost should somehow follow.

They gained, if I reverse engineer their stat block in SR5: +1 armor (power) and +1 Intuition, while losing nothing they had already.

This means the following total (assuming 3 stat points in each attribute for a standard human):

• Attributes: Body +4, Reaction +2, Strength +3, Willpower +2, Logic -1, Intuition +1, Charisma -2 (only Agility stays the same)
• Powers: Armor 1, Dual Natured, Enhanced Senses (Hearing, Smell; +2 DP & +1 Limit), Natural Weapon (Claws: DV(STR+1)P, AP –1), Sapience
• Weaknesses: Weaknesses Allergy (Sunlight, Moderate -4), Dietary Requirement (Metahuman Flesh), Reduced Senses (Blind)

Plus obviously a lot of RP elements and other non-numerical incommensurable effects.

I tried to take that and find a Karma value to that (assuming a 17,8 karma value benchmark for one stat point or equivalent PP spent by an Adept). Here's my calculation:

It's very very rough, but it's an attempt at getting an idea of how to cost ghouls.

Is 100 or 120 a reasonable Karma cost for a ghoul "quality" obtained during play? How do you "tax" players for keeping a ghoul character, given the bonuses it gets? How do you balance that?

Is it too munchkiny or is it too harsh? At 100 or 120 karma, is it too good to pass (obvious pick) or would you rather reroll another character, even if you liked the concept of playing a ghoul (too much)?

Thanks for any feedback. I'm obviously anxious for Run Faster, the 5th Ed. version of Runner's Companion, but meanwhile let's patch the holes.

P.S.: This is my practical attempt at solving what was discussed in this thread: http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?show...39374&st=25

If i would be you, i would stick to the SR4-reference. Becoming a ghoul costs 35 BP at character creation and therefore 70 Karma with the karma-system or in gameplay. If the Runners Companion of SR5 will later say something else, simply adjust the costs.

If i would be you, i would stick to the SR4-reference. Becoming a ghoul costs 35 BP at character creation and therefore 70 Karma with the karma-system or in gameplay. If the Runners Companion of SR5 will later say something else, simply adjust the costs. I don´t think that this needs any adjustments by yourself. Ghouls have a lot of pros, so the ingame flaws pay it off quite enough.

Personally, I'd judge it on how big an advantage it is. As Ghoulism (in 4th edition at least) only adjusted racial min/max and not actual attributes we had a chatacter who turned ghoul for who it was a wholy negative quality. He gained no stats, turned blind, had a flesh dependency etc. I thought it rude to charge him karma as well.

Hum, I hadn't read that text the same way... but now that you mention it...

Under that interpretation, it shouldn't cost anything being a ghoul, since there is enough flaws in and of itself. (According to my calculations, it should be the equivalent of at least 60 to 90 Karma in flaws...)




Well assuming attributes are "increased" accordingly, I just don't think 70 Karma is fair to other players... seems like a bing bang-for-your-buck kinda deal in terms of attribute bonuses.

The least controversial way to handle this is that Infection = NPC. That's how SR4 treated it until the splat books came out. *shrug*

~Umi

That is how we treat it even with the Splat books.

I treat Ghouls as sometimes intelligent, sometimes feral.

"Ghoul Cab: Pay Up Or Flambé!"

*Emphasis mine.

Yes, I'm well aware of the tendencies of a certain camp of GMs and players on these boards. I, however, was referring to the SR4 game system and the rules themselves. So far as the SR4 books are concerned, Infected are just another character option.

I've come to accept that Dumpshock is - in addition to being rather Black Trenchcoat, which I have no problems with - pretty much Anti-Infected in general. Fortunately, although adamant in their views, my fellow forum-goers who do strongly disagree with my own views on Infected PCs have thus far not been truly unwelcoming in their disagreeing, and so I continue to be content to count myself among this motley community's minority when it comes to Infected "philosophy".

But that's not the topic at hand, exactly...

~Umi

I did not claim otherwise... just pointed it out.
I have some interesting character ideas for infected characters, but they are just not appropriate for games with more than a single player involved. Infected just cause to many troubles when there are a group of disparate PC's. My opinion, of course, but I have yet to see it any different. Any time I have seen a PC Infected, they just caused problems. Problems often simply solved by the other PC's just offing the infected character.

I'll admit, the potential... sure, let's say "abuses"... of Infected PCs do make it so that they can make a campaign unfun for the rest of the team / players. But I don't think that's a problem on the concept side of the equation, but rather on the player side.

If your Infected lacks discretion, intelligence, and willpower, they simply won't survive long - either in the shadows, or at a game table. If they go around chopping people up for food willy nilly, they're gonna attract bad attention and then shortly thereafter bullets. If they abuse their Infected Powers, the same thing is gonna happen. If they play an Infected as an excuse to just be over-the-top violent, if they essentially go "power crazy" and act like Alucard from Hellsing Abridged and scream "Bitch, I eat people!" as they gleefully eviscerate corpsec guards and innocent bystanders alike, then they need to be put down.

Which is a shame, because whenever that happens, it further convinces people that Infected are somehow inherently unplayable, which is itself a shame because there is a lot of potential for really great roleplay, storytelling, and fun-having via Infected.

I will admit, the Infected seem to bring out the worst in certain people. If you've got a player whose in-game behavior is already borderline psychotic with their Ork street samurai, please don't let them play a Wendigo. If you've got a player who plays an Elf almost purely because they want to be a glamourous, brooding, "immortal", high-born, ultra deadly gentleman-ninja-assassin that's two steps away from just outright being named Drizzt Do'Urden, they really probably shouldn't be allowed to play a Vampire or Banshee. Basically, if a player only seems to be interested in being an Infected to be more powerful, more "badass", or less original, it should be nixed - as any other character type of that sort should be.

I do not believe, however, that there is inherently no place in a decent sized game for a well played Ghoul or Dzoo-Noo-Qua or other Infected. I grant you that much of the time, they are not well played. But given a player whom I had faith would play their Infected character well, adding to the game experience rather than detracting from it? What reason would any GM have to deny them, if they truly had such faith in the player?

~Umi

If anything, dual nature is a major negative: You are permanently vulnerable to attacks from the astral (and unless you can sling spells, the attacker can just hover outside arm's reach and you have no way of fighting back), stand out from most crowds, and ping off every magical barrier.

Believe it or not Umi I 100% agree with you. My point of view tends to stem from the fact that the way you like to play infected is a very rare occurance. This is why I tend to just ban them and instigate the rule that a vigorous application of Disinfectant miraculously stops all infection. The only time infection comers up is when the PC should have died anyway and it's just another way to send them out.

It's just weird to me that this particular section of the SR world seems to cause these particularly negative responses, both on the player side and the GM side of things.

What exactly is it about Infected that make people go off the deep end?

Is it that the Dietary Requirements and the Essence Drain and whatnot are often treated as an excuse for behavior that would otherwise never be permitted at a reasonable table? ("No, no - it's cool if I rip this guy's heart out with my bare hands and eat it in front of his family because I'm a ghoul.") Or is it that the rules for Infected have been historically vague, confusing, and often self-contradicting, and consequently players and GMs alike find it too hard to keep tabs on what they can and cannot do, and how to keep them from being powergamed or abused? ("Wait, your Power lets you do what? That can't possibly be right...")

Or maybe it's just the fact that base rules are already complicated enough without tossing in special exceptions for Infected? ("Damnit, I just spent ages learning the Hacking rules, no way I'm gonna take the time to make sense of the even-more-confusingly-written Infected rules...") Or maybe it's more that Infected characters just aren't played commonly enough, and consequently players and GMs alike don't know how to handle playing them? ("Uh, dude, I don't even have that rulebook.")

On the other side of the equation, what are Infected lacking to help them achieve a more... enlightened?... role within the Shadowrun community? For being at least as numerous as the Awakened are in terms of global population of the Sixth World, why are we so much more likely to encounter Mages and Adepts than we are to encounter Infected - not just in games, but also in the literature and even the rules themselves? Given how being Infected essentially forces you into the sort of desperate situation that breeds Shadowrunners, why are they not portrayed as a more active section of the underworld?

You'd think that a fair number of Infected would end up as Shadowrunners because the line of work suits their lifestyle needs, and yet there seem to be hardly any Infected shadowrunners. I get that they suffer from the negative stereotypes, I get that they're even hunted down in some parts of the Sixth World, but in a line of business where being subtle, being deadly, and having magic on your side are some of the most important factors to survival, you'd think the people whose most basic needs force them into being subtle, deadly, and using their magical powers to greatest effect would find a niche in which to flourish a little.

If there were some way to reduce or remove the complications of Infected PCs, would more GMs and players alike become more accepting of the Infected as an option for roleplay and storytelling? If they were treated as a more prevalent part of the setting (which, by canon they really should be, being as populous as the Awakened if not even more so), would that help to change perceptions? Does anyone besides me and a few others even care about the issue? (Setting aside the matter of current potential for abuses and whatnot, of course.)

And if people don't care, why even have Infected in the setting any longer? Why not just write them out of the canon and world lore completely when 6th Edition comes around? If the only point of having Infected is to have disposeable "monsters" to fight, isn't that the height of unoriginality and cliché? Why not just make them full on Zombies at that point?

~Umi

Thanks Umi, btw. I was afraid to bring the topic:



I remember people telling me playing a Fomori was a great idea, but a ghoul was off limits, a bad idea, a strategic/social mistake. And I was like... eh, ok, why?

I find it quite sad on these forums that almost every thread talking about or mentioning ghouls *as PCs* becomes a debate "for" or "against" them *as PCs*. It seems like a controversial topic since, at least 2010, since I registered on these boards (I just checked back). Is it just me thinking these "ghoul", or Infected in general, thematic elements appear in quite a lot of cyberpunk-like media/mangas/animes/movies/games, etc.? The whole transhuman philosophical questionning, what is it to be human, moral dilemmas and yadda yadda? What's wrong with them in Shadowrun, it's not as if the whole "playing a monster theme" wasn't a popular trope?



Touché. And if in SR http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main...rcsAreDifferent, then http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main...ersAreDifferent .

Dietary is slightly offputting to many, personally I have no issue with it as I have eaten my share of long pig in certain situations, but the main issue with ghouls was the infection vector, being contact.

Unlike Vamps and others with HVHMM I, which required using the Infection power, HVHMM III is much more virulent and thus easier to be spread. Get a scratch or bite and if you are not able to purge/treat it fast enough you can end up dead or as a ghoul.

In the case of the vampire, the act is intentional while with the ghoul it is more happenstance.

Ironically most people are more upset by the latter, it is the same mentality you would have if you were near someone suffering from an awakened Ebola or another highly infectious virus/disease while being quite ok around the guy with the STD.

It is not necessarily reflecting badly on the person, rather they are concerned for their own well being as they can avoid sexual contact with the latter, while just contact with the former can be fatal or worse.

Now I recall Patrick has said they are tweaking the infection vector a bit to be not quite so uber-contagious so that may mitigate some of the hate.

It also became an issue if one player pays for the ghoul trait and other players see getting infected as a free upgrade. Silly I know, but you see all sorts, but that is an issue for the individual GMs and parties to deal with.

I think playing an infected character is not "much" different than playing a "common" archetype. Of course the potential power-level might be a bit higher, but also the potential drawbacks (in-game social disadvantages, hunted and outlawed in most countries, etc.) outpass the advantages quite quick...IF YOUR GM CAN HANDLE THEM!!! If he lets you run around the city enjoying your blood-lust without greater consequences, he of course has a problem with infection.

I started playing SR with a zero-rule-conform-shapeshifter 20 years ago, which obivously caused a "critter-trauma" on my GM. So also in our group everything besides the standard-classes is basically a no-go. But as a powergamer i like the concept and think that it can be a great opportunity and challenge for a real good role-player. Currently i am planning a female Nosferatu character with a 10-year old daughter, that was a magical doctor and passionate chef/cook before her forced transformation. She has the pacifist-handicap and the only thing she wants, is to stay undetected so that she can raise her daughter. If you play a character like this, your GM doesn´t even have to think how he can keep you under control. But if your fantasy doesn´t go any farther than "i play a ghoul because of the stats and i like to start a carnage" THEN you deserve being hunted down. ^^

Those are all kind of non-issues, though, Sendaz.

The Dietary Requirements are "off-putting"? Really? In a world where underage girls are routinely turned into literal sex puppets via unanesthetized chopshop surgery? (Players witness an example of this firsthand in a certain Missions campaign.) Shadowrun is already full of really messed up stuff.

Cannibalism is clearly pretty bad, but it's hardly the only part of the setting that could be called "off-putting". Yet how often do people complain about the other stuff, or try to excise it wholesale from the game and universe purely on principle? I mean sure, you adapt things to suit your table - if you don't like doing wetwork, or kidnapping someone's loved ones as political leverage, or ruining innocent lives as collateral damage, then you don't have to have any of that in your sessions. But the same is true of Infected - if your table is too squeamish to handle ghouls munching on people, then hey, you don't have to have them at your particular table. I just don't see how it's an argument against Infected specifically.

I will concede, for a long time the Contact vector made Ghouls unintentionally absurdly dangerous. But that has been stated to have been unintended, it has currently been Errata'd in 4E, and it's (allegedly) going to be avoided outright in 5E when the splat books hit. It was essentially a bug, and that bug has now been patched.

And as for becoming Infected as a "free upgrade", that's not how things work. If you gain a new Positive Quality in play, you MUST pay for that quality. If you get turned into a Ghoul, you pay the Karma costs necessary to afford the Quality - even if you have to go negative to do so, preventing you from spending any karma until you pay off your "debt" and get back into the positive. To my knowledge, this is how it's always worked with Infected qualities in play.

Clearly people have some issues with Infected. But it's also clear that not all of the one cited are actually legitimate issues. Moreover, I think most of the really substantial issues are ones people tend to not be consciously and actively aware of. Such is typically the nature of biases.

~Umi

Very well said, and an excellent example of how to make an Infected character compelling and interesting to play with.

~Umi

Not sure if you are being obtuse or sarcastic but we will address the points.

You asked for why many players seem to hold such a grudge against the Infected and I provided a few points that have been raised both here in DS and Jackpoint as well as personal experience with other players over the years. I do not necessarily agree with any or all of them, but I did provide them so calling them non-issues is sort of dismissive. You asked for reasons of why players/characters had such hate. We fulfilled that request.

Most of those underage girls being turned into sexbots are also not part of the team and sadly are not too high on the runner's list of concerns. There are hundreds to thousands of dreadful things going on, but most of it only impacts on the players to a certain degree and thus falls under their radar or are just background 'flavour text'.


Ask most players who have a bad attitude toward ghouls and often their first response will be they don't particularly care for someone who is watching their back to possibly be sizing them up as a snack. It doesn't have to be logical or make sense. Most ghouls running the shadows are not feral mindless beasts and certainly are not trying to take a chunk out of their partners, but the inate fear of predator/prey is not so lightly dismissed. It is not unlike the silly belief by some straight men that all gay men want to have intercourse with said straight men(most of whom couldn't get a date with the gay guy even if they wanted to) because there is this myth that said gay person somehow can not control themselves. It is an inane and stupid concept, but is still prevalent in some parts of society. Because it can impact on the runner directly it climbs the chart of concern considerably. Again we clearly stated that we did not hold to such a silly bias ourselves, but merely acknowledged what has been posted on many forums and at tables already concerning this issue. It is not unlike the dragon/metahumanity relations, many feel it is difficult to deal in the long term with an entity which ultimately thinks you are crunchy and tasty with ketchup. Which is totally absurd as any good chef knows you use mayo on dragon, not ketchup.

And with it hopefully we will see a bit more playability for the ghoul as it won't carry that same stigma as well as less worries about rampant infection. But that does not make it any less an issue. A person who has HIV is treated differently by many people around them, even though the actual possibility of transmission under normal day to day circumstances is negligible. A absurd bias is no less an issue for it being absurd. It is why you have to educate people, granted sometimes with a big stick.

I am aware of how qualities gained in game work thank you.
*sighs* perhaps the term free upgrade was not the best term, but I would also like to point out this situation was back in 3rd edition when ghouls were still shiny to the players and yes you could pay building points to start as a ghoul and got a bonus to your roll to keep your stats, with a small chance of even getting a free point of willpower out of the deal (pg 33 of Shadowrun Companion 3rd edition), but being infected later was still possible and you had to do your rolls to retain mentality with a good chance of becoming mindlessly feral and thus pretty much an NPC. I have sat at more than one table where the players were literally debating intentionally letting themselves get infected post chargen and risk the rolls even with a 10 pt cost for negatives tagged on because they seriously thought the tradeoff could come out with them ahead for it, hence the alluding to 'free' though perhaps the better term from their point of view was 'statistically economic'. Silly and more than a bit of munchkining but it doesn't mean it didn't exist, it is something players will theorycraft about. Most of them dropped it in the end, but it could just as easily have swung the other way as one group did go that route and had a blast being the 'Ghouls Gone Wild', bringing new meaning to the term man-eater, which was disturbing on so many levels. They even had an black market calendar with centerfolds...


Again we come back around to your simply dismissing them as 'non-issues' out of hand. You asked for some of the issues players/characters have. You have countered the points themselves admirably showing the flaws in these issues and why they should not be held against ghouls, but it does not remove them from being issues in and of themselves that players/characters will and are having with the ghouls.

If you want to pull a RHat and hold the issues to some obscure 'test' that only you understand and can qualify the answer as being a valid issue or not, just let us know in advance so we can avoid bothering to reply to what we thought was an actual discussion only to find you are just looking for the Sheep.

Honestly Umi, it's not any one thing that a lot of people don't like about infested. I think almost everything you've said as examples conbtribute to why I don't like them. I think there's a couple of others as well.

1) I don't like GM'ing or playing in groups where the party looks is a zoo. I don't know why exactly. Maybe it's some kind of minor, deep seeded, subconscious form of racism? Maybe it's because I'm usually never a fan of the reasons why people choose to play them? It's not just Shadowrun. In DnD and Pathfinder I can't stomach parties full of minotaurs and 1/2 dragons. It just cheapens the experience.

Reason 2) is that I think you tend to get too much bang for your buck out of infected templates. We've discussed this before and won't dwell on it too much but in general I find that players are picking the template for powers and explaining it as roleplaying exploration. Funny how the roleplaying tends to always lean towards the super badass stereo-type, rather than the magical chef with children type as given above (who happens to be a badass as well?)

I just don't find the 'interesting options' reason that compelling. We hear from players all the time that the want to explore psycho-social issues playing an infected character, but why not just play an elf dealing with the 2075 version of HIV/AIDS? I just find that with 5 existing baseline races, an archetype system with no classes you're (the general player base) really not that creative if you feel you can't come up with an interesting concept unless it is a vampire/free spirit.

I'm actually open to people floating ideas of interested infected characters past me in my games, but in 25 years of Shadowrun I've yet to see one where the primary reason wasn't to play a badass with regenration and/or immunity to normal weapons + others.

@Sendaz

Hang on now, let's not jump the gun here. I'm genuinely interested in this, and I'm not going to dismiss anything "out of hand". Don't worry.

You bring up a good point about the bunraku issue - id est, that you aren't playing and running the shadows with bunraku dolls (typically). That's a good observation and I kick myself for having missed it. But that said, how exactly does it reframe the whole "off-putting" discussion?

It does seem to demonstrate that that particular example doesn't mirror the Ghoul issue well enough to be comparable. So, now I'm trying to think of what would be comparable. What's the core of the "off-putting" problem? Is it the nature of ghouls? Or is it their behavior?

You bring up the topic of shadowrunners being afraid of being backstabbed by Infected allies. I'd like to in turn bring up the fact that you don't have to be Infected to backstab someone, and that if you're a good enough runner to tell if you should trust someone with your life, it won't matter if they're Infected or not. The threat of betrayal is part of being a Shadowrunner, and there's really no logical reason why someone's level of suspicion of a teammate would change purely based on whether they were Infected or not.

Of course, you do make a valid point about human nature - people often respond emotionally instead of logically, and that's going to have a significant impact on Infected relations. Yet I feel this only addresses one aspect of the problem. For one thing, not every Runner is going to have the same emotional response to the Infected. Your character may have extensive personal history with the Infected that has eroded most of the fears they might have had. Or maybe they're highly logical and cerebral, and consequently aren't prey to emotion-based paranoia. Or maybe they are incredibly emotional about the Infected, but it runs the other way - they see them as victims of a terrible human tragedy and seek to help them, in the way some people put themselves at risk to help rabid dogs. People aren't all instantly hardwired to just go grab their shotguns, ya know.

And anyway, shouldn't these sorts of "in-world" reasons ultimately be subserviant to our "out-of-world" metagame reasons? You're playing a game with your friends, or at least with like-minded people. Surely you should be able to reconcile "in-world" problems with Infected in order to suit "out-of-world" play? If your buddy wants to play as a Ghoul, mere "in-world" problems shouldn't stand in his way. After all, how many people insist on rolling a 1 on a 100 sided die before allowing themselves to play as one of the Awakened? No, if you want to play a Mage, you just play a mage! It doesn't matter that they're remarkably rare "in-world". You can hand-wave it away.

Likewise, it doesn't matter that someone is Infected, in your campaign you can just explain away why the team trusts their Ghoul buddy however you want. Now, granted, that's not to say that you should also then go on to ignore the "in-world" problems of being a Ghoul. Certainly, any PC Infected should have to cope with the "in-world" effects of being a Ghoul - such as facing negative modifiers on Social Tests and evoking various responses from NPCs within the game world. But ultimately, such "in-world" factors should only influence "out-of-world" decisions in as much as they make the game more or less fun, or difficult (or whatever else) to play. It should be something that the player in question should take into consideration, and that they should have a proper understanding of how it will impact their play, but it by no means should be a hard and fast blanket disqualifier.

As for the topic of the powergaming, munchkinning, and other negative player behaviors, I understand that you've personally had some negative experiences with those problems in the past, but I have to argue that your problem here isn't with Infected - it's with powergaming and munchkins. If those same players had been abusing some other aspect of the rules in order to behave attrociously in-game, it'd be every bit as problematic as doing the same thing with Ghouls.

My point is you shouldn't throw out the baby with the bathwater. The fact that Infected can be Munchkinned is no excuse to just throw out Infected wholesale, because then you'd need to throw out everything else that can be munchkinned. It's like blaming real world violence on video games - if you honestly believe that violence in video games somehow causes real world violence, you also have to believe that violence in movies, television, books, songs, bedtime stories, and all other forms of media and entertainment does the same thing.

Of course, that's not to say that we should nothing either. Powergamers, munchkins, and toxic players are a legitimate problem. I just feel it needs to be handled in other, more judicious ways - both in terms of making better rules and game systems that are harder to abuse, and in terms of combatting these troublesome behaviors at the community level, discouraging negative player interaction while simultaneously promoting positive interaction instead.

This is a complex issue. I don't mean to suggest or imply that I fully understand it, or that I somehow have all the answers. But at the same time, I do believe that certain of the reasonings that have been presented so far have, at least my mind, seemed somewhat lacking or misplaced. I'd like to discuss them further, but what I do not want is for people to feel like criticism equals damnation. I might find fault with an argument, but I myself might also be wrong. Let's all keep an open mind here, please.

~Umi

@Smash

Interesting comments on the "just not liking" the more outlandish character types. I've heard that same sentiment before, and typically with the same caveat that the person who feels that way can't quite pin down why. It puzzles me deeply.

As for your second point, though, about the balance of Infected? I've said as much on these forums before, but I have two objections to that argument.

The first is that game balance can always be tweaked. Rules can be changed, rewritten, errata'd, and even house-ruled. If the problem truly lies with the balance of power for Infected, then we should be taking the time to identify in what ways Infected are overpowered and be discussing ways to rectify those imbalances.

My second objection is that, having seen the accusation of being overpowered leveled against the Infected numerous times, I've actually looked into the Infected rules at length and in depth. In 4E, at least, I've actually found that most Infected characters are point-for-point underpowered compared to more conventional character types. The costs at character generation are massive, and the comparative benefits gained for those costs are pretty lackluster until 1) a character reaches quite high levels of karma advancement and 2) a character builds specifically to maximize the potential of their benefits via synergy.

It ends up being a pretty stiff tradeoff by my calculations - you start out a campaign almost cripplingly weak comparatively, and in exchange you can end up very strong down the road - but not that much stronger than a Mage with the same karma. Moreover, in order to eventually attain that great strength you need to pay significant opportunity costs along the way, making for a very unrounded character that will struggle to keep pace with their allies for a long period of time. If you (and your game sessions) survive long enough (and if you build properly), yes, you can become quite powerful indeed. But getting there isn't going to be easy by any stretch of the imagination, and most games honestly don't run long enough for it to happen.

Of course, if you doubt my calculations you can always run your own, or compare mine to those of others who have done the same. I know for a fact I'm not the only one who has run the numbers and come to this paricular conclusion on the comparative power and the value thereof of Infected characters in 4E, and it should be relatively easy to find points of comparison.

~Umi

What do you mean WAS?

Yes, you can not eat cooked meat, but a good chef does not have to give up her culinary skills just because of a slightly altered digestional system.

You can still marinade/season those brains & other bits and there are some lovely recipes using the carrion shrooms for flavour that are simply to die for.

As a fellow chef I say pick that cleaver back up, dust off the spice rack and bring back the magic to the kitchen.

Child rape is something which reliably gets people scrambling for the pitchforks, but nevertheless remains far out there for most (thank deity). A human delighting on rotting meat plucked from a dug up corpse, which is how ghouls are often portrayed, is a much more graphical scenario since everybody knows his share of food horrors. Which is why "my" ghouls share the same revulsion of rotten meat as anybody else, they like their steak tartar but not the special "ripe" kebab.

I kind of agree with that sort of thinking, Sengir, and I think it's a shame that (non-feral, at least) Ghouls are so often potrayed so two-dimensionally.

Personally, I'm a fan of the recent fiction with Hannibelle - I feel she's very well written and a reasonably realistic portrayal of how a person might cope with becoming Infected. She's a highly conflicted person, caught between her revulsion at what she has to do to survive and her desire to not just "stick a pistol in her mouth", to paraphrase her own words. She's certainly not just some inhuman beast that delights in rending people limb from limb, as most ghouls are portrayed.

~Umi

You mean apart from the "who would have known, the ghoul who is working for Tamanous also gets her food from there" pseudo-relevation?

I actually hadn't read that bit yet. I unfortunately don't own Storm Front myself, I've only been able to read the Hidden Stories and a few other bits over the shoulder of one of my SR buddies who does have SF.

~Umi

Then you may want to look over the 'Sleeping with the Enemy' Section (pg 133 - 143 SF) in SF from your buddy when you get a chance. Hannibelle does a section talking about some of the changes namely:

Increased sensitivity to sunlight. It's not burst into flame level but it is more painful and I just happen to have a truckload of SPF300 if you know anyone needing it.

Increased hunger pangs. While not necessarily having to increase amounts eaten, going without or running on minimum is painful and seems to bring out the feral side much quicker than before, making it much harder to play a noble Infected who limits his intake to bare minimums. So keep a few lady's fingers in the snack pack on the utility belt.

Infected with Regen are having it messing with cyberware again, even Delta grade, and violently expelling it in some cases. No hard game stats yet, but we suspect either they will not be getting cyber going forward or will be paying more for it essence wise. Remember in 3rd, ghouls could get cyber but had to pay double ess for it, so there is precedence for this, but again no set stats for this effect for the various Infected in general or specific yet.

Ratio of normal to feral ghouls is starting to drift a bit toward increased feral though still a small part thankfully, but it could mean a change is coming.

The ghoul nation of Asamondo is outed as having had contracts with some corps basically trading their natural mineral resources for human stock to be slated for their food larders, supposedly condemned criminals but who is to say what qualified as criminal in their starting corp. When you have a quota to keep, someone has to fill it and it is a quiet way to clear out dead weight in some departments, plus you never did like Bob in Accounting anyway....

Also turns out they keep a lot of feral ghouls hidden away underground and out of normal sight, probably to keep the PR image of a more civilized ghoul nation. Which sort of goes to hell when the UN inspection team and a fair chunk of the prisoners(aka walking ghoul chow) gets wiped out by them. At the time Asamondo was claiming a ratio of only 1 in 17 ghouls being feral, being the the lowest globally while the CAS and UCAS sits at around 1 in 11 ghouls being feral, but with the revelation of the hidden feral ghouls the Asmondo rato is probably closer to 1 in 9 being feral. Isn't number juggling grand?

The revealing of a mixed Infected group dubbed 'Fear the Dark', exact agenda unknown but extremely hostile and is setting back attempts for Infected Rights with mass and serial killings with a general ratcheting up of the fear factor toward the Infected.

I was planning an interesting infected character. I wanted to make a Ghoul face who was a ghoul rights activist, had a real Azmondo (?) SIN and spent all of his downtime campaigning for rights for sentient ghouls, delivering food, starting rallys etc.

Haven't got to play him yet, and maybe never will now we're switching to SR5 (until infected rules come out at least).

That particular bit is actually from SL, and it's not like you missed out anything. Because like I said, the big boo-freaking-hoo moment we are supposed to be all shocked about is something entirely ordinary for a character who was already known to be a ghoul and aligned with Tamanous.

Maybe Africa should'nt be the only continent with a Goul nation maybe they can be everywhere as a Nation/State.

She quit working in an official hospital, because the risk of being detected was too high (regular blood-tests etc.). She still works on a regular basis in a small doctor’s office (mostly to verify that she has a regular job and her ex-husband stands no chance to take her parental authority) but her real passion is cooking / baking. I choose her to be a Nosferatu, because this kind of infection still can eat and drink regular food (even though she needs blood additionally).

A natural antagonistic relationship between infected and non.....

It's almost too easy for everyone to marginalize one for the benifit of the other.

simultaneous post....

nm

No Sendaz... It is M and THEN N, not he other way around.

That's the whole point of this thread. Getting a temporary consensus on which rules would work, unofficially, until "until infected rules come out at least".

Would you let people get the stat bonuses if they became ghouls post-chargen? (i.e. +4 BOD, +2 REA, etc.)

If not, would you give the ghoul quality for free?

If yes, is 70 Karma enough to make it balanced?

At my table, if characters become ghouls during play, it would most likely be, situational and not necessarily by desire. I am not a friend of making every character development a matter of payment (be it Karma or credit). So if I confront a player with his character becoming a ghoul (and it would not be a pleasure), I would not go so far, as to demand 70 Karma for something, that just happend or may have been provoked by me or may even be the result of good roleplaying, and so on.

Maybe it is, because I grant myself the luxury of playing in closed campaigns and mostly with friends, that I can say, that points and costs are highly overrated, in so many games and communities sorrounding them.

I get that that's the point of the thread, but for me it wouldn't make a very good 'first character' to experience Shadowrun 5. We all converted SR4 characters but they come out a lot more powerful than chars built in SR5 so we're all making new ones for our first few runs.

I would say if you're not giving the stat bonuses (except when they fall outside the new min/max) then don't charge karma. If you do give stat bonuses, which I think is probably better, then I still wouldn't charge karma up front. Let it play out and see how powerful it makes the blind, dual natured character. If it seems to be massively positive then I would charge a karma tax rather than have the character's next 70 karma off him. Maybe a 10 or 20% karma penalty until you decide enough has been paid. As Isath said, the points and costs are overrated and not always necessary in a home game.

Just a note on Karma Debt... At our table we have played it that anyone in debt to the GM loses about 1/2 of their earned karma to the debt until it is paid in full. The other half is awarded as normal for (slow) character advancement. It's a little more book-keeping but has worked very nicely for our group. All four characters in the group have karma debt.

KarmaKard™

Whether your tripping through the Astral or paying off a soul debt after that big Poker game in the La Grande Risqué I know I am always covered by my KarmaKard™.

Don't leave your home plane of existence without it.

I would take one. Gimme 1.000 karma, long-term loan because i solely play elves. ^^

LOL, more like at creation take latent awakening, Latent Dracomorphosis, and become infected (for one of the two not taking the Dracomorphosis). The 4th ended up being given several unique items with the option to instantly bond to them and go into karma debt for the bonding.

It’s not like we "took out karma loans" per se, they were done to the characters (mostly by choice).