And tonight on "This is why we can't stream Shadowrun" - our intrepid team (this is my Wednesday group, a Black-Trenchcoat style detective agency/Shadowrun team) come across a bunch of local kids who have found a cyberdeck, recovered from a decker that died on a corporate run. They were using it to create all kinds of havoc in the local area, putting low-res porn on the scoreboard at the baseball park, making the washing machines at the local laundromat dump *all* of the detergent in at once, making the treadmills at the local health club go to 40mph mid-way through a workout and catapult the people off the back... the only really dangerous stuff they did was accidently hack an x-ray machine at the local dentist to be 'always on, max power' which cooked two people.

And when the team found the 14 year old script kiddy and his 6 year old ork friend, they brutally beat them, tortured them for information and then shot them...so there were no witnesses for the team grabbing the deck.

So yeah... that's why we can't stream Shadowrun. Again.

What war crimes have your players committed that would prevent you from steaming your games on most commercial platforms?

I can say that my players sometimes exhibit the "Hold his toes in the fire, till he talks!" attitude if someone's holding back Critical, Need-To-Know Information™. Pain and Mind Probe spells are likely to be employed. Granted, they don't immediately jump to that, but if someone's being stubborn...

I'm not entirely sure it's the worst, but in chapter II of the Mauvais Présage [Bad Omen] campaign that is featured in the SOX sourcebook french edition, the job is to transport a human heart (in a medical container) inside the SOX to trade for infomation with a local fixer that need a transplant.

The way the adventure is written, the employer does provide the heart and the job is only to transport it. I started explaining the deal and before I could finish my players were asking if the employer could provide the needed medical information for them to find a compatible heart and where was the nearest hospital where they could steal a medical container. To their defense, they quickly all agreed that if possible they should take the heart of someone "no one would regret, like a middle-aged McDonald's manager for instance. A single one."

Violence against children, gall dang. That's explicitly forbidden when I GM. Have the players never heard of Laés and Leäl? Those can neutralize a witness without resorting to core international crimes.

I've had players go Temple of Doom on bad guys to make sure they don't come back. Oh, and there's the taking of heads to claim bounties on the Infected. That usually means I have to mark things Mature.

Well as long as your players are finde with that that's your prerogative.



Have you taken time to look at the availibility TNs and delivery times?
Have you considered the possibility that there are players with characters that don't even have the proper connections to get these particular drugs?

I'm trying to remember the last campaign of mine in any system that would have passed this test.

I've run a lot of World of Darkness (original flavour, not the latest style) and that was never safe for any kind of general audience.

I've run a lot of fantasy (in the last decade, mostly HackMaster 5 - the closest fantasy system to Shadowrun in my opinion) and hideous fates for all and sundry abound.

And my Shadowrun campaigns have a tendency to depict themes that bed-wetting, pearl-clutching, neo-victorian, anal-retentive, emotionally incompetent, socially retarded, pathetic, neurotic, mentally fragile, passive-aggressive, narcissistic, backbiting, mutually masturbating, whining, nagging, worthless little fascists find "troubling" and use as fuel for their relentless sniffling crusades.

But I may be biased.

I'd say my group tends more towards unintentional fridge horror -- it's not that that bad and not intended to be, until you take a moment to think about what you really just did. Firing K-10 plus DMSO at random passersby to create a distraction is a fun idea, but realistically, you'd just have caused several spree killings...

I had a campaign where the idea was to get them to say "no" to their fixer as he offered increasingly morally repugnant work.

Lost a little faith in humanity there.

These days I give players a bonus disadvantage (which doesn't count against the chargen disadvantage limit) of a basic level of morality, if not a slightly higher one for a bit of at least reluctant heroism. It all goes over better with a few points.