Help - Search - Members - Calendar
Full Version: Does shadowrun need white and black hats?
Dumpshock Forums > Discussion > Shadowrun
Pages: 1, 2
Cynic project
So, why do you think that black and white hats should or shouldn't be in shadowrun.
mfb
QUOTE (Cynic Project)
No, as no group of people on a large scale does anything it thinks evil.

the brain-weasles are strong with this one.
paul_HArkonen
In life, (and I realize Shadowrun isn't truly real life) there are no true good guys and bad guys. There are the people you agree with and the people you disagree with.

I personally think that Shadowrun ought to be the same.
mfb
oh, there are definitely black hats in real life. for instance, human trafficking wouldn't be such a huge business, worldwide, if there weren't people out there who just plain didn't care about their fellow humans. there are white hats, too, though those are possibly a bit rarer. most of the world fits into one shade of grey or another, but that doesn't mean there isn't black and white at either end of the spectrum.
Crimsondude 2.0
I find this as an intriguing question only since there are no white hats in SR, nor have their been for the last 15 years.

So why bother now?
Cynic project
As I haven't posted on the forums for 15 years,and I see people who do not share the same views as me or others on the major plots?
Kagetenshi
I voted no, without them the world is more gritty. I also love the Horrors plot. Draw your own conclusions.

~J
Skeptical Clown
QUOTE
No, as no group of people on a large scale does anything it thinks evil.


What a puzzling statement. I suppose it's true, but it seems inconsequential too. The morality of a group doesn't make for very compelling drama. Conflicts of good and evil are really interesting only on the personal level. And on that note, I think everyone in a Shadowrun game probably has the capacity for evil; it's less clear if anyone truly has the capacity for good. Should there be truly vile and evil people in Shadowrun? I think so; it's necessary to throw the lesser evils of the shadowrunner into context.

By the same token, I think it's also useful to occasionally use people who are more good than the runners, but much more sparingly. It's useful sometimes to throw the various heinous acts a shadowrunner commits into perspective, and possible give the characters something to think about. That kind of glimpse is much easier to overuse, though, because using it constantly just turns the runners into the real bad guys.
Club
QUOTE
No, as no group of people on a large scale does anything it thinks evil.


No, but they might be willing to do something expedient, or for the greater good. From the outside, or from a different perspective, that is evil.

For example, does anyone doubt that the SR Japanacorps use child labor in the countries that the empire dominates, like the Philippines used to be?

For a decent justification of using the homeless in the barrens for medical test subjects, see Here

And just in case you want justification of something worse, read the rest of the story.

And let us not get started on organized crime. "Just business", "Nothing Personal" indeed
Fix-it
QUOTE (Cynic project)
So, why do you think that black and white hats should or shouldn't be in shadowrun.

Ignoring the fact that this question doesn't make much sense at face value,
Yes, I believe that White hats have a place, in fact a lot of the main characters that frequent shadowland ARE White Hats. I'm not going to give any examples, as digging through half the SBs and quoting them is not my idea of fun.

But there's that whole "be nice" attitude that Capt Chaos enforces that makes me think he's at least half and half.
Kanada Ten
What's the question?
iPad
Guessing at what this post is about, every runner is essentually bad.

I like to think about rpg characters in the DnD alinement system, runners are definately chaotic, 99% arent good and a chunk are evil. Playing anything else is silly imho.
Voran
On some levels, I suppose I find the lack of examples of 'good' in the SR universe rather disheartening. It comes across that people in SR don't even bother with pretense, its flat out everyone for themselves. Ulterior motive? Nowadays it means hiding some agenda behind a nice face. In SR, its hiding your secret selfish motive behind another selfish motive you're using for cover nyahnyah.gif

Possibly due to my experiences gaming with various people over the years in regards to SR, you don't have 'heroics' like are possible in DnD. You don't even have "I'm a rascal rebel Han Solo type fighting the system". Its more like "Whats my next gear? Is that guy in my way? Kill em."
paul_HArkonen
Here's the thing, think about people in real life, really think about them for a second, are they interested in the greater good, or themselves?

Even those people who we think of a "good" people, (honest priests, people who donate a large portion of their income to charity, people who do random acts of kindness) they do it because it makes them feel good. Even those "good" people do those "good" acts for the warm fuzzy feeling that they get inside themselves.

Secondly is the question of absolute morality. Morals are not absolute, what I think is "good" may be totally different from what you think is "good". Human beings have no absolute sense of right and wrong, nature vs. nurture, and I'm afraid most of the evidence points to nurture. People aren't inherently good or evil, even "bad" people aren't inherently evil. True pure evil is something mad up by fiction writers to sell their book. People don't act "evil" for its own sake, they act "evil" because they think it's the best thing for them to do at the time. They aren't "evil" they just have a different motovation in life.

You can't put hat's on real people, to do so is to arbitrarily decide who's morals are better, and no man or woman has the right to decide that. Even if God exists, and that is a discussion for a different time, each person must follow his or her impression of what God wants human beings to do in the world. He or she must then face judgement at whatever time it is rendered. You can't classify Human beings into good and bad, to do so is to decide "I'm better than you are". And it's things of that nature that lead to racism and genocide, and I Personally don't want to see those things grow.

To put Black and White hats into Shadowrun games is to further de-humanize NPCs. A GM already has a hard time gettting players to think of NPCs, or heck, even their PCs, as human. To put a hat on them takes them even further from the goal of making them "real".

To sum this whole long arguement up "Hat's don't exist in the real world, and if you want any humanity in your game they shouldn't exist there either."
iPad
But thats why SR is great, every other system I play my character is either 'normal' or good. A chance to be naughty and subversive is awesome.

I've just started playing DnD Ebron with my many not-sr group, and Ive desided to play a dodgy character (as have two of the others), alot more like a sr one. I think its going to be fantastic fun :E
Kanada Ten
QUOTE
To sum this whole long arguement up "Hat's don't exist in the real world, and if you want any humanity in your game they shouldn't exist there either."

Hats most certainly do exist in the real world. They maybe arbitrarily placed on another's head, but the vast majority of people do believe that they are good and someone else is evil. Just ask George Bush or Osama Bin Laden; you'll get vastly different answers as to who is evil, but both will agree it exists and that they are good. To have a world devoid of people who think they are good is bad fiction.
paul_HArkonen
Certainly, but to have absolute hats is wrong, to have everyone say Bin Laden is "evil" or to even merely say, "Bin Laden is the definition of evil" is wrong. Hats, as I see them, aren't a question of perception, its a question of fact. So to tie it to Shadowrun, if the GM were to merely say "It is God's truth that corporations and all who work for them are evil" that would be putting them in a black hat. However, to say "You see corporations as evil because ... (take your pick of resons why)" isn't putting a hat on them, it's just how a person percieves them.

Hat's are an absolute, and even in your own post "Just ask George Bush or Osama Bin Laden; you'll get vastly different answers as to who is evil, but both will agree it exists and that they are good" you say that no absolute good and evil exists. Thereby hats, moral absolutes, don't exist.
Stumps
um....SR runs on the concepts of Anti-Heros.

Batman, Punisher, and Deadpool are more commonly realatable to SR characters than Superman, Thor, and Spiderman (which all do well for comparing to D&D characters).

Anti-Heros, by their very nature, come off as shady or wrong and very well might be, but they are the lesser wrong in the situation that is presented for them to fight against and thus, they become the Hero, and that's why they are an Anti-Hero.

again....Chronicles of Ridick.
Kanada Ten
QUOTE
Thereby hats, moral absolutes, don't exist.

So the question is whether moral absolutes exist in Shadowrun? Why are we wasting our time on it then? Even the Horrors aren't absolute evil. <sigh>

Seriously Cynic, what's the question?
paul_HArkonen
Even in Batman and things like that there is an assumption of absolute morality. My only problem with that is that morals aren't absolute, (see above paragraphs if you don't believe me). Thereby in my personal opinion SR should, and is, true to that idea. You don't think of runners as necesarily good, however, at least in the case of my group and me personally, you don't think of the corps, or more specifically the wage slaves and guards, as evil.

SR, was designed to be played without absolute morality, just as the world lacks absolute morals. To eliminate that, in my opinion, is to eliminate one of the major differences between SR and "hack and slash" games.



QUOTE
So the question is whether moral absolutes exist in Shadowrun?

I don't know if that was the intent of his question, but that was how I read it.
Kanada Ten
QUOTE
Even in Batman and things like that there is an assumption of absolute morality.

Not really. There's a "given" perspective on morality and all events are skewed to that prespective. Batman violates so many human rights and disreguards the privacy of others because he thinks he's better (not to mention insane and bent on revenge against all crime for the death of his parents)...
Stumps
If it's a quesiton of morality you'll be waiting for an answer as long as they are still arguing over Correspondence Theory and Postmodernism.
Basically, for all eternity.
Oh, and Paul,
QUOTE
My only problem with that is that morals aren't absolute, (see above paragraphs if you don't believe me).

Might want to re-phrase that in the future to read, "I believe", because there are two sides to that argument as I've just mentioned.
paul_HArkonen
I'm fairly up to date on my theories on morality and what is human nature, but I have no idea what either of those are.

QUOTE
Might want to re-phrase that in the future to read, "I believe", because their are two sides to that argument as I've just mentioned.


Even the fact that there are two sides on that issue shows that morality isn't an absolute. You may wind up with a group who's personal morals are that there is an absolute morality, but so long as people disagree over what is right and what is wrong morality can't be absolute.

Although I do have to work on my tendency to present my own views as an absolute as either way.


I'll give you that one Kanada, however, the point that I was trying to make was that the world has no absolute morality and SR shouldn't either. And to be perfectly honest I think we find ourselves in violent agreement with each other on that point.
Stumps
Go here Paul:
Explination of Correspondence and Postmodernism

Basically, Correspondence is the school of thought that gives us the concept of Absolute Truth and Absolute Reality, regardless of perception.

Postmodernism is the school of thought that gives us the concept that nothing is abosolute and that Truth is perception and so it reality.
paul_HArkonen
I'm more familiar on philosophies that assume an absolute truth, Kant and Rand, primarily, but I do appreciate your broadening of my horizons.
Stumps
Well, your ideas on morality fall under the Postmodern philosophy, so you might look into it.
paul_HArkonen
I think it comes from the years of LD debate, I have to deal with the fact that things other than what I believe in might be better for other people, either way I think at this point our discussion, boardering on argument, has derailed this thread enough.
Skeptical Clown
It's not really necessary to adjudicate what good and evil mean. Everyone understands the concepts, even if they don't agree on the details. And unlike say, D&D, morality has no 'real' impact on game mechanics, so it's just a matter of flavor. The game can be an interesting place to tell stories that deal with those concepts, but it's still just a game.
Fortune
My take on 'Hats' in real life, and so hence in the Sixth World.

When I sit down and think of the ultimate example of a 'Paragon of Good' in modern history, the one name that tops my list is Mother Theresa. She selflessly devoted her entire life to the betterment of others, enduring many and varied hardships along the way. I can't begin to describe the Good she did for the world.

She was also somewhat infamous for being one of the most manipulating and controlling people in the world. She supposedly stooped to blackmail to further her causes on more than a few occasions, using the media as bait.

Having had the distinct pleasure to have met her once, albeit briefly, I can definitely confirm the former. I thought I was a control freak! As for the latter, there is more than enough written accounts to squash any doubts in my mind.

I dare not bring up the mustached one for fear of evoking Godwin's Law, so I'll have to use 'Insert Generic Dictator Here'. Now 'Insert Generic Dictator Here' does 'Evil' things, usually in the furtherance of a cause, or with an eye to the long view. 'Insert Generic Dictator Here' also usually does 'Good' things along the way, no matter what his ulterior motives, like create jobs or build roads or feed the people or whatever. Now I haven't actually met 'Insert Generic Dictator Here', but I'm happy to accept most of what I have read as being accurate in some degree.

The point being that if even the most extreme example of what I think of Good could have supposed 'evil' tendencies, ethics, or consequences ... and vice versa, then absolutes of 'Good' and 'Evil', or 'Hats' are just not within the realms of human nature.
hobgoblin
the end justifys the means?
and allso, one man's hero/freedom-fighter is another man's criminal/terrorist?
einstein talked about more then physics when he talked about relativity silly.gif
hyzmarca
The "hat" a character wears is entireky dependant on third parties. A white hat is is defined by the willingness to sacrifice to protect others. The black hat harms others to satisfy personal greed. The guy who knocks over a bank to pay for his dying sister's clone lung may not be a white hat but certainly isn't a black hat. The guy how robbs a liquer store to pay for a $500 pair of sneakers may be a black hat, depending on why he wants the shoes, but certainly isn't a white hat.

Shadowrun has White Hats, Big D is the most obvious example. Shadowrun has Black Hats, Insect Shamans, for example. Most SR characters fall into the grey area, but a few don't.
Fix-it
QUOTE (hyzmarca)
Shadowrun has White Hats, Big D is the most obvious example. Shadowrun has Black Hats, Insect Shamen, for example. Most SR charactersfall into the grey area, but a few don't.

Not the best examples there, I'd say more Peregrine, and others from Renraku Arcology Shutdown as White Hats, and some of the lest morale posters as black hats.

The whole concept of "Hats" remember, is from hackers, who, you could say, are modern-day shadowrunners. They are breaking the law, but whether they do it for good or for evil determines thier "shade" so to speak.
Deamon_Knight
I thought the white hat/black hat terminology came from hacking in the sense that the white hats worked within the law (though they may not have always done so.) becoming "Network Security Professionals" and the like, while back hats are the real "shadowrunners" operating outside the law.

As for in game, as shadowrun tries to imitate our real universe in a dystopian future, characters in the world should run the gambit of moral to immoral, though I suspect most PCs would encounter far more the latter considering the circles they travel in. However, possibilities abound: a Sky Father-Shaman, Born Again Christian, Mother Teresa, ministering to the Barrens and manipulating (as stated above) everyone like Macevelli doesn't seem out of the question.

As for good and evil from the Runners perspective, certainly conflict should carry more emotional weight than the nameless sec guards and 'Star cops you exchange lead with. Everyone needs a nemesis, who (presumably) you have irreconcilable differences with, perhaps You might even call them evil. But without personal and emotional connection to your opposition, things will degenerate into the much maligned Hack and Slash.

As for RL? Thats another discussion..................
Fix-it
QUOTE (Deamon_Knight @ Dec 24 2004, 06:01 AM)
I thought the white hat/black hat terminology came from hacking in the sense that the white hats worked within the law (though they may not have always done so.) becoming "Network Security Professionals" and the like, while back hats are the real "shadowrunners" operating outside the law.

Not really. There have been cases of White Hats finding exploits, reporting it to the company, then getting into trouble for it. Corps don't tend to like "freelancers" finding holes in thier software, even if nothing malicious is done. they have a sort of "loose cannon" view.

I'll dig up some examples tommorow. need sleep first.
Glyph
Shadowrun may not be white hats against black hats, but it is still light grey hats against dark grey hats. It is gritty, subversive, and full of angsty anti-heroes and flawed, interesting characters, true. But it is still more enjoyable, at least to me, if the characters have some kind of moral values, even if they are a bit bent. Otherwise, it can devolve into a game of dreary hack, slash, and backbiting.

Moral ambivalence is only fun to play when the characters actually deal with morality. Do they accept the aid of the Yakuza boss to get even with the Mafia boss who killed their friend, knowing that they may need to do an unpleasant favor for this individual in the future? Do they gun down the innocent street kid who might be carrying a plague that could depopulate the Barrens? Do they declare a truce with a polluting megacorp to help them deal with an insane toxic shaman avenger who plans on blowing their reactor sky-high? Do they go get drunk afterwards to try and drown their guilt, even though they chose the lesser of two evils?

As far as "No one thinks of themselves as evil", I disagree. People have their own moral codes, yes... and they break them. People do things that they know are wrong all the time, and either stew in guilt or try to rationalize it, even as they know deep inside that they have done something wrong. So when someone does something bad, don't be too quick to buy their rationale for it. They may believe it, but they might also be fully aware of their "evil". Hamlet's uncle is a good example of someone who is very aware that his behavior is wrong.

Heck, on the flip side, there are probably lots of people others would consider "good" who think they are evil, either because they were raised with values opposite of most social norms (like someone born into a mob family, who feels guilty because he couldn't pull the trigger on an innocent crime witness), or because they have ludicrously high standards for themselves.

I agree that PCs and NPCs shouldn't have stark good and evil roles, but they shouldn't be devoid of such concerns, either. The characters' individual concepts of good and evil should be a major element of the game.
hyzmarca
QUOTE (Fix-it)

The whole concept of "Hats" remember, is from hackers, who, you could say, are modern-day shadowrunners. They are breaking the law, but whether they do it for good or for evil determines thier "shade" so to speak.

Actualy, the concept of hats is from western serials of the 20's, 30's, and 40's.

The good cowboys, lawmen, Lone Ranger, ect. always wore white hats. The bad guys always wore blck hats.
DrJest
I'm stunned by the number of posters who not only don't have but don't want morality in their SR games. I have always believed that what sets player runners aside from the horde was their willingness to abide by some degree of moral code, in the same way the the top echelon of runners appear to. Am I alone in finding drama in the fight to preserve some kind of ethical framework in a world that is becoming increasingly unethical and amoral?
Botch
QUOTE (Stumps)
Batman, Punisher, and Deadpool are more commonly realatable to SR characters than Superman, Thor, and Spiderman (which all do well for comparing to D&D characters).

Um, not sure about Deadpool, but,

Batman and Punisher are mundanes with toys and SR doesn't really do aliens and demi-gods. wink.gif
Fortune
DrJest: It isn't morality, but absolute morality (or immorality) that I oppose.
iPad
Dr Jest: I imagen the ones at the top who have some sense of moral code have survived for that fact. Killing with no reguard for the consiquences will get people after you in the end. My current character has a deep rooted morality, but a fair set of double standards and a ruthless streek. He will pack stun rounds when going against honest joes like security guards and stuff, but street types and gangers he has little mercy for.
Black Isis
QUOTE (DrJest)
I'm stunned by the number of posters who not only don't have but don't want morality in their SR games. I have always believed that what sets player runners aside from the horde was their willingness to abide by some degree of moral code, in the same way the the top echelon of runners appear to. Am I alone in finding drama in the fight to preserve some kind of ethical framework in a world that is becoming increasingly unethical and amoral?

I've always felt similarly -- and thankfully, I usually play with people who do not want to play emotionless serial killers. Whenever I've played Shadowrun, my characters have been the type to turn down a job if it clashed with their idea of what's "right". Company A screwing Company B over by stealing a prototype -- well, hey, that's business. Getting hired by the mob to break people's kneecaps because they won't move out of a neighborhood? No thanks. Most of my characters tend to be bodyguards, investigators, or stealthy types, not legbreakers.

Frankly, I have to say that while maybe almost everything in this world is a shade of grey, there are certainly a lot of things that most rational people will find seriously disturbing and wrong -- someone mentioned human trafficking before, and that's a good example. I have to assume most shadowrunners are the type to at least have a moral compass -- since those that don't seem to get a lot shit hurled their way by other Shadowland posters.
Skeptical Clown
Again, I fail to see what "absolute" morality has to do with anything. The drama inherent in the story is the conflict between ethical viewpoints. Shadowrunners are agents of individualism and anarchy in a system that's increasingly controlled and dehumanized. Is there a hypocrisy in the way that they work for the system that they choose to live outside of? Certainly, but that only increases the dramatic potential.

To ignore the fact that there IS an ethical gap between the shadowrunners, and the corporations (and mobsters, and the true sociopaths of the world) is to ignore the dramatic potential of the game. It's quite possible to have a shadowrunner that has no ethical dilemmas at all, but that's a bit unrealistic, and also a bit boring.
Mercer
I think all shadowrun characters will have varying degrees of ethics and morality. Even the best will have some bad qualities, even the worst will have some good qualities. Its that complexity that makes the conflicts that they get into interesting, because it isn't just Good Guys against Bad Guys, but people against people.

In that respect, I come down sqaurely and firmly in the Grey Hat camp. In servcie to my point, I will now quote from the movie, The Zero Effect:
QUOTE (Steve Arlo)
You understand that there aren't evil guys and innocent guys. It's just... It's just... It's just a bunch of guys.


Thats my theory on morality, and so thats how I interpret it in the game. Its just a bunch of guys.

I understand the desire to play heros, but most shadowrunners tend to do illegal things for money. It is commendable if they try not to go out of their way to hurt people, or use nonlethal methods against the little people, but that doesn't exactly put them in the same category as someone who devotes their life to charity or crusades nonviolently for social equality. Thats all I'm saying. If you play SR white hats and black hats, and you're white hats are contract criminals, then we're already talking about shades of grey. It may be the lightest thing in circulation, but it's not exactly white as snow.
Speedy
Whatever's more interesting.
I like thick plot.
Voran
I usually feel that characters in SR, have better morality than the players playing the characters in that SR setting wink.gif Something about being at the game table makes 'normal' people from real life, total psychos.

Crimsondude 2.0
Funny. I've never met a SR player who could be called anything near "normal."
Patrick Goodman
I'm sitting here pondering an article I just re-submitted to Adam and TSS a couple of days ago, and I'm wondering how it's going to be received when it sees daylight. Seeing as how it relates to this topic, perhaps Adam's wanting it so recently is a good thing.

Or not.

I'm with Black Isis, though; I'm astonished, and frankly a little disturbed, by the number of players who don't want ethics and morals involved with their characters in this game.
BitBasher
Even the most upright Shadowrunners, those called "moral" destroy lives. They are all felons at best. There are consequences for their actions.

Take a basic snatch and grab, or steal the research job:

The security head and his aides that get fired or demoted for allowing the breaches in security. The scientist(s) whose life work is stolen. All the associated personnel who will for the remainder of their career be watched and never be allowed (after their reassignemnt) promotions to higher security areas because the corp knows someone sold inside info but can't determine who. The R&D employess whose lab is shut down because corp B just brought to market a superior product using all the reseatch that they slaved on.

You can moralize that you are a "good shadowrunner" but you still destroyed lives. Caused divorces, broke up families because of your actions. Shadowrunners do not operate in a vaccuum. There are consequences of their actions that you as the GM may not even consider. The fact remains that even those who take the moral high road are still far, far down the scale of morality. They can only delude themselves into thinking they are the "good guys". They are corporate shills working for the allmighty dollar.

Which brings me to the point that there is no such thing as a "good shadowrunner". There are only those that talk themselves into thinking so so they can sleep at night. in the grand scheme of things there is very little difference between killing someone yourself and having him fall into a suicidal spiral of behavior from destroying his life. The "good shadowrunner" in a functional world is an illusion. A delsuion of a GM and a player who wants to play a good guy in a world where in reality here are no good guys.

Now I'm considering submitting an article to the TSS.....
Crimsondude 2.0
Considering I'm running four characters who all worked for the UCAS FedGov (two still), you'd be amazed at how straught-arrow they are... So far.

But I don't see anyone trying to save the world in SR. I've never seen it, and I don't ever expect to. To do that, I'd have had to see it IRL to even recognize it.
BitBasher
If you want to watch a great example of a FedGov straight arrow and a downward spiral into morality vs effeciveness, go watch all 3 seasons of "24" in order, and pay attention to Jack Bauer's moral choices on things and how difficult he makes them. biggrin.gif
This is a "lo-fi" version of our main content. To view the full version with more information, formatting and images, please click here.
Dumpshock Forums © 2001-2012