Weredigo: Just what do you keep from actual Shadowrun canon?

Note that there is some evidence of Dragon induced (or indulged or originated) shapeshifter "culture", though to what extent is debatable.

Kanada Ten could be refering to Drakes, which are detailed in Dragns of the Sixth World and Threats 2.

Edit: Or not!

Three places. One, the expected, in Amazonia with Hualpa and his servants (DotSW). Two, Arleesh, while less implicit of culture, also has "pet" shifters (I think DotSW again, Lofwyr chapter?). Notice the dual Feathered Serpents there (I've previously hypothesized that shapeshiters are their versions of Drakes). Finally, a possible on the Shasta Deer with Hestaby - hell, she has pet Otaku, why not shifters (DotSW)? Of course, I might be exaggerating the word culture.

DotSW = Dragons of the Sixth World

Here some semi-useful links on tigers...

Project Tiger

About the Indian Tiger

Tiger Stalking

Sounds like your guy is going to have some trouble getting along with the rest of the team, or having them come back to his place for beer...

They've got lots of different cultures. It's just a waste to add them into the space, because the cultures would quite logically be ... the same culture as the animal. Since that's what the shapeshifters are.. animals. They have the ability to appear human. That's the only difference -- so.. wolf shapeshifters would follow the pack mentality. Lion the pride. If the creature is solitary then the shapeshifter would be solitary.

Right, I'm not denying there will be exceptions. In fact the shifter that lives in civilization at all is probably the exception already.

I suppose this raises the question of why a shapeshifter would become a shadowrunner in the first place - or even, for that matter, live amongst humans at all.

Just a few thoughts... I could see the predators wanting to test themselves against "the supreme predator" - Man. Any shifter might find themselves outcast from their animal type by virtue of their shifter nature (animals in the wild can be pretty damned uncompromising on anything "different"). A more educated shifter might be looking for a way to get money in order to pay for something - land purchase for their pack/herd/whatever, eco-activist goals, etc.

Or they can have a "Pinocchio complex". "I want to be a REAL boy..." I guess it really would be determined by the shapeshifter's socialization.

Geez... RTFM, Garland, RTFM...

As regarding shapeshifter culture, as shifters are magical abberations, they have no inherent cohesive 'shifter culture because of their rarity. If a colony of seal shifters got together, or there was an enclave of foxes in a secluded mountain somewhere, that'd be different. Whatever 'culture' a shifter has is what he picks up from being amongst humans.

I think that no provision was made for 'shifters having a human form aside from sapien sapien for balance and complexity reasons. Using priority, I'm not sure how you could work out having essentially 2 racial priorities, and with points, the cost would be pretty prohibitive. That and 'shifter bonuses, on top of racial bonuses... Hammering out workable rules for that would have been a headache.

Finally, RE: Kinky tiger sex, since the description says that they are 'animals which can take human form' they're geneticly incompatible. They might want to have the people sex, they might enjoy the people sex, but they're not going to be having babies from it (I believe Striper found a male tiger 'shifter, and then had a tiger 'shifter kid(kit?), but yeah, pretty much everything invovling her was messed up).

Ain't thread drift grand?

Incidentally, and this one's a doozy, here's something to remember. The book gives you plenty of stats for playng the shifters, including flaws, but here's one they allude to that may not register at first because it's in the fluff text rather than the hard stats text. Most countries - including the UCAS, where the majority of games are set - do not consider shapeshifters (meta)human. No Human Rights. No rights at all under law. No ownership of property - no ownership of anything, for that matter. You can legitimately be gunned down at any time by anyone and no murder charges can be preferred.

Think on that, if you will.

I was about to say "Sounds exactly like being SINless, only you don't get even human interest sympathy from the press."

No, but the SINless are at least people (this is just how I run things), and I play up the 'probabtionary citizen aspect. Being a SINless runner doesn't get you thrown up against a wall and shot in the head if you've fragged up, but if you've been doing really bad things it is easier to 'vanish' you. If during a fight with runners, an LS team guns down a bunch a bystanders (whether intentionally or accidently) they're going to be in just as much trouble whether those people had a SIN or not (especially if the media gets footage of it...)

Whereas if that 'shifter gets caught, and revealed, he's boned. Corps can whisk him off to their labs, or LS could simply throw the dangerous animal into the incinerator without the least fear of reprecussion, because it was a dangerous animal (with 'regular' humans, they have to at least be a little subtle when doing stuff like that).

Those situations are not analogous, though. You'd have to give the example of the Shifter being an innocent bystander being shot (after which, he'd probably Regenerate, and then run away, leaving LS to wipe out said shadowrunner team and the rest of the bystanders).

While it is true that a SINless human probably will have a better time of it if they play their cards right, LS will just as easily pop the runner's cap if the runner is caught, Shifter or not. When they shoot the runner in the head and see that the wounds heal up before their very eyes, then LS starts to call for backup, and this is independent of the fact that they are a Shifter... it's because the runner just did something that falls under "Magical drek we aren't trained to shovel".

I think the average LSer will think less of the SINless shifter-human form who has a unibrow and perhaps some unusual hair patterns than the SINless Troll that's twice his size and looks like an obvious threat.

We have different opinions on the matter, let's not hate each other because of it.

To try and put this into my perspective, if the 'shifter is walking down the street, and a LS HTR team suddenly rappels in, shooting him in the head until he doesn't walk no more, that's going to cause some of the same problems that gunning down the SINless would. Or perhaps more appropriately, it would elicit the same reastion as if I was walking with my pitbull, and Lonestar suddenly pulled up and shot it.

Just because someone is SINless doesn't mean they're deprived of all rights. Some ork gets nicked robbing a Stuffer Shack, he's going to jail, not the firing squad, even if he's a borderline psycho with poor impulse control. If violence is traced back to a 'shifter though, it's a different story. I can insist that my dog is a perfect angel, but if Lonestar has him fingered for mauling a couple of postmen they're going to put him down. If they think he's dangerous, then neither the dog nor the 'shifter is entitled to special rights of due process.

YMMV

The notion of "free will" and "rights" are abstract concepts that should be alien to a shapeshifter. A shifter will come from a mindset that reflects their animal nature, and as such, human concepts such as justice, money, property, liberty, etc. would possibly be fascinating to a shifter, but definitely apart from their mindset. Shifters would be familiar with certain concepts such as family, community, survival, sex, and power, but would think of them in terms of differing contexts. Terms like "jail" and "law enforcement" would be completely alien, and would have to be explained to the shifter, and even then, they would not completely understand the utility of it (Why wouldn't you just kill something that threatened you? Or run away when it is too powerful?).

It would be hard to offer sentient rights to creatures when they have no use or no comprehension for those rights.