Ed Simons
May 8 2005, 10:46 PM
| QUOTE (Arethusa) |
| QUOTE (Arethusa @ May 7 2005, 08:03 PM) | Crimson, I am going to go out on a limb here and guess that you read the Shadowrun Michael Crichton novels. I would say that was your first mistake. |
Fixed.
|
Agreed. Crichton builds houses of cards - from Terminal Man to Jurassic Park. Things fail because he designed them to fail and he was pretty obvious about it. Though lately he's been misappropriating chaos theory to cover for his blatant deux ex machina.
Arethusa
May 8 2005, 10:50 PM
| QUOTE (Ed Simons) |
Actually, I’ve seen paranoia hurt characters more than I saw it help them. It pushes PCs and NPCs away in a manner that can lose friends and even gain enemies. And it can also lead to fatal lack of cooperation among PCs.
Assuming the worst of everyone is just as deadly as assuming the best. Ultimately, you have to trust some people in order to survive in the world of Shadowrun. Yet at the same time, you have to decide how much you will trust any individual. It’s a delicate balance and you have to keep your eyes and ears open to survive. |
No, you don't have to trust anyone. You're far better off if you don't. You need to work with other people, at least to some degree, and you'll need to lie to a lot of those people to make them think you trust them; but you sure as hell don't have to trust them. The more people you trust, the more those people can hurt you.
Shanshu Freeman
May 9 2005, 01:28 AM
| QUOTE (Swing Kid) |
| QUOTE (Charon @ May 5 2005, 01:21 PM) | 1 - Keep your word
2 - Don't screw over your team mates.
3 - Protect your contact
That's pretty much it. Accepting a hit on another runner is certainly okay.
You should keep your word simply because if you don't no one will hire you.
You shouldn't screw over your team mates because if you do, no one will work with you.
You should protect your contacts because if you don't you'll lose them.
Easy enough, I think. Violate these rules and the GM has a duty to make your life as a runner miserable. Any other rules of conduct are a matter of personal taste, IMO. |
Though I do completely agree with your words, I realize that there is a bit of a misunderstanding. I think this response is more how to be a successful runner than a runner etiquette code between active members.
One of the other responses pointed out that the runners do what they do for the cred. I would agree that this is common, but this really is the acts of mercenaries.
Where I am going with this is that in a profession like Shadowrunning, where contacts and reputation are the keys to success, there would almost have to be some general understanding to maintain the opportunities and usefullness of the trade.
For instance, if a young runner was to gun down several security guards in a run when it wasn't necessary, then the company being hit might retaliate against the runners directly, but if the run was done without such a sloppy outcome, the corp might focus their efforts on simply getting their property back. It goes back to the whole idea of which is more important to a targeted company, the tools that were used to steal their property or the true thieves that hired them. A profession like shadowrunning could really only exist if there were some underlying rules that are followed. If all of the runners acted like mercs, then the profession would dwindle, and the corps would rely on their own privately owned teams to do their work.
This is not to be a overly-romantic viewpoint of the characters, or to urge goodly actions on their parts, so much as to explore the codes of ethics. Even the mafia and yakuza use codes of ethics, though I doubt that theirs are in print either.
As to the runners doing runs on other runners, I don't disagree that this would be seen from time to time, but I think it would be rare. I am sure that they way alot of players play this game, they use the term shadowrunner to imply every gun for hire an thug with a gun (not meant as a shot; my favorite character is a blood thirsty merc). The truth is, shadowrunners would probably not see as many wetwork options in front of them unless they worked that angle early in their careers. There are pleanty of bounty hunters, assassins, and general thug types who would most likely get these jobs. From the perspective of a big corp, using a shadowrunner to kill shadowrunner would only have one advantage, that it takes a thief to catch a thief. Beyond that, I honestly think that if the culture really existed, this practice would be deeply frowned upon.
But then again, my view only dictates my campaigns.
Thanks for any constructive input.
|
I think your idea of what defines the "profession" of Shadowrunning is a tad different than mine.
The idea of running the shadows is to work in the gray areas. "Etiquette," and morality tend to be subjective.
Read Kagetenshi's thread on the morality of a Shadowrunner if you really believe it is *definetly* better to let a security guard live if you don't need to kill him.
Next it's bad business for a corp to let someone who successfully hit them stay in the world of the living for long, if they can help it, regardless of the body count they left behind.
As for screwing the Johnson, our team has done it. During a run, we found out the crate we were removing from a warehouse contained the synthetic ghoul skin Dunklezahn suggested in his will. My character was a fanatical believer that Big D had our best interests at heart. Ultimately we didn't know if the Johnson was stealing it to make it available to the public at a reasonable price, or if he was stealing it to destroy the prototype and prevent it from seeing the light of day. We did what any sensible team would do, call someone smarter for help. My character dialed-up the Draco Foundation and asked for welcome party.
| QUOTE (hahnsoo) |
| On a side note, the name is Hahnsoo. It's my Korean name. Please don't tease it, okay? |
Really? Every time I see it, I think Han Tzu, who is a character in one of my favorite books. Han Tzu is Chinese... but I don't if it translates. Does Hahnsoo translate from Korean into English?
hahnsoo
May 9 2005, 04:34 AM
| QUOTE (Shanshu Freeman @ May 8 2005, 08:28 PM) |
| QUOTE (hahnsoo) | | On a side note, the name is Hahnsoo. It's my Korean name. Please don't tease it, okay? |
Really? Every time I see it, I think Han Tzu, who is a character in one of my favorite books. Han Tzu is Chinese... but I don't if it translates. Does Hahnsoo translate from Korean into English? |
Korean names are three parts, the first being the surname of the family, the second being the individual's name, and the third part being the suffix of the generation of that family within a gender. For example, my brother and all of my male cousins have the suffix "Soo", so I am Shin Hahnsoo, my brother is Shin Hee Soo, I have cousins named Shin Jung Soo, Shin Seung Soo, etc. This is a "traditional" naming convention used in my family. I'm not sure if it universally applies to all Koreans, but so far, all of the Koreans have a similar pattern. There are many people who buck tradition, of course.
I'm familiar with "Han Tzu" from Ender's Game (and eventually, the Ender's Shadow series of books, where he becomes the emperor of China in "Shadow of the Giant"). I have been derogatorily called "Hot Soup" and "Han Solo" throughout my childhood, so I take greater than usual offense at bastardizations of my name.
My "actual" American name is Hahns Shin, it's the one on my birth certificate, and that's the one that I answer to in real life. Hahnsoo, however, is unique enough to be used just about anywhere online (whereas Hahns typically is co-opted as a plural form of Hahn), which is why I use it for my online accounts. That, and my Korean relatives prefer to call me by my Korean name.
http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Korean-name
Shanshu Freeman
May 10 2005, 03:43 AM
| QUOTE (hahnsoo) |
| QUOTE (Shanshu Freeman @ May 8 2005, 08:28 PM) | | QUOTE (hahnsoo) | | On a side note, the name is Hahnsoo. It's my Korean name. Please don't tease it, okay? |
Really? Every time I see it, I think Han Tzu, who is a character in one of my favorite books. Han Tzu is Chinese... but I don't if it translates. Does Hahnsoo translate from Korean into English? |
Korean names are three parts, the first being the surname of the family, the second being the individual's name, and the third part being the suffix of the generation of that family within a gender. For example, my brother and all of my male cousins have the suffix "Soo", so I am Shin Hahnsoo, my brother is Shin Hee Soo, I have cousins named Shin Jung Soo, Shin Seung Soo, etc. This is a "traditional" naming convention used in my family. I'm not sure if it universally applies to all Koreans, but so far, all of the Koreans have a similar pattern. There are many people who buck tradition, of course. I'm familiar with "Han Tzu" from Ender's Game (and eventually, the Ender's Shadow series of books, where he becomes the emperor of China in "Shadow of the Giant"). I have been derogatorily called "Hot Soup" and "Han Solo" throughout my childhood, so I take greater than usual offense at bastardizations of my name. My "actual" American name is Hahns Shin, it's the one on my birth certificate, and that's the one that I answer to in real life. Hahnsoo, however, is unique enough to be used just about anywhere online (whereas Hahns typically is co-opted as a plural form of Hahn), which is why I use it for my online accounts. That, and my Korean relatives prefer to call me by my Korean name. http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Korean-name |
Yeah I was thinking of Han Tzu in the OSC books. I've read everything set in the Enderverse, but the scene where Han Tzu takes over the Emperorship of China just left me with my jaw on the floor.
Let me ask you this; when you are with your brother and your male cousins, do you use your full names, or do only refer to each other by that part which is different between you? Or do you use nicknames?
Can I ask; How are women in your family named?
hahnsoo
May 10 2005, 06:15 AM
| QUOTE (Shanshu Freeman) |
Let me ask you this; when you are with your brother and your male cousins, do you use your full names, or do only refer to each other by that part which is different between you? Or do you use nicknames?
Can I ask; How are women in your family named? |
We use the full names. A person's formal address is "Shin Hee Soo" or "Shin Choon Ho" (my dad). Informally, you use everything but the family name, so "Hee Soo" or "Choon Ho". I tend to call my brother "Hees" but that's my familiarity with him rather than typical address.
Women keep their maiden name when they are married, and the same naming convention applies to them. In our family, they have a different "suffix" than the males, and I haven't heard if this is deviant or traditional.
Ed Simons
May 11 2005, 01:22 AM
| QUOTE (Arethusa) |
| No, you don't have to trust anyone. You're far better off if you don't. You need to work with other people, at least to some degree, and you'll need to lie to a lot of those people to make them think you trust them; but you sure as hell don't have to trust them. The more people you trust, the more those people can hurt you. |
But you have to trust people in order to function in the world of Shadowrun.
If you can't trust your contacts to give you reasonably accurate information and not sell you out to your enemies, then you'd never talk to them in the first place. And I've seen whole runner teams destroyed because they wouldn't trust each other with details like their general archetype.
Not that I'm advocating blind and total trust of eveyone you meet, either. Trust is a sliding scale in Shadowrun, not something binary.
Kagetenshi
May 11 2005, 01:33 AM
Not true either. You don't have to trust something to act based on it, or to use it as a guideline.
~J
Arethusa
May 11 2005, 01:46 AM
Absolutely not. Trust makes you careless. Trust gets you killed.
When you enter this life, everything changes. Your life as a human being essentially ends if you want to survive. Every action you take must be driven by utility. Trust dies— or you die.
What you are talking about isn't lack of trust; it's paranoia. Thing is that paranoia is just as dangerous as trust, because if you are paranoid and irrationally afraid (or afraid at all, for that matter), you will not be able to function and survive, let alone take and complete objectives. But that doesn't mean you should trust anyone.
Every interaction with other people gives them information about you. It doesn't matter if this is casual, on the street interaction; it doesn't matter if it's a business meet; it doesn't matter if this person is family or your girlfriend: everything they know about you is another way for them to hurt you. Everything you give the people you interact with must be calculated to your benefit. When you let people get closer to you (say, from being a stranger to being a teammate or business acquaintance), you let those people gain capacity to hurt you, and you had damn well better be prepared to counter this capacity if you are going to make it out alive.
That doesn't mean you don't work with people. You must be able to make people think you aren't doing any of this, and, indeed, you must make everyone think you function as a normal human being, or none of this is likely to work.
It sure as hell doesn't mean you pull a gun on someone because he asked you the time. It means you never trust anyone, because trust is not vigilant, trust is not aware, and trust is not an advantage— and you damn well kiss your girlfriend with your hand on your gun.
Of course, you can very well enter into this sort of life without the resolve or ability to function at this fundamentally nihilistic level of utility. You won't make it to the end of next week, either.
nezumi
May 11 2005, 01:54 AM
That's why you make sure you've got something against them, and make sure they know it (or don't have something, and make sure they know it). Keep a little insurance.
I generally don't trust contacts unless I have said insurance. Yeah, that Aztechnology security specialist who said they turn off the laser grid on Tuesdays? I'm not putting money on that. Fixers and the like are a little different, they're business is built on trust. You do have collateral on them, because if word gets out that they break trust, they're done for real quick.
Other runners are sort of a mixed bag, and you really have to figure each one out. If a guys a sociopath, I just won't run with him, or I'll make sure he's in front and I have blackmail on him. If the guy is professional, I know he won't sell me out unless it's for real big bucks, and even then, having friends can be worth it down the road (but I'll probably try to cover my butt just in case). In general, I make darn sure people know I value my life over the cash, and I'll back out if threatened with superior force (I don't mention that I'll hunt that person down later, of course). As long as they realize there's more money in creating a solid, efficient group than in regularly killing off your group and trying to start over, that means most runners with half a brain aren't a real threat when it comes to dumping their friends.
Most of the people I've had the privilege to run with are either very professional, or very loyal. I make sure they know they need the whole team, and it's the team, not individual runners, who get the bigger jobs, and they make sure I know they aren't shooting me in the back. Even when there are disagreements, we realize having allies (and having a runner who might just decide against doing a hit on you. Maybe there is some honor among thieves.) is a good thing, so it rarely comes to deadly force.
Smiley
May 11 2005, 02:04 AM
Then you've been fortunate enough to only have team members worth keeping as team members.
Kagetenshi
May 11 2005, 02:08 AM
If they're professional they'll sell you out if it's to their advantage (and you're well overestimating what it takes to be in their advantage, IMO). If they're loyal it means they're liable to get themselves and everyone around them killed.
~J
Arethusa
May 11 2005, 02:24 AM
I would disagree. You really aren't fully considering the very real disadvantages in selling out— namely, if anyone survives your actions, you are suddenly a lot less likely to survive your actions. Moreover, no one likes sellouts— including the people you are selling out to. The dangers of making enemies everywhere you can think of and many places you can't are extremely real— and it's this sort of social mutually assured destruction that keeps even the worst people effectively loyal for most of the time.
Kagetenshi
May 11 2005, 02:26 AM
I am, admittedly, placing a fair amount of weight in the phrase "nothing personal, just business". If you don't see that as the defining mantra of most Shadowbusiness, selling out would look a lot riskier.
~J
scoundrel
May 11 2005, 02:29 AM
Defining mantra or otherwise, humans are not by nature objective creatures.
Selling out your teammates when it's to your advantage is definitely not professional, primarily because it's impossible to determine with any certainty when it's to your advantage.
Kagetenshi
May 11 2005, 02:44 AM
It's also impossible to determine with certainty that they aren't setting you up. Or, for that matter, that they exist and you aren't in a simsense loop. That way lies madness.
~J
Arethusa
May 11 2005, 02:58 AM
| QUOTE (Kagetenshi @ May 10 2005, 09:26 PM) |
I am, admittedly, placing a fair amount of weight in the phrase "nothing personal, just business". If you don't see that as the defining mantra of most Shadowbusiness, selling out would look a lot riskier.
~J |
When you stab someone in the back, it really doesn't matter why you did it. If you survive, people who refuse to work with you down the line aren't likely to care, and the people you pissed off are likely to care even less.
Not working with you isn't a decision born of concepts like honor or friendship or trust— you left those behind when you decided to take up this life. Not working with you is a matter of survival: you're clearly dangerous (both in terms of what you're willing to do and what people are now willing to do to you), and possibly more dangerous than is worth it.
Killing you isn't a decision that comes from anything more human, either: if I hire some people to get something for me, and you stab those people in the back and take my briefcase, I will find you and make you scream like a dying animal. I will not do this because I want revenge or because I'm mad at you or because you hurt my feelings or because it's Tuesday. I will do it because I want everyone to know that you do not ever fuck with me, and it is the interest of future business ventures that I ensure everyone knows just how important that is.
scoundrel
May 11 2005, 03:02 AM
| QUOTE (Kagetenshi) |
| It's also impossible to determine with certainty that they aren't setting you up. Or, for that matter, that they exist and you aren't in a simsense loop. That way lies madness. |
Except that not placing your trust in someone and stabbing them in the back are two completely different stories.
That said, my point lied more with taking unnecessary risks than with inaction unless the outcome is guaranteed.
Ed Simons
May 11 2005, 02:03 PM
| QUOTE (Arethusa) |
| What you are talking about isn't lack of trust; it's paranoia. |
Note that all my posts have been countering an original statement that runners had to be paranoid to survive.
Whereas my experience is paranoid runners die.
Ed Simons
May 11 2005, 02:08 PM
| QUOTE (Kagetenshi) |
Not true either. You don't have to trust something to act based on it, or to use it as a guideline.
~J |
You don't have to trust it completely (and shouldn't), but you have to have some trust in the information or you wouldn't act on it.
Ed Simons
May 11 2005, 02:11 PM
| QUOTE (nezumi) |
| That's why you make sure you've got something against them, and make sure they know it (or don't have something, and make sure they know it). Keep a little insurance. |
Out of curiousity, how do your characters react to people who have something on them?
nezumi
May 11 2005, 03:23 PM
I generally hint that I may have something, and I sure as heck wouldn't be dumb enough to put it somewhere where it'll disappear if I die. I don't bring it up often (if ever). Just being at the site of those crimes is enough, usually.
It won't stop the psychos. It won't stop those with undying loyalty either. But it might be just enough to tip the scales a little when PCs like Kag are doing the cost-benefit analysis. Thinking 'hey, if I kill of Nezumi, there's a chance S-K will get incriminating evidence against me, whereas if I threaten him, he'll take a small share and quietly leave' usually means rational players go with threat and pay-off.
Hadn't had a need to use it anytime recently, though. Most people I've run with are pretty naive, so it's better to leave them undyingly loyal than paranoid.
I think the question Kagentenshi brings up is what are the costs of selling someone out? In my games, it's usually pretty high. No one will run with you, no fixer will give you deals (selling out usually puts the job at risk) and the Johnsons may offer you jobs, but you better believe they're the jobs where they don't need to trust you (which usually means suicide squads). Plus, you lose a winning team, which means even if no one else knows you did it, you need to work yourself into a new team which is risky and difficult.
All that means is, in my games, it's not economically feasible to kill off other members unless a) it's someone no one will miss (the psychotic rigger, when you've got a backup) or b) the payoff is in excess of $500k
Aku
May 11 2005, 03:50 PM
| QUOTE (nezumi) |
| I generally hint that I may have something, and I sure as heck wouldn't be dumb enough to put it somewhere where it'll disappear if I die. I don't bring it up often (if ever). Just being at the site of those crimes is enough, usually. |
Ya know, i think this is a good point, most of us, just being runners, have a decent amount of crap on each other that at any given time, if a corp wants to know something, we could probably supply SOMETHING on any given runner, such as where they live, or for the smart (not paranoid) where they might get dropped off at, and if they're walking, chances are good they don't live more than a mile or two away from that spot. Grabbing a cab from that spot? I'm sure more than one corp could set up an "accident" or even have one of thier own pick the guy up...
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