Oh noes! The big nasty Shadowrunners delivered a poor drugged up cyberzombie to the mean evil corporate-man! You arbitrarily gave them character flaws for their amoral activity, I hope!

The ironic thing in my gaming group is that the most moral character has the biggest body count of 'innocent' people. He claims it was an accident, but my sammie doesn't believe him.

For the record, our group has 5 characters in it:
Katklaw, my street sam sniper
Lilith, the street sam DMPC
Fu Manshu, the troll physad monk
??- psychotic assassin sorcerer
??- Raven shaman, and a university professor who studies paranormal animals. (big body count)

How did it happen?

Basically, when we were doing the first SR Missions run (the one where you gaurd the building in the park), he used Levitate to throw the the bomb-drone onto the freeway, so it would be destroyed by a passing 18-wheeler truck. The failsafe went off, and the bomb exploded, destroying the freeway and killing 350 people.

He claims he thought it was a surveillance drone.

Better then my group. They just turned the drone on its back. About 15 meters away from the building they had to protect. After that they ignored all my hints. >KABOOOM< Building destroyed. Fixers dead. Run messed up. Runners dead. One of the few times when I felt some kind of satisfaction while killing a group.

Just amused, actually. I mean, here's a game about professional criminals, where in a specific session of aforementioned game the GM invites the characters to do something bad, gives them (from the sound of things) no reason not to do the bad thing but their imaginary characters' imaginary moral code, and then harshly punished them for accepting his invitation to do bad things for money.

If you don't want your players doing horrible things (instead of just illegal things), don't invite them to do so. If pedophilia keeps you up at night, maybe instead of opening your game up to it, you should avoid it. If kidnapping makes you break out into a cold sweat if it's carried out upon a young girl (instead of a middle-aged researcher), then maybe you don't offer the job to your players.

If you want to play in a good-guy moral game, tell people ahead of time instead of smacking them down in-game.

Most of the time that a Johnson or Fixer (read: GM) offers a job to a group of 'Runners, they look at two things: danger involved, and payoff. If you offer them a milk run for a lot of cash, don't get your panties all in a wad if they accept, and hand out Flaws like candy.

Why, what dirty minds everyone has. Ophis just says that the runners delivered an underage (which could mean 20) girl to a polititian and that she was killed. Everyone assummes that it was something sexual. I assumed that she knew too much. There is no way any sane child mollester would hire a bunch of runners to find his victims for him. He could easily have gone down the the barrens and picked up a preteen joygirl for 20. There would be less witnesses and it would have been much cheaper. The only logical explination is that the girl knew too much.

Of course, I see nothing wrong with playing an amoral and immoral SR game so long as the PCs avoid commiting graphic rapes and keep the interaction with their Scarlet Women to a level slightly below softcore porn. People play RPGs to do things that they wouldn't do in reality.


I must ask, what is moraly objectionable about delivering a fully censenting druged up girl to a perverted murderer? It isn't like they were taking her against her will and it isn't like they knew that he was a murderer. At worst, they knew that he was a pervert and I could rail against age of consent laws for hours. Illegal doesn't equal immoral.

I wasn't calling the campaign stupid, I was calling the reactions of other to events in that campaign stupid. Namely, the idea that the player's actions are somehow worse because the girl was "underaged" which may mean she wasn't around in the Fourth World for all we know. And yet, other players are praised for poisioning a cyborg so that they can turn him in for money and not feel bad about themselves when they could have just walked away and let him remain free.

I would like some more details of the run, personally, but from what I heard It seems that a respectible polititian hired the runners to pick up someone he knows, who happens to be a drug user and who certainly doesn't fear him, and then has her killed so she won't make him look bad. Yet, the runners have no clue that she is to be killed.

Why is this immoral? Because the Johnson wasn't forthcoming with his intentions? Because the players didn't read the GM's mind?

I thought the whole “mess with the guy with the telescope” run by fistandantilus3.0 was one of the coolest things I’ve seen in awhile.

Our group had to run a telesma shop for two days for a talismonger contact. Was pretty funny since we only had one person with astral perception, and they were a physad. The shop had a number of spirits hanging around that messed with us, and some spirit possessed items as well.

One of the items returned itself to the shop each time we gave it to the customer. This caused all kinds of problems for us.

Anyone else have any unusual things they’ve had to do to repay contacts?

First post in a while, so lets see if this is rusty.

"Underaged" in some countries is 12. In others its 18. I can be sent to war at age 18 but I can't drink (or, a county over, get a SMOKE), so what is underaged?

I would say if this were some child consenting to her kidnapping, it might be morally objectable. If it were a 20 year old...Yeah, sorry, its not immoral. Its also not immoral unless the PCs are fully aware of what they are doing.

Shadowrunners are PAID to kidnap people, drugged or not, coherent or not, adult or not, and deliver them to other people on a regular basis. It is part of the game. To quote the Captain, "crime is our meal ticket." You could punish them with an enemy instead of Bad Karma. Bad Karma sounds like an action so cruel it makes Middle Eastern regiemes look like Marx's dream come true.

IF the Runners knew that this man was going to rape a 12 year old girl and then kill her, the runners might have some Karmic debt. If they think its just a normal snatch and grab, they're okay. They may make an enemy or a name for themselves, but I think there are better ways to retaliate.

Example: A few months down the line, politician in question is found out. The names of the runners are implicated, or their Johnson or Fixer is. They now have a Lone Star record they can either get rid of or run from, or (suicidally) try to fight.

okay as the ref who ran the game in question some details.

Girl was about 12. (I have am not a fan of age of consent issuses because it fails to take into account subjects maturity.)

The party were working for a madam of a brothel with a bad rep. She was a contact to group had got to help train one of their mages. They had to deliver the kid to one of her clients.

The girl was clearly off her head on something. (I have big moral issuses about this sort of thing.)

The reason the group got bad karma is because two team member went "urgh I have a bad feeling about this, this is bad shit, we should drop it. Okay you you guys want to go ahead? I'm out then." The remaining team members were going "hey we asked her she seemed a bit stoned but she said cool. What could go wrong?" It was the blasais additute to it that got me. They got bad karma because they didn't think it thru, and glossed over the problems that where pointed out to them. I can and do run games for characters who are evil, they could have all taken it and gone fuck the consequences. I could have lived with that, there would be different consequences for that. But no they took the job with starry eyes and freaked when it went bad.

The group it should be noted where novice runners, this was there second or third job ever I would not normally run this sort of stuff for an experienced group as the sort of characters I tend to run for would have some rep for not taking this kinda job.

Lastly, and perhaps most importantly is how BAD KARMA!!!! works in my games. Bad karma the flaw exists. No player ever takes it it's to nasty. If a PC earns a point of bad karma during a game (eg killing innocents or at least delivering them to something nasty in a callous manner.) I have a one shot drop shit on you card. I do use it as an excuse for soemthing random and unpleasent to happen to you, eg when one of the party gets bitten by a rabid HMHVV infected weasel(bad example, its still early for me) your bad karma makes it you!! This happens once then it's gone (until you do something else.

Just to reiterate I did not give them one of the nastier flaws in the game just because they did something I see as wrong.

Thank you for your time. I suggest we unhijack this thread and move it elsewhere.

I still call horseshit! If the situation (the details of which they did not know about in advance), was that bad, then there should be logical in-game consequences, not some arbitrary cosmic smackdown by an oversensitive GM who set the players (not the characters) up for the fall in the first place.

actually there were consequences. Consequences the group managed to alleviate by some quick thinking. The group learnt from their stupidity. They managed to get the politician removed from power by co operating with people investigating the situation. They also made the authorities aware of the situation in the first place.

Now, see, Ophis is too generous.

I'd have been handing out the Bad Karma flaw to everyone who did that. If they want to clear it, they'd have to make cosmic restitution (like they did for Ophis,) and buy it back with about 20 Karma points. (Which, ironically, they will get slightly faster than they would have before because every 10th/20th point becoming a karma pool point now becomes every 20th/40th point, meaning they'll get a few more karma points.)

They were escorting a porstitute to a client. The prostitute happened to be on drugs. Fair enough, it isn't uncommon for prostitutes to be drug users. Prostitutes start taking drugs to make their jobs easier and continue to do their jobs to get more drugs. It is a vicious cycle.

Reasonably, however, they should have stayed around to watch and make sure that everything went okay and to, eventually, escort her back. Reasonably, the only reason someone would hire muscle such as shadowrunners to escort a prostitute is to make sure that the Johnson doesn't get out of hand.
The politition probably wouldn't have noticed a projecting mage is his bedroom while the rest of the party waits outside. Add some video and it is prime blackmail material, as well. They really did drop the ball on this one. A half-completed job AND a missed blackmail opportunity may just be worthy of bad karma.

So if the NPCs do something despicable, they don't get Bad Karma, but if the PCs do something despicable, they do? I also cry foul. A better way is to keep a cumulative track of "points" based on how many times a PC descends into darkness, and only give them an "appropriate" flaw if they hit certain thresholds. If every single "sin" results in a cosmic consequence, there would be no shadowrunners in the Sixth World.

Pretty much. I find it to be cosmic justice, especially since most NPCs have effectively limitless resources, given that I can just make more NPCs. Karma Pool are the PC's equalizer.


Plus, I had an old Starwars RPG DM who had his bad guys eat up force points like candy. It was really stupid, because they just exploded and went nova on us with FPs.

Alright; Essentially, its not the worst thing if "Bad karma" is essentially "okay, so this chick is dead and her ghost is gonna get back at you in some way."

That's it for me, I guess. Some sort of punishment was probably in line in terms of Karma, the cycle (not Karma, the game function) so if its paid up its paid up.

I don't see the need for any 'punishment' whatsoever. The runners were hired to do a job. They completed the job according to the terms of the contract. In the fullfilment of their contract, they did not directly harm any innocents in any way. What's the problem?

They delivered a drugged-up twelve year old to a horrible death.

If you don't see a problem with that, then you need to slot a sensitivity training skillsoft.

Personal attacks aside ...

They were contracted to deliver a girl (who may have possibly been drugged, the source and type of drug being unknown), who was conscious enough to give her consent, to a specific destination. The end result of the job was also unknown to them. Unless the players could read the GM's mind, they did not know any more than that (from what the GM in question has written).

Every Shadowrun causes problems for someone, either directly or indirectly, maybe even death. Does that mean that characters can expect to arbitrarily receive major Flaws every single time that the players sit down at your table to play?

They picked up a TWELVE YEAR OLD girl who was blitz'd out of her mind FROM A WHOREHOUSE, and delivering her to a politician. If THAT dosen't send alarm flags straight up the flagpole of anybody, they need a wake-up call.

There is nothing to indicate that this is not a normal occurance in the Sixth World. Hell, in a lot of places nowadays, nobody would blink an eye at this activity.

So they picked up a girl from a whorehouse, who was apparently drugged. It could have been the politician's neice, who had run away from home, gotten scared, and then subsequently found by a madame with a heart of gold, who gave her a sedative to calm her nerves before returning her to her kindly uncle.

They didn't know the story. They didn't know the purpose of their contract.

Even if they had, what makes this worse than the mass murder that a lot of shadowrunners seem to commit on a weekly basis?

I think you are using your moral outlook to paint an entire (game) world. The problem is, these kinds of things do happen, both nowadays and in 60 years.

Why do they get "bad karma" for that, but not for putting a double-tap of Ares Predator ammo into Joe Security Guard's brainpan five or six times an adventure? Or ruining the life of some Renraku R&D scientist whose research project they steal? Or conning their way past a secretary and getting her fired when she's trying to work her way through college? Or intimidating their way past that bouncer to get a gun into a Meet, and ruining his rep and ability to work a door?

Morality's all well and good. Selective morality, complete with harsh and GM-fiat handled punishment, is a pile of horseshit.

Joe security guard is carrying a gun, he's a combatant. If Joe Security guard is begging and blubbering and throws down his weapon, then it's wrong.

The Renraku R&D scientist is going to be just as well off at his new corp as his old.

The secretary can find another secretary job.

The bouncer, again, can find another job. Or he can start running the Shadows.

The twelve-year-old girl, however, is an Innocent for two reasons. One: She's too young to make choices like whether or not she wants to die, two: She's too drugged up to competently make choices as to whether or not she wants to risk her life.

Shadowrunners are paid to do jobs that are both illegal and immoral (though not necessarily both at the same time). They do the dirty work that no one else wants to do (usually for fear of reprisal) and they get paid a lot of money to do it. If they totally messed up the job professionally, did morally despicable things in the process, and got exposed to the Law and the Sheriff, then maybe they'd earn that Bad Karma somehow.

It's a question of what kind of game you are playing, not a solely a question of the "Innocence" of the hypothetical 12 year old girl in a whorehouse. If the GM and the players have agreed beforehand that "murder is okay, but delivering 12 year old girls to perverts is not", then why the hell is the GM running that sort of game? There is a major disconnect here between the expectations of what is fair and the GM's use of power.

If you wanted to get into "moral dilemmas", why are you playing Shadowrun, a decidedly amoral and even immoral game? If this was an "altruistic" campaign from the outset (a la "Wolf and Raven" or comic book style), then it's a much different story. But there is no indication that this situation isn't your typical Shadowrun "I kill people for lunch money" campaign.

but the problem there caramel, is that, when the "shades of grey" amount to shit, or poop, and stages inbetween, it's still gonna be at best, immoral... i think... the "shades of grey" only works when its a decidely good action to do a job one way, and decidedly bad to do it another, and theres multiple ways in between to do it as well./

It's not really a question of good or bad as it is of how far you're willing to go. Having two clearly distinct paths is the very antithesis of gray.

The PCs are hired to insert a tracking program into a local power plant by the Johnson.

Combined with the insertion of another program at a second location means that the power for the city is cut. The end result is the power to the city is cut and untold numbers of deaths, shoot outs, thefts ...

Should the PCs get the bad karma flaw for that?

(And as an added note, just how many GMs on these boards have run their players through the Brainscan adventure?)

Any PC stupid enough to frag with a power plant won't have to worry about Bad Karma. He'll be far too busy catching bullets to notice (or care.)

Critias, the butterfly effect is not on the runner's heads. They aren't responsible for unforseeable consequences. In the girl case, however, the consequences were entirely forseeable. PAINFULLY forseeable, given that two Runners walked out on the J, on the spot. It's on their heads.

And the thing about her age is more of a "two crimes, only one execution per man." Thing. Delivering anyone to rape and murder is worth the Bad Karma. The fact that she was twelve just makes you extra Evil in the eyes of whatever Judgement comes your way. (And, I'm not entirely a dick. Your Bad Karmas would be concurrant, not consecutive.)