So, naturally, when reading this blog, my first reaction is, "If this kid were actually a musclar, well-trained ninja, instead of a terrified persecuted teenager, he could escape!" And naturally my thoughts of ninja made me think of the 1980s, and the 1980s in turn made me think of Shadowrun.

I thought, "Wouldn't it be funny if the PCs got hired to rescue one particular kid from a religious looney de-gaying camp somewhere in CAS? I've got it all figured out. Some rich Seattle exec has a cousin or something in CAS whose psychotic parents have sent to a de-gaying camp. The rich Seattle exec decides it would be fun to pee in the cheerios of his detested Southern relatives so he decides to flex some executive rich man muscle and send Shadowrunners to yoink the kid out from under the noses of said parents!"

But then I realized that that would be sort of boring, in and of itself. I mean, the idea would be kind of funny, but it would be too easy. How could a GM possibly kill off the PCs with a mission like that?

So...what if the de-gaying camp is actually run by a megalomaniacal Baptist shaman, and he's got a cult of personality where the entire surrounding town supports him? The PCs come in, and everyone in town is deceptively friendly. There's no real problem until anyone in town figures out what they're there to do; all of a sudden the formerly friendly and hospitable town turns on them with shotguns and hunting rifles. It'd be like Mogidishu, except with shotguns and hunting rifles instead of old AKs.

And then, once the PCs succeed in penetrating the camp, the crazy shaman has a bunch of follower shamans, and there's the whole challenge of taking out a group of shamans without harming the innocent kids collaterally.

The best part of this is that it would allow both the combat type characters *and* the "face" characters to shine. Before the town turns hostile, there's plenty of room for information gathering and whatnot by the "face" characters.

I've seen the gross atrocities comitted in the name of "religion", and I think I'm going to be using that in the run I intend to do tomorrow.
Damn, I hate religion.

Yeah, I am aware. Sad and disgusting it is, but not really disturbing. Not relative to lots of the other stuff out there, anyway.

And I'm sorry for your friend.

Sure it is. I mean, what could be bad about being emotionally ground down to a pulp so you may be sculpted in the hideous image of your parents?
Those who said "Learn from history, or you are doomed to repeat it" were only all too accurate.

The rules included provisions for doing things that were not inside the walls of the facility, and directions for family members when a staff member is not present. That makes me assume that the people inside see the outside without staff members present occasionally. That pretty much automatically makes it not as bad as what I was expecting, though that's kinda like saying that getting only one kneecap blown off isn't as bad as having them both go.

Thanks. I hadn't realized that I was still this angry about it.

~J

He didn't say it wasn't bad. He said it was pretty mild compared to the other wonderful inhumanities carried out in the name of Jesus in this country. And he is right. What that kid is being put through is undeniably wrong and twisted, but it could be a lot worse.

And it was Santayana.

Justice, I can agree with, but just how many atricities can you think of that have been carried out in the name of arts and culture? There is potential for abuse everywhere, yes, and that speaks more of humanity than it does of justice or religion, but I think you're stretching it a bit thin when you get to art and culture.

Yes. There is something vaguely offensive about taking a genuine, serious issue, and reducing all its ethical dillemas and complexities to a John Woo braindead bloodbath.

You're making sense, but that doesn't necessarily mean you're right. While fashion did present the concept of heroin chic, fashion designers never made camps for women to get forced into and starved to 90 pounds, or anything like that. Anybody who did that, did that voluntarily, under the erroneous assumption that thats the body type men find most attractive, even though superskinny models were really just put forth as human coat racks that designers could slap a bunch of clothes onto and then parade down the runway.

That's just not true. I went through Marine Corps boot camp and I'm still the same person I was before. To compare boot camp and the de-gaying camp is ignorant and is over-generalizing. Yes, there are USMC recruits that take it waaaay too far and drop off the deep end, but boot camp itself is nothing like this religious gulag. The purpose is to teach and train, not re-educate. I know it sounds like I'm splitting hairs, but there really IS a big difference.

I also grew up Mormon and they ARE guilty of brainwashing.

Even now when someone says my pre-conditioned codeword, I'm forced to give 10% of whatever I have on me to the nearest church and start a sing-along.

P.S. - I'm ashamed it's my adopted state that's the problem. I apologize on behalf of the non-crazy residents.

Not any more.

You make two statements here. One is arguably true, one is false. The two are, contrary to what first impressions may lead one to believe, almost entirely unrelated. I'll leave you to work out the details.

Because the people who fund these camps are going to be real intimidated by someone who is ideologically not aligned with them, and the camps themselves are going to try real hard to get someone who isn't a potential customer to be happy with them.

We don't go in for guilt by association here. Unless it's D20, that is.

~J

You are in the minority there. Average Joe will probably feel every-so-slightly more squeemish about slaughtering humans (no matter how fucked up in the head the particular human is) than about destroying insect-spirit-thingies.

Still, most of the people in and around the camp don't need to know anything about the spirits, nor do they actually have to be wossnamed. Infested? Inhabited? Whatever. Most shadowrunners will feel about the same amount of squeemishness towards slaughtering guards working for religious fuckers as towards slaughtering guards who think they work for religious fuckers but actually work for bug spirits. That amount may round off to zero in many cases, however.

There are some pilot programs where it does play a role. Boot camps for Meth abusers and delinquent kids are fairly common, but in their experimental stages in Minnesota right now.

Proven fact that religin has caused more and bloodier wars then any other 'thing' in mankinds history. But art? For some reason I dont see art as something people wage pitched battles over. [proof] Or at least an example.


Yeah, after reading that I was about ready to go bust some brainwashed heads. Kage, man my condolances, it shows what can get away without being called a cult as long as its under the right religion...

Modeled after military boot camps. Vocational training, calesthenics, rigid schedule, keep you busy til you drop from exhaustion at night. THat kind of thing.