| From: | Ashlocke <woneal@*******.NET> |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Re: Brutality in Shadowrun (was: Re: Healing a wound the mage de |
| Date: | Sat, 21 Feb 1998 05:08:47 -0005 |
> On Thu, 19 Feb 1998 23:55:31 +0000 Leszek Karlik wrote:
>
> <snip>
> This thread makes me thing about brutality and morality in Shadowrun.
>
> Something about runner's morality: In Shadowrun you get karma after the
> adventure, no experience points or a kill ratio. As far as I remember
> karma is positive energy (I think this comes from Indian religion, but I
> may be wrong). In the 'after the run' section of official adventures FASA
Actually yes, it is wrong but that's not really your fault. The word
"karma" in Hindi means "action". The Buddist believe that all karma
"actions" have consequences, and while generally good actions bring about
good consequences and bad actions bring about bad consequences this isn't
always true. The "New Age" movement picked up this idea and
simplified it to the concept "good karma" bringing you good luck in life.
In short, if you'll just be nice life will be nice to you. Very
simplistic view and not at all in line with Buddism (who believe that
sometimes bad comes from good and sometimes good from bad and it's really
not what happens but how you deal with it that matters).
> often writes that the characters get more karma, if they were 'nice'. In
> the Shadowrun companion they discuss a amoral campaign where the runners
> get no karma for their actions. That leads me to one conclusion: the
> authors of Shadowrun want the runners to have some kind morality. I think
> they not only wrote this to avoid censorship.
This was definitely how it was in the beginning. FASA "scripted"
characters as the "heroes" of the game. They made runners out to be some
sort of modern day Robinhoods. The adventure Dreamchipper is a good
example. In it, you get less karma for doing what you were hired to do
than if you do the supposedly "moral" thing. The problem with this was
that it isn't a very "cyberpunk" concept. It makes things black and white
when cyberpunk is about exploring those shades of grey inbetween. Second
it forced the players to be something that maybe they weren't. That is,
if you wanted to get the most karma, you had a to be a good guy, even if
the character you'd created wasn't. That annoyed a lot of players and GMs
and I think the amoral rules were an attempt by FASA to bring the game
closer to its cyberpunk roots. Lets face it, if all it took in life to be
successful was a bit of morality, the world would be a very different
place. Sometimes the bad guy does win.
>
> But sometimes it seems to me that players absolutely don't care about any
> morals. I don't think that runners should be the good guys: they are
> criminals, anarchists and like to do illegal thinks but I think they are
> supposed to have some kind of codex for their life. I think that a street
> samurai doesn't call him self a samurai 'cause he likes the name but
> because he behaves like a urban samurai. In the fields of fire there is a
> quite huge part about a mercenary and his codex.
Good point. A lot of players go for mindless violence. They treat a
roleplaying game like it was some sort of video game. Those players are
missing the point of roleplaying.
As for having a codex in life... it is a good idea. Having you're own
personal code goes a long way to keep you from getting lost in those
thousand shades of grey. The problem is that in real life, most players
don't have a defined personal code, so it's not surprising that the
character's they create don't either. I have often wondered if the
section in FOF about mercenary behavior was not strongly influenced by
another book "Manual of the Mercenary Soldier" by Paul Balor. The book is
non-fiction, written by a real "mercenary". In it Mr Balor discusses the
need for a personal code in a life where there are few other rules. He
discusses the importance of personal honor and integrity. It's an
interesting read and on my recommended reading list for Shadowrun.
Unfortunately, much of what is discussed isn't very well understood it
seems. Yes, runners should have some values, a personal code. It's a
good idea and especially in a world where few other rules apply a good
"moral compass" can be invaluable for keeping your sanity. However, that
doesn't mean runners will, just as in real life most don't.
>
> Like Leszek Karlik I could tell you several stories from the beginning of
> my time as a roleplayer where my characters behaved like psychos, but
> this changed as the characters I played became more realistic persons
> that were more than just archetypal jack of all trades with quite good
> stats. By the way I hope you never find out anything about my first
> character, you would scream munchkin and I would agree (imagine an
> initiated combat mage with almost a million invested in cultured
> bioware). <voice in my had urging me to thwarp myself>
I think we all played pretty munchkin characters when we first started
playing roleplaying games. It goes with the territory. I still remember
a certain paladin who rode a red dragon... <embarassed grin> Most of us
mature a bit as we get experience. We start discovering there's a lot
more to do in these games besides shooting things.
>
> Back to my question: How is the general brutality level in your campains
> and what do you think of morality in Shadowrun? I'm just wondering how
> you keep your players from killing everybody that is weaker than them
> except having the one that are stronger then them kill the runners. And I
> think some kind of morality would be a good point to start from.
Handle it just like real life handles it. If you go on a brutal
three-state killing spree you can bloody well expected to be hunted down
like an animal. Mercenaries who live like psychopaths in the real world
don't last very long. Reputation gets around and people start viewing
them as throw aways. Sooner or later somebody caps them, or somebody
hires them for a suicide mission. On of the biggest dangers real world
mercenaries face is the "false flags" game. That is, a situation where
you're employer pretends to be someone other than who he is. And you get
sent on a mission under false pretense, only finding out the truth when
it's too late... if you ever find out the truth at all. A good example, a
corp rep pretends to be an eco-freak and hires you to hit another corp.
You hit the corp because you think they are poluting the environment.
What you never find out is you were really hired by one corp to hit
another corp research facility. Polution of the environment had nothing
to do with it. You get paid and everything seems fine, you may never know
what really went down even though you were in the middle of it. False
flags. Sometimes false flags games get nasty. Government A pretends to
be Government B and hires you to do something to Government C. Then
Government A tips off Government C and when you get caught and
interrogated Government B gets the blame. What happens to you? You were
expendable from the start. Welcome to false flags. In short, it's a
brutal world. If you want a hope in hell of surviving, play it smart,
play it cool, don't draw a weapon unless you have to, and do your
homework. On the other hand, if you want to go around guns blazing...
expect to go out in a blaze. Survival of the fittest, and sooner or later
the stupid get culled out of the gene pool. Unfortunately they too often
take a lot of innocents with them when they go.
>
> BTW: I'm not a morality apostle, although I might sound a bit sensitive.
> The Tarantino movies Leszek Karlik mentioned are some of my favourite
> movies. (And they _do_ have morality: Don't you know about "The part of
> the righteous man" that "is beset on all sides by the inequities of the
> selfish and the tyranny of evil men...") :)
Neither am I. But if nothing else, characters with some sort of value
system are far more interesting than psychopaths. And nobody says that
value system has to match any socially accepted values. Maybe the
character really is *nuts* and has some strange sense of values all their
own. It's kind of like the actor asking the director "What's my
motivation?" What motivates the character, what drives them, what makes
them tick? Why do the do the things they do? Exploring the answers to
those questions can be a lot of fun.
On a side note about karma. Karma has become a sort of character point
system in Shadowrun. It doesn't work very well for that, but it's being
used that way just the same. I often hear game masters and players alike
talking about 200 pt characters, 0 pt characters, etc. Karma are not
character points... you can have decker with 50 karma who is a lot tougher
than a magician with 200 karma pts. Why? Because just about everything a
mage does costs karma, very little a decker does cost karma. Mages have
to pay karma for spells... deckers pay cash for programs (or just design
them themselves and pay nothing at all). So while a decker could have 20
rating 4 programs, a mage with 20 force 4 spells would need 80 karma. My
point? Using karma as some sort of "character point" or "experience
level" system doesn't really work at all. And it gives some archtypes an
advantage while severely handicapping others.
--
@>->,-`---
Ashelock
o=<======-
GM's Theme: "I am the eye in the sky, looking at you, I can see your lies.
I am the maker of rules, dealing in fools, I can cheat you blind."
