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Message no. 1
From: Bull <chaos@*****.COM>
Subject: Runner's Attitudes (was: Re: Top 10 Magical Pet Peeves)
Date: Wed, 25 Jun 1997 12:48:27 -0400
At 08:10 AM 6/25/97 -0005, woneal@*******.NET wrote these timeless words:

> Then you'd lose a bet. Most of the mages I play are in it for money.
>I'm very mercenary in my attitude about shadowrunnning. I don't have any
>moral baggage or idealism tripping my character's up. They know the
>score, their disposable, that's how the world sees them, that's how it is.
>
<sigh>

I wish I had players like that...

Where as I LIKE to play characters with som morals (This leads to some fun
moral conflicts ith what they do for a living), I have no problem with
unmoralistic bastards who are true mercenaries. problem is, the few
players I have who want to play like that, don't seem to realize taht they
are expendable...

I have one guy, currently, who is playing a Street Sammy. Basically, he's
a Munchkin...:] He's got some bacground for the character, and will even
role play a bit, but he's still a munchkin at heart. And he thinks that
he's God. This is a character that was seriously going to pull a grenade
and pull the pin and then hold it, expecting his Body of 14 to save him,
and couldn't understand why I wasn't going to let him roll to resist the
damage...

I don't want to blatantly kill the character. That wouldn't help him to
learn. He's already managed to piss off one empoyer, as well as his fixer,
and when his fixer sent over smeone to have a "talk" with him, he simply
mouthed off and refused to be polite. I mean, when you've got LARGE troll
mage using "Control Thoughts" and "Control Actions" on you, you do NOT
tell
him to Frag Off. I should have just had him shoot himself in the head, but...

Sorry, i just get real tired of players who don;t get the concept that
there are a million and one people out there better than them, and that any
street punk with a gun can kill you... It's idiotic....

<sigh>

Well... he gets one more chance... i've managed to get him to switch his
character over to a mage, so hopefully things will go a LITTLE smoother...
But I doubt it, somehow... I may be looking for a replacement real soon...:/

Bull
--
Bull, aka Steven Ratkovich, aka Rak, aka a lot of others! :]

The Offical Celebrity Shadowrn Mailing List Welcome Ork Decker!
Fearless Leader of the Star Wars Mailing List
List Flunky of ShadowCreations, creators of the Newbies Guide,
in production now!
HOME PAGE: http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Cavern/3604/home.html

"Gen Con, here I come!"
-- Me
Message no. 2
From: "Fisher, Victor" <Victor-Fisher@******.COM>
Subject: Re: Runner's Attitudes (was: Re: Top 10 Magical Pet Peeves)
Date: Wed, 25 Jun 1997 14:50:11 -0400
>Bull added:
>At 08:10 AM 6/25/97 -0005, woneal@*******.NET wrote these timeless words:
>> Then you'd lose a bet. Most of the mages I play are in it for
>>money. I'm very mercenary in my attitude about shadowrunnning. I don't have
>>any moral baggage or idealism tripping my character's up. They know the
>>score, their disposable, that's how the world sees them, that's how it is.
>
><sigh>
>
>I wish I had players like that...
>Where as I LIKE to play characters with som morals (This leads to some fun
>moral conflicts ith what they do for a living), I have no problem with
>unmoralistic bastards who are true mercenaries. problem is, the few
>players I have who want to play like that, don't seem to realize taht they
>are expendable...
><snip>
>Sorry, i just get real tired of players who don;t get the concept that
>there are a million and one people out there better than them, and that any
>street punk with a gun can kill you... It's idiotic....
>
><sigh>
>
><snip>
>
> Sorry, but I have to stand in the camp of moralistic players. I pretty
>much burned off my 'kill 'em all, and who the frag cares who sorts 'em out'
>phase a year after I started playing D&D. I just couldn't bring myself to
>care for a character who didn't care for anything else except himself and how
>much death he could sling around.
> The best movie villians, IMHO, are one that, while you find their
>actions reprehensible, there's that spark of something that you can ALMOST
>emphathize with and understand. [I said ALMOST]. I pattern most of my
>villians as a GM like that. I try to make them more than one dimensional
>slaughterhouses. I've seen FAR too many players like that. It's old, it's
>passe', it's been done. [But I do sneak in the occasional 'Yes, it REALLY is
>just a slobbering monster that wants to tear your head off' type in my games.
>I actually caught one player off guard who thought he knew me better, and..,
>well, I ...tore his head off :-]
> It's not really a challenge to just have a totally mercenary attitude
>about everything. It's probably the easiest character set to play. i'm not
>asking everybody to start play 'holy than thou' characters', just make them a
>little more interesting than 'Thrud Smash and take money.'. Of course if this
>is the type of game the players and the GM want to play, MORE power to them.
> The GM ISN'T in the role of moral judge. He should take the characters
>his players present him with [I tend to draw the line at serial killers, but
>that's just me], and construct a story around them. He can either try to
>'redeem' them gradually, showing them the error of their ways, or he can just
>turn it into a gore fest [Look at Resevoir Dogs. Almost all of them were bad
>to the bone, but you DID care about them; especially when Madsen did his
>little dance with the gasoline <sick hehehe>.
> While the later's amusing to me for awhile, it wears thin after 'the
>players sink to rolling derelicts in the strets, setting them on fire, just
>to get the attention of a mob boss they want to work with by showing how
>ruthless they are'...Yes, that what an actual scenerio I ran devolved into.
> Characters with 'loose' morals can make good stories; take the John
>Travolta, and Samuel L. Jackson in Pulp Fiction, or John Cusack in Grosse
>Point Blank. If you want s TRUE archetype for a street sam in a
>cyberpunk/sorcery genre, pickup a copy of the old GRIMJACK comic book series.
>He basically makes ANY 'hardcore' mercenary type character played in ANY game
>I've been in look like a pansy, and LIKE it. BUT, he had CHARACTER. He had a
>REASON for being like that, NOT because it was convient to play.
> As a PC, I usually believe you're only as disposable as you want to be.
>Every dog has it's day, you just have to work towards it and be ready when it
>comes. Most shadowrunners are pawns, used by just about EVERYBODY it seems.
>Very few realize this simple fact. Those that do, let this bit of knowledge
>sink them into the depths of cynicism even further. A few try to climb up in
>importance in the game, to a Bishop, Knight. And those with a truly 'big
>picture' view, may, may even get to see the King pulling the strings, only to
>realize it's the Queen who has the REAL power.
>
> <DOH! I was so cryptic, I forgot what I was talking about! Sounded good
>though...>
>
> DO WHAT YOU WANT TO DO! REMEMBER, WE ARE ALL INDIVIDUALS!!!
>
>More ramblings from the Soapbox...
Message no. 3
From: David Buehrer <dbuehrer@****.ORG>
Subject: Re: Runner's Attitudes (was: Re: Top 10 Magical Pet Peeves)
Date: Wed, 25 Jun 1997 12:21:28 -0600
Bull wrote:
|
| I have one guy, currently, who is playing a Street Sammy. Basically, he's
| a Munchkin...:] He's got some bacground for the character, and will even
| role play a bit, but he's still a munchkin at heart. And he thinks that
| he's God. This is a character that was seriously going to pull a grenade
| and pull the pin and then hold it, expecting his Body of 14 to save him,
| and couldn't understand why I wasn't going to let him roll to resist the
| damage...
|
| I don't want to blatantly kill the character. That wouldn't help him to
| learn. He's already managed to piss off one empoyer, as well as his fixer,
| and when his fixer sent over smeone to have a "talk" with him, he simply
| mouthed off and refused to be polite. I mean, when you've got LARGE troll
| mage using "Control Thoughts" and "Control Actions" on you, you do
NOT tell
| him to Frag Off. I should have just had him shoot himself in the head, but...
|
| <sigh>
|
| Well... he gets one more chance... i've managed to get him to switch his
| character over to a mage, so hopefully things will go a LITTLE smoother...
| But I doubt it, somehow... I may be looking for a replacement real soon...:/

Two ways you can go. Humiliate the character. Have the 105 year old
grandma mugger whip out the Yamaha Pulse Taser and strip him down to
his undies. See how the player roleplays it.

The other way (and you've probably allready seen this on the list) is
to sit down and have a heart to heart talk with the player. Tell him
that RPGing is supposed to be fun, but that you would like him to try
to add more depth to his characters, that his PC should be more than
a set of numbers. And warn him that your world mirrors reality and
that if his character keeps pissing off everyone then his character
won't be able to survive (no jobs, hunted by the police, etc).

And if all else fails, for god's sake don't be afraid to boot the
player out of the group.

Good luck :)

-David
http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/1068/homepage.htm
--
Yoink - The sound of a crescent roll being stolen.
Message no. 4
From: "Paul J. Adam" <shadowrn@********.DEMON.CO.UK>
Subject: Re: Runner's Attitudes (was: Re: Top 10 Magical Pet Peeves)
Date: Wed, 25 Jun 1997 23:25:22 +0100
In message <c=US%a=_%pÞSHAW%l=MSBOSTON1-970625185011Z-1288@*********.b
oston.deshaw.com>, "Fisher, Victor" <Victor-Fisher@******.COM> writes
> The best movie villians, IMHO, are one that, while you find their
>>actions reprehensible, there's that spark of something that you can ALMOST
>>emphathize with and understand. [I said ALMOST].

Ed Harris in "The Rock", for instance? Or John Travolta in "Broken
Arrow".

>> It's not really a challenge to just have a totally mercenary attitude
>>about everything. It's probably the easiest character set to play. i'm not
>>asking everybody to start play 'holy than thou' characters', just make them a
>>little more interesting than 'Thrud Smash and take money.'. Of course if this
>>is the type of game the players and the GM want to play, MORE power to them.

To play this type _properly_ is hard. To see and understand the
suffering and the damage you cause when you kill a street-doc (for the
'crime' of treating poor patients for free, thus reducing the margin his
suppliers earned) and still say "too bad" and walk away - because the
poor and helpless can't offer you a paycheque - is a real challenge to
role-play.

To play it badly is easy, of course.

Doesn't rule out the "Our village is poor, and all we can offer is food
and a place to sleep for the seven of you" runs: but you have to catch
those particular characters at the right time.

>>More ramblings from the Soapbox...

Hey, play the game, have fun, create and explore characters :) That's
what I'm here for...

--
There are four kinds of homicide: felonious, excusable, justifiable and
praiseworthy...

Paul J. Adam paul@********.demon.co.uk
Message no. 5
From: "Paul J. Adam" <shadowrn@********.DEMON.CO.UK>
Subject: Re: Runner's Attitudes (was: Re: Top 10 Magical Pet Peeves)
Date: Wed, 25 Jun 1997 23:39:00 +0100
In message <3.0.16.19970625122259.2ea710e2@*****.com>, Bull
<chaos@*****.COM> writes
>I don't want to blatantly kill the character. That wouldn't help him to
>learn. He's already managed to piss off one empoyer, as well as his fixer,
>and when his fixer sent over smeone to have a "talk" with him, he simply
>mouthed off and refused to be polite. I mean, when you've got LARGE troll
>mage using "Control Thoughts" and "Control Actions" on you, you do
NOT tell
>him to Frag Off. I should have just had him shoot himself in the head, but...

Simple. Next job his team are hired for, he's asked to leave. "I'm
sorry, XXXX, your reputation precedes you and my employers aren't
willing to hire you. Your colleagues yes, you no."
>
>Sorry, i just get real tired of players who don;t get the concept that
>there are a million and one people out there better than them, and that any
>street punk with a gun can kill you... It's idiotic....

There's mileage in that for a _character_... as long as the character
doesn't start to believe their own propaganda.

--
There are four kinds of homicide: felonious, excusable, justifiable and
praiseworthy...

Paul J. Adam paul@********.demon.co.uk
Message no. 6
From: woneal@*******.NET
Subject: Re: Runner's Attitudes (was: Re: Top 10 Magical Pet Peeves)
Date: Thu, 26 Jun 1997 07:35:17 -0005
On 25 Jun 97 at 23:25, Paul J. Adam wrote:

>
> >> It's not really a challenge to just have a totally mercenary attitude
> >>about everything. It's probably the easiest character set to play. i'm not
> >>asking everybody to start play 'holy than thou' characters', just make them a
> >>little more interesting than 'Thrud Smash and take money.'. Of course if this
> >>is the type of game the players and the GM want to play, MORE power to them.
>
> To play this type _properly_ is hard. To see and understand the
> suffering and the damage you cause when you kill a street-doc (for the
> 'crime' of treating poor patients for free, thus reducing the margin his
> suppliers earned) and still say "too bad" and walk away - because the
> poor and helpless can't offer you a paycheque - is a real challenge to
> role-play.
>
> To play it badly is easy, of course.

Exactly Paul. Just because a character treats running the shadows as a
business venture (which is exactly what it is), doesn't mean said
character is a sociopathic, homicidal mass murder who hates his
mother/her father. It's not an either/or situation, there are more than
two choices here and shadowrunners, like r/l mercenaries, fall smack in
the middle of those "thousand shades of grey." It's not as simple as
black hats and white hats.

>
> Doesn't rule out the "Our village is poor, and all we can offer is food
> and a place to sleep for the seven of you" runs: but you have to catch
> those particular characters at the right time.

<chuckle> You know, that might be very tempting offer to a smart runner.
Someplace you can get three square meals (without having to worry if
they're poisoned), a warm bed (without having to check for bombs) and a
porch to sit on (without having to keep your back to the wall) could be
very attractive. Mercs go to Angola for work, they got to Ohio for a
vacation.

--
P. Sean O'Neal
mailto: woneal@*******.net


"They say it's a brave new world we're building. I say they're right,
and we'll all have to be pretty brave to live in it."
Message no. 7
From: woneal@*******.NET
Subject: Re: Runner's Attitudes (was: Re: Top 10 Magical Pet Peeves)
Date: Thu, 26 Jun 1997 07:35:17 -0005
On 25 Jun 97 at 12:48, Bull wrote:

> At 08:10 AM 6/25/97 -0005, woneal@*******.NET wrote these timeless words:
>
> > Then you'd lose a bet. Most of the mages I play are in it for money.
> >I'm very mercenary in my attitude about shadowrunnning. I don't have any
> >moral baggage or idealism tripping my character's up. They know the
> >score, their disposable, that's how the world sees them, that's how it is.
> >
> <sigh>
>
> I wish I had players like that...
>
Have character... seriously thinking about moving <grin>

> Where as I LIKE to play characters with som morals (This leads to some
> fun moral conflicts ith what they do for a living), I have no problem
> with unmoralistic bastards who are true mercenaries. problem is, the few
> players I have who want to play like that, don't seem to realize taht
> they are expendable...

This seems to have spawned a thread, which is fine. So let me add some
food for thought by expanding on my own comments.

First off, there seems to be an impression that "mercenary" is
synonomous with "killing machine". It's not. A mercenary is someone who
fights for pay, period. That's about as far at that definition goes. I
don't play characters with a lot of idealism.. it gets in the way and
generally ends up being dangerous. My characters aren't out to save the
world, they aren't crusaders. But that doesn't mean they won't do a good
deed if they have the chance, they just don't make a career out of it.
Most of the characters I play don't worry over much about the moral issues
of what they do. On the other hand, most of them do have a personal code.
Some standard things you can usually count on (but not always) about my
characters is that most hate "collateral damage"; that is, to them a run
that leaves a trail of bodies and property damage is a failure, even if
they acheived the mission objective. While they avoid unnecessary
violence, they have no problems shooting when it is necessary. I've
always played this way, some of my own rl convictions showing through I
guess. The bit about mercenaries in FOF echoed some of my own thoughts.
I also couldn't help but wonder if the author of that had read another
book, Manual of the Mercenary Solider by Paul Balour (Dell books,
non-fiction). IMHO that book ought to be required reading for any
shadowrunner... lots of good advice and a some handy tricks of the trade.
Moral baggage and idealism, again IMHO, includes things like patriotism,
religion, biases against killing/injuring, heroics, personal attitude
problems (ego), and so on. No Lone Ranger stuff, no A-Team stuff
non-sense. You aren't a social worker. You aren't running a day
care service. People get hurt in this business, thats unavoidable. At
the same time, that's not an excuse for random violence. Leave that to
the gang bangers. If a woman points a gun at my character, odds are my
character will kill her. If a child has a bomb in a shoe shine box (ala
Viet Cong nasty tricks 101) and my character realizes it, the kid is
probably dead. On the other hand, most characters I play would severely
hurt someone they caught abusing a kid (or a woman, or basically anybody,
I hate bullies, personal peeve). That may sound like a paradox, but it's
not. The key point is threat, the character reacts to the threat, not the
individual, no threat = no reaction. Frequently I'll play characters that
are poets or artists in their spare time, one owns a bar, another has a
habit of making anonymous donations to orphanages. Virtually all of them
are basically honest people, if they give their word on something you can
trust them to keep it. When not on "business" they dress like normal
people and live normal lives. What they do in the shadows stays in the
shadows (or at least as much as they can keep it that way).
One last thing. Someone I admire once said this about mercenaries vs.
soldiers of fortune. (I use the term "mercenary" in a generic sense. If
you want to get picky, I play my characters as soldiers of fortune,
professionals.
"Soldiers of fortune of the Sweeney, Pollock and Schmidt
breed (of the classic SOF era between the world wars) had a code that
covered everything from mode of dress to dying, and their standards were
rigid. There was no greater insult to a soldier of fortune than to call
him a mercenary. Mercenaries were human sheep with no say as to whom they
would fight or why."
Most runners seem to fall into that human sheep category. Avoid it,
you'll live longer.

</rant>
--

Ashlocke
(woneal@*******.net)

"We shall never be able to remove suspicion and fear
as potential causes of war until communication is
permitted to flow, free and open, across international
boundries." -- Harry S. Truman
Message no. 8
From: Bull <chaos@*****.COM>
Subject: Re: Runner's Attitudes (was: Re: Top 10 Magical Pet Peeves)
Date: Thu, 26 Jun 1997 13:29:47 -0400
At 07:35 AM 6/26/97 -0005, woneal@*******.NET wrote these timeless words:
>Mercs go to Angola for work, they got to Ohio for a
>vacation.
>
Hey now! I LIVE in Ohio...:]

Bull-who-is-not-really-a-merc-he-does-the-drek-for-free-Ork-Decker
--
Bull, aka Steven Ratkovich, aka Rak, aka a lot of others! :]

The Offical Celebrity Shadowrn Mailing List Welcome Ork Decker!
Fearless Leader of the Star Wars Mailing List
List Flunky of ShadowCreations, creators of the Newbies Guide,
in production now!
HOME PAGE: http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Cavern/3604/home.html

"Gen Con, here I come!"
-- Me
Message no. 9
From: woneal@*******.NET
Subject: Re: Runner's Attitudes (was: Re: Top 10 Magical Pet Peeves)
Date: Thu, 26 Jun 1997 16:26:45 -0005
On 26 Jun 97 at 13:29, Bull wrote:

> At 07:35 AM 6/26/97 -0005, woneal@*******.NET wrote these timeless words:
> >Mercs go to Angola for work, they got to Ohio for a
> >vacation.
> >
> Hey now! I LIVE in Ohio...:]
>
LOL... just kidding. Got few friends who live there as well. In fact, I
might be moving in that direction if a few things work out.

--

Ashlocke
(woneal@*******.net)

"We shall never be able to remove suspicion and fear
as potential causes of war until communication is
permitted to flow, free and open, across international
boundries." -- Harry S. Truman

Further Reading

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