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Message no. 1
From: Number Ten Ox <number_10_ox@**********.COM>
Subject: [SR] Ethical Shadowrunners
Date: Mon, 21 Sep 1998 06:53:01 -0700
Okay. So here I am, running Harlequin (the original version) for my group.
The very first adventure. They waltz into the Laubenstein plaza,
successfully bluff past the Ork, make nice-nice with J.P. Morlock, Morlock
explains the mission...
...and the mage and the shaman both look up and go "We're sorry,
sir, that's censorship. We can't accept the mission: sorry for wasting
your time."

Argh!
Again, ARGH!
Sigh.
Has anything like that ever happened to any of you out there? Did I just
misjudge my group pretty badly?


===
--Number 10, aka Aneirin Two-Tails.
"What's the blast radius of a mouse?"
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Message no. 2
From: Duncan McNeill-Burton <dmcneill@************.EDU>
Subject: Re: [SR] Ethical Shadowrunners
Date: Mon, 21 Sep 1998 10:02:30 -0400
Number Ten Ox didst asketh:

>Okay. So here I am, running Harlequin (the original version) for my group.
>The very first adventure. They waltz into the Laubenstein plaza,
>successfully bluff past the Ork, make nice-nice with J.P. Morlock, Morlock
>explains the mission...
> ...and the mage and the shaman both look up and go "We're sorry,
>sir, that's censorship. We can't accept the mission: sorry for wasting
>your time."
>
>Argh!
>Again, ARGH!
>Sigh.
>Has anything like that ever happened to any of you out there? Did I just
>misjudge my group pretty badly?


That's a good one. Ethical runners are one thing, but that's a bit silly.
Objecting to murder or kidnapping is one thing, but refusing to steal
something only because they're anti-censorship is nuts. But you're lucky.
With Harley, it's not a problem. You toss out a few unrelated runs, then
pick up the next one from the book.

Trippy.

Later-

Duncan McNeill-Burton
-Tech Priest in Training
-Violent Felon for Hire
-Pipe-wielding Sociopath for Fun
http://attila.stevens-tech.edu/~dmcneill
"Your eyes shiver and you grit your teeth,
You've sold you soul now cold blood's how you get relief."
-Ice-T, The Syndicate
Message no. 3
From: Shaun Gilroy <shaung@**********.NET>
Subject: Re: [SR] Ethical Shadowrunners
Date: Mon, 21 Sep 1998 10:09:49 -0400
At 06:53 AM 9/21/98 -0700, you wrote:
>Okay. So here I am, running Harlequin (the original version) for my group.
>The very first adventure. They waltz into the Laubenstein plaza,
>successfully bluff past the Ork, make nice-nice with J.P. Morlock, Morlock
>explains the mission...
> ...and the mage and the shaman both look up and go "We're sorry,
>sir, that's censorship. We can't accept the mission: sorry for wasting
>your time."

What I would do is assume Morlock hired someone else to do the run, and
then skip to the next mission.

Perhaps hire the runners for another Shadowrun that somehow overlaps with
this one and they won't realize it until the lead is flying. This gives
you an oportunity to get creative and somehow weave them back into the
plotline anyway.

>===
>--Number 10, aka Aneirin Two-Tails.


(>)noysh the spoonë bard
-> jack of all trades, master of none. <-
Message no. 4
From: Chris Maxfield <cmaxfiel@****.ORG.AU>
Subject: Re: [SR] Ethical Shadowrunners
Date: Tue, 22 Sep 1998 00:37:09 +1000
At 06:53 21/09/98 -0700, Number Ten Ox wrote:
>Okay. So here I am, running Harlequin (the original version) for my group.
>The very first adventure. They waltz into the Laubenstein plaza,
>successfully bluff past the Ork, make nice-nice with J.P. Morlock, Morlock
>explains the mission...
> ...and the mage and the shaman both look up and go "We're sorry,
>sir, that's censorship. We can't accept the mission: sorry for wasting
>your time."
>
>Argh!
>Again, ARGH!
>Sigh.
>Has anything like that ever happened to any of you out there? Did I just
>misjudge my group pretty badly?

Wet work. My runners, unless there is an extremely good reason very
convincingly presented, refuse to do wet work. I think that's the limits of
their ethics though.

Chris Maxfield We are restless because of incessant
<cmaxfiel@****.org.au> change, but we would be frightened if
Canberra, Australia change were stopped.
Message no. 5
From: Steve Eley <sfeley@***.NET>
Subject: Re: [SR] Ethical Shadowrunners
Date: Mon, 21 Sep 1998 10:46:27 -0400
Number Ten Ox wrote:
>
> ...and the mage and the shaman both look up and go "We're sorry,
> sir, that's censorship. We can't accept the mission: sorry for wasting
> your time."

Heh. That IS a new one! Still...

[SPOILER ALERT... Should have been in the first post, IMO...]












[ SPOILER SPACE ]












Silly runners! They weren't thinking very far forward. They should've
figured out before they said anything that Morlock would hire someone else
to do the run, and the objectionable behavior would occur anyway.

Smarter ethical runners would have TAKEN the run, stolen the manuscript,
Xeroxed it before handing it to the fixer and then secretly sold the copy
back to Ehran for a tidy sum. Boom. Censorship averted, mission
completed, and profits doubled. >8->


Have Fun,
- Steve Eley
sfeley@***.net
Message no. 6
From: Razor Girl <sprawlg@*******.COM>
Subject: Re: [SR] Ethical Shadowrunners
Date: Mon, 21 Sep 1998 09:52:56 PDT
>What I would do is assume Morlock hired someone else to do the run, and
>then skip to the next mission.
>

>>--Number 10, aka Aneirin Two-Tails.
The ritual that harelqiun is casting on ehran required that the same
crew of people be used in every portion of the gathering of ehrans
selfs. AKA the same team of runners in every adventure. If it wasn't
required, Harle would be an idiot to use the same people over and over.
Especially after they get kidnapped and interogated by ehran's goons.

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Message no. 7
From: Brian Moore <mooreb@****.FAC.COM>
Subject: Re: [SR] Ethical Shadowrunners
Date: Mon, 21 Sep 1998 12:56:17 -0400
Number Ten Ox <number_10_ox@**********.COM> said:
>
> Okay. So here I am, running Harlequin (the original version) for my group.
> The very first adventure. They waltz into the Laubenstein plaza,
> successfully bluff past the Ork, make nice-nice with J.P. Morlock, Morlock
> explains the mission...
> ...and the mage and the shaman both look up and go "We're sorry,
> sir, that's censorship. We can't accept the mission: sorry for wasting
> your time."
> <snip Arghs>
> Has anything like that ever happened to any of you out there? Did I just
> misjudge my group pretty badly?

As a PC, I did the same thing. But I did it because my PC was an Elf from
Tir Tairngire, and low nobility at that. He's somewhat naive and very
pro-elf. He'd even heard the author of the book speak at a public event,
and was impressed.

However, the rest of the group (with possibly one other exception) did the
mission without batting an eye. My character is often the conscience of
the group.

--
Brian Moore, mooreb@***.com | I wrote up a nice script to truncate all News&
First Albany Corp. Sysadmin | Mail sigs that are greater than 4 lines long.
standard disclaimers apply | It is still in beta testing due to an off-by-
Message no. 8
From: Gurth <gurth@******.NL>
Subject: Re: [SR] Ethical Shadowrunners
Date: Mon, 21 Sep 1998 19:57:45 +0200
According to Number Ten Ox, at 6:53 on 21 Sep 98, the word on the street was...

> ...and the mage and the shaman both look up and go "We're sorry,
> sir, that's censorship. We can't accept the mission: sorry for wasting
> your time."
>
> Argh!
> Again, ARGH!
> Sigh.

Agreed... Am I right in assuming this group has no trouble with stealing
research data from one corp to give it to another?

> Has anything like that ever happened to any of you out there? Did I just
> misjudge my group pretty badly?

I can't tell whether you misjudged the group (I'd have to know them to
make that call), but my group luckily hasn't decided to not accept a
mission. Perhaps it's because they seem to have the attitude that "the GM
prepared this so if we say no he'll have wasted his time," but I would
seriously question the group if something like this would happen to me.

Not because I expect them to take every mission offered to them (although
I would like that, because as I said, the GM prepared it so it would be
nice if that adventure were to be run :) but I'd want to hear a good
reason that makes sense, at least from the character's perspective. Now if
the Johnson had asked them to kill someone in cold blood and they'd
refused, I could understand that...

--
Gurth@******.nl - http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html
Unconsciousness is no excuse.
-> NERPS Project Leader * ShadowRN GridSec * Unofficial Shadowrun Guru <-
-> The Plastic Warriors Page: http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/plastic.html <-
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Message no. 9
From: Fixer <fixer@*******.TLH.FL.US>
Subject: Re: [SR] Ethical Shadowrunners
Date: Mon, 21 Sep 1998 14:47:35 -0400
On Mon, 21 Sep 1998, Gurth wrote:

->According to Number Ten Ox, at 6:53 on 21 Sep 98, the word on the street was...
<snip turning down a run>
->> Has anything like that ever happened to any of you out there? Did I just
->> misjudge my group pretty badly?
->
->I can't tell whether you misjudged the group (I'd have to know them to
->make that call), but my group luckily hasn't decided to not accept a
->mission. Perhaps it's because they seem to have the attitude that "the GM
->prepared this so if we say no he'll have wasted his time," but I would
->seriously question the group if something like this would happen to me.
->
->Not because I expect them to take every mission offered to them (although
->I would like that, because as I said, the GM prepared it so it would be
->nice if that adventure were to be run :) but I'd want to hear a good
->reason that makes sense, at least from the character's perspective. Now if
->the Johnson had asked them to kill someone in cold blood and they'd
->refused, I could understand that...

My players have turned down missions before because the payoff
didn't account for the expected danger (which I usually over-inflated in
those particular cases because I didn't WANT the runners to accept). I
had, in case of turning down, a backup plan to get the runners into the
adventure the hard way (like, their lives get turned upside down because
of events they could have prevented). After four or five sessions like
this, the players just started accepting the missions just so they could
prevent destruction of their lifestyles. They still turn the occasional
one down, but follow their on leads to prevent damage and STILL get pulled
into it.

Fixer --------------} The easy I do before breakfast,
the difficult I do all day long,
the impossible only during the week,
and miracles performed on an as-needed basis....

Now tell me, what was your problem?
Message no. 10
From: K in the Shadows <Ereskanti@***.COM>
Subject: Re: [SR] Ethical Shadowrunners
Date: Mon, 21 Sep 1998 20:22:11 EDT
In a message dated 9/21/1998 9:44:11 AM US Eastern Standard Time,
sfeley@***.NET writes:

> Number Ten Ox wrote:
> >
> > ...and the mage and the shaman both look up and go "We're sorry,
> > sir, that's censorship. We can't accept the mission: sorry for wasting
> > your time."
>
> Heh. That IS a new one! Still...
>
> [SPOILER ALERT... Should have been in the first post, IMO...]

I kind of agree, which I why I kept yours...

>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> [ SPOILER SPACE ]
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Silly runners! They weren't thinking very far forward. They should've
> figured out before they said anything that Morlock would hire someone else
> to do the run, and the objectionable behavior would occur anyway.
>
> Smarter ethical runners would have TAKEN the run, stolen the manuscript,
> Xeroxed it before handing it to the fixer and then secretly sold the copy
> back to Ehran for a tidy sum. Boom. Censorship averted, mission
> completed, and profits doubled. >8->

SMART ETHICAL RUNNERS?!?!> OH geesh, now you sound like us.. :P

Anyway, the truth is that a magician of any kind with access to astral
perception would be able to tell a Xerox copy of such a manuscript from the
real thing. Emotional leftovers and psychic residue would not match at all.
Not at all.

-K
Message no. 11
From: Steve Eley <sfeley@***.NET>
Subject: Re: [SR] Ethical Shadowrunners
Date: Mon, 21 Sep 1998 23:35:55 -0400
K in the Shadows wrote:
>
> In a message dated 9/21/1998 9:44:11 AM US Eastern Standard Time,
> sfeley@***.NET writes:
>
>
>
>
>
> [ Spoiler space is here again... ]
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > [ SPOILER SPACE ]
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Smarter ethical runners would have TAKEN the run, stolen the manuscript,
> > Xeroxed it before handing it to the fixer and then secretly sold the copy
> > back to Ehran for a tidy sum. Boom. Censorship averted, mission
> > completed, and profits doubled. >8->
>
> Anyway, the truth is that a magician of any kind with access to astral
> perception would be able to tell a Xerox copy of such a manuscript from the
> real thing. Emotional leftovers and psychic residue would not match at all.
> Not at all.

Doesn't matter. I wasn't talking about concealing the fact that it's a copy..
The point is that the text would not be lost. Ehran would be free to send the
copy of the MS back to Sylvan Information, claiming that he'd kept a photocopy
all along, or pick a new publisher with better security.

'Course this is all hypothetical, so I guess it's silly to pick nits about
it... My group had no problems stealing the book. Two of them insisted on
reading it before handing it over, though. >8-> (It didn't appeal to them
much.)


Have Fun,
- Steve Eley
sfeley@***.net

Further Reading

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