| From: | Mad Hamish h_laws@**********.utas.edu.au |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Shadowrun and Butality (WAS: Getting nasty to your PCs) |
| Date: | Tue, 07 Sep 1999 15:56:30 +1000 |
>Ok since I started that subject with my example I think I have to make a
>few comments here....
>
> First of all, RPG games (and especially SR which is a violent game) are
>supposed to be played by mature people.
To a point. I first played a rpg at 14.
> I never agreed with the 10 years old and up rule in most of RPG game books.
Depends on the game. I wouldn't run Shadowrun in gritty mode with a 10 year
old, or Vampire at all. I'd run D&D or Earthdawn in heroic fantasy mode but
not Earthdawn in Horror mode.
I'd definately run Marvel Super Heroes (advanced) for a 10 year old but
wouldn't run Dark Champions.
> RPG games deal a lot with death and brutality.
Depends on the game. I haven't had to many people die in Champions, Marvel
Super Heroes or a few other games.
In any case you might want to look at fairy tales. Hansel & Gretal,
Cinderella, heck check out The Wizard of Oz.
> Especially SR which is a darker version of our
>world. Look at the characters we are playing. We are not heroes. We are
>criminals.
So were the A-Team & The Dukes of Hazard (sp?). I was cheering for them as
a 10 year old.
> In the last session my Troll character actually killed 15
>Aztlan soldiers in no time. Even if I am fighting against Aztlan
>opression in Amazonia (that's our campaign) which is somekind of a noble
>cause, I still had to murder 15 innocent soldiers who had no idea about
>what's going on.
Sorry but killing enemy soldiers during a war is _not_ murder. You also
might want to consider how Aztlan soldiers wouldn't know what aztlan is doing.
> I didn't kill monsters, I killed human beings.
And?
Cowboys and Indians, westerns etc all do it.
> In the world of Shadowrun there is no such thing as censorship in the
>scenes described.
That's one way of representing it. You can take other approaches.
> It's a world full of criminality and filth. People are
>raised in the gutter. Runners are people that tried to escaped from the
>gutter by enforcing the law of the jungle. The mighty will survive.
If they're lucky.
> When
>one walks in the streets of Seattle, he will see crimes happening all
>the time. Murders, robberies, rapes...
No he won't. Not if he's in a decent section of the city anyway. You think
that the bad areas of modern cities are a lot better than the SR version?
I doubt that there are too many places in the world where you'd just wander
past them killing people in the street. As for robberies and rape, much
better done in private _and_ most rapes are not by casual strangers in any
case.
> he will see people wasted by
>drugs... he will see people leaving next to the garbage just because
>they are homeless... reminds you of something? At least where I live in
>Athens (Greece) seeing people dying from drugs in the subways is not a
>very rare sight. Why try to cover those scenes?
> I don't understand why some people are against describing rape scenes
>in an RPG game. Aren't these things happen in real life?
Yeah, that doesn't mean that I want them to be happening on screen in my
game. I play Shadowrun (and other roleplaying games) for enjoyment. I don't
get enjoyment from hearing about rapes.
> If the group is
>mature enough to handle it (at least 18 and over) then why try to avoid
>such things?
If a group is mature enough to handle such things they might also be mature
enough to realise that they don't want to be exposed to it in a game which
is _meant_ to be enjoyable.
> I am not sick, nor do I enjoy rapes or murders. And I still insist on
>the fact that RPG is only a game. But as a GM I try to make my players
>feel like they are living in such a dark world (which is not much
>different than the one we are living now anyway).
Fine, if that's what your players want.
If they'd prefer a lighter approach then you probably should go along with
that.
> And the most important
>thing is, that I try to make them feel really what crime and brutality
>is. To get a small taste of real world. Cause heroes and noble causes
>maybe true in our world, but most of the times, are achieved through
>many dirty acts, especially in a battle or war.
In a battle it's very much "do unto him as he'd do unto me, but do it first"
Is it nice, no? Is it dirty? well, that's open to question.
> Let's face it, our characters are not saints. They are criminals.
Probably in almost all campaigns, of course so would have been a fair few
famous Americans if their side had lost the Civil War...
> My troll is a criminal.
>Your mage is a criminal. Your rigger, decker, whatever is a criminal. If
>u don't feel confortable, better stop playing this game to protect
>yourself. SR can damage your soul more than you can imagine, if you
>cannot handle violence.
There's a difference between handling violence, handling 'cinematic'
violence and rape, torture etc.
>
>Cybertroll
>
>PS: this rant doesn't apply only to Shadowrun actually. It is almost for
>all RPG games. And as I said RPG games require a certain maturity to be
>played. If u lack such maturity and understanding of our world, leave
>RPGs alone for your own good. And if someone asks me if RPG games are
>dangerous, I will reply to him: "Yes they are if a player doesn't have
>the maturity to ditinguish reality from fantasy".
--
****************************************************************************
The Politician's Slogan
'You can fool all of the people some of the time and some of the people all
of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time.
Fortunately only a simple majority is required.'
****************************************************************************
Mad Hamish
Hamish Laws
h_laws@**********.utas.edu.au
h_laws@******.net.au
