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Shadowrunner ethics

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« Reply #15 on: <02-05-15/1121:58> »
I can only speak on this subject from a GM side, unfortunately.

My party has both similarities and differences. They're all on the same page when it comes to self-defense. Even if the aggressor is using non-lethal rounds they respond with lethal force (usually because they equate capture as bad as death).

None of them go out of the way to randomly commit violence, but some of them have biases that would cause them to look for opportunities to harm certain groups (e.g. gangers).

Regarding obstacles on the mission itself, they're split between "just shoot the guy" and "let's try to keep this quiet" approaches. They typically settle on the nonviolent stealthy plan until the jig is up, and then they start shooting. However, I think that's more due to the lower risk/danger than any moral issues.

As a GM I made it explicitly clear at the start that I was never going to engage in any sort of sexual RP, though sexual topics such as bunraku will come up as long as the acts themselves are not described. For similar reasons I avoid having children show up except in a scenario where they would not actually be harmed (the threat of harming them could still spur the players into action, however).

I love throwing them into moral quandaries that sometimes do not involve killing. For example, they recently finished a run where they were to find someone's missing daughter, and traced her movements to a gang and then to an organlegging operation. They rescue her mid-surgery, but she tells them that her father has been dead for years. The "father" (their employer) now shows up and tells them that their job is complete, and to leave immediately if they want payment. The runners are obviously confused and concerned for her welfare, but their employer makes it clear that she must die. Struggling between breaching the original contract and investigating what kind of shady business is going on, they shrug and end up walking away to maintain professionalism.

(She was actually a corp runaway trying to sell a valued schematic stored in her brain. She'd gone to a gang looking for protection while waiting for a buyer, and they ended up selling her to an organlegging operation. The "father" is in reality a runner desiring to steal the schematics himself and to dispose of her to prevent investigation)


Namikaze

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« Reply #16 on: <02-05-15/1144:08> »
Most of my team has learned that non-lethal is the default, simply because you are substantially less likely to get retaliation.  They look at it from the perspective of the corps: Aztechnology wants to hire the team to hit a NeoNET datastore, and if they cause a lot of collateral damage on the way, Aztechnology now has to worry about blowback and NeoNET might not be willing to hire the team for a counter operation.
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cyclopean

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« Reply #17 on: <02-06-15/1445:12> »
Cool thread! As a GM, I've run for characters all over the morality spectrum, usually what I've found is that people tend more towards "professionalism" as the main overall goal the longer they play, which makes new characters entering the group trend towards that as well. So, appropriate escalating force, lethal only when needed, explosives rarely. Children are usually off limits, even for the total psychos, though general collateral damage/innocents seems to be pretty dependent on the job- success within mission parameters is the main goal. There are some exceptions- usually insect, blood and toxic mages and spirits are kill on sight, and many characters have other specifics (vampires, Aztechnology, etc. depending on their history).

Usually the team researches local runner culture to find out what the appropriate force level is when starting a job: i.e., in NYC, they use solely non-lethal (if they can), as the culture there is that extractions are a common part of the playbook, and the corps won't come down hard on runners if they don't go out of their way to cause chaos and excess damage while doing their jobs. I've really played up notoriety as determining what jobs they get offered. In Lagos or Bug City, they rock heavy armor and weapons and make examples of anyone who fucks with them (without looking for trouble) as they need to seem strong to be able to work freely.

When they started out, they would frequently use bombings as a distraction for major jobs (choosing a random secondary target to distract cops and such), which worked great in the immediate but attracted a lot of police attention and notoriety, and they've moved away from that overall strategy (though none of those runners are actually on the team anymore, there's been some overlap).

Rape and sexual violence is off the table, in terms of both what players and characters would allow/feel comfortable with. There's one character now who is a skilled pyschologist, who would understand the terror that threats of sexual violence would cause, but would not morally feel that it was an acceptable tactic. We get into some pretty dark stuff in terms of what the team encounters on jobs, but this in the line the players won't cross in my experience.

The 1 time the runners tried to use physical torture, I made them roleplay through it, as I like to make players really feel acutely aware of the outcomes of their character's choices- we didn't go into crazy levels of detail but I didn't want them to just "roll to torture" as I felt like it made it too easy to do. They haven't tried it again, preferring drugs, blackmail, bribery and pyschology these days, arguably with better results. This maybe reflects my personal beliefs about the efficacy of torture, as yeah you will likely get a LOT of info, but it's going to be of very questionable accuracy and veracity.

My occasional character is a very professional sniper, who came out of the resistance to the Japanese Imperial occupation of CalFree. She is obsessive about clean kills and no collateral damage, as her reputation is what she relies on the get work. She has no problem killing for cause or money, but doesn't like to kill outside of that.

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« Reply #18 on: <02-06-15/2251:28> »
Well, you know - this is why an implant that produces gamma-scopolamine (and the other one that allows you to inject it) is key.  Having an interrogation drug as one of your common-use items is useful.  Having a forget-it-all drug as the other one is incredibly useful as well ...
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« Reply #19 on: <02-07-15/0302:11> »
I have played or played with a range of players. I have played a pacifist decker, an almost amoral face who avoids killing corpsec because he is running the shadows because he was fired from a corp and wants to go back, and a blood thirsty street sam modeled after battle angel Alita who has a moral code. So it runs the gamut.
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