[WeissAllein]

Recently playing with a group and for most of us this is our first time playing shadowrun. We have had to make moral decisions in the last few sessions where if we make the wrong choice something bad happens. The first decision was whether to leave an injured person behind and the choice we made, and we were supposed to make, was leaving him behind. The next choice was whether or not to leave a teammate behind. I convinced everyone we should find a way to stick together. This resulted in the GM rolling for a random person to get shot, ended up being me. Finally we had the choice to let a non-combatant live or die. The team killed him but after the session we were told that was the wrong choice. The GM then took me off to the side and told me that my character should be less of a goodie-goodie as I have tried to take the moral high ground every single time and that isn't how I should play shadowrun. So I was wondering if I should listen to him and start being more cold hearted about my choices?

[RowanTheFox]

There are no truly good people in Shadowrun. Any "heroes" are usually pretty firmly in the "anti-hero" category, especially shadowrunners. You're going to do bad things for, at best, morally ambiguous reasons.

To quote Sherlock: "I may be on the side of the angels, but don't think for one second that I am one of them."

[Overbyte]

There are no truly good people in Shadowrun. Any "heroes" are usually pretty firmly in the "anti-hero" category, especially shadowrunners. You're going to do bad things for, at best, morally ambiguous reasons.

To quote Sherlock: "I may be on the side of the angels, but don't think for one second that I am one of them."

Nonsense. There is nothing about playing SR that says you have to have to hold any particular moral philosophy. There are Codes of Honor in the books that prevent harming innocents, torturing people, or any number of things. Play your character anyway you want IMO.

That being said, if your GM is running a game where he intends everyone to more be "bad", then you are not going to fit in. If the rest of your team is not OK with the choices you make, at some point they could get fed up with your "goodie two shoes" attitude and leave you behind (or even kill you).

I often play characters that are more "challenging", but what I try to do is push the envelope of what the group might think is acceptable, and at the same time, for the sake of playability, try to keep things smooth with the rest of the group.

[RowanTheFox]

There are no truly good people in Shadowrun. Any "heroes" are usually pretty firmly in the "anti-hero" category, especially shadowrunners. You're going to do bad things for, at best, morally ambiguous reasons.

To quote Sherlock: "I may be on the side of the angels, but don't think for one second that I am one of them."

Nonsense. There is nothing about playing SR that says you have to have to hold any particular moral philosophy. There are Codes of Honor in the books that prevent harming innocents, torturing people, or any number of things. Play your character anyway you want IMO.

That being said, if your GM is running a game where he intends everyone to more be "bad", then you are not going to fit in. If the rest of your team is not OK with the choices you make, at some point they could get fed up with your "goodie two shoes" attitude and leave you behind (or even kill you).

I often play characters that are more "challenging", but what I try to do is push the envelope of what the group might think is acceptable, and at the same time, for the sake of playability, try to keep things smooth with the rest of the group.

I have played "good" characters in the past, but even they had to make morally questionable choices for the sake of staying alive or finishing the job. In fact, most of my characters lean more towards the good end of the spectrum.

Short answer: No, you don't have to be a bad person, but it seems that is what your GM wants you to be. It is possible to play by always taking the moral high ground, but if that's not how your GM wants to play, you're going to have a bad time.

[Dwagonzhan]

Group/GM dynamics vary WILDLY. Discuss that with your GM and respect (within reason) what they are trying to accomplish (GMs do most of the work, it's not easy creating good, memorable characters and scenarios).
But don't let them push you too far into playing strictly their way. If you're just following the orders of someone else, well all you're doing is filling a space like an NPC.

Finally, don't be so inflexible that it stifles group dynamics. A bit of in-character conflict is GOOD, as that mirrors reality. Your character's "leave no-one behind" is valid in that there are people who think and believe that (and not just the naive; I know plenty of old soldiers who lived and worked by that creed, and they saw more death, violence and combat than most of us ever will).
Just don't let it become out of character conflict...that gets petty and ugly very quickly.

Personally: I keep to the same idea that I do every RPG I run or play in: There are choices, and there are consequences.

A code provides a moral center, but the nature of conflict dictates you will challenge where that center lies either by circumstance or necessity, and making hard decisions means finding ways of living with the consequences.

Success on a run today does not mean fallout from that run won't find you tomorrow. Leaving someone behind to die may not turn out as the group expected even under pragmatic ideals; forensics may turn up a solid material link for a corp with vested interests to find your group. Or that person you left for dead didn't actually die, and has sold their soul to take revenge on your runners.

Taking this idea broader, how you hold onto what you value, be it your possessions, intangible virtues, or your very life is what can separate an RPG from just another stock game experience.
What you will do in pursuit of what you think is right is itself a goal worth striving towards.
(I assume the alternative justification of just playing for dumb fun isn't applicable here; or your GM wouldn't have taken you aside over moral quandary in the first place)

[Achsin]

My current group has a variety or moral compass settings. One is completely new to the shadows and up until a few in-game months prior was a normal law-abiding citizen. She is occasionally horrified by things that happen and tends to try to find the least violent method for accomplishing a goal, but will go along with what happens because she's trying to survive. The next is quite against any form of collateral damage to the point that he will step in front of a gun or try to subdue a team-mate to prevent "innocents" from dying. Third is a combat medic who tries to avoid collateral damage, but understands that sometimes that's what the job entails and his team comes first (he's also recently contracted HMHVV2). There's the guy who usually tries to be nice, but has no qualms about killing someone because that's his job. The decker doesn't go out of his way to kill people, but if he decides it needs to be done he'll make sure that it happens (mostly he just lives in the matrix though). Then there's the stealth specialist who doesn't really value the lives of people she doesn't know and would rather kill anyone she thinks could possibly be a threat rather than let them live. Last is the guy with superhuman psychosis who just likes seeing things burn and would rather shoot you than talk to you.

The interplay between the characters is fun, each of them has different extents that they will go to and sometimes disputes arise over the differing ideas for how the job should be done, compromises get made, and while not every character is happy with the result our somewhat dysfunctional team tends to survive to see the next day. I think that if everyone was completely goodie-goodie or completely heartless the experience would be less interesting.

[Reaver]

Ah yes.. The "Good guy, Bad Guy" debate of Shadowrun

Well, first off, SR is flexible enough to allow many play styles and outcomes from the group dynamics. You and you GM are free to come up with any type of adventure you/they choose.

However, Shadowrun is geared towards more of a Grey line in the terms of morals (depending on what you view as morally good and bad)

The "Typical" Run generally involve at least one of the following things

stealing
blackmail/persuasion
combat
lying

How do you feel about those?  I mean, most runs usually involve you taking something that is not yours, which is not exactly "morally" correct.... usually you need sensitive info to do your job, so you have to get someone to talk you... which usually involves blackmail, intimidation, threats and/or Persuasion of some sort. Combat happens because, well, combat is fun to the majority of players, yet in combat you are inflicting harm on an other... not really a morally good thing

Of course, you can have entire runs where no one get hurt, or steals anything, but they are usually far in between....

But usually Shadowrunners are shades of Grey... They, by their very nature work outside the social morals of their community, but many are not psychotic killers. They have their own moral codes that they try to stick to... Be that not harming children, or never working for slavers... or even never stealing!


But, if you morals do not mesh with your team, you run the risk of inter group conflict..... I you insist that you will never hurt anyone, NO matter WHAT.... then your team can not count on you to protect them from hostiles... and if they can not count on you, why bring you along? At the same time, if your character draws the line at hurting innocents, why would YOU run with a team that insists on shooting everyone in the back of the head?

[Patrick Goodman]

Tell your GM to get stuffed. Playing a character with scruples and a conscience is perfectly valid.

[RowanTheFox]

Tell your GM to get stuffed. Playing a character with scruples and a conscience is perfectly valid.

This.

I have a human cat shaman character who only started shadowrunning because his sister was kicked out by their racists parents after she goblinized into an ork. He ripped his parents a new hoop and left home to find her. Disowned, and now without a home, the two worked together to survive, and eventually to fund and protect a shelter for homeless/SINless ork and troll kids. Even now that he's retired from running, he still uses his hard-earned wealth to help homeless ork and troll youth in Berlin.

Speaking of his sister, she's actually one of my NPCs. She now runs a safehouse in Berlin. She's an absolute sweetheart, but she won't hesitate to bring the hate when the safehouse, the shelter, or herself are threatened. For that reason, pretty much everyone calls her "Mama Pip" or just "Mama".

[WeissAllein]

Ok so then I will stick to my original morals and hopefully things work out. Not sure I can continue to help the team if things keep going wrong. Especially since me being the one who got shot after keeping the team together resulted in me only having 4 physical stress boxes until a mage or a surgeon can fix me up. The sniper having silver rounds did not help either.

[HobDobson]

I'll be looking at it from the point-of-view of "Professionally-Trained International Terrorists", or at least that's what our team was called on the news.

The first decision was whether to leave an injured person behind and the choice we made, and we were supposed to make, was leaving him behind.

Let's say you could have healed poor Bob enough that the upcoming hospital bill wouldn't have left his wife and kids living on the street. The SecCorp investigators are going to be really interested in why a bunch of criminals spared *him*: possibly an "inside man", maybe an accomplice, but definitely someone to pump for info about your team. They won't be gentle about it, and his employer won't be "understanding". Congrats on ruining several lives.

So maybe you can't leave him behind. Is he conscious? Is he recording everything for a later reward? Every minute he's with you means the odds of providing a positive ID increases. If he doesn't sell you all out once he gets loose, he's now stuck living in the Shadows like you lot. 

Or you could just put a cap in his .... That comes out to a few more seconds delay on the escape, another round for Forensics to analyze, another charge on your growing rap sheet. AND his wife and kids, one of who may need Corp-provided chemo, are out on the streets without his income.

Unless the vic's a mage and inherently in need of geeking, maybe you should just walk away. You're already at the point that Emergency Services are en route, and there's no other good solution.

Our team: notably screwed up and left a magician alive, behind, and very happy to cooperate for reduced sentencing. That nearly led law enforcement right to us.

The next choice was whether or not to leave a teammate behind. I convinced everyone we should find a way to stick together. This resulted in the GM rolling for a random person to get shot, ended up being me.

Will this teammate understand the necessity and take the rap for your team?
If not, you have compromised your team and possibly anyone associated with you.
IF your luck is very good, please say "Hello" to Officer Friendly when he comes knocking at your door.

On the other hand, remember that no matter how justified you are in stiffing one of your own, it may be extremely corrosive to morale afterward. Even a saint would have second thoughts about turning his back on you.

Our team of misfits: The adept that was assensed on the Lansing job, he ended up injured and separated from the team on another job. Instead of going to ground, he got himself caught. Then he killed innocent people trying to break free. See how being nice to one person can turn out very badly?

So, someone may have ended up emphasizing his mental instability and combat abilities and escape route to the law enforcement personnel en route. And, someone else may have dropped a vehicle from the parking garage onto him. We're still not sure who ordered the car to roll back and forth over the body a few times just to make sure.

Finally we had the choice to let a non-combatant live or die. The team killed him but after the session we were told that was the wrong choice.

Unlike the others, was this person a loose end that put you at risk?
Was this person someone for whom others would find a reason to avenge?
He wasn't a police/security officer, was he (that's asking to get the whole team messily dead)?

Many people DO draw the line at involving innocent bystanders, whether from operational security or from moral restraint. You can heal the injured, break out a captured teammate, but you cannot return a soul to life.

So I was wondering if I should listen to him and start being more cold hearted about my choices?

Yes. No. Maybe? Magic 8-Ball say, "Reply hazy try again"

That's not so much the Shadowrun game or the setting, but the mindset of the characters making up the team. Sure, there are laws that are in turn unevenly enforced. There are even things that make or break reputations (Street Cred, Notoriety, Public Awareness). That all goes into deciding what the logical consequences should be for your actions. What choices are morally acceptable for you - that's for you to decide, and may be very specific to your character's background.

[Crimsondude]

Tell your GM to get stuffed. Playing a character with scruples and a conscience is perfectly valid.

Ditto.

I would be remiss if that doesn’t lead me to this last reminder: Seattle is a vibrant city and a hopeful city. For all of the violence, evil, and mercenary tendencies that consume much of the shadows, some of those corpers, activists, even gangsters do good sometimes, and then there’s us. We can use our skills to murder, rape, and pillage the sprawl until the skeleton is picked clean. That sort of work has made those who were good enough to survive very wealthy. We can also raid offices, datastores, banks, and ships to assist muckrakers exposing public officials’ worst practices, shape policy to keep from killing the world too quickly, or maybe just not abet slavery. Seattle’s shadows have more hooders per capita than any other sprawl. It also has one of the highest mortality rates.

[Senko]

I agree with those who say there's nothing wrong with playing a 'good' character because the simple fact is that the world of shadowrun from everything I've seen is gray. You have a range from those who shoot the security guard because he may tell someone else what he just told them about an incident through to those who will not hurt anyone and everything in between. Of course the world has consequences but the thing is its meant to be a world and the characters don't know what will happen next. You refuse to leave a team mate behind and all of you get killed, you refuse to leave a team mate behind and all of you escape, you refuse to leave a team mate behind and pique the interest of the dragon watching on CCTV who offers you some lucrative rewards to see how you handle other situations. You just don't know you just have to make the decision you feel suits your character best.

That said you do need to be aware of the group and what the DM is trying to achieve but there's a lot of roleplay potential in someone slugging through the slime of the sixth world trying to still be a person who can look at themselves in the mirror. One of the few characters I've played refused to be a party to assasinations, if someone got shot or killed on a run that was one thing but they would not take any job who's purpose was the deliberate kiling of somone. Another non-shadowrun character was perfectly willing to lie to their team mates about a sick civilian and leave them to die because it was not their responsibility. However I do have warning bells going off at a GM telling someone how they should play their character as in my experience that's rarely a good sign unless they have a very specific type of campaign they want to play. That is pink mohawk let the blood hit the walls vs general shadowrun.

[Medicineman]

Tell your GM to get stuffed. Playing a character with scruples and a conscience is perfectly valid.

+1
It is totally OK to play a morally ....better person.some of my own Chars are ...goody two shoes (is that the correct expression ?)
but some  of mine  are more shady and have no scruples killing People for Money.

It seems you & your GM have a different View of SR.
Your's is just as good an opinion as your GMs.
but it seems to me (from what I read)  that Your GM is in a Power position (and uses his power to get your Chars shot whenever they make a decision he doesn't like) and misuses this position

with a Dance in Grey
Medicineman
 

[aono]

No you don't.
And having morality and limits aren't the same with being a noble knight in a shining armor going around and killing monsters to save a world. (By the way, there IS one person who fits description in Sixth World, and he is a runner.) But really, if you're doing everything just to get the job done, no matter what's the job, and to save your own skin, how do you better that another corp-sec wageslave?
Yes, moral decisions may be costly. But a lot of people used to pay a price.
And a lot of people don't give a shit.
And both are valid to play.