[Kontact]

Ah, it wasn't meant to be serious.  

The only point I can hope to make is that, if you look at it closely enough, Shadowrunners, and their actions, hurt people.  So, I try not to look too close.
I just play it as a game.  As long as the players are on the same page, I can tailor the world to fit them.

Naturally, if they're being obnoxious, and I'm not having any fun, I've got no problem with confronting them with that fact. 
Communication is always the best option.  The second best option being to brush it off and concentrate on what you want to concentrate on.

"Yeah, sure.  You kill them all.  They never had a chance.  It makes you feel super-important.  You now have 80 fewer rounds of ammo.  Moving on...."

[Charybdis]

"Yeah, sure.  You kill them all.  They never had a chance.  It makes you feel super-important.  You now have 80 fewer rounds of ammo.  Moving on...."

There should always be a consequence for killing needlessly (or killing in general), especially if performed repeatedly. And some of these consequences can spur on amazing campaign-spanning stories: Whether it's:
- Damage to Rep/Notoriety
- Corps not standing for the loss of PR (and Insurance Costs affaecting their stock price)
- Shedim following the PC's around, enjoying the free hosting service
or even the creme de la creme:
- 'You killed my father. Prepare to die'

These are things that let the logic train leave the station without taking the PC's/GM to Crazytown.

Even a world as dark as shadowrun has consequences.
Actually, ESPECIALLY a world as dark as Shadowrun has consequences...

[theKernel]

Well, I'm a GM more than a player, but I've done some harsh things as a player.
A favorite thing for one combat hacker was to do the Anton Chigur thing where I told a guy that if he didn't cooperate I would kill him then find his five closest DNA matches on the global SIN registry and kill them too.  I proceeded to do so, just to prove a point to a dead man.


As far as how low I can go as a GM, how about this as a counter to the "Uber assassin who kills runners I don't like" concept being bandied about as pure genious:

"If only you'd killed that security guard, then at least his family would have received death benefits. 
Instead, he got fired.  After all, somebody has to take the blame when a valuable prototype gets stolen, and it sure as hell isn't the management.

Because of your heroic restraint, his whole family was left homeless in the barrens, where they got scooped up by the 405 Hellhounds.  His wife got passed around in a five-hour-long session of gang rape, proved too unruly and was killed in a manner involving much stabbing and thrusting.  Meanwhile, his kids were set in a pit to fight other kids, hardened barrens kids, for the right to get jumped into the Hounds.  Their dead bodies were later sold as ghoul food.  The man himself was shot in the back way before all this though.  The Hounds stuck some meathooks in his body and drug his corpse behind their bikes, all the way over to the local bodyshop, to see if there was anything in him that they could salvage.  Too bad for them, there wasn't.  It turned out that the corp took back all their ware when they fired him and threw him out on the street with nothing but corpscript that he couldn't spend outside of the company stores where he was no longer welcome.

Next time, murder every guard.  Their families will thank you."

Enforced morality is never a good look..

Damn, don't know what to say but you have a good point.

That was br00tal!

[thalandar]

"Yeah, sure.  You kill them all.  They never had a chance.  It makes you feel super-important.  You now have 80 fewer rounds of ammo.  Moving on...."

There should always be a consequence for killing needlessly (or killing in general), especially if performed repeatedly. And some of these consequences can spur on amazing campaign-spanning stories: Whether it's:
- Damage to Rep/Notoriety
- Corps not standing for the loss of PR (and Insurance Costs affaecting their stock price)
- Shedim following the PC's around, enjoying the free hosting service
or even the creme de la creme:
- 'You killed my father. Prepare to die'These are things that let the logic train leave the station without taking the PC's/GM to Crazytown.

Even a world as dark as shadowrun has consequences.
Actually, ESPECIALLY a world as dark as Shadowrun has consequences...

"Stop saying that!" 

[thalandar]

So in my lastest game, one of my players aquired a boat from a NPC (ie killed owner during the runner), and kept the boat.  Now he is trying to sell it without splitting the money with the group "Its my boat".  Even though he wouldn't have the boat if not for the other runners help.  Let the Chaos insue.

[savaze]

So in my lastest game, one of my players aquired a boat from a NPC (ie killed owner during the runner), and kept the boat.  Now he is trying to sell it without splitting the money with the group "Its my boat".  Even though he wouldn't have the boat if not for the other runners help.  Let the Chaos insue.

I predict it'll be at the bottom of the marina before it's over...

[Charybdis]

So in my lastest game, one of my players aquired a boat from a NPC (ie killed owner during the runner), and kept the boat.  Now he is trying to sell it without splitting the money with the group "Its my boat".  Even though he wouldn't have the boat if not for the other runners help.  Let the Chaos insue.

I predict it'll be at the bottom of the marina before it's over...

And that's what his ALLIES will do

[Frostriese]

Even a world as dark as shadowrun has consequences.
Actually, ESPECIALLY a world as dark as Shadowrun has consequences...

Of course this goes for actions of mercy and leniency, too. As Machiavelli said, if you strike against your enemies, do it so that they can never retaliate again. Of course there should be negative consequences for needless killing and the like, but it can also go the other way round...

[Charybdis]

Even a world as dark as shadowrun has consequences.
Actually, ESPECIALLY a world as dark as Shadowrun has consequences...

Of course this goes for actions of mercy and leniency, too. As Machiavelli said, if you strike against your enemies, do it so that they can never retaliate again. Of course there should be negative consequences for needless killing and the like, but it can also go the other way round...

I completely concur, but as long as we're hashing metaphors 'You get more flies with honey'.
Also, in several psych-warfare manuals, it states and restates the principal that there is a fine balance between instilling terror, and triggering vengeance.

If you do too much damage to the enemy, they will rise up against you with irrational force. But if you can temper your tyranny, they'll stay in the right docile state of fear indefinitely...

Errr...you know...not that I read this stuff...or anything *whistles innocently*

[Rockopolis]

"This is why we can't have nice things.".  Plus there's always the possibility that The Prince was satire.  As I've said before, I prefer arrogant mercy.

[thalandar]

 Machiavelli was the first shadowrunner   

[CanRay]

So far, my group hasn't tried to eat anyone yet.  I consider that a plus.

On the down side, they've beat up Jesus, crippled a nun from the neck down, kidnapped a mentally handicapped child, and doored said child into a tombstone on the drive away from the meet when he turned out to be someone the Johnson didn't like...  That was one 'Run.

They pretended to be terrorists to extract Goofy from DisneyLand...

And, finally, used an Improvised WMD as a "Distraction" for the primary part of a 'Run.  Luckily, it didn't work as planned...  But came very, very close.

[Rockopolis]

Hey, I remember shooting Jesus.  We used a bomb on the crowd to make a getaway.

[CanRay]

To be fair, Jesus did get down off his crucifix first and slam one of the PCs through a wall, starting the fight...

I was kind of disappointed that no one said, "Jesus is back, and boy is he PISSED!"

[thalandar]

You guys have some werid games, chummer.........