Hacker Chronicles 2/HACKER2.BIN/1130.SRLIFE.TXT

Text File | 1993-10-24 | 16KB | 251 lines

               Life in Shadowrun: The Cyberpunk outlook
                   Player and Character interaction

     Shadowrun has a unique circumstance among Role Playing games,
excluding the other cyberpunk games.  It is a game that does *not*
promote or even necessarily support "party unity".  Most games encourage
the players to have characters that can work together, if not actually
get along and enjoy each other's company.
     But not cyberpunk.  Cyberpunk is a world where life sucks.  No,
life doesn't just suck.  Life is the absoulte shits.  My favorite phrase
to use to describe cyberpunk is this one: The gap between the haves and
the have-nots isn't just a gap, it's a fraggin' Grand Canyon.  Those
that have it rarely have even the slightest interest in those who have
not.  And the have nots have only the remotest chance to make it from
mediocre poverty to comfort and wealth.
     The technology of cyberpunk is wonderful.  Medicine can prevent all
but the most obscure diseases' holds; death from anything other than
accidents is most uncommon.  Entertainment and work are both vastly
enhanced by the technology available; computers, robotics, electronics,
mechanicals.  All enhances and eases the daily effort to make the world
go round.
     But this technology is only useful to you if you have it.  And the
have-nots live up to their name; they *have not* the technology to make
their lives easier.  They work the grunge jobs, things accomplished
cheaper through human labor than through automation in one form or
another.  Sanitation, housekeeping, data-entry, secretarial,
construction are but a few of the jobs that the lower classes, making up
most of the global population, have to accept for employment.
     These jobs are very unfulfilling, tedious and menial.  There is
little oppoturnity for advancement, littiler still for satsisfaction in
making a difference for the better, and even less for making a good
living.  You get up, ride the tube or take a robobus to work for about
an hour to an hour and a half, work an eight to nine hour day, then ride
back for an hour or an hour and a half; five days a week.
     You get home to a small apartment or rental unit with too little
sound insulation, rationed power and water during certain times only,
bland less than real and tasteful food and few options for real
enjoyment.  Electronic entertainment is about all that's available, and
even that costs more than the lowest of the lower classes can afford.
     In short, life sucks on the streets.  People with marketable skills
and the right connection or two turn to the shadows in a desperate
attempt to better their existance.  A few are in it purely for the
excitement and thrill, a few more in it after humanistic efforts to
better the world; but most are looking to make some serious nuyen and
retire to a better place than where they are now.
     And just like in the real world, shadows have their class system
too.  All the way from the minors to the professional leagues.  The
splitting factors are generally ability and competence; the skilled and
reliable runners are in the upper strata while the bumbling and
questionable runners ride the bottom of the shadow stack.
     As you might expect, the higher you are in the shadows, the more
nuyen you're worth.  A runner with a solid dozen runs under his belt is
worth more than a neophyte trekking the trecherous for the first time.
A runner who shoots dead bullseyes no matter the range or conditions,
even if he's never ran before, is worth more than one who barely knows
how to draw his weapon.
     But rankings in the shadows aren't as simple as individual skill.
There's more, much more.  It's not so much the individuals who are
judged as it is the people these individuals run with, hang with.  You
run with solid runners who can back you up and let you work your special
brand of excellence and you get the higher levels.  You run with
incompetents who couldn't extract a dog from the local kennel during a
power outage and no matter what your personal ability; you will be
dropped in regard.
     As people judge like this, runners have a very intense interest in
who they're seen with, who they're connected with, who they're running
with.  No one wants to run with people who don't know their jobs, who
can't stay quiet, who can't make the grade.  Not only does it endanger
the mission and everyone on it, but it jeopardizes future earnings
signifantly.
     So, having set everything up, we get to the initial question.
Party interaction in Shadowrun.  Now a note right now, this is not
referring to *player* interaction; this is referring ot *character*
interaction.  This has very little to do with personal player feelings,
or even the GM's personal feelings.  This is a character to character
play here.
     Incompetent or inexperienced runners come in many types, but they
can be generally broken down into a few catagories.  Do they know that
they're inexperienced or incompetent?  Do they have the potentional to
rise further?  Incompetance but good intentions is judged worlds
different from incompetance with indifferance.
     Someone who can't handle it and doesn't care gets no respect and is
asking for a bullet, blade or spell in the back of the head from his
"fellow runners".  He endangers everyone, least of all himself.  Even
similar people will dislike him, recognizing in another what they fail
to recognize in themselves as dangerous.
     Someone who can't handle it but is aware of this and willing to
work to better himself gets treated differently.  Rather than get axed,
they'll get helped by all but the most callous runners.  They won't be
taken on high stakes runs, but they'll have simple jobs funneled their
way, personal training sessions and so forth.  In short, they'll be
helped along towards that next level; to where they'll be an asset to
the team rather than a burden.
     Then you move into another catagory.  Mediocrety.  Some will be
mediocre but aware of it and willing to learn.  Some will be mediocre
but indifferent to it, and uncaring of learning.  Some will be mediocre
and both unable and unwilling to learn.  The first is treated much as
someone inexperienced but able and willing to learn, but not as coddled
as he'll have a bit higher skill level.
     The second, indifference to ability and learning, get treated much
different.  They're religated to a low to mid level of shadowrunner
strata, not banished completely because they do have some ability; but
not enough to work on important or sizable jobs.  The type who works as
pure muscle under the strict direction of experienced runners.
     The third, inability and unwillingness to learn, are treated
similarly to the second catagory, but at a lower level.  These types of
individuals are considered dangerous because they very nearly often have
death wishes, or won't care if they endanger themselves or those around
them.  Their inability to learn and their unwillingness to learn even if
they could combine to give them an attitude of "oh well".  Under close
supervision, they have uses, but not for anything big.
     Then we get into the highest levels.  These are the runners who
have top grade skill and ability.  The highest levels will be those who
are proven in competence and reliablity.  But they too will have
differing members.  Some will be ever striving to increase their
abilities, themselves, to even higher levels.
     These will be the best runners.  They'll have skills and resources
up to most tasks they might encounter, and have the contacts to meet
nearly anything else.  They will not make mistakes of any serious
consequence more than rarely, and never leave team members high and dry
to get zeroed by the opposition.  In short, they'll be the types who
lead and ride the top.
     Others will be different.  They'll have skills and resouses and
contacts, but they'll use them much differently.  Rather than do the
right thing for the situtation, they'll often do only the easiest.  This
won't always be something that will ensure safety for the team or the
mission, and their fellow runners won't appreciate it.  It sometimes
will be something that garuntees nothing but disaster for the team and
the mission, and will earn them much discord.
     The question is, again, how do you handle such things as a player?
For the sake of the game, you are "expected" under generic Role Playing
Etiquette to overlook your fellow gamers' errors, whether resulting from
the player or the character, and continue on with party unity.  But then
you get into other areas of "Role Playing Etiquette".
     For the sake of good roleplaying, do you do "the right thing" and
act as your character would to eliminate sources of danger and bad
press?  Consider this typical situtation.
     You're a member of a five person runner team, each with varying
skills and abilities in a range of areas.  On one mission the PhysAd
gets enthralled in his holding action and before the rest of the team
realizes, he's lost them and gotten into a very bad situation
tactically; about to be captured.  If you play as people who don't wish
to have anyone from the team taken, alive or dead, you have to
jeopardize yourselves and the mission to go back for him.
     But if you're the type that won't care about individual characters
who get themselves throughly fragged; what if he has the target item you
were sent to retrieve.  Don't have that, you don't get paid.  So now you
*have* to extract him from his own stupidity for the team's own well
being and reputation.
     Now the question is, was it the player or the character.  If the
player was the reason that the PhysAd screwed everything up for both
himself and his teammates, what do you do?  Ignore him and hope that it
doesn't happen in the future?  Talk to him and attempt to help him grasp
a bit of tactical and cursory respect to the rest of the players and
have him "do as they do"?
     It's just as complicated if it was the character.  The player kept
in his role, and got into a situtation as described above.  It wasn't
the player's fault; he was merely roleplaying the character well.  But
how do the other characters feel about this?  Will the player be able to
"keep in character" if the other characters take him out or exclude him
from the team in future missions?  Or will he become upset, and threaten
*player* unity?
     This is a problem that has plagued many campaigns, for sure, but it
has a tendacy to come up more in cyberpunk games than in any other
genere's.  As the setting indicates, everyone is out for number one.  It
is very rare for a character to be phillantrophic or compassionate
towards his fellow man.  Unless you have a character like this, you should
have few compulsions towards either geeking or suspending association
with a problem runner.
     Players have a habit of becoming attached to their characters.
Frankly, I don't think I want to game with anyone who doesn't feel some
bit of "love" for the character(s) they're running in the game.  Someone
who doesn't consider the character they're playing a "keeper" will not
be terribly inclined to act as someone who wants to live.
     I don't send my characters out on missions with characters who are
living with a death wish; I don't think I'll want to send my characters
on missions when one or more players are indifferent to whether or not
their characters live.  It endangers my character, who I do want to keep
around because I like what I've built.
     So I know how I'd react if the rest of the party told me that
either I or my character was gonna have to shape up or ship out.  But I
know that unless I felt the accusations were (and really were) totally
groundless, I'd shape up.  I always strive to correct faults that I can
recognize, and don't often fail to see a problem with me or my "work";
whether in real life or in gaming.
     But other players don't necessarily have the same outlook.  You
have no assurances when you talk to a player that he won't get offended
at what you say about either his play or his character.  Now, he's more
likely to get upset if you tell him it's him who is playing poorly, but
some won't like it if told that their latest "brainchild" character
isn't measuring up either.
     There are two possible results if it's a player who's the problem.
He'll either work to correct his "problems" and the group will continue,
or he'll refuse to recognize that there is a problem, and not change.
In the latter case, eventually one of two things will happen.  Either
the group will get tired of it and kick him out or he'll get tired of
being treated (unfairly in him mind) like a low skilled person and leave
himself.
     Now it's never fun when players have problems amongst themselves.
Conflicts between two players have split entire groups, even shattered
entire groups, before.  They will surely continue to do the same,
because there will always be people who can't handle their own abilities
or lack thereof.
     The character situation is a little "easier" to handle, especially
if it's competent, mature, roleplayers involved.  A solid roleplayer who
is told that his character is causing problems with the other
characters, or recognizes it, won't become upset when the character is
treated accordingly.  When the character is killed by the others, run
off by the others or similarly left out to dry, the player won't take it
personally because he was merely staying in character and recognized
that it was due for the person he was portraying.
     But when you have a gamer who takes it personally when you treat
his character in certain ways, things get about as sticky as they'll get
when it's a player problem.  Even if the player knows that he's causing
problems for other characters with his character, he'll not like it when
said characters react accordingly to his.  This too has split groups
before.
     So the whole point of this entire montage.  If you're a gamer,
remember that it's *role playing* gaming.  You are acting out a part,
playing someone else.  Actors don't take it personally when their
character is killed by another character (though when it's a soap opera
writer killing off the character at request of management, they'll get
upset!); they understand that it's not them and it's not personal.
     Players too should be competent and mature enough roleplayers to
understand that what is done to their character, good or bad, isn't
something personal towards themselves.  If they're playing a character
that is causing problems, even if they didn't know it, then they should
not take it personally when the other players' characters take action
against that character.
     Good groups, composed of atleast mature individuals, if not mature
and skilled roleplayers, will not have problems like this.  They will
all be able to talk to each other about the problems that might arise,
if any.  They won't be taken off guard, or have a moody gamer explode
one session at the problem player or character.  In short, they'll be
able to handle problems with themselves and their characters.
     I offer this piece of advise.  If you're a "bad" gamer, make it a
point to better your gaming or your roleplaying or both.  I've never
taken an acting course or read books on the subject, but perhaps they
would be of use to a roleplayer.  Study a bit of tactics and logic to
help your gaming itself.  Never mind honest, critical advice offered
with a sincere goal of helping you.
     If you're a good gamer but have a "bad" character, don't mind when
your character is singled out.  Play it up, make it a session to
remember.  Turn the "death" or "alienation" of a character that you were
fond of into something very dramatic and memorable.  Make it a session
that everyone will enjoy immensely, and result in a very good story to
tell at conventions.  If your character lived, perhaps we have the
possibility of plotlines involving this character against the others in
the future; talk to your GM about it!
     In short, be a good and mature gamer, and keep the fun formost.