[Marcus]

I'm just trying to help here, and folks coming in and saying you should just drop this whole thing and role play it, is not just unhelpful, it's honestly just going to hurt the cause. Your words are always going to carry more weight here Bull, regardless if you're no longer part of the missions team. Frankly all this is just making the whole thing harder, and it was already pain to begin with. 

I'm just at loss, I'm perfectly fine with just dropping the topic if that's how folks want it. I certainly don't need the headache.

[prophet42]

Marcus - you (& many others here on the boards) have put a ton of effort into topics recently & I, for one, am appreciative of your (collective) efforts.

Hopefully we'll see some clarifications on Codes of Honor & other topics in the near future.

[Redwulfe]

Marcus I wouldn't stop what you are doing, nor do I think anyone should. We all love the game and fight patiently for it adn we love playing SRM and want to help make it the best that it can be for all of us that play. I don't think clarifications and rulings on rules that are questionable is changing too much. Especially with lack of Errata. I do feel that we will see more from the Errata team as well and that will be very helpful.

As we currently have a 80 page document detailing clarifications and rules changes for SRM play already, I would say we already play under a heavily modified system and one that we are grateful for. the FAQ team has done a stellar job off it and I personally am very thankful for all that they do.

[Jayde Moon]

I appreciate your efforts, Marcus.

I like some of your ideas.  This will be a line item discussion point pre-GenCon.  Each of your points will be presented to the FAQ team.  I make no promises beyond that, but some of these items feel somewhat reasonable, so you can cross your fingers.

[Bull]

I apologize for getting snippy, all.  Bit tired and run down after Origins and caught a case of con crud, but thats really no excuse.

[Jayde Moon]

And if anyone understands the potential for burnout, it's Bull, and honestly he's trying to be a friend and shield me from that as much as he can, and I'm grateful for it.

Especially during the Con season!  It's definitely been a whirlwind and I'm looking forward to decompressing a bit before moving on...

But as long as these discussions are civil and everyone understands that the most I am promising is to actually consider the suggestions and maybe present them to the FAQ team, then this shouldn't add to any burdens and hopefully is a fun way for the community to be engaged and feel they have some ownership.

[Redwulfe]

Bull and Jayde, I want to re-iterate that I appreciate all that you do for the community and love that you all are willing to listen to our ramblings at all. It is one of the things that I really like about SRM. It truly feels like we can help make this one of the best OPs in the RPG industry, and this is because of the great team that catalyst has allowed to work on the SRM.

[Jayde Moon]

For Combined SRM FAQ 1.1 (to see release around the end of the month):

Allowed:

Assassin's Creed
Like a Boss (Requires Hacking 3 or Resonance Attribute)
Nationalist
Omerta
Akichita
Hippocratic Oath
Paladin's Code
Path of the Samurai
Soldier's Code
Thug Life

Maybe:

The Shaman's Code

Disallowed:

Code of Honor (Vanilla)
Avenging Angel
Bushido 2.0
Code of the Good Cop
Code of the White Hat
Code of Wuxia
Hermetic Code
Warrior's Code
Code of the Hacker


The maybe on Shaman's Way is dependent on an errata question.

We discussed each of these.  We determined that changing the values of some of them to include them at lower points was undesirable.


Code of Honor (Vanilla) is too broad and requires GM input 100%.
Avenging Angel is too stringent for Missions Play if it shows up.  By the time you need to take the contract, you can not possibly have made a determination.
Bushido 2.0 is simply untenable as described, deciding who your 'superior' is across multiple tables with different players doesn't work for missions play.
Code of the Good Cop requires you to be a cop.
Code of the White Hat actually becomes far too stringent in Missions play.  Tackling a Host?  Are you sure it doesn't belong to a law abider?  What are you actually going to hack, then?
Code of Wuxia fits for a different sort of campaign for the SR Setting, but doesn't really fit in Missions play.
Hermetic Code would become far to disruptive.  I mean... a fake SIN is a falsehood and you gotta let everyone know that THEIR fake SIN is also abominable.
Code of the Warrior is pretty much Path of the Samurai except you try to enforce it on others, too disruptive.
Code of the Hacker only works if we do a tier system, which isn't happening at this time.

So... we have 10 (possibly 11) allowed and 8 disallowed (plus vanilla).  We went over each one, discussed them.  We almost put in a couple of others but at the end of the day decided that the potential for hassle wasn't worth adding.

Marcus, I appreciate all of the time and thought you put into this as well as everyone else.  At the very least, it did have us relook and rethink the entire subset of qualities, and it's important to relook things from time to time.

[Marcus]

Over all I'm very happy with this result. I never thought we'd get that many in.
I think that this will give players a very good set of options and support a very strong array of background and cultures, for character to tie themselves too. I had totally forgotten about nationalist, and I think it's a great one to include, given it's generic nature and near universal applicability.
It's also great to see Path of the Samurai make into for NT.

Thank you for you for both your time and effort in this matter and for the update Jayde Moon.

[Stainless Steel Devil Rat]

Thanks Jayde Moon for taking player input seriously.  We all appreciate it.

I'm sure you thought seriously about each one, and I have to say I'm honestly curious how the team came to see Omerta and Thug Life as being SRM compatible.  How can you have Omerta in Neo-Tokyo as Made Man is a banned quality (or I guess it might be a Code only allowed in the Chicago campaign)?  How should GM's juggle the 4 hour timeframe against adequately punishing a Thug Life PC for wearing gang colors on rivals' turf?  What kind of conduct is required by the Sixth World's Laws of Warfare that Soldier shadowrunners must do that other shadowrunners aren't already doing anyway?

I'm hoping you answer or provide guidance for those kinds of questions in the FAQ.

[Jayde Moon]

Omerta will require Made Man.

Thug Life is not generally going to be overly disruptive.  Gang encounters are written into Missions when they occur and wearing Gang Colors does not necessarily mean RIVAL gang colors.  I expect that it would result in potential negative modifiers for Social tests with the potential for a violent outcome, but it is not a foregone conclusion.

Yakuza will generally just see gang members as non-entities, beneath their notice.  You may incur a social penalty with a Yakuza Tanaka.

Soldiers Code - inability to loot and inability to torture prisoners are binary enforceable, added to a GM/player agreement of what's honorable and under Laws of Warefare, it makes it suitable.  There is no reason to believe that our current Geneva Laws are much different (though plenty of reason to believe that they may be followed less stringently...)

[Stainless Steel Devil Rat]

Soldiers Code - inability to loot and inability to torture prisoners are binary enforceable, added to a GM/player agreement of what's honorable and under Laws of Warefare, it makes it suitable.  There is no reason to believe that our current Geneva Laws are much different (though plenty of reason to believe that they may be followed less stringently...)

Yeeaaaah.  It'd probably be for the best to leave the real life Geneva Laws out of the discussion as if we go basing things off real life, we're gonna have a LOT of issues when you mix players who have a large familiarity with those rules and players who don't.  Not just with real world politics derailing a game we're supposed to be having fun with, but also issues with problems that will appear to come out of left field for those players functionally unfamiliar with this topic.  Like what sorts of chemicals are allowable in your gas grenades (fun fact: CS isn't one of them), prohibitions against using certain kinds of ammo, what sorts of displays of identity you're expected to make (fairly reasonable to assume a Fake SIN would be against the real world laws of warfare...)

Might be for the best to leave it to a short list of what you/your team consider to be "obvious" like no looting no torturing and say the rest is a wash that went irrelevant given the revolutions in technology and magic since the onset of the Sixth World.

[Jayde Moon]

In Gamemaster we trust. 

'Geneva Conventions' won't be mentioned in the FAQ, lol.  I'm just saying that it would be a reasonable baseline for what constitutes 'honorable behavior' for a Soldier.

[Marcus]

GMs are smart people they will make reasonable choices SSDR. The same as with akichita, and what beauty means in the paladins code.

[Stainless Steel Devil Rat]

In Gamemaster we trust. 

'Geneva Conventions' won't be mentioned in the FAQ, lol.  I'm just saying that it would be a reasonable baseline for what constitutes 'honorable behavior' for a Soldier.

GMs are smart people they will make reasonable choices SSDR. The same as with akichita, and what beauty means in the paladins code.

Fair enough if it doesn't look like "what's against the laws of warfare" is something prone to triggering disruptive table variation.  My apparently lone opinion is that it is reasonable to expect troublesome table variation on that specific topic.   Based on my real-world experience I'd insist broadcasting a Fake SIN is the same thing as wearing no (or even worse, a false) uniform or idenfitying mark.  That makes you an unlawful combatant pretty much without dispute in my book.  Yet if I have a Soldier's Code character at my table who's never played at a table with a GM who shares my same conviction about Fake SINs making you an Unflawful Combatant, he's gonna have a fairly disrupted experience as SINs (both Fake and Real) have a pretty noticeable impact on the game.

Anyway, I've said my peace on it.  I do sincerely hope that adding Codes of Honor goes over well in SRM