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Codes of Honor and SRM.

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Redwulfe

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« Reply #15 on: <06-13-18/1107:14> »
Being applicable and being actually restrictive and therefore worth points are two separate things. For example following the johnsons orders is appliclicable as every mission has a Johnson, but it shouldn’t be worth points because it is what your character should already be doing. Same goes with not harming innocents as almost everyone could be concidered guilty as they are dealing with criminals or are criminals in a mission so it could be justified that they are not innocent. I like codes but they are heavily pointed and if they are to be accepted their costs would need to be re-evaluated to make sure they are not totally free points. Re-evaluating the points cost is probably outside the scope of SRM, unfortunately.
« Last Edit: <06-13-18/1122:50> by Redwulfe »
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Stainless Steel Devil Rat

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« Reply #16 on: <06-13-18/1115:47> »
Codes of Honor are hard to pull off for an organized play format.  Take for example the Thug Life CoH... the bigger problem isn't the 50% tithe but the requirement to always wear gang colors.  Especially in the new FAQ with the rules about requiring presence at the meet with Tanaka-san.  There's absolutely going to be times where you have to go to a meet in a nice place where you can't get in wearing colors.  No pay for you.   Furthermore, always wearing colors means especially while in another gang's turf.  That means the player with this CoH is forcing the rest of the table to deal with his negative quality by making the GM come up with an unscripted encounter with rival gangers standing up for their turf, and making the rest of the table deal with that encounter.  Shadowrunners can handle uppity gangers sure, but if you spend an hour dealing with that combat you probably won't have time to finish the run in 4 hours, potentially causing everyone to suffer a failed mission simply because you chose a CoH.  In a home game, sure you can just extend the mission beyond 4 hours or even to next week's session to account for complications to the storyline dictated by having a CoH.

And there's more issues with Codes of Honor beyond the trouble you inflict on the Gm/Rest of the party.  They're Shadowrun's closest thing to Alignments of D&D/D20 fame.. and those just don't work in organized play.  Too many ways to interpret alignment- you're guaranteed significant table variation when it comes to enforcing behavior in accordance with alignment.  That's why (at least in Pathfinder organized play) alignment is basically hand-waived, which is a big deal for a system where everything is usually so "by the book" that they even have a formal appeals process for overturning a GM's call on something.  Kind of alluding back to what I said upthread about having "for fun" arguments between characters about what is or is not against a code... it's toxic to have arguments between players/players and Gm about what's a code violation.  In a home game, sure.  The GM gets to say "Frag it, we're done arguing.. I'm laying down the law.  Like it or walk."  That's not a good ultimate answer in organized play.
« Last Edit: <06-13-18/1122:20> by Stainless Steel Devil Rat »
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Marcus

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« Reply #17 on: <06-13-18/1117:02> »
I disagree pretty strongly on the innocents thing. It's pretty easy line to draw. It's really No Collateral Damage, but a with slightly broader mandate. On the Applicability thing, I think it's a question of degrees. Yes there will always be a Johnson, but there are no shortage of missions where the party has done things that were specifically against with Johnson's orders. So I do think it can and does come up.
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Redwulfe

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« Reply #18 on: <06-13-18/1139:46> »
I disagree pretty strongly on the innocents thing. It's pretty easy line to draw. It's really No Collateral Damage, but a with slightly broader mandate. On the Applicability thing, I think it's a question of degrees. Yes there will always be a Johnson, but there are no shortage of missions where the party has done things that were specifically against with Johnson's orders. So I do think it can and does come up.

Yep, if you deal with criminals then you are not innocent. That's the line. It is rare that you would deal with someone that doesn't fall into that category and you are right it basically boils down to no collateral damage which is already avoided at every game I have ran of shadowrun since 1989. Since I have started running mission way back at the beginning of Denver I have never had a party ever go against the Johnson's orders. Their has been some discussion of whether what the Johnson wanted was just but it always ended with a x versus 1 vote to do the job. so once again players doing what they where supposed to do. I would have to say the guy that argued against doing the job actually had the restriction.

So why should doing what is expected of you be worth 15 points?

Now I will agree that our styles of play differ drastically but that is the point. We are going to have several GMs that differ drastically at the table, a lot of these codes require extra handling to make them worth points, they should be re-evaluated points wise, and all of this is probably out of the scope of SRM.
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Marcus

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« Reply #19 on: <06-13-18/1628:45> »
As it happens I don't expect that one condition to be worth 15 points. I expect it and 2 other conditions to be worth 15 points.
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Gorstavich

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« Reply #20 on: <06-13-18/1731:51> »
Just my $0.02

I would love for Codes of Honor to be included in Missions.  The idea of adjusting the costs down (to the 3-to-5 range) for most of them would work for me, however, I'd personally push for that to encompass the whole game in general, not just Missions play, given how mild of an effect they usually have during typical game-play.

And maybe I am weird, but "No innocents" in my mind always included the servants, lab assistants, secretaries, package boys, janitors, etc. that work in / around an environment.  They aren't out to get you, they're just trying to hold down a job to feed their families.  Typical corporate guards and such, a finer line in my mind, but I kind of lump them in with the military.  They knew the job would be dangerous when they signed up.

As for Aztechnology's Bloody Daggers, Knight Errant's Firewatch, Renraku's Red Samurai, Tír Tairngire's Moonlight Thorns (and Coca-Cola's Minute Men!), they most certainly don't qualify as "innocent" in my mind.  These people go out and do the nasty to others.
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Marcus

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« Reply #21 on: <06-13-18/2202:31> »
I think GMs won't have any trouble defining innocents, and should a very broad category of folks.
The whole no innocents things, is certainly modern war frame of mind, and people are free to take codes or not have a code as a means to  reflect that thinking.
But the category exists, most runs have combat and the risk for harming innocents is there, so I believe is perfectly applicable in SRM.
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Bamce

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« Reply #22 on: <06-14-18/1005:58> »
Codes of honor are soft pvp. You are forcing your playstyle onto other people. The same as pacifist 2

In addition missions gm's don't know the people that are going to be sitting down at their tables. They don't know if the wetwork mission is gonna have someone with a 'no kill' code of honor show up.

There is simply to much gm<~>player requirement for code of honor to work in a missions environment.

Stainless Steel Devil Rat

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« Reply #23 on: <06-14-18/1046:00> »
Indeed.. if you look at the list of SRM-banned negative qualities you see there's many of them that force a character to be a poor teammate and those that require the GM to throw entire encounters at the player (and thus the party).  Qualities like Poor Self Control, LEEEEEEEROY JENKINS, and Data Liberator are examples of the former and Wanted by GOD, Curiosity Killed the Cat, and Prank Warrior are examples of the latter.  Almost all the Codes of Honor fall under one or both categories.

There's problems with Codes of Honor being worth the karma they give, but moreso than that for SRM is when they DO impact the game it's in ways that are exceedingly bad for ad hoc teams assembled to do a mission inside 4 real-world hours.
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Marcus

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« Reply #24 on: <06-14-18/1225:55> »
Codes of honor are soft pvp. You are forcing your playstyle onto other people. The same as pacifist 2

In addition missions gm's don't know the people that are going to be sitting down at their tables. They don't know if the wetwork mission is gonna have someone with a 'no kill' code of honor show up.

There is simply to much gm<~>player requirement for code of honor to work in a missions environment.

There are already Codes of Honor in Missions. So that boat has sailed.

But I disagree with that characterization, nothing prevents the characters from ignoring a code of honor PC and doing whatever they wanna do, in fact the system specifically prohibits pvp so even if the Code of Honor PC wanted to stop them, they literally are not allowed too.  I should also point out there isn't a "no kill" code of honor. All of them, even the healer one accept that violence is part of business.

So there really is no part of that argument that holds any water.
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Jayde Moon

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« Reply #25 on: <06-14-18/2226:11> »
Don't get overly pedantic.  The point is that many of the codes of honor will create a degree of contention at the gaming table that a GM will have to deal with to some extent.

It's part of why many aren't included.

Anyhoo...

To get a Code of Honor included, it needs to be consistently enforceable across multiple GMs (which includes being within the 'scope' of Missions play), it needs to be worth the points that are being given, and the level of potential inner-party contention that it causes has to be 'easily' mitigated.

All 3 of these need to 'Yes' for the Code of Honor to work.

So let's look at one that's allowed:

Assassin's Creed

Is it enforceable?  YES!  The restriction is black and white.  The consequences are black and white.

Is it worth the points?  Leaving witnesses and having to really focus on not employing (even accidentally) lethal damage arguably worth the 15 points.

Is the potential for contention amongst player groups easily mitigated?  The restriction is that YOU don't kill anyone, not that your fellows don't kill anyone.  What do you care if those rank amateurs leave a trail of bodies?  If you do decide you need to kill someone and end up failing your Charisma + Willpower (4) test... what's the likelihood that someone in the party is going to physically force you to murder that person?  Nil.  The potential for inner-party contention is minimal.

Now let's look at one that isn't allowed:

Bushido 2.0

Is it enforceable?

Well... how are we defining the 'superior' in this case?  Is it Mr. Johnson?  Then yeah...

Is it another PC?  OK, yeah.

Is it some NPC off books?  OK, sure.

Is it worth the points?

If Mr. Johnson is the superior?  Not really, Missions are generally written with the presumption that this is what you're doing anyway.

If we define the 'superior' as a member of the group, also unlikely to be worth the points.  It is presumed that the team is working towards a singular goal and that your personal interests in the moment will almost always align with the 'leader'.

If we define the 'superior' as an off-screen NPC, then absolutely not... there is no mechanism to employ NPCs that aren't written into the Mission (this is why you can't take 'Ward' for example)

And finally, is the level of contention 'easily' mitigated?

If Mr. Johnson is the superior and the team decides to go off-book and you fail your Charisma + Willpower (4) roll, you absolutely must oppose the team.  This is literally a PvP situation.

If another PC is the superior and orders you to do something and you fail your Charisma + Willpower (4) roll, you absolutely must do what that player tells you to do, removing your agency in a manner that could have little to do with advancing the mission.

If it's some non-Missions NPC, it would likely be mitigated because it won't ever come up and if it does, then the GM has taken an active hand in this and hopefully in GM we trust and he isn't railroading the team into some weird PvP.

Sooooo.....

We have a

Y / N / N
Y / N / N
Y / N / Y

There is no plausible situation where all three of these are "Yes" and we can't make any good cases to lessen the impact of the "No's" to something that works for the Missions format, so Bushido 2.0 is not included.

So when discussing the ones that aren't included, you are trying to make a strong case for why all three of these questions are 'Yes'.

In many cases, mitigating concerns for one of the questions can cause another one to become invalid.

So... for each of the disallowed qualities you want us to include, tell me (and by extension, the SRM FAQ Team) how the Code of Honor can be enforced and is within the scope of Missions (that means that the enforcement doesn't call for the GM having to spend potentially a good portion of Mission time addressing the Quality), how it's worth the points, and how conflicts are overwhelmingly more likely to be peacefully resolved rather than cause a PvP scenario.

If the only issue is 'value', then propose a lower value and defend it (for these the FAQ Team may discuss if it's possible to include it at the lower value, for which we'll have to take other factors into account).

I also want to point something out:

In this discussion, anyone having a different perspective on what something means than anyone else is, in itself, proof that whatever perspective you have isn't as obvious as you think it is.  Which leads to a question of enforce-ability.
« Last Edit: <06-14-18/2228:10> by Jayde Moon »
That's just like... your opinion, man.

Marcus

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« Reply #26 on: <06-14-18/2253:44> »
Basing the argument around something like full GM acceptance of all points just means this is going to see any meaningful change.

The concept shouldn't be that we need to write everything into enforceable/applicability and avoidance of internal conflict, if we do that there we aren't going to see any meaningful change.

There's a couple that will other will fit your outlined points, (Paladin's Code, Samurai Code).

But that's not very useful. We should make this more granular, allow multiple level of acceptance.

Your standard would hold for the full 15 points.

Why not then have  standard for 5 points?

Then a Standard for 3 points?

By creating sub tiers with less strenuous requirements we will get a lot more content in.  Which is good for everyone.

So long as we have done our due diligence, there's at-least a greater chance a GM will manage to use some of this stuff while they're running missions.


As for being pedantic, when someones comes into your thread and says the purpose your thread, is just a means for players force their opinion on other players and in effect shouldn't be allowed, it's the argument equivalent of lighting your house on fire and leaving. Is there some other logical reaction other then shoot down their argument right then and there? Honestly I was at loss for anything else to do with it.
« Last Edit: <06-14-18/2259:54> by Marcus »
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Jayde Moon

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« Reply #27 on: <06-14-18/2329:07> »
Your standard would hold for the full 15 points.

Why not then have  standard for 5 points?

Then a Standard for 3 points?

Quote from: Me
If the only issue is 'value', then propose a lower value and defend it (for these the FAQ Team may discuss if it's possible to include it at the lower value, for which we'll have to take other factors into account).

Make yo case!  I only added the () to manage expectations.  At the end of the day, I'm going to take these suggestions to the team and we're going to discuss them.  If lowering values is part of the suggestion, we will consider that, but understand that we then have to take things into account that aren't necessarily tied directly to the viability of the actual suggestion, ie it might actually be a good idea but something else keeps us from implementing it.



The pedantism thing was about taking the literal statements that was likely hyperbole and integrating that into your argument.  I felt it was a bit silly and my admonishment wasn't meant to be harsh.  If it came across that way, I apologize!
That's just like... your opinion, man.

Marcus

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« Reply #28 on: <06-14-18/2348:44> »
So Three Tiers
 
Tier 1: 15 pts, what the core book currently defines as a code of honor, where all requirements are applicable, enforceable and non-disruptive within the SRM Play Space.

Tier 2: 5 pts, This for cases when two code of honor requirements are applicable, enforceable and non-disruptive, in effect we give one requirement a pass, with the expectation that players will still try to live by it. But it will not have systemically enforcement, or otherwise be allowed to disrupt the table.
 
Teir 3: 3 pts, This is for instances where some Codes of Honor are not going to largely applicable or enforceable within the bounds of the SRM play space. Players are expect to meet all requirements on those occasions that they become applicable and enforceable, and to role play them even when systematic enforcement is not applicable or possible.  In effect I consider this the moral equivalent of adding rarely happens to an existing code.

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Jayde Moon

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« Reply #29 on: <06-14-18/2351:19> »
Based on your tier system, which ones should be in which tiers?  Are any still right out?
That's just like... your opinion, man.