Are you an Amateur or a Pro?

Many games of Shadowrun consist of activities and behaviors that would make most Pros vomit on the ground if they had to stand by and watch what’s going on. Now you may tell yourself, well my character’s a pro. He’s survived a lot of jobs and has really high skills and a lot of money, plus he’s killed a lot of people. Well, a high body count means you’re a combat junkie; money often depends on how benevolent your GM is, and well, most GMs including myself don’t like killing off PCs. There is a substantial difference between some street thugs and a real pro. A street thug prides himself on the level of violence he can produce. A pro however avoids violence at a length and uses it sparingly. But fear not, I’ll tell you how to begin this marvelous transformation from a slaughtering machine to a pro that all the Johnsons want. And it doesn’t involve body counts or the number of times you’ve managed to survive by GM kindness. It relies on brains and thinking ahead. The attributes that separate a pro from a rookie are not only defined by the character’s skills, but by his/her attitude and how they conduct themselves on a job. A rookie will sit there and heap a load of problems on his/her boss and basically run around and make as much trouble as the job was supposed to prevent, because they didn’t take it to an all new level. Many of the current SR fiction books illustrate just such a fiasco. There are however certain books which do offer a view of how pros might handle themselves. The best one I can currently think of is “Fade to Black” by Nyx Smith. This portrays the story of one Samurai who honestly deserves the title of Street Samurai. He dies to maintain the honor of the man he was. It may have cost him his life, but there are worse things than death. It doesn’t take any role-playing ability to play a combat junkie—pros follow a code and a set of rules that separate them from the gutter trash. There is a method to their madness, a set of procedures that they follow to make sure things go right and minimize the chances of things going wrong. The rules are too many to list out, but reading a few books should help you get an idea. I recommend Fade to Black by Nyx Smith, Mona Lisa Overdrive by William Gibson and Preying for Keeps by Mel Oden. These books will give examples on how a group of pros handle themselves on a job vs. a bunch of combat junkies. Junkies relish the gunfight too much and they think it’s the ultimate gaming experience. The truth of the matter is that any idiot can pull a trigger and it doesn’t take any brains and just a modicum of skill to kill somebody. Now let’s not debate firearms experience and those who make the impossible shot. That’s an issue best left to the police riflemen, the military sharpshooters and civilian gun enthusiasts. The gun fights in SR are similar to gang bangers who drive by a crowd of people and slaughter 20 innocents to get one target or they are simply group A shoots at group B and they exchange fire for a while. Way back when SR first hit the shelves it was based around the concept of get into the installation quietly and get out with no one the wiser. This concept was almost immediately lost by the hordes of munchies who said “WOW! Look at this, it has lots of cool guns, and magic, and cyber…..etc.” You get the idea. The powers that know I had to sit through and endure a bunch of slaughter sessions where the GM decided to pick on a bunch of kids or GMs who were too afraid of wanting to keep their friends, so they didn’t rock the boat when a group of morons needed to be reminded of their abilities and what game they were playing. I’ll give an example: A little while ago I was involved in a campaign in which the GM decided to make Cincinnati the capital of the UCAS (Yeah, right.) Now, throughout corporate and yakuza intrigue it came to our attention that a corp was holding Dunkelzhan prisoner (Another Yeah, right.) But we’ll step beyond this little idea. Now one of the players who wants to be the rigger/sammie/techie/negotiator of the group, unfortunately god didn’t give him the IQ of a flea. Now, he decided to rescue the dragon. For the people who remember me mentioning my PC Rico, you can skip the next bit. To keep it short, Rico’s an amoral drug dealer who’d sell his own mother if he knew who she was. While Jim (not his real name) kept on badgering us to rescue the dragon. The combat junkie was all for it. But as Rico, who had two of the other players as his employees, said:

Rico: “Why should I risk my neck for this piece of drek lizard?”

Jim: “Well because it’s a dragon and is such an awesome creature who should be respected.”

In my best deadpan voice I said, “So it’s a fragging lizard, so what!”

“Well it’s Dunkelzhan!”

Let me be blunt. So what! Unless it affects my trafficking, I don’t care.

But it’s Dunkelzahn!

So we don’t know that and the rest of us don’t care..

But a creature like this should be revered

The only thing I revere is my pocketbook..

But it’s Dunkelzahn!

Never mind, Geez! Needless to say, my clique went our own way after that because we were left behind for two sessions that we didn’t have time to make. This illustrated my point entirely. Combat Junkies relish combat for the sake of combat. With the plethora of net publications and game magazines which just pump out bigger and better guns. More bang for your buck and a bigger clip too. These publications make it easier for the Junkie to survive when he should be slaughtered by the impossible odds. These idiots also make it nearly impossible to enjoy a game with anything less than a combat monster. Anything remotely removed from that either dies, quits or transmogrifies into a combat monster forever playing catch up.

Now for those reformed munchies and powergamers who want to try something else here’s a list of things to begin the transformation from amateur to pro:

The motto that violence is a last resort. Guns are cool, but it takes brains to stay alive in a real SR campaign.
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.
Professional Gear for the Professional Man:
- One black set of BDU’s
- One urban camouflage set of BDU’s
- Two balaclavas (That’s a swat mask for the rest of you.) Just in case one gets destroyed.
- Goggles
- Two sets of kevlar police gloves. To guard against prints and wounds on the hands.
- One nacroject pistol.
- One sidearm. Caseless
- Weapons of choice. Caseless (Leftover brass is evidence, remember that!)
- A pair of boot knives.
- One Swiss army knife, or a pocket tool, whichever.
- Melee weapons, if you desire.
A plan and two backup plans.
A non-munchie group and GM.

After the gear is purchased it’s time for a list of how to act:

Your Johnson doesn’t give a damn about you. So don’t tick him off, or you might find your gluteus maximus twisting in the wind.
Remember that your objective is prepared for idiots so don’t act like one.
Loose ends have a way of creeping up on you; don’t let them hang, and executions aren’t the only answer.
Professionalism equals survival. Act like a pro and your boss may respect you. Don’t and he may have you killed if he thinks you can’t keep your mouth shut.
Organized Crime contacts own you. Remember that when you try to give attitude to your Mafia contact. Cement shoes are awful heavy.
Security workers are only doing their jobs, killing them is pointless. More than likely all he wants to do is go home at the end of the night.
Never kill a cop. Cops are vindictive, they never forget, and are more than willing to arrest you 50 years down the line. In Alabama you won’t even make it to trial.
Never kill a reporter. Reporters flock to the death of another reporter and will cause you so much trouble that disappearing becomes your only option.
If a team member is an idiot never work with him again.
If he still pops back into your life this may be an exception to the motto about violence.

After all this, if you can pull off an entirely bloodless job, you’re on your way to becoming a pro.