Racter..... What an amazing character.

[Kain]

Really, best character in the series and one of the best in any RPG.

[Snorkel]

Origineel geplaatst door Watchman:

Origineel geplaatst door Toasted Sandvich Maker:

Those rules specifically say that psychopaths are metahuman? That seems ...odd.

They're quite clear that Essence rules are universal. Moreover, nowhere - *particularly* including the Disadvantage rules about various mental problems - is anything to the contrary even hinted at.

So it doesn't specifically say anything about psychopaths. Good good.

Origineel geplaatst door Watchman:

You might also wanna read up a bit[en.wikipedia.org]; diminished or absent capacity to feel empathy and remorse hardly make someone somehow a fundamentally different life form, however problematic they might be for people around such an individual. Nevermind now fundamentally different from *all* living things, in this context.

OK, we're talking the Sixth World where dragons and sprites and all kinds of things exist. Why would it not be possible for a metahuman body to be inhabited by a soul-less (and therefore essenceless) being, and effectively not have any metahumanity to lose?

[Daliena]

Origineel geplaatst door Toasted Sandvich Maker:

Origineel geplaatst door Watchman:

They're quite clear that Essence rules are universal. Moreover, nowhere - *particularly* including the Disadvantage rules about various mental problems - is anything to the contrary even hinted at.

So it doesn't specifically say anything about psychopaths. Good good.

Origineel geplaatst door Watchman:

You might also wanna read up a bit[en.wikipedia.org]; diminished or absent capacity to feel empathy and remorse hardly make someone somehow a fundamentally different life form, however problematic they might be for people around such an individual. Nevermind now fundamentally different from *all* living things, in this context.

OK, we're talking the Sixth World where dragons and sprites and all kinds of things exist. Why would it not be possible for a metahuman body to be inhabited by a soul-less (and therefore essenceless) being, and effectively not have any metahumanity to lose?

I think it turns a little conspiracy theory-ish when we go off the assumption that if it doesn't specifically dispute something in the rules/lore then it must be true. :P

[Snorkel]

I never said that it MUST be true. I'm theorising that there's nothing to say that it can't be true, so it's worth considering.

[Watchman]

Origineel geplaatst door Toasted Sandvich Maker:

So it doesn't specifically say anything about psychopaths. Good good.

Why should it? They're A) metahuman B) living beings in all the relevant respects. They don't specifically talk about Trolls or hydrophobics either in the Essence-related sections...

OK, we're talking the Sixth World where dragons and sprites and all kinds of things exist. Why would it not be possible for a metahuman body to be inhabited by a soul-less (and therefore essenceless) being, and effectively not have any metahumanity to lose?

That'd be spirit possession then, not a mental disorder. And likely of a *dead body* (incidentally, only "structural" 'ware - dermal armor, muscle augs etc. - still works in these kinds of spirit-animated corpses). Also only fundamentally nonliving things such as rocks and machines do not have a "soul" in the sense of Essence - even "invader" spirits from the Deep Metaplanes like the Bugs and the Shedim that start turning up after the Year of the Comet (some years after these games' timeframe) are subject to these basic considerations.

Again: Essence is not some measure of "metahumanity", even less so in the figurative social and psychological sense. It is the metric of any living thing's fundamental life-force and its integrity. Even damn microbes have it - indeed their auras are responsible of much of the ambient glow of the Astral plane.

Origineel geplaatst door Toasted Sandvich Maker:

I never said that it MUST be true. I'm theorising that there's nothing to say that it can't be true, so it's worth considering.

There's a good twenty-five or more years' worth of PnP rules that make it very clear it can't be true. And it isn't worth considering because it blatantly violates core premises of the entire setting.

[Candy Witch]

There's not really any discussion to be had on this if you take the sourcebooks of the PnP game into account. Man & Machine and Augmentation both discussed this in great lengths. Not only is a person with mental disorders not anything different from any other metahuman without them, they usually develop them by accident or necessity when going full cyborg/cyberzombie. Augmentation has a chapter in the back which even lists the BP values of these mental disorders, as they are considered disadvantages of a regular metahuman.

That said, Racter rightfully thinks that he's an ideal candidate for it. However, he's a highly functioning psychopath, and he might or might not be completely aware of how much of his emulated empathy and life force he'd be cutting off by going the full mile because it can end up crippling him, mentally. The more I think about it, the more I wonder if he's not afraid of going full robot because he's smart enough to theorize some of these ramifications.

Psychopaths may have no regard for other life, but they can still feel fear for their own lives. I'm pretty sure that Racter is interested in getting as close as he can to the edge of transcending organic life, but without ever really going over it and sacrificing his "self."

[Watchman]

Incidentally, "Chrome Flesh" (the 5th ed 'ware/medical stuff book) has this to say in its rules about various psychological conditions:

Antisocial personality disorder (psychopathy)

Roleplaying only. The typical indicators of ASPD—antisocial behavior, lack of empathy/remorse, and low inhibitions—are practically a description of shadowrunning.

So, yeah.

There's a *completely* serparate Advantage ("Biocompatibility", around already in 4th ed) which gives a ~10% Essence discount on either cyber- or bioware due to some physiological quirk.

[Snorkel]

OK, how about we approach this differently.

Racter is not an idiot. He is very smart.

Racter comments something about it being well known that everyone FEELS a loss of essense - this is backed up by what is in the source books. This is the point where the conflict comes in.

We know how essence loss effects everyone. _It doesn't effect Racter like this_ This is important.

Again, he is very smart, but he doesn't believe that maybe he has lost essence but just not felt it. Is it not even conceivable that he could be right?

So, again, I am not trying to prove that I am right and you are wrong. I do not believe either of us have any hard evidence either way - sure, Racter could have the Biocompatibility trait, but that doesn't explain why he doesn't feel essence loss. OK, maybe many shadowrunners are on the psychopath scale and they all feel essence loss - maybe Racter is different because he's much further down the scale than most.

Anyway, I don't think there's any point in continuing to suggest alternative theories to think about. The only way we could know for sure would be if the devs would weigh in with their intentions...

Maybe in the expansion there could be an option "Oh yes Racter, I think it would be a FANTASTIC idea for you to chop off both your arms and replace them with chainsaws. Lets see what happens!"

In fact, I really hope that is an option.

(please let it be an option)

[Watchman]

Origineel geplaatst door Toasted Sandvich Maker:

Racter is not an idiot. He is very smart.

That's irrelevant, smart people are just as capable of deluding themselves wholesale as stupid ones. They're just more eloquent about their congitive dissonances.

Case in point, you can at one point of the convo chain call Rac out on his philosophy basically being bult on little more than wisful thinking and very little actual intellectual rigour, which he won't dispute.

Racter comments something about it being well known that everyone FEELS a loss of essense - this is backed up by what is in the source books. This is the point where the conflict comes in.

We know how essence loss effects everyone. _It doesn't effect Racter like this_ This is important.

How people react to Essence loss is ultimately pretty individual. "Chrome Flesh" fluff mentions some start wigging out from little more than a datajack, which is why psych consultation and therapy is routine part of procedure in reputable cyberclinics. (Also folks who try to dig their 'jacks out with a fork or shoot their own cyberarms off due to firm conviction the thing's trying to murder them in their sleep aren't exactly repeat customer material.)

Also, that he THINKS it isn't affecting him doesn't make it so. "I don't have a problem", right? De Nile is an universally popular fishing spot...

Again, he is very smart, but he doesn't believe that maybe he has lost essence but just not felt it. Is it not even conceivable that he could be right?

More like it's highly questionable if he could actually tell the difference himself. He's... not exactly a self-critical kind of guy, as ought to be obvious from talking to him, so his judgement is even more suspect than usual when it comes to self-diagnostics.

And, well, if you're physically incapable of intuitively relating to the rest of metahumanity to begin with it's not like the dissociative side effects of Essence loss are going to make that big of a difference.
Until you develop a bonafide case of cyberpsychosis anyway...

So, again, I am not trying to prove that I am right and you are wrong. I do not believe either of us have any hard evidence either way - sure, Racter could have the Biocompatibility trait, but that doesn't explain why he doesn't feel essence loss. OK, maybe many shadowrunners are on the psychopath scale and they all feel essence loss - maybe Racter is different because he's much further down the scale than most.

Anyway, I don't think there's any point in continuing to suggest alternative theories to think about. The only way we could know for sure would be if the devs would weigh in with their intentions...

You're confusing an in-character subjective opinion with objective mechanics. What Rac *thinks* has no inherent reason to be true; also, under 5th Ed rules any greater Essence loss *will* impact your use of social skills. Mechanically this is due to the attribute being one of those that contribute to your Social Limit (the cap on how many net successes you can claim from a skill check), fluff-wise this is due to both a subconsciously perceivable "uncanny valley" effect and subtle alienation.

More practically the actual Cyberpsychosis disadvantage can only be taken once you've gone under 1 Essence, which isn't even possible in these games IIRC. Don't remember out of hand what Rac's score is but he doesn't boast enough chrome to be around lower than the halfway mark or so, so ultimately he's speculating.

Note also that said disadvantage is quite optional - people chromed to within an inch of their life are inevitably going to be pretty cold fishes, but they're no more going to automatically go straight-up bonkers anymore than all combat vets are PTSD'd wrecks.

Maybe in the expansion there could be an option "Oh yes Racter, I think it would be a FANTASTIC idea for you to chop off both your arms and replace them with chainsaws. Lets see what happens!"

In fact, I really hope that is an option.

(please let it be an option)

kek
"Extreme Cyber-Implant Weapons", page 90 of Chrome Flesh. Though I suspect the good Doctor is too fond of his manual dexterity for that, plus Koschei essentially fulfills the same function for him anyway - doubly so if you take the melee upgrades.

[Snorkel]

OK, here's a thought experiment for you. We know Racter thinks he is immune to essence loss, and he thinks it's because he's a psychopath. How do you think he justifies this in his head? What are his explanations of the mechanics?

[Daliena]

Origineel geplaatst door Toasted Sandvich Maker:

OK, here's a thought experiment for you. We know Racter thinks he is immune to essence loss, and he thinks it's because he's a psychopath. How do you think he justifies this in his head? What are his explanations of the mechanics?

As I recall, he thinks he's immune to the -psychological- effects of essence loss, citing the fact that for a normal human the shock of losing their empathy could drive them off the brink, whereas he can't be disturbed by the loss of something he never had to begin with.

[steelcoresoviet]

To be completely fair to Racter, most metahumans aren't totally cool with being cut in half and neutered in one fell swoop.

But really, that says more about Racter than it says about psychopaths.