Redmarket. The ideas I get while listening to the actual plays.

[Adam_Autist]

@RadioactiveBear I believe I made that comment on the episode comments. Didn't want to repeat myself.

Narratively getting a rep as a backstabber probably jacks the price of retirement way up because people are not going to trust you. Market help you if you still can't afford to gtfo of the loss because your former crew are going to hunt youas far as it takes. Just think about regular office where every one isn't armed & desperate.

On the whole it benefits everyone to treat everyone except the client etc with respect.

[Gorkamorka]

Yes of course the obvious reason the game isn't full of betrayals is the Meta reason.  Don't mess up the playtest, don't screw over your friends fun.

But if we imagine it's a real world scenario.  I think you could trust everyone until the second to last or the last score.   By that time all the people should be desperate, mentally tired and have probably had to do some really horrible things to get to where you are now.  And you should realise that if you all survive the last big score then all of you get a little less money to live on in the recession then if fewer people survive.  Hell if only one survives you will be filthy rich.  And you don't have to worry about the rep, because you are getting out anyway.

The thing with Kowloon, the godly and the aberrant was different.  All he had to do was not do anything and then claim the money.  As I said, his friends would never have had to find out.  They would even have gotten paid.  That was just a true moral chose. One that I think Kowloon/Ross would probably have done differently if he could do it over again with a clear mind and no time pressure.  I think the rescue the people was a knee jerk reaction of Ross "the normal human" while I feel that Kowloon "the desperate survivor" would have taken the money.  Ross has said as much about Kowloon before.  "He just wants out as fast as possible".

Now I would love to hear Ross take on this. 

[Adam_Autist]

Kind of remimds me of the Kane & Lynch multiplayer where it's beneficial to work together right until the end of the heist then it becomes resevoir dogs.

in character I dunno man human nature's a funny thing and logic is overrated. I would think it would be a completely different thing to commit mass murder by proxy. Sorry if I misunderstand I made the mistake of having a soft drink and am fighting off anxiety issues.

I'd love to hear what Ross has to say but we might have to wait for the post mortem.

[RadioactiveBeer]

I think Kowloon/Ross would probably have done differently if he could do it over again with a clear mind and no time pressure.

Counterpoint: doing so is a Detachment stressor and that acts as a mechanical disincentive even without time pressure; carrying out the "feed the Christians to the goop-lion for profit" plan is a very "That Guy from the Zombie Movie" thing to do, which is what the Humanity system represents.

Also, you're kind of ignoring the context of their entire previous relationship with DHQS, who were repeatedly established as monstrous and murderous. As previously mentioned in the thread, a central tension in the game is how much money it takes for you to overlook the client's shadiness and I think the DHQS are just the most extreme example of that. It's not just a question of "what do I do in this instance" so much as how everything leading up to this point shapes your thinking about what to do next. And there's rarely going to be a time when you're not pressured to make a choice, so I think saying "he would have made the right choice if there wasn't pressure to make the choice" isn't a great argument. Perhaps he decided he didn't want to be like the Vowels, regardless of profit loss and risk. Perhaps he was learning to value something other than blood money - or had found a level of bloodiness to his money that he didn't want to take.

[Adam_Autist]

Also isn't Kowloon's Zombie Defence designer spot a thing to factor into this too. I don't mean talk for Ross here.

I appreciate RadBear doing what I mean more eloquently.

[wilzuma]

Yes of course the obvious reason the game isn't full of betrayals is the Meta reason.  Don't mess up the playtest, don't screw over your friends fun.

But if we imagine it's a real world scenario.  I think you could trust everyone until the second to last or the last score.   By that time all the people should be desperate, mentally tired and have probably had to do some really horrible things to get to where you are now.  And you should realise that if you all survive the last big score then all of you get a little less money to live on in the recession then if fewer people survive.  Hell if only one survives you will be filthy rich.  And you don't have to worry about the rep, because you are getting out anyway.

The thing with Kowloon, the godly and the aberrant was different.  All he had to do was not do anything and then claim the money.  As I said, his friends would never have had to find out.  They would even have gotten paid.  That was just a true moral chose. One that I think Kowloon/Ross would probably have done differently if he could do it over again with a clear mind and no time pressure.  I think the rescue the people was a knee jerk reaction of Ross "the normal human" while I feel that Kowloon "the desperate survivor" would have taken the money.  Ross has said as much about Kowloon before.  "He just wants out as fast as possible".

Now I would love to hear Ross take on this.

@Gorkamokra

I disagree that their unity is not purely meta. The logic of betrayal and the big score all to yourself, logic isn't necessarily as pure as mathematics and a clear profit margin.

Economics take human nature and behavior into account. While the score would be divided by the Takers, and you get less money you don't necessarily get more out of it. There are too many abstracts you can't name a dollar value to when it comes to work. The emphasis is that even in an Apocalypse, civilization endures and it's worst and BEST qualities thrive. Self-reliance and self sufficiency is a lie. People NEED people.

If you take from your crew, you are literally a coworker stealing from the cash register. There are consequences. To your soul, to your life and to your career. The value of being trusted, of being fair, and not a murdering raider has an ephemeral value you can't equate with the cash value you'd be earning in return for betrayal or underhanded-ness.

Kowloon knows that Le Corbusier NEEDS Ivory Plains. They need communities to trade with. They need people. They need civilization to survive. Especially now that he knows the DHQS is trying to "cleanse" the enclaves to preserve their cover up AND take land back. His community his family is in danger. His neighbors and friends are in danger. Word gets out he led an aberrant to a community and stood by and watched as they were devoured, he would be blacklisted. And you can't pretend someone won't get away or won't find out. DHQS would know. They would blackmail him.

What he did was TRULY logical. Not mathematically or profit driven logic, but emotionally logical.

[Gorkamorka]

@Wilzuma

Yet at the same time history is rife with examples of people taking short term individual gain over long term gain for the whole.

But in reality it is actually about what was done. Not what I or anyone else feels should have been done.

[Adam_Autist]

I have been thinking a lot about enclaves recently. I was watching the District 13 movies and there is a whole ton of evocative imagery in those movies and the concept of a load of high rises surrounded by a high wall that is perilously close to the city limits is really interesting to me.

Also I'm listening to Tim Power's Declare and the parts with the Bedouin made me think it would be interesting to see how a nomadic group would act in RM. Would they have several mini enclaves  that they move between? Or a mobile caravan enclave like in the latest Monster Hunter? Hm.

Finally I'll be playing in a campaign of Stars Without Number soon and I just thought how perfect it would be for a port with the Profit System. Your spaceship would be the equivalent of an enclave I think.

Edit: My brother's watching Person of Interest and I just thought of doing something like Night's Black Agents where you would have a Visibility/ cover score (instead of bounty?) and you would have to make the decision to do things to keep/ raise your cover or spend it to benefit yourself in some way have players make some of those RPPR brand difficult choices. It's late but I thought these were interesting enough that I'd share them.

[RadioactiveBeer]

So, after listening to ep1 of Fallen Flags, I was toying around with ideas for characters based around the whole Immune thing and here's what I came up with. (Posted the idea in the FB group) If you like 'em, use em! If not, you can never un-read em so I win either way!

BOGOF (Buy One, Get One Free) are a brother-sister team who have set themselves up in the Loss as a small independent fixer outfit. Near-identical twins, they have taken great care to resemble each other as closely as possible, down to the model (and repair) of the equipment they use to make them unrecognisable as individuals. As the name suggests, they come as a package; you hire one, you get both of them.

They used to be Gregor and Imogen Thompson, a pair of medical subjects "rescued" from a DHQS facility by a Moth raid about year into the Crash. The rescue was great, but the problem was that the Moths - being Moths - promptly uploaded all the project's medical data to the Ubiq network. This is where most people learned that immunity is apparently not a genetic factor as the medical tests showed Imogen as immune but Gregor not to be immune. Due to the high price that the immune have on their head, the Moths "outing" Imogen as immune effectively ruined their lives and the pair soon fled the Moths too.

BOGOF is short and skinny, with black hair swept over to the right and a cat-scratch style scar down their left cheek. They have narrow, pinched features and are cleanly shaven. They wear long, heavy overcoats to conceal their general body shape and under that is a complicated mess of straps, harnesses and holsters that somewhat baffle the eye. In combat, they both use large, chrome-plated automatics that appear to be (like them) one of a paired set.

[Gorkamorka]

It's slowly dawning on me that Europe has all the best buildings for enclaves.

[constructacon]

It's slowly dawning on me that Europe has all the best buildings for enclaves.

it's almost like they have been surviving hordes for thousands of years

[trinite]

It's slowly dawning on me that Europe has all the best buildings for enclaves.

it's almost like they have been surviving hordes for thousands of years

And they had pre-Industrial Revolution economies, too!

[RadioactiveBeer]

And they had pre-Industrial Revolution economies, too!

Hey, it looks like those are coming back in style pretty soon!

[Gorkamorka]

And they had pre-Industrial Revolution economies, too!

Hey, it looks like those are coming back in style pretty soon!

The Icelandic viking raids have started already...



Sorry could not resist.  :-)

[RadioactiveBeer]

Oh, the best part of that? "Iceland" is the name of a low-tier supermarket in the UK, that kind that basically just sells cheap frozen ready-meals and gets D-grade pop singers for their ads. "That's why mums go to Iceland" is their slogan and it just became this sick burn against the England team.