Mosca Syndrome

The justification for doing it would have to be pretty serious--that's pretty risky stuff.  Pulling something like that is going to unleash the fury of LEDIV on the culprits.  I am under the impression that the mob doesn't mess with the law enforcement heavies unless it is really desperate.  And usually when it's that desperate, some other element within the mob is going to take out whomever got them into this mess in the interest of saving all their skins.  

I'm having a hard time imagining a circumstance where a Law Enforcement agent would be a good kidnapping target.  If they are dangerous to the organization ("knows too much"), they're probably more likely a target for a hit, unless the officer has already done their damage and is being grabbed in order to make an example of him (ie slow, painful death).  Still a hit.  Again, the repercussions are ugly.

But then again, perhaps you WANT ugly repercussions.  Perhaps the LEDIV agent was very damaging to some OTHER mob outfit...an enemy of your own.  The idea is that by messing with LEDIV's people you'll make them come down on the most likely culprit--the enemy outfit.  They have a much harder time doing business with the law all over them, and your syndicate gains the upper hand.

I guess another circumstance could be:  There is a husband and wife team of LEDIV agents.  One of them is going to testify against some mob heavy tomorrow.  You, being mob sellouts, are ordered to go grab the witness' spouse and make it clear that unless they "forget" what they saw on the night of such-and-such, it's curtains for lovie-dovie.  Of course, you've pretty much told LEDIV exactly what group was behind it, and you'll again find yourself the target of some serious scrutiny, which weakens your own operation and rivals may well get the upper hand.

Good luck...

It looks like Cyberjunk has trusted me with my own corner of this forum.  To those who have already expressed interest in taking part in my Online game, please stay tuned...

WTF?

You're hurling epithets at the whole board because a couple of members were critical of your GMing style?

there is something in the water in Michigan that makes 'em strange....

'grew up near Ypsilanti, myself.

Thumper, where in TX are you?  

(not that this is helping with the topic much....)

(just an aside to the real conversation here--I'm not trying to make a point)

Amusingly enough, here in Texas you have to get a permit to carry a pistol and then keep it concealed.  You can legally walk down the street with a loaded shotgun or rifle over your shoulder with no permit at all, however.  Of course, you are asking for trouble (police wanting to know what you're up to, panicky citizens claiming you were brandishing it at them, etc.), but the act of carrying it isn't illegal.

Of course, this also isn't the "dark, hyperviolent future," either...

In all honesty, I usually wing it as far as prices are concerned.  I deliberately left that stuff off as it all depends on the type of game you are running.  

Dragon, I would think something costing 850,000 eb would probably not find its way into a salvage yard, though, even if it were wrecked.  The parts are just too valuable (if an engine for one of these is worth, say 200,000 then it's probably beyond the scope of a place like this and might make a good "cool thing" item for a theft-oriented game).  I would imagine the owner or insurer would sell the wreckage back to the manufacturer who would then analyze it for ways to improve the product.  Plus, a totalled AV is probably going to be in a pretty sorry state anyway.  You would need quite a few wrecks to put one together that's in good shape.

If you mean simply bringing in your own worn-out AV and having them refurbish it, I would think that you would still spend a lot of money after all is said and done....using current automobiles as an example, by the time you've had all the work done and parts replaced, you've spent a lot more than a used one in good working order would cost.  Considering that we are talking about AV Tech here, we are probably talking a lot more $$ for the labor than for joe car-mechanic down the street.  I would guess that after paying for the old machine and all the money to refit it, you would be out 50% the cost of a new one.  If you already have the complete old one, you might get out for the 25% you mentioned.  But I'm just pulling these figures out of my you-know what with a little knowledge from real life.    

Hope it helps.....

What in the world kind of game are you playing where people are getting hit with 140mm guns?

How's this for damage:

9mm---2d6+1

140mm---obliterates the S--- outta whatever it hit.

And rolling 26 of any die is crazy.  The more dice you roll, the less likely you are to stray from the average damage, which is 26*5.5 in the case of 26d10 (for a dose of perspective, rolling minimum or maximum damage with this combo is an astounding 1 in 100 SEPTILLION chance).  With 26 dice you won't go far, so you could save a lot of time by just setting a standard amount.  I know people like rolling dice, but yeowch!

Ummm...Snowtiger apparently cared about it...he's the one who asked us in the first place...

The dire truth is that the notion of a wacko getting control of the government is not only realistic but by now also cliche.

You can be burned at the stake for much less these days....

Hey, I'm considering starting an online game, probably lower-mid level characters and a slightly different setting.  I only want three, maybe four players tops and want to run things sort of loose and simple.  It will probably be somewhat whacky at times, because that is the nature of my sense of humor.  I only have the basic book as well, and would stick to it for the purposes of c-ware and equipment, with the occasional bit of newtech thrown in for good measure....I'm hoping for a good mix of character interplay and action.  

The ideal group for the scenario I have in mind would be an aspiring media and a pair of violence types (solos, nomads, etc.), with perhaps a medtech or techie thrown in for good measure.  As cool as fixers are, I worry one might complicate the game with too many side deals and would like to leave it to the NPCs.  Cops probably wouldn't fit (unless they are some kind of undercover mole), and unless a rockerboy was moonlighting as something else, they probably wouldn't fit either.  I don't want to bother with netrunning so we'll leave that to the NPCs.

Except for special abilities, the skills you choose for your character will be pretty much open.  

Anyone interest/thoughts?

Okay....I'm convinced that M&S are insane if they are publishing figures in which more people are stopped by a round than were actually shot (over 100% effectiveness), and that people had been "unshot" by a particular round and apparently "unstopped" by it (negative results)....this madness didn't seem to be included in the figures I had...

So far, though, of the reading I've managed on that site, there seems to be little to imply that a .45 would be so much more effective than a 9mm that it would rate differently in CP2020's simple terms.

Got Sources?

(Players like this irk me to no end, especially when all their whining and complaining is for their benefit.  I can't believe someone would raise such a fuss over a point like that.  If only people could get into their characters so much.  I have to wonder if the guy's dad makes a lot of his money working on .45s, and how many people he's shot with them and the 9mm to secure this expert opinion.... )

Dear god, not 9mm v. .45 again.  Anything but that.  Forget opinions.  Forget goats.  Forget blocks of gelatin.  The 9mm v. .45 debate can only be solved one way:

1.  Round up a large number (say, 5000) of pairs of identical twins.

2.  Separate them and make sure their diets, sleep patterns, etc, are identical for a good long time (a year oughta do it).

3.  After this period of time, fit each twin with appropriate gear to measure pulse, EKG, etc.

4.  At exactly the same time of day under the most similar conditions possible, shoot one twin from each set with a 9mm and the other with a .45 in exactly the same spot.

5.  Perform examiniations and/or Autopsies to determine overall effectiveness of 9mm on first twin vs. .45 on second twin.

6.  Tally results from all twins and compare overall percentages of incapacitation and death.

Do you see what I am getting at?  This debate is pointless because it realistically CAN NOT BE SOLVED.  According to Marshall and Sanow's figures on percentage chances of one-shot incapacitations resulting from a torso hit in real world incidents, the 9mm and .45 were about dead even.  In a game like Cyberpunk 2020 where the system by which the endless possibilities of life are quantified by simple and manageable numbers usually less than 30, the difference is minute enough to where we are entitled to ignore it.    

The whole bullet-damage setup is pretty whacked any way you look at it.  You can't ever, immediately or eventually, kill the average unarmored man with a single shot from a 9mm to the torso.  The odds are even against a load of 00 buckshot at ten feet.  There's a 12mm ingram-style smg that apparently spits out 20 rounds in a couple of seconds, each one more powerful than a 44 magnum (how anyone could control such a beast is beyond me).   Fix it.  Use Phipps' system.  use one of mine.  Use someone else's system.  Tell your player that when he's the GM he can make the .45 do eleventy million points of damage and obliterate small moons with one grazing hit.

yeesh.

Any pre-written scenario ought to tell you about what level the characters should be started at.  If it doesn't, look and see if it has NPCs in it that the players find themselves allied to.  Then make the characters at the same level.  Failing that, look at a typical villain--not the biggest and baddest one, but a standard goon, and scale the PCs to match that.

It doesn't sound like your players are exactly aspiring to have meaningful adventures--it sounds like they are a bunch of militaristic gun bunnies.   You may be up against impossible odds if you're trying to make them play a more in-depth game.  If they just don't care, you might be setting yourself up for disappointment by plotting too much.

Stat and skill limits are okay, but all they tend to do is set the upper limit at which they'll max out their solos.  Something you might try is a skill level package, in which there are four or so options you can build your character around (Adjust the numbers to your game's overall level) that reflect the time and maintenance surrounding really high skills.  For instance:

Characters have 60 skill points to start.  They can distribute them using one of the following packages:

1.  Hyperspecialist:  

One Skill at +10 or one skill at +9

unlimited skills at no more than +4

2.  Specialist:

Two skills at +8 or three skills at +7

unlimited skills at no more than +5

3.  Diversified:

Four skills at +7

unlimited skills at no more than +5

4.  Jack-of-all-trades:

unlimited skills at no more than +6

That's it.  No weefling or whining allowed.  Then, impose a rule that any bonuses from the lifepath (EG the seemingly inevitable "find a sensei" and "find a combat teacher") cannot boost a skill beyond these packages.  IP gained in play can.

(Note--some NPCs may not be bound by these restrictions.  Life is unfair.)

whoops...gotta go home from work....maybe more tomorrow...

One thing that slows me down in a large combat sitaution (multiple bad guys and characters) is calculating modifiers for the given situations.

Anybody ever run combat with little or no modifiers?

In other words, you are making the assumption that your skill with a weapon includes the ability to shoot while on the run, at moving targets, while quickdrawing, while changing targets, in poor light, etc--in other words, it's your character's all-around combat proficiency with that type of weapon rather than just accuracy.

Just thought of it as a possibility for people who want combat to move REALLY fast.  It may get ridiculous for really powered-up characters, but those characters hardly ever miss anyway.

A couple of situations really do need modifiers, though.  For those you could just crank the difficulty up one task for each condition that is true (effectively a +5 to difficulty for each one):

Called Shot

Blind Shooting (character cannot see target at start of round)

I haven't tried it yet--anyone see any pitfalls?

It is disturbing, and I have run some sick characters--the whole plan sounds like a high-tech plan to succeed where Jeffrey Dahmer failed.  I would also hope that this sort of thing would stay in the realm of "the bad guys"...but to deride anyone for just imagining it in the first place is a bit much--I mean, as a GM you have to think of diabolical things for the bad guys to do...

A somewhat less detestable version would be to find some suitable person from a low income area who is willing, for money, to be fitted with the gear and sublet a certain amount of her time to the AI as a physical manifestation (remote).  I'm sure in the hopeless world of CP2020 you would find some takers.  Or possibly someone who wants to be free from some horrible war-torn nation decides to spend two years as this AI's remote in exchange for full citizenship somewhere else when the time is up.  When the two years are over, you find another candidate from the teeming masses.  

Possible problems include a sort of Phil K. Dick-ian "mind leakage," where one consciousness begins to seep into another (possibly even corrupting the AI), and the human problem of growing accustomed to the remote's physical features (face, body, etc.)--but part of the contract could include a degree of cosmetic surgery to keep the theme intact.

I can't say I haven't had PCs who would do this sort of thing, but only because I like PCs who have strange flaws and inevitably get what's coming to them at some point.  

It gives me some silly subplot ideas:

Some character (PC or NPC) is using a service like this.  Part of the contract stipulates that the character must pay a handsome sum to the girl's foreign family if she is killed while serving out her two years.  As it turns out, the family is EVIL and has contacted relatives in the PC's area to have her taken out.  A babysitting job with a brutal twist--you don't get paid to protect, but you have to pay if you FAIL!

In a similar situation, "Mind Leakage" allows the original personality's opinions and convictions to corrupt the AI.  The girl in this case was actually a fleeing revolutionary, so AI the character is dating ends up getting involved in a revolutionary movement in her home country, giving it the power to possibly succeed.  Said country figures out what is going on and sends operatives after the characters.  Now the characters inexplicably have weird foreign operatives shadowing them and trying to capture or even kill them.  Worse, the AI remote begins going after people who oppose its cause...hey, bud...isn't that YOUR AI-remote-girlfriend in the grassy knoll with the Fabrique de Armas?

The AI remote girlfriend dumps the character for some flashy, attractive guy.  The characters don't know that the girlfriend hired the same people to make her a remote AI boyfriend, also run by her.  A few more iterations of this and you have a very strange hive-mind gang of perverts that the AI studies and uses to carry out various operations, including getting rid of the characters as possible weaknesses in the grand scheme--especially since the original character who got dumped is after the guy who "stole" his girlfriend.

Quote

Snowtiger,   I've got both a US Army Flakjacket and a Class IIa ballistic vest. Would you like to wear them while I test your blunt damage theories with a baseball bat? With modern ballistic soft armor, some of the brunt trauma would be absorbed by the thickness and stiffness of the armor. In 2020 it's assumed that the armor would become much thinner, lighter and flexible while still retaining it's ballistic stopping potential. Problem is that all of these comfort and wearability advantages decrease the effectiveness against less point specific blunt trauma. I'd say that a reduction of maybe 1/2 SP to soft armor might be more realistic. This would also assume that 2020 soft armor is using a couple of cm thick layer of aerogel to provide padding. Say someone gets a good solid hit on your midriff with a baseball bat. Instead of taking say 10 points of damage (max. damage, very strong BOD and a little luck) which shatters a bunch of ribs and punches the points into your lungs causing you to black out, you've got a couple of broken or cracked ribs (5 points damage) but are still able to fight back. If you include damage reduction from BODY type it drops to a light wound for most characters. Anyone see any flaws in my logic?     Hanns

I have used the 1/2 SP for soft armor v. bludgeoning damage with pretty good success.  The only problem I have is when the REALLY sheer stuff (skinweave, T-shirts, armored stockings, etc.) has any effect on that bat of yours whatsoever.  It is an extra complication to have to differentiate between sheer soft armor and non-sheer soft armor, but I feel it to be worth it when we are dealing with a glaring affront to reality.

For a head hit with that bat, even an indestructible skull (e.g. plating) may only convert to stun...I have read that knockouts often occur when the head suffers a forceful enough blow to cause the brain to push through the layer of fluid between it and the cranium and actually contact the inside wall of the skull.  This seems consistent with the some of the blows to the head I have experienced  If this happens enough times, you end up permanently punch-drunk.  So it seems that although the skull plating might keep you from getting killed, your bell is still going to be rung something awful.

Thoughts on your points:

1.  Hallelujah.  The only system that makes sense is one where the SPs are added up.  The anti-munchkin ones they came up with are pretty strange.  I do feel that some kind of layering rule is necessary to preserve game balance, though (see your point #4).  I detailed my latest take on it recently in another thread.

2.  I agree here, too.  I don't even care for the way any of the special abilities are presented.  I feel that most could be watered down some and then simply treated as normal skills, which would eliminate roles altogether.  You have to create a role by playing it, not by checking a box.  For less creative players, you can still create a template for gun-toting looneys and let them have at it.

3.  I have always treated 3-round bursts as a normal attack with no bonus to hit.  If you do hit, then you roll to see how many hit.  The potential for multiple hits IS the benefit of the three round burst.   For Full-Auto, I also offer no bonus--instead, for every point they succeed in their skill check by, another round hits (up to the total fired in the attack).  If they needed a 16 and rolled a 19, four rounds would hit.  Full-Auto tends to be wasteful except in suppressive fire.

4.  Tell me about it.  All those nifty smaller guns, and nobody uses them.  It takes tweaking, but I usually find a balance.  I usually find it in a mix of upped bullet damages and more consequences for layering too much armor.  Alternate weapons work well, too (I once had a whole bunch of tank-solos go to pieces when confronted with a couple of boosters carrying hand flamers...FIRE BAD!  FIRE BAD!!!!).  It helps when players have other goals than absolute invincibility, too.    

As far as the mechanics of the FNFF system go:

I'm not actually sure I have ever used the system as it's written in the book, but I have come up with so many alternate ones (some worked, some didn't) that I'm not sure where to begin.  Here are some summarized versions:

*ZERO-UP*

Everyone has a "Phases Consumed in Action" (PCA) based on REF:

REF---PCA

1-2---6

3-5---5

6-8---4

9+----3

At the start of combat, each character involved makes an intitiative roll.  This roll is subtracted from 30 for an Initiative Score (IS), with zero being the absolute minimum.  The GM begins counting phases from zero up.  When the GM gets to your IS, you can make one action, and from then on you can act on phases that are at an interval equal to your character's PCA.  

Example:

Kombat Klown has a REF of 8, so his PCA is 4.  He rolls a total initiative of 16.  His IS is therefore 14 (30 minus 16).  

Zoya has a REF of 9, so her PCA is 3.  Her total initiative is 13, so her IS is 17.  The GM counts phases off from zero.

Kombat Klown will be able to act on phases 14, 18, 22, 26, and so on.  Zoya will be able to act on phases 17, 20, 23, 26, and so on.  Notice that in this combat that Kombat Klown and Zoya would act simultaneously at phase 26.  Notice also that initiative only matters at the start of combat, and there are no "rounds" at all.   You may not attempt multiple actions on one phase--your PCA reflects a character's ability to do things rapidly, one after another.  For time purposes, a second is anywhere from 3-6 phases in length.      

*CHIPS ARE DOWN*

Use the PCA chart from *ZERO-UP* to find your character's PCA

Get a Crown Royal bag and a box of poker chips.  Take 30 of the chips and use a sharpie to number them from 1 to 30.  

At the start of each round, each participant reaches into the bag and takes out at random the number of chips equal to their character's PCA (here it means "poker chips allowed"   ).  When everyone including the GM has drawn, that round of combat proceeds in the numerical order of the drawn chips--whomever has the lowest gets to act first.  This system is a lot more chaotic and random and doesn't even involve initiative.  You could add one round before all this poker chip drawing that is ordered based on initiative rolls if you want, and then revert to the chips for the remaining rounds.

*CHAOS OVERDRIVE*

Divided into two phases:  Initiative round and Free-for-all rounds.

Initiative round:

Inititiatives are rolled and each character can take one action/movement/speak one syllable in the order of intitiative rolls.  This is the very start of combat and is the only time initiative matters.  

Free-for-all round:

For each round (which lasts about a second), each player must write down what one action their character is performing, what they might try to say in that second, and where they might move on a piece of paper without discussing strategy with the other players (who has time to discuss tactics in combat?).  The GM decides what the bad guys are doing during this round, too.  After everyone has committed their action to paper, the GM pools them together and reads them off one by one.  Any skill rolls are made and all actions are treated as if they happen simultaneously.  It's up to the GM to describe what happens during the round.  This combat can be extremely chaotic, as people don't have the tactical advantage of discussing what each character should or shouldn't do.  Also, since it's simultaneous the opportunity for things like two people killing each other with headshots at the same time exists.  Loads of fun, and players respect combat a lot when they have to deal with it in this most unpredictable form.

(Note--to reflect the shorter periods of time quantized, full-auto rates of fire are halved for all three of these systems.)

Oh well...if nothing else maybe this will stimulate further enlightening conversation!

I have two modes of using RTG's setting elements:

1.  Not much

B.  Not at all

Really though, the fact that they outlined things and gave a few examples is much better IMO than a big, intensely detailed setting.  I mean, if they didn't leave room for anyone's ideas, what would be the point?  If all the players have read all the sourcebooks, what suprises could the setting hold?

Quote (Jade @ Dec. 04 2001,22:58)

I haven't received any. Just to let you know. I don't know if you sent them yet or not. Thanks again!

Jade,

Okay, working through this board's email system doesn't seem to be doing the trick.  I cannot attach documents to messages here.  Try dropping me a line at:

syndromeda@ev1.net

and then I can send some stuff your way.  Sorry about the delay--it seemed that after a few days I had gotten no response there and figured you had just wandered off.

Quote (psychophipps @ Dec. 01 2001,18:33)

first off.  put the 1kg weight in your hand, not hanging down.  if it's hanging, you get a lever and a handgun isn't a lever, it's a mass on your hand.  second, the weight for a rifle should be a 4 kg, not 8kg(it's a rifle, not a SAW), log or weighted pipe put against your shoulder.   now try swinging the weapons on target vs. pivoting on the balls of your feet.  swinging sucks and is a lot slower, huh?  the main aspect of SWAT and spec-war room clearing training is learning to keep moving and to unlearn swinging the weapon on target.  learning to pivot on target as you move is a lot harder than it seems under stressful situations. i see it differently, stephanie.  situation: the "bad guys" have weapons drawn and pointed at the doorway, just waiting for some idiot to walk, run, charge through.  the first glimpse of a target and the goof is a deadman. now, the PCs/cops/whatever charge into a randomly-setup room as thier first action.  ok, they run in and begin to pivot as they acquire targets.  now the bad guys go.  BRAAAAP! the PCs/cops/whatever be dead or dying.  THERE IS A REASON WHY SWAT AND SPEC-WAR TEAMS THROW IN FLASHBANGS!!!  IN EVERY ROOM!!!  why?  because if they DON'T, the situation i just described happens about 99.99% of the time.  and these are some of the best CQB shooters in the world!  i have done this to my PCs and they learned really fast that if you don't get the guys in the room stunned or distracted, your ass is grass. besides, this is CP!  it's supposed to be mean, nasty, and distinctly un-nice... Mark(psycho)Phipps( HAHAHA! )

that pivot-on-the-balls-of-your-feet thing is what I was talking about (though you described it better)...I still think the speed difference between the two isn't enough to rate a difference in a game system using such broad increments.  I don't have a long gun to test with, though...

As far as guys in a room waiting with their guns pointed at the door, I would give them "the drop" on the situation and say that only an "Impossible" Initiative roll on the part of the invaders will give the invaders any chance to shoot first or simultaneously with the defenders.  On top of that, the defenders will get the +5 ambush bonus on their attacks.  Flashbangs are a good idea, if you can open the door to get one in without getting hosed through the door.  If the invading solo with the assault rifle has smartgoggles or cybereyes with thermograph, then you shouldn't even have to bother with the flashbang unless the room is such that the thermo won't work or the bullet won't penetrate the walls effectively.  Of course, if the bad guy solo in the room has thermo and a similar gun, it works two ways.  I can't imagine that any SWAT or other similar group in the 2020s would not issue goggles with that option on them (not full-time, of course, but just for quickly checking out the next room for the position of any people within)...

I always come up with a concept of what and who my character is, what they look like, what their personality and motivations are, their background, and just about everything else before I even touch the character sheet.  The lifepath only provides a little bit of spice and friends and enemies (often a good way to justify knowing the other characters and having a couple of useful contacts)...Nothing on the stock lifepath is so difficult to deal with that it can't be added in to the character concept if you are creative enough.  

That said, I have for years used two 40-page lifepaths for military and civilian and a third shorter one for characters doing prison time.  Some players just aren't concept-driven and like having a random character.  

One thing I have noticed is the alarming frequency that players seem to roll "find a sensei" on their lifepath charts when I am not around to supervise.  Like clockwork.  Here is a possibility that only happens maybe 1 in 100 times (1 in 5 chance to roll big losses/wins, 1 in 2 chance to roll even and get a big win, 1 in 10 chance to roll the entry to get the sensei) on any given year.  Yet it seems that almost every character I see has it, even the ones I see on the web...coincidence?

well, I think the original rules DID call for a second roll immediately after the fumble to determine the scale of the fumble, and I was specifically looking for less destructive fumbles then "gun explodes" or "player shoots self or friends"...

...I'm well aware of the idea that there is not a catastrophic technical failure on one out of 10 tries at anything.  Sheesh, we'd all be dead if that were true.  Most of the ones I listed reflected mistakes made on the part of the character trying to operate the gun (hence the word "fumble"), not failure of the gun itself.  A couple were the result of bad ammo (that's the black market for you), and a couple were the result of electronic malfunctions that, while rare, "regular maintenance" probably isn't going to catch.  The idea wasn't to start a table of fumbles to roll upon--ideally none of them are used very often, and some are once-in-a-lifetime issues, but whose to say you don't have a once-in-a-lifetime issue waiting to hit you five minutes from now?  If so, be glad your job doesn't involve being in gunfights.  

And yes, the fumble should really be scaled to the danger level of the action attempted.  If I am juggling eggs, the worst that should happen should be egg in my eye, not an entire egg wedging in my throat and choking me to death.  If I am trying to cook, it might come out tasting funny (If that's the case, military cooks probably do fumble all the time)...however, if I am trying to get my car up on two wheels to slip through a roadblock while simultaneously lobbing grenades out the sunroof, then the consequences should be a little more severe.

I've kind of gone all over the spectrum, depending on the motivations of the characters.  I do like characters with serious flaws that have repercussions.  Tortured souls, if you will, who eventually get what they deserve.

 In one short campaign I had a Western-themed medtech who was so wracked with guilt about harming innocent people that he played one turn of Russian Roulette every morning (d6, anyone?) with his .44 magnum single action.  Amazingly, it never caught up with him, though I had intended to ask the GM to let me save him with a permanent luck point every time he made a bad roll.  The campaign ended before it all caught up to him.

Another character was an expert at deluding herself and rationalizing acts which did harm innocent people in the name of her own almost childlike view of how the world should work.  It's a long story, but eventually went crazy and was arrested as a terrorist, although all of the more serious crimes pinned on her were not her doing.  She is "currently" in Japan serving the first part of her 3412-year multinational consecutive sentencing program.  

Another was a fixer-ish medtech (he was rolled as a low-level medtech but one of the other players showed up with a higher-level one, so everyone assumed mine was a fixer and I played him like one) with a heroin habit.  He was usually in control of himself, but was gradually building a house of cards, using other party members to further his drug supply.  He wouldn't consciously screw his friends over, he just had a monkey on his back and was trying to keep the whole thing from going up in flames.  The GM moved before it could happen, though!

Then there was a blonde sorority girl-turned serial killer of frat boys.  She killed the innocent, no doubt about that, but had rationalized that the people she was killing were nothing but pigs.  She would act normally with the party as a low-level solo, but on her own would stalk college campuses and go after what she considered to be the most offensive fratboy there.  That campaign didn't get too far either, but the police had a vague description and were closing in.

Then there was the gothic fixer who was so enamored with the bizarre and perverse that he had friends (not just contacts, but friends) who:

...were in a gang that skinned people and made garments of their hides...

...were drug-crazed hitmen who would work for ANYONE...

...were white slavers who even liked him enough to "gift" him with a female slave.  

As time wore on, he ended up becoming so dependent on this slave that the roles were practically reversed--he ended up doing foolish and dangerous things to please her...it was a pretty twisted relationship, but he actually survived a long-running campaign on wit and ruthlessness.

Then there was Rudy Nova, DEA.  A dashing character with absolutely no ethics at all in a one-shot game.  Anyone or anything for his own gain or protection.  A couple of the other players mentioned that they really didn't like him.  I expected them to turn on him and kill him but it never happened.  It's a shame, really.  

Doctor Cuthbert Payne, a medtech who made Nova look like a choirboy.  Typical short, bald mad scientist.  High intimidate skill...spoke with big words in a monotone voice and frequently drooled visibly while talking to young women.  He also steepled his fingers a lot.  Sort of a cross between Mr. Burns, Dr. Evil, and Hannibal Lecter.  

Phew.  With these examples I am starting to see that my ethics (for characters--I'm a sweetheart in real life--no, really!) tend to run a few cuts below the norm here.  I guess that's part of why I make a better GM than I do a player...that way the world can be full of strange bad guys, rather than the party...