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Dumpshock Forums _ Community Projects _ Cyberpunk / Shadowrun 'Lifepath' generator

Posted by: arcady Jul 22 2005, 10:51 PM

http://home.pacbell.net/arcady0/SciFi/lifepath.html

'Beta' version.

Pick and age and sex, or go for full random, and click and you get a character backstory complete with name, family, and all sorts of trouble.

For Shadowrun, choose the 'fantasy punk' radio button first.

It started as just a name generator for my own Cyberpunk setting, but quickly grew into something vastly more.

Presently I've been adding support for other subgenres / settings of Cyberpunk and of those Shadowrun is the one I've come furthest along with - with only a few minor problems left to work out.

Least functional at present is Transhuman, as I still need to remove gender and romance creation for things like gender-neutral Cybershells.

Posted by: pragma Jul 23 2005, 02:56 AM

I have had no luck with the program under Mozilla Firefox 1.0.4. None of the menu items or activation buttons (I assume there are some) display. However, the descriptions of the buttons which appear in the center do show up from time to time.

Sounds like a cool idea though.

Posted by: arcady Jul 23 2005, 03:37 AM

You've probably got an older version of Flash installed.

Check to see if you're on flash player 7 at macromedia.com

I built it in flash for three reasons:

1. It's cross platform portable and faster than things like Java.
2. It compresses about 1mb of code down to at present 73kb's - half of which is the two images.
3. It's what I know - which is a very important reason.

EDIT: Put in Flash version detection. Tested it on Firefox on my PC, IE on my PC, and Safari on my Mac. It's a little 'footprint big' on IE (vertically about 10-15 pixels larger than the screen), but fully functional.

Posted by: Aku Jul 23 2005, 05:04 PM

the only thing i can think of is that it seems that the proportion of homo/bi sexuals is rather disproportonate to what i would consider norms.

Oh, one other thing, though it's less of a problem if you figure SR ignores/abolished age of consent laws, but i saw quite a few lines like:

10-14: blah blah, he was 26, could you resist him?

maybe yo could add in an age limite to anything that's described as a teen/choldhood event?

Posted by: Kagetenshi Jul 23 2005, 08:48 PM

Consider the mindset of those who would voluntarily enter into a career of Shadowrunning. I don't consider lines like that improbable at all—hell, they happen today.

Though I do find it amusing (if not impossible) that I can be a 51-year-old human female on good terms with my 80-year-old mother but distant from my 14-year-old brother. Incidentally, race for relatives would be good.

Oh, and my parents apparently got back together, as they split up when I was 11 and then again at 14.

Woah. Shapeshifter families putting contracts out on me? I guess I'd better stay away from the woods

Very entertaining, though not necessarily useful in a serious game except for inspiration… so I guess it is useful. Serious bug, though, I can't get the pop-up extra info thingy to go away, resulting in a lot of blocked text (I ended up copying it off and pasting it into a text file to read it). This is with Safari 2.0.

Another note: I got the thing to go away, but I'm not sure how. Either way, still a bug.

~J

Posted by: Backgammon Jul 23 2005, 09:05 PM

Hilarious! Great work!

Posted by: Aku Jul 23 2005, 11:23 PM

i think the pop up is just REALLY slow to load off.

Posted by: FrostyNSO Jul 23 2005, 11:27 PM

This thing is bitchun. Keep up the good work.

added: Seems like everyone that gets rolled up has been molested or pimped out at some point, though.

Posted by: sanctusmortis Jul 23 2005, 11:43 PM

QUOTE

Name: Jordan Saitou
Data: Human male, age: 21 [heterosexual]
Hair: Brown long and curly
Desc: Short height with light tan skin and cybered-brown eyes
Roots: Military lower class
Fashion: Urban suits with tattoo poetry
Persona: Confident and Iconoclast. Also belongs to a terrorist cell
Values: Emma Coleman was/is most important. Value food and cherish that special place
People: Women are all that matter in this world

Mother: Sara: Born 48 years ago, passed away naturally
Father: Teymour: Born 54 years ago, passed away killed by terrorists
Brother: Kiyoshi: Born 17 years ago, missing pimped out
Sister: Yoshiko: Born 8 years ago, living and estrained

8 Childhood Crush: Sophia Nelson[female, was age 8]-her friends hate you-missing pimped out
9 Childhood Crush: Aponi Hughes[female, was age 9]-honestly; would you say no to her?-still love each other
12 Teen Event: you did heavy illegal drugs
14 Teen Event: your parents split up
16 Pregnancy: she claims it was an accident. children: Adan[male], kept the child(ren) and Filippa[female] gave up for adoption
17 Contact: Christopher Sang[male, was age 20]-he is a 'Johnson'-he's got a restraining order out on you
18 Contact: Emma Coleman[female, was age 8]-she is a fixer-she gave you her number

© 2005 arcady.

Cool, nice work!

Posted by: arcady Jul 23 2005, 11:44 PM

There's a 1 in 30 chance that age boundaries get crossed.

When they do, the age of the NPC is determined randomly.

The 14 year old sibling could also be from one's father and someone other than one's mother.

Sexuality is based on the idea that hetre and bi is about even, and homo about 1/3rd of each of those (or 1/6 of the total). That said, there is a chance that teens will date outside their sexuality, and an even greater chance that children will get a crush that is not based on their sexuality.

popups work on the notion that rolling over the same item again takes them away, but rolling over another item changes to that item. Rolling over the button at top removes any popup, and there are spaces above and below popup-triggers that remove them (so if youmove the mouse to the area of the horizontal bar above the list of genres any popup goes away. likewise the ten pixels of height above the 'what is a bioroid' and another ten pixels of space below the last genre radio.

I will put a little [X] above the popups - that's a bit clearer to understand. The present triggers are just 'chance' things.

I didn't give race of relatives as I assumed it would be the same as the character - is that not true for Shadowrun? What't the rough chance it might be different?

Posted by: Kagetenshi Jul 24 2005, 12:29 AM

I don't remember what if any rough odds are given, but it's definitely possible to have a child of a different race than its parents and/or siblings, or indeed different from anyone else in their immediate ancestry.

~J

Posted by: arcady Jul 24 2005, 04:59 AM

One of the books also listed odds for how many people are elves, humans, orks, dwarves, or trolls - but I don't recall which.

As a result, I went for something like 6% for all the nonhumans save for Orks, which I put at 20%.

Soon as I find where I read that info years back, I'll be adjusting that.

If anyone knows, toss me a page number, I've got most everything put out before Fasa sold it away save for the 2E rulebook itself (which I lost years ago, not sure if I sold it or if it was in my 'rare books' box that went missing).

On sexuality, I set bi and hetro at near the same on the theory that many hetero people are bis that have had it socially conditioned away, and that future changes might remove social pressures over that and leave a more 'natural curve'.

That's a bit of a left-wing theory, but it has right wing adherants too. They hammered it into me when I was in high school in the 80s during sex-ed. No idea if it's true or not though. I might look into a bit though and tweak the numbers.

Off the top of my head, I remember I set homosexual at 12 percent, and then split the remainder so that one got 43 and the other 45 - but I'm at a relative's right now and don't have the code in front of me.

A lot of the backgrounds are ultra violent or nasty. I keep reading that Shadowrun characters are criminals, and so I made the backgrounds into the kinds of things that would lead a person into choosing a criminal life when they might otherwise be able to make a less 'deviant' living.

So they do or have done to them a lot of bad things, and the list of bad things is three times as long in the Shadowrun / gamer-punk options than in the others.

Though the chance for trouble is the same - the kinds of trouble are much worse. Likewise the chance for fortune is the same, but the fortunes are often twisted - involving getting something great by hurting somebody.

Posted by: Kagetenshi Jul 24 2005, 05:04 AM

QUOTE

On sexuality, I set bi and hetro at near the same on the theory that many hetero people are bis that have had it socially conditioned away, and that future changes might remove social pressures over that and leave a more 'natural curve'.

I suspect it isn't true on Darwinian/reproductive grounds, but I wouldn't be surprised if it weren't all that much less than that.

~J

Posted by: Ryu Jul 25 2005, 02:32 PM

Nice - my contacts will be fleshed out that much faster.

Firefox 1.0.4 with Flash 7 is working just fine btw.

Posted by: Sicarius Jul 25 2005, 02:53 PM

I thought it was pretty cool. But can anyone honestly say that a restraining order would do much to keep an angry 'runner away from a Fixer or Johnson?

Posted by: Nikoli Jul 25 2005, 04:24 PM

Or why an 8 yr old contact is a fixer who gives out her number?

Posted by: arcady Jul 25 2005, 04:29 PM

Restraining orders are like that...

It's kind of like telling a Dragon 'shame on you' and spanking his nose...

Doesn't mean people don't try.

Sometimes the results are a little funny. But I can see explainations for an 8 year old fixer. I've seen kids younger than that dealing hard drugs. I've even known people as young as six to use mob tactics to assault and mug adults - or perform gun hits.

I've had a good laugh at some of the things in the generator though. Some of which has led to bug fixes, others of which had been made a little rarer but still there as 'features'.

Over time, I'll be tweaking it to get it more and more inline with the desired goal.

Posted by: Velocity Jul 25 2005, 05:16 PM

This is bloody fantastic. It's a great launching pad for NPCs, a sort of 'one-button inspiration' tool. I also love the fact that you've addressed sexuality, a sorely under- and misrepresented topic in most games. Tweaking with the actual percentages is (IMHO) a waste of time though, as these things are notoriously hard to quantify & adjudicate IRL. Regardless, I'm just glad it occured to someone that sexuality is at least as significant a contributing factor to identity as, say, race (in the fantastical sense) or ethnicity.

Good on ya, I'll be using this tool a lot.

Posted by: hermit Jul 26 2005, 12:14 AM

QUOTE (Kagetenshi)

QUOTE

I suspect it isn't true on Darwinian/reproductive grounds, but I wouldn't be surprised if it weren't all that much less than that.

~J

Well, I am sceptical about the number of homosexuals you put down. Bisexuals? Propably, if you count everyone who has ever seriosuly wondered what it'd be like ... but most of these people have a serious tendency towards ebing straight, to the point where they will never really live out that fantasy of theirs no matter how tolerant society is (doesn't get much more tolerant than today's Europe anyway).

It's a fantastic engine nonetheless, wonderful for starting out NPCs. Have been working on smoothing over descriptions I copypasted for al evening now, and will propably hand them over to the Wiki when I'm done.

Nice work. But you might want to fix that elves get their menopause at 54, ti's more like 540 really. and while we're at it, elves appear more raely than Ghouls. That surely cannot be right?

And divide up shifters into their specific animal forms, please.

Posted by: arcady Jul 26 2005, 03:16 AM

Have they said anything about non human lifespans? At present they're all fairly young as it's only been a few decades since they were all humans - so unless they've said something we've only got speculation.

Posted by: Kagetenshi Jul 26 2005, 03:45 AM

Humans average 55, Orks average 35-40, Trolls average 50, Dwarves theoretically reach 100+, Elves there are conflicting reports but generally accepted longer than Dwarves.

SR3, page 47. Note that A) these are all worldwide numbers, developed countries are likely to be higher across the board, and B) Shadowrunners tend to have bucketloads of contraindicators of long lifespan—more so than people in the countries pulling down the worldwide average.

~J

Posted by: hermit Jul 26 2005, 09:55 AM

Also, more hairstyles, and please, no balding women en masse! I got three balding women in a row ... it's not like EVERYONE lives in Glow City!

And add a bit of SR flavour clothing. Like add "Zoé", "Mortimer of London" and the other ingame labels to clothing adjectives (so we get stuff like "Mortimer of London" "Leotards", hehe).

And finally, more options, simply. With CP2020, this irked me most about the tables, there were too few different things that could hapen. Also, tie in some well-known SR background events in (Night of Rage, Dunkelzahn death riots, SURGE, ect.).

And make it possible a character can turn out a mage. Also, maybe add a "magical encounters" type event.

Just suggestions, really. If you need events, just ask on DS, you'll get more stuff than you could ever handls that way.

Posted by: hermit Jul 26 2005, 10:38 AM

Okay, oddness ...

QUOTE

Name: Rei Vader
Data: Dwarf (Menehune) female, age: 20 [heterosexual]
Roots: Refugee lower class [Mobster]
Hair: Purple long and clean cut
Desc: Very Short height with olive skin and deep green eyes
Fashion: Nude showing full body gang tattoos
Persona: Brave and Confident. Also loves to flirt
Values: Sofia Bech was/is most important. Value purity and cherish a holo-photo
People: People are obstacles

Mother: Caryn: Born 43 years ago, living and on good terms
Father: Jie-Rui: Born 46 years ago, living and estrained
Sister: Saeko: Born 7 years ago, missing trafficked by illegal slavers

9 Childhood Contact: Nathan Matsushita[Human male, was age 9]-he always seems to know what to do
10 Teen Contact: Sofia Bech[Troll (Minotaur) female, was age 10]-knows where to get the fringe benefits
11 Teen Event: you were raped
14 Teen Romance: Margarete Skov[Ork (Oni) female, was age 14]-bad breakup-she still loves you
15 Teen Contact: Nia Guerrero[Ork female, was age 27]-she's looking to kill you personally
16 Trouble: someone puts a lot of energy into tailing you
17 Fortune: a year of thrill kills and buzz cuts

I'd have thought heterosexuals only engage with the opposite sex ... is this a glitch or intended?

Posted by: Sicarius Jul 26 2005, 10:52 AM

QUOTE

17 Fortune: a year of thrill kills and buzz cuts

I know a good set of thrill kills make my year!

Posted by: hermit Jul 26 2005, 11:14 AM

Another observation: "X" was/is most important not always holds a person featured in the yearly events or family.

Posted by: Velocity Jul 26 2005, 03:35 PM

QUOTE (hermit)

I'd have thought heterosexuals only engage with the opposite sex ... is this a glitch or intended?

Depends on how strictly you want to define "heterosexual," I suppose. Does one encounter in your youth define your sexual identity? If Ms. Vader identifies as heterosexual now, desires men and over the course of her life, 99% of her sexual activity has been with men, then I'd say she's straight--even if she once had a torrid homosexual experience.

Posted by: hermit Jul 26 2005, 03:36 PM

Well, if she ever had a desire fro her own sex, she's bisexual (just not very much) in my book. Sicne the generator produces a quite astonishing number of bisexuals (some 50% total), I took that as me and the generator agreeing on this. *shrug*

Posted by: arcady Jul 26 2005, 04:13 PM

There is a small chance that teens will 'experiment' (I think 1 in 10 or 1 in 30) - when they do they get a 50-50 odds on the sex of the relationship. An even greater one that children will get 'Crushes' tied to 'random chance' rather than sexuality.

Social science actually holds that a very large percentage of people experiement outside of their sexual identity at some point in their life. Its one of those 'Kinsey Report' kind of things - everyone denies its true but the studies say otherwise. Much like the now commonly accepted notion that more than just psycho killers and peple will hair palms engage in 'solo performances' - but at the time of his report, the idea that normal people 'did that' was considered so shocking as to be dangerous - enough so that they used to give 'female circumcisions' to girls caught doing it - and sometimes even hysterectomies (sp?).

Current odds on sexualities in the generator are:

CODE

function sexuality(species) {
if (species>5) {
species = chanceToWord(species, speciesList)
if(species=="Cybershell" || species=="Digital Mind") return 3; // none
}
sexPref = new Array(53,38,9); // hetro bi homo
return doWork(sexPref);
}

doWork is a function that adds all the numbers togethers and then makes the chance of any entry 'i' equal to i/total. In this case the total is a handy 100. (I need to edit that function for my newer method of finding asexual species).

Social theory holds it is actually between 12-het,80-bi,8-homo to possibly more in the last category along a bell curve that is then 'shifted' towards het by social pressures. We only have certain periods of classic Greece as an example of a counter-shift; were to have 'encounters' with women that were not purely for procreation was considered dirty, and only men were socially acceptable partners for amorous attentions. That is of course countered by at least one famous example in the Trojan war - although the idea that that was about romance is in some circles considered to be a 'post-greecian edit' with the real issue having been securing her marriage for political gain (certain rights of title that passed through women or something like that).

The idea here is that without social pressure people would just 'do whatever moves'. This is backed by looking at our closest 'living relatives' Bonobo Chimps - among whom bisexuality is the norm. They are also one of three species known to have sexualities rather than just mate for reproduction. The third is dolphins and I have no idea on their 'practices' save for the oddly humorous notion that they sometimes get confused over humans in the water with them...

I figured that given today's current changes in perceptions over 'non traditional lifestyles' the hetro-shifting weight from social pressure would lesson, albeit not disapear. That would result in more people identifying in ways they might not have done beforehand, and a great many acting on it.

True to 'Cyberpunk' and its theme of 'alienationg confusion in society' this just results in a jumbled mess over the whole issue as old and new clash and don't know where to go. If the results of the generator were 'comfortable' to modern people it wouldn't be Cyberpunk.

The balding for women is very low on the odds, but in any random generator from time to time the same thing will get rolled multiple times.

I can think of one game example where a player in a Mutants and Masterminds game rolled 3 or 4 20's in a row - as an example. All if I recall on unimportant task rolls, but it got all our attentions (and it was with my dice, on the table, with a trustworthy player so I know they weren't rigged - it was just "one of those things").

Odds for a bald woman - bald only shows up in the tables once for them. For men, it has a 30% chance if they are over 40 - but from there it can get tailed to 'shaved head', 'bald', or 'balding'. Whereas online research tells me that by 40 something like 53% of men are balding, and higher as you go up in age.

'X' was/is important showing a mysterious person is a persistant bug I've been working on.

Posted by: Velocity Jul 26 2005, 04:48 PM

Thanks for the breakdown of your methodology, that was extremely helpful.

Posted by: arcady Jul 26 2005, 05:04 PM

For more hairstyles - got any suggestions.

I typed in everything I could come up with.

Here's the actual current listing:

(subject to get added to as ideas hit me of course)

// ----------------HAIR the natural colors of "Black","Brown","Red","Blond", and "Platinum blond" are hardcoded.
&hairDyedColors=Blue,Green,White,Grey,Pink,Violet,Rainbow,Silver,Gold,Light Emitting,Purple,Orange,Glassy&
&hairStyles=straight,curly,in an afro,dreadlocked,braided,frizzy,ratty,with a mohawk,wild,unkempt,greased back,in pigtails,ponytailed,clean cut,oily,over one eye,shaved on one side,spiked,wavy,prehensile,kinked,wavy,curly,straight&
&hairLengths=long,short,medium length,waist length,very short,shoulder length&

The hairlengths of "long","short","but bald" are then 'concat'ed onto the end of the above list (which makes long and short appear twice).

Yeah... messy... Flash only imports straight text that it can assign to something, and then I have to tweak that something into actual useful data.

Oh, I was reading my SR3 book last night to confirm a few things, and far as I saw, non humans are only 10% of the population. Is that right or was it only true at the beginning when 'globinization' first happened?

Posted by: hermit Jul 26 2005, 05:05 PM

QUOTE

The third is dolphins and I have no idea on their 'practices' save for the oddly humorous notion that they sometimes get confused over humans in the water with them...

Any hole, including the blowhole. Especially the latter. Popular among gay dolphins, apparently (read that recently in a science mag).

One more thing: can you add in more events, or would you rather finish the thing first?

Posted by: arcady Jul 26 2005, 05:22 PM

Largely bug tweaking, but I add events as they occur to me.

At present I'm working multi-genre events. The idea of placing flags for subgenre specific events is something slated for after some of the current problems clear up - like that 'Person X' bug.

EDIT: Fairly confident I've knocked out the 'Person X' bug.

Posted by: hermit Jul 26 2005, 07:28 PM

Ok.

More bug reports:

QUOTE

16 Teen Pregnancy: it was the result of a rape. misscarried and misscarried

Posted by: arcady Jul 26 2005, 07:53 PM

Other than repeating twice, that's about right. No names or bio info if the twins both miscarried.

The output looks a little funky that way though.

Posted by: hermit Jul 26 2005, 07:56 PM

aaah, okay, I thought it just repeated. Twins. False alert.

Posted by: arcady Jul 26 2005, 11:46 PM

I've added in the careers of 'Shaman' and 'Mage' but also set the populations such that 90% of all characters are humans - as per SR3 - the page that introduces Goblinization.

The others are all 2% each for Elf, Dwarf, and Ork, 1.4% for Troll, and 0.8% for Ghoul and Shapeshifter.

Subraces at present have a 1 in 5 chance of appearing if the race they come under pops up (save that all Shapeshifters are assigned a 'subrace' or animal form).

So the chance of -as an example- a Satyr (Ork subrace) is only 0.4%. Maybe that will change with 4e, but at least under the 'priority' system of 1-3e I've never once seen a player pick a nonhuman, so it's not all that off.

That still means that the subraces are 20 times more likely than a Native American in the USA of the real world today, and about 1-2% under the chance of an African American.

Posted by: Ed Simons Jul 27 2005, 03:47 AM

QUOTE (arcady)

Actually, it was about 10% of the population became each of the different metahuman types, not only 10% of the total population.

Using SoTN and SoE, a spreadsheet (and too much free time), I came up with averages of:

Human 68%
Dwarf 6%
Elf 9%
Ork 11%
Troll 5%
Other 1%

Posted by: Ed Simons Jul 27 2005, 05:55 AM

QUOTE (arcady)

Social science actually holds that a very large percentage of people experiement outside of their sexual identity at some point in their life. Its one of those 'Kinsey Report' kind of things - everyone denies its true but the studies say otherwise.

Could you provide links to those studies please?

And Kinsey's study has IMO been justly criticized for it's sampling. When 5% of your sample are male prostitutes, that would rather skew the numbers. (Unless Kinsey is perhaps claiming that half of all admitted homosexuals are involved in prostitution.)

QUOTE (arcady)

Current odds on sexualities in the generator are:
sexPref = new Array(53,38,9); // hetro bi homo
return doWork(sexPref);

While it's probably hard to get accurate polling in this area, modern polls vary significantly - claiming anywhere from 1 to 10% of the population is homosexual. That variance seems to have a lot to do with the political views of the pollsters, with more neutral pollsters generally splitting the difference.

QUOTE (arcady)

Social theory holds it is actually between 12-het,80-bi,8-homo to possibly more in the last category along a bell curve that is then 'shifted' towards het by social pressures.

Again, I'd be interested in sources for this social theory and it's numerical breakdown. I'm also not seeing the general culture of Shadowrun as being highly supportive of alternate lifestyles, so your numbers seem to be rather high.

And speaking of alternate lifestyles, you don't seem to have androgynes and neuters, which are mentioned in the book.

Posted by: hermit Jul 27 2005, 12:55 PM

QUOTE

I'm also not seeing the general culture of Shadowrun as being highly supportive of alternate lifestyles, so your numbers seem to be rather high.

Then you might want to read the sex and relationship part of SSG (can't remember the chapter's title, sorry). At least in the NA countries, things seem to be pretty liberal. It's a tad different in parts of Europe (especially the south), and surely a lot different in most Asian countries (especially in the ME).

QUOTE

From the polls and studies I read, I took something along the lines of 10%. Of course, you get higher numbers if you lump everyone who is even remotely bi in.

Posted by: Ed Simons Jul 27 2005, 02:56 PM

QUOTE (hermit)

I have read that, after all I mentioned the lack of androgynes and neuters in the program. Certainly, the 6th world is more accepting of alternate lifestyles than today, but there are also groups opposed to it. It complete undercuts the idea that alternate lifestyles are in any way oppressed or discriminated against (as is suggested in that same section) if fully half the population is bi- or homosexual, and many of the 'heterosexuals' have experimented with homosexual relationships.

Posted by: hermit Jul 27 2005, 04:28 PM

QUOTE (Ed Simons @ Jul 27 2005, 04:56 PM)

QUOTE (hermit @ Jul 27 2005, 05:55 AM)

But then again, society as a whole DOES just not give a damn, doesn't it? At least that's how I took the SSG chapter in question (especially the 'what's not done' section, which pretty much said that the only widely acknowledged taboos are sex with minors and disabled/helpless and unconsenting sex). Even inter-species sex is discussed, though admittedly it will raise eyebrows (the example was something about Scralet O'Hara making out with a black woman, IIRC). Anyway, hate groups concentratre apparently more on inter-Metatype and inter-species sex than homo/bisexuals at the moment in the SR world.

And you do get transgenders. After about a gazillion attempts of generating a Shadowrun Star Athlete, I came across a transgendered Streetsam. They're just about as rare as they are in reality.

Posted by: arcady Jul 27 2005, 05:13 PM

I noticed the racial demographics for Seattle last night and will be adjusting for them in the next update.

I'm deep in the middle of a bug at present though, so it will happen a bit later in the day.

I'm trying to add tracking of how many years ago a person who passed away died, and while I've got good numbers for parents - sometimes I get a sibling being born after both parents have died, or a contact / romance dying years before the character met them.

Flash only lets you return one variable from a function, so I need to start returning longer arrays in places I was only returning strings or small arrays in order to do this.

Not a hard bug to track out, just a time consumer to make sure I get every places I used the relevant functions.

I'm not going to comment on this or that social study much further - the ideas and info come from my high school and primary school education - when the stats were even lower than they are today. At university, I've studied 'the politics of sexuality' but the focus there was a bit different - more on the lines of how we define normality and deviancy.

I do recall that as of the late 90s somewhere the newspaper here was claiming SF had a gay population of about 35%, 2% higher than the caucasian population btw - just to give some perspective. Of course a lot of people move here for the fact that a lot of people like them are moving here...

Asia is more liberal than the USA on these topics from my experience living there - more open for hetero's also (which includes myself although I do come from a lesbian household on 'one end of things').

Europe is famous in the imagination of Americans for its 'openess and diversity', though I have no idea how much truth there is to any of that.

Oh, I've been out of the buying curve on Shadowrun since about 1999/2000.

Man and Machine for 3E came out just before I stopped buying.

I got a nasty munchkin player (accused me -as GM- of cheating for requiring him to add up his points correctly -he didn't deny they were off, he just insisted he was not required to- not use 2E gear, and then threatened two other players) and that killed my game, and then I got dragged into a d20 game ()

Which books are SSC and SSG in their 'full not abreviated titles'?

Posted by: hermit Jul 27 2005, 05:43 PM

SSC - Street Samurai Catalogue

I was taling about SSG though - Sprawl Survival Guide - one of the better SR books after FanPro, after Loose Alliance propably my favourite. It deals mainly with how life works in the Sprawls of the 6th world, has rules on lifestyle customisation and IDs and such things. Pretty neat, if you ask me.

't was a typo. Sorry. Corrected.

Now that that's settled ...

QUOTE

I do recall that as of the late 90s somewhere the newspaper here was claiming SF had a gay population of about 35%, 2% higher than the caucasian population btw - just to give some perspective. Of course a lot of people move here for the fact that a lot of people like them are moving here...

Yeah. SF is a really special case. It's like saying 80% of Americans are Black to soem degree because you live in DC.

QUOTE

Asia is more liberal than the USA on these topics from my experience living there - more open for hetero's also (which includes myself although I do come from a lesbian household on 'one end of things').

Oh really? Well, you must have been to a different Asia than I. Then again, I guess you were neither referring to the PRC nor Malaysia, I take it? India is (somewhat) more liberal, yes, but I'd not call them 'tolerant' anyway. And I don't quite consider the subcontinent either, but that's just me.

QUOTE

Europe is famous in the imagination of Americans for its 'openess and diversity', though I have no idea how much truth there is to any of that.

Oh, we're a bit less stiff about many things, especialy compared to rural America. Not that that takes much, though.
European cities are relaxed about homosexuals, and overall, polls indicate the people have more important things to get upset about than, say, gay marriage (excluding Italy, Poland and the Balkans). Like, immigrants.

Posted by: arcady Jul 27 2005, 09:02 PM

I -would- include China. Also most of south east Asia, Japan, and Korea.

All countries with a -lot- of diversity in sexuality, a much greater acceptance that people will engage in sexual behaivoir, and a greater tolerance for what we in the USA refer to as sex crimes - such as prostitution, pedophilia, and so on.

Maybe not in law, but its often openly out there. A roommate of mine who was a cop in Korea had his station across the street from a redlight district - and those sorts of disctricts can be found openly displayed next to many major transportation hubs.

The first world Asian nations (Korean & Japan) are not tolerant of pedophiles, but if you spend much time in them or the others you will encounter camps full of western ex-pats who come there to 'indulge' in things they cannot do in Europe, the USA, and elsewhere.

Can't say I have experience with Malaysia, but I do know prostitution is rampant in South Asia. Human trafficking marks all of these countries as both import and export locations for the slave market.

non-hetero preferences are not discussed much in these places. They might be seen as wierd, but they are also not a part of the dialogue - and by not being 'defined' they largely go unpersecuted. As long as people 'do their family duty' they can then go about their preferences within the remainder of their time.

And I am -NOT- using the San Francisco Bay Area as the example or basis of my logic about the present day. But it does make a good example of a metropolitan region that is inclusive in its diversity rather than exclusive like New York or LA (which have 'ethnic' regions).

As time moves forward -places that do not make an issue over ethnic conflict will be more resembling of SF than NY or LA with regards to trends like intermarriage. If sexuality moves off the 'hotbutton' list and becomes more mainstream acceptable, it will follow the trends that race has. We can see this already in work in the acceptance of media like 'Will and Grace' and the ever growing presence of an acceptance of 'alternative lifestyles' in mainstream media. When I was just out of high school TV was taking flak over Murphy Brown - a woman who chose to have a child out of wedlock. Now, not that much later, we don't bat an eye over that topic and it becomes a joke on Friends and present in countless other media sources. As well, 'alternate sexuality' protagonists become more and more common with less and less dialague over their presence.

So SF may not be a norm now, but it's attitude over the issue might well be in time.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Plus there is one other great value to this.

To people stuck in 'old era thinking' the greater diversity in this thing helps to set up the alienation so needed to get across the Cyberpunk genre well.

If the characters always seem 'just a little off' from normal, it helps make them 'disjoining' and thus more Cyberpunk.

Posted by: hermit Jul 27 2005, 09:17 PM

Arcady, we're talking past each other.

In many Asian nations, prostitution is not persecuted as harshly as in the US (in fact, save for Islamist states, noone does). But that doesn't nescessarily indicate tolerance, especially towards homosexuality, which is whatn I am talking about. It is more about a different appriach to morality. But it is being persecuted. The only countries where prostitution is (somewhat) legal are Western European states like Benelux and Germany.

QUOTE

Maybe not in law, but its often openly out there.

Eh ... ever been to Amersterdam? Doesn't get any more open than in Walletjes.

Also, prostitution being ramapant in many poor countries has a lot to do with poverty there. Selling your daughters to pimps is a valid way to make money there. Especialyl if they will cost you dearly anyway when they get married eventually. Oh, and that goes for thai and indian child prostitutes as well. It's mainly poverty and parental greed, not a more forgiving culture, that makes this possible. Though admittedly Thailan is very tolerant indeed, about on par with the Netherlands.

QUOTE

Can't say I have experience with Malaysia, but I do know prostitution is rampant in South Asia.

The former PM shot down his competitor because he was seen by a hooker. The man went to jail for years after that (solitary confinement, and Malaysia's jails make even US ones look nice in comparison).

QUOTE

non-hetero preferences are not discussed much in these places. They might be seen as wierd, but they are also not a part of the dialogue - and by not being 'defined' they largely go unpersecuted. As long as people 'do their family duty' they can then go about their preferences within the remainder of their time.

Being gay gets you reeducation camp in almost all Asian countries, excluding India (for religious reasons, they couldn't marry without their Hijras), Thailand, Japan and Korea. It's ignored if you have power and keep a low profile, but that's not tolerance, that'S more a culture of looking the other way.

QUOTE

If sexuality moves off the 'hotbutton' list and becomes more mainstream acceptable, it will follow the trends that race has. We can see this already in work in the acceptance of media like 'Will and Grace' and the ever growing presence of an acceptance of 'alternative lifestyles' in mainstream media. When I was just out of high school TV was taking flak over Murphy Brown - a woman who chose to have a child out of wedlock. Now, not that much later, we don't bat an eye over that topic and it becomes a joke on Friends and present in countless other media sources. As well, 'alternate sexuality' protagonists become more and more common with less and less dialague over their presence.

Hopefully. It's a trend, but I'm not convinced it will hold.

Posted by: arcady Jul 29 2005, 07:25 AM

Just did an upload that includes a basic listing of Cyberware (the list from Ex Machina, with a few add ins from Shadowrun that didn't have equivalents).

This thing is now -real close- to an official 1.0 version. I just need to give it a day to uncover bugs...

I've got a list of ideas for a later version, but the core of what it -needs- is there now.

It will need a basic glossary before release though, to define some of the terms that are not constant across game systems. For example SIN in Ex Machina refers to 'Sensory Interface' as in the ability to record feelings and sensations, I think the same letters in Shadowrun refer to your government ID number, and they call the sensory thing a 'Simrig'.

There are other terminology issues as well, and I'll have to think about where I can fit the glossary for it all.

I've also extracted the chances for different sexualities, as that seems a hot topic for some odd reason. This way people who download it once 1.0 is up and set them as they like them.

Posted by: hermit Jul 29 2005, 12:18 PM

One more thing: could youn add a function that makes professions/careers selectable?

Ah, and ... about the cyber ... can you set the cyber propability for a mage as low as possible? It happens that mages have to get cyber, but in Shadowrun, this SERIOUSLY messes with their ability to work magic.

Also, tying cyber propabilities to career (or roots) would be nice. A delivery driver wouldn't need two cybered legs, a throat tentacle and other implant weapons ... a street warrior, on the other hand, might look odd without any cyber.

Posted by: arcady Jul 29 2005, 06:29 PM

In the same directory as the lifepath's website, the data files are:

DATA_names.txt
DATA_facts.txt

Before it goes live, I still need to add 'French personal names'.

And I have one more planned change to the structure of the facts file.

But I'm letting you see that here so you can see what events and such are possible at present and then make some suggestions for additions before I put up 'v1.0'.

Posted by: hermit Jul 30 2005, 12:33 AM

Damn, I urgently need to get my MrJLBB back (Mr. Johnson's little black book, a SR GM guide type book), it had a looong list of personality traits and quirks for NPCs as inspiration fro GMs, I'm sure you could use these. They were pretty egneric, so they would be of good use to the other systems as well.

Oh, and I read a bit in your Spacepunk setting. Quite nice! Makes me wish I had a group to play a real CP game with again ...

Posted by: arcady Aug 1 2005, 12:05 AM

An official downloadable version 1.0 is now here:

http://www.geocities.com/arcady0/SciFi/lifepath.html

The older copy on my other website has been removed for now. The above URL has both a zip download and an online usable version.

Posted by: arcady Aug 2 2005, 06:23 AM

If you downloaded the app on its first day of release get a new copy.

I just uploaded a patch that fixed a bug that was doubling the chance of baldness with every character made...

The app now has an 'announcements' mailing list here:

http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/cyberpunklifepath/

Its a moderated list, meant soley to get people to contribute additions to the database and for me to announce bug fixes like this one over there in future rather than cluttering up assorted boards...

Posted by: arcady Aug 4 2005, 08:47 PM

Just put out and up for download version 1.1

This versions adds 'secondary skills' and the ability to store in a buffer 3 past characters as well as recall the previously made character.

http://geocities.com/arcady0/SciFi/lifepath.html

Posted by: 2bit Aug 5 2005, 12:01 AM

I love you arcady. this thing rocks. I'm especially entertained by the fashion and hair section. Gnude, lol. Light emitting, waist length afros...

I got a "Toy Bioroid" related result in the people section, however, oops. (using fantasy punk)

Posted by: wargear Aug 5 2005, 05:57 AM

I doubt I would ever use something so random for a PC, but it certainly works for colourful on-the-spot NPCs.

Posted by: hermit Aug 5 2005, 10:01 AM

That is how I intend to use it, myself.

Arcady, one more thing ... could you please

- add a possibility to roll up specific professions?
- put in major skills depending on profession?

thanks in advance an in general for making this thing and making it publically available. Great tool.

Posted by: arcady Aug 7 2005, 08:36 PM

QUOTE (hermit)

- add a possibility to roll up specific professions?
- put in major skills depending on profession?

I'm looking into those things.

I had major problems with the app last time I tried to work in pull down menus. Conflicts between versions of Flash and such...

That's held up a few things I had wanted to put in there.

The bug with the toy bioroid should be fixed.

I'll be reading up on the issues I was getting with pulldowns, but I can't say I'll actually manage to get it working.

Posted by: hermit Aug 16 2005, 09:04 PM

Arcady: finally got my MJLBB back. It contains a full page of personality features, quirks and other stuff. I'll just list them, I hope you'll find some of them useful. They're unsorted.

physical feats
Two different coloured eyes
dreads with fiberoptics woven in
gold-tipped teeth; multiple (visible) body pierchings
scar across side of face; greasy hair
obvious cyberarm made of shiny blue chrome
very unusual cybereyes; dresses in all shades of [colour]
abnormally short/tall for sex and metatypus
visibly effeminate (women)or mannish behavior
obvious and unusual tattoo
lazy eye
single obvious cybereye
very pale skin
walks with a limp
mullet; missing [number] fingers
cauliflower ears
has an obvious false non-cyber leg
unusually long fingernails
visible facial hair (female)
strangely patterned or stylised facial hair
obviously fake toupet
wears archaic glasses
perpetual runny nose
eyepatch or obvious empty eye socket
teeth filed to points
fungus under fungernails
wears one or more gaudy rings
has heavy acne
exceptionally skinny/overweight
facial tic
unusually loud/soft voice
speaks with a lisp
speaks with an accent that is difficult to understand
mumbles
stiffles
uses catch phrases ("Am I right?", "Boo-Yah!") frequently
partially deaf
peppers every sentence with profanity
strong body orour; wears excessive perfume
[the two odour feats should be tied to the Ghoul race]
smells of smoke
smells of liquor
beer breath
smells unwashed
bad breath
smelly feet
always smells clean and freshly showered

mental feats
terrified of germs
racist towards [metatype]
chauvinist
always uses cash, doesn't trust banks
bites nails when nervous
gets angry when corrected
news junkie
sports junkie
has a soft spot for [children, women, weak, poor, animals, plants, spirits]
highly susceptible to flattery
tightwad
compulsive liar
always appears trustworthy
always makes a bad first impression
agoraphobic
can't resist on attractive [sexual orientation]
loves [animal type]
mistrusts technological devices
thinks is sexy, which is true/not true
afraid of [metatype], but tries not to show
collector
hoarder
shy
doesn't like to touch people
illiterate
socially inept, especially with [sexual orientation]
vegan

Posted by: arcady Mar 23 2006, 06:48 AM

I just uploaded a version 1.2.

1.2 change is to allow the amount of cyberware to be cusomized for each genre. In addition I have added a button to recall the current PC, so that you do not have to 'store' it before looking back. A few very minor additions were also made to the data.

http://www.geocities.com/arcady0/SciFi/lifepath.html

Posted by: arcady Nov 17 2007, 07:35 AM

Its an old thread - but the generator has been updated.

Version 1.3 now includes the ability to take a character out of action for a period of time, such as having been locked in prison, renditioned, in a coma, or some other such item.