Im somewhat new to shadowrun (can count my games on one hand, a good mix of pink mohawk and mirror shades. sr4). im now going to play a street sam and need inspiration. i want to here from you guys. what are your favorite razorboys/girls and or gunbunnies? i'd love to here their war stories and their loadouts? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/cyber.gif)

I like either a tanky or a lightning approach.
Meaning: A tough as nails grizzled killer who can just take punishment and keep on going ... or a fast razorboy who'll slice you up in a splitsecond, before you can even touch him (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)
I've played a lot of samurai archetypes and some things I almost always take are reflex upgrades, smartlink, cybereyes and implant weaponry.
The rest depends on the background and / or what I want the character to do.

Personally I got a weak spot for fairytale gone wrong gillettes, heck any character that's both happy-go-lucky, somewhat naive or innocent but at the same time clinically insane psychos.

Personnally I have never created a "straight" street samurai. They always have something else to help define them. Like the technophile who woudn't know how to use software if he had it, but could take apart any hardware you put in front of him in 5 seconds flat. Yep, he had Wired Reflexes and Smartguns and could happily murder the hell out of anyone who got in his way, but he was also able to do things people didn't expect of him (Hardware+Industrial Mechanic skills).
"Loadouts" of cyberware I have found to be one of the most uninteresting parts of creating a 'sammie. Wired-Reflexes: Check. Muscle Toner(Optional Muscle Aug if melee): Check. Smartgun system: Check.
Yes from there I tend to branch out into different branches (Bone Lacing or Dermal Plating? Do i even want a defensive aug?), but I have found it helps so much more actually building around a personality trait, like the technophile above or a follower of a code of honour.

Well you can skip the muscle toner if you're going for cyberlimbs, which for all their drawbacks have some draw to them like being tough as nail with extra boxes and built-in armour, flexibility with modular limbs ("Hold on Im just putting on my running legs") and if your GM is lenient breaking all the normal limits with redlining.
Worth noting is that skillwires and cyberlimbs is a very good way to become the most passable sammy when your focus is elsewhere.

i like the ultimate mundane climber.
a troll that climbs as fast as other characters can run.

i could imagine that with some magical camo on him, guard would look over the side and basically see the predator (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

Aren't the Yautja more about jumping? never seen one climb I think...
Build your own predator with a ruthenium polymer coated milspec armour fitted with hydraulic jacks.

Edit: Ruthenium is a real thing? I thought it was pure phlogiston...

The Yautja didn't just kangaroo up into the trees in the jungle or ontop of buildings like superman. I imagine they climb quite well. There were just physical limitations of the movies in the 80s. (( if you want to see something funny. Google Predator's first monster or screen test. A weird foamy thing Van Dame was running around the jungle in. lol ))

But yeah they were darn near arboreal.

One of my favorite examples of Street Sams from the actual Shadowrun books, came from an off handed comment (( and image)) in Paranormal Animals of North America. A Street Sam duo called Calvin and Hobbes. Even funnier as noone seemed to 'get it'.

Well there's been movies since then, you know AvP (which the first one wasn't half bad) and Predator 2010, Can't remember them climbing in those, they did a hell a lot of jumping though.
The xenopedia describes them as able climbers, however he could very well kangaroo his way up trees as they are capable of jumping up to three times their height vertically and with them being like 7,3" (220cm) they could very easily reach the lower branches of a high tree.
*grin*

My last theoretical build used cyberarms with gyro-stablisers to let him fire his custom guns full auto, at a dead run, with no penalty. Never really got to play him though (IMG:style_emoticons/default/frown.gif) but that was because he had a falling out with the group and walked away.

I had a dwarf teen who decided, after an accident, to become a teeny-bopper catgirl through full cyber replacement. Mind the 4-foot-tall mall rat with the kitty ears- she's nearly indestructible and can go up walls at a sprint.

As for another, I didn't want to choose between speed and toughness. So I made the Roach. Not the top of the line in speed or toughness, but a nasty combination of both. Pity he was a neoanarchist paranoid. Pity he died to a critically glitched dodge in a 12 man crossfire.

The thing about making tanks is, they eventually get gunned down, because they take risks that others would not so that the team can get the flock out of there.

My favorite to date was Murphy my Boston Mafia enforcer gone freelance street sam in Seattle after one of his bosses sold him out as a scapegoat for a snitch.

He was a cybered-up troll, but with fairly good mental stats, so disturbingly articulate and very, very world-weary. His motto was 'That which can go wrong, will, at the worst possible moment.' It was rarely proven wrong.

Cyberwise, he was pretty simple. Bone lacing, muscle aug, cybereyes, wired reflexes, headware comms, and smargun system, which was added to in play by a cyberarm and a few other sundries thanks to getting blown up on a run.

Combat-wise he actually did most of his work barehanded, because when a troll with bone lacing and muscle aug punches you, you stay the hell down. Carried a sawn-off pistol gripped Roomsweeper for moments when subtlety were done, and a beat up old AK-97 for those times when the shit has really hit the fan.

Why would a troll being articulate, be disturbing?

Am I the odd one out, that my trolls aren't all low IQ types? None of my trolls have been inarticulate thugs of low intelligence. I'm sure they exist, but not usually as professional shadowrunners.

Our troll is logic and intuition three, so about metahuman average. far smarter than the troll stereotype, anyway! his only real problem is a charisma of 1, which stops him from really expressing his intellect in any meaningful way (IMG:style_emoticons/default/frown.gif)
Oh well, he can take a LAW to the face and shrug it off. If the player thinks it's a fair trade, who are we to argue?

The thing about trolls is not that they don't just have their genetics working against them, but generally because of prejudice and social class they're forced into a vicious circle, where because of their parents lot in life, they're unable to attain a decent education and consequently their children will be stuck in the same position.
As such a well educated troll will be rare not by their nature, but by their circumstances.

Note: Despite that many organisations claim that their IQ tests are culture neutral, level of education is hugely important in determining IQ. Which has led to efforts in devicing methods that can determine a persons raw intelligence rather then their IQ. As I can understand it, using IQ as a quantifiable measurement of intelligence is more and more frowned upon in academic circles.

Which is funny, because you'd think an Intelligence Quotient would be great for measuring intelligence.

~Umi

Personally I think it's kind of ludicrous trying to put a single number on something that expresses itself in so many different ways.

Oh, I agree, somewhat. But people like to quantify things, or at least attempt to. *shrug*

Just take it with a grain of salt. It reflects broad tendencies more than exact amounts. Two people with very similar IQs are both roughly as "intelligent", but how it manifests can vary wildly. But at the same time, someone with a significantly higher IQ than someone else is almost always going to have an easier time learning things and thinking critically, barring other secondary factors like access to education, preferred method of learning, et cetera.

The important thing to remember is that the IQ system is just a tool, like any other. So long as you keep in mind that is imprecise, and that you should limit your expectations of it, it can be of some moderate use.

~Umi

Well I understand about the first trolls facing enormous prejudice and being ostracized and regulated to the fringes of society, and their children being born and brought up that way and what not, and that more than one SR book hinting that it's very likely socio-economic factors that lead to their shorter life spans vs pure biological. That's been a long time back though. My trolls aren't all "Durrr hand me dhat gun, I gotz ta kill dem corp sec guys cuz I haz ta pick my nose later" Types. If they're shadowrunners, they're professionals. Sure some might come from the bad part of town or something, but I play them more like guys out of Southie or something. They can still be smart and articulate, even if they choose to be crass, or have accents or the like.

The Troll Stereotype of being 'big' holds. "Big means dumb" Doesn't. At least for myself and the groups I play in.

Not being dropped behind the wagon doesn't necessitate a big vocabulary, bet a fair few trolls are quite streetwise even if they have no clue what articulate means.

True, but being poor doesn't mean you have a small vocabulary either.

Being poor in a society where public education relies on being part of a megacorp, and several of the megas are rabidly racist against orks and trolls, on the other hand...

What education? the majority of trogs are SINless, the only education they get is the one taught by the street.