I'm new to shadowrun, could someone help out a newb. Options

[degenerate]

I'm looking to make a human ganger but i need help with what skills and priotites and stuff i should choose i have read the book but i still feel a bit confused by it all so any help would be appreciated.

[Connor]

Look over the Sprawl Ganger archetype in the book and adjust as you see fit as far as metatype and such go. It shows what priorities were used and such and should be all you need as a launch pad for making gangers of any sort.

[Large Mike]

Alright kid, here's the deal. (Don't chafe at me calling you kid, you're a newb asking for help, and I'm playing wise old man.)

I'm going to help you through an example of the priorities for a ganger and give you some tips. For free, even. Aren't I a great guy?

For a ganger, you'll not need alot of money. You could fairly easily put it at priority D and not worry about it. Basically, you'll want to buy a gun and maybe a knife. A low lifestyle, a bike, and a couple of contacts, and you're set. That eats up 20 000 fairly quickly. You could put it at E, but you'd be a hurting ganger. If you can afford it, maybe add a set of spurs.

A ganger's biggest advantage is not in his knowledge or training. They rarely have much of that. The biggest thing they usually have going for them is raw attributes. To be a ganger and live, you've got to be tough, strong, quick, stubborn, and intelligent. Charismatic would be nice, but isn't neccicery. You don't have to have good stats on all these things, but it would be nice to do as much of it as possible well. The most important for a ganger is Body. So, let's put atts at A/ That makes your priorities look like this, so far.

A Attributes
B
C
D Resources
E

To give you the best fighting chance, you'll probably want to be something with some racial modifiers that would work with a ganger. Gangers also tend to be Trolls and Orks more often than not. Ork is in priority D, so might as well throw race into C to make you a troll. The only reason I could think for not doing it this way at this point is if you wanted to be magically active, but you didn't specify that, so we'll do it this way. At this point, you're priorities look like this.

A Attributes
B
C Race
D Resources
E

At this point, you could be magically active by putting Magic in B, but that would make you have only 27 skill points. It's doable, but I prefer to have the breathing room of a little more, so lets throw Magic in E, making you mundane.

A Attributes
B
C Race
D Resources
E Magic

That leaves slot B open for skills. For skills as a ganger, you'll definatly want Brawl and probably Clubs. Pistols are also helpful. A ganger doesn't often see much more than a shotgun, so SMGs, Assault Rifles, and so on, although concievably useful, are not nearly as useful as the other combat skills. Also, you'll want Ettiquette (street) at fairly high, as you'll be dealing with those poeple... pretty much constantly. Also, if you have a bike (and I think any ganger worth his salt should) you might want to throw in the Ride skill. Maybe a little bit of electronics if you intend to steal cars, or a little bit of stealth and possibly running if you intend to B&E or mug people.

There, I've helped. I'm not often this nice. Ask around, they'll tell you.

[thunderchild]

Ok, Mike dumbed it down nicely but heres how i see it.

A ganger dosent have to be a street thug with his lifes goal to boss around the other grunts.

Gangers can be street specialists. heres a few basic skill packages

Car theif.

Car - 4
Car B/R - 4
Electronics/Automotive systems 3/5
Electronics B/R -3

grand total (15 skill points)

Mugger/Standover man

Intimidation/Physical 3/5
Psycology - 3
Stealth - 3
Clubs 5
grand total (15 skill points)

Break and enter man

Electronics/security systems 4/6
Stealth 4
Electronics b/r 4
Lockpicking 2

grand total (15 skill points)


Dont immediately pidgeonhole the ganger into drinking with his buddies then going for a rumble....

[Fortune]

Considering he specifically stated he was wanting a human ganger, I'd change those Priorities a little.

A: Attributes
B: Skills
C: Resources
D: Race
E: Magic

The last two are interchangeable.

[RedmondLarry]

Thunderchild had a good suggestion for identifying what your ganger is good at. What type of campaign will your ganger be playing in? Is he continuing to be a ganger, in a ganger-campaign (low level skills and attributes), or has he somehow elevated himself into a Shadowrun team because of, perhaps, exceptional skills compared to other gangers.

A Priority "B" in Skills gets you 40 points, which is very high for a typical ganger. If your GM is deliberately running a "low power" game, he may limit your skills to 3 or 4, but if your character has advanced out of a gang because he became too competent to hang around with the other low-lifes, he may join a Shadowrun team with skills of 5 or even a 6.

A Priority "C" in Resources gets you 90,000 :nuyen: of "stuff", but it would be rare for a ganger to have that much equipment. You might easily have acquired on really valuable item that has helped elevate you from gang-level to shadowrun-team level (e.g. one Ares Alpha Assault Rifle). But you generally wouldn't have a lot of stuff. Spending your extra resources to buy "contacts" (SR3 p. 61) would make a lot of sense. Perhaps you know someone in the Ork Underground, a street shaman, a soy-caf vendor, and a Doc-Wagon trooper whose life you saved. You could easily keep to the ganger-level of gear by spending all your extra Resources on contacts. A high charisma and etiquette skill could help explain how you made the transition from gang-life to shadowrunner-life and how you acquired all these contacts.

Your knowledge skills (5 * starting intelligence, SR3 p. 58) are like to be in things like BTL dealing, Stolen Item Fencing, Stolen Item Valuation, Gangs of Redmond (or Puyallup).

Your language skills (1.5 * starting intelligence) are likely to be the English with the City Speak Concentration, as in the Sprawl Ganger archetype (in SR3 a few pages after p. 64).

You should work some on your character's background. Where was he born? What happened to his parents? How did he join a gang? What was he good at within the gang? Did he make any major enemies or friends? Has he left the gang, and why? What does he want to accomplish with his life?

[Tanka]

[Shockwave_IIc]

[Tanka]

Meh, fair enough. So then he can be Ork, Dwarf, or Human. Go Ork unless you want to waddle. :D

[Fortune]

[Fortune]

[Tanka]

Silencio! :P

[Shockwave_IIc]

[Fortune]

[RedmondLarry]

Awww, come on. Lets just answer in a way that helps the new guy. We can argue over the rules and alternate systems for character creation somewhere else.

[moosegod]

We should stick to priority. It's simple, it comes in main.

[Fortune]

[moosegod]

Clubs(Baseball Bat) 5(7) is always fun and very appropriate.

[Raptor1033]

i like keeping clubs at 6 w/o specializing cause i like the idea of picking up random blunt objects and using them equally well. y'know, pipes, bats...... dwarves, etc

[moosegod]

Yeah, but specializing in bats gives you flavor.

[Dende]

Specialization also in general gives you negatives in other situations you might have otherwise been far more useful in. Especially with something like Clubs...a club is a club...I ain't gonna specialize in bat, I may prefer to use one, but not specialize in it.

[moosegod]

True, true.

I personally perfer the flavor of specializing, but to make a valid point.

[Diesel]

A little high, though...

[Cain]

In his case, I'd specialize in clubs (Improvised) 5/7. It's one of the best specializations to begin with, and if fits his character.

[moosegod]

You can do that?

If so, my gangers just got a whole lot better..