Character Ideas, Because I'm out of them... Options

[Chibu]

Alright, my group is essentially playing 2e. 2055-58ish time period. One of our group has decided he wants to run a long-ish term campaign. I don't have any good ideas for a character though. I just finished making a rigger for a different game, and I've pretty much played out mote regular archetypes. So, does anyone have any ideas to help me out? I need something that is decent, becuase he runs pretty tough campaigns, and I'd prefer to not just die every other run, but if I have a concept I can probably work the numbers.

I'm just fresh out of ideas since I spent the last week and a half working on my rigger. So, go (semi) wild. I need help here!


~ C

[Ice Hammer]

If its going to be a tough campaign, then I would suggest a character with a Special Forces background, for an elite street sam. Maybe a former Sioux Wildcat operative. Or a UCAS Green Beret or Army Ranger. Depending on the background, you could probably specialize in infiltration, or demolitions, or some other special niche skill that will come in real handy for the campaign. My other suggestion might be a mercenary, who has been involved in the border dispute between Tir Tangire and Northern Free Cal. Or a mercenary who has been involved in skirmishes between the Ute and Pueblo. There's lots of posssibilities for good backgrounds when thinking about all the conflicts in North America around that time.

[Chibu]

Yeah, that could work. Nightshade (the quote below) was from Amazonia and involved in their military, beating up on the azzies. He was a pretty fun character (physical adept). And the rigger that I mentioned was a smuggler between Seattle and Cal Free for some revolutionaries there.

See, I dunno if I just want to play a Sammy though. I need good motivations and goals. Other than "have the latest ware" I can't ever think of good stuff for sammies. Obviously there are a million ways to make them, but they seem overdone. I will keep the Wildcat op in mind though, that sounds like a good back story. The Wildcats are pretty sweet. (And not just becuase I once played a character loosely based on Grifter (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif) )

[Fortune]

Rockers are always good fun!

[MarCazm]

Or a simsense star who wants to get some real life experience.

[DocTaotsu]

Combat Wombat!

Er...

Combat Medic/Doctor! Big brain equals lots of different knowskills, eliminates the need for your team to visit a shady street doc, gives you a long term goal (get clinic), organ legging for fun and profit, lets you do something cool in addition to shooting things (medicine+medical shop+interrogation=talkative prisoners). If you really want to diversify can give him a background in magic, parazoology, or my personal favorite: Forensics. If you take enough forensics you get a bonus to making a witty droll quip while donning sunglasses.

You can go the traditional "Former UCAS Navy Corspman" or "3rd year medical student who realized he made more money in the shadows than working for some crappy corps clinic. or "Disgraced County Coroner/Doctor barred from practicing medicine legally." or even "Former Corps researcher on the run for X but with an depth knowledge of Y".

It's been awhile since I've played 2e but I'm pretty sure you can balance having high non combat skills in addition to getting enough augs to keep you in the fight until you can upgrade to some serious wires or something.

[WearzManySkins]

Sample Character Archive
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a Bunraku parlor girl who escaped?

WMS

[WeaverMount]

I am a big fan of explicitly collaborative story telling. If this a long campaign, I think it's fair to talk with your GM about vague type of situations, and challenges and settings they plan on touching on. From there think up interesting an fun ways to approach that situation.

[ElFenrir]

Go Wild?

If it's a campaign with any sort of humor, an ex-model turned assassin(al la Derek Zoolander), very low Logic, high Charisma, decent physical stats with the skills Breakdance Fighting and Exotic Ranged Weapon: Laser Feet. He spins on his hands and sends fires the laser feet around the room a la a Wide Burst.

Yes, i WILL make Laser Feet a viable weapon one day as i mentioned in the the other thread....(IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

Now, if the campaign is more serious or whatnot...near cyberzombies are always fun. (i've been in the wings highly awaiting Metal Gear Solid 4 and watching the preview videos so right now my answer to everything is 'cyberkillerninjadude.' (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif) )

blargh, i'll get back to you when i get my creativitiy back. I just got done finishing up my own guy for a campaign, am writing a two or three shot to play in a couple of months, and did an SR short story on top of it as a prelude to said two or three shot so my creativity is a bit focused.

[Kliko]

Orc Marine!!! ... but that's just because it's just my kind of charachter. Make sure to start low on gear (just starting off right?) and put skills as your nr. 1 priority. It makes for a very decent and versatile character and if you're really up for the challenge try to avoid any cyber (yes I know it's tempting, but laser sights are a great substitue for smartlinks).

Oh... and make sure your charachter has small unit tactics (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif) . It makes up a little for the lack of any decent reaction enhancers. Secondly, try to talk your gm to use the strength/recoil copensation rules from Fields of Fire... it will give you that extra point of recoil compensation to put of a burst with low-tech weaponry

[krakjen]

Well, you can have smartlink without cybering up anyway.

[Pendaric]

If your playing SR2-3 and fancy a challenge play a combat decker without a deck. I know it sound bad but the back story is you old deck got scorched and now you have fallen back on your combat skills to make the money for a new deck.
With a sympathic ref, you work up the ranks of deckerdom from a abacus to karftwert hell to a fairlight if your play long enough.
Hardest part is the utilites, you can off set this slightly by buying some of your utilities out of the box at generation for when you get a deck. Programing helps too.

[Kliko]

Nah, non-cyber smartlinks are as good as any laser sight (they merely provide a -1 tn bonus).

But as a general rule of thumb you could state that especially in a long campaign it's more rewarding to play a character with a lot of room for development.

[Chibu]

But as a general rule of thumb you could state that especially in a long campaign it's more rewarding to play a character with a lot of room for development.

Well yeah, I definitely agree with that. One of my friends might be playing a mage, and another is probably playing a physical adept. If the one doesn't end up playing a mage (he has character ADD (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif) ) then i was kind of thinking of playing a mage who doesn't know he's a mage and therefore won't start with any magical skills or spells or anything. I think it would be a fun character who would basically be the "dude with no cyber" mentioned, but would be able to grow substantially.

But I don't want to do that if the group already has two other magically active people. Because 3 out of 4 or 5 is a bit high, and I don't think it's specifically (though I'm sure it could be) a high magic campaign. So I don't want to go overboard.

[vladski]

I once built what I thought was going to be a completely fun 3rd Ed. character for a campaign a friend was going to run.

So, he was a German linage dwarf vigilante. I was basically going to play him like a low-rent Batman. I tricked him out with all sorts of mechanical gear, made him a Mage for the spells. and was going to basically ignore using guns. At least lethal ones. He was gonna be a "good guy" that operated in the shadows and only did Robinhood-esque missions. I worked him up to sort of be living in his own world. Not completely nuts, jsut absolutely convinced that he was a force for good and was trying to save the little people. Took a cop contact and a mechanic contact. Was going to have him get a low-lifestyle where he operated right on the fringe of hte Ork-underground in a basement attached to some tunnels that over time he was going to build up into his own BatCave.

I was going to call him something like NightWing (and was going to fly by using levitate and some sort of propellent system) and it translated into something like Nacht...something.

Needless to say, after hours of work and a couple days of dreaming the guy up, my friend moved out of town on the spur of hte moment and I never got to play him.

Vlad

[Chibu]

>_< Yeah, I know the feeling. I usually spend a week or two setting up back story, getting the numbers just right to fit everything, drawing pictures... And then we don't play. One time I wrote up a whole culture for my character (a group of Nightones out in the forest in Germany). The rigger I just finished has 8 pages of printed character sheet with an additional 2 pages of drawings. It seems that the only time we ever actually play for a long time is when I just write down some numbers on a scrap of paper right before the first session. It's getting annoying. I don't like making characters anymore because of it. I spend so much time and energy on them and then they get filed away in the "Really sweet characters who never amounted to anything" section.

[WearzManySkins]

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif) Yes I know the feeling about creating long and detailed back stories.

I have even gotten to play some characters with such, just no other character inquired/asked, so it never came in the game. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/frown.gif)

Do like I do, I have a large stable of characters I have created with detailed back stories, I just hold onto them, and I have been able to use them. I have been able to submit a character in less then the other players have many times.

WMS

[swirler]

pick a character from a book, movie or whatever and base a character conecpt off of that. I'm not saying "hey make batman" or "hey make John McClain" just pick an idea and base something similar off of it, like a jumping off point.

Another Idea is pick a song and make a character based off of what you get from the lyrics/story/music.

[ElFenrir]

pick a character from a book, movie or whatever and base a character conecpt off of that. I'm not saying "hey make batman" or "hey make John McClain" just pick an idea and base something similar off of it, like a jumping off point.

Another Idea is pick a song and make a character based off of what you get from the lyrics/story/music.

These are both awesome ideas. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif) Ive been influenced by many a good movie, book, game, or song. They can indeed be great springboards. Again, you don't have to BE the character in question, but sometimes taking a couple bits from Character A, a couple bits from B, one from C, and then whip the majority together yourself, it can work wonders.

[DocTaotsu]

I think it might make be a bad roleplayer but I usually just have a general idea (one sentence concept, 2-3 keypoints, motivation) when I jump into the game (I too have tasted the bitter juice that is "Actually, I think we're going to play some World of Darkness instead"). If the game looks like it's going to go for more than a session I'll sit down and hammer out the details.

Of course I almost uniformly play a medic/doctor/cleric/healer with a variation into the land of "science/knowledge" guy so it'd be a lie to say that I don't recycle some tropes.

[DreadPirateKitte...]

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a Bunraku parlor girl who escaped?

WMS

Awesome idea

[Shev]

A combat face is usually a lot of fun to play. Just enough 'ware to keep your reaction times up, and the rest on the skills and contacts you need.

If you get Alpha (or Beta, if your GM allows it) at char creation, you have a shot at keeping your cyber concealed from most casual checks, which should give you the social mobility you need for your profession.

If you DO end up wanting to play an awakened char, you can pretty much do the same thing for an adept. Just be sure to get masking fairly soon.

[HentaiZonga]

I'm working on a hilarious concept - basically, her job is "decoy". Felicity

[krakjen]

Haha, great concept!

[Chibu]

I'm working on a hilarious concept - basically, her job is "decoy". Felicity

lol, nice.

And yeah, I've been toying with the idea of a face. But i definately need to do something other than just faceing (yeah it's a word, even if spell check doesn't believe me (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif) ) Combat is fine, everyone should have at least SOME way to defend in a fight. maybe I'll make him aspire to be a decker or something... I could eventually get a VCR and some Drive and Gunnery skillchips.

Or thought it's SR2, I can probably get him to let me take some of the Social Adept powers. That could be pretty cool. Cybered Physad Face. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)