[X] My Assistant

[sunnyside]

As a side note I don't always announce to the group RP rewards if I think it could cause animosity. I can just give it to people on the sly.

So what is our fellow here doing for the duration of a ten hour session. Is he off playing Xbox or is he just sitting there the whole time.

Also in this case if he remade a char I would be inclined to let him keep most of the accumulated Karma.

Now it sounds like the character may have problem in that it sounds like the team is pretty well established. Meaning someone else can either do it better than he can or it doesn't need to be done.


Hmmmmmmmm. I guess try asking your GM what he thinks the party might need, and specifically what sort of things you might be able to do with that character.

Also how many players are in this group?

[masterofm]

Here is the simplest way to RP. Play yourself but in the SR setting. You won't break character and at least it might help you out a bit.

Don't look for "the cool" angle. A lot of RP is just what a character would just do naturally (not the oh but if it's not cool...) it is cool when all the little things you do stay in character. It helps everyone else stay in character, and it help with the feel of the game. Best RPing I ever had was when everyone stayed in character and it creates a better flow to the game. It was not just that people were doing cool stuff it's that during the whole session nobody broke character. Not once. It was about six hours of pure bliss.


On a side note. RPing is, in a way, acting. Some people just suck at acting. If it does not come natural to the man then maybe try something else (such as playing a character that is very much himself.)

[piiman]

As a side note I don't always announce to the group RP rewards if I think it could cause animosity. I can just give it to people on the sly.

So what is our fellow here doing for the duration of a ten hour session. Is he off playing Xbox or is he just sitting there the whole time.

Also in this case if he remade a char I would be inclined to let him keep most of the accumulated Karma.

Now it sounds like the character may have problem in that it sounds like the team is pretty well established. Meaning someone else can either do it better than he can or it doesn't need to be done.


Hmmmmmmmm. I guess try asking your GM what he thinks the party might need, and specifically what sort of things you might be able to do with that character.

Also how many players are in this group?

There are 4 people in my SR group, a cowboy who rolls around 20 dice with his revolvers, a combat specialist who uses all types of guns and a combat mage

[KurenaiYami]

As a side note I don't always announce to the group RP rewards if I think it could cause animosity. I can just give it to people on the sly.

I tried that, but then he was questioning why he got less Karma. He was quite persistent.

So what is our fellow here doing for the duration of a ten hour session. Is he off playing Xbox or is he just sitting there the whole time.

The latter. Occasionally making off-topic comments, but mostly just spectating.

Also in this case if he remade a char I would be inclined to let him keep most of the accumulated Karma.

Eh. I'll let the group vote on how they want to handle that.

Edit: Though the OP just called me fat over MSN, so I get to vote twice against him for being a douche.

Now it sounds like the character may have problem in that it sounds like the team is pretty well established. Meaning someone else can either do it better than he can or it doesn't need to be done.

Well, he's a melee combatant, so I'd say the second one.

Hmmmmmmmm. I guess try asking your GM what he thinks the party might need, and specifically what sort of things you might be able to do with that character.

Hacker, rigger, or Face are absent, though they did "befriend" a Technomancer, so the Hacker bit is iffy.

Also how many players are in this group?

He already answered it, but 4. Him, his brother, and two friends (who also happen to be brothers). A support mage, a sniper, a revolver specialist, and the OP's "monk" character.

[Aaron]

Incidentally, if I award Karma for good role-playing, I give it for the entire group, rather than individually. I think it encourages everybody to share the stage and encourage one another to play well.

[sunnyside]

Hmm rigger and face are highly optional depending on GM. (I've learned to never, ever, make a face like character until I really know a GM, and that goes for any system.) A hacker would be good as its a "needed" skillset. But you can't outhack a good TM.

If the GM is friendly toward the idea of a drone rigger scouting that could be a good idea. And they're usually useful in combat. Bringing a helicopter to the party is also useful. Though again make sure the GM thinks it'll work in his campaign, especially in 4th ed where it's harder to hide. Actually for nt a lot extra you could add some hacking to a rigger that could be good.

In any case the key is to be proactive and good for stuff outside of combat. They "cowboy" might only be good at combat, but that works fine if they're also sort of the team leader.

If you're only good at combat AND you don't lead than you may end up a wall flower. I've been in other campaigns (not as the GM) where someone thought their pure combat char was so awsome until they actually started playing at which point they'd occasionally lose consciousness.

[piiman]

been talking to my GM, since we have a technomancer, was between a face and a rigger, and i was thinking of a face, but i dont want to be useless in combat so if you have some idea's, all i know is that i dont want to suck at combat, thinking of being sorta face/stealthy guy, maybe with a pistol or something.
If you have any idea's please let me know, cause right now i am sorta useless, cause as soon as battle begins i normally have to run up and at that time the guy is already dead
Also i like the adept so what im thinking is get a magic of 5 use 3 for adept powers and 2 for bioware and cyberware, have a good cha and agi, reaction would need to be high also if im going for the stealth same with perception

[sunnyside]

Yeah melee in SR is, rightly, kind of a niche thing. It's place is in big battle with spirits and things, when you can sneak up on someone or get snuck up on, or when you're in settings where you couldn't smuggle in weapons. Not so hot for general combat.


Luckily it's pretty easy to make a multi use character, depending on how specialized you make the character. You might want to talk to your GM about that by the way. You could make a social adept that puts 30 dice on the table when you talk to someone. But it might not work as well as you'd like.

You also might want to find out if your GM has a problem with cyberware in social situations.

But either way it'd be reasonably easy to make a char with solid face skills, combat skills, and reasonable sneaky skills. The key things are to make sure your character will work in the world you GM has you playing in.

And then make sure you use the character. If you run a face make sure you're talking to people! Get out in front of the group. DO some legwork if you campaign has that. If it doesn't maybe its an element you could add in and that the GM would appreciate.

[piiman]

And then make sure you use the character. If you run a face make sure you're talking to people! Get out in front of the group. DO some legwork if you campaign has that. If it doesn't maybe its an element you could add in and that the GM would appreciate.

yeah that is the major problem, as you might as seen i only said 49 in a 10-hour session, barely 5 words an hour

[KurenaiYami]

been talking to my GM, since we have a technomancer, was between a face and a rigger, and i was thinking of a face, but i dont want to be useless in combat so if you have some idea's, all i know is that i dont want to suck at combat, thinking of being sorta face/stealthy guy, maybe with a pistol or something.
If you have any idea's please let me know, cause right now i am sorta useless, cause as soon as battle begins i normally have to run up and at that time the guy is already dead

Oooh! I have an idea on how you could do multiple things! Stop trying to get a dice pool of 19 or higher. It's beyond overkill in every encounter I've put you in thus far, unless you count the House Darius soldier, which was meant to be evil as hell. Matching his dice pool is something you should see as "optional."

I mean, look at Feyd (Casey's character). He has a dice pool of 19 in revolvers. He's a one trick pony, and he downs everything in two hits. The secret that he may never learn is that those seven net hits don't get him a whole lot. If his dice pool were 5 less, he would still be killing all of these foes in 2 hits, and he would have had the build points to diversify a bit.

Just a thought.

[masterofm]

If you tried to make a face and failed why are you making a face again? Go rigger for lords sakes.

I also agree that you don't need 19 dice at something and even 15 is a lot to throw at a problem. 5 hits is basically legendary.... let me run this by you again 5 is basically legendary. You don't need more then that.

Anyways a rigger lets you do multiple things. For instance you can knock down peoples dodge pools with some crappy drones w/ heavy pistols, or fit them with a grenade launcher and lob them at a target. If you are playing 4th ed rules then they are even more beefy (with the cammo and what not.) Get electronics warfare as it's a useful skill that probably not a lot of ppl have. Um.... lets see.... If you play an adept with a high logic with cerebral enhancers and oh... say skill wires r4 then you can be decent at a few things and really good at using your drones. Change the load out of your drones so they are almost impossible to hack (like say... burst transmissions, and IR sensors that force the drone to reboot?)

Riggers can be in the background and if it is his style the more the merrier. You can have some BP's to spread around in other different skills if you want to in the end.

[sunnyside]

Well, the fundamental problem isn't so much with the face, but the fact our friend here isn't so proactive. If he thinks he'd enjoy being proactive as a face I'd guess he should go with that. The key is actually being proactive.

But I wouldn't thumb my nose at a rigger char either.

However it looks like the GM isn't the sort that winds up requiring massive dice pools to be effective (of course the proof is in the playing of course but it's possible that he keeps the guards perception skill low and social/charisma of most people down so their dice pool rarely clear 8.

This means a character could multitask fairly passibly into infiltration and being a face (which work pretty well together!).

Maybe an adept with some enhancements(but not insane ones!) for being a face, infiltrating, and top it off with a pile of combat sense and a great gymnastics(dodging specialized) skill so this char can survive being if they get caught for long enough for others to arrive. There should still be some room for some solid pistoling in there.

Or maybe go the cyber route. But ask you GM if cyberware will make you worse as a face, there are some optional rules in augmentation on that I believe. Cyber does make it easer to do multiple things well since it's "cheaper" BP wise than Adept powers. Also makes it harder for the support mage to boost you!

Also the adept path lets you do some different things, like astrally percieving/assensing, using your nose like a bloodhound etc.

[toturi]

Both of you have to work it out. The guy look like he is putting in effort. Anyone who cares enough to go on a game forum and ask for RP advice deserves some RP karma. Given the information available here, I think he does not appear to be lazy but he does seem to have Incompetency: Roleplaying.

[Malicant]

Abolish Karma-Awards for Roleplaying. It was always a bad idea in every RPG that exists. Nobody really knows how to play your character besides you.

QFT

[Ryu]

The OP is inactive but attentive. While he says few things apparently, he is observing the game. Individual karma is a bad thing. Assume you have multiple active players; they have to give up the spotlight for something AND the reward? A single karma is often 20% more than the others get.



- You can only do the tasks your char is able to handle. Considering your current team, all runs will look like combat missions (If all you have is a hammer...). Try building a combat support character that is actually called on. Social skills (mostly lack thereof) are often handwaived. Try to handle break&entry (tech skills, climbing/swimming, carry tools instead of weapons, have a big backpack for loot). Consider posting your build for comments.

- As the GM, involve the player. Especially if he/she is already listening. Ask about things, enforce interaction with the game world, ask for descriptions. Inactivity of participating players is a fault of both sides.

[ornot]

Seems to me that all concerned could do with sitting down and actually thinking about why their characters are actually running the shadows. Why is a monk doing jobs where he kills for money? There is a 20 questions somewhere, which can give food for thought.

As far as making a new character, rather than focusing on how to get X dice for Y task, try building them organically. If you have a solid background your character will develop quirks and mannerisms on their own.

If you want to get on better with your group try being entertaining in the game. Not off-topic jokes, which are distracting, but no one will hate you for in game comedy. Just don't let it get out of hand.

[Onin the Shade]

They've all been playing P&P RPGs longer than me, so I wouldn't say experience is the factor.

Actually, the OP started playing roughly the same time i got you started in DnD. Also got a lot of his freinds into it too. I am, how you say, the dealer of this drug. but yea, hes never really played any type of RP, and besides me and the palidan (different game, just what we call him) the other doesnt have RP exp. I have some, but most of the games i ever played were hack n slash, so i know how to RP, but havent been able to actually use it yet. I RP better when i type it though, which is odd.

[Moon-Hawk]

"hallowski, I am, how you say, russian guyowitch" (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

In Soviet Russia, Shadows run you!
Now give me RP karma or I'll twist every sentence anyone says into a cheap Yakov Smirnoff gag. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

[sunnyside]

By the way one thing I"m not sure if I stressed enough. The party is doing fine, essentially without you. They've already got two combat oriented characters to get through that. And whether you become a face a rigger or what the party has done fine in this world without social, drone backup, or a ride.

Now it is possible that they've suffered for not having these skills (i.e. if they had a negotiator they'd have gotten paid a lot more and a couple scenes got blown for lack of fast talk), and there's a chance they've gotten stranded without a ride or something.

But I'm guessing as your GM writes adventures the skills they don't have are hand waved or scenes related to them aren't written in. (However if they've continually been hiring NPCs to do something that's an excellent sign you should pick up that skill. Actually displacing the technomancer might not be a bad move but it sounds like that NPC is established).

Now it's possible your GM will start writing in social events the party has to go to or long range missions. I actually tend to do this actually. It makes sense. You're being hired by a fixer/Johnson and part of their job is knowing the right team for the job. So if they lack a rigger or face they'd get passed up for those jobs. If they get one than more jobs open up and the pay, and/or job frequency goes up accordingly.

But it's also really likely they won't.

That means you have to push it. Push it real good. Meaning you make situations for you character to be useful. A GM usually appreciates that Shadorun is a full world. So when a face starts asking contacts about something there's a solid chance something will turn up if you do something. Try to make contacts throught our runs and write them down in a notebook for later reference. Go and talk your way past a guard when the rest of the team would just storm the place.

Don't hog the spotlight. But if you wait for the GM to "give" you a task I think you'll be waiting a loooong time.

[suppenhuhn]

How about your close combat expert dies in the next fight and your teams technomancer is interested in working closer with your group and then is played by you? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[Chibu]

How about your close combat expert dies in the next fight and your teams technomancer is interested in working closer with your group and then is played by you? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

Yeah, we do that all the time. It makes for a story that flows real well. One time we were hunting down these cyber-mutants for some corp who let them escape. There was an NPC (crappy) decker girl who's family got slaughtered and then she accidentally got in the middle of the fight between us and one of these things. The Mutant used her as a club to swat down a roto-drone which then promptly fell on her. on a whim the GM decided to roll to see how bad she died. SOMEHOW she managed to get enough successes to be barely alive. about an hour earlier one of our team had gotten turned into a werewolf and went crazy so I had to shoot his face off (into traffic). So that player decided to play the super-resilient girl as his next character. Since we felt really bad for her and got her to a hospital before finishing our run. Luckily she was able to track our team down before we left for Boston (blowing up the better part of a city block and a small army of hobos makes for the Star on your hoop >_<).

Anyway yeah, if you want to play the technomancer and the GM allows it, i think it works best to play characters like that.

In other news:
You may want to also consider what kind of things your character DOESN'T like. For instance, lots of people don't like whitefish, or Orks, or people who wear Blue dress shirts with Khaki pants, or The color yellow if in any relation to clothing. but yeah, talking more is definitely a good thing. Even if for no other reason than to let people know you're having a good time. My girlfriend is actually the same way. She talks about how she can't wait to play Shadowrun but then just kind of sits there and doesn't say anything. And I always feel bad becuase I think she's bored or that she's hates her character or is having a bad time. So, for your sake and the sake oif your group, just talk more. I know it's tough sometimes, I'm the same way time and again. But at least until you get your character down, just say whatever. DO things. If asked what you're doing until the meet, make something up. Go the a bar and hang out with friends, or to the shadowmall to look at nova-hot new tech. It doesn't matter (well more like it depends on the character) until you know your character. And trust me, even when I write detailed histories and take weeks to make my character, I still can't roleplay him/her worth half a crap for the first few sessions. So, don't get disheartened. Keep trying and you'll get it. Playing in character is a skill just like any other that must be learned. Some people are naturally better at it than other people, just like some people are naturally better at singing than other people. But anyone can learn to sing, they just have to do it alot, same with roleplaying. So, get to it. Most of all, it's more fun when you really can get into your character. I tell stories about my characters like they're things that happened to me. Most of all have fun.

Though, I would also point out to the GM that "quiet" is technically a quality that a PC could have. I know plenty of folk who don't talk much.

Also, when I GM, I don't give out RP karma. Mainly becuase if my girlfriend ever found out I didn't give her any karma for roleplaying well she'd kick my ass (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

And lastly, I very rarely tell people karma out loud. But this works better for my group as half of them are anal about no one seeing their character sheets. One of them rarely shows them to the GM... =\ (Probably becuase he only has a third of the character written down and the rest is in flux >_<)

ok... /me stfu now.

[piiman]

How about your close combat expert dies in the next fight and your teams technomancer is interested in working closer with your group and then is played by you? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

its possible, but alot of that matrix stuff confuses me. i was actually talking to the mage in the group and he said that i shouldnt try to make a face cause i wasnt good at it, so i just might have to or think of something else

[piiman]

How about your close combat expert dies in the next fight and your teams technomancer is interested in working closer with your group and then is played by you? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

its possible, but alot of that matrix stuff confuses me. i was actually talking to the mage in the group and he said that i shouldnt try to make a face cause i wasnt good at it, so i just might have to or think of something else

[piiman]

thinking about it, i might just use my monk cause, we have had about 5 sessions and i have had 4 characters between those sessions, so ill just use my karma to become more face-like cause i dont want my group to think that i have a character for each, now i will have a backup character if he dies. Thankyou all for your help with the RP aspect of this and i hope that it helps me some

[Hatspur]

I thought that last karma point for roleplaying is usually done on a per vote basis for the entire group. Each player votes for one person they thought was either particularly badass, or utterly instrumental to the group's survival. This makes for a very positive atmosphere all around, and I've found the vote is usually unanimous. It also makes the players that didn't win that point try harder next time. And if the whole group contributed to an amazing session I give everyone the point and conduct the vote for an additional point.