So, why did *your* mage hit the streets? Options

[Wakshaani]

Damn, but Magicians get the best background reasons for Shadowrunning! Much better than the typical, "I wuz born SINless an' I had ta 'Run to feedz muh famblies." (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

Well, you could do one for Deckers, but it'd generally wind up, "Screw the man! Power to the people! INFORMATION WANTS TO BE FREE!!!"

Then again, that changes a lot at the 320 point level, where a lot of Deckers are, "Man, I want a system that ain't made out of discarded Stuffer Shack wrappers and programs that aren't ten years out of date. Is thats o much to ask?"

Technomancers, meanwhile, have a hefty dose of "Well, if they hire me and find out about what I can do, I'm going to get dissected. No thanks!"

Magicians and high-end deckers are as important as Vice Presidents to a corp, and some might be as valuable as a CEO. Trying to figure out why they aren't collecting that fat paycheck is always an issue. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Ascalaphus]

He's actually a researcher at a magical university. However, he's trying to infiltrate the shadow community to discover "Street Magic" and bring it back to academia.

He's got useful contacts in "sun-side society", but on the other hand he's not as hardened as most runners; hasn't ever killed anyone, not used to violence (which he tries to bluff).

[CanRay]

IMHO, background is most important. I usually start out with a character, then stat them out later.

Thank Ghost I'm not alone in that opinion.

'Course, I'm a writer, so that might colour my perceptions a bit.

Well, you could do one for Deckers, but it'd generally wind up, "Screw the man! Power to the people! INFORMATION WANTS TO BE FREE!!!"

While cliche, it's still an accurate idea for Deckers.

[Sengir]

Crime pays...a few thousand Nuyen for a night's work are not a bad rate, and it comes w/o taxes or restrictions on what you spend it for. And you don't even have to wear a suit.

[AStarshipforAnts]

I like to take cliches and then mess with them a little bit. My decker did live in her mother's basement. And by 'mother', I mean the retired-from-shadowrunning troll that picked the decker up off the streets to live with the rest of her adopted street-gang brood. "You old 'nuff ta work. Call dis number an' git setup wit a team. You wanna new comlink? Work for it. An' don't forgit your gun. Uncle Harry didn't take you to the shooting range fer nufink. Now git! My soaps are comin' on,"

[CanRay]

Starship, why am I thinking of Lily from "Fallout: New Vegas" when you talk about her?

"Grandma's got a present for you!" — Lily Bowen

[AStarshipforAnts]

No idea, Canray. I've never played Fallout: New Vegas.

Although, I bet you can imagine the panic that occurred during in-game mothers day.

[CanRay]

Here's Lily!

So, what did you get her for Mother's Day?

[AStarshipforAnts]

That's pretty close, actually. Last year she got a panther cannon. Some of the brood forgot about mothers day and called the decker in a panic. It was a joint gift.

[CanRay]

Aw, you got her a new Devil Rat Gun. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

Now, let's get back on topic before the Mods get too cheesed off. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

[Aether Guy]

Jimmy the troll became a shadow runner due to his grandma, mind you not his rear grandmother just the old dried up troll that appeared in his dreams and head sometimes. Grandma helped to take care of jimmy telling him to brush his teeth to better himself and that if he ever tried to join a corp she would suck out his soul and make a tea cozy out of it. Jimmy for the most part listned, but ever so often he would try and find a nice steady job, but that would made grandma mad as her jimmy was suppose to be out in the rough slugging and slumming it out with the worst of society to prove that he was a troll among trolls. Many think Jimmy is crazy, and so does he most of the time, that is until he needs to fry some thug with flaming mind bullets. So Jimmy runs the shadows to make his grandma happy and to keep her from making him into a tea cozy, the extra money from the runs helps some too.

[AStarshipforAnts]

A legitimate reason to run if I ever heard one, Aether.

[Socinus]

So, in THIS corner, you have a six figure salary, stock options, job security, PHYSICAL security, access to cutting-edge spell formulae, lodge and binding materials, and opportunity for career advancement, plus all the corporate honey you could ask for.

In THAT corner, you have drekky food half-warmed up, a matress that could highlight a medical journal, an itch from a bullet wound that never has healed right, three warrants for your arrest, and your friend on the team offered to set you up with that Ork in the lobby ... pick up the tab and everything!

So what makes it all worth while? Why does your mage keep at it when going corporate is so rewarding.

There are plenty of reasons not to want to have the wageslave lifestyle. Others have posted up some good backstory reasons, most of which include a dark past of some fashion, but it doesnt have to be that complex. A mage could just simply not want to live that kind of life. It is safe, but it's also boring, it's not terribly fulfilling to a lot of people, and they see their lives going differently than that.

I had a mage character who started running because he just got tired of a 9-5-6 job and wanted something a little more engaging.

It doesnt have to be Batman to be interesting (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Whipstitch]

No one would hire a male magician whose first name is "Sue"

In a tangentially related story, my favorite magician (and perhaps character) was a hedge witch trained by his grandmother to keep the tradition going in the absence of a female heir. On the one hand, I was no newbie and he was a possession tradition so he was plenty powerful when I needed him to be and I munchkined out with him in a few ways. On the other hand, I willfully crippled the poor bastard in a few others. For example, I really played up the "exclusive to women" and the use of cobbled together props angles. This included saddling the poor bastard with Cursed 4 and a geas that required him to carry around the menses of another magician in a vial around his neck.* I also limited a couple of spells to touch range so to turn people to goo he'd do things like blow his nose in his palm before smacking his victim on the forehead. So, yeah, he was really powerful, but his magic would routinely backfire in small ways and overall he was just not well-suited to hobnobbing with hermetics.

*A tricky one to replace if you've pissed off your talismonger lately, lemme tell you.

[CanRay]

In a tangentially related story, my favorite magician (and perhaps character) was a hedge witch trained by his grandmother to keep the tradition going in the absence of a female heir. On the one hand, I was no newbie and he was a possession tradition so he was plenty powerful when I needed him to be and I munchkined out with him in a few ways. On the other hand, I willfully crippled the poor bastard in a few others. For example, I really played up the "exclusive to women" and the use of cobbled together props angles. This included saddling the poor bastard with Cursed 4 and a geas that required him to carry around the menses of another magician in a vial around his neck.* I also limited a couple of spells to touch range so to turn people to goo he'd do things like blow his nose in his palm before smacking his victim on the forehead. So, yeah, he was really powerful, but his magic would routinely backfire in small ways and overall he was just not well-suited to hobnobbing with hermetics.

*A bit more inconvenient than people might suspect when you consider that not many magicians will happily turn over something that could be so easily as link materials to another magician. Provided, of course, that you can easily convince them that you really -do- need it and aren't just a total creep.

Too bad you didn't know about Lord Fanny.

[Whipstitch]

Ah, yeah, I never paid much attention to Grant Morrison.

[CanRay]

"My Mage didn't hit the streets, the streets hit my Mage!!!"

[Hagga]

I like to take cliches and then mess with them a little bit. My decker did live in her mother's basement. And by 'mother', I mean the retired-from-shadowrunning troll that picked the decker up off the streets to live with the rest of her adopted street-gang brood. "You old 'nuff ta work. Call dis number an' git setup wit a team. You wanna new comlink? Work for it. An' don't forgit your gun. Uncle Harry didn't take you to the shooting range fer nufink. Now git! My soaps are comin' on,"

Soap operas would be far more awesome if everyone were trollish, armed with panthercannons and had enough bio/cyberware to qualify is a cyberzombie.

[Tiralee]

AStarShipForAnts

IMHO, background is most important. I usually start out with a character, then stat them out later.

God, you sound my better half:)

-Tir

[CanRay]

Soap operas would be far more awesome if everyone were trollish, armed with panther cannons and had enough bio/cyberware to qualify is a cyberzombie.

What, you don't watch: "Trogs of Love", "Love-Lorn Litters", and "As The Shadows Run"?

[Tiralee]

Hmm, better post a few here...


Red: Unexpected and somewhat unwanted child born to Fuchi American Middle Management suits (who collected a decent windfall from Tetragenics Impants: "With our help, your little mistakes won't become a problem"), Lived in Japan/UCAS, orphaned during some aggressive intercorperation juggling, farmed out (Advance Learning Concepts: "Your hope for the future") in a thinly disguised holding-pen/indoctrination centre for corp brats run by a rather unreligious "Holier-than-thou" suspposedly NPR. Luckily, her intense simsense vertigo meant that tranking her down and running sublims through a trode set resulted in more work (in mopping up vomit) then the teaching aides could be bothered with - they let her read and use an isolated system as long as she was able to pass the usual standardized tests.
When she tested out to be a functioning magician, the learning facility sold her ("granted exclusive access to") to an adjunct company (OHR ltd) but she escaped into the Seattle shadows before the exchange could occur. Falling in with a supposed group of Ex-Fuchi wageslave monsterhunters (she had some romance left) she escaped again when she discovered that her worth as a mage was worth a great deal more than the 600 nuyen/head missions these jokers had been organising. Finally 16, she struck out on her own (Happy Birthday to me, drek it) and managed to fall into company with a few types that, oddly, she didn't want to see on fire for the rest of their short lives. 18 months pass, and they've got their own security company happening, her own Spirit familiar and a great deal more options.
As for the shadows, they gave her choices and control over those choices, something that's always driven her.
She's also untrusting, borderline sociopathic, a combat monster, horribly driven, self-educated (glaring holes in her knowledge) and not filled with the milk of human kindness.
[Been in play for, oh, 7 years now?]


Artemis: Ex-model turned shadowrunner after some brutal fellows thought "no" meant "Yes please". Horribly beautiful (the CHA 10 male elf), somewhat dippy, prone to camping out in dangerous situations, thinks the best of people and has ordered, "Diet water, please" at a dive bar after asking for a menu. Although grimy, his fellow shadowrunners haven't done wrong by him once and he craves that trust.
[Fun character, not long for this world if it weren't for the possessed dice that make him see through every falsehood]


And a few other disposables - the majority have either been hurt by corps, discarded by the suits or likewise trampled on the way to the top. The shamen tend also to be loners, kowtowing to the suits really hashes their zen thing, man.

-Tir

[Sephiroth]

Jovan was a kind-hearted academic and a mundane planning on going into a high-end career field - civil law maybe, or a literature teacher or perhaps a physicist. He got his bachelor's degree and went on a trip to Europe, where he became Infected by a psychotic Essence-starved nosferatu who killed most of his family. The experience also forced him to Awaken. He still follows some of his previous principles, but he's not exactly kind-hearted anymore (obviously). Now he runs the shadows both to gain resources and to gain a deeper understanding of the dark underbelly of society in his misguided existentialist crusade to eliminate "those who conspire to manipulate the masses behind the scenes." He avoids the megacorporate jobs because it would make it easier for the people he thinks are out to get him to track him down and kill him, and would also no doubt add exponentially to the list of enemies who are out to get him/read his mind/monitor his information/spy on him/betray him/any other paranoid thing you can think of.

[AStarshipforAnts]

What, you don't watch: "Trogs of Love", "Love-Lorn Litters", and "As The Shadows Run"?

I catch those every week.


Also, what is this..."Milk of Human Kindness"?

[Manunancy]

Also, what is this..."Milk of Human Kindness"?

A literrary figure, meaning the produce (or the best example) of human kindness. Basically a stylish way to say he's a very very nice person.

[TheOOB]

I had a mage awhile back who slept with his bosses daughter, that kinda ruined the 6 figures a year.