The 'hawk, A useful question for prospective players Options

[Aku]

So, it often comes up in discussions of games, how one player seems to be a little more, or less destructive, or maybe the whole team is different than what the gm is expecting. So, in creating a new play by post game on RPOL.net, I thought it would be good to try to quantify this issue. And so I ask, where do you live, on the mohawk?

Some may find it a useful addition to your recruiting tools. Others may find the definitions at least slightly humorous. Others, may want to have me locked up in an asylum. If you do, please get me a place with wifi.

CODE

<10-----9-----8-----7----6-----5------4-------3------2-----1>


Some definitions:

10=dude, my mohawk is soo pink, 12 year old girls swoon over me!


8=Yea, i've got a mohawk, but it's closer to "light red" then "pink"


5= Whatever color gets the job done


3=I prefer a more practical hair style that doesnt draw so much attention

1=Mohawk? what mohawk? you dont even know what I look like, let alone what my hair style, or color it is.


For those not familar (since everyone's been around SR a while, i'm guessing we all know) the "mohawks" are players that believe the answer to every solution is guns, bullets, and bigger guns. With a few explosions. These are the 10's on the scale above.

Conversely, Trenchcoats are people who believe any run with a fired shot is a failed one. These are the number 1's on the scale above. Obviously these are two VERY different play styles, the sort of average out, for most, around a number 5. So I ask YOU, so I know the type of game you're expecting, where you live, on the 'hawk.

[Stahlseele]

5-10 myself, depending on several factors . .

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

1-3, with a (very) rare 4-8 thrown in for good measure...

[Draco18s]

3ish, generally.
I love a good fire fight, but I've been trying to avoid them lately. Nearly worked on a couple of occasions now (no plan ever survives contact with the GM).

[Blackb1rd]

1-3 generally, I am the typical no bullshit professional, I avoid conflict whenever possible.

[Medicineman]

8 - 3 depends upon the (25+ )Char(s) I'm playing
in Ghostcartell its "Meteor "my Pit Fighter Troll He's an 8
in Gangs in Hong Kong my Twins Yin & Yang are 5, the Campaign itself is 6

He who dances with a red Mohawk
Medicineman

[Fyndhal]

I tend to be pretty solidly in the middle -- I take my cue's from the other players and the GM. I love a good plot heavy Trenchcoat game in which any mistake could be your last, and I love the "Frag 'em all, need more DAKKA!" style games, too.

The most successful games I've been in have been mostly Trenchcoat (say, a 3) with the occasional "comic relief" pink mohawk mission tossed in for a change of pace.

[Dr.Rockso]

It really depends on the character and on the team. I've always found a team without a mohawked maniac gets a little boring. My first character was a definite 10: a cybered up monster of a troll. Dressed like a clown, did a ton of drugs, and thought anything smaller than an lmg or auto-grenade launcher was a pea shooter.

[Rubic]

I'm a 5. I understand that almost any situation can be resolved with sufficient firepower, even shedim. On the other hand, if you can win an arms race with a GM, then he's probably doing it wrong. When there's millions of people with sufficient attachment to the status quo, and a sizable number of them have been negatively affected by your violent actions, then there's going to be corporations and governments with a vested interest in combining resources to have you put down asap, in order to maintain the status quo and to appease their employees and stockholders. That also means there's going to be many runners interested in joining forces with the aforementioned so that THEIR business isn't being threatened further by your actions.

[Whipstitch]

Most of my characters are probably in the 3 to 6 range, occasionally going to an 8 or 9 depending on how pink you think a troll luchador with a former tag team partner as an Enemy is. The big reason I don't like to portray characters as below a 4 or 3 is due to the simple fact that well, drek happens, and it feels weird to me when Mr. Paranoid does something silly and blows their cover somehow. Characters who can openly appreciate that life is messy sometimes feel more real to me than Mr. Ice Cold Pro with the "I'm still alive because I am -that- savvy" background. As such I'd say that most of my characters tend to be 4s; my last Face was the kind of guy who'd grumpily say something like "I thought we agreed not to piss these guys off?" even as he's firing his custom look chrome Warhawk. He wanted to blend in whether it was with gangers or corp suits but well, he was pretty much the team straight man.

[CanRay]

3-8, with one insane all the way to 11, and one that is usually a 3 until he gets pissed off and then we find out the dial actually goes to 12.

[HunterHerne]

Depends. My first character was around a 7 or 8, but the team was fairly pink as well (the Troll medic decided to jump at a gun emplacement, got his arm blown off, and still lived. I "distracted" Lonestar with a grendae to open a passage we weren't going through. It didn't work.).

Guy 2 didn't last long, before going into a year of physical rehab, but I think he might have been a 5.

My Wuxing Troll carried around a duffel bag full of scrap metal, and had a selection of spells designed to interact with said metal. No stealth. No Armour, aside from what he made himself. Almost no social skills. That said, he survived his first mission with flying colours and metal-related ideas. 7.

And my Tech Mage was probably a 3 or 4. He was very good at blending in, did not look like a mage (full, obvious cyber arm, was also a capable, if not extraordinary, hacker), and he managed to work in most circumstances.

[Glyph]

On the 'Hawk scale, I rate about a Hudson. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/cool.gif)

[PoliteMan]

I probably average about a 5.

Most games I'm probably around a 4, which is practical while still allowing some "rule of cool" stuff. However, sometimes things just go to drek and then I like to go 8-9 on the mohawk scale.

If you're going to go mohawk, go all the way. Leave a fragging crater. Taser in the pocket, missiles in the trunk, that sort of thing.

[Squiddy Attack]

The Runt sits at a 1 or 2, with occasional forays into 3 or -maybe- 4. She doesn't care what she looks like because her appearance is irrelevant to her job, and almost nobody should see her anyway. She usually keeps it super-srs and very professional (the campaign was pretty far into the black trenchcoat end of things), but... can't deny her love of things like well-placed explosions. (Thanks, team demoman!)
She -is- a bit of a prankster, but keeps that kind of thing to the right time and place. Usually directed at her unfortunate teammates. Usually directed at a certain unfortunate teammate who's drunk most of the time.


Though I -am- thinking about how to build a character called the Rave Troll...

[Thokk]

Believe it or not I typically make combat characters . . . huge dudes, dudes who can knock the wings off of flies from 100 yards, etc . . .

' ' 'Now what people are surprised by is that I don't jones for the combat. I feel much more comfortable having the ability to be tough but I am all about the scenes between the fights.

[squee_nabob]

Since I play misisons, it varies from 1 to 10 depending on what the author wanted. Some days I'm ramming a building in a van, some days I'm doing the run entirely from the matrix. Most days my mecha gets involved though, so I'll average to 7

[Stahlseele]

3-8, with one insane all the way to 11, and one that is usually a 3 until he gets pissed off and then we find out the dial actually goes to 12.

Moar!
Details!
Nao!

[CanRay]

Moar!
Details!
Nao!

Your German is showing, Stahlseele, that's some mighty bad English. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

Pup the Dog Shaman is 11. If I were to ever write or play him, I'd reach deep, deep down into the darkest, hottest parts of the very core of my being and let the evil part of myself come out to play. One line that runs in my head is, "I've met angrier Orks, but never, ever have I met any Humans that had more hate in them and were unafraid to show it.". "Heisenberg" from Breaking Bad and Spider Jerusalem from Transmetropolitan are two characters that I've based him on.

He's the type of person that, if chained to a chair and is being beaten and cut up for hours, would just look the interrogator in the eye and calmly and quietly tell him that suicide is his last chance at a clean death. _{And. Mean. Every. Word.}

* * *

Jon "Money" Johnson is the 3. He's calm, courteous, has a plan to kill every motherfragger in the room two steps after he's walked into it. Ice Cold, very professional, and ethical beyond a shadow of a doubt. The rarest of the rare for a Mr. Johnson.

That was before his newly pregnant wife's skull splintered right before his eyes and destroyed his face, and a 160-year old steel and brick fireproof building fell on top of him. He's a few blows to the head away from wearing a wolf's skin and carving into all of his enemies with his switchblades and straight razors. Having been converted to the Ásatrú religion by said wife, he's seen Valkyries twice already and *KNOWS* without a shadow of a doubt that he's a member of the Einherjar, for having had the will to fight them off himself despite his own exhaustion and wounds from dying. (The first one he met was Skuld, the second was Gunnr who came for his wife.).

Piss him off enough, and he pulls out some of that old time religion with cybernetic assistance. When angered, he can be a fanatic, can, and will, pull out every weapon, use every favor, hire anyone he can afford... Everything.

And every death just makes him grin all the more, as he sees them in his mind's eye line up behind his wife as they joined Death Guard.

And the switch between the two happens in a wired-up heartbeat. One instant you're dealing with a consummate businessman (Who hires people to shoot other people in the face for money), the next he's holding your hand down in a painful grip and showing just how good he is with that switchblade as it flashes between the spread fingers hitting nothing but the table. Unless, of course, he's been given cause to miss. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/devil.gif)

[Stahlseele]

Veddy Interestink!

[CanRay]

You can find "Money" Johnson in some of my stories (Links in sig.).

The hilarious part that I personally like is that his sister is an actual Nun doing Missionary Work in Africa.

[CanRay]

Veddy Interestink!

I think I might put too much background into my characters...

[HunterHerne]

I think I might put too much background into my characters...

Nah. Makes them interesting. I honestly wouldn't mind GMing a game with many of the character's you've mentioned. They're certainly more interesting then most of my PC characters.

[Warlordtheft]

I run my games at a 3-4 range--though my mentality is a 1 as GM, I restrain myself as at 1 the game gets very hard on newer players (plus gun play does put some excitment into the game.

As to NPC's I've used:
Der Nacht: Norse magician with Loki Mentor Spirit, 3
Gayle:Free water spirit, god of a Dour Tribe in Seattle, and all around Winter sports lover, 5
Bluto:Troll street same in LA in the watery ruins, yeah I'd go with 5.
Mike: Mayor of community in watery ruins, 1


As to my PC's
CD--Chrome Demon: 10, the flashy the better for this Rocken Roll troll (he plays base in a band that he leads).
Zo--Ork ganger in play by post game, I'd say 3. But since he lives in the barrens with the Crush I'd go with a 5.
VRW-- 1, but a by the book lonestar rigger/hacker with asthma is not a usal PC choice or campaign.
Arthur--A former Ares firewatch team member that has a grudge against bug spirits, 1

[CanRay]

Wasn't there a Heavy Metal Spirit of Man mentioned here earlier?

"He"'d turn the knob to 11, for sure!

Nah. Makes them interesting. I honestly wouldn't mind GMing a game with many of the character's you've mentioned. They're certainly more interesting then most of my PC characters.

Yeah, now if only any local GMs actually wanted me. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/frown.gif)