Potential "how it actually happened" Chargen - input desired Options

[GloriousRuse]

So, we've all played the game where the former special forces guy teams up with the absurdly powerful anti-establishment mage, the glacier shaving Decker, and the Face who can convince you to change sexualities, twice. And the rules are great at making that team.

Likewise, the Street level characters who are quite capable of outshooting most SWAT teams, and have incidentally just the right dump stats.

Even the best Character Role Players are rarely going to leave any serious action deficiencies, and usually have at least one specialty tweaked to well beyond professional competence.

But what if there was an alternate rule set, one that made the metahuman first, before any character consideration? One where you could see how your typical "fell-in-to the-shadows, didn't dive into it" character might be created.

The goal is not balanced, nor fair, character creation. It is, indeed, the opposite: to present an unfair, unoptimized, un-player balanced chargen where the world of shadowrun is dangerous, and scary. Where, by virtue of being "real" the environment and the players need to be respected and feared, not treated as a handy challenge for tonight's session.

The rules are always update-able, and I am seeking further input into their creation just as a pet project. Specifically skills and resources related to these things.

They do not include societal adjustments yet (for instance, you get the statistical chance of being a mage, without accounting for the vast likelihood corps would pick you up for corporate educating before the street ganger and therefore increase the odds he never considers cirminality), but if anyone has the numbers to run it, it might be interesting.

You'll need a d100 or similar percentile generating function.

Step 1. The basics

Roll Metatype (Seattle pop numbers used from Seattle 2072)
1-66 = Your human. Hooray.
67-79 = An elf, you might say you win the genetic lottery.
80-81 = Dwarf it is.
82-97 = Ork.
98+ = Troll

Roll stats (base + 2.5 used as the mean for a normal distribution with each point being a standard deviation)
Roll each stat using the following. This will give you slightly above average individuals (roughly priority B normally distributed) Downshift 1 level if the racial max is less than 6:
1-3: Base (Human 1)
4-18: Base + 1 (Human 2)
19 - 52: Base + 2 (Human 3)
53 - 84 : Base + 3 (Human 4)
84 - 98 : Base + 4 (Human 5)
99+: Roll Again -
IF 1-98, Base + 5 (Human 6)
IF 99+, Exceptional Attribute (Human 7)

If you want your characters even more pedestrian, her eis the same table centered on 3, which gives roughly priority C stats normally distributed.

Roll stats (base + 2 used as the mean for a normal distribution with each point being a standard deviation)
Roll each stat using the following. Downshift 1 level if the racial max is less than 6:
1-6: Base (Human 1 - this is slightly higher as it accommodates for all the standard devs that would be below base with the new left skew)
7-31: Base + 1 (Human 2)
32-69: Base + 2 (Human 3)
70-94 : Base + 3 (Human 4)
94-98 : Base + 4 (Human 5)
99: Base + 5
00: Roll Again
IF 1-98: Base + 5
IF 99-00: Exceptional Attribute

"Too weak to live" rule: If your attributes total up to less than or equal to (8 * base +1), you may reroll . E.g. a human with a combined total of 16 or less could reroll.

Step 1 complete. You now have whatever the fate's gifted you with.

Step 2. Did you Awaken?
1-97 = Nope. get over it, go to step 3. So, how long before you start to hate those magical haves when your a have not?
98 = Your a techno. Freak.
99-00 = Yes! Well, that was improbable. Roll Again:

1-33: Mage, well aren't you the shit. Roll Again
IF 1-50: True mage
IF 51-00: Aspected magician

34-40 = Mystic Adept.
41+ = Adept

Determine Magic Rating (skewed left normal distribution centered on 2)
1-18: Magic 1
19-52: Magic 2
53-84: Magic 3
84 - 98: Magic 4
99: Roll Again
1-98: Magic 5
99-00: Magic 6

Step 3: What part of society are you from? (Derived from Seattle 2072, in the absence of meaningful stats, I've used education as a baseline for separating low and middle lifestyles. if anyone has accurate number on rough estimates for the SINless, it would help. Criminal SINs are pulled from felonies per thousand)
1-3: SINless, Street. As it implies, you do not have a SIN.
4-15: SINless, Squatter.
16-20: SINless, Low.
21: Criminal SIN, Squatter
22: Criminal SIN, Low
23-34: National SIN, Low.
35-52: National SIN, Low, Corporate Affiliation
53-60: Corporate Limited SIN, Low
61-71: National SIN, Middle
72-85: Corporate Limited SIN, Middle
85-92: Corporate SIN, Middle
93-97: Corporate SIN, High
98: National SIN, High
99-00: Roll Again
1-98: Your choice of SIN, High
99-00: Luxury. Corporate SIN, naturally.



NOTE: Beyond this rudimentary point needs serious work and contribution, because after being born into a silver spoon or appalling poverty, you could start shaping your life..somewhat. right now we are considering skills "packs" and some limited skillpoint expenditures base don background.

[Wulffyre]

This is awesome!

*thumbs up!*

I approve very much. How would you handle skills with that?

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Sadly, you can accomplish all of that without all the effort you put into it. Just create your character with the goal in mind, and you are set. A Number of my characters are exactly what you propose. Schlubs that have been thrust into the Shadows and have to survive.

[Dolanar]

I'd say the best way to handle skills is a skill pack with specified levels, cannot be modded until after creation is done.

[GloriousRuse]

Skills, Resources, and Edge are indeed my current stumbling blocks. I suspect they would have to be tied into your social strata, and maybe have an advancement over time function as well.

Sadly, you can accomplish all of that without all the effort you put into it. Just create your character with the goal in mind, and you are set. A Number of my characters are exactly what you propose. Schlubs that have been thrust into the Shadows and have to survive.

Yes, but isn't it convenient that a team of said schlubs will have a mage, a decker (maybe not..they aren't too popular), a face, and still have enough firepower to handily persevere in what should result in 90% of them dying each time? Even in games that are nominally street/junior/ganger the likelihood of power creep into even the best of intentions is extremely high. And as a result, players do not fear or respect the environment. Why should they? they are, essentially, built for it.

This is about not giving you the choice to make the schlub you want, but deal with the schlub the world gave you.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Yes, but isn't it convenient that a team of said schlubs will have a mage, a decker (maybe not..they aren't too popular), a face, and still have enough firepower to handily persevere in what should result in 90% of them dying each time? Even in games that are nominally street/junior/ganger the likelihood of power creep into even the best of intentions is extremely high. And as a result, players do not fear or respect the environment. Why should they? they are, essentially, built for it.

This is about not giving you the choice to make the schlub you want, but deal with the schlub the world gave you.

Why do you make that assumption? It does not have to be true.
You will get the jobs that your team is capable of. You will not be hired to fail, unless you are. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Dolanar]

Honestly, you are probably playing to a very small audience here, most people play games like shadowrun to create a character of their choosing, not play a character force fed down their throat, however, since you are trying to create a system without choice & option. best bet is to create package deals.

For instance a make package that fits a specific minor niche such as, Focus creation, create a skill package designed for that & only that. give each of these packages a number & make them roll for which package they get, then you let them run with it. for instance a "beginner B&E" package might have a specific set of skills all at rank 1, & then they can't boost it, even if some skills are useless to them in most situations. Resources you can make a chart with several different basic runner specs, cheap, low quality guns, etc low rating gear, & Edge you might as well just leave at the base for each race.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

SR4A had PACKS, which worked well for that, in my opinion. Both Versions. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[FuelDrop]

Check out Chargen in the Traveler RPG. It's a fair model for what you're trying for.

[Critias]

I just whipped a guy together with a handfull of Invisible Castle rolls, and did Edge like a normal attribute roll.

I guess for skills you could base them off the free Knowledge/Language skill formula (only giving the "free" Active skills off Agility + Strength or some other pair of pretty 'active' attributes, instead of Logic + Intuition, of course), and just do a simple 1d6 per skill for starting levels.

Attach starting nuyen to that lifestyle/SIN roll, just by applying a multiplier to the regular "starting nuyen" extra cash you get based on lifestyle?

[thorya]

Tymeaus Jalynsfein are you really contributing anything by just telling people not to play the way they want, just because it's not how you play or make characters? Sometimes it's fun to have a random gen character (or an easy way to make random gen NPC).

For skills, may I suggest that you have use contacts to generate a list of appropriate background careers/skill trainings and then give skills equal to what the contact has (allow some portion to be reassigned). Here is my list using contacts from 4e. When multiple are given, pick the one that fits best.

Janitor, Blue Collar: 1-20
Ganger, drug dealer, petty criminal: 21-24
Bag Boy, courier, delivery truck driver: 25-26
Secretary, Retail, assistant: 27-40
Political Intern, Student: 41-45
Bar Tender, Waitress, Stripper: 46-55
Paramedic, Nurse, EMT, Med Student: 56-58
Taxi Driver: 59
Journalist, Blogger, Data entry: 60-67
Mechanic, Handiman, Skilled Blue Collar: 68-70
Small time politician, lobbyist, marketer, activist: 71-80
Hipster, Artiste, Socialite: 81-85
Street Doctor, Street Healer: 86-87
Club Owner, Slum Lord, Hotel Manager, Small Business Owner: 88-89
Programmer, IT, Cybersecurity: 90-93
Lawyer, Corporate Attorney: 94
Rent-a-cop, Lone Star Patrol, PI: 95
Corporate Scientist, Professor (without a corporate SIN, reroll): 96
Corporate Manager, City Bureaucrat (without a corporate SIN, reroll): 97-98
Corporate Trouble Shooter, Mr. Johnson, High Level executive: 99

Awakened:
Other Career (roll on table above): 1-50
Healer: 51-70
Talismonger: 71-74
Para-security: 75-95
Para-researcher: 96-99

[vladski]

Remember good ol' D&D? That was the point of rolling those six attributes. You never knew exactly what character you were coming up with. Depending on the exact method you used, you had some control, but still you might wind up with Joe Awesome for Everything, or you might wind up with Joe Barely Able in Anything. And you played that character and you took pride in that character when hey, he barely qualified to be a Ranger but I took him to 20 levels!

I completely get what the OP is going for here. But, at the same time, the finite control to build whatever character you can envision is one of the big draws to the SR game system. (And one of the things I really dislike about the new priority system in 5E!) Having an optional system, such as he proposes, is great for a table that wants to run a campaign like that, and I can see the draw. More power to you, GloriousRuse. The challenge of randomness can be exhilarating.

Vlad

[Dolanar]

Vladski there is a difference between randomly genned stats & having to fit a complete concept on a completely random character, the method mentioned means a player walks into the session having no idea of what he's playing until all dice have been rolled & then you have to take the dice rolls & fit a concept around what you've made, you won't even know if you're capable of casting magic until you roll the dice. Personally even with randomly generated stats in D&D I still walked in with concept & classes chosen to fit regardless of my stats.

[RHat]

Notionally, there may be an issue in which the numbers are set up to mirror total base rates, and thus failing to factor for possible/probable over/under-representations in the shadows. For example, I would expect to see a higher proportion of orks in the shadows than the general population.

[Udoshi]

Vladski there is a difference between randomly genned stats & having to fit a complete concept on a completely random character, the method mentioned means a player walks into the session having no idea of what he's playing until all dice have been rolled & then you have to take the dice rolls & fit a concept around what you've made, you won't even know if you're capable of casting magic until you roll the dice. Personally even with randomly generated stats in D&D I still walked in with concept & classes chosen to fit regardless of my stats.

What we actually have here is perhaps more appropriately called Roguelike mode characer creation.

Randomized stats, class, and gear! SIGN me up for a death on floor one!

[toturi]

Yes, but isn't it convenient that a team of said schlubs will have a mage, a decker (maybe not..they aren't too popular), a face, and still have enough firepower to handily persevere in what should result in 90% of them dying each time? Even in games that are nominally street/junior/ganger the likelihood of power creep into even the best of intentions is extremely high. And as a result, players do not fear or respect the environment. Why should they? they are, essentially, built for it.

This is about not giving you the choice to make the schlub you want, but deal with the schlub the world gave you.

Is this meant for a long term game? Or is it meant for a short term/one-shot? If the characters do not have enough firepower (by which I mean in the physical, social, and any other contests that they may encounter) to handily persevere in what should result in 90% of them dying each time? You will get 90% of them dying each time, you are likely to have to generate characters over and over and over again until you reach the team of un-schlubs in which case you could have simply created those un-schlubs in the first place.

If you want to deal with the schlub the world gave you, chances are that the player will not get attached to the character, statistically they are not going to survive pass the first few games.

[Glyph]

Yeah, Shadowrun is an incredibly lethal game, even with characters designed for it. Schlubs thrown into the shadows may "fear and respect the environment", but they will still have to deal with it, meaning a high mortality rate. Caution, tactics, and lateral thinking can only get you so far, even in a game like Shadowrun which encourages those things.

Plus, be prepared for characters of wildly different power levels. Even in games where everyone starts out with the same amount of karma or build points, characters range wildly up and down the power scale. What you are proposing is not like D&D, where you roll random stats but all start out as 1st level characters. This is more like D&D where you randomly roll for character level.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Tymeaus Jalynsfein are you really contributing anything by just telling people not to play the way they want, just because it's not how you play or make characters? Sometimes it's fun to have a random gen character (or an easy way to make random gen NPC).

Indeed I am... I am saying that you can generate such a character, complete with foibles and Schlubness, by having that concept in mind before you start, and then building him/her within the actual character generation system that already exists. No tables or random rolls required. We all KNOW what a Schlub is, so just create one. It is not all that difficult.

And then expect him/her to die within the first game, as most schlubs would. *shrug* It takes great effort to keep such a character alive in Shadowrun, and when you can do it, great. Just don't expect it. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wobble.gif)

[Draco18s]

*Pulls out a d100 for a sample character*
*Rolls 00 on Step 2: Awaken*

Uh...

[Critias]

Indeed I am... I am saying that you can generate such a character, complete with foibles and Schlubness, by having that concept in mind before you start, and then building him/her within the actual character generation system that already exists. No tables or random rolls required. We all KNOW what a Schlub is, so just create one. It is not all that difficult.

And then expect him/her to die within the first game, as most schlubs would. *shrug* It takes great effort to keep such a character alive in Shadowrun, and when you can do it, great. Just don't expect it. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wobble.gif)

Except that no, TJ, you're really not contributing anything. Someone is working on a project for fun, and you're telling them "you don't need to do that, you should have fun my way" over and over again, instead of actually adding anything positive. I think everyone here knows that they can make a character to suit a concept just fine. This is just offering them a way to do so with the clatter of dice, adding some old-school D&D-ness to the process.

[Sendaz]

*Pulls out a d100 for a sample character*
*Rolls 00 on Step 2: Awaken*

Uh...

Think 00 means become Mentor Spirit/Paragon

Draco18s

Draco18s is one of the few Dragon Mentor Spirits seen to date, which is surprising given the amount of subconscious emotions dragons invoke in people and the general know-it-allness that most dragons seem to exude, though Draco18s has shown an almost undragonlike willingness to help others, granted it may require a deal or two, hence his role as Mentor.


(Will let Draco fill this in (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif) )
Advantages:

ALL:
Magician:
Adept:

Disadvantages

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Except that no, TJ, you're really not contributing anything. Someone is working on a project for fun, and you're telling them "you don't need to do that, you should have fun my way" over and over again, instead of actually adding anything positive. I think everyone here knows that they can make a character to suit a concept just fine. This is just offering them a way to do so with the clatter of dice, adding some old-school D&D-ness to the process.

But the method given does not actually do that Critias, as others have already suggested. *shrug*
What the above method actually does is remove any creative input whatsoever from the process, relying completely upon the dice to generate a non-playable entity. Even DnD has creative input and player choice; so no, it is not injecting any old-school DnD-ness at all.

[thorya]

But the method given does not actually do that Critias, as others have already suggested. *shrug*
What the above method actually does is remove any creative input whatsoever from the process, relying completely upon the dice to generate a non-playable entity. Even DnD has creative input and player choice; so no, it is not injecting any old-school DnD-ness at all.

Again, saying that it's wrong because you don't like it, is not contributing. *shrug*

Guess it's just a different way of playing. Must be different than your table. *shrug*

But since there are entire game systems that use this as a basis, there must be people that enjoy this. *shrug* Though, I had forgotten that it's a cardinal sin of Shadowrun to play in a different way than Tymeaus Jalynsfein. I'm glad you're here to remind us that your table is the special one true way to play, *shrug* but do you actually have anything to constructive to suggest in terms of making a random generated character?

[Lantzer]

But the method given does not actually do that Critias, as others have already suggested. *shrug*
What the above method actually does is remove any creative input whatsoever from the process, relying completely upon the dice to generate a non-playable entity. Even DnD has creative input and player choice; so no, it is not injecting any old-school DnD-ness at all.

TJ, what he's trying to do there has been done in other games, to greater or lesser degrees. They sometimes get quite complex (sometimes called Lifepath generation). Now, the best of these systems usually have a few choices you make along the way, but these are usually oriented towards "what direction does this character go professionally with those stats" to generate skill packages and the like.

Once in a Mekton game, a freind was quite amused when he randomly generated a character who could be mistaken for Ranma Saotome: abilities, social situation, and all.

Whether you like these setups is a matter of taste and genre. Sometimes I find them fun, & sometimes they get in the way of fun.

[Sendaz]

The Classic Traveller RPG character generation actually was a lot of fun despite being largely dice rolled with barely any choices to be made along the way.

Most of your skills came from the rolls as well as your career path up thru generation determined the majority of what you knew.

Plus any chargen system that had a fair chance of death before you even get finished making made for interesting moments. Chargen became almost a mini-game in itself.
Though now I hear the Mongoose version has toned it down a bit from death to life-changing events that put the kebosh on the current career, but still it can be fun and does not necessarly provide lifeless cut-outs that the players can not enjoy.

And you still get some creativity as the chargen lays out the broad strokes but you fill in the fine lines.

In one review I saw for it, the write pointed out that events from chargen which happen to coincide suggest linkages with the characters. For example, two players were ejected from the Navy and Army respectively due to military disasters blamed on them by their commanders, which has led us to infer that about 8-12 years before the campaign started there was a big war which both characters were involved in – and in fact it there was an officer further up the chain who framed both of them to cover some little shenanigans he had been pulling on the side and had to hang some bodies to cover his tracks.