Collage Based SR, Little Help Please Options Track this topic Email this topic Print this topic Download this topic Subscribe to this forum Display Modes Switch to: Outline Standard Switch to: Linear+

[Stormdrake]

Am trying to put togather a campaign based around collage students that some how escaped the spawl. I am trying to combine this with information I am getting from the Horror thread with the idea that the characters get recruited to do odd jobs for a professor to start them off. For character creation based around this idea how much and what type of limitations should I place? Any Suggestions?

[Cynic project]

Well, cyberware should be limited.As should guns. But magic could be fully unleashed, as unlike cyberware and guns the ability to be magical is either with you from birth or not.

So you may start off limiting the force of the spells,foci and what not, but it would an act of G0D to say that magical character are baned or limited.

[GrinderTheTroll]

Might consider the using the low-level campaign option in MJLBB as far a chargen goes. Maybe further restrict availability rating on gear/cyberware, etc.

Oh one more point, might even want to consider doing chargen yourself or get an idea of what the players want to play. Not sure how much control you want to give them/yourself.

[Ol' Scratch]

I'd stick with the standard limitations and just let the players know what kind of a campaign to design their characters for.

[RedmondLarry]

As a general rule, College Students have no Street Smarts, no Combat Skills, and low Wisdom. In general, they have no weapons and no damaging spells.

I'm not sure what you mean by 'escaped the sprawl', as the sprawl is what is all around us. Urban and Suburban running right into each other, with decaying infrastructure, high traffic, and low maintenance. Do you intend for them to be students that survived the mean streets of Seattle, with a background of Gangs and Drugs and BTLs and Protection rackets? Such characters are likely to decide internal strife with threats instead of negotiations.

[Crimson Jack]

Have Sallie Mae hire a crack team of runners to track down the college students who have defaulted on their student loans. :D

[Stormdrake]

Ya had it. I am having the characters be those legendary individuals that come from the gang controled streets either through corp. recruitment, hard work or just dumb luck. With this set up they can have street smarts and all the normal contacts but with out the heavy hardware some starting groups seem to gravitate towards. Thats the idea any way. Add to that the Profeser I am going to use as their "Fixer/Mr. Johnson". Who keeps recruiting them to retrieve unuseal items of historical intrest from rival researchers in and around the city and you can see where the horrors will slowly work their way into the game.

[FlakJacket]

Depends of how want to play it. In general though I'd say that money and augmentations would be in inverse proportions to street knowledge and contacts - te ones that grew up somewhere like Touristville and managed to get out and the better off middle class ones that are more likely to cyberware like datajacks or decks and knowledge skills like art appreciation of corp finance.

As for imposing limits, why? If they have the contacts or backstory to go with it then let them have whatever they want. It's just as illegal for normal criminals and they still get the stuff. Just keep it in character is the best advice I can think of.

[Jason Farlander]

[FlakJacket]

Yeah, and really? Not sure where you went to college but that certainly isn't universal.

[Jason Farlander]

I believe we have a case of fuzzy antecedents here. To what is your "that" referring?

[toturi]

I'll allow the normal selection of skills, magic and augmentation. Look at college kids nowadays. Some of them come from gang backgrounds with AKs and shotguns (the gang leader big brother sent his kid bro to college), others have rich families whose parents do not care about them (which leads us back to cyber and the gangs), some of those kids are Boy Scouts who are doing postgrad after Westpoint (weapons and tactics training) or are ROTC. I do not see any need to limit anyone in a college based SR game.

[FlakJacket]

[Kremlin KOA]

Hell many of the college students I know remarked on Sep 11 with comments and plans on how it could have been done better. Including the means to acquire materials and the methodologies and technical diagrams they would require

[Tanka]

OurTeam, no offence, but have you ever looked outside of the frats for college students? Quite a few have street smarts, combat skills, and wisdom. (Not meaning to brag, but I qualify there. A few other kids I know do as well.)

If they came from the Sprawl, most are going to be Pedestrians with a few quirks (extra Attributes here, extra Skills there, mommy and daddy's money all around) thrown in for good measure.

Remember; Sprawl is not always Squatter with minimal "owned things." Sprawl could mean "really, really shitty apartment that has stupid-high rent and extra payments to the Gang of the Month/Week/Day/Hour/Minute/Whatever."

[Arethusa]

[Bigity]

College students in a nutshell:

All talk, and just enough knowledge to be dangerous.

[BitBasher]

[Tanka]

Not always, but most of the time, yes.

[Kremlin KOA]

Bitbasher, frankly every successful long term criminal is an exception to your rule

[Kanada Ten]

[Kremlin KOA]

I'm sure there are more than that, gime a sec

Bill Clinton
Richard Nixo... no ignore him
Josef Stalin
Augustus Ceasar
Lucky Luciano... maybe
Bill Gates
the list just goes on and on

[Kanada Ten]

[RedmondLarry]

[Tanka]

Not incredible by any means, no, but better than your average thug.

No, not in the "I can take ten at a time!" Just in the "one or two is no problem" field.

I, as well as several people I know, know when it's time to back off. We also know when not to even look attackable.

I'm not trying to be all "Ooooh, look at me" here. I'm merely disproving a point that your generalization about college students not having three qualifications of being a Shadowrunner to be false in some cases.