What SR Players Do, In another life I'm a criminal genius... Options

[nezumi]

I'm an aspiring world dictator, currently a professional corrupter of the youths. I'm still guarding my first brood though, so it may be some time yet before I put my plans in motion.

Seriously, I work for the Federal goverment. Used to do cybersecurity, now I'm doing budgeting (and HATING it). I just got out of school last year with a degree in Computer Science (from one of the top ten schools in the country! Wheeee...)

I too avoid deckers. I think most people who really know computers take some time to warm up to the paradigm of deckers. I've played most all the roles. Mostly I GM, but when I play, it's usually B&E specialist.

Speaking for my wife, she's a full time mom, part time graphic artist and part time student. She's GMing her first game ever (whee!) She seems to go more for the unusual roles, faces, techies, anything where she can interact a lot socially and doesn't have to deal with too many rules.

[U_Fester]

[UpSyndrome]

Finishing my undergrad in anthropology (already graduated in psychology) at Michigan State University. I'm planning on getting my MA and PhD in archaeology and hunting for fossils in Africa.

I tend to play a wide variety of characters, usually whatever the group doesn't already have.

When I GM, my anthropology background comes through, because I focus on a lot of subcultural/cultural elements, showing the players as real a setting as I can make, and one that's different from what they're used to.

-Joe

[Grimtooth]

I'm a midrange (read AS/400 or IBM Iseries) programmer at a mid sized hospital.

I've been playing since college (92 or 93).

I GM and play.

I play mostly magical characters. I've been trying to move away from this lately with "concept" characters.

[Blaze]

I'm a Computer Systems Coordinator trying to go back to the quiet days of cleric-dom. Got a degree in English, still haven't found anything to do with it. Lived across Europe and the Middle East (much to my players' annoyance- they've had campaigns in the UNL and Egypt), speak English and Dutch, learning Japanese, and enjoy anime, computer games and airsoft when I'm not in the pub or cooking something.
For SR I tend to GM mostly, but when I play I tend to go for combat-oriented characters. Current fave is Thorn, my six-foot-six tactless South African ex-army sniper (who also just happens to be a pacifist).

-JH.

[Drain Brain]

I'm an actor (under-apreciated, of course, sniff sniff) whose credits include "Camp Cameo Policeman" in b-grade horror flick "Cradle of Fear" (also, see my dad, Rakshasa, as the bad-guy, Kemper) and various adverts: anyone who remembers the UK advert for Buxton mineral water where the guy runs up a ladder and moons the camera next to Jon McCirrick (the horse-racing guy with the stupid hat and huge sideburns) - that was my arse...

Coming to a TV set near you on January 19th, Sky One, at 8pm: the series "so you think you're safe" will have an episode on keeping fit... I'm the tubby dude running around Tooting Common looking like a total pratt...

When I'm out of real work, however, I pay the bills as a Retail sector Supervisor in a motorparts chain (HELLfords), a Singing and Drama teacher (at about £20/hour, woohoo!) and firearms/general weapons handler for a theatrical properties company owned by my family...

Oh, and for anyone in Kent, UK, I regularly play the pub circuit as part of a musical duo - the Chalybeates - primarily in the Royal Tunbridge Wells area... mostly 50's/60's stuff, if you like the oldies...

[Just Jonny]

I'm an off again, on again college student(psychology major), who lives off a trust fund. I suppose you could call me clergy too, as I'm legally ordained, but I've never really thought of prayer/meditation as any sort of employment so much as something I choose to do.

I usually GM, and when I do I favor subtle metaplot driven games, but when I do play it's almost always a full magician of some sort, because I like pretty much every SR magical tradition for certain things.

[Whizbang]

I'm a history major, minor political science...still trying to pay back the student loans before I go back for a masters in Library Science. Currently working for an inventory service

[Sahandrian]

Currently halfway through my second year as a Computer Science major, losing interest and failing classes. I'm thinking of switching to Business or pure Math. Hobbies include nearly everything RPG-related (Magic, D&D, Shadowrun, World of Darkness, Hero/Champions, and Amtgard come to mind first) and trying to add more geek factor to Charleston, WV. Current plans are to open a gaming store with a friend from Ohio.

And about half of my characters are some flavor of decker. Also include a mage, adept, mercenary, and occasional attempts at oddball characters like uncybered mundanes and things inspired by old video games (including a Mario adept).

[Neon Tiger]

Last year commercial school student, mostly computer stuff(Programming, networks, hardware, multimedia) and some basic economical stuff, too. My future jobs will probably be in the IT sector. At least I hope they will. :/

I tend to play either mages or gunbunnies. I once created a decker(never played with it) and I have played one game with a Rigger(who had a custom-built 6-legged anime-style mech).

Somehow I feel stupid when everyone else here seems to be college/university students...

[Phyrexus]

Ack! Forgot to add I'm an anime nut! :D

[Perssek]

I´m a journalist who lives mostly by doing freelance webdesign and webdeveloping (although I do very little of that. To be true, I kind of suck in programming) in Brazil (also known as Amazonia). I´ve been training Judo since I was 4 (well, I stopped training regularly about 6 years ago), but never, ever did a belt exam after the blue belt. it IS surely useful in competitions (the opponents ALWAYS underestimate that blue-belted guy). Like a real geek, I tend to have a somewhat enciclopedical knowledge over things, trying to learn AT LEAST a little of everything.

I´ve been solely GMing for the last 8 years (mostly GURPS, mind you, but I love SR and Fuzion, not to forget Call of Cthullhu). My current SR players (we´ve been playing toghether for the last 12 years) are all computer technicians, IT consultants, eletronics engineers, the works. Except for my wife (she´s a relutant Sociology student) and one of the players, who is a History graduate (although he majored in the Polytechnical School as a construction technician, and works as a maintenance director in a local 5-star hotel).

[Panzergeist]

I'm a college student at the moment, but I will be attorney general someday. Or maybe intelligence director. As for the rest of my group, a lot of our current and former members are in the navy. We get a lot of turnover because of that.

[Crimson Jack]

I'm an illustrator/graphic designer. I write and draw comics, fantasy, and sci-fi art and have worked for WotC as well as a few independents. I studied film and have worked as an animator. Before I focused on what I really wanted to do, I was studying to become a marine biologist. My hobbies are mainly centered around my artwork. I'm working with a couple of artists on a special graphic novel project that draws upon my love for Shadowrun. Hopefully it will sell.

I am the eternal GM for my group (going on 15 years now I believe). The few times that I do get to play, I play a Ghede houngan, probably because he's a bit underpowered and I like doing the accent and all the roleplaying. <sigh>

[James McMurray]

Software engineer for a government contractor specializing in avionics displays for combat vehicles.

[Grinder]

I'm working as some sort of therapist/teacher for mental handicaped people (i don't know the exact translation for my job Heilerziehungspfleger ;) ) and i'm currently working in a house where 15 people with mental handicaps are living.
I'm planning to study geography (ba), beginning in october this year.

Besides that i'm editor for some metal-related zines (metal-inside, eternity and carnage), hang out at metal/hc-shows and some five or six summer festivals each year. I'm sharing a huge villa with five other people, so there's never some time of boringness or patience here...

In my gmaing group i'm the Earthdawn-GM since the beginning (2,5 years ago). When playing Shadowrun i'm managed to avoid to GM and can play my 40-year human face in our miami-based campaign which turned out really cool.

And i'm writing reviews of rpg-books for a german webzine as well as being contributor for a german Earthdawn-Fanzine in the memory of the ED Journal.

So not much free time, but i like it that way :)

[Birdy]

I have a title in Computer Science, specialising in Process Control systems (The stuff used on nuclear plants and steel mills). Working Software Engineer specialising in data warehouses, real time process systems and data entry/stock trading systems. Too much work, not enough pay. Wholly agreeing to a 48h week - thats 12-20 less than I do on average

Trying hard to quit bad habbits like too much Junkfood and Roleplaying. Quite sucessful on both!

Birdy

[Req]

I'm either a sailor who's forced to do human gene therapy research, or a scientist who can't wait to get back out on the water. I'm leaning very heavily towards the former.

I am always the gm.

[Da9iel]

I'm a failed aero engineer, former airline mechanic, current water treatment plant operator. Oddly enough, while still studying to be an engineer I played a character who was kicked out of college and became a mechanic. Water treatment gets me thinking about shadowrun all the time.

[LordHaHa]

I'm a student at MATC (Milwaukee Area Technical College). Have been there since 2002, although I will be transfering soon. Any events previous to that time are illrelevant at the moment, and any form of comprehensive list of them would take too long. My major is unknown at present, although I am leaning towrads History (and probably getting a minor in some other field). I've been overseas (went to England and breifly France back around '94), on the East Coast (litteraly) and up into Canada once or twice. I've gone as far west as St. Louis, MO and Minden, Nebraska.

I have interests and keep up to date in many areas of knowledge, which helps me in-game. I've got *shelves* of books, ranging from chemistry to martial arts, physics, astronomy, metaphysics, science fiction, history, fantasy, divination, college level textbooks, maths, etc., etc.. I usually don't have problems with Knowledge Skills (regardless of the knowledge in question) due to that. My overriding hobby is gaming (of any type, except competitve gambiling), although I am a US Civil War reenactor (U.S side - my unit, as it were, is the Second Wisconsin Vol. Infantry). I have a secondary interest (although it's close to being my first) in next-gen firearms.

I'm somewhat new to Shadowrun; I picked up SR1 (the softcover) at a resale bookstore two years ago (and for the several years previous to that I played the SNES and Genesis Shadowrun games on a regular basis). I've been collecting sourcebooks (but not the novels; I'm strangely enough not very interested in full blown stories related to the system, unfortunately) since that point, and have been GMing a SR3 game for the past six or eight months.

I've never actually been a player in PnP Shadowrun, but I am attracted to Full Mages (my primary NPC for my campaign is a Mage whose name I ripped from the Genesis SR game named Trent Delisario - my Trent is a nice guy, but he's also ex-Lone Star and still has a friendly attitude towards them - he's sort of a law and order kind of guy, which is a tad strange for someone working in the shadows). Every time I look at the Matrix rules I get a headache, so I do not want to play a decker. Ever.

I still have been getting my head around the rules for the game itself, and in between that I've been making up enough new rules and equipment to make a sourcebook of my own.

LordHaHa

[Trax]

I'm a Bombadier in the Royal Canadian Artillery (Reserves).

[zephir]

I GM, play Volleyball, and in my spare time I study for a master in computer science. Bachelor in physics.

[DeadNeon]

Computer technician by day, musician by night. I usually play merc-type gunbunny characters.

[Enigma]

Haha! First lawyer to post!!

I am a criminal prosecutor. For the US citizens, I work for the equivalent of your District Attorney. For UK or Oz people I work for the DPP. I find there's nothing like my work to put colour and realism into games. Also, I seriously like police officers and in my games 'I killed a police officer' and 'my character's dead' mean the same thing.

Previously I was a defence lawyer but I gave that away right quick (also I was made redundant, being ousted along with four other people in favour of a sofa, but that's another story).

I inevitably get stuck with GMing. When I play I tend towards high-charisma technically adept people, with some time spent playing magical characters. I intend to play as my next character a former prosecutor Face, which may hit a little close to home.

[Foreigner]

I'm a 40-year-old (I'll be 41 on May 30th of this year), unemployed ex-proofreader--I was downsized in August of 2000 (after working for the same employer for 12 years; it was my first full-time job) because of a corporate restructuring, and am currently on disability.

I started playing SR in April 2003 in Sahandrian's Play-By-America-Online-Instant-Messenger campaign, and our game is currently on hiatus. (Not that I'm complaining--far from it--but sometimes being the oldest member of a gaming group is a real pain ; especially when most, or all, of the other players are high-school or college students. :P )

IRL, I am hydrocephalic, epileptic, and have a mild case of cerebral palsy. I'm also rather nearsighted--I have 20/40 vision (uncorrected) in the better of my eyes, and almost no peripheral vision or depth perception. I have been "under the surgeon's knife" more times than I care to remember, mostly for the first condition mentioned above, and have been dependent upon an implanted piece of medical technology--an indwelling intracranial shunt-- to stay alive for most of my life. (Sorry if that's more than some (or all) of you wanted to know, but I was just providing some insight into my choice of character archetypes).

I also collect comic books and like suspense and adventure films, as most of you can probably guess both from my posts and my .sig. :)

As a result, I rather prefer playing characters who aren't dependent upon cyberware or bioware to earn a living--i.e., no riggers or street sams, and only magical augmentation of existing abilities; that's why I like the Adept concept, although the Magician's Way adept is the most attractive as far as I am concerned. After all, even a standard Adept might find himself/herself in a situation in which physical prowess might not be enough to ensure his/her survival, or that of his/her teammates.

--Foreigner