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#1
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Running Target ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 1,353 Joined: 5-June 02 Member No.: 2,840 ![]() |
After seeing "Shaun of the Dead" over the weekend, I thought I had found the inspiration for a personality for a lazy-ass Gator shaman that I created once.
My question for the more experienced members of this board: how do you think a slacker sort of guy would go over in SR? I mean, obviously he's got to fight or do something run-wise, but the laziness has to be there somehow or there's no real character. How should that side come out so as not to cause problems with the rest of the team OOC? Mind you, I'm not currently playing this guy in any campaign currently, I'm just curious. |
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#2
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Moving Target ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 749 Joined: 22-June 02 From: Parts Without Member No.: 2,897 ![]() |
Armed with a high force cricket bat weapons focus, I think this idea just might work....
What makes Shaun such a great character in that film is not that he is a slakcer/jerk, but that he handles every bad situation with a sort of wry, dry humor. I think many runner groups would tolerate a guy who forgets to call for reservations for a dinner date with his girlfriend, provided he has the mojo to support the team in a pinch. ("What do you mean you didn't make a reservation for our meet with the Johnson?") |
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#3
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Great Dragon ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 6,640 Joined: 6-June 04 Member No.: 6,383 ![]() |
Useless characters can always work.
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#4
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Running Target ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 1,102 Joined: 23-March 04 From: The Grizzly Grunion, in a VIP room. Member No.: 6,191 ![]() |
Hell, we have one or two that aren't even TRYING to be useless.
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#5
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Neophyte Runner ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 2,174 Joined: 13-May 04 From: UCAS Member No.: 6,327 ![]() |
plus, and extra body means an extra meat shield for the bullets, or bait for ghouls and hellhounds...
always a use out of a 'useless' character. If worse comes to worse, they die (either by enemy hands or yours) and you can get some nuyen selling their body to organleggers and/or used cyberparts dealers... |
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#6
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Moving Target ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 478 Joined: 18-December 03 From: Louisville, KY Member No.: 5,918 ![]() |
I saw the title of this thread and immediately thought of Jay and Silent Bob as Street Sams.
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#7
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Moving Target ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 349 Joined: 28-January 05 From: Phoenix, Arizona Member No.: 7,030 ![]() |
As well as any straight Chaotic/Nuetral character in DnD. Null interest in any threat unless it is directly affecting him. Null interest in any causes or ideals. Survival of the Fittest, and all that. If you want a character for sheer comic relief, IMHO, write up a Free Spirit. |
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#8
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Running Target ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 1,088 Joined: 8-October 04 From: Dallas, TX Member No.: 6,734 ![]() |
Been there, done that...created a free spirit with innate spell: Hot Potato.
Made the PC on the roof REALLY anxious for a while. |
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#9
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Running Target ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 1,353 Joined: 5-June 02 Member No.: 2,840 ![]() |
So basically, if I tried to play this guy, I'm hosed? Not by enemies, but by my own team?
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#10
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Running Target ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 1,144 Joined: 22-September 04 Member No.: 6,690 ![]() |
Only if you play him a way where you're constantly screwing up the team, and doing outright stupid things. You can use the laziness as a character trait
("Are those the same clothes you were wearing on the last run, three weeks ago?" "Eh, I got rained on a couple of times, they're still good.") and that'll be okay. However, it's when you use that excuse to have the PC do really stupid things (deep in the Aztech compound, watching out for guards... hey, nap time) that is going to make the other characters hate him. I've played in games where people played characters like this. The player had a great time with it. The problem was, what the player did to amuse themself made the gamer miserable for everyone else. |
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#11
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Running Target ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 1,011 Joined: 15-February 05 From: Montréal, QC, Canada Member No.: 7,087 ![]() |
Real slackers can't last on a team. Team don't tolerate people who don't carry their own weight.
But that's not what a Shaun-like runner would be like. If you saw the same movie I did, you'll notice he doesn't shirk from helping his buddy, saving his mom etc. Basically, he's loyal and that's more than many annoying PCs can say. Aside from that, a shaun-like runner should have no plan for the future. He runs, he get payed and then he spends. He should be perpetually broke and invest ungodly amount of money on virtual reality games, season tickets and the like (If you have SSG, just cranking out the confort variable to the max would make the right statement). He should be both mostly unfazed by stressful situation while still being just a bit of a coward who shies away from confrontation. Especially emotional confrontation. For example, an insect spirit will make him scream like a little girl for a moment, but he'll deal with it. But if his girlfriend want to have a serious conversation about their future, he will do his damnedest to avoid it. He should also be a big fan of some sport or hobby. He could be a huge Seahawks fan for example. At least once you should arrange with the GM for an adventure or at least a sequence revolving around this obssession. For example, trying to get back his Superbowl ticket that were lost at the laundr-o-mat and picked up by a member of the Rusted stiletos... And obviously, he should have his pub. His bar. His special place were he goes to relax, were everybody knows him as a good, laid back guy. The place that sooner or later a syndicate is going to put the squeeze on... Finally, he should be lazy, which means he will always look for the most efficient solution that gives the most bang for his buck. If you combine that trait with dry humor and ingeneousity it should result in unorthodox solutions that could even work from time to time. |
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#12
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Moving Target ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 675 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Seattle Member No.: 2,034 ![]() |
I played in an amber (diceless rpg) game one time as a charachter like that. Amber is very strange in that charachter creation is done by auction, with the players bidding for rankings in various areas. One player is the best at combat, another the second best, etc. You get along by roleplaying the situation into the areas where you excel.
Thing is I joined the game a few days after they did the auction, so I could not have any ranked skills. Instead I put almost all my points into the leftover category of "good stuff" which vaguely represented luck, some amount of charisma, etc. So basically I was a ludicrously lucky doofus, and my success relied on my ability to maneuver the situtaion such that the result was up to chance (and chance favored me). It was wierd, but great fun. But, yea it doesnt really fit into a normal shadowrun campaign. The closest you could get would be something like the detective columbo who appears to be useless but isn't, or the kid brother of one of the other runners who's niche could be that he is so seemingly innocuous he can do things others can't. |
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#13
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Freelance Elf ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 7,324 Joined: 30-September 04 From: Texas Member No.: 6,714 ![]() |
Just remember, Shadowrun is (primarily, and typically) a game about professional criminals. Professional criminals aren't likely to accept some slack-assed loser hanging out with them, only "pitching in" at the last minute and still cutting into their overall profit margins and probabilities of survival. Everyone on a normal SR team has a niche to fill, and "loser, but funny loser" isn't something most crack teams of hardened killers are currenly hiring for.
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#14
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Mr. Johnson ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 2,587 Joined: 25-January 05 From: Berkeley, CA Member No.: 7,014 ![]() |
Using the original example, I can see a lazy Gator shaman being an integral part of the team. Mages are supposedly rare (even though you can't swing a dead Awakened Talis Cat without hitting one), and if he's the only person they've got, the runners would have to settle for "good enough for now" in the magic department.
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#15
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Runner ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 3,066 Joined: 5-February 03 Member No.: 4,017 ![]() |
True, but "fall guy who doesn't really know how to track down the other runners and never wears a mask on the job" does have it's place in a group of hardened killers.
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#16
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Running Target ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 1,353 Joined: 5-June 02 Member No.: 2,840 ![]() |
Yeah, I can see how they wouldn't tolerate any serious flaws with a guy that doesn't pull his weight, but like I said, he's a shaman so he's not that useless.
From what I remember of the movie, Shaun was basically thrust into the role of leader rather reluctantly, a normal schmo caught in a weird situation. Maybe I could create this guy along the lines of someone that went into Shadowrunning because that's where the big money is that will allow him to live comfortably (without realizing the fact he'd be risking his life for every nuyen, of course). He's seen enough from the sims and movies to know the basics, but is still rather naive in the ways of the shadows. Also, I'm not sure where the comedic slacker-ness would end and the serious stuff that the team would hate would begin. I mean, I get that I could probably get away with having him show up to a meeting in a non-formal setting wearing the same outfit he wore the previous night when he got puke-drunk, but what about something like sleeping through his alarm the day they meet with the Johnson? Would that be taking it too far? It just seems like so many shadowrunning teams I've heard about are so doom-and-gloom professional, and there's gotta be some comedy somewhere if the game is to be any fun, so why not create a guy like this? |
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#17
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It's for winners ![]() ![]() Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 523 Joined: 8-February 05 From: Wiltshire with da shooty stuff Member No.: 7,067 ![]() |
:D
Only down side is you would have to create a 'Nick Frost' type character to go with him (or not as Nick is quite a cool guy, if anyone out there has seen danger 50,000 volts they will know what i mean!)...... and destroy your vinal collection, may be you could attach C4 to them so they explode on impact? LOL torz x :spin: |
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#18
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Moving Target ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 292 Joined: 24-September 04 Member No.: 6,701 ![]() |
Yes. And there's a reason for this. In the game I'm playing, our GM gloats regularly about running the team through the ringer each week (with an occasional milk-run tossed in now and then, but even those usually end up suspect). We've already had 2 deaths and numerous near-misses (6-7 months RL played). And this is on a team that, for the most part, plays coldly, "gloom-and-doom" professionals. If we tried yucking it up and fooling around, not taking things seriously, the death rate would easily be quadruple this. And based on the comments/jokes/etc from other GMs on this list, our GM is, if anything, on the easy side of the fence. I've seen a majority of GMs here who have all but admit getting perverse pleasures watching entire teams eliminate themselves, tossing in unreasonably powerful opponents (yeah, you know who you are), etc. Ask yourselves: If you want a little light-heartedness in your campaigns, then how does that jibe with the collective desire to ratchet up the threat level to near-nuclear levels? The only way to survive elite-level threats is to act like it; fooling around in a Special-Ops-type world gets your char and your team killed. As for Shawn of the Dead, the threat there, when you look at it coldly, wasn't all that strong. The zombies, while having a dangerous bite, were incredibly slow, poor awareness (the scene where the heroes bluff their way through), and easy to avoid if that was your goal. It was primarily the protagonists absolute ineptitude (which I suppose made it funnier) that turned their into a threatening situation as dire as it got. |
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#19
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Immoral Elf ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 15,247 Joined: 29-March 02 From: Grimy Pete's Bar & Laundromat Member No.: 2,486 ![]() |
Light-heartedness has is place. A character who has a carefree attitude, but can still be effective when push comes to shove is not that far-fetched.
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#20
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Running Target ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 1,353 Joined: 5-June 02 Member No.: 2,840 ![]() |
Exactly. And when you think about it, that's what Shaun was like. Yeah, some of the weapons he used were strange, like the records ("Batman soundtrack?" "Throw it!") but he still beat the crap out of any zombie he ran across. Plus, he was the one that came up with the plan, if I'm not mistaken. I suppose part of the humor would also depend on the group dynamic too, IC and OOC. |
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#21
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Mr. Johnson ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 2,587 Joined: 25-January 05 From: Berkeley, CA Member No.: 7,014 ![]() |
A very bad plan, I might add. :) Fun movie to watch. |
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#22
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Free Spirit ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 3,948 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Bloomington, IN UCAS Member No.: 1,920 ![]() |
Here is an example of a comic relief character. It is from a game that unfortunately fell apart. It was going so well, too. It's kind of long a just a tad edited. [ Spoiler ]
This post has been edited by tisoz: Mar 2 2005, 04:13 AM |
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#23
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Running Target ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 1,144 Joined: 22-September 04 Member No.: 6,690 ![]() |
And the bad assest day of them all was when Seymour was given his offical Shadowrunner name: Meat Shield.
That was awsome. Kudos to Sphynx. |
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#24
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Moving Target ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 942 Joined: 13-May 04 Member No.: 6,323 ![]() |
I'm working right now on a rather lazy character... cat shaman, so it fits. He's running because he doesn't want to spend time on a "real job" and he wants big money fast so he can afford his lifestyle.
With that said, just because he's lazy doesn't mean he's incompetant. He's still a very powerful spellslinger, and while he's got plenty of spells focused on self amusement (entertainment, makeover, fashion), he can still help out a great deal in a fight... though he may complain if anyone gets blood on him. He's also a socialite, so he can help out the team a great deal there too. Basically, you can make a character that's not a traditional professional theif, but he should still be capable of pulling his own weight. JaronK |
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#25
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Target ![]() Group: Members Posts: 34 Joined: 26-January 05 From: charlotte maga sprawl in the confederated american states AKA hell Member No.: 7,018 ![]() |
and for kicks as a GM i would have the run ON Superbowl sunday have him freak out trying to get every thing done before the game or even have him watching the game on the run. |
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