Over the years I've noticed that some players view their characters first by function (Decker, Rigger, Sam, Mage, Face, etc) and others view their characters more by their Personality and Characteristics (Angsty School kid, Cowboy, etc.)
Personally I've sort of moved from the former to the latter over time (which has also changed the way I make characters, they've gone from being min-maxed and optimized to being characterized (they have skills that don't really support their function or have lesser equipment because it fit's their personality). Anyone else had similar experiences or observations?

I definitely try to go by personality. It's the only thing that really sets my, say, shaman apart from another one of the same totem.

Part of the problem is that we run Shadowrun pretty tough out here, so characters that aren't really tight builds tend to get shot in the face. It's nice to have a wicked ass character, like Exiled Elven Royalty turned Vampire Hunter, but if the character dies because they're not as tight as generic rigger man, I think that makes the character less interesting.

I generally try to think of their personality first, then put the stats to it.

Sometimes I end up fitting the char in by functionality, as everyone else has an idea of what they are playing, and I don't, so I sometimes fill the gaps.

The most weird recent char change that I have had was creating my elf face. He started not as a face, but a run-of-the-mill "normal" person, a bit withdrawn, very quiet and not wanting to open up to people, as the amnesia he has, he felt was a big barrier.
Then my GM decided the group needed a face, so asked me if I minded, so a little tweak here and there, and he changed. I prefer the way he changed, he's more talkative and less withdrawn, the amnesia is still a barrier, but he talks about it to people, as he wanted to find out who he was.

Then I found out how twisty his background was both IC and OOC...If you wanna know how twisted ask Ophis...

When I started playing I used to max the statistics for the achetipe I was playng. As time and years passed by I evolved, and now i build my characters with their personalities in mind.

Of course that depends on the playing time: If it's a chacacter for playing one or two times, then it's functionality...
If it's a character for roleplaying for an extended period of time, then it's personality...

C) By name.

D) By quirk

How do you introduce yourself to someone you meet?

"I'm $NAME, pleased to meet you. I'm…"

A) "…a [lawyer/doctor/politician/writer/etc.]

B) "…a rebel in a corporate world defying the Man and trying to bring hope to the people"



There's your answer. The ultimate truth is, your character concept is totally irrelevant in conversation. What matters isn't your two-liner concept summary, what matters is how that concept (which should exist internally, mind you) comes out through roleplaying. Since it's somewhat impractical to have a fifteen-minute RP session every time someone asks you what you're playing, that leaves functional descriptions.

Best of all, that's the important part at chargen too. It doesn't matter (well, at the extremes it does) whether you have one angsty character in the party or five, but it matters whether your team is balanced or all-Decker.

Anyway. Recently I've found I've been moving away from the whole idea of playing characters who are mechanically suboptimal for role-playing reasons—but the reason is because I've started to go with more of a "lazy evaluation" philosophy about characterization. Letting the personality grow through the first few sessions is more satisfying to me than enumerating it beforehand. The unfortunate consequence is that I can't determine ahead of time what nitpicky things will fit with the character and what won't, so I go for optimization rather than generality. Sometimes some things I do at chargen don't make sense (my current main character I'd do differently flaw-wise if I had the chance, particularly the phobia), but that's the price I pay—it happened when I enumerated my character's personality too, whenever I changed my mind.

~J

I would include your options C & D in to the "Personality & Description" side of the poll I guess. I was trying to keep it fairly simple, though I was considering including "I like pie" as an option just to test the theory that the strangest answer always gets the most votes.

Yeah sorry- was being a little facetious perhaps. I suppose B, but quite often there is one single quirk that gives me a seed idea, and I build the personality and function on top of that.

I don't want to people to get the wrong idea here. I don't think there is a right or wrong way to build or envivion characters, obviously if you're having fun you're doing something right. I'm just curious how other people build, envision, think about their characters (or if they do at all, I may just be overthinking this a bit). I guess sort of a gamer sociologic interest thing.

I go with functionality normally. who the character is will come out in game play, but if I'm just introducing myself it's good for the other guy to know what it is I actually do on a run, which is easily summed up with "combat shaman" over "ass kicking jesus freak."

That, and when designing a character I usually looks at the rules sside of it first. Step one, decide on general cocnept. Step two, write him up Step three, flesh him out with the whys and wherefors.

Odd, I always categorized functionality as part of personality. After all, when you meet a new person, what's one of the first things you ask? Generally for me it's 'so what do you do?' In fact, I would question the roleplaying skill of any player who understood his PCs 'personality' but gave no focus to his functionality.

d) yes

my characters usually begin life twice--once, when i think of a particularly interesting niche to fill (wallrunning melee asskicker), and again when i think of a particularly interesting set of personality quirks/history (survived the predations of a serial killer who scarified symbols all over the character's skin and even a few internal organs). these two concepts will tumble around in my head for awhile, and then knock into each other and stick (adept whose power is closely linked to the horrible scars covering most of her body, and whose psyche is largely built around the same). the character develops from there.

This is cool, I'm seeing that just about everyone has their own take on this.

The rest of my group doesn't visit so I'll fill in a bit about them. One of them works the stats and numbers to death, and then uses Qualities to define the character, the result has been functionally powerful but socially dysfunctional characters, some have been interesting some annoying, though of our group he probably has the most vivid imagination so once his characters begin life they tend to have very colorful personalities.

Another of of our group definitely does the character persona first, everything they do fits neatly in to their personality and background, his latest, a bookworm troll mystic adept (which I was really skeptical of when it was first described) has really turned out well (he's quiet, smart, polite, just don't make him mad).

One of the on again off again members of our group is a theater arts person, her character is a character more in the sense of a novel or stage character, but she still doesn't entirely understand the mechanics of her character (she needed help with the stats, and gear).

Our other sometimes GM (this is the guy who comes up with horrendous NPC names and aliases) has only one character who took over 100 Karma to evolve a personality, but is now a decidely Paranoid-Delusional Shaman. His wife is playing a bratty teenage dwarf rigger who loves street racing, she seems to have started with a fully developed personality. His wife is new to the game (and gaming in general) but is picking up the rules pretty fast.

My Fiancee (also new to gaming but really enjoying it) is playing a cyber assassin which was loosely based on the Austin Powers Fembots. Her second shot at a character, an elf who works a Doc-Wagon rig and does a little "moon lighting" as a shadow team medic is working out a bit better, but both of these characters resulted from her describing what she was interested in doing and having me fill the character sheet out.

My strategy when joining RPGs is to first ask the GM what role (or roles) he recommends that I fill, then build up a personality around that role by looking at the stereotype of that role and then making a few plausible changes to that stereotype. I think of a trait that I want the character to have, then I think of something from the character's past that would result in her developing that trait. The character will end up like me in certain ways because it's easier to roleplay people who are similar to you, but in other ways her traits will diverge from mine because it wouldn't be practical to make a RP character that's like you in every single way--I've never fired a gun in my life, and I don't really plan to, but because runners have to know their way around firearms, my character does too.

I always create a character with the personality in mind first, and try my best to stat them accordingly. During the statting, I often find that the character will 'tell me' more about themselves as I explore different areas of their lives as part of the statting process. I've found this especially so in SR as it has one of the more detailed character sheets I have to gen, along with a heavily modified by GM version of Rolemaster. And especially so with my latest character, a phys ad gun fu and swords bunny by the name of Alastor, because I've had to gen him myself for the most part, with help from Ophis along the way. Alastor was bouncing around my head for two days wanting me to get him statted and a short story regarding his past written down. It was very weird... when I finally finished his char sheet yesterday, my mind was quiet and stopped thinking about aspects of Alastor's personality.

On the other hand, an Eberron character of mine was pretty much fully fleshed out the moment I decided what race she is and what her primary weapons type was. Boom, and she was there. Interestingly, she started out along very similar lines to my other SR character (who's in Metatron's elf Face's party) in terms of their preferred combat style and race- dual weapons combat bunny. And yet, they're extreme opposites nearly in personality. My SR one is a reserved, somewhat paranoid, quite ice-maiden ruthless assassin from the Tir whereas my Eberron character is, in best terms, a horse-mad ADHD elf who's lethal with a horse's soul possessed double scimitar.

Oh yeah, Metatron's elf Face is a weird one indeed. Very odd, and has managed to pull our party in several, very confusing and conflicting directions. Great fun to play against though.

Concept and basic personality come first. I do look at the balance of the group and to this end usually have at least two to three concepts worked up (this also gives me a backup if the "unfortunate" occurs or the character is waylayed on a mission somewhere)

Granted, most of my characters in the past were built more on concept than raw power. In SR3 many had only 2 d6 of initiative (2 IPs in SR4), but were given other abilities to compensate like Social and Stealth based. skills. The only really maxxed out characters I ran were Gracie the Dwarf Merc (who could stand her ground going lead hose with her Ares Alpha) and Randi Rhodes the Pueblo Fury (all Bio enhanced) who were definitely Maxxed combat monsters.

My latest creation Hurricane Hannah was a bit of a surprise. Basically the concept started as an ex Boxer Adept from the Bayou country. As I continued to work her up in chargen, that was where the personality tweaks occurred. I gave her a mild addiction to Whiskey (as well as an interest knowledge in fine Whiskeys), Interest in Sports Legends, and basic knowledge of organised crime (mainly from them attempting to fix fights which was why she got out of the biz). Her Unarmed Combat is specialised in Boxing, and she has a prizefighter's attitude. She is also a bow hunter which is where her ranged combat skill comes from. Finally, since nobody else had viable transportation, I gave her some driving skill and an old Ford F-350 pickup (with a few dents, faded paint etc). After the first session, (during which she put at least 4 Yakuza down for the count, 1 permanently) I had her personality down fairly well, even to her patent saying "Ya mess wi da 'cane, ya gonna feel da pain."

funcntion for me

fellow player: what are you playing this game?
me: i'm playing a shaman...
fellow player: i'm playing a chain smoking, donut eating, body-builder with a chip on his shoulder, and something to prove.
me: O... K... well lets play

i come up with a concept and build the character according to that, when asked i describe the character by the closest archetype. The rest of the folks will find out soon enough whether he's a rebel without a clue or what ever.

Both.

No, not at the same time. Some characters are best described by their role, others by description, others by personality. It depends on what is the most unique about the character, what the defining parts are.

And, occassionally, some characters are best described by a generic "freak", "freak of nature", "abomination", and so on..

It's not a hard and fast situation -- it depends on the character. Some characters are more involved in their role, their job. Others, the major distinguishing trait is part of the description, and others, it's personality. And sometimes, well, they are just a freak or abomination.

e) Theme song.

My brother ran a game back in '01-'02 where every character, in addition to a sheet and a background, had to have a song that "worked" for him/her. The kind of thing that'd be playing during a montage, or during the credits to the TV show someone made about the character, or when the character first appeared in a movie... you know what I'm talking about.

Within a few days of each other, I'd heard Pepe Deluxe's "Everybody Pass Me By" and Juno Reactor's "Pistolero," and Phil Briggs was born... a CASan redneck ork working as a bike messenger in Seattle, in the process of recovering from a car-meets-bike encounter that'd taken off most of his right leg and all of his left. Big, easygoing, had picked up drumming in the hospital (with synthsticks and headphones) to stave off boredom and depression, which was how he fit into the campaign (about a bunch of people in the SR world who form a band, and what they encounter along the way). Any character that goes out into the alley behind a safehouse with a rifle after some devil rats because he's "gotta great chili recipie y'all gotta try" is bound to be fun to play.

Since then, the easiest way for me to formulate a character is to sit back, turn on some random music, and wait for a character to appear in my imagination. If the right song hits me in the right mood, I get an idea (usually a personality quirk or a character schtick), and run with it. Putting numbers on paper has always been one of the easiest (and last) things I do, since I tend to run with the in-book definitions of what different numbers mean ("How strong is he? Above average but nothing special, so that's a 4..."). Extra points left at the end get fed into things that feel appropriate.

You don't end up with a maxed out character, but it usually ends up reflecting the image you had pretty well. Now I just wish I got more chances to actually play characters, since I've run about 90% of the stuff our group has done in the last 3 years

My current major character was created to the tune of The Breeders' Metal Man.

~J

Personality all the way. When I get to play. Mostly I get to screw over players silly enough to have characters who come from Tir secret services or have amnesia.

My characters are built round a basic concept, somethime this will be role like if I'm in a hurry. My character in The shadows of Manchester Game started as wiccan face type, and has grown from there. The character I hope to play in a PnP at some point is best described as ex teenage hooker turned spy.

First I create the character sheet (usually around some sort of minmaxed trait), then I come up with the personality.

Well, this goes back to the roll-playing > role-playing thread we had a while back.

The "personality" of the character is actually just his or her self image. How the character *thinks* of him or herself.

The "stats" or "build" is actually what the character really *is*.

Let me make a real-world analogy.

You all know of Phil Elmore, yes? Fat paranoid wannabe self defense expert. He has an e-zine at www.themartialist.com. If you asked him what his "background" was he'd give you a freaking 2 page long about all these martial arts he "studied" and and his Objectivist philosophy and all this other stuff the constitutes his personal self image.

Compare this to the account that Richard Ogden gives of himself in his book on the Vietnam War, "Green Knight, Red Mourning". Ogden dosen't spend that much time telling us about his background or telling us exactly what he was trained to do before shipping out to Vietnam. Instead he talks about what he *does* in the war and relates instances in which he did well and instances in which he didn't. He's not thinking in terms of what he *is*, but rather relates the story in terms of what he *does*.

(http://www.biblio.com/books/1240992.html)

The way I personally see it what the character *does*, meaning in large part what the statistics make him or her capable of doing, is the only part of the character that is objectively real, since these capabilities are quantified. Anything that you write in the character background exists only as part of that character's self-image and may not really mean anything in the game world.

Just look at it this way: if a fat man with thick glasses and hypochondria goes up to you and tells you all about his life philosophy and how he's so super ready to defend himself you know he's probably a total squirt compared to that quiet PTSDing Vietnam vet in the corner.

Neither one applies to me, because I usually do them both, sequentially. I usually start out with a function - and it's usually more than just "sammie" or "mage". It's more like "elven shaman/face" or "sorcerer with healing spells backed up by mundane medical skills" or "combat-oriented B&E decker".

From there, I start messing around with the stats. Often the general concept changes - maybe the shaman/face becomes more stealth-oriented, or I find that the healer sorcerer can also get a good pistols skill with the build points I have left over. Sometimes I wind up with a different concept than the one I started with.

Then I start working on the background. As I work the background, I wind up going back and making changes to the character, which becomes a bit less min-maxed and more specific. I don't let it get to the point where I forget the character's function, though. This is, after all, a characer created for a game, not a character created for a book. And functionality is part and parcel of the background, given that I am creating a shadowrunner. Two of the questions that need satisfactory answers are "How has this character survived in a dangerous and illegal profession up to now?" and "Why would a group of runners want to work with this character?".

Seriously, the first thing I do for any character is give them a name. Then I worry about everything else.

But on the other hand, a team made up of too much of the same thing can lead to headaches. If everyone has a cool idea for an urchin street thief, there are ways that it can be made to work, but some players may see it as too much niche crowding.

Ophis:

I generally find that occassionally a specific theme song works for a character, and sometimes not. It depends on the character, and whether I've come across a suitable to song for that character. Or whether I can put the two together.
As for the character's name, sometimes it's there straight away, and other times I have to think a bit about it. My new gun-fu and swords adept spent a couple of days without a runner name- I couldn't decide on one. His proper name on the otherhand was there quite early in the process of creating him, and is the name I've been using to refer to him by mainly when discussing him with Ophis. My ex-Ghost character on the other hand, was named almost immediately, and I always think of her by her runner name.

I start almost equally in both camps then draw a moderate line between the two.
Sometimes it would be a quirk function for example, a decker with out a cyber deck because it got destroyed by IC, then the full evolution of a personality and how it deals with the problem in tandem with the skills and stats to remain reletively useful in game terms.
Sometimes it is the reverse, a personality or facet of that I wish to explore adapted to the roleplay oppertunity placed in front of me.
For example I had a SR character I wished to continue to explore the psychology of and when asked to play amber, found that family politics and a corp war was a home from home.
The psychology in question being the reason I had created the character in the first place it carried my interest.
It would seem experience lead to a happy medium between the two styles based on personal prefference.

The theme song idea is really cool. I've only had one character who had a theme song (It was a country song called "Some Girls Do" by Sawyer Brown) It would be fun to try to have a theme song for every character.

When I build a character, I try to build people rather than simply an archetype. However, most people aren't terribly well-rounded. We're good a few things, mediocre at a few more, and generally incompetent at a whole lot of things (defaulting), and the people who really excel at something generally are focused on only that one thing. We don't hear about Bill Gates, the expressionist painter, or Stephen Hawking, the botanist, or Kurt Vonnegut, the ninja. They were pretty focused on business, physics, and writing respectively.

That isn't to say there aren't times where I build a character where the one or two primary active skills are unrelated, but I do try to choose skills that make sense in a dystopic world where life is really really hard. I may know guys with high physics and decorative-knot-tying skills in real life, but I probably wouldn't make a shadworun character with those skills.

One thing I like about Shadowrun is knowledge skills. They provide a great way to spice up a character without putting them at a huge disadvantage in combat. I only think I've seen one example of someone really powergaming knowledge skills (he always took some sort of magic background skill so of course his street-level detective knew what spell someone was under the influence of).

It is hard to say. It is usually both. It seems new players think of the job. "I am a fighter" "I am a rigger." Later when they have had several characters they start to have the personality more because that is how they tell them apart.

When I think "well rounded," I usually am thinking along the lines of "has systemic evidence of having done something besides growing up in a monastary with only an Ares Predator for company."

The things people are "mediocre" at are what make them well rounded, to me. Things in the 1-3 range. In 24 years of *not* running the streets, I've picked up Computer (office work and some CS classes), Automotive Mechanic (working in an auto shop for a year), First Aid (or whatever it's called now... certified as an EMT), Pistols and Longarms (family of shooters and hunters), Stealth (lots of capture the flag), Dodge (LARPing, hey!), the Social group (to some minor extent ), Cooking, Play Trumpet, Play Piano, Ground Vehicle (car), Construction, Spanish and Russian, and a whole slew of other skills somewhere between barely trained and professional levels.

When I get a character dropped in front of me who hasn't got anything outside of "hurt things and/or dodge, oh and Con (+2 Fast talk) in case I have to get by a guard," that whole "gun monastery" thing comes to mind.

It's funny you mention that, I was once in a group with a player who had a character (well not really a character, more a filled out chracater sheet) who 3 months in to the game still had only a street name and whos entire back story was "A collection of stats and attributes that came from the place where characters some from" Later after much teasing it was changed to "grown at Natural Vat foods" Not suprisingly it was a pretty one dimensional min-maxed character. The worst part was that this was one of the longer time players in that particular group.

In fact I tend to refer my characters by their name but in some case when the character is still almost a concept without a good nickname (It's always hard for me to find a nick that I like) I refer to it by it's main aspect sometimes mixing function and personality (technophile razorguy). Generally I tend to refer to them with something short then function is better than personality. Anyway this is how I refer to my characters (old or recent) :

Cyann : she's a "Black panther zoomorph"

Max "La Menace" : my "terrorist" (because initially the concept was a mad terrorist even if finally he wasn't) or "explosive expert"

Swift : she's an "elven urban brawler"

Gaya : she's an "economic war agent"

Nacht : she's an "ork activist"

Jia : she's a "korean technophile girl" or a "former SWAT" or even a "MMORPG addicted" or "she-who is NOT the magical support". (but anyway I always say "Jia" for her, her concept is too rich...)

Morty : he is a "tourist"

Vonsh : he is a "mercs". Among other players he is also known as "the ukrainian" (but it's not clear if he is actually the ukrainian or not)

- Daegann -

I am never comfortable thinking of a name. The name on my character is always an afterthought and usually an uncomfortable one at that.

Unless I am making up a blatant joke name like "Dirk Thunderbarrel" or something like that I am never, ever truly comfortable with my choice of character name.

Some people have been saying that most people have a lot of general skills but aren't specialized in one thing, i.e. they have general life experiences but didn't grow up in a monastarey with a Predator.

If you wanted to be t3h r34l then that would be correct. But over-specialization is part of how the SR3 skill system is set up. They decided to make rifles, shotguns, and SMGs totally different skills which probably isn't appropriate. Then they made it so that going by the priorities system you probably couldn't afford to put a 5 in each category of firearm (pistol, SMG, rifle, shotgun, assault rifle) and so you end up in a situation where no one managed to join the Army and come out with "professional" level of skill in just plain long arms.

So, yeah, realistically the way that skills work is kind of borked. But I think that that's intentional.

If "3rd edition revised" ever comes to fruition and it condenses the firearms skills to something like, "long arms", "short arms", and "automatic fire" I think that players would be in more of a position to be able to handle their weapons but still have a lot of other personal interests and skills.

What frustrates me to no end, though, is making up nicknames and handles.

It's an aspect of character creation that, although at times frustrating, I really quite enjoy. For me, a character's name is a huge part of their identity and must reflect who they are. It's for that reason that it's both easy and very difficult. My ex Ghost goes by the name 'Midnight' because she is the one who sulks in the background in her stealth suit then goes in behind for the stab in the back; Nightshade is also a name that would have suited her very well. Alastor was almost named 'Charon' as his runner name but I preferred the references for Alastor and felt it suited the character a lot more. In a rolemaster game, I went through 3 characters in the 2 1/2 years I was in it for. My first was a grey elf called 'Elenya Undomiel', which was a very fitting name as she eventually ascended to her true form; my next was a werecat druid called Nymue (for some reason an Arthurian legend name was what was feeling instinctive to me to go for) and my next was a High Human nightblade assasin called Thorn Raen. If need be I'll spend days pouring over naming websites trying to find the right name for a character, and unless it feeling instinctively right I won't call a character a certain name. I did the same for a lrp character, an Auset and Thoth following Nephilim who I eventually decided to call Sathariel, the reference for which makes it a perfect name for the character.

See, I wouldn't feel comfortable picking names like that because they feel a little grandiose to me.

I mean, imagine that some relative of yours, an uncle let's say, just got back from Iraq or something.

You: Wow, I'm so glad you're safe. Beers are on me. Can you tell us a little bit about the things you did?

Uncle: Well, I spent a lot of time hiding.

You: Yeah, no shame in that. I'd probably chop off a toe or something because I'm so scared.

Uncle: WHAT? DRAFT DODGING LITTLE PUNK! I meant that I would hide so that I could shoot people stealthily.

You: Oh. Gee, I feel so embarrassed by my admission that I made to try and make you feel better.

Uncle: And they called me...NIGHTDEATH!!!!!!

You: You were a cook, weren't you?


Like, I have a hard time choosing a name that isn't a very ordinary name, like "Ted Barker" or something. But the thing with generic names is you always wonder if they're totally natural-sounding or if they're kind of forced or made up sounding. And therein lies the start of my dilemma every time I make a character.

Interestingly enough I evolved in the exact opposite way most people stated. I started off my gaming experience concerned entirely with the personality and not the stats. Three consecutive games later, usually after 2-3 sessions, the gm took me aside and flat out said my character isn't pulling enough of their weight or the other characters think he isn't and this is probably my last session.

Then I became one of those evil munchkins for about a year or so and now I'm just kind of balanced. I like to have a good personality with lots of different qualities so I have plenty of stuff to rp with but I make sure I've got enough raw points to keep me and my team alive when the bullets start flying.

Street names are fun for me. I tend to think that they evolve during a character's career, and that the choice is not always completely the character's - what I mean is, street names are like nicknames. Some people come up with their own nickname, but some people "earn" them.

Examples would be - a stealth expert who calls herself "Jet Black", but all of her teammates start calling her "Smudge", and that's the name that sticks. Or a sorcerer who calls himself "Doc Danger", but teammates shorten it to "Double D", then "Dub D" or sometimes just "Dub". Another example, I forget who gave it, was that character who got bitchslapped out a window by a dragon, and was called "Dragonslayer" afterwards.

Even names that the character chooses can tell things about the character. Maybe a stealth expert calls himself "Shadow" because he figures he will blend in with the hundreds of other people with that street name. Maybe the guy who calls himself "Lord Deathmonger" is actually a poser, a rich kid who got some expensive 'ware, but who will scream like a little girl in his first real firefight. Or maybe the grizzled ork merc is called Gutbuster because it's the name of his favorite mixed drink.

Well, that's the other thing. I don't make PCs who are running the shadows (or for very long) at chargen and for NPCs it's usually kind of demeaning, so I have to abide by the whole earned nickname vs. giving yourself one. Giving yourself a nickname is about as cool as people IRL who did it... like Paulie Shore, er... The Weasal.

Oh, I know. As the GM offer a karma point reward to whoever, using in-game events, can think of the most memorable yet demeaning nick name for another character. Give the guy his karma and have that nick name stick. (I.e. the example of "Dragonslayer".)

HAHAHAHA

Badass.

And what a perfect name it is... 'Clad barely flinched when an assasin called Tetsuo, who was after the team, tried to take him down, but the bullets bounced off him (he'd suceeded really well in a surprise test). Clad then blew a big, nasty hole in Tetsuo. Be bye hitman, who had earlier taken down our rigger/ hacker- whose player had to burn a permanent karma point to survive. But yeah, Ironclad is great.