I need some more info from my players about their characters for a large campaign that should soon begin.

As a GM do you have any questions you find give you great insite to the player's character, or as a player are there any questions that GM's have given you (or should have) that would help you better describe your character?

I like to ask my players things like "where were you when ... happened ?

and (...) might be the passing of the comet, the night of rage ,the disaster in chicago, dunkie´s assassination, the crash of 29,etc. Creative players use those things to add more depth to theirs character´s backstory.


I also like to ask "What are your opinions on magic/metahumanity/torture/ppl with too much cyberware/whatever ?"

Will

I like to ask "Sex: with or without socks?" and "Jesus vs Superman: who would win?"

thanks

I just wish i had more contact with offline players who are actually interested in the shadowrun timeline. Some of my players reply with a clueless blank stare to most of my questions. I´ve used to give them 6th World 101 lectures before each session, hoping some of them would end up actually reading the history entries of the manual...

In my opinion, insight comes from knowing the details:

Describe the room where you sleep.

Describe three non-"contact" relationships you have with people.

(If applicable.) What were your first impressions of your teammates.

What is your most prized posession? (Bonus if they describe something not on their "gear" list.)

What's an important lesson you learned as a child?

What's your idea of getting "dressed up?"

If you weren't shadowrunning, you'd be doing... what?

Who are you important to? Why?

What actor would play this character in the movies? Why?

What organizations do you belong to? Or, what organizations would you belong to if you were a legit citizen?

Describe three public places that you would enjoy spending time at.

What advice would you give a noobie runner?

And so on....

Good stuff. I'm running through this list for my characters now.

Here are a couple sets of questions from my site:

Set 1

Set 2

What was the original set of 20 questions?

They appeared at the end of the SR2 char gen section.

the firs one was is your chracter a mineral?

I once got asked "What's his favorite kind of ice cream?"

That was the germ for many a personality trait

1.) Is your character asian?
2.) Is your character a ninja?
3.) Is your charater a midwestern auto worker?
4.) Does your character look like Harrison Ford wearing an overcoat with a gigantic collar?
5.) Does your character whip out a pistol and have this pistol freakishly be more effective than an assault rifle?
6.) When you role play your character will you subject us to bamboo flute music?
7.) And ten minute long Kwai Chang Kaine ancestor flashbacks which are just clumsy deus ex machinas?
8.) Is your character CHUCK NORRIS?
9.) Does your character have a custom SUV that, when a button is pushed on the dash, has the ability to dig itself out from 50 feet of dirt?
10.) Does your character have a custom sports car?
11.) Does it talk?
12.) And have a red light which goes back and forth?
13.) Does your character have permed hair?
14.) Does your character use a leather jacket?
15.) Does your character wear an eyepatch?
16.) And use a suppressed Ingram SMG?
17.) Does your character have a sword?
18.) And is it a katana?
19.) Will your character subject us to bamboo flute music?
20.) Does your character have a partner with which he can take a homoerotic last stand while cherry blossoms fall in the background and scatter all over your manly bloody chests?

What song or songs best describe your character?
Who would win a ninja or a pirate?
Does the character wear sunglasses at night?
Even without any sort of nightvision?
Does it hurt to run into all these lampposts, buildings, ect.?
What type of entertainment does the character like?
Does your character identify themselves with a specific group of people? (Ethnic, racial, or ideological)
Seriously, if you can't see in the dark why don't you take the sunglasses off?
Roshambo good or bad?

Off topic-
Btw, whats with the homoerotic last stand beneath the cherry blossoms? Do I want to know?

It's very samurai; the samurai thought that women were too delicate for sex, so for manly sex, you needed a man. Plus, homoeroticism was pretty much okay in private for the samurai. The cherry blossoms are just the catch-all Japanese symbol for drama and shit.

I remember when I was running the Other Game I made up a set of about forty questions. I can't remember them all, but a few I had -

-Put the 7 deadly sins (plus a few other fun ones like 'giving money to a poor person') in order from best (most goodest) to worst.

-Describe an influential moment in your life OTHER THAN when an enemy tribe raided your village and killed all your family.

-What would make you stop adventuring?

-If you were a hot dog and were trapped on a desert island, would you eat yourself?

-What is your greatest single flaw?

-Which member of the party do you get along best with? Why?

Also I required at least 3 quotes from the character.

Also, they're a sign of demonic activity; I remember reading something from Japanese literature class where a woman who wanted her bandit husband to collect human heads for her enjoyment faded into cherry blossoms.