Hello, I'm Loranthis from Korea.
We have very small amount of TRPG gamers.
(WoD has 10 or less troupes in the entire country.)
I want to do Shadowrun with my friends, and a veteran storyteller from WoD will be our GM.

My friends don't know well about cyberpunk.
And I think viewing movies will be the fastest thing to learn the environment of the cyberpunk, monolith corporations, espionage teams.

RoboCop 1, Blade Runner, Total Recall, Terminator 2, Mission Impossible 1
It will be sufficent to learn about the theme of the game?



And I made my character :
It is rules-wise?

He is a bookworm mage from Danaan Family of TirNaNog.





Name : Paul McDonnell
Metatype : Elf

---ATTRIBUTES---

Essence: 5
Edge: 3
Magic: 4


Body: 1
Agility: 4
Reaction: 2
Strength: 1
Charisma: 7
Intuition: 4
Logic: 3
Willpower: 5





---Knowledge Skills---
Soerthiel : Native
English : 3
Arab : 3

Dragons : 1
Magic Theory : 2
TirNaNog Society : 1
Matrix Magician Community :3
Ancient History : 2
Psychology : 2
English Literatures : 1
Northern European Legends : 1
Danaan Family Politics : 1
Illegal Clubs : 1


---Active Skills---
Assensing : 2
Spellcasting : 5
Perception : 2
Counterspelling : 2
Influence Skills : 1


---Qualities---
Mentor Spirit(Adversary) 5BP
Magician 15BP
First Impression 5BP
Blandness 10BP
Low Pain Tolerance -10BP
SINner -5BP
Incompetent(Swimming) -5BP


---Tech Gear---


Commlink : Meta Link
(Using personal copy of the other commlink's program)

Earbud
+ Audio Enhancement (Rating 3)
+ Select Sound Filter (Rating 3)

AR Gloves
Electronic Paper
Micro Camera

MagLock(Rating 6)
+ Anti-Tamper Circuits(Rating 4)
+ Biometric Reader

Micro Directional Microphone
Lightstick
20 Stealth Tags
5 Data Chips

Glasses
+ Flare Compensation
+ Thermographic Vision
+ Vision Enhancement (Rating 3)

White Noise Generator (Rating 6)
Satellite Link





---Equipments---


Lined Coat
+ Chemical Protection (Rating 3)
+ Fire Resistance (Rating 3)
+ Thermal Damping (Rating 3)

Armor Vest
Certified Credstick (Silver)
Survival Kit

Medkit(Rating 6)
+ 2 Medkit Supply

Fake Sin (Rating 6)
+ Fake SpellCasting License (Rating 6)
+ Fake Detective License (Rating 6)

Fake Sin (Rating 6)




---Magical Gears ---

Magical Lodge Materials (Rating 5)
Combat Fetish
Healing Fetish
Power Focus (Rating 2)





---CyberWare---

Commlink(Alphaware) : Renraku Sensei
+ Response Upgrade (5)

+ System (Rating 5)
+ Firewall (Rating 5)

+ Analyze (Rating 5)
+ Biofeedback Filter (Rating 3)
+ Browse (Rating 5)
+ Command (Rating 5)
+ Edit (Rating 3)
+ Scan (Rating 5)
+ Sniffing (Rating 5)
+ Mapsoft (Rating 6)
+ Datasoft (Literatures)
+ Datasoft (Legends)
+ Tutorsoft (Dodge, Rating 3)

HotSim Module
+ BTL PersonaFix
+ Miracle Shooter
+ Virtual Surround Music
+ Virtual Wallspace

CyberEyes (Alphaware, Rating 2)
+ Ocular Drone
+ Vision Magnification
+ Protective Covers

Olfactory Boosters (Alphaware, Rating 3)





---Spells---

Improved Invisibility
Manabolt
Physical Barrier
Healthy Glow
Levitate
Fix
Influence
Orgasm
Detect Individual
Control Thoughts




---Contacts---
Dragon (Loyalty 5 Connection 6)
Danaan Family Mage (Loyalty 2 Connection 3)
Talismonger (Loyalty 1 Connection 2)




---Lifestyle---
High * 1 month



---Vehicles---
GMC Everglade Hovercraft



BP Allocations
Metatype 30
Physical/Mental Attributes 160
Special Attributes 60
Quality 15
Active Skills 54
Spells 30
Foci 2
Gear 30
Contacts 19

Welcome to Dumpshock.

I haven't looked over the character...

For the story, Blade Runner is great, so is Ghost in the Shell (but not so many robot/androids)
Remember that most sources won't incorporate magic, so it will be hard to get a really good feel for Shadowrun. I would add a touch of Star Wars and Vampire Hunter D as well.

Movies like Heat, Usual Suspects and Ronin give some ideas on team dynamics, while Johnny Mnemonic and Blade Runner (as you said) give a glimpse into some possibilities on atmosphere.

Your character is a cripple (STR and BOD 1)

Because of it, you can't actually wear the armor you have selected.

Wearing an armor Jacket would drop your reaction and agility by 3 (and your reaction is only 2).

Also, with a STR 1 your GM will probably have to involve the encumbrance rules (you get penalty for carrying stuff over 10KG X STR ; 10 Kg (22 pound) isn't a whole lot of shadowrunning gear.

Look, either this isn't a combat campaign and you will never get shot at, or you will die.

It's that simple really. You got no reaction, no dodge, no Body, can't carry much armor and don't even have the armor spell. Even if you plan on being the careful type you have too little perception to avoid all pitfalls and too little edge to save you when you run in trouble. And you'll usually act dead last in any given round to top it off.

Seriously, you get in one fight where your team doesn't control 100% of the field and your character is dead. I realize this isn't a combat mage but still, this is Shadowrun. He should be minimally combat worthy.

Oh, and a personal pet-peeve : Incompetence Swimming? With a STR of 1? These flaws are GM discretion but personnally I wouldn't accept it. Come on man, even without this flaw you character can't swim! (STR 1) That's 5 BP for a penalty that would rarely be invoked on a character that would fail such test anyway even without the flaw. This is cheesy, IMO. But it's your GM's call.

---

Your character spent waaaaay too much money on his commlink for someone who can't Hack and doesn't even have the computer skill.

Add: Sneakers, Hardware, Miller's Crossing, Sunset Boulevard and Casablanca to your movie list. And Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex has a very SR4 feel to it in my opinion.

Thanks for the advice!

I know it's already been mentioned, but Sneakers is to me a great example of how a runner team could operate.

I'd also recomend Tekwar, a series of cyberpunk made-for-TV movies (and a 1 season TV series) based on books by William Shatner for a look at the other side of the elicit BTL trade. Wizards is also a very good movie for the magic-and-tech feel. Demolition Man shows how a cyberpunk world can be utopian for some but dystopian for others.

But really, as good as movies can be, Shadowrun has more in common with the classic cyberpunk novels such as the Sprawl Trillogy and urban magic novels such as American Gods.

Wow, I'd go back to the drawing board with this one. I know you're a newbie, but this character is beyond fixing...

Try making a mage with 3s and 4s in all of your stats except magic, which I'd put at 5 or 6. Charisma can also be higher because you're an elf, but I don't see how a bookworm mage would have a charismatic tradition. You're more likely to be a hermetic mage, which uses logic, and is more in line with being a bookworm.

Don't get any cyberware as a mage until you're more experienced. It lowers your magic attribute and is generally undesireable for most awakened characters.

Don't spend so much on your commlink. You're already spread thin with your magic niche and a fancy commlink is useless without the skills to back it up.

Get more of a variety of skills and invest more in them.

Yeah, a normal commlink without a bunch of hacking programs is plenty for a non-hacker. I certainly wouldn't lose a point of Essense (and Magic) for a commlink. The low Attributes have been touched on - seriously, you can get by with a starting Strength of 1, but your Body should be at least 3, and your Reaction should be decent, as well. You should probably either get another negative quality, drop Blandness, or both.

I would lose the dragon contact, both to avoid annoying the GM and to save build points. Your skills are pretty bare-bones. You need summoning at least, and counterspelling could be higher, not to mention dodge would help you survive. Your resources are far too high - you can simulate a bookworm by having a normal commlink and a bunch of relatively inexpensive datasofts. A mage should only have high resources if you are looking to buy and bond lots of foci.

Movies: Blade Runner, Resevoir Dogs, Way of the Gun, Escape from New York, Six String Samurai, Strange Days, Ronin, HEAT, Ghost in the Shell (1, 2, and Stand Alone Complex), Judge Dredd, Virtuosity.

Maybe you could throw Minority report in there too, for some of the technology, but certainly not all of it. And Gattaca has a few, minor shadowrun undertones with DNA catalogues.

That should give a solid grasp of some of the concepts behind Shadowrun.

Neither first impression nor blandness is needed. Save points for skills. Also those should be mutually exclusive. You either impress or are forgotten quickly.

Forget about the cyberware part at character generation. The cost in BP is too high. If you want to go that route, start with an effective magic rating of 4 max., else buying back the lost magic will be too expensive. You´ll need much karma for skills, so that will be an issue (I tend to put much more than 100 pts. in skills, I´d rather skip on attributes and increase those later). Else take magic 5 and loose the power focus.

You should indeed get rid of the dragon unless your GM suggested the contact.

Your stealth tags do nothing so far. How about a few sensors?

The occular drone does not provide LOS for magic in drone mode, only in eye mode.



BTW, SIN avail is reduced to rating*3 per errata, so your golden there.

Cowboy Bebop. Many of the tropes you want. Too cool not to see.

Cast a Deadly Spell

Watch this movie!

Probably the greatest example of "Magic in the Modern world" I have seen. And a good old Detective Movie in the same package.

A must see for the shadowrun fan. In fact I need to go find and buy that movie.

Do´h! I was writing the bit about SIN-ratings based on Lorechasers comment - I had just assumed the usual *4 instead of *3 error had been made. My mistake entirely.

No problem. I'm just a dick, and couldn't let it pass.

Since Johnny Mnemonic is written by William Gibson, it's one of the most cyberpunk movies out there. Well, part of it... it's best just to turn it off when you see a dolphin.

For the purpose of getting a feeling for cyberpunk Johnny Mnemonic is a must-see, or at least about the first 2/3 of it.

(This movie brought me back to Shadowrun after pausing for a few years).