How much personality and character do you put into summoned spirits and elementals? I don't mean free spirits or ally, which generally have an unparalleled level of personable asskicking, but the little dudes the shaman pulls up when he needs to hide, or the mage conjures for that most awesome fireball.

I used to have all sorts of great little dudes, like that Weinerschnitzel guy for a fast food place's hearth spirit, etc.

How about you?

Well, most GM's I've gamed under don't put much personality into elementals, though one player certainly made his elementals 'entertaining'. Things like the 'flaming' fire elemental with a lisp, the earth elemental that talked like Lennie from Of Mice and Men.

Also we've had nature spirits appear in some interesting forms. A city spirit summoned in the sewers of Paris appeared as a talking pile of poop. It was after this I turned to the group and commented "You realize we just summoned Mr Hanky and asked him for directions."

We once had to try and transport a little 5 year old girl who turned out to be captured free spirit that was trying to escape.

I, being a huge fan of spirits and whatnot, alwayse put a great deal of thought and personality into my spirits. Elementals I play as mostly not having a personality at all, but spirits get all the good stuff, especially city-spirits and hearth-spirits.

After all, what could have more personality than a spirit that spends all of it's time around man?

That's like saying "What could have more personality then someone who watches reality teevee all the time?"

If there is any particular attitude predominant in the local area then I'd go so far as to say that it will always be impressed on nature spirits in my game.

Elementals display characteristics associated with the element but have no personality as-such. One spirit is pretty-much the same as the next. Maybe try changing it depending on what part of the element the elemental was created from (salt-water elementals being different from fresh water) but I'd have no idea how to do that.

Oh merde, do we go overboard with these. I remember once I specifically avoided conjuring the hearth spirit from my new apartment until I could live in it for several months. I'd known the previous owner ...

Personally I go the most overboard with watcher spirits. They're one of the few ways I have to defuse the horrible tension of the really dark, gritty, and nasty future the Shadowrun world always turns out to be, and I play them to the hilt - crazy little bastards that manage to misinterpret just about everything in a somewhat comical manner.

My Adversary shaman PC is about to summon his ally. That one ought to be fun to play, as well. I can't wait until it goes free...

I've seen city spirits appear as mail boxes and oil pans from car engines. Their personality and intelligence are usually influenced by a combination of their intelligence and their surroundings. Their materialized form is generally a relfection of their personality.

The force 2 watcher spirit is gonna be the high-end watch dog who's ready to get something done for his boss. It's not quite sure where it is or what the situation might be, and knows even less about the person who summoned it, except that they're incharge for the time being. Given a choice they'd probably rather play and do spirit things that are beyond the general comprehension of metahumanity. Force 4 spirits and up is going to be a little more reserved and sophisticated. They won't volunteer anything without the use of a service on the part of their master, but they recognize the reality of thigns going on around them. Force 6 and higher want to get the job done right as quickly as possible so that they can get back to their plane of existence and continue life as usual.

Lower forces are often like the little yelping dog your nextdoor neighbor owns. Excited and making lots of noise, eager to be paid attention to and generally very entertaining. Often times entertaining enough to distract or confuse team members in important times or accidentally drawing attention unless the summoner makes a point of communicating with the spirit so that it knows how dangerous a situation is. Sometimes it can be hard to make a Force 1 or 2 understand such concepts though, waring on player patience and testing their communication abilities is another part of game play. A puzzle challenge in itself.