I'm just curious - what are some of the worst character concepts you've ever heard or seen?

As in ineffectual or as in gross and abusive?

Oh, either on virtue of the one(s) you found more offensive, lol.

...(This one is mine) I will have to admit as much as she was fun to play, it has to be my Cajun Boxing adept Hurricane Hannah. The character was very one sided - Unarmed Combat/Throwing Weapons (Unarmed base DV 8/-3AP with a 14 DP)

The character had no real skills that helped with legwork. Her contacts, while believable for the character concept, were literally no help for providing information when on a run. The only other skills of any measurable worth she had were Driving and Ground Vehicle Mechanic (to keep her 8 year old beater pickup running). So when she was not fighting she was the wheelman (er wheel-woman?) or fixing the truck again.

For the most part, until combat ensued I usually went off & read.

Physad super-decker.

The character concept is bad because, as I quickly discovered, the skills to which Improved Ability can apply are enumerated, and Computers is not one. Such is the fate of new player concepts.

Also many cross-game concepts.

~J

Probably the worst was a shapeshifter magician. I think from memory he wanted to be a Crocodile shapeshifter (slightly cool) but instead went for Killer Whale (stupid).

The especially stupid bit was his combat technique. He was a magician, so he would Shapechange (the spell) into a bird, fly above the target, and then drop the spell and become a killer whale (his natural state as a Killer Whale shapeshifter). Note that this was only employed on land, and usually from about one hundred metres up. The unfortunate target underneath would get a multi-ton killer whale land on them from 100 metres up.

Stupid as this was, the player then whinged for days on end when I said, well, yes the target is very dead but you must now resist 50D damage (half distance fallen, automatically D damage level). The player said that's fine, I will just regenerate the damage no matter what it is. I then pointed out that it's still a deadly wound so he should test for magic loss, thus the whining like a little girl. The character lasted about one game session and lost I think three magic points in that session because he insisted he would keep doing it.

I've also seen a Predator character (alien with the ruthenium polymer suit) being played. First thing on game one he's running around the rooftops jumping between them. I rolled a Perception check for someone to see him. He said, no, you can't, I'm invisible. I suggested that he was still subject to the occasional perception check - not one for every person he passed, but a few here and there. He then complained that I was being unfair because the predator is invisible, so we had to get out the DVD and point out he was nearly invisible but still capable of being seen if you looked hard enough - that's kind of the point of the movie, in some ways. So, about twenty minutes into the character's life he was making up a new one.

@Enigma: Thats the first Killer Whale deserving of the name!

--

The worst on both accounts would be a street sam with (suboptimal due to insufficient rules knowledge) munched reaction under SR3. Everything went into going first. Sheer combat ability suffered because damage restistance was not improved AT ALL.

The char now goes first all the time. The player suffers from an attention deficit and spends as much time on considering options as his char would have (actually good from an RP POV). So all he manages to do - several times - is getting himself into trouble really fast. Like being the only available target for several strong oponents without the capability to withstand damage.

Well, one concept from a friend of mine was made more as a joke, but it was head-smacking nonetheless, a paraplegic prince of some obscure country with my other friend playing his butler.

I twinked out this bio-combat-mage one day, just to try to make the Ultimate Combat Character. I basically succeeded and set him aside. Never played, so harm done, the problem was there WAS no concept other than the build a twinked out guy.

But we've seen far worse before, but not in Shadowrun, usually. Ok, there was my other friend's Adept. He was some old drunk French guy and if you were there you'd realize why he became a laughingstock. The character had some potential...but it, ahh, wasn't played up, to be more specific. But this same friend turned around later and made one of the coolest characters ever, so it was more or less a momentary lapse of reason we all have once in awhile.

Theres been a share of ninjas, stripper ninjas, and the like too.

Buddy of mine met this one guy who, when my friend mentioned Shadowrun, the first thing he said was ''i made a street sam who took out a tank with a katana''. One of them.

Honestly, Im in the boat of thinking that *just about* any concept can be cool...but it's how they are played. Some concepts have a bit less wiggle room, so to speak, than others. Hell, if someone made a great backstory and a great character that happened to wear a longcoat and wield a sword, i'd be just fine with it.

I haven't been new to the game since long before SotA:64, but as it (Edit: where "it" is SotA:64) is an abomination I'll take that as a good thing

~J

When we first started playing, one player had an ork street sammi. We hadn't quite got the concept of how deadlyu the guns were (mainly an AD&D group) and so he decided he didn't nned to spent money on body armor- his high body would work so while most of s gotr at least a lined coat, he was in a cotton T. (and pants) the first fire fight, the wall behind him was discribed as lookingl ike "Jackson Pollock's red period."

Much like Heinlein's "There are no dangerous weapons, only dangerous men," this thread is shaping up to say there are no bad characters, only bad players.

Heinlein clearly never considered the possibility of explosives with a nitrogen triiodide detonator.

~J

Super Professional Uber Badass Ex Special Forces Shadowrunner™ that Never Messes Up® because he's so Uber Professional™.

So...tired...

also been done by me:
Ghede Houngan in SR3 . .
first run for that character . .
we(runner group, never met before) were invited to an burial . . the son of a high ranking mafia guy . .
so, we stand there looking all serious and the mafia guy starts by nodding his head in the direction of the casket . . and says:"That is my son" . . needless to say i FAILED the willpower roll(DISADVAN: A houngan of Ghede must make a Willpower (6) Test to avoid playing a trick in an inappropriate situation.) . . And of course i, as a player, am also one with a quick mouth and slow brain some times(ok, most of the times, that's why i usually just play trolls as they tend to live longer than any other with that kind of hindrance)and i said:"so? who's the mother? an big wooden closet?" Reactions: all around shocked silence, rest of the group stepped away from my character . . needless to say, my character didn't even stay alive long enough to see the beginnings of the negotiations that were to take place between mafia guy and the rest of the group so they could start looking for the person who snuffed his son . .
i am by now banned from playing characters with certain flaws/edges/requirements and general traits *g*

I don't see how "saying something completely idiotic" is the same as "playing a trick."

our GM is lenient when it comes to things like these . . i would not, for example(if i were allowed to play such a character), need to play a PRACTICAL trick . . just to do/say something that is a sure fire way to get into trouble *g*

I once had an idea for a mage who made heavy use of the Agony spell.

~J

not that bad of an idea . . torture without leaving evidence for example . .
or an area effect variant of that one to keep people down . . kinda like:"you move, and THIS will happen to you!" *insert screeching sounds of abominable pain here*

The play on the Heinlein quote wasn't in response to your character; or anyone's character in particular, just that a good player can do okay with a weak build, and a bad player probably isn't going to do that great no matter how twinked the build. (That's not to say good players don't play powerful characters, because we do. I don't buy into the fallacy that a "weak" build is indicative of better roleplaying-- I've known players who weren't great at either.)

Weakest Build Contest:

Open with an Elf Ghoul, 30 points Resources, Full Mage, just enough points of Routers and Ports to bring total Essence below 1, all other money saved (through the division by 10 at the end of chargen), exactly one point into all stats, all other build points used to buy irrelevant knowledge skills.

I'm a Real Roleplayer now!

~J

In Third Edition:

The budding entepreneur (I spend all of my starting resources buying survival knives, then I sell the trauma patches out of them).

The parapalegic bunker rigger/mage who hides in a citymaster or basement lair and sends out drones/spirits to do all the work (SR4, too).

The SURGED catgirl (ex?) pornstar, replacing the lesbian night one stripper/assassin as "favorite female character to be played by male players".



In Fourth Edition:

Mr. Lucky (but only if you use Cain's interpretation of the called shot rules that lets him take down a Citymaster with an Ares Viper).

Bloodzilla (a rules exploit involving summoning blood spirits, if the GM lets players play magical threats).

Agent Smith armies (although that loophole has been closed up, I think).

The possession tradition mage with chanelling and a super high-Force spirit (although it is only broken if you are very lenient on what counts as a service).

The pornomancer (Guilty!! ).

...and a good player can occasionally screw up too. After all we are only (Meta)Human.

I think the cliche of the "good" roleplayer playing a weak character has a kernel of truth to it, in that, when you are making a character, you do sometimes make build decisions that aren't about character power; a few points will be set aside for fluff skills that round out the character. (This was more true of SR1&2, where there were no free knowledge skills, and every point had to come from somewhere.) You take that tendency to its logical though absurd conclusion, and if 2 points in fluff makes you a good roleplayer, then 40 points in fluff must make you grrrrrrrreat!

No idea why I went all Tony the Tiger there at the end.

Yeah, there is a certain degree to which effectiveness may need to be sacrificed to flavour. Arguably that's a flaw in the game, though, which requires you to make functional sacrifices for certain interesting concepts that are not inherently weak—that is, something like the aforementioned mage who uses Agony. It's not that someone going around causing people pain is an inherently weak character, it's a result of the uselessness of the Agony spell itself. There are other tradeoffs like that where it's actually worth it to take them.

~J

Yeah, i mean, ive always been against weak character=better roleplayer, ive met people who played every weakling as a whiny #&%"&! and called it ''role-playing disadvantages''. Ive met people with very successful characters, who were skilled or with good attributes, or both, and had PLENTY of character.

But yeah, i can see where the kernel of truth is. In SR1 and 2, you could have 2 characters...anything, really, samurai, riggers, deckers...with all the same priorities. Character 1 could have all computer/techie skills with a pistols skill on the side for defense. Character two also has his computer/techie skills(say in the case of deckers), but also allocated some of his(rather limited at the time, if you had skills B, thats 30 points and you had to also get Computer Theory in those days and buy ettiquette skills seperate)skills to Musical Instrument: Keyboards, Street AND Musical Ettiquette, and a skill in Unarmed Combat(Capoeria), to show that he also played synth in bar bands and practiced said Capoeria for health and fun, even if he wasn't a front line-fighter.(yes, someone with a good martial arts skill doesn't necessarily have to seek out combat, suprising. )

It doesn't mean Decker A is a crappy character; he could be played with some great personality, but Decker B does stand out a bit, even if he had to sacrifice a few points from his Computer Theory, Electronics, and Computer B/R to do it.

Choosing to give your character flavor and a few 'fluff' skills is not quite the same thing as building in semi-crippling flaws in solely so that you can prove you possess elite roleplaying skills, and then criticizing those that don't choose to do the same.

that's like using a mac and saying that you are better with computers than most people *g*

Had a player once that handed me a sheet with an albino gnome otaku 6 year old with all 1s on physical attributes. Handed it back. Told him he'd die on principle shorly before dying from everything else in the game. His Willpower was somewhere around 8 IIRC.

Is there any particular reason you objected to that build? It's the most logical route to go with Otaku, though the fact that his Willpower was only 8 does make it a candidate for a very, very poor character concept—a regular human Otaku can get to 8 (9 with albinism, 11 with edges) if they all-1 the physical stats.

~J

...yeah had a 12 year old Otaku, pretty much the same, all 1s in the physical & 8s in the mental attributes. She actually survived several sessions (thanks to the sammy I was also running - small group we all played 2 characters each) and managed to attain her first submersion grade. First Echo: Biofeedback Filter (I believe that was the name, been too long since I looked at her sheet) It was the one that allows you to use Willpower instead of body against Black IC attacks.

Kage: Becuase it was a gnome actually. I'd ask him to think more than twice about trying to play a 6 year old, because I let soeoen do it before (albeit an 11 yr old). Gnomes it specifically says tend towards being shamans, very back to nature. I asked him if he could justify or explain the conflict with them generally being very nature oriented, and his character being compeltely the opposite. He couldn't, and didn't even try. This was 3rd edt BTW if it makes any difference on stats.

Basically, the concept was flaky and he had put no thought into the character's background (or in this case justification is a better word IMO). I do stand by the belief that the albino otaku kid is just asking for a little coffin however unless they never ever leave the cave, which makes for a pretty weak character IMO.

That's the tradeoff you make for an Otaku, especially with the all-1s option—they're very powerful in the Matrix, but are forced to rely on others outside of it. It's a big part of what makes the character type interesting in the first place, and not just "decker that costs karma instead of nuyen".

As for justification, while I'm not going to argue that the player made an effective justification (since you say he pretty much didn't make one at all), all you need to justify an Otaku Gnome is "not all metahumans conform to the stereotypes of their metavariant."

~J

Come to think of it, I think I've found the missing Shadowrun racism. I was sorta hoping for it to be in-character, but note how many metavariants are presented as monocultures with defined personality traits.

~J

Even with 15 dice (13 base Willpower plus the two-die bonus for doing it at chargen) you don't quite reach 25% odds (~23.15%, to be more precise).

As for starting with all-1s, that's one point allocated (actually two in the case of Trolls, who need to buy up Quickness above 0), not a final tally of one point.

~J

I'd cackle with glee if someone handed me a character sheet with physical attributes of all 1s, especially if they had a pretentious RP thing going on. Without being hard on them at all as the GM I'd just wait for some random accident or thing to happen in the game which woud incidentally make that character die horribly due to an inability to scale down anything.

It's only slightly less entertaining than watching a 1st edition D&D theif try to squirm through 1st level with only 1 HP because he rolled poorly for hitpoints. "Oops, the module says that characters who fail their dex check will stub their toe here and take...1 point of damage. Guys, you all see Randolf the theif stub his toe...and then his head explodes and he dies. It seems like he was really unlucky and he stubbed his toe precisely on an ancient Chinese martial arts pressure point."