I was doing some writing today about characters, did some tutorials on my gaming blog, and the like.

I was thinking of all the different ways of doing character backgrounds. My personal favorite is the bulletpoint method, where you can break down a background to about 8-10 main points so your GM knows where they came from, but isn't overbogged with writing.

But on top of that, i also like to do a longer background; one the GM can read if they want, with some holes in it with things that happened(to give the GM more fodder for personal adventures), and to also help myself get into a character's head. I find i do SO much better with them if i can get into their heads and see what makes them tick. Its like in movies; you can tell when an actor is REALLY into a character, they ARE the character, and you can tell when even a good actor just isn't in the characters head or doesn't care, and the preformance can suffer because of it.

I like my games a good amount of gaming-stuff(roll-playing), and non-rolling stuff as well; sometimes whole sessions were just RPing between everyone and it was grand.

What does it for you guys? Theres been plenty of times ive played characters, but only a few where i really *cared* about them and was able to get into their heads even before the first session started. Im not sure why that is. Sure, some were fun to play and all but they didn't click 100% with me. Like, i couldn't really see myself playing them for more than a few months before getting bored. It happened a few times, even with big storylines and stuff. This is one thing i like about delving into a bigger background, i can usually tell if im going to really care about these guys or if they are better off for a short campaign, couple of modules, or whatnot.

How do you guys do it? Do you find yourselves able to get into any character's head? or do you guys have those special favorites in the past? How do you like to do backgrounds? First person? Descriptive? 20 questions? Never anything longer than bulletpoints? from the PoV of a friend of the character? Dossier-style, which is a little less personal, but nonetheless really cool, especially for a GM to read? Diary-style, like the character writing about their lives over the years? Not every day, but for special things that happened.

Currently im writing a diary-style background of a new character of mine; ill probably post a link to it for critique, if anyone is interested in it. I have some rough bulletpoints already and i think all the numerical parts of the character are done; but after writing out most of the 'diary', im finding that theres a few numbers i'd like to switch around. We are going to be having some heavy gaming fairly soon and i want to really have someone that i can hope to play for a loong, long time without getting a bit bored, like that happens to me alot.

I dunno, figured this might be a fun discussion that doesn't deal with rules arguments.

My characters fall pretty much into two camps: the one-shots and the campaigns.

Now one-shots are pretty much meant for playing in just that format. That's not to say that some one-shots haven't turned out to be LONG term characters. I have a few that I have played for many years. The difference lies in that the one-shots are generally numbers first with blanket statements to explain the numbers. For example, the team needs a hacker and a face, so I make one that fills both rolls. I make a hacker Elf who is decent with people. Then I start justifying the stats I purchased. Well, he's one of those 'cool' computer nerds, maybe he's not a l33t hacker, but he has a way of getting people to work well together and get them to do things his way (Leadership is in the Influence Skill Group afterall). So maybe he was a former team lead system administrator for a smaller company that was bought out by a larger corporation. When it was, they consolidated the admin tasks into the parent company and downsized the Elf's department. So let's see, we've got someone who's better with people (cause he was a Team Lead) than with hacking (cause he was on the good side of the hacking) and has some solid computer skills. He's actually quite an interesting character and I just threw him out while sitting here typing (though faces are ALWAYS easier for me to wing a concept because face's have the most tie-ins as far as I'm concerned)

As for campaign characters, I strive to go to great lengths with my character's background and motivation. As always, you start with a concept. In SR, what is the team missing (for other games, it is so complex I won't even try to get into it)? After that, I start research on the subject (ie medicine for doctors, computer skills for hackers, military conflicts for soldiers, etc)(I am primarily a Vampire player, so this step can take my free time for the better part of a month). I try to flesh out as much as I can with the appropriate character and give them as rich a background, full of hooks for the GM, as I possibly can. I make them tragic more often than not (again, Vampire) and full of intrigue and mystery. I find this makes for a more enjoyable game for me. I also almost never will make a white hat when I take this route. I'm not sure why, but ti seems much easier for me to play the good guy when I haven't put any thought into it. I often times look at these characters as a challenge and try to put them as opposite to me as I am comfortable with (and not the slavering psychopathic opposite, but just a stretch for me as a roleplayer). Due to this investment in time and energy, I try to ensure these characters get a long life out of them and will often ressurect them in a different game later down the line. These are also pretty much NEVER combat oriented characters. I still haven't figured out why. Maybe someday I'll take that on as a challenge. WHo knows what future games will hold.

Well, that's at least how I do it.

Tragedy helps. I try to say away from what they call 'Wangst'' () but i do like a good little bump of tragedy in the background. But it doesn't necessarily lead to the character being a mopey-emo-person.

I don't wear the white hat too often myself(sometimes i have though and i have had alot of fun with it), i prefer the gray hat myself. Ive also had some fun wearing the black hat(though these guys usually don't last as long and are the more one-shot type). Sometimes one-shots can turn into characters you really grow to like though!

This 'diary' im about done writing really helped me with this guy, and im happy to say that this might be a character i can finally stick with for a long, long time.

I like the idea of research too; that's pretty cool and even more in depth than I usually go(though i will research game timelines alot of times so i can work things into their backgrounds). In the Shadowrun world, for example, i like to see how they react to certain happenings; if the character is older when an event happens they will react differently to when they were younger, and so on. (one part of the diary i did was when ''the president got killed!'' The character was 13 when this happened though. I can imagine it almost being like when my parents told me about JFK's assassination.)

My characters come from all sorts of places. I'd say typically it's a little combination of figuring out what a team needs and then figuring out how to make something I have had a notion on previously work in that area.

My latest character is a Mystic adept. Why? Because, I had never played one before. The character was rounded enough to be able to be whatever I wnated to make him. I decided he was the "Shortstop. The guy that fills the holes magically, but as an adept, can get physical. The GM had announced that he wanted a group to be playing "all elves." Oh, oh!

Well, this was nice, because I have a tendency to want to play humans and orcs (sometimes trolls) for some reason. I rarely play elves in SR. (Now in D&D.... whole nother story.) So, I knew I was going to be an elf, that I wanted to be a fairly well-split Mystic adept. Now comes the hard stuff: who am I?

I decided to go a different route than so often occrurs. I wasn't some Special Ops guy or a former cop, or a former corp asssassin. Who was I? I decided that I was a former corp security guard! Yup, I was the lowly grunt that always gets wiped out, except I had survived. I had been a red-shirt It explained a good chunk of my skills, but kept me from having these power contacts and rich back history. Now, what had brought me to the shadows?

I decided that I had been put there by shadowrunners. And corp unconcern for one of it's own. I had been an asset that had been used. I had a criminal SIN, why? Because the corp set me up to take the fall for some dealings it had been doing and it was easy to explain me as an "inside man" when really I was nothing but the wrong shmuck in the wrong place at the wrong time. Your typical VP hires some 'Runners to do some dirtywork inside his own corp for profit and advancement. And I was a tool.

I decided my character was new to the adept and magical stuff, that my talents had manifested when I had nearly died. Maybe they had been there before but upon death's doorstep, my totem, the raven, had showed up to save my ass. And left me with some interesting talents.

So, now I had a handle on who this guy was. He was ticked off. Not quite comfortable in his own skin, what with all this mystic mumbo-jumbo. He had scores to settle... several of them. I decided I would play him a little Mel Gibson ala "Payback." I had managed to escape from a prison hospital where I was recovering. I had spent the last year or so learning my mystic adept spells and powers and fore-most in my mind was an urge to go get the bastards that had put me in the shadows in the first place. I had liked my secure corp life and job well enough and these bastards had taken it from me.

So, I wrote up this whole tale in about 2-3 pages, leaving the specfics a little vague and submitted it to my GM for his approval and to incorporate it into his own world history (He was starting up a new game for these characters.) I asked him to assign me to whatever corp worked for his setting. I made it clear that I didn't know the shadowrunners that had left me for dead other than a couple hazy descriptions and that in my personal time, I would be trying to track these guys down to execute them. I explained that eventually I would be going after the VP as well, once I was "ready."

I let him understand that my experiences had completely hardened me and that I was not adverse to wetwork in most any form save true innocents (like children and such.) I definitely didn't care about killing at all. No, I wasn't a psychotic killing machine, but that begging and pleas wouldn't deter me. My character had already done that for himself to no success. I definitely had no allegiances to anyone. You are born alone and you die alone, chummer. I work as a runner and an assassin because I have to pay my bills while I hunt down this drek.

And that is typically how I design a character. It gave me a motivation for playing. I like to think it gives the GM somethign to work with for story ideas. I tried to take a bit of a cliche' and approach it from a new angle. What about all those grunts that the 'Runners leave for dead? What happens to that guy they framed and left with a sucking chest wound? What if he survives? Shuoldn't all 'Runners be looking over their shoulder? Isn't it the classic tale: "Buffalo Bill, you shot my pa and for that, you are gonna die." And in doing all that tracking and getting good witht the gun, doesn't the wronged son end up becoming much like the very thing he is trying to eliminate?

Vlad

I did a diary once. This again was for a Vampire character. He kept a personal diary from the time he was mortal on up through his time as a Vampire. It was actually quite exspansive. I fully intend to resurrect him in the future, but he's a primary combat character so less my style than others. It was still very neat and a great tool. Really gets you into the characters thoughts and feelings on happenings. It is important to note that it helps to add teh really personal as well as the sweeping world changes. It's one I can really only see using with characters that are likely to keep a diary though.

As for timeline events, all of them matter for sure. My first rule with SR4 is where were you when the Matrix crashed AGAIN. I think that is the defining moment in most of the SR4 universe and considering I don't have runners that are 5 and 6 it applies to pretty much everyone.

Yeah, the Matrix bit was a big deal and i think everyone sort of dealt with it differently. Hell, some deckers that lived may well have their Scorched and Sensitive Neural Structure flaws from here(and if you were jacked in and lived, you probably do have a problem or two with your brain.)

Ive been having fun sorting through the timelines. It's always a great feeling when a character actually comes to life. I wish it happened more often, but i guess because im stuck in so many shorter campaigns it's tough to get to happen. But i try not to let that stop me anyhow.

Another big part of the character design concept is inspiration. I take inspiration from lots of things...from movies to videogames to books to TV. Occationaly i come up with a 110% bonafide original idea, but alot of times, i admit, im influenced sometimes by outside things. Sometimes not one particular thing, but many things(in fact, the one guy im designing wrestles with that whole ''am i becoming one of them'' factor, but stays generally upbeat in everyday life.)

I recall one guy, an old detective i made up i think back in SR2 time, who was heavily influenced by Lennie Briscoe from Law and Order. I loved that character(RIP Jerry Orbach ), and thought a character similar could make it in the Shadowrun world. I admit i don't like ripping off characters, and my fellow had a lot of originality, but I did take some of Briscoe's character points(like playing the 'bad cop' in interrigations and being a generally hard-boiled no-nonsense kind of detective.) Sometimes i find it can be easy to cross a line though from 'being influenced by' and 'ripping a character off''. Im not one of those GMs that comes down hard on a player for doing it though, because i know it's an easy trap to fall into. If i see a character thats a little TOO 'inspired by' i might talk to the player about keeping some aspects but trying some fresh with other aspects. As for physical appearance, i could care less if their character looked completely original, like Max Payne or like Brandon from The Goonies if they are having fun and write out a backstory.

EDIT: I also like to point out how i like to use real-world tie ins. Since SR is set in the future Earth, i like putting tie ins like finding old Iron Maiden CDs or discussing old real movies, comics, games, or TV shows. (I have a friend with a decker nicknamed Icman who loved old Marvel Comic books.) I think it fleshes it out even more, kind of like these people finding stuff that we've done. It adds some realism and breathes more life into the game, IMO.

Okay, quick question here: how evil do you think your GM is?

I generally come up with the general concept first, flesh out stats, skills, gear, all of that. Then do contacts. Once I do contacts I go back and tweak everything to fit better. For instance my current character has an arms dealer contact at loyalty six (childhood friend). I went back, gave him the firearms skill group (at 1), decided to max out his spanish (contact is mexican/american), and gave my character a background knowledge skill for firearms (having friends that talk a lot about guns you're going to learn a few things).

As far as writing a character background, I do that in my head as I write down all his stats. Asking myself where did he get this piece of gear, how did he pick up this skill, how does he know this contact. If I feel like it I'll write everything down and flesh it out some more... but I've found over the years that it's really not needed.

I give my GM a brief rundown on my character and how he knows his contacts, what he was doing with his life before the campaign started, and that's it. Other story elements I'll add as the character grows in the campaign (thinking my current character might have an mother or grandmother he drops a couple grand every month so she can live comfortably).

All that said there's a lot of things I try to avoid during character creation. I don't cap out skills or attributes without a damn good reason (neither of the last two shadow run characters I've played were the best at anything, they had their niche and were good at what they do but not the 'best'). I tend to avoid military and security 'ware without a good reason. I avoid cheesy/cliche' backgrounds (no Hitmanesque characters). The last thing I avoid is personal missions. Sure giving the character an arch-enemy/kidnapped sister/vendetta against whoever sounds great in theory, but in practice shadow run is about the team and the teams objectives. I'll breath life into the character by not killing off all his friends and relatives, by giving him flaws (and by that I don't mean negative qualities), and let the GM do the runs and write the re-occuring villains. If I do want to go the personal mission route I'll keep it simple. If it's something that turns into an entire side plot where everyone at the table aside from the GM and me are bored out of their minds then that's not good for the game. If it's something small like my character's personal mission to take care of his family or pay off his mob debts without getting whacked then that adds life without taking to much time away from everyone else.

Well, cheesy backgrounds i think are within personal preferences. I mean, sometimes a good classic background(at some points) isn't so horrible. It all depends how it's played. And again, what is cheesy exactly? Sometimes some dead friends and family can add great fodder...but also, so can apparently dead friends and family.

personal missions; it depends. They might have their own agenda on the side(i think just about every shadowrunner has their own side agenda, or at least many of them do), but I play by the rule of not dragging the team into it unless they really want to go(and there has been instances ive seen with a very close-knit team where they DID end up helping out.)

I do, again, like to keep it simple at the start; the other stuff comes a little later to help me feel out the character more...and theres been times where it's done i find i still can't get into their heads well. Sometimes this happens in game, too.

And this:



Yeah, i was thinking the same thing. Tread lightly here but it COULD make for some serious crazy stuff.

...OK guess it's time to chime in here. Yeah yeah, eveyrone here knows what a nut I am for a good detailed backstory. When I bring a character into a campaign I don't dump a tome on the poor GM. Rather I email an Excel based dossier which includes the character record sheet, lifestyle info, contacts, and a brief synopsis of my personal copy of the character's backstory. This usually takes care of most questions a GM would have. If he or she wishes more in depth background on one or another facet of the character, I can pull the appropriate excerpt(s) from the master character story.

The most important point is playing the character consistent with her background and aloof of OoC knowledge (I illustrated that a while back with the ferry bombing scenario the Short One was involved in). As a player, I rarely allow for my characters to have "epiphanies" for these almost always become an easy excuse for stepping out of concept. KK is intellectually deficient, she will always be to some extent no matter how much Karma is thrown at her Logic attribute. That is the way the character is. Violet will always be a physical wuss. She may pick up a point of Running just so she can dive for cover a bit quicker, but she will never become an Olympic grade gymnast or sprinter because it isn't in her nature to do so.

As the character progresses in the game, I do maintain a limited form of a diary which is updated after each session she participates in. it is interesting to see how the character grows and develops along the way.

One of the things our group does is allow for a "Mulligan" after the first session. All players are offered a one time opportunity for a rework of their characters. We realise that some things which look good in concept may fail miserably at the gaming table.


...this actually happened when I was running Leela as a PC and was more on the GM's part than mine as he wanted to exploit an element from her background (he would do this with each character in turn). The team of she was with was pretty close knit and during the course of the affair in question, one of the PCs died. Surprisingly, the player of that character actually enjoyed the plot twist and in the end was disappointed to see I was moving to retire her. This indeed was a rare situation.

If you've seen Hitman that's a cheesy background. Actually that movie was about the biggest piece of crap I've seen in a... well ever really. It was bad enough though that I could laugh at it and at least find it entertaining in regards of how terrible it was.

The main character's entire premise rings of cheesy Shadowrun power gamer background and it's those types of backgrounds I try to avoid when I'm writing up my own characters. If it feels cheesy to me then I know somethings wrong somewhere and I rethink the concept, the stats, the skills, the 'ware. But... this is just me, as you said it's personal preference and I thought I took all the preachy shit out of my post >.>. Maybe I missed something.



From my perspective most shadowrunners would be in it for the money and that's gonna be it really. Adding reasons they need the money is great and adds depth. Being a shadowrunner to find your long lost twin sister or get back at the baddie that screwed you over just feels over the top to me and again is something I try to avoid, both because it's a writing cliche' and because to much of a personal agenda tends to send the characters off in separate directions, leaving most of the table bored for long periods of time.

Shared agendas that come about over the course of the campaign however are great and there's certainly nothing wrong with runners helping each other accomplish personal goals... I just try not to write these goals into my character at the start.

I generally like to come up with a concept, then flesh out the character as I fill in the stats. The concept is a key thing for me, because it means the character will be focused. Without a good concept, my characters feel mushy and undefined. And working out the stats as I work on the background, letting them modify each other, is also good, because it's not a freeform creative writing exercise, but an attempt to create a character that will be effective in a game.

I like the "Mulligan" rule that Kyoto Kid's group uses. I will also add that a background should not be too rigid, because once the character is in play, they can turn out dramatically different than how you first envisioned them. And they can change even more dramatically from there.

Well, there are some recurring themes to my characters. I seem to take a subconscious liking to characters who were born into a nice life and decided to abandon it somehow and it ends with them having to run the shadows to make a living. Apart from that, I try to NOT make someone special. Most of the time the characters who seem to have a fairly indifferent background, spiced up with some unique oddities become more alive than the ones "running for a purpose".
My favorite character to this day is on first sight a cliché ex-mercenary type troll. On second sight he's a misogynist, former MET2000, a total prole spending all his money on beer, gambling and elven hookers. His lifelong dream was to once own his own brothel and he used every opportunity to tell some tall tale from his time with the MET (which I usually made up on the spot). Nothing of that is truly special, but he was awesome fun to play.
I liked him so much, I made him into an NPC when we transitioned to SR4. He's now the owner of Greater-Frankfurt's most exclusive tabledance bar and brothel, while running shadow business on the side.

But enough nostalgia. There's two ways in which I develop a character background: Either, I get an interesting character concept idea, for example "cross-dressing troll Emo". Or I come across some interesting backstory elements.
It's really just a question of top-down or bottom-up from there on. Either I got the concept and start piecing together how such a character might have developed and why he might make a living from running the shadows, or I got the important parts of the story and see what kind of character will evolve from that.
In both processes, my raw sheet is usually getting revised and refined a couple of times. I then start adding more fluff to the character. While I might have a rough backstory, I still haven't told, how the char came to know his connections, what's his favorite hobby or if he prefers red or white wine. Many such details I work into the background as I play the character though. I deliberately leave room for that in my story, so I'm able to add some extraneous but funny details to the char as I play her. For example if my character suddenly started bragging about how he owns a pair of satin panties worn by Maria Mercurial during her 2050 tour, I might add a few sentences on how he obtained those (or who they're really from).

How I set up and maintain characters has greatly changed over the years. I've currently transitioned to maintaining my charsheet completely on my notebook, doing everything in Pages, in case I need to print it out. Apart from the numbers I keep a short bullet point style background on the list, notes about appearance and normal clothing and make-up style. I also keep a short description of my character's contacts and enemies on the sheet and some cues about people my character has met, including the other PCs and special locations I learn about.
Last but not least a small list of "current objectives" so I know what I was on when we left off.

I kind of like doing that also; filling in stats and background back and forth. Usually for me, this is where i use the short, bulletpoint method; later on i write out the longer one for myself to get into the said characters head as i mentioned, and for the GM if he or she wants it or anyone else who just wants to read it(we had loads of fun reading about each other's characters. My buddies had some awesome stories written out.) In fact, sometimes after writing the longer one(before game starts) i find myself going back and tweaking a few things that make sense. (For example, in the current one, the character, a sam-type, had a willpower of 3. Going back and reading his diary he had a 2 year part of his life where he underwent things that could break a normal person...after i reread it i went back, tweaked down a couple of skills and made his willpower a 4.)

That Mulligan rule is good, btw. There has been times where ive made a character concept that sounded like the bee's testicles that ended up just...not so fun in play, even though i had a background written up and everything. We've done full-character switches at times. Or the characters that came out of it were so vastly different they might as well been someone different.

And, uhh...as for the Hitman reference, i didnt see the movie but i read the backstory...and yeah, that sounds very cheesy. Bar-codes? Ok, maybe i should reword, there is ''ok cheese'' ''even good cheese if you look at it the right way'' and ''really, really bad cheese'' which is the latter.

The bar codes was one of the high points for the movie for me. It cut me up pretty deep how this super hitman/assassin had this obvious mark on the back of his head and that was the norm for his whole super secret organization. Talk about distinctive style. The stuff like this that I could laugh at was what kept me entertained.

For those that haven't seen it take a character concept like Jason Bourne and add even more cheese to it, then top it off by having someone with zero on screen charisma play the character. The russian chic was pretty hot though and you do get to see her boobs

The whole movie was cheesy in fact. It's how Crank would have turned out if it would have run with the same premise but tried to be a serious film and had cast someone with no personality in the lead.

As far as the mulligan thing I dig that too and we've been using something similar.

I admit i do dig Jason Bourne. Yeah, he's got hax fighting skills, gun skills, spy skills and is generally powergamed to the max between that and his edge and flaw selection, but i think the movies are pretty decent and the stories are done pretty well. I mean, action films...i kinda WANT the people to be a little overblown. A fully and 100% 'realistic' action movie might be a bit boring to watch at times(ok, so some war movies were done very well. But generally if i watch action, I mean, I love Equilibrium.)

And also, really, campaign dependant. In a campaign where the GM says ''ok, guys, there's going to be alot of action here, but don't skimp on your character personalities either'', if i see a John Preston-esque or a Bourne-esque guy, or a Jet-Li type of guy, i don't think it would be so bad as long as they had their own personalities and some thought put into them.

A little vengeance here, a kidnapped family member or friend there, can add up to something. I don't think you want to fall into the trap of ''character kidnapped when 8 years old, forced into a supersoldier project where he was programmed to be uber cold and calculating and could kill someone 12 different ways by the time he was 13 with his bare hands, and has amnesia now but remembers being kidnapped finally and only lives to kill and revenge'', but having someone get screwed over(like in Vlad's example above), and wants a little revenge can be just fine, and i like that idea about the guy screwed from the corp side who WAS on the corp side.

You dont want to go too far one way, but if everyone at the table made shiny happy people whose main weapon was blowing proverbial sunshine up the ass of everyone they came across, every one of them lived in 115% perfect and functioning households(hell, you dont even get that nowadays), who all got straight As in school and were in college and ran puppy farms growing up and their reason for shadowrunning is to steal flower seeds...it can also get a bit boring. I mean, why are these folks running again? As i always like to say, balance is the key.

Another good example i think of revenge done well was the story in SR3, with Animal the troll. He was a runner, and Shiawase took out his sister and her two kids. He works for anyone, for about anything, but when he can, he likes to take Shiawase jobs to help make 'em pay. He doesn't go out of his way and it doesn't rule his life; but the extra 'job satisfaction' he gets from hitting Shiawase is a little added bonus.

I liked Hitman!

I agree. But I also like a lot of really bad movies, so maybe my opinion should be discounted.

I liked the Bourne movies too. The character seemed more thought out and the guy playing him has a lot more on screen charisma then the guy playing Hitman (Matt Damon right? I always get him and that other guy mixed up). It was a bit over the top but meh.

As far as some angst in a background, I don't disagree that most runners don't come from perfect homes. What I will say though is that most RPG character backgrounds tend to follow a Mary-Sue mentality. Character's an orphan, bad ass, has a score to settle, etc. etc. I try to make believable criminals, that's basically what a shadowrunner is. I try to avoid the cheesy action hero characters. For a campaign that goes for more of an action movie feel I'd have to adjust for sure.

Animal was a well done version of the score to settle character though, a bit of extra satisfaction without a pipe dream mentality. I've seen a lot of characters take that same score to settle and say I'm going to bring down the mega corps. This isn't realistic and it's like saying 'my brother died in the war, I'm going to bring down the US government'.

Hitman was one of my favorite movies of 2007.

It had some classic lines.

Hopefully REALLY evil. Ya know.. "Bring it on, Evil."

In creating the background for this character I was trying to provide an explanation for his skills, for his lack of funds, for his flaws. I was trying to show why he was in the Shadows. Why he was a nube.

Sometimes being in the Shadowrun world, you feel like everyone is an ex-nija, ex-Special Ops, ex-brother-in-law to one of the Tir Princes, you know? Or, they go the other direction and they are a pure street punk, born in the barrens to a litter of 12 and fought their way up from the streets. I didn't want either cliche'. I wanted to be Joe Schmoe. Who is more Joe Schmoe than the guy that works for an Ares subsiderary, walking his nightly beat, drinking Soyacaf and eating donuts? He'd never fired a gun before outside of a firing range. He'd never met a real Shadowrunner. He had no interaction with anyone more important than a VP of a small company, and that was only to say "Night, sir." when the guy left his office late.

So, here's Joe Schmoe a year later. Now he walks the Shadows. Now he rubs elbows with filth and corruption, hangs in bars that he would have been terrified to be in 12 months before. Now he has these powers and abilities that he couldn;t have dreamed of before. His world has been completely shaken and his response to this isn't "I am gonna take down Ares!", it's "You fraggin' bastards. You ruined my life. This stuff sucks and because I am now branded a criminal, I can't ever go back. I am going to make you pay." The "you" there is a sleezy mid-level suit and a few probably run-of-the-mill shadowrunners he simply had the bad luck to be between and their target. A situation that occurs in most every single gaming session in Shadowrun.

I made it clear to my GM that this was my character's motivation, but for him to handle it anyway he wanted. I don't expect him to write the story for my character, but it's something he can use if he wants. It's a chance for him to maybe do a couple solitary adventures for my character on his time. I should remark that he is somewhat newer to GM'ing... an accomplished player but a fairly novice GM. I feel like I am doing my best to help him flesh out his world, if he wants. If all that story background gets basically ignored in lieu of things he decides to do, I am completely down with it. It's why I gave him the gist of my story and told him to change the particulars to whatever he wants. But, that's the "type" of guy I want to play. He seemed to rather like the take I had. Therefore, we have fun. I get to play a guy I want to play and he has some sort of anchor which he can use to create his world. I know that these kinds of backgrounds combinded with in-game occurances are a goldmine for my creativity as a GM.

Vlad

I read the rules. I find as many rules that are broken as I can. I make an NPC based on as many of those broken rules as I can and then I make another until I used up all the broken rules. Then I showcase those NPCs to my players and tell them that the interpretation of RAW which I am running by, those NPCs are legal and they are free to clone them. Cloaking the NPCs with a plausible cover story is their problem.

Just for the record I was never trying to call out Vlad's character or anything. I think your character focusing on the individuals with in the corp that had thrown him to the wolves is certainly appropriate.

The general concept of the screwed over security guard I really like and exactly as Vlad mentioned many runners are ex-Spec Ops, ex-Super Ninjas, ex-Whatever Cool Uber Action flick cliche'.

I've been playing shadowrun since I was in my early teens and have certainly played my share of cliche' characters. Somewhere along the way though I set out to make an average joe and found him way more interesting and believable then anyone else I'd ever played. He was resourceful and that was about it. On top of that he had a wife and a kid, both a reason to leave his criminal work behind and a reason to keep at it all wrapped into one. I think his highest skill was a 4 when he retired (this was in 3rd edition).

So yeah, I just try to stick to the simple model because it works for me.

...Hurricane Hannah fit kind of in the Joe Schmoe category.

Strappin' gal who grew up in the rough & tumble Bayou country. Good at scrappin', throwin' stuff, & all things athletic. Trained as an up & coming pro boxer to help her family out. Was discovered to be awakened & blackballed from the de sport. Did the pit fight thing for a while until she refused one day to take a dive and walked. Didn't have much rep left in life to go on to make an honest livin' when she heard about these hommes called 'runners up in de Big Easy & felt she could sell her talent there.

...pretty basic, pretty simple. No huge earth shattering trauma. Just a gal who only wanted to make a livin' with her god given talent.

Oh hey, No worries! I was jsut trying to get out there what the character I had made was. I, too, have had my share of "cliche'd" runners. And as a GM I have to deal with way too many. I wanted to exemplify why I thought this one was different and, from your post, simply felt like I hadn't got that out there satisfactorily. But, I didn't feel "called out," and apologize if you felt like I was replying soley to you or in a negative manner. I enjoy threads like this where people have a chance to explain how they play, or how they run their games, or describe their settings. Much more than the endless tweaking arguments or re-re-hashings of "broken" rules. I play for the flavor of the game, for the characters, the history and the settings. I play for the fun. Rules lawyering isn't my definition of fun.

Vlad

Now, she sounds like a cool character! How did you come up with her? Was she calling to you or was she created to fill a hole in a group? Or both?

Vlad

Cool cool... I didn't really feel that way but just wanted to make it clear what my intentions were.


I dig Hurricane Hannah too

The character I'm running currently is Jerome Jackson (J.J.), African American Dwarf. He's a face and has never had an honest job. Pretty typical lower class background, father worked a lot so was never home, mother worked part time and was more interested in simsense when she was home then taking care of the kids. I haven't fleshed out his family much beyond that yet (we're into the third adventure and I created J.J on the fly).

Before he started the shadow running gig he ran small time scams and helped his buddy and his buddies brother move weapons that they'd smuggle into Denver. He ended up getting popped for selling illegal arms and did a prison stint for it. He made some Vory connections while in jail (his cell-mate was a Vory soldier who got out a year or so before J.J. did) and was told about a guy that might be able to help him out with some work when he got out. So three months after he's been released brings us to J.J's present, he's still on probation but slides the fixer his cell-mate introduced him to a grand every month to verify his gainful (legal) employment through a third party while J.J. pulls off enough odd jobs to keep his own bills paid and himself entertained. Everyone mentioned in this paragraph was taken as a contact.

Still needs some work on the family front, thinking his father may have passed away but his mom's still around. Also thinking a baby sister would be nice, maybe a baby sister that's trying to pull the straight and narrow thing would be a good contrast to J.J.'s criminal lifestyle.

I do like alot of these concepts. Having a wife and kid is always interesting in the mix, as is other family. In JJ's case finding out he HAS a baby sister can be well role-played out, especially since he's a bit of a criminal type now. And how would mom react if she found out? Always great role-play fuel.

My sam that im working on now has a current surviving old aunt in Iceland, and a few scattered aunts and uncles. None of which have any idea what he's been through. He did lose his parents at 17 years old, quit school and found some odd jobs(and not running jobs, i mean since he was pretty tough he lifted boxes around a warehouse to pay for his apartment.) He's been mildly allergic to sunlight his whole life and was pretty much stuck inside, but with workout equipment and convincing his mother when he was young to ''lemme take the martial arts lessons I wanna be in the movies when i grow up!'', which did wonders for his self esteem and health; he never wanted to hurt people, he actually *did* want to become a trid action hero, go to acting school, and the whole nine. His parents died suddently, and he didnt want to move to Iceland(he liked to visit, not live there he grew up in Seattle, his dad was from Reykjavik), so he found odds jobs and had to quit school and put everything on hold.

Then bad stuff happened the next year as him and his 3 good friends learned the harsh lesson of taking things they find in Shadowland at face value when trying to find get rich quick schemes. No, those 'subsidary labs of a well respected corp' are not necessarily that and they will NOT let you walk about alive with that 'tested cyberware' because you are not there for that in the first place even though thats what they said, and the world does not end like an action flick. I kind of wanted to play him naive in that sense, and they all paid dearly for it. (im still actually working a bit on the diary, ill post a link to it eventually for anyone interested but ive been a bit busy with real-life endeavors). At the same time, i wanted to make a character who DID go through some horrible things...but DIDN'T turn into a bitter, antisocial, people-loathing whiny ball of wangst in the process; i wanted him to come out with a few quirks and flaws naturally(he's got that Animal-esque thing where he takes extra satisfaction of hitting 'them'...who i never said because i wanted that to be the more GM territory, but Tanamous wouldn't be out of the question), but generally got slipped into the shadows due to the fact he WAS vengeful for a couple of years after(sort of kidnapped at 18, rescued almost a year later, and the next year and a half was indeed spent in rather red retribution...and every person killed was another bunch of months underground, he wasn't thinking straight that even though these people were probably breaking the law too, it wasn't his place to 'stop them'.

By the time he wised up and broke himself of this 'habit', it was so late that he was stuck in the shadows already by 20, and now he's trying to make the best of it and trying to pull himself OUT. And he's trying to pull himself out by...running. Yeah, he's been stuck in a vicious circle now for the past six years, winning and losing(his diary has a few enteries of botched runs, i don't believe runners who are successful Every. Time. Even his first escape wasn't a true win; two others died , he was shot for the first time, he killed for the first time and didn't think he had it in him and they never WOULD have escaped if not for other shadowrunners hitting the place and causing a distraction.), and sorta doesn't know how to break out; i also want the GM to utilize his family members if they want, an old teenage sweetheart who happens to work in a jewlery(also foci if you know how to ask for it) shop, as well as an enemy that HE doesn't even know about(left over from his escape from this mistake years ago). But i did write him as a generally happy kid who lived a very normal life up until he was 17 and even now, being a runner, he's much more 'normal' than most.

This is what i mean by trying to take some cliches but making something interesting and fun out of them. I kinda got tired of the 'always dark, always brooding runner' and wanted to play someone with attitude(ok, think 'Good Looking and Knows It'), a sense of humor, sarcasm and daily needs and habits of a young man going on 27. The dark side is there, but ive always liked books and stories about trying to live with it, rather than let it control you(either by giving into it...OR by tormenting yourself that it's there.) And i admit, i have a soft spot for the action guy. It's just fun to play.

I always have a broad concept of what my character. What do people see when they see her on the street? Then why? is she in street eathers? jeans and tweed? corp suit? Now why is she involved in the shadows?

a way out of the streets? lost her job in a corp take over? violence? My main character was interesting the paranormal and the usual achedemic rout had been when she started out but things just kind of got off the beam for her.

another was a happy corper who got caught up in a gang shoot out in a mall. her nice safe world image came tumbling down and she determined to protect herself. and her new attitude really didn't fit in with work.

One was a california go ganger who's boy friend was killed by the Japanese occupation army and had to go on the run.

In my image I think of what tools/weapons she uses, what does she drive, how does she live-nice environment? chromed modern? dive? can't be bothered?

The stats are the last thing I fill in

...in away the more of former, for I had made so many characters in the past with the huge "life trauma" event like losing her family, being abandoned, etc. & wanted something simple. I lived in the Big Easy for a while and had a number of real Cajun friends. I liked their no nonsense attitude. Teat them with the respect due and they will cover your back. Cross them up & you can find yourself in a world o hurt. I also wanted a character who was more easy going who liked simple pleasures like a good pot o' gumbo, a good whiskey, who enjoyed some Bon Temps, and who was not so filled with angst all the time.

One of the more fun parts was the sayings she had, from her patent "ya mess wi de cane, ya gonna feel de pain" to those she'd come up with in character on the spur of the moment. Hannah's was possibly the shortest backstory I wrote for a character for I wanted it to be like her, simple and to the point.

...and two of her more important knowledge skills, Cajun Cooking and Zyedco of course.

...son of a gun we'll have big fun down on the bayou.

[Jambalaya trad.] Hank Williams Sr.