6 weeks doesnt help anyway, thats now breaking my suspension of disbelief. After all these things she's done, he lets her go 6 weeks later to hang with his mafia buddies? Not likely.



No, she can't fight. At all.



We have a dedicated hacker for computer locks, she's not a hacker. Her old team also had a hacker.



Raising edge is one place to throw away some points, I guess. Can't raise str, attribs are at 210 right now, 215 is half of 430.



Except she doesnt have a high pain tolerance, she has a low pain tolerance. Will to live? maybe, I'll have to look that over.

Home ground?



She's been off in la-la land for x amount of time, why should she have a bunch of contacts? And why would a bunch of people that used her as a meat puppet be her friends, buddies, or contacts? I dont understand. I'll throw some points into the fixer, though.



These guys are the team she's running with, so they don't qualify as contacts at all.



I hear ya. We'd hate for her to do anything truly useful. I'm gonna drop the perception to 4, too, so that she's not so good at perceiving.

Hrm. I think I'm going to start another thread, exclusively for Bunraku doll designs.

Note that he was refering to six weeks as being the longest binge possible (in his opinion). It wasn't necessarily a suggestion on an actual time frame for her internment.



I was under the impression (mainly because you mention it multiple times) that the character wasn't allowed to have Negative Qualities.

Ah. Sorry, must have misread.



Right. Virtual Low Pain Tolerance. She doesnt get any points for it, and she doesnt get bigger wound modifiers, but she makes a big deal out of it every single time.

Ok, Will to live is another great place to throw points away. Bravo on both that and Edge.

I'm gonna make some modifications, we'll see if it meets everyone's approval.

Here's a 300-pt character I came up with, a willing Bunraku doll. Dunno what would/wouldn't seem fun to borrow from, here.

Qualities: 20 BP
Elf (30 BP)
Biocompatability (10 BP)
First Impression (5 BP)
Double Jointed (5)
Moderate BTL Addiction (-10 BP)
Augmentation Addict (-10 BP)
Low Pain Tolerance (-10)

Attributes: 170 BP
Body 2 (10 BP)
Strength 1 (0 BP)
Agility 6 (50 BP)
Reaction 2 (10 BP)
Charisma 8 (75 BP)
Intuition 3 (20 BP)
Logic 2 (10 BP)
Willpower 2 (10 BP)
Essence: 0.46
Edge 1 (0 BP)
Initiative 5 / 1IP

Active Skills: 50 BP
Gymnastics 4 (16)
Specialization: Tumbling (2 BP)
Con 6 (24 BP)
Specialization: Seduction (2 BP)
Etiquette 4 (16 BP)
Specialization: Fetish Fashion Scene (2 BP)

Knowledge and Language Skills: 0 BP (15 free)
Street Knowledge 4
Trivia 1
English: Natural
Sperethiel 5
Japanese 5

Contacts: 0 BP

Gear: 50 BP
Sex Change: 20,000 (0.3 Essence; 4 BP)
Severe Cosmetic Biosculpting 3: 10,000 (0.3 Essence; 2 BP)
Clean Metabolism: 2,500 (0.1 Essence; 1 BP)
Silky Skin: 1,500
(Total Bioware: 34,000; 1.30 Essence / 2)
"Sex Kitten" Cyberware Package: 35,100 (1.92 Essence; 7 BP)
- Simrig
- Skillwire 3
- Image Link
- Sex Tricks 3 Skillsoft w/PersonaFix
- Empathy 3 Skillsoft
- "Wet Look"? Dermal Sheath 1
- Breast Implants
- Fiber-Optic Hair
- Genital Implant
Modular Arm Cyberware Package: 40,000 (1.60 Essence; 8 BP)
- Modular Left Synthetic Cyber Arm
- Modular Right Synthetic Cyber Arm
Modular Leg Cyberware Package: 40,000 (1.60 Essence; 8 BP)
- Modular Left Synthetic Cyber Leg
- Modular Right Synthetic Cyber Leg
(Total Cyberware: 115,100; 5.12 Essence)
Casemodded Synthetic Cyberleg Plug-Ins: 42,500 (9 BP)
- Agility 6
- Body 1
- Strength 1
Raptor Cyberleg Plug-Ins: 25,000 (5 BP)
- Agility 3
- Body 3
- Strength 3
Modified Raptor Cyberleg Arm Plug-Ins: 30,000 (6 BP)
- Agility 3
- Body 3
- Strength 3
Casemodded Synthetic Shoulder-Plugs: 1,250
- Agility 0
- Body 0
- Strength 0
Casemodded Synthetic Hip-Plugs: 1,250
- Agility 0
- Body 0
- Strength 0

@HentaiZonga
It would be better if you started that topic with Bunraku Persons Designs. Note the usage of the word Persons, not all Parlor workers will be female.

WMS

Will do!

Ok, Sweetheart updated, the useless, and expensive bioware for healing/damage reduction is all gone, as is other stuff that I couldnt care less about, like inoculations. If mages can suavely just prevent any issues, and parlors have them on staff, I am grateful they are wasting their resources, and not mine. I also dropped perception to 4.

Its probably also ridiculous that I have disguise 4, and palming 4, I probably ought to drop the stealth group to 2, professional CIA assassins are at 4, where I'm just a kid shadowrunner. I'll run that by my group.

In return, I boosted edge by 2, heehee, apparently Sweetheart is pretty lucky, and I upped contacts by 3, and took a level of will to live. If I drop stealth to 2, I can boost Edge to 5, and get 2 more damage overflow boxes.

Yeah, I was giving my opinion on straight binge time before severe retardation kicks in when I said six weeks. Really as long as she wasn't chipped more then one day a week she should recover pretty easily even from an extended period of time, assuming of course the chips were relatively safe (and I'm guessing heads would roll if the Capo's chip supplier accidently fucked up a bunch of his girls with a 'bad batch'). She would probably walk away with a mild or moderate btl addiction but otherwise could be functional.

Having a dedicated hacker on the team doesn't justify her not knowing squat about the hardware end of electronics considering how much she knows about locks. Glad you guys have a hacker and all but that doesn't mean your character shouldn't know how electronic locks work just because the team has a hacker. She's studied locks and lock picking but for some reason glossed over all the really useful stuff? The hardware skill isn't hacking and putting some points into it isn't going to step on the hackers toes much. Something you may want to do is read over the maglock rules. While your passkey is golden you need to make a Hardware + Logic test to even use a sequencer assuming the lock doesn't have an anti-tamper system in which case you need to make a second Hardware + Logic test. On top of this you're hosed when it comes to transponder locks without the hardware skill and an electronics kit (something you should invest in anyhow if you intend to beat keypad maglocks with your sequencer).

The 'ware looks a lot better. Some of the higher end stuff could be justified as from before the Capo had her altered. Maybe his choice to do what he did to her had something to do with her having pheromones and some of the other 'ware she has. She was a runner before so I'm guessing she made some cash off of that.

As to the no combat at all thing... you gave her a smart link and an automatics skill soft. Why avoid unarmed combat as a point dump when she does seem to have some interest in fighting? Even at a rating of one or two?

The high pain tolerance suggestion came from being beat up. She may not have always had thick skin but if you get beat enough it's something that tends to develop.

On the contacts end your character has a really high charisma and tailored pheromones. People are going to like her and she really isn't going to be able to help making contacts. Now rather or not the character is resourceful enough to take advantage of those connections is up to you but it's a thought. Hell the mage at the parlor or some of the goons may have a thing for her.

Anyway, it looks a lot better.

Nothing I can do about the realism there. No drawbacks allowed.



She's only 18. She hasnt had time to learn how to be super charismatic, great with old fashioned locks, super stealthy and great with computers too. Its crazy to expect all that by the age of 18.

But I can sure get an activesoft for hardware 3.



I have pheromones 3 because its my job to have pheromones 3. I do have to play the character, and I cant be a face with no face skills. There is a point where I just have to scrap the whole thing and just play the girl next door. One would expect that her being gorgeous with pheromones that inspire lust worked to her advantage, in this case. I guess a case can be made for someone ripping them out, in which case, feel free to read it that she had a stash of money saved, and got herself altered when she got out. Doesnt matter, its central to the characters main job, and its in.



She doesnt know how to fight, never had time, or took time, to learn. That doesn't mean she wont use an activesoft, when the Sam(Who is mafia!) tells her to. In fact, she'll do anything the Sam tells her to.



Well, its no longer possible to beat her very often, only once in a while, unless you want her to have black eyes, and ugly bruising when you are using her. So beating her every couple of weeks isnt likely to build up much tolerance. Plus, with the new build, the Capo is clearly not in it for the beatings, so he's probably there for sex, so as long as she isnt provoking it, she is probably not getting beaten much at all.



I dunno about the whole mage and goons as contacts thing, it feels weird. Its an interesting idea, though. I hate all that edge, I might try that and see.

I realize you're not allowed to actually take negative qualities... I was just saying for the sake of saying what the affect would be. I'm assuming you can still roleplay them with or without the points and that's more what I was referring too.



I never said you have to be great with all of that, hell nerf it if you want. As it stands it is probably pretty cheesy. On the hardware front though keep in mind that hardware and computers are two different skills and that the former is integral to being a competent locksmith in 2070. Even a two in it prevents you from defaulting and makes more sense to the character then chipping something she probably would know something about. As it stands your character owns a sequencer but really has no idea how to use it and has studied locks extensively but managed to not learn anything about modern locks. Also there's no reason you can't move the time-line around if you feel it would make more sense for her to be a few years older.



This argument falls flat just like the hacker argument in relation to the hardware skill and is metagaming at it's finest. You're already playing a face with shit for contacts Anyway I think you misread my argument. What I said was some of this stuff could be justified as having been in before the Capo did anything to her, such as the pheromones, and may have been part of the reason he decided to do what he did. She was a runner before she was a meat puppet and her getting pheromones to do her job during that period of her life makes some sense. Granted level three pheromones are expensive and how she managed to afford them is up to you to determine.



And my initial argument was that the Sam she used to run with may have taught her some of the basics of self defense. Anyhow it was just a suggestion.



Fair enough. Again it was just a suggestion on where those extra twenty points could go. Honestly I listed everything I thought might be workable to give you more options.




Those of course are just thoughts. Someone else would be the madame or whoever actually runs the parlor as well as anyone she may have known from before that's still around. Maybe a bum or something she helped out for example. Contacts are a great way to flesh a character out and it's something I see a lot of people over look.

Also, you mentioned a bit back about how most of the characters you see on dump shock fail in a lot of the ways I brought up with your's and you're right. I generally avoid these threads because most people don't want character advice, they want advice on how to power game and meta game. Someone brought my attention to this thread though and I felt the character concept had potential otherwise I wouldn't have bothered posting.

I'd have not changed the character based upon the rather biased beliefs of two posters who simply seem unable to cope with the fact that not everyone plays their brand of games. I have seldom seen so much nitpicking and "YOU ARE HAVING BADWRONGFUN" attitude.

The original design was perfectly fine for a great number of games. The updated design won't fit in just as many games, just as the two posters in question would not fit in many games just because their views are conflicting rather drastically with the GM's.

DPK, I'd advice you to forget the stuff posted, and play the character like you want it, and have fun with it. Do not worry about the opinions and bias of people who will not ever play in your games.

I'd be curious of edge and WMS's characters though, especially of what they call realistic characters for shadowrun. They must be untouchable I think, for them to argue like rabid pitbulls on other threads.

Hitting my profile will turn up threads I've started, one includes a concept for a character I played back in third edition. If you want the stats on the character I'm currently playing you can look here.

As far as changing shit it's up to dpk. I said several posts back for the op to quit reading my posts if he or she didn't want my advice and you're right, different strokes for different folks. My opinion of what's good and bad fiction is mostly my own, though some of it is taken from advice I've received in the past and some of it is based on the general consensus of people who give enough of a shit to form an opinion on it.

Some people sit down to make a cool character that can do all sorts of cool shit. Some people sit down to make a believable character and use the rules as a guideline. Neither is right or wrong. One is good fiction though and the other isn't and that may just be my own opinion but it is an opinion that is shared by a lot of people, if it wasn't the term Mary Sue never would have been coined. Again I'm not judging the rightness or wrongness of it either way.

All I ever said was that I had trouble believing that a mafia Capo would blow that much cash on a Bunraku girl and that I had trouble believing she'd walk out of four years of being p-fixed without a burnout flaw (rather the OP is getting points for that flaw or not wouldn't make a difference). Playing in a game with such a character or playing such a character myself would kill my sense of suspended disbelief. If it doesn't do that for the OP or the OP's fellow gamers then more power to them all.

You played an infected ghoul Shamanic Adept? And call DPK's character "not believable"? Are you serious?

I'd expect someone who played such a concept to be a lot, a big lot more tolerant of other character concepts, and I cannot even fathom how you could use the mary sue term.

Yes I did and if you bothered to read that thread you'd have noticed that I was co-gming at the time (much as I am now) and was using the character mostly as a plot device. Also you might want to note that I avoided a hell of a lot of cheesy suggestions from dump shock posters like picking up virtuoso, facial sculpt, and melanin control.

I stuck to the concept as opposed to making square pegs fit in round holes. Also I never attacked DPK's concept... ever, contrary to you saying I'm not tolerant of odd concepts. The only thing I ever brought up was the 'ware and the fact that she wasn't a total fucking burn out after being chipped for presumably four years straight if the Capo put a sleep regulator in her so he could work her even harder.

Actually! I think I can explain one plausible explanation this pretty succinctly. (I'm not saying it's the right one, and I'm not accusing Edge of this, but it's one manifestation that I've seen before that explains both behaviors.)

The problem is, this character is Pretty. And Likes Sex. And we, as roleplayers, typically have a lot of guys who... well... let's say they have trouble getting their own left hand to go out with them.

So, you have two directions that can go - the first is people who obsess about their ideal 'sexy girl', and devote a lot of creative efforts towards fantasizing about her. The second group consists of people who really, really, don't want to be reminded of the score, especially not by the first people. And being "above all that shit" gives them a means of looking down on the second group. Kinda the same way furries make cosplayers not look so pathetic to the outside world (and I say this as a man who has spent THOUSANDS of hours giddily playing 'dress-up-dolly' with girls who are into cosplay. I have no shame).

Then, you have a third group of people - people who think just about anything would make an interesting story, especially things that tend to get neglected by the 'mainstream' (group B). And they either fail to realize that they're being neglected because of the contempt the 'mainstream' has towards group A, or they think that group B is throwing the Dikoted baby out with the toxic bathwater, as it were. Either way, they make characters they want to play, and then group B pounces all over them - because either group B's heuristics aren't fine-tuned enough to tell the difference, or group B is going off of the sad, statistical fact that there are a thousand group A 'Mary Sue'-ers for every worthwhile roleplayer - and often, that line is very thin, and subject to personal taste.

So what are you going to do?

Again... I never, ever, ever attacked the concept.

I found the cosplay thing pretty funny though. Dressing up like Link ain't my thing but I might do it for some hot chick dressed up like Zelda .

Heh. Well, I do a lot of fetish and loligoth stuff. But, one of the cool things about making custom costumes is, you get a lot of really hot girls undressing and dressing in front of you.

Of course, that's often more frustrating than it is rewarding.

Ignore the advice from group B, of course.

(And Edge - if I were playing you, I'd post a rant about how unbelievable it was that the ghoul was not a total retard, a ravening, slobbering cannibal monster, how unrealistic it would be for anyone to let a ghoul live, much less work with one, how my runners would never work with a ghoul, and so on. Without reading your posts at all, to boot.

But I am not playing you, so I'll just say "good idea, if it fits your group, and everyone has fun, go for it."

Since I know that what I consider fun and realistic is just that, my idea. Not the One True Way of playing Shadowrun.)

lol

Seriously?

Again you're coming off like I said 'Bah, you can't play a Bunraku girl, the very concept is crap.' I never did that.

I'll reiterate one more time what I did say.

A) I didn't find the Capo's investment in a girl that's basically going to burn out from all the p-fixes he's slotting her believable.

and

B) I didn't believe someone could walk away from four years of being p-fixed without being basically retarded.

And then I offered the OP some ideas on what I felt would work because she asked. I explained the affects of prolonged drug use on brain chemistry and offered some ideas on how she could run with the concept she wanted without leaving the character a vegetable.

I looked at the rest of the character beyond the core concept and offered ideas on where points could be spent that could help flesh some of that out.

Anyhow, that's all the more I'm going to say on this subject because it's derailing the thread for one and for two it's degenerated into you launching personal attacks against me.

I am creating the character to be interesting and fun to play. I do want it, at least superficially, to be capable of shadowrunning, at least on the main, but that isn't really the goal.

I have never cared what 'ware she had in her, particularly where most of it was just point sinks anyway, and didnt do anything real to help her.

On the contacts front, of course she's got few contacts, she's been in captivity! Damn, you can't have everything.

Although note: She now has the Capo as a contact. Loyalty is only 1, she apparently likes him a lot more than he's willing to do anything for her.

I dig it

Dig the specialization of hardware in maglocks too. Didn't even really think about having that specialized.

Hopefully its something everyone likes now.

That would make me happy.

I still can't believe I got called a twink over this.

That'll teach you to be a min-maxing, power-gaming munchkin!

I doubt that will ever happen Mugzy, who's the guy who brought my attention to this thread will probably still despise it. I think he's also the guy who called you a twink. But he really didn't like the concept much to begin with.

Anyhow you shouldn't aim to make the rest of us happy anyway. There's still some stuff about your character that doesn't jive perfectly with me but hell there's stuff about my own character that doesn't jive perfectly with me.

Remember how you mentioned tailored pheromones and how justification or not you were taking them? I did the same thing on my face and never could come up with a good reason aside from my character saved up the cash for them himself at some point and had them installed. Granted they are something that he would have made extensive use of before he started running but how he managed to afford them I'm still not clear on. Maybe he pulled off a big score at some point and was feeling rich, who knows.

I do find her a lot more believable in her current incarnation and I guess that's something. I just hope you're happier with her now then you were before I entered the thread... otherwise learn to ignore other people's advice, especially advice given on the internets.

You cannot make everyone happy, and I would not even try. Nitpicking posters usually have an agenda.

I know!

Everyone likes? That is an impossibility. All that matters is that you like the character. People will give you all sorts of advice and they're make all sorts of complaints if you let them think that they're advice matters. Much of it will be contradictory and possibly counter-productive. Its your character, only your opinion (and your GM's) really matters.


I will say that young characters with insane skills is so common a trope that little justification is necessary. But, when it does, it is fairly easy to accomplish given how socioeconomic Balkanization tends to thrust young people into adult roles very early.

I will also say that granularity at the lower dice pools is such that the difference between being a expert professional and being an amateur who shouldn't even attempt the task is practically nonexistent. It doesn't pay to obsess over which skill rating is reasonable for your background, rather it is best to be concerned with what skill rating accomplishes the results that you want.


The only concern I have with the character is the general lack of killing ability, which can be a big problem on a shadowrun. That isn't any sort of complaint. Its just than an inability to fight tends to result in low survival probability when things go bad. It really depends on what you want.

Or just say that the child was exposed to eville in the form of table top RPGs and first person shooter video games, and morphed into a highly refined and strategic "superpredator" after having played the latest GTA installment.

You fail to understand. I only care about the opinions of those who feel really strongly about it, enough to keep posting. If they didnt feel vested in it, they wouldnt keep posting/arguing.

I'm sad Wearz got so mad at me, since it was him that originally made the suggestion, but you can't make everyone happy all the time. =(

As she stands right now, I think the other players are happy with her, and the GM seems happy, so it looks like, save minor tweaks, she's good. =)

The GM told us the better we are at combat, the better our enemies will be at combat, so the other players told me to make sure I am bad at combat.

Which is half the reason I came up with this concept at all. With my activesoft, I have 12 dice to shoot an automatic weapon, which isnt bad, and I can buy an activesoft for dodge, too, if I want, and have some dodge, or whatever, but mostly, if bullets start flying, I'm taking cover, or running. I think thats our teams plan. Avoid combat, run away if combat starts.

I am not making the character in a vacuum, or anything.

Sounds hilarious. I assume the better your guys are at hacking the better the other team will be at hacking too. In which case, why have skills.

Not mad just feel that anymore input on that character from myself will be counter productive etc. Besides I did show why O-cells are technically better than pathogenic defense, but I believe that point go lost in the noise generated in this thread.

That is why I stated if you and your GM are ok with it, game on.

I have been called worse than a Twink, many times here in these forums, so I attempt to refrain from such usage of terms along those lines.

WMS

I ended up with no disease prevention at all! Even funnier! Oh, also, I did like your prevention is better than protection argument, even if I didnt say so.

*much <3 for you* I consider you the characters Daddy. =)

I still like you DreadPirateKitten...

"Phew!" *wipes sweat from forehead*