Shadowrun First Ed. introduced the rocker archetype. A product of the late 80s and a direct riff on the "punk" of cyberpunk, this type of character, much like the Bard of D&D who could be played as a minstrel rogue, jack-of-all-trades or a minor spellcaster, was the least popular to play and failed to make the cut of later editions. However, artistically inclined characters are often the ones who offer up the most interesting role-playing options. They bring something to the table beyond, "There's a bad guy and I shoot him. Peyw-peyw!"

I'm interested in introducing hip-hop artists, glamor pop singers, John Lennon-style recluses, and A.I. idoru into my game. Obviously they would make heavy use of the artisan skill. However, as most of my RPG experience has involved investigative and combat related adventures, how would the Artisan skill work within the framework of a game? What kind of challenges in 2070 could only be overcome by making use of the Artisan skill?

I thought the Rocker was a form of Face, someone who specialized in the Negotiation role from RC.

My latest character is a rockerboy. He's got the Fame quality from Runner's Companion, explained by the fact that he's a quite famous underground punkrocker. Most of his public performances tend to end up in riots which can be useful in some cases. The artisan skill would be used as some kind of "mob mind" spell.

I don't have my copy of the 1st ed. Big Blue Book in front of me but the Rocker was more like a non-augmented Gang Member than a Face. Some light combat skills, good with a motorcycle, some minor charisma-related abilities and a guitar. And that's about it.

The first thing I thought of was a "mob mind" effect or perhaps wooing a target with some skilled instrument playing as an opposed skill test.

One aspect of Artisan, the musician:

I have a young PC who is a percussionist. He has used his skill to entertain in bars and gain acceptance with the crowd (and a few drinks!). He is an adept, with Enthralling Performance. As he is new, I haven't had a chance to use this power yet, but I see it as a way to distract guards, calm a situation, do the above bar-trick with greater effect, etc.

Who pays attention to the 'rubby' beating out a rhythm on the garbage cans? He could watch the street all day.

The club needs musicians for the mob party tonight. Get hired, maybe with the help of your face or fixer. Now your in.

"Jack, have you noticed your car is running a little off lately? There's a funny shimmy in the back left tire. It sounds off to me. Maybe you should check it."

"That girl's good. She's worth watching for the future - going places that one. Maybe we should get to know her."

"I've been watching that male spider approach the female. She would normally eat him, but he's doing some kind of dance or rhythm on her web and she's just sitting there. I wonder if I could copy that? Wait a minute while I record it."

"Gaia is alive, man. She has a heartbeat. Someday... someday I'm gonna play that beat!"

*****
Music is a universal language, and should have many uses in an world that is awakened, fragmented, unstable.

Peter

My group just got new member, elf wannabe rapper social adept. And his music... Best way to descibe is to tell what happened on last run:

We had taken a prisoner, a mercenary of some sort. He was handcuffed while elf started rapping. He somehow managed to untie himself, grab a gun and shoot this "rapper". Fortunately the gun had gel ammo. After elf was unconscious he was happy to give gun back and be handcuffed again.

The character is awesome and player plays him well.

the second part of that statement is what makes the game fun.....

I use Artisan a ton with my characters. Including my all-time favorite character, a satyr and former blues singer named Ol' Scratch based upon the whole devil-at-the-crossroads thing.

It's also useful for more than just musicians. Street performers, stage magicians, flower arrangers, those people who put the make-up on corpses to make them presentable... you name it, Artisan covers it. Which is also the downfall of the skill. Artisan does, in fact, cover all that and more. You pick the skill up and you're suddenly a Renaissance man of entertainment. You can sing any style of music, you can play any musical instrument in the creation of history, you can paint in every style and every medium, you can sculpt anything out of anything. The list just goes on and on. It's the single most "uber" skill in the game. Yeah, you can specialize, but that just makes you a little better in that one speciality. You still have alllll that other talent at your fingertips. Or whatever other part of your body you want to use, because Artisan covers that, too.

Which, to be honest, is why I think it should be a subset of Knowledge Skills due to the background nature it represent. It's silly forcing players to spend so much on what amounts to little more than a fluff skill regardless of the game you're playing. That's the domain of Knowledge Skills (their name aside).

http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?show...9&hl=rocker

That's never been my impression. In my experience, that distinction has always belonged to the Decker/Hacker.

Well, Craig the Pixie Mage is an Author who Ghost Writes for College Professors.

And I just made Keyune the Elven Bio-Ninja Wannabe a Rap Star with Horizon. SIN and all!

Oh is the Player ever angry at me!

Every team needs a bard because...we used the elf on the last booby-trap.

As functional archetypes go, the Rocker wasn't impossible to play, but it took a certain amount of skill to insert an attention/glamor hog into the middle of trenchcoat wearing, armor-plated thugs who avoid attention like cockroaches and bright lights.

"So, what's your day job? Oh, I'm the front man for The Devil Rats. The go-gang? Nah, the grunge band...hang on, I've got a promo chip here somewhere."

-Siege

Tribesman for us. At least the 'back-to-nature' type of tribesman which seemed like some kind of offhand insult towards the modern tribal societies portrayed in SR fluff.

Strange...for me, it has always been the Vehicle Rigger...I always seemed to be the only one who ever wanted to play them, and, in my group, while everyone was drooling over the gun mods and martial arts in Arsenal, I was greedily looking over the vehicles and vehicle mods....(Ok..I looked at the guns, too..but mostly from the "What can I put on the getaway vehicle" angle)

Not exactly, see Enthralling performance.

It doesn't cover dancing, as Dancing is a specialization of Gymnastics, nor acting, as Impersonation is a specialization of Con, nor katas, as Martial Arts is a specialization of Unarmed Combat.

Other than that defined for other skills - yeah, it covers pretty much everything. A character of mine got even a specialization on cooking.

I gotta admit, I thought the rocker was dead with the advent of 3rd edition, then I saw that SR4 includes the monofilament chainsaw. Yeeeeaahh!! Too bad the campaign died before Brock Socket had a chance to really tear into anything. I think my next one might be a troll with an axe (lolol). I figure trolls are already big and attract a lot of attention. Putting a pink mohawk on him shouldn't cause too much additional trouble.

QFT.

I'm a musician myself (singer) and active in the Neopagan community. I can really identify with that character - and being able to identify with your character is perhaps the most important requirement for roleplaying. It is, after all, essentially method acting.

My first ever SR4 character, a radical left-wing photojournalist, used the Artisan skill with a specialisation in Photography. He was also an underground blogger who posted pictures of megacorporate atrocities and impressions of sprawl life. Keep in mind this was a P2.0 LA game, of course.

Glad to hear it, Tyro. This fellow has a bit of me, a bit of my daughter, and a bit of the son of a friend of mine, all rolled into one.

I call him Bongo Slade. Kudos to the one who can make the 1970s movie connection.

Peter

You referring to Slade's film, Flame?

Good shot, but not the one.

Peter

My priest character liked to paint. It was one of those "wait, the special forces sword guy paints!?"

My swordsmith/enchanter had quite a few ranks in artisan.

And of course the rigger had several ranks, so that she could do custom paintjobs.

I agree though that it should probably be handled by knowledge type skills. It's not really an "active" skill, and if it didn't cover basically everything, why would you have to pay 4pts for it? I like the skill, but I'm not sure if that's the best way to handle it.

As soon as we have some downtime from our adventure I am going to get Sonya (my character) rating 3 in breakdancing, especially if I can have it stack with gymnastics. Of course it might be more reasonable on getting Dodge, but I think it would be more fun.

-Chrysalis

You can get both by persuading your GM that breakdance is a specialization of gymnastic.

Isn't Dance specifically listed as a Gymnastics specialization in the skills section?

It does say so ^_^ *yai!*

What about spinning the decks?

Would that also be a specialization? Artisan: DJing?

I was wondering can you use a vocal range enhancer with beatboxing?

Yes, DJing would be considered to be under the Artisan skill.

Where's coocking in the rules?

Performance or otherwise 'artistic' cooking would be covered by the Artisan skill. Normal everyday cooking would be considered a Knowledge skill.

What about poetry? I was considering a four armed Indian Character who calls himself Herendra Mukerji (Street name: "Mook" ) and thinks he's a reincarnation of Rudyard Kipling.

With Poetry (and Music and Acting and the like) Artisan covers the Performance and / or creation aspect of Artistic skills, whereas Knowledge skills would cover the theory.

So, it would only apply when he's reading poetry out loud?

Or when actually writing a Poem.

Artisan covers creation and performance, as opposed to the appropriate Knowledge skills, which cover the study of poetry, famous poets, etc. etc.

Knowledge and active skill are kind of weird. Does knowing chemistry be a knowledge skill. What about demolitions then? I assume that demolitions is a formal proficiency which involves knowing a lot about chemistry of explosives.

-Chrysalis

Chemistry and Demolitions are strange. I believe that Chemistry has rules for its being treated as an Active skill.

But technically it is possible to have an abundant book knowledge of Demolitions without ever having touched an explosive. That would be an example of the Knowledge skill Demolitions Theory (or something of the sort), as opposed to the Active Demolitions skill. Likewise, it is possible (in real life) to have an extensive knowledge of chemicals without ever having visited a lab, let alone successfully mixed two ingredients together. Knowledge and practical use are two separate things, but sometimes the lines are drawn rather arbitrarily in Shadowrun.

Yes, Chemistry got some new rules in Arsenal to use it as an active skill. Chemistry in the core rulesbook doesnt have these rules and is listed as a knowledge skill.



Yes, imo it would be perfectly okay to take Demolitions Theory as a knowledge skill. Its the same as "Explosive weapons Theory" which would have the three defining arguments a knowledge skill should have.
Id allow knowledge skills like "guitar" (Artisan -> Instruments -> Guitar are three defining arguments imo) and "dancing disco-style" (Acrobatics -> Dancing -> Disco-style), too.

Guitar and Dance (along with pretty much every other performance art) do indeed have Knowledge skill equivalents. This wouldn't cover the performance aspect, but would be a broad base for theory on the subject.

Yes, you can have nearly everything as a theoretical knowledge skill but imo very specialised subcategories of active skills are okay as hobby skills with an active use, too. A "guitar" hobby skill wont help you to play keyboard or to paint and "Guitar 3" is of much less use than "Artisan (Music) 1 (+2)". Imo even "Left-winged Policlub Etiquette" would make a perfect knowledge skill which could be used instead of Etiquette when meeting a member of a left-winged policlub.
Why should a character who paints pictures like a kindergarten child not be good in playing guitar? Actually I never learned to read music but Im quiet good in playing drums because I practiced it a lot. I can tell you nearly everything you need to play drums but thats it.
Most of my SR3 characters had one artsy knowledge skill, like Sax, Beatboxing, Growling or Baking Hash Cookies. I enjoyed linking them to the music aspect of cyberpunk without having to spend as much karma as for any combat skill, because playing sax wont save my characters life.
Artisan has plenty uses and youd have to spend extremely much karma if you try to substitute it completely with single use knowledge skills.

I understand what you are saying. In previous editions of Shadowrun, these kinds of skills were considered Knowledge skills.

In my game, I wouldn't really have a problem with removing the Artisan skill entirely for those people who are not intending to get an in-game benefit from the skill, and just using a Knowledge skill (like Guitar) in its place. But if the character was going to actually gain something in the context of the game, either Karma or Nuyen wise, then I would make him pay for the Active Skill.