So, a new player joining my group is going to be a face/martial artist, and he's also Native American.


I live in the Buffalo area, so for my game, I've made it that in the future, the local seneca indians take over Grand Island (well, take it back, they did have it first.) So I have a couple questions.

1) Clearly, it's sort of hard to be good at melee, and he wants to be good at it. I haven't read much on martial arts more than just basic melee so what options can I present to him? I have all the books to if there is reference to things in arsenal or something.

2) What things in SR4 talk about native americans, in terms of gameplay stuff? I want to make it somewhat interesting for him as a native american, but it seems the older versions of shadowrun focused more heavily on the native americans.

Regarding your second question, Shadows Across North America is a pretty good source for information about all of the NAN. It was a 3rd Edition book and takes place shortly after Year of the Comet, so chronologically it is a few years behind the current time line. That being said, most of the information in there is still totally relevant and applicable.

On the subject of melee, you can be good at it, but melee is never going to be good. This isn't a certain other game. Never bring a knife to a gun fight. Shadowrun is deadly. If he wants to mix it up in melee tell him he'd better be good at Stealth too, because his best hope is to sneak up on people so they can't shoot him in the face first or worse - call security!

Regarding Native American themes, one of the things I did in my own game was to emphasize that the Native American revolution wasn't purely military but was cultural too. I had a lot of non-Native Americans flocking to learn and adopt their culture and beliefs as Howling Dan Coyote's shamans led the resurgance of magic in the world. In a time of great troubles, many flocked to the miracle workers who taught the Old Ways.

It was a way of justifying the sudden appearance of full nations, but perhaps also gratifying that in attempting to exterminate a culture, the former United States of America caused it to finally become the dominant one for a time.

Howling Dan Coyote would be about a hundred by this point but he could just possibly still be alive and out there. A Run to find him would make a good atmospheric game that brought in a lot of the history of the setting.

Whatever you do, don't stereotype!

K.

Arsenal has rules for martial arts in the back. Some of them are pretty cool. It costs 5 BP (or twice that in karma) per level, and each level you pick a martial art you want to know and learn a special ability from it. Boxing increases unarmed damage, Krav Maga increases disarming abilities.

You can also now choose specilizations in Martial arts. So, for example if you took Clubs (Karate) 2+2, then you would get your specialization bonus to clubs whenever you used a traditional Karate club. This would include a collapsable staff, a normal staff, Tonfa, sai (which are now clubs and not exotic) and Nunchaku.

Close combat has it's place in shadowrun, but the others are right, it isn't the BEST. Generally speaking, it is great IF you know when to use it. If you trap your opponant in an enclosed space, and they are bad at close combat, you can get an easy victory. They will have trouble getting away, and can't defend too well. However, don't charge a dude with a gun . . . it is a bad idea.

Perfect example:

Back in the day, I had a ninja character, good with a pistol, good with a sword. He used a gun 99% of the time. One run, we got doublecrossed (happens to everyone) and were ambushed by a troll with a gyromounted minigun. THIS IS A BAD TIME TO USE MARTIAL ARTS. If I would have charged him, I would have been shredded. He put down surpressing fire and I ducked for cover.

Few turns later, I managed to sneak away, and come up behind him. I had the range-nulifying special ability, and I got in close. GM ruled that he couldn't fire his minigun at me because I was 'inside' his barrel range (in other words, I was between him and the end of the barrel.) And, because he had a gyromount on, he took massive penalties to try and hit me in melee. Even though he was a troll, I took him down with no problems and no damage. GOOD time for melee

For melee, the best option is an adept with bioware, followed by a heavily augmented character, followed by an unaugmented adept. Martial arts takes a huge investment to be good at it, but even so, a martial artist should always have a ranged attack like a pistol - much like sniping, unarmed combat is a niche role.

Martial arts - these add varying abilities, but the most effective is to increase your DV: you can increase it by up to +3 (bonuses from different martial arts stack). You can also improve your blocking ability. Maneuvers also add potential tactical advantages.

Bioware - muscle augmentation and toner increase dice rolled to hit and damage. Strength is a minor contributor to damage when punching, but is a bigger factor in grappling. Synaptic boosters are a good idea, since other adept powers will eat up power points like popcorn, and a synaptic booster: 1 or 2 will save power points. And a reflex recorder for unarmed combat is also good - you're already taking the Essense hit, might as well save another 0.5 power points. Depending on whether you went for synaptic booster: 1 or 2, bone augmentation helps with soaking damage and adds to your punching power. Reakt geneware helps your defense.

Adept abilities - improved ability further boosts unarmed combat. Critical strike increases damage. One level of counterstrike lets you convert your successes from blocking into a better return attack. Killing hands lets you deal lethal damage and, more importantly, affect things like spirits. Combat sense adds to your defense rolls, and, combined with counterstrike, makes your return attacks lethal. Elemental strike taken with blast or electricity lets you knock opponents down, or disorient them. Mystic armor lets you soak damage better.

Most of this advice is geared towards the bioware adept, which is flat-out the best option. And yeah, this is one of those things that winds up being min-maxed, because it is one of those roles that is costly to be good at. If he wants to be moderately good at close combat, but do lots of other things, then he can pick and choose from a wide array of stuff.

See, that's a bit awkward if he doesn't "get" the ironic humor of Shadowrun, because he might actually get offended by the 2nd edition Native American hipsters and whatnot.

It's kind of like as someone who's half Japanese, I "get" the humor about OMFG ZAIBATSU TAKEOVER DETROIT AUTO WORKERS IN PERIL. But someone who didn't understand the commentary on American society and culture circa 1980 might go ZOMG RACISM FNRRGGG.

Back in High School I played with a Native kid. He didn't get offended. He was actually quite amused that "the tribes" were an important power on NA. The map got a few eyebrows raised, particularly the way Alberta was divided up (SW Alberta up to Edmonton should be Blackfoot not Athabaskan) and he was curious as to how the Canadian Government managed to get the hands on the reservations during the resource rush since Canada doesn't have the same eminent domain rights over native land here.

For reference he played a Native wanna-be and hammed it up as much as he could. He described himself as 'white as the driven snow with red hair' but had 4 ranks in Knowledge "hoop dance" and stuff like that.

In other words he embraced the 'hipster'.

You might suggest Tomahawks as the adept's weapons of choice. They have the Amerindian (not politically correct, but SR correct) feel, and you can throw them for the same DV as in melee.

A couple points of, say, Increase Agility, Increase Strength (maybe), and Power Throw, and you have a fairly dangerous character for pretty cheap (and no bioware needed). Also, tomahawks are completely street legal! And if you make them weapon foci (not street legal, but good), his melee stats go up a bit.

Now I'm tempted to say Archery for a longer distance weapon, but RL Native Americans (heretofore NA) often used rifles taken from the dirty settlers' bodies. I would suggest the Ruger 100 (the best unmodded), or the Mannlicher Wildhuter (from Arsenal) with at least the firing mode selection (SA) upgrade.

Now if he wants, he could go Mystic Adept (a lot more of a headache) and get some neat spells and the ability to summon spirits. Get in touch with his inner totem and whatnot. Actually, it'd be kinda funny for him to RP the Amerindian as a wigger (white guy who uses Eubonics) that's using the NA belief system (because he happens to be NA).

"Yo man, I was like, totally gettin' in touch with mah inner Totem, foo!"

EDIT: "I pitty da foo who don' respect mah ancestral grounds! I do I do!"

Mr. Grey Owl, in chains and feathers?

I hope you have cleared with him whether he actually wants to play a native? Otherwise, this may come over as a tad annoying. I'd be surprised if his ethnicity is all he, as a person, is. Maybe start by making his character, as a framework, and then decide whether this is to be a native or not?

Few facts on SR's natives:

- All the NAN used the one-drop rule for determining who was let in, explaining their rather vast numbers compared to today. Many tribes primarily consist of people who are more whatever than Native. Also, some Nations accepted white tribes (usually 'wiggers') called pinkskin tribes. furthermore, many tribes were totally relocated in SR's war on terror (against natives, not muslims), and therefore, the tribal map in SR is very skewed.

- SR's natives are modern people with tribal heritage, not cliché stone age tribals, for the most part (the triibes that live extremly traditionally are the exception, not the rule).

- There are as many hermetic tribal mages as there are shamans. Totems are very indiscriminate.

- By and Large, the NAN are more environmentally conscious than UCAS, CAS, and other old industrialised nations in the SR world. However, by today's real world standard, the NAN are only a little more eco conscious than EU countries tend to be, if even that.

Also, there is a genuine Native martial art called Wildcat in Arsenal.

very very good point. he might not want it taken for granted he's NAN. DLN is Japanese-american and to date she's always played Japanese characters but we always make a point of asking her about her character's ethnicity just to avoid any issues.

In the SR world the indians in the east were relocated westwards.

I used to play with someone of Arab descent for years, and he never, ever, played a muslim, let alone Arab, character. And he WAS annoyed if someone asked him to. Depends on the respective plyer's outlook on their ethnicity, but it is always better to ask them about their character's ethnicity.

Myself, I have a couple of asian and arab characters, despite being germanic/slavic by ethnicity.

+1 on the "find out if he gives a damn, first" stuff. If he's expressed an interest in that aspect of the game, great. Pick up the old NAN books from eBay, or score Shadows of North America, or do whatever you gotta do (depending on what edition) to read up on the fluff. But if his idea was a Triad kung-fu guy for his face/martial artist, and you've already cooked up a character image with a full headdress and a peace pipe, you're gonna feel pretty stupid.

First of all, I'm going to echo a lot of others and say "So what?" Unless he's coming with some agenda, what does it matter? If he does, then he's going to be disappointed because the amount of info on eastern tribes is minimal and pretty ugly (durr terrists kind of ugly seeing as though they've only been covered in a subchapter on an anti-UCAS terrorist group).


There's nothing except the section in Corporate Enclaves about the PCC government. It's actually fascinating if you have access to the whole story and actually know a thing or two about the region because by all rights it makes Santa Fe a candidate for an intrigue/espionage-heavy campaign and storyline. But that will never happen, so the short answer is: Nothing.

Besides, what the hell are you expecting in terms of "gameplay?" It's not like Native runners get stat mods or anything.


The Old Ways of NA shamanism being a bastardized pastiche of Sioux, Pueblo and pacific northwestern tribal rituals.



As I recall, the Blackfoot didn't make it through the teens well. A lot of tribes were virtually annihilated, which is for example why the Navajos live in Sioux and the Pueblo Corporate Council has its capitol in Santa Fe while the two dominant tribes are predominantly in Arizona.


Not true. Each nation has its own criteria with some being liberal and the more militant nations like Sioux and especially Ute requiring far more than "one drop". Shadows of North America goes on to describe some of the specific national criteria while the NAN books are more specific. Pueblo, which now owns Ute, doesn't really have much of any criteria.

Of course, even reading between the lines in SONA the PCC is led by Hopi and Zuni with a vast underclass of Hispanics who would outnumber them at least five to one before PCC annexed southern California.


But tribes and governments are not (e.g., the disdain against Kyle Teller for being a Hermetic in Burning Bright).

There is only one decent source for Native Americans on the east coast, and that's in the Boston chapter of Target: UCAS. There's a catchall New England tribal terrorist group called Warpath. There may be some info in Quebec, but really as far as SR has been concerned there is nothing to say about eastern tribes. They got screwed by the western tribes who ran SAIM/NAN when the Treaty of Denver was negotiated.

Really, the depth and breadth of ignorance and lack of interest in non-white people in Shadowrun is astonishing.

I'm not sure if this is the best place to ask - especially as I don't really want to hijack the OP's thread - but I'm going to ask anyway.

Can anyone point me to any canon information on the Seminole (Florida, not Oklahoma) or Cherokee tribes? I havn't seen anything in any of the books I've looked through so far.

And then got relocated as part of the Denver treaty.

Cherokee are given passing mention in the two NAN books, if I remember correctly. Semiole are, I believe, extinct.

Books to look for are NAN 1 and NAN 2. You could also try Target: Smuggler Havens.


Yes. I was just thinking bof the "it's a Native, it's gotta be a shaman" kind of idea about tribal mages. PC may well end up Hermeticcs. Might even give them a reason to take to the shadows.

Also, wasn't one tribal chief in either Tshimshian or Salish hermetic mage?


The gaming scene, at least in substantial parts, isn't very xenophile. What do you expect.

Melee eh? Well the character should be a tank, large soak rolls, some stealth advisable. The character needs to be an adept with elemental strike - sonic or elemental strike - electric (sonic attacks go right through armor so it is pretty nice and if it gets nullified which only a few things work then he can still punch hard and take a hit.) That would be my quick suggestion to even make a martial arts build even close to viable.

Elemental strike - sonic is also nice because it cuts right through spirit "immune to natural weapons" armor as well.

Thank you.

Yer welcome.

Aside from those Shadowrun sourcebooks, do some RL research on Amerindian tribal customs culture. Ask your new player about his culture and how he perceives his character's role in the game. Most of us anglos know bugger all about such different cultures and how they really work - we've only got what the books and TV tell us. I was lucky enough to visit the Museam of Human Civilisation (or something like that) in Ottowa during the era of 1st Edition, circa~1990. Blew me away.

As for the martial artist PC - if that's what floats their boat why not. OK, everyone uses guns, but if you're an adept with a weapon focus and the right skills nobody should underestimate that. Particular effective as a bughunter or spirit slayer. Bullets don't hurt fire elementals much, but some good old fashioned hand-to-hand smackdown - now that's cool.

Stick and Shock ammo hurts spirits nice and well though.

Nothing. Nothing at all. It was simply an observation.

Random Post # 8

Agreed. Though what you do with the information is totally up to you. The traditional customs and culture varies heavily from tribe to tribe and if dealing with a NAN campaign it could add some flavor. Cultures do evolve though, so you can add new beliefs and viewpoints that may create rifts between the old school traditionalist and the cosmopolitan NAN. Not to mention that some of the nations are composed of tribes that have histories of conflict that might still play out in 2070 on one level or another. Especially since the UCAS and CAS are not the threats they once were to cause the unification they did.

(Emphasis Added) Exactly. Like spirits becoming real. Ritual Dances working 100% again. Large-scale shamanism. Awakened animals.

I can definately see a resurgence of Amerindian culture in a lot of places. (others as well, but this thread cares about Amerindian culture).

Here's a good example of urban shamanism. I got it from another thread on here that was primarily about this video.