The first SR campaign I ran ended with nearly more time being spent between the run than during them. They lived in a building with a very strong community feeling. There were about 50 NPC I had created there, all with their backstories and sometimes own plots (from the really important one such as "he might betray everyone" to the complicated life of the teenage ork who was proud to be an ork but discovered that she liked human boys better).
We spent a whole session playing the Christmas party in the building (in the previous session the players were giving me notes to explain what present their character wanted to give the others for Christmas)

Vera, another character of mine, is a serial killer. She goes to clubs and trendy locations, she picks up husbands who are cheating their wives. After a few months she tires of the game, kills the family she has never seen with poison and makes the cuckolded husband disappear.

She was the team's face and doctor.

In our campaign, the characters' private life is as or more important than the runs. And usually more dangerous too.

Aye. That's the one. Heh. Good times. Good times...



Jesus. That's frightening.

- J.

Why?

Pathological. A little sadistic. But it makes sense altruistic wise.

There's all sorts of meaning at play in referring to the the story.

I just think it's funny how there's this unspoken assumption in the OP that those PCs who don't angst all over the place while listening to Fall Out Boy about killing also don't have lives.

Anyway, the fact that no one recognized the origin of the second half of my post is disappointing but unsurprising.

Since it's my OP, what made you think that? The term "angst" came up in another thread expressly about killing in Shadowrun a couple times. Here I was asking people, including those who said they just play to kill stuff and blow stuff up, if they actually deal with their character's off-screen lives, if their groups use that in play in some fashion, if people bother coming up with that. I had gotten the feeling from a couple people that wanting to role-play off-camera might be considered "angsty" too, but what I have seen in the responses in this thread has been very encouraging. Many people have shared a little bit about their characters and I think some unique ideas have been passed along... the beer can origami still get's first place for unique, especially given the person who does it. *grin*
If there was something else in the OP you were referring to, I'd love to discuss it, because that wasn't my thinking at all. I was hoping to DISPEL that idea, in fact. (And in that regard, I think this thread has been highly successful.)

Ronin--street samurai; during his off time he worked at his "shooting range" making items for other runners
once during a run, a NPC rode up on a bike, tossed him a bullet and rode off. The other players asked what that was about. "That was her way of saying there is a price on my head, and that she turned the offer down." On the bullet was his name, one that he had made for her

on the flipside, as GM I try ot run some background/ life stuff/ side plots with the players as they are showing before I get to the main mission for the day

Those pesky Johnsons are always calling and interrupting things like investigating why the couch we picked up for the little old lady upstairs, as part of a magical group quest, contained a dead hooker. Or why the tamanous were foolish enough to kidnap the runners adopted group of orphaned kids for their ghastly experiments.


"Guys, I need help with the couch."
"You're a troll."
"No, but with the dead hooker inside."
"You have a couch with a dead hooker inside?"
"No, it's not my couch, it's for the little old lady upstairs."


"Guys... I need some help with the kids."
"You have KIDS!"

I got a little lost here on the specific use of the term cockold. Was she picking up the husbands or their cheated on wives?

The term is most recently in mind from the wonderful Aubrey-Maturin series and being that it is set far back in the past, I may be mistaken about the importance of sex(of the person you dolts) when applying the word.

That and I am home on a sickday. My mind is even more mush then normal.

BlueMax
/if you can believe that is possible.

If I said, "After a few months she tires of the game, makes the cheating husband disappear and poisons his wife and children (who she has never been introduced to and hence no connection to)." Would that make more sense?

You are also correct. Cuckold would refer to husband (for being a cheat) and cuckolded would be the wife (for being cheated on).

Hey, most of my characters are, at least character wise, highly sociable . . ok, charisma of 1 or 2 and no social skills whatsoever, but that does not mean that they do not enjoy the company of people they do (not) want to kill.

R O F L M A O!!!!!!

OK, I have to have a 3 x 5 card here someplace to save that on!

Hey! I DID grin when I said it. And I will tell you that I've passed it along to all my wetware friends near by, and eveybody thinks it's prime. You got a LOT of laughts. I was taking a chance to compliment you on a splendid idea while tweaking your nose in the process...
As always, your unique way of viewing your characters makes me smile.

You know. I just read that and laughed as well. If it was anyone besides Stahl, it wouldn't have been as funny.

PS. Hey Stahl. Elves rule buddy.

Yes yes, i know it was all in good jest and fun ^^

No, elves suck dick. And they don't even have to kneel if you're a Troll! ^^

And if i made SOMEONE laugh, i consider a day not to have been wasted.

Stahl, don't hate on the elves cause their beautiful.

Not sure if I want to dwell into the vaudville of metahuman bathroom humor. Looking down that path, it can only lead to no good. What the hell.

Trolls like it hairy and most of the time they have no idea what they're doing down there.

*casts an apraising eye at Stahlseele...*
"Well, I'd probably have to bend over at least a little, but what's in it for me, hon?" ::Kerenshara

Our characters are SRII and 2052, so it might seem out of date to you.

My Ork Decker is active in the local O.R.C. chapter, as well as the Metahuman Rights local chapter. Additionally, he does freelance cybertechnology firmware work as well as high end programming through a bunch of cutouts. (Software 11)

Additionally, since the GM ruled that hologram generators were a realistic thing he also has spend a LOT of money buying hologram projectors in order to create "light sculptures" and other works of art. His house is literally full of them. He's also been working on creating "virtual rooms" where when you walk in, it looks, feels, smells like someplace else.

It's pretty common for the team to come and see him at his house to "find" him crouched down in the middle of a rainforest clearing "petting" a spider (working on it's AI routines) or standing in the middle of the predawn desert moving his hands like a conductor and building the sunrise. One of the characters described his house as a "sculpted system" since it's too easy to get lost in a house where the rooms change based on random code and motion feedback.

The groups Street Sam is a hot bodied Native American girl who works as a librarian at one of the local libraries. She's pretty careful about what cyberwear she gets, so she doesn't have anything obvious that can't be covered up by a pair of fingerless gloves. She also collects books. Real, actual books, searching for the rare ones. She's got a tiny apartment that is full to the gills with books. She also uses her high Int for more than just her Reaction, she's dropped skill points into "Literacy", not just how to read, but how to analyze, how to deconstruct, and is a respected literature researcher.

A couple weeks back a hit team came looking for her street identity. She was in the bathroom, taking a shower, when the team busted in. She heard them enter, then silence. Scattered around the apartment's surfaces were the works she was reviewing on the "Early Elven Literature of Tir na Nog", along with posters of writers. There was silence for a long moment, then she heard what she figures was the team leader curse: "Blasted idiot gave us the wrong address. We're looking for a street sam, not some woman to lecture us on Shakespeare. Fall back, men."

The Rigger likes rabbits. Well, to be exact, likes making "neat" rabbits. With a Genetic Engineering>>Gene Splicing>>Rabbit Genetics 14, his apartment has little rabbits, big rabbits, rabbits that glow in the dark, rabbits that change colors, rabbits that whistle like birds, rabbits covered with porcupine quills, bald rabbits that use chlorophyll, rabbit rabbits rabbits RABBITS! We've had to warn him twice when we give him the money to buy new thrusters for the Banshee, he is NOT supposed to buy bargain basement used thrusters and spend the rest on his FRAKKING RABBITS! To top it off he's even managed to create a carnivorous rabbit with a taste for human flesh and a second retractable set of teeth that is nothing but razor sharp teeth designed for biting away huge gobbets of flesh with a sense of smell more in line with a small dog than a rabbit. We hate those things, since they look perfectly normal except for instead of normal eyes, they have flat, cold, dead snake eyes. Of course, one time I stole one of them and put it in someone's car who we had been hired to kill. LoneStar still isn't sure what got in a his car and brutally murdered him then ate everything in his abdominal cavity.

The Mage is formerly FBI. And despite his disgrace, blacklisting, and persona nongrata status, he still does freelance profiling for the local Seattle FBI, as well as LoneStar and a few other people, through a cover identity, and only via emails. Additionally, he has a thing for insects (He's a new player and has no idea what is going to happen in the upcoming years) and has been trying to figure out a spell that lets him detect the "hive mind" of some insects, as well as measuring aura strength for insects to try to figure out their intelligence or astral presence.

We were on a run, sneaking past the perimeter guards, when all of sudden the phone rings. What is it? One of the FBI's contacts was calling him to let him know that he had located a rare Brazillian praying mantis. OK, maybe that doesn't sound so bad, but he ANSWERED THE PHONE and got all excited. Up runs one of the perimeter guards, who hauls out his SMG and yells "GRAB THE GROUND!" and the FBI agent goes "Hush."

Yeah, outside interests are fun.

"Front, Back. Mine, not mine. What more do you have to know? Everything else comesquite naturally"

"As much as you can take before you break"


This is soo something most of my characters would probably be doing ^^

*laughs vibrantly*
"Well, isn't somebody cocky? I thought you didn't like us little ladies? Change your mind?" ::Kerenshara

My wife's old PC was a waitress who didn't know she was a PhysAd. She had two kids and the character's husband was a specOps soldier who's team disapeared and was disavowed.

During the game she discovered her magical ability, her daughter started seeing "ghosts" in her room at night followed by her manifesting a stun bolt on a bully at school, which she had to deal with. Her older son liked hanging out with the Yakuza Samurai in the team.

Then the two kids were trapped in the Arcology when the Shutdown happened, which prompted a run into the place. When they located her son he had manifested physad powers of his own and she then learned that the Yakuza Samurai and her daughter had been taken by Deus and had been banded. That didn't stop her from going after them however.

Fun times. My wife is still pissed at me for having Meg's kids trapped in the Arc

Ok, that's pretty wiz. It's wonderful to hear these stories because it's reassuring to those of us who choose to deal with issues like this, and I am sure it's giving some GMs some great ideas for ways to draw us further into their worlds.

Awesome post all. For a while i was worried our team was spending too much time on side issues nice to know you guys all like to keep things more realistic instead of the run....run....run attitude.

Well the time frame I usually hear rarely out strips a run a week for most teams (unless they are in the "We will do ANYTHING" mode), often less. Excluding some leg work a run is usually a quick nights work (3-6 hours). Even if the character is a BTL chip head who Runs solely to pay for his habit he's going have some sort of social life sooner or later, even if it is only to track down a new dealer cause the last one got busted. I can understand some people wanting to hand wave this (one of my players does as he can only be on hand one session in 3 or so and wants to kick butt while he can), but even the hand waving "I'm off doing crime with the Vory in down time, what kind of crime? Violent crime! That and visiting mama in the old country." causes backstories to happen.

Well I probably shouldn't talk since it's not technically finished but my gunslinging, fast talking, orc is a huge fan of opera even if he cant sing for crap. His mother was an amazing opera singer until some raiders cut her tounge out. That was the first time he killed a person and to this day it effects his judgement. Kill for a reason, never cold blood.

Wish you'd have posted about that in the thread "Making the Kill"

I've never found it hard to insert character lives into the game. SR has always felt organic enough a game to pull it off without much of a problem in the games I've had.

My characters typically use 'running as a means to further their personal ends in their 'real' jobs and legal pursuits. My current SR3 character is a paranormal investigator in the business of debunking ghost stories and hauntings. Sometimes it's assorted nasty creatures, sometimes they're even true, but all of it gets put onto his Matrix site and broadcast as a sort of reality programming. He got called into the campaign as a consultant and has since been swept up in the world-saving goodness going on. Still, he's got a few ranks in skills like Creative Writing and Cinematography to show that he's serious about doing this for a living. Being a minor celebrity in certain circles comes in handy and is definitely an advantage of not 'running 24/7 for him as well.

My PC lives are the game.

Everything of who they are, down to ring tones and to the minuti of interior design of their pad, (including what they would like but carn't have with pictures for reference). Every shade of emotional nuance, connection and neccesity with the rest of the world is the game.

Wow. I think that is one of the best, most concise summations of first-rate role-playing I have ever seen. It is the goal all of us are trying to aim for. And the thing most GMs are hopefully extoling their players to achieve.

Thanks you!

Ha! I am lucky if half my players remember where they are in the adventure from week to week. Really, they have all these excuses like
"I have other things to do"
"My job needs my attention"

fools,
BlueMax

You know, I was feeling sorry for the good players the other day who have crummy GMs.

I forgot to feel for the good GMs suffering with a bunch of hack-and-slashers cum 'runners.

I say frag 'em.

Thanks. Its taken a lot of work and time and help to get there. But its what we enjoy.

Another thread just reminded me of the time that my (human, non-magical, non-cybered) character got infected with HMHVV2 and turned into a werewolf. Lots of time was spent dealing with the ramifications of this. I destroyed a good portion of a city block that day, while completing the assignment we had. Luckily it paid well, so we skipped town and set up home in Boston, where we bought an old church. My character didn't want to hurt the people he was with (including a 14 year old girl we saved from the clutches of Corporate Tyranny™ on that run.) It was alot of fun working out all of the details of the changes everyone experienced through this. I tried locking myself up during the time around the full moon, only to find out that adding essence to strength (which I think ended up at strength 7 from the change) giving me 13, made it pretty much impossible for the chains to actually hold if i freaked out (and i did). Accidentally killed some witches to boot. Good times.

Between Runs?

Well...my current Mage character is actually a Talismonger. He owns his own shop and even hired an assistant to do the Bookkeeping and customer service, she's an elf mundane. But the only real benefits my GM gives me is that my Low Lifestyle is pretty much paid for every month. Extra spending cash is made when I hire my magical services to others, mostly runners, but sometimes corps and research facilities (He's not only a magician after all, he's a Magical Genius. But he DID drop out of MIT&T after the second year because he thought the professors were a bunch of !@#$-tards.)

Of course...this also gives the rest of the players a place to hang out in between runs....since the shop is essentially a void in the matrix (My mage is a Gremlin level 3, so tech doesn't ix with him) it makes it hard for the authorities to track them so it also tends to double as a safehouse....at least until a new safehouse is purchased.

Another of our group, the Street Samurai, works as a bouncer for a night club in one of the seedier locatons in town.

Edit: Our GM is really into RP, so he really encouraged us to come up with ideas for our characters' lives between runs...

I have just found myself with a wife and kid. The father was a friend of mine who got abducted and tortured by former employers trying to eliminate witnesses of the run. I don't know if he talked, and I don't care, because I found them before they found me. But he was already dead at that time, and his family needed a man at home... I am slowly discovering that I am a BAD family man. The rest of team is starting to worry that I am turning workaholic, whereas I'm just trying to escape home.

But still, I have started to save money for them, should something happen. Don't know if I like them, but they deserve better.

Various characters of mine-

Ogre Street Samurai: Cruising the flooded streets of LA in his heavily modified patrol car, thinking up ways to add more bling to his gear, music (anything that's meant to be played loud and good at showing off his new sound system - trust me, some part of it will be new), and of course, the obligatory ale and whores (even if in this case it's synthahol and joygirls)

Gunslinger Adept: Trideo remakes of old action movies, being an ork, sports, hanging out with the other members of his ork street-gang, did I mention that he's totally not an elf?

Hacker: Music, dance, exploring the Matrix, gambling (card-counting with extensive headware really is too easy sometimes)

Wow. That's a seriously cool response. Kudos. (Totally OOC here.)

Seconded. This is this hobby at its finest, and I would love to game with your crew.

Don't think my group's quite there yet, but they're sure trying. Two PCs have ongoing romances with NPCs, which provides plenty of drama and such. But the group is large and the players are new, so we just try to fit in as much of the not-directly-adventure-related material in as we can.

Not to be anathema to your idea of RPing, but I definitely don't think I could handle that much detail. Wow, kudos to you if it gives you enjoyment, but that much detail would make me feel less like I'm playing a game and more like I was actually working...wow...just wow....

But hey, if it works for you, go for it.