What characters have you based yours on? Go on, you know you want to tell us!

That doesn't make sense. Are you asking "What have you based your characters on"?

I did not realize it until more than 8 months into a campaign, but my first SR character, a "combat courier," was based, to the teeth, on Johny Mnemonic. I had not seen the film in two or three years, but it had engrained itself in my mind as "what cyber-punk looks like." When I finally saw the film again (I picked up a DVD copy cheap), I could practically tick off item by item traits/techniques I had subconsciously borrowed.

The only change that I made after seeing the film again was to scream, during the next gaming session, in the woods, "I WANT ROOMSERVICE!!!"

Once I played a pretty cool killing hands adept.

I made a guy that is pretty much exactly the character Bruce Willis played in the 5th Element. That's about all. Any other are agglomerations of influences (i.e. the normal way imagination works)

I found that playing a character who already exists is easier, cause I could always think "ok, WWWD?" (that's 'What Would Willis Do' ). It helped me stay in character and avoid reacting how *I* would have reacted.

i'm lucky--the guy whose writing i draw most of my characters from, very few people read. David Drake, thou are my muse.

other than that... well, i've got a forensic mage who is in no way a total ripoff of david caruso's CSI: Miami role (if a bit lighter on the melodramatic lines). i've got a physad whose suite of powers was inspired by Bubblegum Crisis, i guess that counts.

Combination of Hoot and Eversman from Blackhawk Down. (physad)

Yoda. (shaman)

Gambit from X-men (adept mage)

Nekron (from the movie Fire & Ice)
Dick Marcinko

I haven't made any of my playable characters from anything directly, but the ones I run for others often have references to literature or existing shadow lore. For instance:

Son of Samurai (Neon Samurai's bastard child, complete with Kid Stealth legs)
Radd (flew a T-bird called the Silver Surfer)
Capt. Kenga (captain of a ronin aircraft carrier/smugglers haven - named after the helpful Captain Katenga in Raiders of the Lost Ark)
Slimline (elven combat decker, also a Gambit clone *kudos* - complete with 'ragin cajun' speak and mass filanderin')

My players like stuff like that, so long as it doesn't get comical... just when its a pun, eh?

Well when it comes to stealth adepts, I always look to my Hero, Big Bird. Of course it took a lot of SURGE effects to make a troll look like that but it was worth it. . .

1970's Blacksploitation films PIMP. All the way. The pimp rocks. You buy 4 contacts possibly level two. These are your "ho's", then you build out the social skills. the Stereotypical pimp is the king of characters. Affraid you may get ambushed, send one of your ho's....But don't forget though that Ho's don't come cheap and never.

Just don't hate the player....Hate the game.......My pimp idea is a cross between the detective and a fixer. You gotz to buy the wired Flexes, you don't want one of your ho's getting out of line and busting a cap in your ass....."A ho with a gat is just as nasty as a bat.."

Check out Randy's www.somethingpositive.net, my idea is similar but I'd be purchasing the ho's. A player ain't a player without ho's......Also rent "American Pimp" that's a great documentry on the modern pimp. I thought about a handle as Mr. Ivy or Mr. Slim.....

Ever since i saw the first Series of 24 i thought about doing a character based on Jack. Just could never deside what would be the right way to do it to do Jack justice....

My current D&D character started off as a clone of the character Danilo Thann from Elaine Cunningham's Songs and Swords. Not the best character idea for a group full of gun-toting maniacs, but I really like him. Since I've started playing him, he's become wholly my own except that he's a musician and is a lot more powerful than he lets on.

-fr

As anyone who's seen the threads from the older Forums probably knows, my character was based upon "The Foreigner", a minor character from MARVEL COMICS from the late 1980s and early 1990s (he was around as far back as November, 1978 [DEFENDERS, Volume 1, Issue #65, disguised as "Lieutenant Kris Keating", leader of the NYPD Special Powers Task Force], but no one knew that it was he). He's a VERY capable international assassin, and would most likely be considered some form of Adept in SR terms.

I'm playing my version of him (in Sahandrian's Play-By-America Online Instant Messenger/Chat campaign) as an Adept of the Magician's Way.

So far, we've completed one 'run together.

--Foreigner

Foreigner, a little off topic, but how does PB-AIM work out?

Do you all use a chat room, what?

I've tried it a little but the obnoxious size of the text always pisses me off.

Diesel:

You're right.

We either play in a chat room at Sahandrian's home site, Pedro's Witnesses: Redux, or via AOL Instant Messenger. It isn't quite the same thing, as the controls aren't exactly the same with the two different formats, but it's pretty close.

--Foreigner

Hmm... sounds vaguely like a question I heard elsewhere lately... I'll just cut and paste (this question was just posted on rpol.net).

I usually don't base my characters off of anyone in particular, but I often find my characters to be a combination of several well known characters. For instance, my B&E characters are your fairly typical hot woman in black leather (although I did have a shapeshifter B&E woman who I based a lot off of the Cat from Red Dwarf). I use a lot of real life inspiration as well; my first and only rigger I based off of my bus driver (the "hairy meatball"), my last Call of Cthulu character was a drunk loosely based off of a bum in DC, my prostitute characters are normally a mix of prostitutes and the pissy Gibson street sams. I get a *LOT* of my NPCs from other sources, since I'm horrible with names. Gibson especially has great inspiration, although I still want to bring in Raven from Snow Crash.

I try never ever to base DnD characters off of other sources. It's too easy and too boring (unless it's a prostitute, bum or street sam). Actually my DnD characters are usually souped up versions of my normal characters. My last one was a prostitute who happened to be a demon.

Why, The Grifter of WildC.A.T.S. fame, of course. PhysAd gunslingin badass extraordinaire.

I've never based I character I've built on an existing character in any movie, book or game. I think. There might be a few who are influenced to a degree, but there certainly aren't any straight copies. One NPC was based heavily on a RL person that I knew, but that's about it.

I have a Path of the Magician physad who was loosely based on Cloud Strife from Final Fantasy 7. You'd never see that in the way he looks or acts at this point, though. The character "Sahandrian" was originally based on Dan, a friend of mine, but that doesn't really count. Even then it was mostly his personality that I based on Dan, and maybe his haircut. In later games, Sahandrian bleached and spiked his hair, and if I was really imitating Dan, he'd have been a rigger. Dan loves his car more than his girlfriend.

In D&D, the only thing I can think of is a concept character (stats, personality, but no background or a game to play him in) that's loosely based on the Twin Blade from .Hack...

Edit: And as for the issue of running SR in AIM chats, I just set the font view to 75% and my font size to 10-12 in the options. You get a consistent 8pt that way. Aim chat's message length limit also lets me yell at Phaeton to shut up when he's in the middle of doing something stupid that I'm not going to let happen.

this is just an idea we had, but how about an ACME mage?

you know...dropping pianos n stuff on people.

painting holes in the wall to escape.


drop a safe on someone, then watch as it opens to let them out of the inside.

I steal ideas from everywhere. I steal guys from sourcebooks, I steal from TV shows I steal from other games, you name it, I've "borrowed" ideas from it.

I've made several failed attempts at a Gunslinger (from Stephen King).
My favorite Ork ex-ganger Street sam is totally ripped off from Ghost Dog.
I, like everyone else, have ripped numerous characters off from The Professional.
Sara Conner
Link from The Mod Squad (the series, not the movie)
Captain Jack from Pirates of the Caribean
Rick O'Connel from The Mummy
Will Grahm from Red Dragon
Half of the characters from Die hard are worth doing.
and many others.

So, no one's yet admitted to ripping off characters from Heat or Ronin yet (specifically, De Niro's characters).

Interesting.

The "enforcer" mentioned in the other thread is more or less cored in Albrecht (from The Crow, more the television series than the films), post-detective period, with a serious Jedi twist (physmage-Awakened after having been medically dropped from Lone Star, after having been shot in the back with no memory as to how or why). He even has a (former street kid) padawan partner named Sarah. (And, sigh, a true love named Willow - a cute elfin Willow patterned after the high school Buffy version, who was kidnapped to the Tir by her parents 15 years ago, whom he's been searching for ever since, and whose mention tends to lead to far too extensive discussions about the possibilities of the tips of elvish ears.)

I think that's the most I ever patterned after something specific. It's been terrifying

Hmm, I don't think I've ever based my PCs off of any specific person, real or fictional. I'm sure that various characters in novels I've read and on the screen have influenced me, but it has all been subconciously. I will state that all of my characters do have a little bit of myself in them though, to one degree or another. I like being able to identify with my character, even if it is only on the most rudimentary level. I feel that knowing how we are similar and how we differ helps me play them more realistically.

Characters ripped off

As PC:

Big Jacke Thornton (John Wayne as aging Western Hero in the early 1900s) both for SR and Deadlands

Col. Jack O'Neil from Stargate (Television version) for a Stargate char

Tycho Caine from the Dark Conspirace Novells (for an SR assasin)

Conan (Original Novels version)

Navigator Blackthorne (The European goes Asian native idea) for SR (style, not Japan)

Horatio Hornblower (For a starship captain, long before Webers Harrington!)


As NPC:

Feldwebel Steiner (okay, actually my old OFW but there's no difference between Burton and the IRL guy)

Myself (The overweight, constantly objecting reserve technician in a SciFi setting)

Dempsey&Makepeace (Britisch Tely crime show, used them as is)

ED-209 (Robocop)

The 42 CoDo Marines / Falkenbergs Legion (Pournelle, needed Mercs)

Brigadier Bradley "Bad Brad" Elliot und HAWK (Dale Brown, Old Dog/Day of the Cheeta)

The Tamar Guards (Needed Sowjet soldiers)



Birdy

Hmm, I've never really based any of my character of a fictional person from books or tv. Most of the time I either get an idea for a 'cool' character or a concept character like 'ambidextrous gunbunny/face' or 'cyberlimbed decker/tech'

Would be fun to base a character of David Weber 'Honor Harrington' universe but it is a bit hard making a naval officer for shadowrun.

Perhaps i could create a Treecat? Emphatic awakened animal that looks cute and have a craving for celery? Also have a tendency to bond with humans and make hamburger of people threathening them.

Popeye meets Joe Pesci. NUff Said.

The McMannus brothers from Boondock Saints, 'nuff said. I play Sean (Connor) and a buddy of mine plays Alec (Murphy).

Full ambidexterity, skills with almost every type of gun, and improved brawling geased to having drunk at least a half-pint of Jamesons. Oh yeah, and they center with, you guessed it, Latin prayers.

Ok I guess I'll post my 2 worth as well.

I made a character based on Inuyasha an anime show on Cartoon Network.

The concept: A physical adept with a geasa on all his powers that makes him powerless for 3 days a month. However he was not a legal character as per Shadowrun Missions not enough time that his powers did not work oh well.

Other than that I tend to make characters from my own ideas and concepts.

That reminds me...Sahandrian recently made Shippou into a Shadowrun NPC. Archetype was "nuisance."

Mandark from Dexter's Lab.

My rigger was originally designed to be partnered with a sam by the name of Dozer. We never got to play them together; but his idea was to create a skillwire samurai. Using my drone network, I could plug a spider drone into his headware, and download three full simsense channels worth of data at once. So, I could sit back in the van, and send him whatever skill he needed.

We were just waiting for the chance for him to say: "Tank, I need the pilot program for a B-212 Huey."

I had a sammy with wired reflexes level 2 and 6 reaction enhancers.. But no reflex trigger.. I called him 'Tweak', and based him off the super-hyper kid of the same name from South Park.

I had a Malkavian in V:tM who I based off of John Nash.

I don't rip off entire characters, but I will use general concepts when designing PCs and NPCs. Example: after seeing Dirty Pretty Things, I created a character who was a medic/face type who was a refugee from Africa fleeing corruption.