Dumpshock Forums > The Nightsiders, Inc.

DarkKindness

Sep 2 2009, 07:52 PM

Heya, folks... at long last, this is the collected character thread that I've been promising across my multiple build help/critique threads. My aim here is to present all of the characters that I've created with your help thus far, a little bit of story for each (likely a paragraph or two), and some brief background for how they came together as a team. I leave their interpersonal dynamics, foibles, and so on to each individual who wants to use them for their game. This group should be usable as a whole for GMs who want an NPC 'runner team, or piecemeal by either players or GMs who want slightly more powerful versions of the archetypes presented in the BBB - all are created using the 400 BP starting character rules, and all are (or should be, if my math isn't horribly wrong) legally playable as such.

A couple of technical notes - almost all of these characters can have their metatypes shifted by shuffling attribute points around to make room for the changes, and all save the troll were created as humans and modified at my whim for this thread. Throughout this write-up, I'll be defaulting to use of the male pronoun in describing characters, though a couple of them were originally envisioned as female. This is simply for consistency and to make things a little easier on me and can, clearly, be changed at whim to suit your needs. I'm also no great writer of fictional prose, so don't make fun of the bits that will be in this post too much

<fiction>
Best to start at the beginning, I suppose, and, like any good story, it starts with a troll, a business, and a mystery. Ursus, the name that he gave most often on the streets, and the name that he most often thought of as belonging to himself, though it had never been associated with a SIN, had been a simple businessman until two weeks ago. He had been the co-owner of a private investigation and bounty hunting firm, as well as being its muscle and gun arm. Despite not being the biggest troll in the 'plex, he was tenacious and mean-spirited in a way that often made quarry quail from a fight, but he could certainly handle himself if it came to blows. He had been moderately happy with his life - he had a legal business that provided steady work, a business partner who wasn't the worst guy to be around and had a real talent for making the Matrix do what he wanted that Ursus could just never quite grasp, and he got to exercise his muscles and his gun arm on a fairly regular basis. But that was then. Before his business partner had disappeared. Ursus didn't know what he had been looking into, only that it had been something with high-level matrix security and that it stood to make them a lot of money - enough to move up from the small fish that they usually worked for and start presenting them to a considerably... more affluent clientele. But that one day two weeks ago... he had returned to the office after going to the Stuffer Shack to pick up dinner and a refill for the soycaf machine, and found his partner gone, his office ransacked, and had heard the Lone Star sirens closing in. Being a suspicious troll by nature, Ursus decided to duck around the block before the Star got to him and see what happened. He wasn't disappointed by the show, either - this wasn't just a single squad car, but a whole flock of them, followed by a SpecOps van... and did they hit his front door with a vengeance that made him glad he wasn't on the other side of it, omae.

Since that day, Ursus had been trying to figure out what his partner was working on in hopes of tracking either him or his abductors down in order to get some answers, some bloody vengeance, or both. It's been tough going, though, as every single contact or business associate that he has ever associated with has either turned up missing or with some extra body mass in the form of copper-jacketed lead intrusions. He was able to find out, through public records, that his SIN had been tagged with a warrant, his licenses had been revoked, and that he was now wanted for questioning in relation to the break-in and robbery at his own business, as well as his partner's disappearance. Though it got his blood boiling, Ursus wasn't going to let himself be put down by the Star (or whoever was pulling their strings today) for something that he hadn't done... and he was going to get his share of the action when he found out who had really done it. Being on the wrong side of the law, Ursus figured that it was time to be a bad guy and, to that end, started checking the Star's public warrants and feel around on the streets to see if there was anyone desperate enough to sign on to help him in the job...
</fiction>

Since all of the events detailed above, Ursus has managed to assemble a small 'runner team in order to help him in his goals. They don't know why they've been brought together, only that this troll has leverage over them, has something that he wants, and isn't the sort of person that they want to challenge. The names given below are the names that these shadow-dwellers have given themselves, the handles that they go by. Whether or not they'd offer their real names... well, that depends on who's asking, doesn't it? Without further ado, I give you the personalities of Nightsiders, Inc.:

Ursus

[ Spoiler ]

Apogee

[ Spoiler ]

Selvan

[ Spoiler ]

Casull

[ Spoiler ]

Torque

[ Spoiler ]

Ghost

[ Spoiler ]

Takeshi

[ Spoiler ]

EDIT: Done! Now tear it apart, folks, or enjoy at your leisure!

DarkKindness

Sep 2 2009, 07:52 PM

Reserved for more space in case I go over any word count limits on my first post in the thread.

EDIT: Hey, look, I didn't need the overflow post!

DarkKindness

Sep 2 2009, 10:55 PM

Whew... done with all of that! Just bumping the thread up quick and letting folks know that it's done. Everything in the first post should be correct - if it's not, let me know what I need to fix.

Please, critique this! I need feedback, and I want to know what all of you folks think! Reasonable PCs? NPCs? Anything?

The Jake

Sep 3 2009, 05:33 AM

I like it. I guess while some builds I liked immensely such as Ghost it was less clear what their intended roles were. An experienced player could guess but for a newb it isn't. Easily remedies however.

- J.

DarkKindness

Sep 3 2009, 05:40 AM

I think that most should be pretty clear - Torque is a rigger, and is pretty good at both ranged combat and infiltration via drones. He's also capable of some hacking. Takeshi is a pretty straightforward street sam, and is good at both melee and ranged combat. Ghost is an infiltration specialist, some tertiary hacking and secondary combat ability. Casull is ranged combat, plain and simple. Apogee is a hacker, excellent in VR with a few augmentations to help out in AR hacking. Selvan is a mage - focused mainly on protection and healing, but can do an able job of knocking a few opponents unconscious or taking out some non-living enemies completely. Ursus is a bit of a toss-up. I designed him with a P.I./detective archetype in mind, mixed in with a little bit of a hunter (the traditional type, not necessarily bounty). As such, he's passable at investigating and tracking down a target, and pretty good in combat once he finds who/what he's looking for.

Thanks a ton for the response, though! I was worried that I had gone to all the work of typing that out and that no one was enjoying it/found it worth saying anything about...

The Jake

Sep 3 2009, 05:50 AM

It's only clear to you because you know the rules extensively and because you wrote the characters. An experienced GM could explain it but a newbie player will not infer all that from just picking up the sheet. You are taking that knowledge for granted. I respectfully stand by my opinion.

- J.

DarkKindness

Sep 3 2009, 05:51 AM

Well, now I've laid it out in plain language so that it's perfectly clear

That was the point of that last post, not to refute you per se.

The Jake

Sep 3 2009, 12:10 PM

FWIW, I really like these builds. Your builds demonstrate flexibility, remain true to a concept you have in your head, yet are not gimped but a long shot.

- J.

Marwynn

Sep 3 2009, 12:58 PM

These are very well done! They're great characters for sure, with a concept and believable skills. They feel real.

Kudos!

I agree with TheJake that a newb might not get it right away but that was easily remedied. Very good stuff, I enjoyed reading their writeups.

BobRoberts

Sep 3 2009, 01:36 PM

I really like these. Interesting characters and they're not 2D.

Putting together some pregens for a one shot game/possible mini campaign. Or I was!

Think I'll be giving a couple of these some playtesting instead and see how they go... will give some feedback after the game