So, I'm getting ready to run my first real attempt at a Shadowrun game. I expressed my wishes for my players to have a pretty decently filled out background, which so far they've done pretty well. Thing is, they've left some major holes open for me to take advantage of.

One of them is set on having a dependent NPC, in the form of a little girl. I'm meeting with him tonight to roll up the character and have him explain this further. Aside from the obvious getting her kidnapped or endangered in some way, I'm looking for some other out-of-the-box methods of using this. Also, does anyone know of a quality that he can use to represent this, or should we just keep it to his background and roleplaying?

The other one isn't as big. He just has a brother who is a big time hacker and fixer. Still, any ideas with this one are helpful, too.

the little girl could get hooked on BTL's or other substances or depending on age and how gritty you run the world cand start running with a bad croud (not that shadowrunners are a good crowd to begian with)

Turn it around

Instead of the little girl getting kidnapped, have the bigtime hacker/fixer get in trouble instead. When the players help him out, he'll be in a position to give them some shinies that they'll feel were well-earned (and not as blood-money as normal payout).

Meanwhile, the girl is just darling, nobody wants to hurt her, but occasionally she'd like something really exotic for show and tell at school..

Or perhaps a rival wants to annoy the PC by trying to become the "cool dad" of one of her classmates, working up the PC's competitive instinct.

Or her very presence in the middle of a firefight causes the NPCs to pull out, in order not to risk killing a little girl (of course she'll be frightened and need consoling, but still.. nice chance to show not all NPCs are utterly inhuman.)


Kidnapping the powerless family members of the "heroes" is cliche; putting a twist on it is much more fun.

There's a "Dependents" quality in the Runners companion that is meant for just such things as having children.

Remember that just because there's "holes" for you to exploit, doesn't meant you have to do so. EVERYBODY has some flaws in thier background; the only difference in this case is the players have told you what those might be, rather than forcing you to make them up for them. They shouldn't be punished for that, unless its part of the game (as in a quality they take, or a plot line they want to explore / take action to trigger/ is required to further the campaign).

As for the little girl, there's all sorts of interesting, non-extreme things could go on there, especially if she's using the matrix (which any kid who can, will). Cyber-bullying, cult recruitment, overseas playmates who aren't actually kids (or human, or overseas), and having her hack her parent's comlinks are just the obvious ones.

Make sure the other guy, with the brother who's a "a big time hacker and fixer", pays for him as a contact, unless there's some reason the brother would NEVER help him. Such close, powerful contacts can play a big role in the game, and be a bit imbalancing. This is a case where the brother being a medelsome, manipulative person with his own secret aggenda would make a lot of sense; have him hack the characters link and astart manipulating him for favors. Such a powerful brother probably has all sorts of annoying tasks he wants done. But again, if he's going to be an annoyance, he shouldn't "cost" as much as a normal contact.

You're right that I shouldn't punish the characters just for putting these into their background, but I'm mostly just looking for some fun angles to take the game. Doesn't mean that I'll be exploiting them at every turn. And I've already expressed that the little girl shouldn't be taken on runs for the most obvious reasons.

As for points, yeah, the brother was purchased using BP, and a decent amount of them. He's loyalty 6 and connection 3 (he wanted higher connection but I simply told him he won't be starting with someone with national ties that easily).

Also, was kind of thinking of exploring the angle of the little girl being Awakened. Not sure what age she'll be yet, though, and I've got to figure out how many points I'll make her with if I do decide to give her a stat set.

What if she wants to be a shadow runner though? ......and thinks she can be a good one. Problem is, mommy is a wage slave and wants custody back to raise her right and proper. Does he have the wanted flaw too?

Wow, did that bring back memories of Casual Rex (the book, the movie was kinda crap).

Still, that series had the best cult ever.

Not sure yet what he's going to do with it. Like I said, I'm meeting with him tonight to flesh it out. I'll post more on it when we figure out exactly who she is.

One of my PCs recently had the SINer and dependents qualities. When he got ID'd on a run he had to move his whole family to protect them. He now has to maintain 2 lifestyles. a disposable one for himself, as well as a respectable life for his secret identity and fam.

Well, aside from the stuff that's already been mentioned, there's really no need for the interference caused by the dependent to be as over-the-top as all that. Simple things like getting calls from her school because she's sick while you're in a meet with Mr.Johnson, or having to juggle picking her up from soccer practice on your way to dropping off some paydata can go a long way to making the dependent a factor in the character's life without everything having to be a "We have to go save Penny!" situation.

I have a character right now that has Dependants (13 year old daughter), Enemy, Vendetta, and Wanted....its gonna be a lot of fun.

I'd leave the Dependent out of it for now but its nice to know they've got handy plot hooks ready to give over to you at a moment's notice.

- J.

How to threaten a character with the dependent negative quality?

Really?
Everything which threatens a character with a little kid to take care of threatens the little kid.
He would constantly have to consider, "What if this keeps me from getting back to my little girl?" when doing everything.

Put simply, homeboy needs to invest in a babysitter contact...

Babysitters are a good one.

Instead of seeing Dependent as a stable of potential kidnapping targets, try to think of all the other story possibilities that don't feel like a cliche

A 10 or 15 point dependent is likely to have some complaints about a Low Lifestyle and some difficulties if they're living in a Squatter or Street lifestyle, particularly if he doesn't have any group contacts. It's one thing to hand wave most of the difficulties of living out of coffin hotels and occasionally squatting when you're talking about a multi-talented Street Samurai with a healthy Intimidate pool, but for a kid that kind of thing can get rather dicey. After all, even in the Barrens there's going to be some family ties and small communities that allow a decent number of children to reach adolescence more or less in one piece. A stranger and his kid, on the other hand, might not have as easy a time of it.

The flip side of the coin is that the kind of areas that offer Medium and better lifestyles are the sorts of places where you're actually expected to at least fake being civilized from time to time. Living in an area where people genuinely give a crap about what goes on in the area is a real double-edged sword for a shadowrunner, and having a kid who actually goes to school and stuff would only make it worse. Kids say the darndest things, but it's only cute when you're not a career criminal with things to hide.

You can play on the mother or other relatives. "Get out of the shadows or one day your daughter won't have a father" kind of stuff. Or maybe the mother sues for custody (and it likely to get it too, if the PC is SINless), but luckily there's a lawyer who'll help out, only there's this little favor...

"Hi, Honey. Sorry daddy was five weeks late getting back from the store. He missed his rendezvous window and got left in deep Amazonia. Did you have enough left in the soy block to keep fed?"

Consider her getting 'adopted' by a stray paracritter - something like a Talis cat, Hellhound, or Barghest puppy. It could even be a unique critter, to increase the 'huh?' factor, but make it completely loyal and protective of the kid, and tolerant of the runner, as 'food-guy'. The puppy/cat is *way* too smart, and as the GM you get to do some funny scenes with it...maybe the kid is eating a big bowl of ice cream in front of the Trid, and the dog has a big bowl too. The dog is trying to work a squeeze bottle of synth-chocolate syrup, and gets *some* of it into the bowl. Maybe the bad guys try to run a grab on the kid, and the Runner gets home to find the kid hiding in the closet and the living room full of dismembered goons, with a smug looking critter and the kid proudly informing the Runner that Clyde made the Bad Man go away. It makes the kid less of a security risk, it has the potential for humor and mystery, and it could even be a minor adventure hook...maybe kidnappers come for the pet, turns out to be a very rare species, and the kid is completely wrecked...so now we get to break into another biotech lab.

It's also worth developing the kid as a character. Pick a skill and make her good at it...maybe even amazing. Obviously at five she's not going to be very well educated, but she might have the potential to quickly get a rank 3 in the skill or knowledge if trained. Maybe she's a math wiz, or has a knack for drone repair, or some sort of musical or artistic talent. She might really love knock-knock jokes, or elephant jokes - get a book/site of 'em and work one in every time she shows up. Since she's five, you don't even have to pick good ones. I think she's too young to goblinize, and you'd want the party to get to know her as a pinkskin first...but if she became a troll girl you've suddenly got a lot of emotional drama that basically writes itself.

The number of build points spent on the particular background element gives you an idea of how often you can exploit it. Someone has a girlfriend? User her once or twice, just for drama. Dependent quality? More often, and more serious. But still not all the time. That just gets old.

Here's an idea: the kid is "wiz" (read: budding Technomancer) in the Matrix and has made a new friend. The "Friend" is an AI and likes the girl and thinks the father is trying to do the right thing for her, but is not doing so well. Now the AI might have a few jobs for the father and his group to do*...

* == Make that part of the payout is a nice home for the father and the kid... and he has to maintain that new lifestyle. This is where the disadvantage comes in... less money for new toys (unless they are the 2070 version of Cabbage Patch Kids)

Tool up honey-bunny, it's time to get bad guys...

Of course, bringing her on runs really depends on her age, as well as skill level. If the back story for your runners has them having been working tgether for a long time, she might know of them, and has more than likely met them. Heck, if he's a single dad, and mom is out of the picture entirely, he might have informed his daughter of what his real job is (or she found out on her own, as children are wont to do), and she has taken an interest in the family business. She may have even been raised by the whole team, and identifies them as her extended family of aunts and uncles. There is a very great possibility that she could be of some assistance if she was trained from a young age...

I guess I just like the idea of parent-child bonding through shadowrunning...

Don't forget the "Perfect Roommate" positive for advanced lifestyles, too. Though said dependent could be rather needy of your attention and nuyen, he/she could also be one hell of a homemaker as well (among other things).

As for the 2070 version of a cabbage patch kid, check out the Bust-A-Move in Arsenal.

That could explain why the kid has so much Active skills and little if any Knowledge skills. Her uncles and aunties kept her busy with the more practical side of the business, she was too tired and pre-occupied to pay attention to shadow gossip.

Or the kid could be so immersed in the shadows that his world view is such, leading to high Ratings in Street skills.

Whenever I see children dependents of shadowrunners, I keep thinking of John Conner for some reason.

I am thinking Cowboy Bebop for some reason, was there a kid in that? I'm having trouble recalling at the moment and chastising myself for not owning it.

Yes, there was. Edward Wong Hau Pepelu Tivrusky IV (she made it up herself), a.k.a. Ed, Radical Ed, & Françoise.

Added: See previous post.

If she's already in her teens, she might bring a boyfriend home one day - which might be kind of awkward if the whole team is there, preparing guns for a run.
But a shadowrunner acting as a protective dad in normal situations should be fun enough. If she's younger he might have to figure out how to keep some eight-year-olds from bullying her at school.

Reminded me of this comic I found last night (and the next strip for why).

Yes, the little girl has a tail. Yes the one guy was on the ceiling. There's a reason the comic is called Sorcery 101 (it's not half bad of a comic).

Your post reminds me of how I once got into a chat about being a new dad, then someone pointed out that one day she would be all grown up one day, so I say "So?" and so it was highlighted that it would mean she would one day experience "dating". Suddenly I found myself considering the logistics and tactical scenarios of a date and how I could do such a thing without her knowing I was tailing the situation as a hidden chaperone, as well as training her in quick first response self defense. "Wait a second, did you just tell me your daughter was going to have sniper support on her first date?"

I blame my active imagination and paranoia.

Well, I really won't have to worry about who this girl is anymore. The player who was going to be responsible for her apparently isn't fit to run the shadows.

After about a week of playing, he expressed to me that he doesn't want to work for scumbag after scumbag, and won't be convinced that it hasn't exactly been the case. Furthermore, he just seems like he is only capable of seeing everything in blacks and whites, without the many, many shades of grey that lie between. Don't know if this is a form of naiveté or a product of lame games that have a defined alignment system. Oh well.

Guess if the runners ever decide to help with local bake sales and other legitimate fund raisers, I'll call him back.

That's too bad, you had an opportunity to stat out an 8 year old Cally O'Neill.

Demolitions:4
Firearms:4

just to start with.

Sucks to be him. Apparently "You're a criminal who shoots people in the face for money" didn't quite permeate his brain when you explained the game to him.

Sadly, I was that blunt in my description. He suggested that we go back to some other games, and I straight up told him, "Nope. I'm running Shadowrun. Bye."

Honestly, I wouldn't blame the player or even other settings. There's nothing wrong with heroic games when compared to more dystopic settings. They're just different. The latter tends to be more focused on culture clash and moral gray areas by definition, but ultimately they both offer different forms of escapism, and not everyone wants to spend their free time playing characters they cannot relate to. It's really about what kind of mindset you want to bring to the table, and not everyone enjoys adopting any and all mindsets equally. For example, as a GM, I make up all sorts of disgusting characters and I enjoy acting out pink mohawk npcs. But I don't really relate to them quite the same way I do when I play a particular character over a long period of time and so my own PCs tend to be or eventually become realists and ice cold pros that lean a bit towards of the white hat end of the scale-- ultimately, they do have a few things they value more than nuyen, even if it is just their own rep-- because that's the kind of attitude that I personally respect or can at least understand. I can play an utterly ruthless merc and I've enjoyed a few relatively short arcs where I played one, but ultimately I still gravitate the guys who care about their teammates whether they admit it or not.

Parting ways is definitely the right move though. After all, the players are no more obligated to play than the GM is obligated to GM.

I read that backwards at first and thought you said the player wanted to have a little girl as their PC. Those "Kick-ass" advertisements are getting to me.

Shame when a person can't learn to be more flexible. Dealing with scenarios outside of your normal area of comfort and using that to grow in your understanding of the human condition is the true benefit of this type of gaming. Playing the big, tough, straight-ahead hero in some chipper fantasy isn't going to help anyone mature emotionally or in their faculties of critical reasoning.

Neither does stroking your ego over your ability to play a murderer. I mean, let's be reasonable here-- Functioning in society is largely about sublimating your feelings when they do you no good and embracing the things that both allow you to help out others while gratifying yourself personally. Whether you can do that or not is hardly affected by the way you game.

Of course...you could think about it another way...

EDIT

Couldn't tell that was a link on my teensy itty bitty netbook screen.

The forum's link differentiation style sucks. It's a pale, pale blue when we're reading white text on a black background. I can't see links sometimes on my 22" widescreen (though its better than my laptop as it's got higher brightness and contrast).

Well, society is based in compromise, and learning to compromise what you want with your options is a constant exercise in RP. When all you want is to kill the bad guy and take his stuff, I feel like that's selling yourself short.

Some societies are based on compromise. However, when you play a game, some people try to get away from that. Killing the bad guy and taking his stuff is playing a role you often do not indulge in society.

In society? Not so much, but it's a fantasy so common it hardly requires such a specialized avenue for gaming in order to satisfy it...

I say don't use the player's effor to create interesting/realistic characters with automatic exploitation of that. Use it to enhance the play, and use them only in time of reasonable need: if players screw up big time and someone comes after them, then they may come also after pc relatives/close people...

I like this explanation. It sums up the whole reason that I moved away from games like D&D and gravitated more towards storytelling games.

I was just flipping through a copy of Fields of Fire that I inherited, and I highly recommend picking up a copy of the PDF to address just this issue. The opening section is an essay by Shadowtalker Matador on working as a mercenary and still maintaining a code of ethics. Great read.

Seems like a Runner who has issues with what he's being asked to do is a great opportunity for a savvy GM to build some character-driven drama. Remember 'Scarface'? It wasn't until Tony decided he couldn't kill a little girl with a carbomb that his life went to Hell... Find out what the Player is willing to do: Vice? Wetwork? Warfare? ...and work around it. You could always run a game where the runners are cops. ...or where they start out as cops...

Just the difficulties of a moral man having no option but to work for scumbags in order to take care of his little girl is a good scenario to work with. That is an excellent character concept which could have made for a good game if the dude had stuck around.

But, then again, working for slimy assholes in order to feed a family is already close enough to most of our realities..

I really was looking forward to the idea. When we actually worked on fleshing the girl out, we came to the conclusion that she's a sixteen year old who's awakened and wants to run the shadows. She wasn't the character's daughter, but he was still responsible for her. It was a lot of fun running her the few times I did.

On the other hand, though, I probably won't be gaming with this person again. Not necessarily because we disagree on the types of games we like, but more because when he expressed his opinion he felt the need to question mine and another player's morals (which there is nothing wrong with, we just play Shadowrun) and saying that it's thinking like ours that is why the world is going downhill.

Ask him if he's seen Ocean's 11. Ask him if George Clooney has fucked up morals because he robbed a fake Vegas casino as an actor.

Voila.

Simple fact is that not everyone gets a buzz over playing that sort of role.

One of my players has taken a reduced interest in the game and that is ultimately the largest reason behind it. If he can't play Neutral good or Chaotic Stupid, he loses interest.

- J.