I'm not the best at introducing my posts, so excuse the abruptness of this one:

Pretty much I'm just curious about who likes which of the various runners from the books (Hatchetman, Fastjack, Clockwork, Netcat, etc) and why. These can be of any edition, not just SR4.



Personally, my favorite is Hatchetman because of the extensive history laid out for him in Life on the Wire and Beyond the Pale and how much character development there is there. Admittedly, I haven't read all the books cover to cover and I only have the 4e books and the 2e books (which are falling apart because I inherited them from my brother and they received many years of disuse and abuse)

The Chromed Accountant. Some days I sit back and imagine that what I'm doing now would be runs on par with his experiences back when he was just out of school.

Michael Sullivan, from Prime Runners, Target: Matrix, and some of the novels. Amidst all of the "punk" in the SR setting it was nice to see someone elegant and classy (even if it is in kind of a MaryStu-ish fashion). Sadly he makes few appearances and I don't think he ever logged in to Shadowland (and he's not a Jackpoint character).

WHat is a Prime Runner in this context? Any recurring character?

I'm assuming any Shadowland/Jackpoint poster.

Dirk Montgomery, 2XS was just the right book at the right time. I had been reading a bunch of fiction that was meh at the time between Battletech, Star Wars, Shadowrun, and others. I gave up on Battletech and Star Wars and decided to give Shadowrun one last shot... Next thing you know I'm a Nigel Findley fanboy, buying up all of his stuff! Then I find out the bad news because its already 1996. Crap!

Netcat. Her name is a Linux shell command, and she's got an emergent housecat as a pet!

hmm,
toss up between hatchetman (good job on background story & his posts in the various 1st/2nd Ed books), and most of the team of Jack Skater (Preying for keeps & Headhunters)
besides jack, the ork was a close 2nd of favorites in the books.
now thinking, Dirk is right up there with them, w/ 2XS, and House of the Sun
and Profzzer, from Changeling....

i have tried to base many character off of these guys

overall, tough call just to name one

I almost forgot Wolf & Kid Stealth

if you got to ask.....read Wolf & Raven

I'm a Captain Chaos fan. He may not be quite the grand old man that FastJack is, but CC was universally respected for doing the nasty job no one else was willing or able to do as well - play SysOp of Shadowland Seattle. When you consider his neo-anarchist tendencies, assuming a position of leadership and control like that is really something.

3 Guesses who my fav was, and the first 2 don't count.

Beyond that, Neon Samurai and Nightfire, Hatchetman, Chromed Accountant, Dodger, Jack Skater's team... There's a few others, but I'm drawing a blank right now...

One of my favorites is Sunshine.

I've always been a fan of The Smiling Bandit.

Matador and Hatchetman.

Oh of course! How could I forget about TSB? *kicks self*

Lots of great runners. Steel Lynx, Findler-Man, Smiling Bandit, Fastjack, Wedge, lots of great memories.

I liked Matador, even though he only really showed up in Fields of Fire. He seemed like the kind of guy you could run with even if you only met him that day.

The Artful Dodger... He had a bit of class in my opinion...

Keep the Faith

Hope Novels are ok too ... then I'd go with ... hmmm ... Dodger, Kid Stealth, Martin T. Simmons, Pistons ... and perhaps Netcat

Call me a Hopeless Romantic, but Dodger has always been my favorite reappearing runner.

Close second being Kat O'Nine Tales, for obvious reasons.

Oh and lets not forget Frosty, or does she count?

Yeah, sappy as it is, Dodger is one of my favorites too.

I like Kane, the way he's so ruthless about everything. Slamm-O!'s funny too. If we were nominating least favourite, mine would be Ecotope. The way he's always preaching the same thing over and over just grates on me for some reason.

not so much a command as a program, one with a very simple mission but when used in context can be very powerful.

I miss Darkfather, in similar news I really think that Fastjack (another fave) is lacking without Captain Chaos to balance off of. For the record that doesn't mean i want Capt to hang out as a dixie flatline stand in, he deserves better.

I agree, Derek 'Dirk' Montgomery

My favorite is Argent, though I did find Chuck-Chuck Razool amusing.

Toss up between Dirk, Kid Stealth (velociraptor legs, come on that alone is a win)TSB and Dark Father.



And unless I am mistaken, Im pretty sure that it is the hobgoblin Clockwork who has the emergent housecat as a pet. Unless she does too and I missed that bit of story.

My favorates would be Matador and Steel Lynx; too some extent even Picador.

edited for clarification/reasoning on 06/19/2010:
I like them because i am a military/mercenary (mirrored sunglasses) orientated style of player and I can relate better to those named characters; although the pink mohawk style of play is fine as well. I just prefer the more professional operator vs. the other option. But everyone is entitled to their own style of play.

Sorry on my woefully late clarifications of my post, I've been having net problems.

Anyways, yes, novels are okay. Really, I suppose anyone from SR fluff would be acceptable. But the thread seems to be lacking explanations for why these are peoples' favorites.

It's in Unwired in the intro fiction to the Technocritter chapter.

Smiling bandit, and dirk probably.

Which is weird. I generally like mages, but I guess SR has focused on shamans(not a fan) so much that the few mages they have had I did not care for personality wise.

Slamm-O! was more fun IMO in 3rd Ed posts. He seems like he's matured in 4e which is good as the character went from his early 20s to his 30s, but still...he was more fun as a punk kid.

There's quite a few where I don't like the character but I like that the character exists. I can't remember her name, but in the old Paranormal Animals books, there was an animal rights activist that everyone and their brother liked to tear apart. Snopes/Skeptic (I personally think they're the same person or at least parent/child) is fun sometimes, but it gets on my nerves when he/she demands facts and proof on a board where the LAST thing a smart person will do is give specific information about things they've done.

Smiling Bandit's posts in Shadowtech are hands-down some of the most entertaining conversations in Shadowrun I think.

When he's used right, Laughing Man/Harlequin is a lot of fun. Used sparingly with a well-timed comment or as the power-behind-the-power-behind-the-power, good. Being thrown all over the place used constantly, bad. I actually think having Frosty post more than Harlequin is one of the smartest things done in 4e. She knows a lot, but not nearly as much so she can give away more.

Shadowtech was one of the first books I got/read for SR and the conversations there between KAM and Smiling Bandit captivated me. It was great to see that these Shadowland posters weren't just talking heads spitting out more info, but actually had personalities and backstories the authors were parcelling out. Been a Bandit fan ever since.

Well... Bloodyguts, Puck, and of course good old CC.
The Big D - hey, we wouldn't know if he did some running just for fun.

Kane is funny, but somehow I don't like antisocial, murderous assholes...

I spent about 15 minutes trying to find it, before I realized it was in running wild. And then I remembered clock work has a cat AI or something like that, not an e-cat, cant find the page.

And since ya want reasons:

Dirk:Best written reluctant hero ever. Manages to save the world, and later stop the first major bug infestation all by accident, with it being believable.
Kid Stealth:Yet again, come on, velociraptor legs....
TSB: Some of the best conversational material in the source books ever, plus how he treats other posters can be pretty damn funny
Dark Father: A former human nation leader while a black ghoul (ya, figure that one out) who becomes one of the main otaku players. One of the most randomly off beat characters who was done believably.

Dodger, hands down.

Ronin's a close second, though, but not so much because I like him as because I liked it when one of my characters punched him in the face a few times.

Drek, sorry

Hahah! If I had a character who did that, Ronin would be on my list too.

It was Connor, of course.

I've always been fond of the dude from Steet Samurai Catalog who lived in the air ducts at a mall.

My favorite runners from the books TSB, Matador and Man of Many Names.

1. TSB's wit.
2. Matador's professionalism.
3. Man of many Names (his mystery).

Church, of Night's Pawn fame.

Bandit the racoon shaman from Who-hunts-the-hunter, if he counts as Prime Runner. Else The Chromed Accountant.

Waaaaaay back in 2nd edition, in the Street Samurai catalogue there was a guy named Caine who's contribution on how to defeat a print scanner is to cut off the thumb of an authorized guy and use it.

Nigel Findly put him in there as an Easter egg for Fraser Caine, his buddy and the guy who used to work in the dungeon at The Comicshop here in Vancouver. Fraser started up the Genghis Con here but once he stopped organizing it (he always got Nigel Findley to show up) it just went away.

I dunno where he is now but, since I have the human connection, Caine is it.

I still get sad about Nigel. He was a good guy.

Oh I want to add I liked the former cop, I think hit tag was something like Former SPD, or Just SPD or SPD1 or something. Too lazy to grab my books.

And people keep putting Dodger? Really dodger. He was the least interesting character of those books to me. Ah well people actually seem to like these newer ones like netcat which I can't stand.

SPD. He was an actual cop, not a Lone Star officer. ALL over the place in the Lone Star sourcebook let alone the other places he popped up.

If I had a totem it would be the trickster so I love tricksters and trouble makers.

Its a toss up between Smiling Bandit and Slamm-0

I mean Smiling Bandit trolls science/research boards. And sometimes knows more than they do..... cant get much more delicious than that.

And Slamm-0 is well.... Slamm-0

I'm really not a fan of any of them. I don't know, but the fiction and shadowtalk (especially in 3rd and 4th edition) don't do much of anything to inspire me. When they devolved from interesting, quippy posters theorizing or otherwise talking-out-their-asses about various gear and rules where they actually felt like real characters, to their current state as painfully obvious editorial comments from the freelancer writing the section... well, I dunno. But I have to force myself to read the fiction and shadowtalk these days, whereas they used to be some of my favorite parts of the books way back when.

That said, I can answer the question in a different way:

Favorite Handles: Man-of-Many-Names and Slamm-O.
Favorite Attitude: Harlequin and Smiling Bandit. Say what you will about immortal elves, but Harley was a lot of fun.
Least Favorite: Fastjack.

Matador turns up indirectly in Runner's Havens. One of the articles is written by a Lieutenant from his company.

I think Mongoose got tho throw a two-liner in at one point, so he'd technically count.

I personally think they should have never shortened the list of Shadowtalk users. Sometimes the old one-off talkers were the most interesting; now we get the same names giving the same injokes in every book and it's getting pretty old.

Current: Netcat and Slam-O
Of All Time: The Smiling Bandit ha-ha-ha.