I'd like to run a campaign wherein the PCs are gearing up to begin their careers as Shadowrunners. My group enjoys a heavy amount of interaction and feel it would be fun to role-play how the characters begin their lives in the shadows. I find the notion pretty enticing too. The campaign would start up probably a few months from them attempting to get their first job (their initial jobs would be very "minor league" stuff until they get built up). It may sound boring to a lot of folks, but it has sent my imagination into overdrive.

Here's the problem: I'm not really sure how to create characters of this nature. So, I figured I would get some advice from you guys and gals.

How many BP should I give them?

What restrictions on gear should I impose (since they'll be role-playing the acquisition of much of their gear)?

Should they have skill rating restrictions?

What else do you recommend?

Are you planning on starting them out in their previous jobs, or as "wanna-be" runners?

I'm starting them out as wanna-be runners. They will already have most of the necessary skills in place already, but probably not quite good enough to survive in the shadows; they'll need to improve a bit before doing any jobs.

This is one of my favorite approaches to making characters. You're lucky to have a group interested in the early start approach. I'd say pick your preferred character generation method and start cutting resources. Try 300 BP or 600 karma. Cut availability to 8 and ratings to 4 in skills and such.

Make a couple characters using the guidelines you come up with and see if they have the right feel.

Oi Chum,

Our first game in 4thEd I asked my players to create simple gangers just so we could get the feel for the new rules. That went great. They did some smuggling for a crime syndicate, a couple of B&E's and in the course of things ran across some pay data that slowly moved them into the "Emergence" campaign arc. I am happy to say those Chars are going strong and the initial role-play as gangers brought a lot of NPC'S to life along with really adding flavor to their corner of the sprawl. Roll with it and play up those NPC's and you will enjoy seeing the relationship with them and the players grow into something awesome. Good Luck!!

I would go for a 350 point build then, limit skills and skill groups to 3, one skill at 4, no specializations. Limit availability to 8, limit the heck out of the resources, and you should be good to go =)

Keep in mind that Awakened tend to be relatively stronger at lower builds^^

Sounds like a great time though, I hope your group has a blast =)

You should tone them down too, otherwise you are not playing low level but high magic. Limit Magic to 5 (along with all other attributes?), the number of strating spells to Spellcasting instead of Spellcasting*2 and forbid bound spirits at chargen. Adepts will still shine a bit, but not too much. Also fobid Improved Reflexes 3: starting with 4 IP whent he rest of the team is stuck with 2 is not fun.

And pay your runners in kind. You will see the tears in their eyes when they finally get their Wired Reflexes 2

Do people actually get bound spirits at chargen? I've always thought that was the worst use of BP I could imagine. Especially since, for 1 BP, you can pick up the materials for 2 force 5 bindings...

Other than that, totally agree with his suggestions.

I'm in a game like this now. The basic premise was 'you're a bunch of rookie runners who made it big on your last run'.

We started with max cash at availability 16....

and absolutely no teamwork.

Other houserules consisted of: 350 BP, and skills capped at one lower. So you could have as many as you wanted at rating 3, plus 1 at 5 or 2 at 4.

Its working out alright.

To be honest, you should probably use Karmagen to represent a low-level game, because....... hey, karmagen supports low levels of things rather well! Just use the Balanced version by AH, and additionally, as a nod the players, remove the special attribute limit(or just remove the half-on-attributes limit, and institute a hard limit instead), and consider adding in free knowledge skills.
Then just give them availability 8, and 550 karma or so, and let them have at it.
For those that don't know karmagen:
a group at 1 is 10 karma. a skill at 3 is 14. an attribute at 3 25(the average), while one at 5 is 75.
Seems to be about what you're looking for.

I tried this once with a group of people who have survived "GM Meat Grinders" - campaigns that require you to be on your game or you die horribly. As a result, they min-maxed the hell out of a 300 BP character. The campaign lasted about 3 sessions before I called it off for a full 400 BP game.

Basically, make sure your team is willing to do it "with kid gloves."

I'm going to do this for my next campaign, but mostly because these people haven't played SR for over 10 years.

I'm going to have them start at the usual 400 BP. They'll be competent people, but new to shadowrunning, having washed out or decided to move up from their old "jobs".

They'll get a few starter jobs from their fixer who wants to test them out - the clients are not Johnsons (screwups could affect the fixer's rep) but people with few connections who need assistance (think Burn Notice, except the clients are the bad guys - a manager afraid of getting caugh embezzling needs help etc.) I'll probably have an ex-corp security guy tag along them to keep them from getting caught while they learn the ropes.

Then I'm propelling them into the main campaing story arc when a team is needed RIGHT NOW for a high risk job they can't scout in advance: sneak past a SWAT team, extract one hostage taker for interrogation and silence the rest before their claims go public - and they'll just have to trust that the provided SWAT uniforms and IFF codes are solid. With no other experienced teams both available and willing to take the job, this is their big chance and the Johnson's only shot at covering his ass. This then propels them into a major conflict involving the city council, 2 warring factions wihtin KE, Lone Star, not-so-civil civil rights groups, and pretty much every criminal organization in Seattle, as the contract to clear out the Barrens is about to be closed.

It is a bit different approach, I need to teach them some stuff before it gets heavy rather than having a role-play motivation. But you could consider having them start out as professionals from other areas, since that gives you the opportunity to propel them into a normal campaign if boredom sets in.

Thanks for all the advice, gang. It really has helped.

400bp or 750karma is not the problem as much as it is that they have those skills in areas that make them good runners. What would a 400bp mage look like that never expected to run the shadows? Or and adept. There are a lot of fun spells and adept powers that are not that useful if you are not out to kill people or avoid being killed.

But basically forcing people to be un-optimized might not work that well.

Say what you want but Crank, Nutrition, Fashion, and Healthy Glow are always useful. Especially in the Shadows.

I had a street sam optimized for athletics, got my run speed up to the mid 90's in meters / turn.

Note in case this comes back in a search. One impact of reducing avail levels is the availabilty of fake SINs. Either people get unrestricted gear and buy an uber fake SIN or they need to watch where they go. Getting a good SIN may become a game focus.

Have to decide how "new" you want them to be. A "newbie" shadowrunner might well have been a competent something similar. It's not easy to amass six figures worth of cyberware or learn complicated combat spells, or become a hacker. Not all of these skills can be learned on the streets. It's important to establish where the characters came from and what gave them those skills and gear. Who did the wired reflex job? Where did they get the money, and if they had that kind of money already, why did they bother to spend it on wired reflexes? Where did they learn to shoot? Somebody could bench shoot their entire lives and have no idea how to hit someone in combat. Or, more importantly, avoid getting hit as best they can. Where did they learn to manipulate magic and create fireballs? Where did they learn to hack in the Matrix?

A character at generation is rarely going to be some 18 year old kid off the street, especially if he has military level training, equipment and cyberwear. On the other hand, a sprawl ganger, or a neophyte mage just might be. The runaway child of a rich kid could be a hacker. I'm amused every time I run into somebody's 19 year old ex-special forces character concept on the web, and not just for Shadowrun, of course.

Remmeber, the learning curve for shadowrunning (in character, not learning the game rules) is pretty steep. "Having most of the necessary skills in place but probably not good enough" is a dangerous place to be if you're going to delve into the core game. If you're going to run with that concept, you might be best to start them as street toughs just working their way up into low level organized crime or something. Corporate level subterfuge is a whole different monkey.