So, it often comes up in discussions of games, how one player seems to be a little more, or less destructive, or maybe the whole team is different than what the gm is expecting. So, in creating a new play by post game on RPOL.net, I thought it would be good to try to quantify this issue. And so I ask, where do you live, on the mohawk?

Some may find it a useful addition to your recruiting tools. Others may find the definitions at least slightly humorous. Others, may want to have me locked up in an asylum. If you do, please get me a place with wifi.

5-10 myself, depending on several factors . .

1-3, with a (very) rare 4-8 thrown in for good measure...

3ish, generally.
I love a good fire fight, but I've been trying to avoid them lately. Nearly worked on a couple of occasions now (no plan ever survives contact with the GM).

1-3 generally, I am the typical no bullshit professional, I avoid conflict whenever possible.

8 - 3 depends upon the (25+ )Char(s) I'm playing
in Ghostcartell its "Meteor "my Pit Fighter Troll He's an 8
in Gangs in Hong Kong my Twins Yin & Yang are 5, the Campaign itself is 6

He who dances with a red Mohawk
Medicineman

I tend to be pretty solidly in the middle -- I take my cue's from the other players and the GM. I love a good plot heavy Trenchcoat game in which any mistake could be your last, and I love the "Frag 'em all, need more DAKKA!" style games, too.

The most successful games I've been in have been mostly Trenchcoat (say, a 3) with the occasional "comic relief" pink mohawk mission tossed in for a change of pace.

It really depends on the character and on the team. I've always found a team without a mohawked maniac gets a little boring. My first character was a definite 10: a cybered up monster of a troll. Dressed like a clown, did a ton of drugs, and thought anything smaller than an lmg or auto-grenade launcher was a pea shooter.

I'm a 5. I understand that almost any situation can be resolved with sufficient firepower, even shedim. On the other hand, if you can win an arms race with a GM, then he's probably doing it wrong. When there's millions of people with sufficient attachment to the status quo, and a sizable number of them have been negatively affected by your violent actions, then there's going to be corporations and governments with a vested interest in combining resources to have you put down asap, in order to maintain the status quo and to appease their employees and stockholders. That also means there's going to be many runners interested in joining forces with the aforementioned so that THEIR business isn't being threatened further by your actions.

Most of my characters are probably in the 3 to 6 range, occasionally going to an 8 or 9 depending on how pink you think a troll luchador with a former tag team partner as an Enemy is. The big reason I don't like to portray characters as below a 4 or 3 is due to the simple fact that well, drek happens, and it feels weird to me when Mr. Paranoid does something silly and blows their cover somehow. Characters who can openly appreciate that life is messy sometimes feel more real to me than Mr. Ice Cold Pro with the "I'm still alive because I am -that- savvy" background. As such I'd say that most of my characters tend to be 4s; my last Face was the kind of guy who'd grumpily say something like "I thought we agreed not to piss these guys off?" even as he's firing his custom look chrome Warhawk. He wanted to blend in whether it was with gangers or corp suits but well, he was pretty much the team straight man.

3-8, with one insane all the way to 11, and one that is usually a 3 until he gets pissed off and then we find out the dial actually goes to 12.

Depends. My first character was around a 7 or 8, but the team was fairly pink as well (the Troll medic decided to jump at a gun emplacement, got his arm blown off, and still lived. I "distracted" Lonestar with a grendae to open a passage we weren't going through. It didn't work.).

Guy 2 didn't last long, before going into a year of physical rehab, but I think he might have been a 5.

My Wuxing Troll carried around a duffel bag full of scrap metal, and had a selection of spells designed to interact with said metal. No stealth. No Armour, aside from what he made himself. Almost no social skills. That said, he survived his first mission with flying colours and metal-related ideas. 7.

And my Tech Mage was probably a 3 or 4. He was very good at blending in, did not look like a mage (full, obvious cyber arm, was also a capable, if not extraordinary, hacker), and he managed to work in most circumstances.

On the 'Hawk scale, I rate about a Hudson.

I probably average about a 5.

Most games I'm probably around a 4, which is practical while still allowing some "rule of cool" stuff. However, sometimes things just go to drek and then I like to go 8-9 on the mohawk scale.

If you're going to go mohawk, go all the way. Leave a fragging crater. Taser in the pocket, missiles in the trunk, that sort of thing.

The Runt sits at a 1 or 2, with occasional forays into 3 or -maybe- 4. She doesn't care what she looks like because her appearance is irrelevant to her job, and almost nobody should see her anyway. She usually keeps it super-srs and very professional (the campaign was pretty far into the black trenchcoat end of things), but... can't deny her love of things like well-placed explosions. (Thanks, team demoman!)
She -is- a bit of a prankster, but keeps that kind of thing to the right time and place. Usually directed at her unfortunate teammates. Usually directed at a certain unfortunate teammate who's drunk most of the time.


Though I -am- thinking about how to build a character called the Rave Troll...

Believe it or not I typically make combat characters . . . huge dudes, dudes who can knock the wings off of flies from 100 yards, etc . . .

' ' 'Now what people are surprised by is that I don't jones for the combat. I feel much more comfortable having the ability to be tough but I am all about the scenes between the fights.

Since I play misisons, it varies from 1 to 10 depending on what the author wanted. Some days I'm ramming a building in a van, some days I'm doing the run entirely from the matrix. Most days my mecha gets involved though, so I'll average to 7

Moar!
Details!
Nao!

Your German is showing, Stahlseele, that's some mighty bad English.

Pup the Dog Shaman is 11. If I were to ever write or play him, I'd reach deep, deep down into the darkest, hottest parts of the very core of my being and let the evil part of myself come out to play. One line that runs in my head is, "I've met angrier Orks, but never, ever have I met any Humans that had more hate in them and were unafraid to show it.". "Heisenberg" from Breaking Bad and Spider Jerusalem from Transmetropolitan are two characters that I've based him on.

He's the type of person that, if chained to a chair and is being beaten and cut up for hours, would just look the interrogator in the eye and calmly and quietly tell him that suicide is his last chance at a clean death. _{And. Mean. Every. Word.}
Jon "Money" Johnson is the 3. He's calm, courteous, has a plan to kill every motherfragger in the room two steps after he's walked into it. Ice Cold, very professional, and ethical beyond a shadow of a doubt. The rarest of the rare for a Mr. Johnson.

That was before his newly pregnant wife's skull splintered right before his eyes and destroyed his face, and a 160-year old steel and brick fireproof building fell on top of him. He's a few blows to the head away from wearing a wolf's skin and carving into all of his enemies with his switchblades and straight razors. Having been converted to the Ásatrú religion by said wife, he's seen Valkyries twice already and *KNOWS* without a shadow of a doubt that he's a member of the Einherjar, for having had the will to fight them off himself despite his own exhaustion and wounds from dying. (The first one he met was Skuld, the second was Gunnr who came for his wife.).

Piss him off enough, and he pulls out some of that old time religion with cybernetic assistance. When angered, he can be a fanatic, can, and will, pull out every weapon, use every favor, hire anyone he can afford... Everything.

And every death just makes him grin all the more, as he sees them in his mind's eye line up behind his wife as they joined Death Guard.

And the switch between the two happens in a wired-up heartbeat. One instant you're dealing with a consummate businessman (Who hires people to shoot other people in the face for money), the next he's holding your hand down in a painful grip and showing just how good he is with that switchblade as it flashes between the spread fingers hitting nothing but the table. Unless, of course, he's been given cause to miss.

Veddy Interestink!

You can find "Money" Johnson in some of my stories (Links in sig.).

The hilarious part that I personally like is that his sister is an actual Nun doing Missionary Work in Africa.

I think I might put too much background into my characters...

Nah. Makes them interesting. I honestly wouldn't mind GMing a game with many of the character's you've mentioned. They're certainly more interesting then most of my PC characters.

I run my games at a 3-4 range--though my mentality is a 1 as GM, I restrain myself as at 1 the game gets very hard on newer players (plus gun play does put some excitment into the game.

As to NPC's I've used:
Der Nacht: Norse magician with Loki Mentor Spirit, 3
Gayle:Free water spirit, god of a Dour Tribe in Seattle, and all around Winter sports lover, 5
Bluto:Troll street same in LA in the watery ruins, yeah I'd go with 5.
Mike: Mayor of community in watery ruins, 1


As to my PC's
CD--Chrome Demon: 10, the flashy the better for this Rocken Roll troll (he plays base in a band that he leads).
Zo--Ork ganger in play by post game, I'd say 3. But since he lives in the barrens with the Crush I'd go with a 5.
VRW-- 1, but a by the book lonestar rigger/hacker with asthma is not a usal PC choice or campaign.
Arthur--A former Ares firewatch team member that has a grudge against bug spirits, 1

Wasn't there a Heavy Metal Spirit of Man mentioned here earlier?

"He"'d turn the knob to 11, for sure!

Yeah, now if only any local GMs actually wanted me.

NO!
WRONG!
NO COOKIE FOR YOU!

Hey, Der is more appropriate than Die or Das for a male PC. Unless I'm missing something and my 4 years of german in college and highschool were wasted. Hey maybe he is swiss.....

NACHT is german for NIGHT.
And NACHT is ALLWAYS female.
Sorry ^^
DIE Nacht would have been better.
But a MAN calling himself Nacht/Night is a bit strange anyway

If you have Questions, ask Grinder, Hermit, me or some other german dude ^^

Das Bier
Die Flasche
Der Öffner.

Die Bierflasche
Der Bierflaschenöffner.

It's a bit more complicated than using THE for everything i'm afraid

Warlordtheft is partially right "der " is usually male.....,but ....

Even "in der Nacht" (at night)is Female although there is a"der" it doesn't matter its still female

but it would be Der Nachtmacher (the Nightmaker)
or Der Schatten (the Shadow) both are Male

with a Dance at Night
Medicineman

Well-we english speaking types have it easy in that regard. Mein duetsche werdet sehr besser fur es.


I think I just mangled a language.

*twitch twitch*
that's . . very wrong . .
using engrish grammatics for german sentences does not work i am afraid <.<
also, the times are not consistent and of course, you have problems with our umlaut-letters.

Hey, I'm visiting germany late next year (2012)....I'm thinking I should brush up on my german.

EDIT: NM, the table format is FUBAR'd and I don't have time to fix it. See http://german.about.com/library/blcase_sum.htm

EDIT 2:About the only thing I remember from 3 semesters of German 20 years ago "Meine bleischtift ist blau" and "Wo ist ein bahnhof, bitte?"

I am remembering the reactions when I posted the Blinkenlights paragraph.



-k

But was it understandable at all? I don't know, because I do not know what was said.
EDIT: Heh... Just ran it through a Translator... Funny...

But that one was entertaining...

How about "Schwarzwald" as a good German name? (The "Black Forest Troll Kingdom" had me thinking, and I pulled out a translation program to see if I remembered it right, and for the spelling.).

Anyhow, the female bit reminds me of a mistranslation that happened with the Discworld Novels. See, "Death" ("Mort") in French is female, so they have a female character walking around being quite masculine otherwise. Apparently they've figured out how to correct the issue eventually.

Speaking of, Death from Discworld: I AM A FIVE.

Yes it was.

As for characters, lessee...

Jack appears to be Tom Cruise. Right down to the manic ever-present grin and the inability to merely sit down anywhere, instead flopping into chairs like a sack of potatoes. In reality Jack is a female pixie in a mimic-modified anthroform drone. She's more or less a Face and a Gunbunny with primary dicepools in the 18-26 range, and does a little spellcasting, conjuring, and hacking on the side. Solidly a 10 on the scale. She does in fact have a pink mohawk.

Old Man Jones is old. In the year 2011 he was in grade school. He was in the US Army around the time of the Great Ghost Dance and had advanced to special ops command by the time of the first Crash. He lost his right arm not too long after that and was shuffled off to a desk job. Ares recruited him, gave him a new arm, and he was with them up until around the 2050s when an incident forced him to fake his death and go into the shadows. By the 2070s he'd retired to a little bar in Manhattan and was pretty content. Then it blew up. He's kinda grumpy about that. Jones is more or less mercenary hardcase burned-out mage archetype, and hovers around a 1-3 on the scale.



-k

Note not having an umlaut to use this is what came up on Babel fish:

My duetsche become very better fur it

Indeed... I love Babel Fish, even with my deficiencies in languages...

It was, to me.
But then, my english is probably above average even for some people using people as their native language . .

Oh god yes it was x.x

Schwarzwald as the name for a male german Troll is absolutely justified . .
Well, if you want to be a Troll being named after a forrest, at least . .

Going down into the negatives if he feels like it.

Nah, I mean, hell, haven't you seen him rock the Guitar?

Or when he showed up on a Blue Oyster Cult album? (Not that one, the other one, in the wheat field.).

Oh, he can definitely go towards the 'hawk side, but professionally, he can do some serious stealth work.

Thus, the perfect five.

I try to be good, I really do but I tend to go hawk pretty hard. My lowest is a 5.

The problem being that he can only play the hollow chord.

"NO! You must play something else!" I CANNOT.

Honestly, who else can turn an inability to do something into something totally badass?

EDIT: Other than the inability to give up, of course.

Hm, since I have been GMing for the last few years instead of playing, I have to go all the way back to the late 90s for Overkill: an Ork Street Sam from Pueblo Corporate Council. In my group, we decided that we would all play one session before coming up with nicknames, and the nickname came from the group, not from the player. I earned the name Overkill with pride. He carried a Medium Machine Gun around as a personal side arm (in a suitcase).

Yeah, definitely at least an 8... In my defense, normally I like to play mirror shades, but the GM we reluctantly allowed to run was a total wanker (and a cheat as a player), so the Troll player (previous SR3 GM) and I instinctively decided we would run his plots off the rails for laughs. Two trog street sams with a penchant for violent chaos was disruptive, to say the least!

Don't know why we agreed to let him run... We all detested the guy, but at least the Troll and I had a blast!

Sometimes, those are the most fun GM's...