To only be fair I'll share my current character's motivations. My character is an aspected mage who has a Dr. Utr. Mag., which is doctorate of magical theory for both hermetic and shamanic traditions. He has a second doctorate in experimental psychology.

He has been funded by a corporation (not a mega) to continue his research on the 'effects of magic (manipulation) on the human mind; long term and short term.' His study is indefinitely and covert in natural. Experimenting of humans is considered unethical, so the corporation setup a fade ID for the character. He then relocated to Seattle to start his research. After he collects enough data, he will return and continue more traditional methods of R&D.

Besides the academic reasons, there is also one selfness one as well. This character has deep seeded resentment that he is not a full mage and believes the secret to unlocking his full potential lays in his research. The character believes the geno for the full and aspected mage are the same, and the way of unlocking his full potential is through experimental psychology.

So does this concept sound too wacky? What are your character(s) reasons for existing? Besides that they are fun to play.

Hmm... it depends widely on the specific character. My sammies tend to be in the game because the only useful skill they have is breaking things and killing people (often ex-military and/or ex-merc), and they're tired of the 9-5 ways of doing it (possibly disqualified from doing it for some reason). My riggers tend to be in it to prove something or make a name for themselves.

My Rigger's motivation is based on the fact he like to drive fast. Running gives his a good reaason to drive fast and get paid well. That in turn keeps the frig full of beer.

My PCs run the gamut. From the former spec ops to the former school teacher to the strange little girl next door (otaku ).

my current character is doing a major in security designs and applications and for a full perspective she looking at the points form the otherside of the fence to se how a security system would be taken apart.

Well thats the reason she tells people, the rest is a complete spoiler.

Well, let's see.... mainly i do the "Me... need... nyen!" characters in short-term games, normally i do the ones that began needing nyen and then found themselves addicted to running, thus they have a reason to stay in the playing field after getting their permanent luxury lifestyle as well as getting rid of all their enemies.....

Other fun ones are "revenge" (more fun against something impossible, Deus or Ares for example), "Whaddaya mean i run? I just play with my friends and get money" (AKA: The "just having fun" characters)

The characters I play tend to be more skilled/professional and really have nothing else to do. consider; Sammie A is a corp sam call it Renraku Red. he leaves Renraku for whatever reason and is now hunted by the corp. He has a cool million in cyber in his bod and has only been trained to do one thing.
After leaving daddy corp he can 1) find work at another corp and receive the same treatment or worse if they think he's a spy. 2) Go into the shadows where the work is the same, the benefits suck and the pay is much better.
This also leaves him free to pursue any sidework(read vengance) he has outstanding .

Deckers are easy. They're acting illegally anyway, so why not go full-tilt? Might be for money, reputation or the thrills, but there's little reason for going legit when your entire 'hobby' could get you thrown in the slammer.

Mages & shamans might want to explore their powers without the limitations of corp life or law (which prevents you having certain spells above certain Force ratings). Some may do it to flaunt their power in the face of authority, in a quest to achieve knowledge/enlightenment, or to fulfill the will of their totem/idol/whathaveyou. Perhaps others want to be super-heroes, saving the day for the downtrodden whom the law of SR doesn't really care for.

Sammies are usually illegally outfitted anyway and their lifestyle is based around combat & violence. Adepts may be similar, growing tired of the simple tournament scene, or seeking to perfect their own combat style through real-world experience.

Riggers have more chances to be legit than others. Perhaps they're in it for the thrill of the ride, or they work as a 'courier' for certain unsavory elements on occasion. (*cough* BMW Films *cough*)

my main char runs because that's the career he's best suited to excel at. he started out as mob muscle, breaking legs, but at some point--maybe around 15 or 16--he decided that if being a hitter was going to be his path in life, he was damn well going to do it right. he started treating it like a job, a career choice. he's got a wife, a son, a nice place in the 'burbs, and his job happens to be shooting people. the guy next door works in mergers and acquistions; my guy works in murders and executions.

i'll claim credit for it, if no one can call me on where i got it from.

Well, one of my main characters runs the shadows for the standard ex-military reasons. He left the military because he wanted action, but decided he was tired of the military. So he left and became a mercenary/shadowrunner. Doing a bit of both types of work here and there.

Another character of mine mostly meant as an NPC runs the shadows for similar reasons to Mardegun's character. She's a full magician and holds several degress, etc. Again, it was her research which led to her life in the shadows, albeit on an entirely personal level. She's obsessed with finding a way to limit as much as possible the effect of technology on magic, or in making technology compatible with magic. She's become a very skilled decker as well as being a skilled mage.

heh, i've got a char sorta like that. he's a physad, but all his powers are geased to arcane-modified pieces of high-tech gear--killing hands + distance strike linked to hardliner gloves, enhanced senses linked to a HUD computer, etc.

the extra 20 grand a year you drop in your boss's account probably helps.

My current character is motivated by ancient japanese traditions relating to her clan. Tradtions of espionage and assassination. While she has been cast out of her ninja clan she really only has a pretty specific skill set related to espionage and death dealing currently with the Seattle Yakuza. She really is an amazing character IMO. She has a definite sense of honor and tradition while at the same time understanding that her head is barely above the water and she must make nuyen and keep her rep polished in order to survive. So making a pseudo life using her skills is pretty much the only option. Not to mention her skills are in high demand. This is my first character where i've been able to be frong line in combat and yet be the go to person tech wise in the B&E situations.

Oh yeah I just watched "Kill Bill" last night and the similarities between my character and the charater played by Lucy Lu was uncanny. For instance, that scene where she is on top the building sniping the dignitary in the limo. Almost that exact same scenario happened to my character. I'm just glad I created this character before KILLBILL came out but now everyone is going to think I based it on Lucy Lu's character..damn it.

The specifics are different for each character, but at the core it's a life they choose because they love it.

For one of my favourite characters, it all came down to money and laziness. He couldn't stick a normal job 'cause he was too lazy and unmotivated about them, unlike running where it forces you to be on the ball. Then he was very professional and all business.

Most of my characters run because at some point in life they saw their path laid out for them and decided to head off into the woods. No real reason other than a fear of conforming and losing freedom. My example is an otter shaman, Mitsuhama wanted her to work in one of their aquaculture subsidiaries, the Catholic Church wanted her to become a priest and use her powers for the good of the flock, and her parents just wanted her to just be a good girl and make them proud.

One day she while she was looking at the ceiling of her room in school she somewhat snapped and decided none of those lives would make her happy. Several large force spirits and mayhem later she was out at the docks signing on a trawler as an extra hand for a few months and she's never looked back.

I've also done the standard forced into the shadows and wants revenge and the person who was born to the shadows and will never leave.

Motivation? I'm just trying to survive =)

I suppose it would be power, since the more I run, the more karma I get, the more karma I get, the more powerful I become. I'm perfectly willing to retire any day and my complete lack of interest in money is a sore point in the group. Apparently, it bothers them that I like to give my money away...go figure, I mean, it's MY money right?

I don't need money, have spells to clean me, clothes me, feed me and spirits to watch my back while I sleep... I'm a street shaman, literally. =)

Kong

All sorts of reasons. I had one character who was part of a mercenary special operations team whose team got slaughtered. She doesn't know how to be happy without fighting anymore, so it's either the shadows or back to mercwork, and right now she's working on the whole revenge thing. I've also had a Rigger who was with a go-gang that got themselves killed trying to pull a job that was out of their league. Then there was a combat face who started as a SWAT police officer, turned bodyguard for the UCAS diplomat to Israel, allowed the CIA to assassinate aforesaid diplomat and was fired because of it, but with the option to return once things cooled down; she worked the shadows while waiting for it to be feasible for her to go back to diplomatic bodyguarding. I'm not actually sure why my current Rigger runs the shadows; I guess as I play her more, I'll find out.

~J

The latest character to pop out of my head is Flatline and her goal is more or less to make money to put her bro through college/send cash to the folks back home, stuff a bit away in accounts (an amount large enough that she can live off the interest anually without ever touching the principal), and then retire back to the family, settle down, maybe have kids.

It isn't anything fantastic or grandiose, but I've always had trouble making up those plans.

For Maelstrom, the reason to run is to become the world's most bestest spellslinger. He's already at Sorcery/Spellcasting 6/12, so I might start initiating him. I'm pretty much sure this character will never reach retirement, even though he is pretty powerful.

Whenever I make a character, the first question I ask is "why do they run the shadows?" To me, if it was just something like "make money to support a family" or "I want to become the best magician out there", you get a desk job or start doing research. Shadowrunning is never a job you take just because the local stuffer shack isn't hiring.

(And to rant for a moment, this is one of the things that bugs me about Shadowrun; the world at large seems to focused on them. For a job that's supposed to be on the fringes of society, they sure seem to pop up in plenty of discussions, sims, and other forms of entertainment/public interest far more than an equivalent real-life group does.)

So probably the better question, at least as I see it, is "what keeps your character from coming out of the shadows?", as well as "why does your character keep risking arrest and serious physical injury?" Some of them have a very real price on their heads if they ever show their legal identities again and run the shadows to make ends meet, some don't but are paranoid enough to think that they do, some are just no-hopers who either can't or don't know how to climb out, and some, as the popular archetype shows, simply don't have any other employable skills and figure that so long as they're being shot at, they'll be their own bosses.

I might try an adrenaline-rush decker or rigger once, someone who doesn't think "it'll happen to them" and has drones/a deck to insulate them, but I have a hard time extending that to other character types. In shadowrun, you will get shot at, some of those bullets will hit, and that usually sparks a realization in anyone who has the opportunity to leave that kind of work.

This is why Affunder runs...


Ya think it is easy livin' in the Barrins? Yer mother spends maist ay ehr time down oan the street corner trying tae pull anuff tricks tae feed ehr bairns, ain you dinnae ivin ken who yer father is, caus' the cunt skipped oan oot before ya'h ivin boarn, cause eh hud a chance fir a bitter life. (Ya'h dinnae blame him though, cause if ya hud the chance, ya'h do the same). That's right, ya'h goat no silver-fuckin' spoon in yer mouth. Ain yer ma cannae waight until ya leave home, cause it means maw money fer ehrself (But ya ken she still love ya.)

So, Aw ye goat is yirsel ain yer mates...

So ya nick and sell whativir ya can. Ya do a'lot ay shite jobs: hackin' organs oot ay the freshly deid, dumpin' chems fae some corp cunts, howkin' BLT chippies tae a bounch ay doss cunts, scam whativir ya can frae whoivir ya can wi-oot gattin' yirsel killed... ain a loong the way ya'h learnin whativir ya can, whativir can geid ya an edge oot there... ya use whativir ya can tae geid ya an edge, ain ya dinnae care if its good fer ya or no. Enhancin' Drugs? Fuckin' cyber? no problem, cause there'h some cunt jist down the street that goat no moral problem wi doin' ya in ain ya cannae huv one ether...

But just because you were raised on the streets doesn't mean you don't have brains, and it doesn't mean you can't talk like one of those fancy Seattle U cunts, er, I mean idiots. It just means that you know the score...

I guess it's because I've never seen it done well. It's always looked like the backstory to a B movie in execution.

Is it a saving grace that my military background character was created back in '96 or so as basically my first SR character?

@CD: Actually, you're right in that there's a lot of potential for cheese and garbage in an ex-military guy. And probably the phrase "disqualified from service" was a bad way to put what I meant. It's more along the lines of "decided he doesn't like taking orders and risking his life for next to no pay". I'm not looking right at my Sammy's background, but the basics of it were that he ended up fresh out of highschool with no prospects so he joined the army (he had a beef with the corp for ruining his father's life). Got out, couldn't find a good job, went into a merc unit. Team got shot up badly and he opted out. Still couldn't find a non-corp job that paid descently. Decided to go into "business" for himself.

Is it cliche? Maybe. Is it ridiculous? I don't think so. Is it a little on the "ho-hum" side? Yeah, actually. There are only so many ways you can explain a lot of cyberware and military-type skills, though. I've seen a lot which were worse than that.

Take a look at one of recent editions of the New York Times (last fortnight or last month). Many elite spec ops personel are leaving the military for the private sector because they are paid much more. Some times as much as 5 times more.

I'd wager to say that the pay of a soldier in 2063 is pretty equivalent to today. Ie, not much. One good run could net you a year's pay or even more. All for a similar risk level (people want to kill you and actively seek to do so... beyond that, it's just a matter of degrees).

My oldest character Drake Hardedge...

hmmm... he just kinda fell into it.

He drifted into Seattle from the Ute, and since he didn't have a UCAS SIN, jacked a cab (this was back when people actually drove the things) and started taking fares into/through Z-zones. Started dating his mechanic and when she asked for a favor to get a new set of wheels, he jumped at the offer. First Run.

Rest is history.

Mainly runs to get paid. Wiether it's the Star or a local Go-gang that shooting at him, what's the difference (besides calibur)?

I don't have anything against ex-mil PCs. I have a problem with the way some backgrounds have been written when the context of their leaving the military is "possibly disqualified from doing it for some reason;' especially when "some reason" tends to involve, basically, a CO being a 'tard or something to that effect. It just drives me nuts to see it because it's so f-ing weak.

TG: The mercenary aspect is something I have no problem with. Especially since, as toturi noted, private military services is a growth industry (literally 10x bigger than the first Gulf War) now, and in SR, well...

How about ex-Lone Star detective, as street as it gets? (This is the secondary PC.)

Raised by his grandmother, because his father had been killed before he was born and his mother was in jail for muling. Grew up in one of those fringe areas that was shooting for Zone status, and for a while it looked like he was going to help it out by doing the standard gang thing (like all the other kids in his neighbourhood), and probably die young in the process. But he lucked out. First his grandmother introduced him to his first and primary-ever moral compass, the Star Wars original trilogy. Second, after setting fire to the principal's office in his old school (he'd only intended to destroy his file, during a moment of opportunity during yet another parent-teacher call-in), he was given one of those "second chance" scholarships to a private school: and there a girl he met gave him a goal (Lone Star, detective), and when she was kidnapped by her parents to the Tir it gave him another goal.

He worked his way up (years of beat experience). He knew his own types of neighbourhood and preferred them. In his own neighbourhood, he established a truce with the local gangs: such that no "civilians" were to be targeted, ever. It's becoming one of the lowest crime zones in Seattle. It was noticed, even then.

He eventually was invited to take the detective placing examinations (which he barely passed - not an academic type). At the same time, generally frustrated at the number of violent criminals getting off, he began studying law in night school. More years of narcotics, homicide experience. His then-partner was killed, off-duty, in a botched cornerstore robbery. Year of "psychological reevaluation" leave: he used it to article with the district attorney's office ... but first he tracked the one responsible down on his own time (not allowed to do it on duty - too close to the case) - and when the perp was released back to the streets on a technicality, he cased and studied and gradually planted more conclusive "evidence" which finally led to the perp's conviction on what was technically a lesser charge: child molestation. (And then he allowed that rumour to slip ahead and circulate through the jail.)

Shot in the back and nearly killed by a drone (so says the police report, personal memory still and perhaps forever non-existent). Medical paid by Lone Star, released on a pittance of a disability pension (equivalent to lowest level of Day Job) - and Awakened as a physical magician ... and a Jedi. His new vocation in many ways no different than the old: to keep peace and justice within his neighbourhood ... something that (with his department contacts) Lone Star finds they don't mind at all, so long as the methods aren't too drastic and they don't have to pay for it.

The street kid, bastard daughter of his dead partner, who used to hang out with his partner and then was "adopted" by him, is his new partner and "padawan", and a physmage in her own right. Their mentor and sifu is an elderly Chinese Mouse shaman who finds the whole thing strange, but is still perfectly willing to use the Force as analogy if it allows him to successfully teach Taoist concepts to his students. The former stripper who was once a major street contact has very recently left Seattle. And the Millennium Falcon, a reworked '57 Dodge with an interceptor engine (fastest hunk of junk in Seattle), is slowly awakening in its own right ... as his ally spirit.

Longbow was a covert ops specialist in the employ of a subsidy of Fuchi. He was a deep black ops soldier and used for missions where knowlage of the mission itself by shadowrunners could be seen as dangerous. You really don't want some runner posting that he was hired to steal a genetically manipulated strain of VITAS or something like that on Shadowlands. It was more secure to use an "in house" employee with no paper ties to the acutal corperation but who's loyalty could be assured.

He went on a final mission on the eve of Fuchi's breakup deep in Aztlan, in an Aztechnology bio-warfare labratory. The mission went horribly wrong and the entire team with the exception of two members (Longbow and Murcury) were killed either in the firefight or by the spray of a chemical holding tank that was punctured by a hand gernade. After bugging out and making there way back to friendly territory they found out that Fuchi had been disbanded and they were out of work. He kept the equipment that he had been issued with on the final mission and began looking for more work.

Naturally when your resume looks like this:

Are you kidding? That would land you a job with the IRS within minutes.

~J

Yeah, but he's not evil.

This topic even came up in a gang (low-power) campaign I'm in currently.

Nephew: ...all you have to do is break into the security computer like on lastnight's "Shadowrunnerz"TM!

Ernest Park [BTL Dealer]: Don't believe everything you see on trid kid. Don't you have school tomorrow?

Think on it from your average joe family perspective. Doesn't matter what you tell them they just won't believe the extent of your situation. To them shadowrunning can never be as _real_ as it is to you, much like any other job.

Brick, was born a retro-child, a human baby born to an all troll family in the Ork Underground. Growing up under three troll brothers and in an ork neighborhood made him a tough kid. In fact though he wasn't as strong as his brothers he could take a hit and shake it off just as well as they could. Though he showed athletic promise his mother and father both wanted him to develope his intelect as he had a very sharp mind and an eye for details. They put him in public school above ground, and his father scrapped together money for books to give to him to encourage his education. Detective novels, (particularly the old Sherlock Holmes stories) intrigued him as a child. THough not all his endevors were academic, he was top athalete all through grade school and high school. However much to his parent's disappointment, Brick dropped out of high school to try his teenage dream to become a professional Combat Biker. He got a job starting as a mechanic for the local minor league Downtown Seattle team the Wrecking Crew. After several months as a mechanic and a few times riding practice with the team, he was promoted to ride as a rookie linebiker. Brick only played in two games before it was discovered that, (unknown to him) that he was a physical adept, and was promptly kicked off the team and black balled due to the sports league bias against magical players. Unable to find a job in the Combat Cycle (or even Urban Brawl leagues), he went back to school to get his GED and using the money he earned from his short stint Combat Biking, he started attending college. Taking classes to get a career in his other childhood dream, as a detective. He took classes in biology bio-tech/medicine, forensics, chemistry and such hoping to work his way into a CSI positon with any number of independant law enforcement agencys or possibly even becoming a private investigator. It was also in college that he dicided to study martial arts and learn more about his physad abilites. Due to the cost of school and other classes, the only dojo he could afford was one run by an elitist, racist Japanese physad.
Fearing he might be kicked out of the class Brick made no mention of his physical adept abilities. While his Sensei actually did teach him martial arts, he was also a very harsh teacher, especially to Brick, (No good white-man trash!). He punished Brick for every infraction he could think of forcing him to do endless sit-ups, push-ups, and other harsh calisthenics. He often used him as a practice partner, for all the other students, and would even beat him with rattan sticks while he performed katas, telling him it was 'body hardening techniques'. All in hopes of driving the worthless white-man to quit so he could be rid of him and still keep his fees that Brick had paid in advance. After three years of this, the Sensei began to get suspicious and began to study Brick more closely and with help from a colleague determined him a physad. The sensei looked into David's background more thoroughly and discovered that his SIN was a fake and that he was actually descended from metahuman family. That all this time he had been teaching his sacred techniques to a low-life piece of meta-born trash, and white meta-born trash at that! Furious the Sensei came out into the dojo and beat Brick almost to death (killing hand S) and kicked him out of the dojo. It wasn't until a few days later that Brick found out that his former Sensei had also informed the college of his fake SIN and he soon kicked out of school as well. Having lost almost everything he had worked for he turned to his weekend job as a bartender/bouncer at a local crime syndicate owned club, and went to his boss to look for extra work. His boss put him up in one of the bar's back rooms and got him a job putting his skills to use for the Syndicate. Brick now works as a small-time "cleaner", enforcer and interrogator/investigator for the Syndicate with his 'day job' cover being a bouncer and bartender at the nightclubs.

Bricks physad abilites are as follows.
Improved Body (3)
Mystic Armor (2)
Improved Perception (2)
Improved Unamred Combat (2)
Killing Hands (L)

My signature character started off as a magician adept Tir renegade, got his fingers into way too many pies over the decades, and runs now just because he really can't stop without having anywhere between three and six(at any given point) ongoing operations fall apart. He's created goals like "have 250,000,000 nuyen in measurable assets" to justify his continued taking of jobs.

Plus, when you're the greatest warrior(not Conan-type, more Solid Snake-type) alive, and a potent magician besides, there really aren't that many things you're suited for besides sneaking around, beating people up, stealing data and resources, sabotage, and the like. Magical experimentation takes up most of his downtime, although since the metaplanes are timeless, a multiple day/week astral quest that takes five minutes of real-world time, every night, helps him finally solve that eon-old "24 hours in a day" problem.

"M" -- escaped from the psych ward and doesn't want to go back. Elf Shaman.

"L1" -- spent 5 years in prison for something her identical twin sister did, and is now hunting her sister. Has a legal sin as a rehabilitated criminal, but stays in the shadows because she doesn't want her sister to get a clue that she's coming. Uses all acquired karma and nuyen to make herself more deadly (spells and cyberware). Recently got a clue her sister was in Seattle. Elf Shaman.

"L2" -- is in the Seattle shadows hiding from her sister. Isn't guilty of anything more than self defense, but can't prove it. Has a legal SIN which she doesn't use because it'd help her sister hunt her down. Elf Shaman.

"C" -- wanted by law enforcement on the UCAS east coast for criminal acts. Hides in the Seattle shadows to make money and prosper. Elf Gunman.

"D" -- fled the stifling uniformity of the corps for the freedom to be himself. Thinks the way to do better in the shadows is to get more cyberware. Doesn't know he's a full magician. Human Shaman.

"R" -- loves electronic gadgets. Shapeshifter who has come in from the forest to play with the toys. Runs the shadows because that's what the people who accepted her do. Shapeshifter Shaman.