Help - Search - Members - Calendar
Full Version: Life Modules
Dumpshock Forums > Discussion > Shadowrun
Glyph
I am curious. What have been your overall experieces with the Life Modules system of character creation? I have found it to be the most fiddly and time-consuming of the systems, with the least amount of fine control over how a character turns out, but at the same time, it is very fun to mess around with it.

Overall, it is a balancing act. The less education or real life modules you take, the more remaining points you have to fine-tune a character. The flip side, though, is that modules get progressively more valuable - you start off getting Attributes or skills of 1, but towards the end, you can be raising a stat or skill from 5 to 6. You have to be careful, though, because getting too many life modules can mean you don't have enough Karma left for the character's remaining expenditures.

At the moment, it is better at creating some types of characters than others (wage mages get an early start with magical education, but there is not an equivalent module for, say, apprentices or acolytes). While the progression tends to reward you for taking similar modules (raising the same Attributes and skills), you have to be careful, because skill points over a rating of 7 are lost.

It can create viable characters, but they will tend to have points allocated in things you normally wouldn't pick for them. Characters tend to have lots of skills - especially knowledge skills. The negative qualities were the one thing I was least likely to keep - they make sense for their individual life module, but often conflict with subsequent ones. I usually buy them all off and get new negative qualities from scratch.

Overall, I find it enjoyable, but quirky.
Deckbeard
I am absolutely in LOVE with the life module system, but not for creating characters. I haven't actually tried that yet. I love using it for making NPCs. Need to stat out a wageslave? Corprate born, education and wageslave life packs. Throw in one or two other skills and boom, miserable middle aged man who's three days away from hiring runners to burn down the office. So far I've made probably 3ish npc's with this and used it a couple of times for 'on the fly' npcs. If highly encourage everyone to at least try it. Taking an NPC through the entire life path doesn't work that well in my opinion but usually two or three modules works best.
Wothanoz
Ya know, I dig it. I don't use it, but I dig it. It's a pretty cool way to get "everyman" skillsets. And for creating npcs, it's pretty damned good. Picking different modules can give you a pretty slick skeleton for a personality, motivation and goals. I like it for that.

The largest problem I have with karma based character generation is the time it takes, which the life modules help with. Pick a couple templates, good to go. Get that karma down to a manageable level.

One cool thing, I think, is the way you could do a "good kids gone wrong" sort of campaign, where you can have the team form as a group of children, perhaps performing nefarious childish pranks. Then give them something important for their teen years. Then they go to college or join the army and come back together for their first "run" or an adventure of some sort. I think it offers some potential for some real character development. You can even skip forward a while from that and do their young adult life before they hit their first big score. It sounds like a cool idea.

And it can do a lot of work to bridge multiple character concepts: the street kids can end up being the ones who help the corp kids extract and ditch their SINs.

I also like the idea of making cards of the modules, then introducing new players to shadowrun by having them pick the cards, giving them a set amount of gear, and letting'em create characters from that. I think it'd help some of the overwhelming complexity a new player looking at the game can feel.
Deckbeard
QUOTE (Wothanoz @ May 27 2015, 12:24 AM) *
I also like the idea of making cards of the modules, then introducing new players to shadowrun by having them pick the cards, giving them a set amount of gear, and letting'em create characters from that. I think it'd help some of the overwhelming complexity a new player looking at the game can feel.


This is a super cool idea. You could have the front side be name, art, short blurb then the backside has the rules. I, I might have to do that.
This is a "lo-fi" version of our main content. To view the full version with more information, formatting and images, please click here.
Dumpshock Forums © 2001-2012