One of my players-to-be (the same one with the rapid-fire rule, which I am now calling the Five Rounds Rapid rule because reasons) wants his pistol to have a Background Count of 1. The idea here is that the pistol has killed so many people, its psychic imprint pollutes astral space. I'm trying to price this thing. The character is a cybered mundane ork.

My thoughts, in no particular order:

• It's a partial defense against magic, which mundane characters otherwise can't get.
• It's extremely distinctive and attention-grabbing, giving some kind of bonus to finding the character.
• It will penalize any interaction with spirits where the PC is present.

5 or 10BP?

I think there's a word you could stand to learn :

"No."

Or introduce him to Exalted.

Better plan! Get the other players to tell him: "No. Hell no."

Here's how:

"Hey guys, Snowflake wants a gun with a background count, and I think that's a fantastic idea, so if I give him that, all your tools will start to pick up background count from all the terrible things you've done. The taint of your existence will start to attract all sorts of creatures, and I think I can get a lot of great run ideas out of that! Mind you, it will make you easy to track, but hey, what's the worry when you have plenty of background count to prevent your magicians from helping you fight off the tag team of Red Samurai and Ghosts coming your way?"

If you play your cards right, the other players will elbow each other out of the way in their haste to smack him down.

Worst case scenario, you get to wipe the team clean and everyone starts with new characters; sadder but wiser.

Of course, if you're too kind-hearted to give them a lesson in pain and shame, you could require Snowflake to write a detailed essay specifying how that weapon was extracted from the grave of an Aztlan priest who was instrumental in ethnic cleansing (aka genocide) on the fringes of the Yucatan, and you can make him describe and stat at least five really angry spirits that want to specifically mutilate whoever bears the weapon ...

Mind you, these days if I ever enthusiastically embrace any idea of my players, they change their minds, so I have to at least fake being hesitant. Don't know why.

I'd say BP -5.

That's just me going by the Astral Hazing quality.

I am taking a break from GMing. The GM is slowly learning to give us what the other players and I want without trying putting in plot twists. Don't know why, probably the fact that we are all ex-GMs and if we suggest something, we already have deeper plans to plot twist our GM's plot twists.

I'll second the learn to say no vote. I had a player like that before and it never seemed to matter what argument you gave, he would always push for that special snowflake treatment. Compromise was never accepted, everything had to be as he wanted and it never seemed to get through to him that he was screwing things up for the other players with all his bullshit. It isn't worth the pain and headaches to try to accommodate the snowflakes. You've (hopefully) established what sort of game you want to play with your players already. Those were the rules/conditions/situations you all agreed to and now he wants to start changing those things to suit him. Don't.
You can either go totally sauce for the goose, sauce for the gander on him or just tell him flat out no. But really, I'd push the no hard.

I don't think a gun that has killed many people would be a source of background count. A sword, maybe, since the emotions of the victims might have imprinted the weapon. And even then I'm not sure, since BC are fixed (take bodies from people killed violently in one place and move them to another, the BC will still be in that first place).
But a gun is too far away from the victim to get that kind of imprint.

It can, however, have a small aura in the astral plane, due to the link the character has with it.

Also, if the character has really killed so many people that his weapon could be getting a background count, maybe he ought to get some notoriety as a mass-murderer.

I guess I have a few questions...

Is the player saying he has killed so many people with this particular pistol that it has earned it's own BGC?

If that is the case, then how is it every other murderhobo is not sporting similar BGC packing weapons?

Also while it's a 1 BGC now, is this player potentially going to be tallying up further kills and then come back to you saying, look I killed X amount of people so now my BGC should be a 2 and if I make it to Y that definitely earns me a 3.

Because even Fleshfinder, you know that little cursed scalpel from a certain WWII concentration camp in War!, which was used in thousands of gruesome experiments, didn't rate a full on BGC.
It has it's own aura of despair to be sure, but not such that it warps incoming magics.

Don't , just don't do it
Simply say NO !
I can lend You a rolled up Newspaper if you need one !
Your 5-Rounds-Special Snowflake wants to break the Rules, wants Rules that don't exist.


A
its not the Weapon that killed the People Weapons can't accumulate BC especially not Long Range Weapons

B
Backgroundcount ist most often a Place (where some bad things happened) and the BC also disappears after a while
or else all of Shadowrun would be one big BC which is BS
It is never an Instrument/Item ( I only know of one certain Item but this is especially big Bullshit to me so I don't wanna mention it anymore... I'm NOT looking at Sendaz ,No I won't)
So BC is not Movable
C
there is no Rules I know of about how long a BC exists
D
There has never ever been something like this in the whole Shadowrun Universe (I know of )
You would set a precedent with this Gun
E
there is only one Exception: a Surge Neg Quality called Astral Hazing.
If 5-Rounds-Special Snowflake wants something like this he should Surge imself and emit the BC by Himself

With a Headshakin' Dance
Medicineman

As Medicineman indicated... I would simply allow the Player to take Astral Hazing. It is what he is wanting, after all.
And when he complains that all he wanted was BGC 1, tell him Tough Nerps... It is Astral Hazing or Nothing.

Yah, no.

First off, there's the issue that magic and technology don't really mix very well. Now a gun and a cyberdeck aren't the same levels of technology, not by a long shot, but I believe it was Street Grimour that called out a weapon focus belonging to a gangster which was a monster of a pistol. One of the points they bought up was how difficult it was to have a pistol weapon focus because enchanting the pistol was really difficult since, again, magic doesn't like technology. And making something a focus is a hell of a lot easier then giving something a background count.

Secondly, well look at how many people must have died in order to give something a background count. Lets be generous and just assume that it's straight deaths and don't even take into account suffering or emotions as a cause. Street Grimour calls out Hiroshima and Nagasaki as having background counts of 13 and Auschwitz as having a background count of 16. Well be conservative and assume that only people killed in the initial blast for Hiroshima and Nagasaki count and take the low estimate of 70,000 for Hiroshima 22,000 for Nagasaki and the number the museum says for Auschwitz which 1,100,000. Lets divide them by the background count they create giving Hiroshima 5384 deaths per point of background count, Nagasaki 1692 deaths per point of background count and Auschwitz 68750 deaths per point of background count. Lets just take the lowest of those numbers, that means that your character has killed more then 1.5 thousand people. You aren't a shadowrunner, your either the worst serial killer in the history of the world or a fucking war criminal. You do not kill more then a thousand people and not be captured or kill yourself. I don't care how stealthy you have been after a hundred people they will be on constant lookout for you, after a thousand they will tear apart sprawls looking for you. Even if you've only murdered SINless, you still murdered MORE THEN 1.5 THOUSAND PEOPLE. Even the most jaded police who think that SINless are worse then animals would be horrified at that.

It's your game and I cant tell you what to do but if it where up to me this guy would not be allowed anywhere near this.

That sounds far too close to a certain scalpel from a certain book for comfort...

@Deckbeard: Permanent BGC does not seem to be just about the number of dead and suffering, but also about how vividly it is remembered. Apart from killing a lot of people, it would have to be done in a way that is remembered after the next gruesome murder of the week and all coming ones. Sounds like a -400 BP quality: Here's 400 BP, roll a new character

Reading between the lines, I came to the conclusion that a Changeling with Astral Hazing had Horror genes in their genetic makeup. A rather dire genetic heritage...

I'm normally all for the Rule of Cool and letting players do neat stuff -- as long as that's the consistent tone of the campaign -- that could be described as "over the top" by some people, Pink Mohawk-y by others, or what-have-you. Games are supposed to be fun, so if everyone's on board with a certain action-movie vibe, sure. Do cool things.

But, seriously, man. You've got to learn how to say no to this guy. First he wants to just attack more times in a round, now he wants his special gun to be so special he gets bonuses against magic for it...just...learn how to say no.

Counterpoint: do not say No.

Say "Yes, But."

For example, unlike most other times in the game, actually enforce the BGC rules on the other players when they're around this guy and his Pistol of Death.
Secondly, to have acquired a background count at all, this is a pistol that has to have taken multiple hundreds of lives. That means it needs to be old. You didn't specify your edition, so I'm going to assume SR4, as it lets me break out Gun Heaven 1.

If you're feeling generous, make it an Ares Predator I.
I would not be feeling generous.
Make it a Colt M1911. You read me right: a 1911, not a 1991. Make it one that was manufactured and carried into battle starting with the First World War; it was used by a U.S. Army Officer in WWI; it spent the Roaring 20s taking lives on the streets of Chicago in the hands of the officer brought it home and joined the CPD, doing battle with Alfonse Capone's men. He handed it down to his son, when his son graduated from West Point, and carried into war in the Pacific, but was mustered out, injured, in '44, and brought it back to the streets of L.A., where he himself carried it was a police detective, like his father, killing easily two dozen men with it. His son carried it into Korea, where he died holding it, and the gun was returned to his family, and that son's kid brother carried it into Vietnam. After he was dishonorably discharged for perpetrating a massacre, he wound up becoming an assassin for the mafia, and eventually the gun found its way into the hands of more criminals; over and over, this story repeats, this harbinger of death in ballistic form, not having gone a single year since it's manufacture in 1913, without taking at least one life, and frequently taking many in a single year.

And, problematically, the gun is cursed. Not just with the blood of hundreds of people, some of them innocents, but also simply mechanically; it's fucking old! Treat it as suffering the Gremlins 4 flaw - the number of 1s he has to roll to suffer a failure are reduced by 4. The gun is prone to a host of mechanical issues that no number of visits to a gunsmith can work out, simply because it's so old that its tolerances are shot and its mechanical actions aren't as precise as they used to be. So any time he glitches, he's going to get brass jammed in the slide, or have a misfire, or something. If he critically glitches, then a round weak-fires, becoming lodged in the barrel, causing the weapon to potentially explode if he fires it again without clearing the jam.

Per Se this sounds/reads like a good Idea
But I would not want to give the Player such a Gun at Gamestart for e view BP or Karma.
I would make it the "Prize" of a Run or Mini Campaign.
This Gun as You describe it is interesting enough (maybe even Awesome) to deserve its own Adventure to obtain it

JahtaHow
Medicineman

I still kind of like the idea of the genocidal aztlaner previous owner (although the screwed up 1911 is a lovely plan). I like the idea that every time this weapon is fired, angry ghosts come looking. Or shedim! That would be great! Every time this weapon kills somebody, it's shedim time!

I like the idea of the entire party dogpiling the Spatial Snoeflayk and beating him until he cries like a five year old whose birthday cake landed in the sand.

"This weapon's body count is higher than the number of rounds most soldiers fire in an average year."

But honestly, the whole idea is stupid, and should be ditched. As was pointed out above, it's out of step with other fluff and RAW.

Well, considering that the "special snowflake" in question seems to have a SR3 background (as per the other thread Tanegar opened) I guess I can see what angle the particular player is coming from:

He tries to create a form of magic protection that unlike certain qualities (Edges back in the SR3 days) does not interfere with attempts of magical healing just by default, since the gun can be taken away during any such attempts.

And as far as carrying items that create background count are concerned: Say hello to Virtuoso metamagic from SotA'64 ... I'm actually a bit baffled that the guy seems to have restricted himself to the idea of BC level 1

On a more serious note: Tanegar, I'd suggest that you and your players - including the "special snowflake" - sit down and discuss your expectations for the game once more because somehow I get this vibe that the player in question will be a constant source of disruption to your (=you and the rest of the group) gaming experience. Just saying "No" to this particular idea won't solve the issues that are likely to arise there.

It'd need to be more expensive than Astral Hazing, because this is a background count he can leave in the car if he's going someplace he needs magic in.

It does give less karma than Astral Hazing. And the character is a cybered mundane. I suppose it could be a 0 point Quality.

I wish I'd read this before turning the guy down. Oh, well. Good stuff nonetheless.