Making past the troll bouncer suffering from gaintism you enter the Wastelands. The club, like usual, is blaring some new sounds. Neon lights are all around but somehow the club is still dark enough for some privacy. You approach the bar. An ork dressed as an obvious shaman approaches you. "What's your story, chummer?"

After my poor attempt at a generic introduction, you are probally wander what i'm getting at. Well. I'm just wondering about character backgrounds. How shadowrunners start? When do they start? When is the GM supposed to let you start? When does the character become the character? How did you aquire those quirks about your character? Starting the game do you want your characters new to shadowrunning? I have started many a game without coming up with elaborate stories for my characters. Most the time I have played, people just wanted to say their new shadow runners were shadowrunners before the game starts. Well I'm finding that really isn't that good enough. It's hard to build a plot based on the characters if the players don't even come up with a past.

ME: If yall character were a shadowrunners before, why not start the game at an earlier time when you didn't have all that junk...I mean equipment.
PCs: Why?
ME: Explain to me why not? Their is a story behind all that equipment besides "just a couple jobs". Plots and conspiracies that could be unraveled before your character can even get a good name on the streets. Born on the Streets? All of yall. Okay We'll play a game were yall are like in yall's teens trying to make a name for yourself. 70bp max 5000 Not better then availiblity 4 equipment. Stat and skill max at 4.
PCs: Why not start from the MJLBB low power game?
ME: Well, it's not early enough and yall are just going to min/max still.




"Chummer?....you there Flesh Bag?"

"Oh sorry...I have no story...you scanning me?"

It's kind of akin to starting at level 1 in D&D, you don't (often) need to explain how you learned to cast magic besides "I was the apprentice to a wizard in my town", it's assumed to be within the level of power which is easily achievable.

From what you're saying I get the impression that your main concern is that they all have a very generic "no ties to anyone" backstory. "Born on the streets, survived by wits until they had money to buy equipment to start running; then they did a couple runs to get the equipment they've got now." - not terribly interesting, not much for the GM to work with. One way to get around this is to ask about specifics "who did you run with previously?" - they either give you a list of NPC's you can use or they say they all died (in which case you can use that as part of their street reputation ).

Low-powered games can be fun, but in order to play a normal-powered game you need either a strong imagination or the ability to say "I've been on a couple of runs". What exactly is wrong with this not being everyone's first run? I could see that if you were trying to introduce it to new players who'd never played before, but from your description, they don't sound like such.

Let me say, don't do this. I spent months rewriting and tweaking it. It's been fun, but still.... I've been playing for a long time, and had the free time to really put some effort into it, tying in a great deal of references to things that have occurred over the years in SR's timeline. I can't imagine many new players being able to do it (They can, but some of these refs are second nature to me). Still, you could get away with a quarter and be fine.
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Jay Adams was born in Frederick, Maryland. He grew up in a nice middle-class family. His father was a Lieutenant in the Frederick PD, and his mother was a real estate agent. Growing up in suburban Frederick, he was never exposed to the more awful reality that existed around him. Most of the time. However, he quickly caught on, and became enamored with his father's profession as a way to save the world. He was a fine athlete and excellent student, and decided to venture off to Philadelphia for college. He was admitted into the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. In three years he received his Bachelor of Science in Economics from Wharton with a concentration in Accounting. In the Spring Semester of his senior years, he met a recruiter from the UCAS Secret Service. The Secret Service has remained one of two federal agencies that investigate financial crimes. As well, they investigate counterfeiting and protect the UCAS President and other officials. While he could have taken the time to work in the private sector, earn his CPA license and apply to work for the FBI, he was hooked. He wanted to work with the Secret Service, and like most of the people who find themselves in the position of choosing--he has since bought into the institutional bias against the Bureau by the Secret Service.
The general track for a Secret Service Special Agent requires a college graduate or sufficiently skilled and experienced applicant first to successfully complete the Treasury Enforcement Agent Examination, a background investigation and a complete physical. Qualified applicants they must attend the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Quantico, North Virginia. After completing the 9-week Basic Criminal Investigator Training Program on the basics of federal criminal investigations, Secret Service trainees are then sent to the James J. Rowley Secret Service Training Academy in Beltsville, Maryland to complete the Special Agent Training Course for 11 weeks of advanced instruction on Secret Service protection, criminal investigations, firearm training, physical training, evasion and survival procedures and skills. Following that training, they are placed on probationary status and sent to a Field Office to perform criminal investigations. Following a period of six to eight years, the Special Agents are then sent back to the Maryland training center to train in advanced protection skills before they are assigned to a detail in a Protection Division under the authority of the Office of Protective Operations. This protection detail lasts anywhere from three to five years before they continue on their career track.
For Jay, his Secret Service career began in the Philadelphia Field Office. He was tasked to the local investigation program which was overseen by the Office of Investigations' Financial Crimes Division. He was tasked to investigate complex financial transactions and fraud. He reported to the Philadelphia Financial Crimes and Organized Crime Task Forces. He was very good at his job, analysing and investigating money trails, false fronts, and counterfeit transactions. In the three years he was assigned to the Philly FO he was involved in over 37 criminal investigations involving credstick fraud, money-laundering and securities fraud. The investigations resulted in 45 arrests and 32 convictions for violations of Federal law. Jay helped provide financial anslysis and investigations into these abuses, and assisted in the preparation of testimony of Secret Service agents testifying into the findings of their investigations or as expert witnesses explaining evidence that had been collected proving financial malfeasance and criminal activity. After three years, Jay had enough experience to be eleigible to take the Uniform Certified Public Accountant Examination, and was licensed as a CPA in Pennsylvania. Remarkably, he passed each of the sections on his first attempt at taking the UCPAE.
Shortly after becoming a licensed CPA, Jay was transferred to the Detroit Field Office in the winter of 2052. Working in Detroit was an interesting experience for Jay because it required himself and the other Feds who worked there to operate in a company town that was thoroughly pervaded by Ares Macrotech's influence, especially in having to deal with Knight Errant in their home town. It was especially interesting given his continued presence on the OCTF (this time focused on the Greek's Family) required him to participate on raids and serving warrants in Detroit to an extent that he didn't have in Philadelphia, and because of budget constraints and FedGov policy going back at least to the 20th century, the Secret Service relied heavily on local PD support for such activities--especially when they required the use of SWAT teams or other law enforcement special purpose units. Because Knight Errant is a massive corporation with its own purposes and agendas, dealing with Knight Errant often required having to accept being a relatively small fish in the Detroit pond. He continued to work in the Financial Crimes Division, working on credstick and credit fraud, cooperating in Matrix Fraud investigations with the Marshals Service and the rest of the Detroit Matrix Crime Task Force, and investigating money-laundering. After 14 months in Detroit, he was transferred to the Field Office's Counterfeit Division and tasked exclusively to the OCTF to perform undercover investigations into the financial dealings of the Mafia in the Detroit area, and their ties to the O'Toole Family's activities in Chicago and the McCaskill Family's activities in Milwaukee.
Jay was then sent to the Rowley Training Academy to complete the Undecover Operations program, and was then transferred to Chicago under the cover of a crooked CPA working for the Colbert Group. He engaged in a undercover investigation for 11 months which entailed him acting as a money-launderer and financial consultant for the Mafia. The investigation was abruptly interrupted after almost a year, and Jay was immediately transferred out of Chicago. Jay found himself relocated to the Omaha Field Office.
At this point, he got the impression that he was being dead-ended in a city which was rather undistinguished in the field of criminal investigations into complex criminal conspiracies to defraud the UCAS government and/or public. However, because it was on the frontline of the UCAS-Sioux border, there were quite a bit of possible activities involving smuggling and various forms of fraud and counterfeiting. It was mostly low-level grunt work, and he spent most of his time working with the military on financial fraud involving military personnel, with the rare counterintelligence investigation in conjunction with the FBI to break up the monotony.
Jay spent a year in Omaha before he was tranferred to the Rowley Training Academy in Maryland to complete the Protection Agent Training Program before he was assigned to a Protection Detail under the auspices of the Office of Protective Operations. While in Beltsville, Jay found himself well-acclimated to the skills necessary for physical protection. He had honed his firearms skills further in his dealings with O'Toole's boys. He was working around a captian who had a heavy-duty agro crew of gun-nut enforcers, and he managed to ingratiate himself well with the boys. He had also been very quick to learn and excel at his training, much as he had at FLETC and in the Special Agent Training Course.
Once he had completed the Training Course, Jay was assigned to the Washington Field Office, working in the OPO's Protective Operations Foreign Dignitary Protection Division, working closely with the USSS Uniformed Division and State Department's Diplomatic Security Service to protect the foreign missions (including the Corporate Court embassy) and Internationally Protected Persons. He also served in support roles with the various other Protection Details in WFO's jurisidiction (i.e., PPD, VPPD, FLPD, SLPD, TSPD, etc.). However, he was then transferred to the Candidate Nominee Protection Division in March 2056 following the de facto selection of Senator Joseph Carnahan (D-MO) as the Democratic Nominee for President. Jay served primarily on his Advanced Team, but was given the opportunity to occassionally serve on the Principle Team as a gun man carrying usually either an Uzi III or Ingram Warrior 10. Nothing is more fun than walking around campaign sites in the middle of summer wearing a cheap wool suit, body armor, and a large KevlarTM-lined bag with a submachinegun inside and your hand on the grip.
Following the November election, Jay was transferred to the Cleveland Field Office and assigned to the Carl Preston Protection Detail. However, after the election fiasco and the impeachment and removal of President Steele and Vice President Booth in January 2057 the protection operations were returned to full-scale activity. Following the rapid renomination process the Candidate Nominee Protection Division was put into heavy use, and Jay was assigned to Gen. Franklin Yeats' Protection Detail. When Jay was assigned to the Detail, he was placed on the Principle Team and served as the Advance Man or Point Man on Gen. Yeats' principal team. His team escorted the General across the UCAS on various campaign stops, and he was usually very close to the General. However, he was also working closely with the the Advance Team and the Seattle Field Office's Office of Protective Research (specifically the Intelligence Division) on a possible threat to the General's life. He was in a meeting with agents from OPR at a campaign rally location on July 18, 2057 when Gen. Yeats was assassinated by an FBI special agent in his hotel room. It later turned out that the agent was a Wasp fleshform spirit. Jay has never gotten over the fact that a principle was lost on his watch, even though he was not even in the same building as the General. He was about to be reassigned to provide additional physical protection for Anne Penchyk when he was given another choice.
Jay's closest ally and friend from Quantico and Beltsville was a woman named Samantha Madison. Samantha was in the same CITP class at FLETC and SATC class at the Rowley Training Center. Unlike Jay, she came to the Secret Service after serving four years in Army INSCOM where she was tasked with performing counterintelligence operations. She was assigned to the Office of Protective Research in the Denver Field Office. She was then transferred to the Washington Field Office. She moved to Seattle and was assigned to the Office of Inspection out of the Seattle Field Office. During the time, both agents kept in touch frequently except when he was working undercover in Chicago. By the time Yeats was assassinated, she had again been reassigned to the Office of Inspections, and her first case was into the working on the investigation into the security failures which led to the assassination of a Presidential candidate by a Wasp fleshform who had passed for an FBI special agent and had access to the General long enough to execute him before anyone else could react. The investigation was a massive bureaucratic undertaking between the Secret Service IG's investigation, the Treasury Department Inspector General's investigation, the FBI Office of Professional Responsibility investigation into FBI operational security, and the Justice Department IG's investigation into the FBI, and the FBI Division of Magic/Paranormal Activity investigation over the crime itself because it involved magical entities, and the Secret Services' investigation because it was the investigation of the assassination of a protectee. It was a mess, which they planned to utilize to their advantage. Samantha requested that Jay be assigned to the internal investigation due to his experience and expertise with the detail given his assignment to protect Gen. Yeats to assist her investigation of the security lapse that occurred, something which should have been prevented beforehand by the detail mage. Regardless of the FBI's failures, of which there were many, the fact that he even got close enough to Yeats to kill him was just as bad.
Jay was working on the investigation into the assassination itself with the joint task force that had been created to settle the infighting between the two agencies. They worked on the activities and background of the Special Agents assigned to the detail who did and could have helped provide the fleshform with access to Gen. Yeats. They were also investigating the agents who were conducting the other investigation. There had been rumors since the truth was revealed about Chicago that there were people inside the government who were possessed by insect spirits. This simply confirmed what everyone feared, and there was a sudden desire to root out this particular hive and any others like it precipitated by President Pritchard's orders to purge the government of all elements immediately. Sam and Jay were working to ensure that was exactly what happened by counducting a counterespionage investigation into the infiltration of the FBI and possibly the Secret Service of an unknown number of insect spirits. They spoke with every federal agent, campaign staffer and volunteer, Lone Star officer, and hotel employees and guests who had access to the hotel. They contacted local Lone Star personnel, had assistance from the Office of Magical Operations and the FBI's. They also contacted Knight Errant, who did, after all, have the most experience in combatting insect spirits. The KE personnel were of great assistance in providing technical information on the insect threat and providing skilled magicians who had dealt with the bugs long enough to develop countermeasures.
Unfortunately, the investigation was still proceeding when President Dunkelzahn was assassinated on August 9, the entire world seemed to have gone insane. The Yeats assassination investigation was still on-going at that time, but the shock of two assassinations within a month of each other was significant. Eventually, the Scott Commission would assume some responsibility for the investigation into the Yeats assassination as well, but that didn't much concern Jay. However, by the time the Scott Commission was fully active in mid-August, Samantha had been transferred back to the Washington headquarters staff to investigate the procedural failures of the Secret Service and produce answers before Congress, the FBI or the Scott Commission could find something that could be used to crucify the leadership of the Service and lead to changes being made in the agency--assuming that either august body saw the point in keeping the Secret Service around in its current state given the fact that they lost two protectees to significant acts of magical activity which they were unprepared to handle. She was later temporarily assigned to the Scott Commission a year later. Jay continued to work on the Yeats investigation in Seattle when they found a break in the case shortly after something had happened in Salish-Shidhe and a goodly number of agents from the Seattle Office of Protective Operations were sent to retrieve Nadja Daviar from the middle of Devil's Canyon. There were rumors going around about what had happened, and all of the sudden people became very eager to get people focused on other things.
The investigation found an officer from the Uniformed Division who was assigned to the Yeats detail and who had some irregularities in his background which coincided with some of the FBI agent's "missing time." They also found evidence which indicated that the intelligence that OPR had collected about a mundane physical threat to the General was falsified. It was a red herring designed to focus them on outsider threats and in fact increase the amount of security around Gen. Yeats which would include the fleshform FBI agent. That intelligence had been provided to OPR from the FBI intself, and had in fact come from the Foreign Counterintelligence Program as being a possible threat on his life from Aztlan or Aztechnology or one of their agents. The intel had looked quite reassuring, and there were even details in the investigation into the fleshform that indicated that there might have been acting as an agent for the Azzies and not as an insect spirit, which the Azzies were also now hunting openly since their existence was public knowledge. The FBI's OPR had not caught onto this information yet, and it was with great pleasure that the Secret Service was able to inforrm the Bureau that it had been compromised in one of its most senstive areas by bug spirits. Jay demanded that he be on the operation to take down the agent. Going back to Washington, Jay was very pleased to be the one to trap the agent (alive) and take him into custody. Overall, the purge of the federal government wasn't as exciting as it could have been. The assistance of DF and KE mages helped expose the few remaining bug spirits which were mostly in the military and foreign intelligence.
Following this experience, Jay found himself dedicated to his mission as a Special Agent in the Secret Service, but he also found himself concerned that this experience had led him to want to become more deeply involved in counterintelligence and counterespionage. His options were threefold: 1) Stay with the Secret Service and tranfer into OPR and do mostly analysis (Intelligence Division) or general on-site security (Security Division); 2) Try to find a job in the Intelligence Community (including the FBI); or 3) Go into the private sector, working for KE or some other corporation. He considered his options, consulted with his close confidants, and contacted some of the people he had worked with in Knight Errant about the equivalent of lateral transfers or other information about the experience working for Knight Errant in the post-Bug City world where the MSTF existed and KE was forming ACCs. He looked at the benefits, the job opportunities available to him in KE, and the work environment, and after much thought, he decided to forego his government career in March 2058.

Don't let me get started, Crimson. I'll start copying and pasting right now, I'm not kidding. I'm crazy.

I know.

But do you think it'd matter?

Manta aka Manticore aka Bruce Roberts aka so many names

Michael Flint was born on a farm in the mid-west in the mid twenties.

Went to college, learned engineering and aeronautical design.

Was state boxing champ while at college, before orks and adepts took over.

After college returned to the farm and earned extra dollars by setting up a legitamate bounty hunting group (since lets face it who became rich farming esp in the mid west).

Begins tracking people using his helecopter skills (a current method of tracking people over long distance in open ground). As a part of the group.

Eventually gets a range of ware and skills that help capture people using gases, fists and common sense.

One bounty leads to Seattle, Manta, Hydra and Homer follow lead to the city and hire a shadow runner team to help extract a governor's daughter.

Homer dies in this extraction but the experience draws Hydra into the shadows, while Manta returns to the CAS.

After six years the chance of good money, and adventure draws Manta back to Seattle to start up as a shadow runner.

Post character creation.

Manta is in a bar run by a fixer called the 'Kernal' when the current group ask him to help with a mission involving a large amount gold and anteques. Unsurprisingly Manta accepts this mission.

Alot of runs, a bug hunt, some sex, and a few more runs (240 odd karma) later we have the current Manta, oodles of gear, beta/delta ware and vehicles.

What will be next for Manta who knows?

Personally, I think trying to blackmail your players into doing backgrounds by threatening them with a low-powered campaign is likely to turn them off the game altogether. I know it's frustrating when players don't give you a background, but here's some pointers:

1) They may not be that experienced or confident at writing up character backgrounds. Give them something like Bull's 50+ questions, which has a structured format for them to work with. Be there to help them if they have questions, and if they show up with a lame background, try to work with them on how to make it better instead of rejecting it outright.

2) Don't be too demanding on the detail. The background shouldn't be a novel, and its main purpose is to give both you and the player a handle on who the character is. If someone became a runner in his teens, then "Joey grew up in a traditional corporate enclave, blissfully sheltered from the real word until he was 14, and..." is fine for the character's pre-teen years. You don't need his parents' names, home town, hospital where he was born, and so on if it's not relevant. Someone who started on the path of a runner when his gypsy family was massacred might go into far more detail on his idylic childhood, because it's relevant.

3) Use a carrot, not a stick. Perhaps you can give two extra level: 1 contacts to anyone who turns in a background that at least anwers the questions, and also give a 5-build point bonus for people who give more than curt one-sentence anwers and are reasonably consistent and believable on their backgrounds.

It depends on what the player likes, I enjoy making a back ground for flavour of a character, but the meat and two veg comes with the role play.

For example my real life back ground story is fairly boring:

Patrick O'Brien aka Paddy, aka iPad

Was born in Ascot uk.

Grew up in Slough, went to various Catholic schools.

Studied computing at the university of Brighton.

Drinks alot.

Hobbies include table top gaming, role playing, air softing, live action role playing.

Has done some working out and plays a bit of *football every now and then.

Has worked in various retail companies.

Thats me, exciting or what?



*nb all the world call "soccer" football apart from the usa.

the problem tends to be that any well-cybered sam needs to start with all the alphaware and bioware he will ever have (less cultured bio). theres a lot of great gear, and it can be hard to come up with any reason other than previos runs why a large number of character types would be able to afford such gear at all.

personaly i just use a 'used to be a security gaurd' backstory, as that best explains the gear and skills i want.

The odd exception to the AV 8 rule or beta grade ware if the background makes sense.

Crimson, line breaks, brother. Line breaks.

As for backgrounds, I always thought that they pretty much railroaded sam types. You can learn your magic anywhere but exactly how did you come up with half a mil in chrome? Mind you, thats at cost. It seems to me that the chance of having a starting sam that has a "street" background boarders on absurd. I guess "middle management" level drug dealers might have that kind of cred but then if you have that much why would you switch from "dealer" to "sam?"

Personally, I think the worst thing they could have done--and did--was eliminate the twenty questions from the SR3 rule book. I mean, plenty of them are obvious, the only problem is that they are too obvious sometimes.

It's not like I've never used the word here.

It goes beyond the Twenty Questions. After all, that's just your character in current cross-section. Wherever you start, that's where most people tend to min-max to.

Examine the history, make a character timeline and think each step through, bring the character alive and make it real: and I'll bet you might come up with a very different character than your original slice-of-the-moment cross-section.

Incidentally, Crimsondude 2.0, beautiful level of detail in that backstory -- but there was one major thing missing. (We're talking "hole you can drive a truck through" major ... but nothing personal: 99% of all PC backstories miss it as well.) Can you guess what it is?

My last two PC's I made I used their edges and flaws as part of describing their back ground and used the backstory to help define the runner up to the point of actually becoming a shadowrunner.

Here's an example of one...

PC #1 - Ex-syndicate enforcer.

He was an immigrant from Germany where he fled after taking revenge on some tougher than normal thugs (this is the Vindictive flaw) and ended up on the first flight out of Germany. He ended up in Seattle speaking little English and little more than his street skills his days as a low-life thug.

As fate would have it, he managed to save the life of a Syndicate boss, who returned the favor by taking him under his wing and teaching the tools of the trade. He became a shrewed negotiater and intimidator, bending the will of those who stood in his way. He helped run drugs and BTL's and "take care of deliquent business matters".

Seeing him as an asset, his boss invested for some slick Cyberware to further sharpen his edge. Somewhere during his run with the Syndicate, his boss slighted him and he swore revenge (Vindictive flaw). He purposefully botched a 1M nuyen deal that brought about the wrath of his now former employer (4pt. Hunted flaw). He uses his street cred (Connected edge), charm and good looks (Good Looking and Knows It edge), street contacts and recently aquired cyber-muscle to keep one step ahead of his former boss, but he's ready to make a name for himself, and do whatever it takes to get the job done.

I always overdo my background stories. For example, click on "Path of the Ronin" here and take the time to read it, if you wish to lose a chunk of time (I had on thread on this not long ago, so there's nothing new here).

Another one of my characters I actually wrote a novel about (76,000 words). I have this tendancy to get wordy... that's probably why I only have a couple of characters made up.

SR13

I tend to keep my backgrounds really simple. Gives the GM and me a little room to work with it.


1) Rainbow Ninja, Dropped out of college due to money issues. Took a job as a data entry clerk and later became the inside guy for the group as they maked a run on his former company. Kept running cause it is just like episode 59 of Battle Ninja Robots when the orphan kid turned out to have super powers and <Insert Anime Plot here>.

2) DL. An up and coming Yak from Japan. He made a social mistake an was relocated to Seattle. His local contact number turned out to be one of the PCs that had a bad habit of knocking off members of the local Seattle Yakusa. (I took the Hung out to Dry flaw). Trying to dissappear at this point.

3) Tex Glitter. Repo man doing a little extra on the side. A working professional trying to get by without completely selling out.

if your players aren't into giving reasonably detailed backgrounds, i think it's fair to insert background details for them. something along the lines of "you wake up to the ring of your cellphone. it's one of the guys from your old platoon, a private you carried out on your back after a nasty firefight. he needs your help again, and he's willing to pay in kind." don't do it too often, and keep solid track of the details when you do. that makes the background story an interactive thing, part of the game, instead of something the player has to sit down and hash out.

Different games, different levels of focus on different things: and a startling number of games that require nothing more than a template/general character concept, skills, and the explanation how skills and gear and sometimes contacts were acquired -- your standard backstory.

Me, I find that players get far more involved with the personal. I mean, think about what sends you ballistic in your own lives! A run falls through, no big deal, make sure your rep and your backdoors are intact and get on with it. A contact fades into the woodwork or is killed, irritating, and you might or might not want to replace that contact/investigate it further/revenge him or her. A Johnson messes with your girlfriend or your sister and he's toast.

Apart from occasionally the initial mention of family, I know absolutely nothing from almost all the backgrounds in the thread about who they are/where they are now ... and this is typical.

As to waste of time: well, when I play a PC, I'd like to understand that PC. When I run PCs, I'd like to try to understand them as well ... if for no other reason, to understand what their triggers are

The backgrounds I've written for my signature character probably amount to thirty or so typewritten pages, and have all met the fate of forgotten-and-deleted, lost-in-reformat, lost-in-drive-failure, flood-destroyed-hardcopies, and other such minor infocalypses. I've given up actually giving him a coded, drawn up, and static background that exists on any particular piece of paper. I have enough knowledge of where and how he originated, given that I am the one who created him, that I can probably answer any question a GM has, and fill out the now-defunct twenty questions pretty rapidly, also. Ultimately, when I put it to text(or text files), the background for some reason ultimately ends up destroyed with no backups. I no longer waste my time with it.

Just for the sake of practice, I'll answer the 20 of the 52 questions(couldn't find a readily available form of the 20 questions) that I found on Nightlife's site in the archive.

1. What is your characters Sex?

Male.

2. What is your characters physical size?

2.01 meters tall in height.

3. What is the color of the characters Hair, eyes, and skin?

Light blond hair, bright green eyes, pale skin.

4. What is the character's general appearance (i.e., How does he dress, etc.)?

His manner of dress is situational, though he has a tendency to wear clothing that's relatively nondescript, with occasional obscure pop-culture references.

5. Where was the character born (City, State, Hospital Name)?

Portland, Native American Nations.

6. What is the characters date of birth?

November 22, 2021.

7. What was the character's family life like?

Distant parents, success-driven affection, competitive relationship with twin sister.

8. Has the character begun his own family?

No.

9. Where or how was the character educated?

Typical child prodigy, pushed through primary and secondary schools before puberty, graduated college at fifteen.

10. Has the character ever done anything else for a living?

No.

11. What are the characters beliefs on church and state?

Having witnessed the variety of theocratic and secular regimes, he believes religion, when applied to the state, is no more or less a hypocritical front than enlightened socialism or ancient tradition.

12. Describe the characters Moral code. Include how mercenary he is, whether or not he'll kill innocents, etc.

He is sufficiently capable that he no longer has to kill most people, but refrains from doing so more as a matter of avoiding the complications it entails, than any innate pacifism. He does what he needs to do, and is usually clever enough to appear altruistic while ultimately turning a profit.

13. What are the character have any goals?

He requires a vast sum of money in order to safely and permanently retire to a life of pursuits more academic and less violent.

14. Why does the character run the shadows? (Why does he run the shadows still, rather than getting a "real" job?)

Given his status in the eyes of numerous international governments and organizations, his abilities, and his overarching goal, there just isn't as much money to be had as an independent/freelance operative in the realm of the legal.

15. What kind of personality does your character have? This should not necessarily be obviously stated in the background, as it is more important for actually playing the character, but it may color or add mood to the history.

He seems easygoing and has a pleasant demeanor, but is apparently erratic, mixing probing truths, misdirections, and euphemisms seemingly haphazardly. In point of fact, he is always analyzing the situation, and reacts socially in ways that influence others toward his own ends.

16. What special qualities does the character possess? This does not refer to skills, but rather at other things, such as How he gets along with people, does he plan ahead, etc.

While he plans in the background, he acts in the foreground, often appearing to leap into dangerous situations without any consideration for his own safety. Charming and empathic, he can get along with almost anyone.

17. Are their certain things the character can't or won't do? Why?

He is very morally flexible, but does not believe in cruelty for its own sake, and is often clever enough to minimize the overall impact of his actions beyond the scope of the target.

18. What things, people, or ideas does the character hate?

The majority of his ire is directed towards individuals whose motives he cannot fathom, people who seem to act against wisdom and professionalism, more driven by personal matters and emotions than analysis and observation.

19. What things people, or ideas does the character love?

He doesn't really love anyone.

20. What is the character's name? Give both full birth name, as well as nicknames, street names, etc.

Zachary Edward Trent, numerous aliases, currently employed one is Incognito(clever, eh?)

Before this extensive background, I grew towards playing characters with depth. My initial attempts were embarassingly two-dimensional. I'd say it's a good idea to give players time to grow as roleplayers, before I'd start actively punishing them.

i actually don't often write deeply detailed backgrounds for my characters. i start out with a few solid facts, and develop the character's personality from there; i usually fill in other background details as the character progresses. my main character right now started this way. he started out as a mob legbreaker who married a mafia princess and adopted her son, who went freelance when he was determined to be too loyal to the old regime after the events of Mob War. since then, well, he's grown slightly.

you know, it's probably not necessary to quote that whole thing every time...

But we don't want people to be confused about which background they're talking about!

I usually go for the point in the centre: a background about a page long, which details why he has gotten to the actual place, and start playing from there. He gets quircks and details in game, which in turn are introduced in the background after master aproves it (well, I'm the master, so there usually is no problem with that). As for players, giving them 5 Karma Points for a story usually worked.

As for Sepherim's story (short version, since it might be a bit long and I don't want to translate it now since I don't have time), here it goes:
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Sepherim was born in a little town in the sothern border of what was to be Tir Tairnguire in the Year of the Crash. He had a nice life, and caring parents. All blew into pieces the Night of Rage, when a bunch of Alamos 20K guys raided the town from every direction. Everyone was gathered in front of the City Hall or was killed on the way. Wallace Blade (yup, I know, not a great name) was taken there by his father's hand, but lost them in the crowd. He got near a lamp post crying, and started to look for them. The Alamos guys entered the place and opened fire... everyone died but the poor boy who hid as he could. The men left the place and, when he recovered, he ran crying to the station. He had always liked computers (being so close in importance to his birth), but had never really tried anything until he took that "turtle deck" and hacked himself a ticked to San Fran.

He met Nigur in that trip, another elf boy who had a terrible life at his back and knew how to survive, and both boys soon became friends. They lived as a squatter for a couple years, begging and stealing to get enough to eat, but Nigur dissapeared one night and it was impossible to find him.

Alone, Wallace continued on until he tried to steal from who he shouldn't have; he was another elf, and a shadowrunner. William Harth was a lonely mercenary, and he felt pity for Wallace, or maybe he saw something in the boy that reminded him of his past. Whatever the reason, Harth took Wallace as his boy, and started to teach him about his shady world. He learnt what he needed to know about weapons, but they really didn't catch his eye.

Until the day that Harth called a friend of his, Dominant, to visit him at home. Dominant was the decker in his team. They both were talking about something when Wallace, only thirteen years old, took his deck and started to use it as he best could. They soon saw him and took the deck away from him, but Dominant was impressed by his ability to use the deck without previous knowledge.

So Dominant took Sepherim as his apprentice, and during years Wallace learnt the secrets of decking. And he was very good at it. They gave him the nickname Sepherim, which in Sperethiel meant "The Dagger" (I didn't know then what it really means), because he was quick and deadly as one, and knew how to hide very well in the Matrix. By the end of 2054, both runners were impressed by Sepherim, and so they paid a visit to the doc to obtain the only piece of cyberware that the decker uses: a datajack.

A hot interface was a new thing completely, and Sepherim was even more fascinated by the Matrix now than it was when he started. But this years of relative happiness were to blow soon after.

In 2055 Sepherim had achieved a profesional level in decking, though he never did it without Dominant overwatching him. But one night he was cooking when he received a call at home and didn't hear it; he saw the message soon after, and it shook him completely. "Harth's team had been caught during a run. Something had gone wrong, someone had betrayed them. Harth was calling, almost dead, closed inside a room and knowing he wouldn't be able to leave it alive, and Dominant had his brains fried in a van near them. It all was over. And they would go after them. Sepherim had to take a user-credistick that Harth kept in a secret place for emergencies, and a phone he had left behind. With both objects, he was to leave the house inmediately and move to Seattle, where he'd find work as a decker for Nailer, a fixer who was an old friend of Harth."

Sepherim didn't have time to think twice about it, since a couple black cars reached the building's entrance by then. He took the objects and ran to the roofs. Noone knew he lived there, but still he ran as far and fast as he could. He escaped, but by a very narrow margin.

He took a plane to Seattle, and got in touch with Nailer. Sepherim had entered the world of shadowrunning.
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There are a couple important errors in the story, and now I know them, but when I wrote it originally we only had the 2º ed basic book, and so there wasn't much background to be used.

There's another Sepherim story in the topic "OOC Second Twist" IIRC. It ain't the same decker at all, but I kept the name because I already had the nick in Dumpshock, and it was easier to play with a character who has the same name as the user than trying to remember always which is the name of the character of certain player.

And, for those that know Spanish, the full story of Sepherim (from here to when he commited suicide) is hung on my webpage, both as a novel and as a short story.

You guys could use

Since we're posting backgrounds now, I'll share my original background for Rat, my 40-build point character who ironically was one of my most successful ones, and one who really changed from what he started out as: