Little thing about building your character
There are globally 3 ways of doing things in Shadowrun :
- The Social way. It can be knowing people so you can ask for favors or informations, being good at talking to people you don't know to get information from them or "simply" go past them instead of disabling them, figuring who is lying, ...
- The Physical way. It can be combat, both melee (as Gamerlord's character, a
troll Orc using blades) or ranged, with all sorts of guns and even throwing weapons. It can be being stealthy so you don't have to kill a guard to go past him, being able to climb walls and jumps dozen of meter to get where nobody expects you.
- The Mental way. It can be knowing how computers work so you get some not-totally secured information, hacking cameras when your team go in a building so you know where the guards are and erase the footage, but also create and use special utilities or vehicles.
Most of the characters focus on one way of doing things, even if it is recommended not to be totally useless in both the others. There are also different means of doing each, as you can be natorally good, enhanced by magic (not "fireball" magic for this game, but more "using your mentor spirit" magic) or technology (
cyberware replacing an arm like Gamerlord's
Troll Orc, or less flashy
bioware enhancing your muscles or senses).
As far as archetypes go, here are some examples :
- A Physical adept, with the
Cat mentor spirit, specialized in infiltrating buildings. He is a close combat specialist, using his talents to incapacitate his enemies (and play with them). As a side note, he is very good at lying about who he is, for control points that can't be jumped through.
- Another adept, with the
Dog spirit mentor, specialized in tracking and finding what he wants without the help of people. He could tipically have a Private detective work on the side, and use his particular talents for more lucrative jobs as a shadowrunner. Of course, being able to correctly handle a gun and knowing how to snoop around are also parts of his talents.
- A third Adept example could be a "Face" character, who goes clearly for the Social way, thanks to the
Raven spirit Mentor. This one is more about knowing how to handle yourself when people are around, whoever they are, lying your way to get everything you want, and making people think you're not who you are. Of course, this type of character needs a "panic button", that could be many things, for example using knowing how to use gadgets to get out of dangerous situations where even a gun is not enough, or knowing people who can get him out of those situations.
- A ex-bodyguard is another example of a "basic" character that can be very fun to play. Knowing how both cops and mercenaries work when protecting and assaulting a peron or a building to prevent (or use) those tactics, obviously knowing how to handle combat both melee and ranged, having contacts in gangs and the police to get inside information, and being able to protect his teams are the main talents of this sort of character.
- A former coporation "executive" (think CIA agent except working for an internationnal corporation) is a fun character concept too. It can be either combat oriented (as in former
company-man) or more technology oriented, used to spy and hack securised networks to help the corporations weaponized teams to steal technologies, or to get the data by himself.
- Riggers are really fun too. Controlling a drone or a vehicle, with weapons and various devices scrapped from other robots is always nice. Potentially both the wheelman, the mecanics, and the "a device for each situation"-builder, it can cover many situations.
- Street Samurai. Don't tell me you don't want to play one when I tell you
Street Samurai. Basically cyber-enhanced mercenaries, with or without an honor code and loyalty, those are really good at handling combat, but usually are not really good at other things. Gamerlord's
Troll Orc is one of them, using blades (not well) hidden in his cyber arms, throwing some more blades, He's the type of guy you don't want to irritate.
Those are examples, and there are a few other character types, but it is 2AM and I have to wake up in 4 hours to go to work, so I'll stop there for now :p
When you want a character concept for Shadowrun, you have to think about how a character could survive in a modern day city with more chaos, technology, and magic. Basically it's the same as nowadays in a corrupted city : the character has to be able to handle himself.
Author
Topic: Shadowrun Interest Check (New game in 1 Week! Tompliss GMing) (Read 12500 times)