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Message no. 1
From: Nexx nexx@********.net
Subject: Advanced Starting Characters
Date: Tue, 26 Sep 2000 15:44:48 -0500
How does one go about making a character that has a bit of experience under
his belt (after the unfortunate death/incarceration/need to disappear from
the continent of their previous character)? After all, most starting
runners are going be hopelessly outclassed when running with experienced
professionals, but it's a bit more difficult to simply plop down someone's
entire running experience into a chunk of Karma and nuyen.

Any suggestions/house rules?

***
Nexx
a.k.a. Mark Hall
***
"If I lose the light of the sun, I will write by candlelight, moonlight, no
light. If I lose paper and ink I will write in blood on forgotten walls. I
will write always. I will capture nights all over the world and bring them
to you."
-Henry Rollins
***
http://www-personal.interkan.net/~nexx/index.html
Updated September 24th, 2000
Message no. 2
From: credstic credstic@******.net
Subject: Advanced Starting Characters
Date: Tue, 26 Sep 2000 15:29:14 -0600
At 03:44 PM 9/26/00 -0500, Nexx wrote:
>How does one go about making a character that has a bit of experience under
>his belt (after the unfortunate death/incarceration/need to disappear from
>the continent of their previous character)? After all, most starting
>runners are going be hopelessly outclassed when running with experienced
>professionals, but it's a bit more difficult to simply plop down someone's
>entire running experience into a chunk of Karma and nuyen.
>
>Any suggestions/house rules?

One thing that we had used in our world was giving two A's for character
development, this of course, had to be matched with equal background to
substantiate why.
Message no. 3
From: Arclight arclight@*********.de
Subject: Advanced Starting Characters
Date: Tue, 26 Sep 2000 23:39:53 +0200
And so Nexx said :

<snip>

> Any suggestions/house rules?

Yes. Don't do it. I have a really bad experience
with such things, and at least for me these characters
tend to have that "plastic" feeling.

--
[mailto:arclight@*********.de] ~~~~~~~~ [ICQ:14322211]
[ When all you have is a hammer, ]
[ everything looks like a nail ]
[my_BABY:#361] ~~~~ [http://www.datahaven.de/arclight]
Message no. 4
From: Old Man Bethyaga acuteparanoia@*******.com
Subject: Advanced Starting Characters
Date: Tue, 26 Sep 2000 16:57:59 CDT
My advice: Make a starting character and then add on the appropriate amount
of karma to equal the others in the group.

Or just make stuff up.

If you're interested, I have a system for creating characters from the
ground up using all karma. That's not the relevant part, though. The
second part of that system is applying karma to starting characters, and
what is and isn't allowed (ie--no you can't buy a mnuemonic enhancer at
creation just to cut karma costs on skills. No, you can't assume you had a
group membership for discount initiation. etc.)

That system is found here:
http://pub11.ezboard.com/fbulldrekshadowrun.showMessage?topicIDˆ.topic


>From: "Nexx" <nexx@********.net>
>Reply-To: shadowrn@*********.com
>To: "ShadowRN" <ShadowRN@*********.com>
>Subject: Advanced Starting Characters
>Date: Tue, 26 Sep 2000 15:44:48 -0500
>
>How does one go about making a character that has a bit of experience under
>his belt (after the unfortunate death/incarceration/need to disappear from
>the continent of their previous character)? After all, most starting
>runners are going be hopelessly outclassed when running with experienced
>professionals, but it's a bit more difficult to simply plop down someone's
>entire running experience into a chunk of Karma and nuyen.
>
>Any suggestions/house rules?
>
>***
>Nexx
>a.k.a. Mark Hall
>***
>"If I lose the light of the sun, I will write by candlelight, moonlight, no
>light. If I lose paper and ink I will write in blood on forgotten walls.
>I
>will write always. I will capture nights all over the world and bring them
>to you."
>-Henry Rollins
>***
>http://www-personal.interkan.net/~nexx/index.html
>Updated September 24th, 2000
>
>
>
>

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Message no. 5
From: Old Man Bethyaga acuteparanoia@*******.com
Subject: Advanced Starting Characters
Date: Tue, 26 Sep 2000 17:05:06 CDT
NEXX: Any suggestions/house rules?
>
ARCLIGHT: Yes. Don't do it. I have a really bad experience
>with such things, and at least for me these characters
>tend to have that "plastic" feeling.


Don't listen to Arclight. Higher powered characters can be just as valid as
any other, provided you're willing to put the time and effort into them.
They don't work for some (I prefer not to use high starting characters
myself), but I am currently in a campaign where all characters were created
using the point system with 200 points. Maybe we just lucked into some very
creating role-players, but we have a truly excellent and diverse team. Six
months ago, I may have agreed with Arclight, but given enough thought, it's
possible.
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Message no. 6
From: Aristotle antithesis@**********.com
Subject: Advanced Starting Characters
Date: Tue, 26 Sep 2000 18:27:50 -0400
>>>NEXX said:
"Any suggestions/house rules?"

>>>ARCLIGHT said:
"Yes. Don't do it. I have a really bad experience with such things, and at
least for me these characters tend to have that "plastic" feeling."

>>>OLD MAN BETHYAGA said:
"I am currently in a campaign where all characters were created using the
point system with 200 points."


MY REPLY
I have to agree here. Any character is going to be trash if you don't put
some time into a background and personality for him/her. I think that the
Build Point system is probably the easiest way to control the "power
level" of characters. If you want a total novice you might only give him
100 Build Points and a weathered Veteran may have 250 build points and no
limits to the number she can spend on attributes.

*shrug*,
-- Travis "Aristotle" Heldibridle
Message no. 7
From: Arclight arclight@*********.de
Subject: Advanced Starting Characters
Date: Wed, 27 Sep 2000 01:02:46 +0200
And so Old Man Bethyaga said :

> Don't listen to Arclight.

This is quite funny, there's a saying with exactly
this wording on SR_D :)

<snip>

> Maybe we just lucked into some very creating role-players, but
> we have a truly excellent and diverse team. Six months ago, I
> may have agreed with Arclight, but given enough thought, it's
> possible.

Well, I my favorite character was also "made up" on
a pretty high power level, and while I really like him,
I always wondered what he would be today if I started playing
him as a 0 karma character. He is at about 300 points of
good karma now, and I doubt I would've had the time and
opportunity to bring him on his level as of today. But even
then, I am not sure if it was right :)

--
[mailto:arclight@*********.de] ~~~~~~~~ [ICQ:14322211]
[ "sozialverträgliches Frühableben" ]
[ - Unwort des Jahres '98 ]
[my_BABY:#361] ~~~~ [http://www.datahaven.de/arclight]
Message no. 8
From: Augustus shadowrun@********.net
Subject: Advanced Starting Characters
Date: Tue, 26 Sep 2000 17:43:30 -0700
----- Original Message -----
From: Nexx <nexx@********.net>


> How does one go about making a character that has a bit of experience
under
> his belt (after the unfortunate death/incarceration/need to disappear from
> the continent of their previous character)?

It might be a rather gimpy solution, but its what I've always done for my
group and it works... I usually have the new character made up under the
standard rules, and then I give him 1-3 extra karma for the karma pool
(depending on how advanced the rest of the group is).

My reasoning is:
-When attributes and skills are low (as they would be to start) the PC can
do more with karma than a more advanced character. IE: after this group
runs and earns something like 50 karma... the new PC can quickly raise
skills and attributes... while the more advanced PCs will raise their skills
slower and slower (karma costs go up as the skills go up)
-Shadowrun is a skill based system that uses a condition monitor... if this
were D&D I would never consider putting a level 1 character into a group of
level 10 characters... the biggest disadvantage to new PCs is that they have
a smaller karma pool, for those life saving rolls... thats what I try to
balance out in my campaign.
-The costs to use the karma pool goes up the more you try to use it on the
same roll... so having 2-4 karma in the pool off the start lets the PCs make
a few rerolls for being shot and getting out of danger... but not enough to
make those 'finesse' shots (ie: shooting a guy and then using up 8-10 karma
to make sure you kill him in one shot)

Hmm... I can think of a few more ideas to express my thoughts but they are
all really just more incarnations of the above 3 points...

One of the reasons I really like shadowrun is because it doesn't have a huge
power curve like level based systems do. Its a game system where high and
low level characters can work together and if it comes to blows the high
level character has an edge, but isn't guaranteed a win every time.

But for the problem posed by the original poster... I guess it also depends
what type of campaign you are running... if its heavy in the roleplay
department and light on combat... then really you shouldn't need to do
anything to 'beef up' the new characters... whereas, if its very heavy
combat then you'll probably want to give the new PC karma (anywhere from
25-75% of what the average earned by the rest of the group has (or more if
you feel the new PC needs it))

Augustus`
Message no. 9
From: hawkswift@**********.com hawkswift@**********.com
Subject: Advanced Starting Characters
Date: Tue, 26 Sep 2000 20:35:27 -0500 (CDT)
I've done this a couple times... My main suggestion is don't just give them more
points/higher priorities. Give em karma. otherwise you get too many skills at 6, more
edges than they should, etc...

....................................
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Message no. 10
From: Old Man Bethyaga acuteparanoia@*******.com
Subject: Advanced Starting Characters
Date: Tue, 26 Sep 2000 21:03:04 CDT
ARISTOTLE: If you want a total novice you might only give him
>100 Build Points and a weathered Veteran may have 250 build points and no
>limits to the number she can spend on attributes.


REPLY: That was our theory. The only trouble was--advanced characters have
all sorts of things bought with straight karma (like initiation and allies)
that don't have a point equivalent. Some things didn't work quite right,
and we tried coming up with a point conversion (like 1 point in creation
translates to 5 karma or somesuch). Eventually, this is what led to the all
karma system I linked to before.
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Message no. 11
From: griffinhq@****.com griffinhq@****.com
Subject: Advanced Starting Characters
Date: Wed, 27 Sep 2000 00:18:43 -0400
I had to figure this one out quite a while ago and the system I use has
worked fairly well so far. Basically, you give a 25% bonus to skills and
attributes using the priority system. You can refer to the Griffin
website (under the pbem section, I believe) for how I broke it down.
Also, you raise slightly availablity (but not too far).

*************************************************************************
Griffin Industries
"A Shadowrunner's Corp."

http://www.angelfire.com/oh2/Griffin/index.html

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Message no. 12
From: Paul Collins paulcollins@*******.com
Subject: Advanced Starting Characters
Date: Wed, 27 Sep 2000 19:24:31 +1000
Subject: RE: Advanced Starting Characters


> NEXX: Any suggestions/house rules?
> >
> ARCLIGHT: Yes. Don't do it. I have a really bad experience
> >with such things, and at least for me these characters
> >tend to have that "plastic" feeling.
>
>
> Don't listen to Arclight. Higher powered characters can be just as valid
as
> any other, provided you're willing to put the time and effort into them.
> They don't work for some (I prefer not to use high starting characters
> myself), but I am currently in a campaign where all characters were
created
> using the point system with 200 points.


Personally, I'd like the opertunity to play the wet behind the ears kid who
gets thrust in with the big boys. It has such posibilities. Consider the
apprentice to one of the other char's type of situation. Or younger
sibling. (Or even child I suppose)

Annachie

------------------------------------------------

-----"I'd like to live just long enough to be there when they cut off your
head and stick it on a pike as a warning to the next ten generations that
some favors come with too high a price. I'd look up at your lifeless eyes
and wave like this. Can you and your associates arrange it for me, Mr.
Morden?"
-----Vir
Message no. 13
From: Gurth gurth@******.nl
Subject: Advanced Starting Characters
Date: Wed, 27 Sep 2000 11:18:06 +0200
According to Nexx, at 15:44 on 26 Sep 00, the word on the street was...

> How does one go about making a character that has a bit of experience under
> his belt (after the unfortunate death/incarceration/need to disappear from
> the continent of their previous character)? After all, most starting
> runners are going be hopelessly outclassed when running with experienced
> professionals, but it's a bit more difficult to simply plop down someone's
> entire running experience into a chunk of Karma and nuyen.

In my experience, this is hardly ever necessary. I've seen plenty of newly-
created characters being put into a group of experienced ones, and
certainly as long as the GM keeps this fact in mind, it won't be a
problem. Beginning SR characters are usually well-rounded and powerful
enough to go on runs with more experienced ones and not get slaughtered in
the process. Now if this were a game with levels, like (A)D&D, it would be
different, but in SR it shouldn't be much of a problem, IMHO.

--
Gurth@******.nl - http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html
It was a warning shot that missed.
-> NAGEE Editor * ShadowRN GridSec * Triangle Virtuoso <-
-> The Plastic Warriors Page: http://plastic.dumpshock.com <-

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Incubated into the First Church of the Sqooshy Ball, 21-05-1998
Message no. 14
From: Gurth gurth@******.nl
Subject: Advanced Starting Characters
Date: Wed, 27 Sep 2000 11:18:06 +0200
According to Arclight, at 1:02 on 27 Sep 00, the word on the street was...

> > Don't listen to Arclight.
>
> This is quite funny, there's a saying with exactly
> this wording on SR_D :)

The voice of experience, I would guess... ;)

--
Gurth@******.nl - http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html
It was a warning shot that missed.
-> NAGEE Editor * ShadowRN GridSec * Triangle Virtuoso <-
-> The Plastic Warriors Page: http://plastic.dumpshock.com <-

GC3.1: GAT/! d-(dpu) s:- !a>? C+@ UL P L+ E? W(++) N o? K- w+ O V? PS+
PE Y PGP- t(+) 5++ X+ R+++>$ tv+(++) b++@ DI? D+ G(++) e h! !r(---) y?
Incubated into the First Church of the Sqooshy Ball, 21-05-1998
Message no. 15
From: NeoJudas neojudas@******************.com
Subject: Advanced Starting Characters
Date: Wed, 27 Sep 2000 05:09:36 -0500
From: "Paul Collins" <paulcollins@*******.com>
Subject: Re: Advanced Starting Characters


> Subject: RE: Advanced Starting Characters
> Personally, I'd like the opertunity to play the wet behind the ears kid
who
> gets thrust in with the big boys. It has such posibilities. Consider
the
> apprentice to one of the other char's type of situation. Or younger
> sibling. (Or even child I suppose)
>
> Annachie

And it can be done, especially if all the players keep a level of respect
for their fellow group members. To give an example... this last couple of
weeks, we've integrated not one, but three new players (bringing out total
membership up to 23 people).

Each game session has seen one/two of the new players, as well as a variety
of character types. The newest game slot (a third slot to account for some
stuff we're trying to do and running out of time in otherwise) has a whole
collection of "new characters", but they are running in a "game time
frame"
that is parallel to the major events going on in the other two groups.

The Sunday game (a time slot that is literally going on 10 years for some of
us) has characters in it that have been around since First Editions earliest
days and is acquiring a new character (the player hasn't played SR since
second edition mind you either). Her character is "new", but in order to
give her certain flexibilities, I walked her through the Build Point system,
but used 140 points, instead of the average 123. Made some suggestions, but
have otherwise allowed her to do pretty much as she pleased.

That particular game slot doesn't really *need* any particular type of
archetype to join (some of the characters are multi-faceted enough that it
really doesn't matter). All of us just want to play, have fun, and see if
we can invent situations dynamic and difficult enough to have a super-cool
challenge and yet "live on" to have the game line itself develop.

She officially joins the group this coming Sunday, and she has made several
comments about being nervous (she's on the HHH groupmail list, and it has
exploded in the last three weeks or so with traffic, so she's been
scrambling into catch-up mode there as well and just getting to read some of
the escapades that are going on throughout the groups overall dynamic).

Should be fun. She's really looking forward to joining, and I know we're
all hpyed at having the Sunday game slot (historically, one of the hardest
slots to have a solid group of players... participation fluxuates from 3
players to 9 players because of work schedules and has for years now).
We're looking forward to it as well because she marks the third female
player to the group (all three of whom have joined in the last two years)
and the second female player in that timeslot... Joanna has Tuesday's all to
herself... Brandi and Kat are joining forces on Sunday... Thursday is
"Bachelors' Night").

I really think that higher-end characters and higher-end campaigns are
possible, but like so many other concepts and rules considerations in
Shadowrun... (Matrix/Deckers, Riggers, Astral Quests, etc...ad nauseum), it
requires work on everybody's part in order to make the best of the
possibilities.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
J. Keith Henry (Webmaster)
Hoosier Hacker House (www.hoosierhackerhouse.com)
Message no. 16
From: McCollum, Shawn Shawn_McCollum@*********.com
Subject: Advanced Starting Characters
Date: Wed, 27 Sep 2000 13:20:54 -0400
One thing I've done in the past is barter with the player. I used the
"here's an extra 50 for build points" method but the player usually makes a
highly specialized character that doesn't have the well roundedness a
character who has been played for a while does.

Example 1, of quirks picked up during play
The rigger in the group has negotiation because the way the players play is
that they usually break into teams to accomplish the goal, and he was caught
needing to negotiate some equipment, because the mage with negotiation was
usually on the surveillance team.

Example 2, of quirks picked up during play
The mage in the group picked up a computer and electronics skills so that in
astral he could have a better chance to identify certain gizmo's, because
he couldn't read the labels. Also the computer skill helps him run some
utilities on that our old (wimp) decker used to give him to use against
isolated systems.

By bartering I mean have the player make a standard character and then offer
him some stuff that will make him fit into your campaign.

Example: My group was going to start running some arcology stuff and I
wanted them to be able to use the ork underground as a means of entry. My
brother got a new job that he could play with us, so I to him either make a
standard character or make a character with these benefits and limitations.
For your use I'll list what options I gave him. Either make an ork or
troll, ork for free, troll minus the points to be an ork. Lifestyle no
higher then low. Also you can have 20 points to use to make the character
able to deck, but you can only use those 20 points and nothing from the
normal build points for deck stuff or computer skill. Basically we recently
lost our elven decker who wouldn't go on runs, and I wanted a combat decker
type to replace him. Also our group is only human with one dwarf, so
entrance to the arc via ork underground would be easier with a token ork
character.

Shawn McCollum

-----Original Message-----
From: Nexx [mailto:nexx@********.net]
Sent: Tuesday, September 26, 2000 4:45 PM
To: ShadowRN
Subject: Advanced Starting Characters


How does one go about making a character that has a bit of experience under
his belt (after the unfortunate death/incarceration/need to disappear from
the continent of their previous character)? After all, most starting
runners are going be hopelessly outclassed when running with experienced
professionals, but it's a bit more difficult to simply plop down someone's
entire running experience into a chunk of Karma and nuyen.

Any suggestions/house rules?

***
Nexx
a.k.a. Mark Hall
***
"If I lose the light of the sun, I will write by candlelight, moonlight, no
light. If I lose paper and ink I will write in blood on forgotten walls. I
will write always. I will capture nights all over the world and bring them
to you."
-Henry Rollins
***
http://www-personal.interkan.net/~nexx/index.html
Updated September 24th, 2000
Message no. 17
From: Phil Smith phil_urbanhell@*******.com
Subject: Advanced Starting Characters
Date: Wed, 27 Sep 2000 17:31:06 GMT
>From: "NeoJudas" <neojudas@******************.com>
> > Personally, I'd like the opertunity to play the wet behind the ears kid
>who
> > gets thrust in with the big boys. It has such posibilities. Consider
>the
> > apprentice to one of the other char's type of situation. Or younger
> > sibling. (Or even child I suppose)
> >
> > Annachie
>
>And it can be done, especially if all the players keep a level of respect
>for their fellow group members.

I would also add that it depends on the existing PCs in the game; of the
characters in our group, everyone plays practically starting characters
following the deaths of their old characters/only just joining the group,
none of them have more than 20 karma IIRC. The only exception is my
character who I have been playing for more than a year now; she has almost
300 karma under her belt, a few initiations and an ally spirit. However,
I'm sure everyone else in my group would agree with me when I say that she
is the weakest character there; the initiations are balanced by lots of
largely cosmetic cyber and bioware, the ally spirit acts as a chauffer and
dancing partner, she has yet to have a skill rated over 5 and she still has
a body and strength of 3. Sure, the big karma pool is helpful, but a lot of
that has gone into team karma anyway.

Phil

Let us assume we have a can opener.
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Message no. 18
From: Mister Incognito misterincognito@*******.com
Subject: Advanced Starting Characters
Date: Fri, 29 Sep 2000 13:06:12 GMT
You don't have to give out extra build points for new charecters. In our
group one PC got wasted so the new chaecter was drafted in. She used the
standard 123 build points but was given a few extra starting karma points
for in game use as life savers.

Because she was a starting charecter, she was able to improve her skills
quickly for less karma than us as they're lower- plus she had a Memonic
Enhancer anyway to help as well. Plus, the rest of the team helped out.

She wanted to improve her firearm skills, talk to the Sammie and get him to
teach her as an instructor. Want to improve your Brawling skills, talk to
the adept. Improve you computer skill? Ask the team decker for help.
Car/bike skills, get the rigger to teach you. Want to improve you magic
background skill? Talk to the mage. Want to- well you get the idea. Cause we
work as a team it's in their best interests to help her out so she can
perfom better and is less likely to get them geeked on a run. Enlightened
self preservation. :]
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Message no. 19
From: Sinabian@***.com Sinabian@***.com
Subject: Advanced Starting Characters
Date: Fri, 29 Sep 2000 11:23:39 EDT
Just a little something I'm toying with...check out the SR website I just put
up at http://members.aol.com/sinabian. It's got some new chargen rules I'm
thinking of incorporating, though they haven't been playtested yet. Seems
like a good way to start out new characters without them having to be so
rookie-ish and still preserve a decent amount of game balance...

Further Reading

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