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Message no. 1
From: Aaron Binns sparrow@***.net.au
Subject: How do you make your characters? (Was: Dwarves in Shadowrun)
Date: Mon, 19 Jul 1999 18:04:41 +1000
> I think that you'll find that Elves & Trolls are the most
> popular metatype because they are the ones that
> tend to attract munchkins for the in-game benefits
> that you can milk from them. I'm not for a minute
> suggesting that ALL people who play Trolls and
> Elves are munchkins but I can surely say that I
> can guarentee that all munchkins have at some
> point played a maxed out troll. Thankfully SR3
> has made this a little more expensive in the
> priority based character generation system.
>
> Personally I tend to avoid the MetaHuman races
> as a PC. I prefer to play humans.

This was from Manx... and it got me thinking...

When I make up characters, I like to write out (or at least think out) a
character story a little more detailed than ug... troll... ug, ug... big,
strong.. ug, ug, ug, big gun! :)

For instance, my most recent character is a human female cat shaman. She
comes from seattle, lived in the upper west side sprawl most of her life.
Came to the magic later than avg. (at approx 26). This meant she learnt
most of her spells using fetishes or exclusivity.
She is well educated, but poor now that she has left her prior job as a
corp secretary. She lives in a high quality housing area, wears high
quality or tres chic clothing, grooms constantly.
Ive also written a full visual description.

How do other people make their characters? Do you do the stats and then
throw together a story to go with the stats? or do you "think before they
roll" so to speak?

What other ways have people come up with to design characters?

GreyWolf
Message no. 2
From: Mist Warrior themistwarrior@********.com.au
Subject: How do you make your characters? (Was: Dwarves in Shadowrun)
Date: Mon, 19 Jul 1999 18:41:07 +1000
> When I make up characters, I like to write out (or at least think
out) a
> character story a little more detailed than ug... troll... ug, ug...
big,
> strong.. ug, ug, ug, big gun! :)
>
> For instance, my most recent character is a human female cat shaman.
She
> comes from seattle, lived in the upper west side sprawl most of her
life.
> Came to the magic later than avg. (at approx 26). This meant she
learnt
> most of her spells using fetishes or exclusivity.
> She is well educated, but poor now that she has left her prior job
as a
> corp secretary. She lives in a high quality housing area, wears high
> quality or tres chic clothing, grooms constantly.
> Ive also written a full visual description.
>
> How do other people make their characters? Do you do the stats and
then
> throw together a story to go with the stats? or do you "think before
they
> roll" so to speak?
>
> What other ways have people come up with to design characters?
>
> GreyWolf

I have on occasion, started with the stats and little else and let
them develop as I adventure with them.

Mist Warrior.
Message no. 3
From: Angelkiller 404 angelkiller404@**********.com
Subject: How do you make your characters? (Was: Dwarves in Shadowrun)
Date: Mon, 19 Jul 1999 04:17:01 -0400
>> I think that you'll find that Elves & Trolls are the most
>> popular metatype because they are the ones that
>> tend to attract munchkins for the in-game benefits
>> that you can milk from them. I'm not for a minute
>> suggesting that ALL people who play Trolls and
>> Elves are munchkins but I can surely say that I
>> can guarentee that all munchkins have at some
>> point played a maxed out troll. Thankfully SR3
>> has made this a little more expensive in the
>> priority based character generation system.
>>
>> Personally I tend to avoid the MetaHuman races
>> as a PC. I prefer to play humans.
>
>This was from Manx... and it got me thinking...
>
>When I make up characters, I like to write out (or at least think
out) a
>character story a little more detailed than ug... troll... ug, ug...
big,
>strong.. ug, ug, ug, big gun! :)
>
>For instance, my most recent character is a human female cat shaman.
She
>comes from seattle, lived in the upper west side sprawl most of her
life.
>Came to the magic later than avg. (at approx 26). This meant she
learnt
>most of her spells using fetishes or exclusivity.
>She is well educated, but poor now that she has left her prior job as
a
>corp secretary. She lives in a high quality housing area, wears high
>quality or tres chic clothing, grooms constantly.
>Ive also written a full visual description.
>
>How do other people make their characters? Do you do the stats and
then
>throw together a story to go with the stats? or do you "think before
they
>roll" so to speak?
>
>What other ways have people come up with to design characters?
>
>GreyWolf


Well, personally, I create a character concept by outlining dominant
character traits, draw the character I have in mind, build up a frame
personality, make up a life story, fit the character in then revise
again and again and again, get the story straight, write the
biography, hope to God that the GM has the sourcebooks for certain
regions (anyone able to explain the Tir Tairngire Rites of Passage in
a single paragraph, BTW? I can't seem to do it without repeating the
sourcebook verbatim), make a list of edges and flaws, put down what
equipment the character might carry, write down the stats I think the
character would have, skills I think the character would have, set
down the character's race if I haven't already, THEN start assigning
priorities or points to the character.

After that, it's all just a matter of time.

-----
AK404

http://mindspring.com/~angelkiller404/
http://gibbed.com/parasiteve/
ICQ: 2157053

"There are hardly any excesses of the most crazed psychopath that
cannot easily be duplicated by a normal kindly family man who just
comes in to work every day and has a job to do."
Message no. 4
From: kawaii kawaii@********.org
Subject: How do you make your characters? (Was: Dwarves in Shadowrun)
Date: Mon, 19 Jul 1999 06:44:29 -0400 (EDT)
On Mon, 19 Jul 1999, Aaron Binns wrote:

> > I think that you'll find that Elves & Trolls are the most
> > popular metatype because they are the ones that
> > tend to attract munchkins for the in-game benefits
> > that you can milk from them. I'm not for a minute
> > suggesting that ALL people who play Trolls and
> > Elves are munchkins but I can surely say that I
> > can guarentee that all munchkins have at some
> > point played a maxed out troll. Thankfully SR3
> > has made this a little more expensive in the
> > priority based character generation system.
> >
> > Personally I tend to avoid the MetaHuman races
> > as a PC. I prefer to play humans.
>
> This was from Manx... and it got me thinking...
>
> When I make up characters, I like to write out (or at least think out) a
> character story a little more detailed than ug... troll... ug, ug... big,
> strong.. ug, ug, ug, big gun! :)
>
> For instance, my most recent character is a human female cat shaman. She
> comes from seattle, lived in the upper west side sprawl most of her life.
> Came to the magic later than avg. (at approx 26). This meant she learnt
> most of her spells using fetishes or exclusivity.
> She is well educated, but poor now that she has left her prior job as a
> corp secretary. She lives in a high quality housing area, wears high
> quality or tres chic clothing, grooms constantly.
> Ive also written a full visual description.
>
> How do other people make their characters? Do you do the stats and then
> throw together a story to go with the stats? or do you "think before they
> roll" so to speak?
>
> What other ways have people come up with to design characters?
>
> GreyWolf
>
>

Coming from an online MUX experience for character creation, I usually
have an extensive background written up, including basic astral form and
physical description. I have found that sometimes, it makes it easier to
determine what the character has gone trhough and various plot twists
within your background if there is a sheet nearby that you can reference
to..

Ever lovable and always scrappy,
kawaii
Message no. 5
From: Bahamut Mighty Dragon Lord bahamut@**.com
Subject: How do you make your characters? (Was: Dwarves in Shadowrun)
Date: Mon, 19 Jul 1999 07:10:07 -0400
On Monday, July 19, 1999 4:56 AM, Bull [SMTP:bull@*******.net] wrote:
> At 06:04 PM 7/19/99 +1000, Aaron Binns wrote these timeless words:
>
> >How do other people make their characters? Do you do the stats and then
> >throw together a story to go with the stats? or do you "think before they
> >roll" so to speak?
> >
> >What other ways have people come up with to design characters?
> >
> Hmmm... Honestly, I've done up characters quite a few different ways...
>
> A lot of time, we sit down and start making characters with little warning,
> and a lot of times, I don't know a whole lot about the game (I like to try
> new games, so... ) so i'm stuck winging it a bit.
>
> When I created Bull, WAYYYYYYY back when, I didn;t know a thing about the
> world, other than a brief crash course from Tinner. And when we started, I
> basically looked at the races and archetypes, and decided that I liked the
> look of the Ork and wanted to play a decker. I was told this would be hard
> since Orks have a few limitations. I said, "So?". And I came up witha
> real rudimentary background and personality on the spot (Well, the
> personality was basically mine witha few tweaks, but hey... S'alright
> :)). A couple days later, after some thinking, I worked up a pretty decent
> background, including 2 pages of history and a page that was an old "Bio"
> sheet we used to use with things like "Favorite food", "Things you
> dislike", "Past Relationships", "Pets", etc. And he's
evolved even more
> since then. I was digging a few weeks ago and actually found my original
> character sheet, and realized that somewhere early on, Bull's real name
> actually changed completely when I wrote the character background for some
> reason. <shrug>
>
> On the flip side, if I know the game and have time to work on it, I'll
> sometimes sit down and write up a highly detailed background before I even
> think about stats. I'll have a rough idea, especially for Shadowrun since
> I know the system so well now, but in general, stats come last.
>
> Last night (and tonight) we worked up some ideas for startinga new
> floating game, and I decided to let everyone geta little "funky" with
> their characters. I allowed any of the optional character races that I
> have on my web page (Vampire, Wendigo, Sasquatch, Windling/Sprite, and
> Gargoyle (Disney flavored)) as well as anything else that was balanced and
> that I could fit into the Shadowrun World. Amazingly, two of the three
> guys stuck with "normal" characters (Voodoun and a Phys Ad), while one
> player ended up with a "Time Traveller" with a couple unique abilities.
> Whether he's a time traveller of just a nut job is up in the air (at least
> as far as I'm concerned :)), and while he's got some serious abuse
> potential, I put in some major limitations, plus he gave me a few too.
> Like the fact that if he tries to "muck" around with reality, it slaps him
> in the face and fixes things :] And that's up to me :]
>
> Of course, along the way I also tunred down, among other things, a Dragon,
> A Demon, and Angel, and a member of a Secret Alien Race living in Russia.
> <sigh>
>

The sad thing is I can probably pick who wanted to play what with out being their.

> Anyways, for this, I got character concepts and some background before we
> ever brought out the books... And I honestly prefer to do it that way as a
> GM.
>
> That answer your question?
> --
> Bull -- The Best Ork Decker You Never Met
> bull@*******.net ===== bull22@***********.com
> http://shadowrun.html.com/users/bull
> ICQ: 35931890
> ======================================================> =
> = Order is Illusion! Chaos is Bliss! Got any Fours? > = =
> ======================================================>
> "Animals have 2 jobs: To taste good and to fit well."
> -- Greg Proops, "Vs."
Message no. 6
From: Pantherr pantherr@*****.net
Subject: How do you make your characters? (Was: Dwarves in Shadowrun)
Date: Mon, 19 Jul 1999 11:14:50 -0500
> How do other people make their characters? Do you do the stats and then
> throw together a story to go with the stats? or do you "think before they
> roll" so to speak?
>
> What other ways have people come up with to design characters?

I usually start with a basic concept and then develop the bg as I'm
working on the stats, skills, and gear. then I finish up the bg and do
touch-up work.

Pantherr
Message no. 7
From: Geoffrey Haacke knight_errant30@*******.com
Subject: How do you make your characters? (Was: Dwarves in Shadowrun)
Date: Mon, 19 Jul 1999 11:05:08 CST
>From: Aaron Binns <sparrow@***.net.au>
>
>What other ways have people come up with to design characters?
>

For any game I play, I try to come up with the concept first. For me, the
concept has to be:

1. interesting to play (for me at least :D)
2. more in depth than the archtypes.

Then (in SR) I determine priorities (or point assignments if I use the point
system). Then I flesh him out. I use the 20 questions in the BBB or any of
the expanded versions I find on the 'net. I detrermine his history, reasons
for running, explanations for his cyber, etc. Then I write it all up (with
stats) in one large document so I can have it all together.

For Example: My current character is a Dwarf Merc in SR3. His concept is a
professional soldier, right out of the 1st section in FoF. Then I looked at
the Merc archtype in SR2 as a guide. I liked the priorities for that
archtype so I used them (since he was a dwarf, it translated well.) I
assigned the skills, attributes etc. Bought his cyber and equipment. Then
decided on his background. Finally, I developed his contacts and roughed
out their personalities, abilities and relationship to the character. It's
a bit of work, but I enjoy it, so....

However, if I only need a quickie character, I just use an archetype and
plug and play.



>GreyWolf
>
>


Geoff Haacke
"If you not part of the solution then you are part of the precipitate."
"Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups."


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Message no. 8
From: arcady@***.net arcady@***.net
Subject: How do you make your characters? (Was: Dwarves in Shadowrun)
Date: Mon, 19 Jul 99 10:25:26 +700
>How do other people make their characters? Do you do the stats and then
>throw together a story to go with the stats? or do you "think before they
>roll" so to speak?

I will often have a story in my head for days, weeks, months, or even years
before I go to stats.
There's a few I've been milling over since the mid 80's...

Whenever I get a cool idea I try to write it down somewhere and then when a
proper game for it comes along I pull it out and begin developing it.

Ussually I go through severe pains at the stats stage with just about any RPG.
I come in with highly developed concepts and almost always find the system of
the day is restricting me in multiple areas. It's true of nearly every system
I've played.

I don't think I've ever started with the stats. Even my very first D&D character
back in 82 had a name, race, and alignment before anything got rolled. And my
concept driven design view led me to abandon D&D and other random systems in
85 when I found both other options and people who would play them (would've
happened in 82 if I could've found other TFT players).

Throw a set of numbers in front of me and I will just see a set of numbers.

Throw a couple story ideas or visual images in front of me and I will weave
a pattern together and design a character.

Arcady WebRPG Magistrate http://townhall.webrpg.com <0){{{{><
Artwork: http://elfwood.lysator.liu.se/lothlorien/artists/brianfw/brianfw.html
/.)\ The revolution will not be telivised. It'll be emailed.
\(@/ Homepage: http://www.jps.net/arcady/
Message no. 9
From: Starrngr@***.com Starrngr@***.com
Subject: How do you make your characters? (Was: Dwarves in Shadowrun)
Date: Mon, 19 Jul 1999 19:25:18 EDT
In a message dated 7/19/99 1:04:53 AM Pacific Daylight Time,
sparrow@***.net.au writes:

> How do other people make their characters? Do you do the stats and then
> throw together a story to go with the stats? or do you "think before they
> roll" so to speak?
>
> What other ways have people come up with to design characters?
>
> GreyWolf

In general I want some sort of a concept before I start anything. case in
point, my last three charecters I all had a good idea of what I wanted them
to be before I assigned any prioritys or stats. Once I knew what I wanted,
it was easy to assign priorities based on that, and knowing what I planned
the charecter to be good and not good in helped develop what stats I should
and shouldn't buy. Planned race was known from the start and taken into
account in stat and skill purchasing. (For example, I knew Shane, my Physad
Troll was going to need a lot of points in Int and Will because of their
minuses due to race, while the body bonus meant I could spend the least
number of points there.)

Once I had the charecter worked to my concept with the numbers, then I wrote
a background to explain how he got to where he was now. Personality, quirks,
and all that go into the background, but are often in place as early as
charecter concept before the first stat is generated. Nine times out of Ten,
its the skill mix that suggests most of the background, because knowing what
it is he knows tells me how he got there.
Message no. 10
From: Aaron Binns sparrow@***.net.au
Subject: How do you make your characters? (Was: Dwarves inShadowrun)
Date: Tue, 20 Jul 1999 12:19:30 +1000
Manx wrote:

> At 18:04 19/07/99 +1000 Aaron Binns wrote
> >For instance, my most recent character is a human female cat shaman. She
> >comes from seattle, lived in the upper west side sprawl most of her life.
> >Came to the magic later than avg. (at approx 26). This meant she learnt
> >most of her spells using fetishes or exclusivity.
> >She is well educated, but poor now that she has left her prior job as a
> >corp secretary. She lives in a high quality housing area, wears high
> >quality or tres chic clothing, grooms constantly.
> >Ive also written a full visual description.
>
> I don't suppose that I could get her LTG number :)

NA/SEA-TAC-17435

redirected of course.... :)
Message no. 11
From: Ignacio De Lucas morrisjila@*******.com
Subject: How do you make your characters? (Was: Dwarves in Shadowrun)
Date: Tue, 20 Jul 1999 05:27:48 GMT
> > How do other people make their characters? Do you do the stats and then
> > throw together a story to go with the stats? or do you "think before
>they
> > roll" so to speak?
> >
> > What other ways have people come up with to design characters?
> >
> > GreyWolf

In my case I usually begin bi asking myself what do I want to play, for
example: Race, class, and most importantly ROL, for example If i start
wondering about a combat mage, my first question would be what turned him in
to a combat mage, then the kind of runs I want him involved in, like
extracctions, rights fighter, assassinations or anything you can imagine him
doing. Then comes all the non running rolplay, who is he, why is he a
runner, why he has the contacts he has, is he married, or any other small
detail you can think of, the more the beter, it allows you to develop the
character to a maximum, and finally having done all that you just start to
asign numbers to represent all you said of your character in his story. For
example if your character is a magic teacher in the MIT&M you should put
teaching as one of his skills, and belive me no skill is useles, somtimes
juglig has saved my neck.



ATTE el MORRIS


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