Char-Gen Orgy '10 - Shadowrun

The Game: Shadowrun
The Publisher: WizKids games, currently
Degree of Familiarity: Limited; a couple abortive games; knowledge of the setting is slightly higher due to secondary exposure from other players and too many Inquests back in the day
Books Used: Shadowrun 4th Edition Corebook

Ah, shotguns, sorcery, and cyborgs.. gotta love Shadowrun. One of those settings I've always wished I got more chance to play around with.. I love urban fantasy as a genre, I love punk as a sub-genre, and hey.. dystopian futuristic wetwork meets Dungeons & Dragons? Well, that's just badass.

For those not initiated, iShadowrun is currently set in the year 2070 (or it is by the corebook I own, at least) after the Mayan calendar reset itself and brought an age of magic back to the world.. a world not unlike our own at the time, only now its had close to six decades to go to shit; giant Megacorps play god and are above any law but their own, the cops are independent contractors, and if racism is bad when everyone's still more-or-less human, just wait until suddenly people who plainly aren't human at all start popping up.

Yeah, not a pretty picture, but it is cyberpunk, after all. And in the parlance of the setting, fantasy though it may be, the quests of yesteryear's fantasy are replaced by shadowruns -- well-paid, off-the-books wetwork operations performed by folks usually off-the-grid in persuasion: Shadowrunners. Thats what we're making today, then!

Okay, Shadowrun goes on a hard, true-blooded point-buy system, in other words, rather than something akin to what we did with All Flesh Must Be Eaten last week, we don't divide the points into pools quite so much -- and we start, per standard characters starting in a Shadowrun game, with 400 Build Points (BP). Since we have to budget everything a little more cautiously in a situation like this, we should have ourselves a solid concept first, and I have one: our character is going to be a good bit like Frank Martin (Jason Statham's character in the Transporter films, for those unfamiliar): Suave, professional, and resourceful, a canny bastard of a smooth operator with his own rules to play by -- sleek, skilled, and deadly.

So, we'll start with our Metatype: is our smooth operator a human, a dwarf, an ork? Choices, choices.. elf seems entirely too cliche for this sort of thing... ah, what's this? Stern, non-nonsense, strong work ethic and an adherence to principles, you say? I think we have our metatype... we're going Dwarf, which costs us a total of 25 BP,so we're at 375. Let's see, what does a Dwarf give us? As far as starting stats go, Body (physical resilience) 2, Agility (physical athleticism and grace) 1, Strength (raw physical power) 3, Reaction (reflexes and, well ireactiontime) 1, Charisma (personal magnetism and bearing, as well as looks and likability), Intuition (mental alertness and situational awarness) 1, Logic (raw brainpower) 1, and Willpower (tenacity, determination, and so forth) of 2, with a starting Edge (raw luck, skill, and that extra bit of fortune's favor) of 1; the human average (thus the measuring standard) is rated at 3, and we can spend no more than 200 BP (half our starting total) here, at a rate of 10 BP per point of increase (or 25 to max a stat out, which we can only do for one stat at this point if we go that route; Edge costs 10 BP to increase by a point, as well. And, if we want to be any sort of mystical sort, we have to buy a proper Quality (more on that later) and buy Magic as a stat accordingly. 200 BP to spend, then...

Whether we shoot 'em dead or crack their heads, we're going to need a good Agility, and so we'll spend 40 there to raise us to a total of 5 there; Body starts at 2 but its only good business to be a little tougher -- we'll add 20 more to boost that to 4, and Strength gets an extra 30 as well, to bring it to 6 also; that's 100 total, 200 left. Let's avoid any glaring weaknesses and add 2 to every other stat across the board with an extra point to Intuition with the remaining 100, and thus finishing up at

Body: 4
Agility: 5
Reaction: 3
Strength: 6
Charisma: 3
Intuition: 4
Logic: 3
Willpower: 4

All around, a tough son of a bitch; might find stronger dwarves, orks, or trolls, but he's considerably more agile than most of them could hope for. Now, we have a total of 175 BP left; before we finish up here we need to decide if our Runner is at all of an arcane persuasion... hell, why not? We'll not be playing around with an actual Mage.. tried that once and it gave me a terrible bloody headache, but since we're ripping off The Transporter here, let's make ourselves a bonafide action-movie hero here, and sink 5 points into the Adept Quality (Adepts being folks who don't throw around fancy spells -- they throw beatings, turning their bodies into mystically-empowered weapons); that means we need to buy a Magic rating, and I wouldn't be adverse myself to having a bit more Edge, either, so we'll dump 50 points into Magic 5, and 20 into Edge, raising that to a 3 total.

So that leaves us 100 points even; we add Reaction and Intuiton together to get our Initaitive (7 in this case), and thus the finished stat block reads out as:

Body: 4
Agility: 5
Reaction: 3
Strength: 6
Charisma: 3
Intuition: 4
Logic: 3
Willpower: 4
Magic: 5
Edge: 3
Initiative: 7

Well, thats a full three-quarters of our points gone. Skills next! Shadowrun does a nice thing by combing several skills into "groups", and unless we want to specify, these are great ways to pick up solid areas of general competence. Scanning them quickly, 30 BP in the Athletics group for a rating of 3 is an easy buy, giving effective ratings of 3 in Climbing, Gymnastics, Running, and Swimming, put a point into the Firearms group for 10 BP, giving us basic proficiency with Automatics, Longarms, and Pistols (a 1 in each); a rating of 2 in Infiltration sets us back 8 BP, and 2 in Dodge another 8; we'll finish our Skills with our moneymaker, Unarmed Combat, jacked to our game-imposed limit of 6 for 24 points; we have 20 BP left, so we may want to look at some Negative Qualities.. we'll see.First, we need to hit our Knowledge skills, which we get a point budget for of our Intuiton + Logic x3, so a total of 21.

Well, let's see.. I see the sort of cool, efficient style our Runner exhibits being something that would lead the Yakuza and Japanese megacorps to find him a desirable agent, even if he's a gaijin himself, so for Street Knowledge we'll put 3 points in Yakuza Politics and 2 more in iStreet Fighting Circuit as the same to reflect a past that will be explained in time; we'll add 2 more for a Interest skill of Boxing (the past, again), and in the interest of the concept, put 2 into an Academic skill of Literature; 12 skill points left... our Runner fancies himself classy and high-rolling despite being just a well-paid wetworker and the fact that though he knows the score and the shakedown of his Japanese bosses; he'd be an ill-fit in the true echelons of 2070's upper crust, so we'll assign 3 of those points into an Interest skill in Wines -- if he must obey the fantasy stereotype of dwarves and alcoholic beverages, it will be on his own bloody terms! -- and on the same note, we'll put 2 more Interest points into Classical Music. With the last 6 points we'll hit our Languages, and though our Runner speaks English natively, he also speaks Japanese quite fluently (4), and in a fit of making himself seem "more cultured" and the lack of much utility in the modern world of the Sixth Age on a day to day basis, we'll add Latin at 2. So, with our Skills settled:

ACTIVE SKILLS
Athletics Group 3
Firearms Group 1
Dodge 2
Infiltration 2
Unarmed Combat 6

KNOWLEDGE SKILLS
Yakuza Politics 3
Street Fighting Circuit 2
Boxing 3
Literature 2
Classical Music 2
Wines 3

LANGUAGES
English N
Japanese 4
Latin 2

Okay, 20 points left.. lets look at Qualities We already bought one earlier, Adept, for 5 BP, so now we'll see if we need more.. though first a few Negative qualities might be advisable. One idea imemdiately coming to mind is the reason why our good dwarf prefers to stick to his ists is that he has a notoriously bad streak of luck with most modern technology -- he's got Gremlins at 10 BP, and thus even something as simple as a gun can just amusingly fail to be much use to him, and for the love of all that's good, keep him away from computers (harder than it sounds, in the Sixth Age...); his fondness for wine shows true: a 5 BP Addiction to alcohol seems suitable. We'll round it out (doubling our points avaible, back to 40 BP, with SINner at 5 BP -- he's a known, legal citizen of wherever we happen to be, and though that helps in some ways, it makes life hell in others for a secret operative.

With 40 BP left to spend, normally we look to Contacts and Equipment next. Normally one does Equipment first, but honestly, our Runner won't likely need as much gear as some concepts might, so we'll decide on friends first. We'll put 6 points into Connections and 4 into Loyalty for our main Contact -- a powerful Yakuza boss we'll say, who often provides our Runner regular work and won't throw him to the wolves on a suicide mission without very solid cause. Another is the owner of our Runner's favorite wine bar, for a total of Connections 3 and Loyalty 2; We'll add the police detective who our dwarf's fists of fury saved from a bad spot as collateral one night in the Sprawl as a final contact -- the dame's tough as can be and would put her lfie on the line to back him up without question (Connections 4, Loyalty 6).

CONTACTS
Boss Motosuwa, Yakuza boss (Connections 6, Loyalty 4)
Simon Winterford, wine bar owner (Connections 3, Loyalty 2)
Detective Sally Maza, police detective (Connections 4, Loyalty 6)

And thus we have 15 points left for equipment and standard of living, and that gives us a budget of 75,000 nuyen. We need a suit, and since it can come with armoring installed.. why the hell not? Actioneer Business Clothes serve us as armor and fashion statement, and set us back 1,500 nuyen, leaving us with 60k. A pair of Shock Gloves sets us back 400 nuyen, and a Ruger Super Warhawk revolver for 250 nuyen (just because our runner is unlucky with guns doesn't mean he's dumb enough not to pack one), and some fancy sunglasses (25 nuyen) with Flare-Compensators (50 nuyen), vision enhancement +3 (300 nuyen), and vision magnification (100 nuyen) modifications (total of 475 nuyen -- "Those were $500 sunglasses, asshole!"). a Gold-level DocWagon contract for a year sets us back a hefty (but worthwhile) 25,000 nuyen, and three months of a High-class Lifestyle will see us living in relative comfort for the low, low price of 30,000 nuyen -- we need work, and soon, as our man Dwarf is living outside his means in a bad way; we'll dump the remainder into starting funds as much as we can -- 1200 Nuyen adds +12 to our final roll for starting funds -- and that leaves us 2,765 nuyen unspent -- and we can't take it with us. So let's see, anything we can dump into? Well, armor is always nice, so lets add a Lined Coat (700 nuyen) over our Actioneer Business Clothes, soup it up with three levels of Thermal Dampening (1,500 nuyen), add a level of Fire Resistance (100 nuyen) and then to add in a nasty surprise, add a level of Nonconductivity (200 nuyen) and equip it with Shock Frills (200 nuyen). That leaves 65 unspent.. but what can we do? Quick hit from Random.org to determine our starting funds... a very respectable total of 19 on 4d6, to which we add +12 from earlier, so per the chart for starting funds at High-class living, we've got 15,500 Nuyen in the bank -- well, it'll pay the rent another month, at least.

GEAR
- Actioneer Business Clothes (1,500 nuyen)
- Lined Coat (Thermal Dampening 3, Fire Resistance 1, Nonconductivity 1, Shock Frills) (2,700 nuyen)
- Souped-Up Sunglasses (Flare Compensaters, Vision Enhancement +3, Vision Magnification) (475 Nuyen
- Shock Gloves (Pair) (400 nuyen)
- Ruger Super Warhawk Revolver (250 nuyen)
- Gold-level DocWagon contract (1 year) (2,500 nuyen)
- High-class Lifestyle (3 months) (30,000 nuyen)
- 15,500 nuyen

Now at this point, we'd normally be about done, aside from deriving out a few more secondary stats, but our man dwarf -- who needs a name soon, as we're running out of character bits to work on, honestly... but that said, our dwarf is an Adept, and thus has magic powers (of a sort) to be assigned, 5 Power Points worth, in fact... Let's see to that. Killing Hands (0.5) is obvious, and we'll add two levels of Critical Strike (0.5 total) to that to make our dwarven Adept downright scary when he hits, and we'll make ourselves terrifying in the extreme by dumping 4 ranks (2 points) into Improved Ability (Unarmed Combat); with our last points, we'll buy 2 ranks each of Attribute in Attribute Boost (Body) and Attribute Boost (Strength) -- he can Hulk Up to horrifiying effect if pressed -- and 2 ranks of Mystic Armor to make our dwarven pugilist even tougher, and capable of taking a few hits even if someone left unarmored.

ADEPT POWERS
Attribute Boost (Body) 2
Attribute Boost (Strength) 2
Critical Strike +2
Improved Ability (Unarmed Combat) 4
Killing Hands
Mystic Armor 2

Okay, now we just need to finish up with our Condition Tracks; Stun is 8+ (Willpower / 2), so a total of 10; and with a Body of 4, Physical is also a 10; and 1 Initative Pass

So, with all that done, we need a name... and, in a fit of comedy and bravado, we'll dub our dwarf.. Mr. Big. Not his real name, of course -- but why in the hell would any sane 'Runner use that?!

* * * * * *

NAME: "Mr. Big"
RACE: Dwarf

ATTRIBUTES
Body: 4
Agility: 5
Reaction: 3
Strength: 6
Charisma: 3
Intuition: 4
Logic: 3
Willpower: 4
Magic: 5
Edge: 3

Essence: 6
Initiative: 7
Initative Passes: 1
Physical Damage Track: 10
Stun Damage Track: 10

ACTIVE SKILLS
Athletics Group 3
Firearms Group 1
Dodge 2
Infiltration 2
Unarmed Combat 6

KNOWLEDGE SKILLS
Yakuza Politics 3
Street Fighting Circuit 2
Boxing 3
Literature 2
Classical Music 2
Wines 3

LANGUAGES
English N
Japanese 4
Latin 2

QUALITIES
Adept 5
Addiction (Alcohol) +5
Gremlins (+5)
SINer +5

ADEPT POWERS
Attribute Boost (Body) 2
Attribute Boost (Strength) 2
Critical Strike +2
Improved Ability (Unarmed Combat) 4
Killing Hands
Mystic Armor 2

GEAR
- Actioneer Business Clothes (1,500 nuyen)
- Lined Coat (Thermal Dampening 3, Fire Resistance 1, Nonconductivity 1, Shock Frills) (2,700 nuyen)
- Souped-Up Sunglasses (Flare Compensaters, Vision Enhancement +3, Vision Magnification) (475 Nuyen
- Shock Gloves (Pair) (400 nuyen)
- Ruger Super Warhawk Revolver (250 nuyen)
- Gold-level DocWagon contract (1 year) (2,500 nuyen)
- High-class Lifestyle (3 months) (30,000 nuyen)
- 15,500 nuyen

CONTACTS
Boss Motosuwa, Yakuza boss (Connections 6, Loyalty 4)
Simon Winterford, wine bar owner (Connections 3, Loyalty 2)
Detective Sally Maza, police detective (Connections 4, Loyalty 6)

* * * * * * *

And there we go. Mr. Big was a low-rent boxer until after some long, complicated (and likely to come back and bite him hard on the ass) drunken misadventure he found a way to channel the energy of the Awakened world through his own flesh, bone, and sinew. Rising to the top of the heap in short order he soon found his way into Yakuza employ, and aping too many action movies, now thinks he's a lot more important than he is, and he has no real sense of planning for the future -- all the luxury he can manage, and right now. He puts on a sham act of being a man of "culture" and "taste", and will go on about the spirituality and nobility of the "sweet science", or the virtues of this wine, that classcal author, or some piece of music written half a millenia ago -- but for all his attempts, anyone of real class and education could label him as a poser pretty quick -- though hopefully not to his face. Think the eloquent thugs in Sin City, or even better, the classy mobsters from the gennius-dimension in the Sliders episode "Eggheads" -- now stuff that in a suit and a garish pimp jacket and shrink it down to concentrated size, and that's Mr. Big.

Honestly, I suspect he'd be absolutely hilarity in play. Maybe someday....