Example Character Generation

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Example Character Generation

1) Mage Character

Note: These characters are samples only and by no means show the limit of character types.
Also these characters are not nessisarily good characters, they are designed to use as many different features of that type of character.

Magical Using Character

Priority
A	Magic
B	Attributes
C	Resources
D	Race
E	Skills

Ok, to start we need to assign our priorities. Sense this is going to be a Magically active character we need to assign priority A or B to magic. We want a full range mage so we'll assign Priority A to Magic. A dwarven magic user might be fun to play so we'll assign priority D to race, leaving B,C, and E for Attributes, skills, and resources. We'll assign Resources to C, we're going to need funds to bond our foci. Lets assign skills to E and Attributtes to B. This character's priorities should look like the table to the left.

Attribute	Unmodified	Racial Mod	Modified
Body	3	+1	4
Quickness	5	0	5
Strength	2	+2	4
Intelligence	5	0	5
Willpower	6	+1	7
Charisma	6	0	6

Because we assigned priority B to attributes we have 27 points to assign our six primary attributes. First however we look at the racial modifiers and find that dwarves get a +1 to their body, +2 to their strength, and +1 to their willpower, seeing how there are no values taken away from the attributes we can assign without worry. Mages are usually smart so we'll assign 5 to intelligence. Mages usually don't spend much time excercising so strength and body should be lower, lets put 2 in strength and 3 in Body. We not have 17 points to spread between the remaining attributes of charisma, quickness and willpower. Our mage may end up fighting in astral space so we'll set his willpower at 6. Hmm, 11 points, we'll put 5 in quickness and 6 in charisma, our dwarf is real good with people. Now we apply the racial modifiers to our character.

    On to skills! According to our priority Skills are allocated 27 points (what a coincidence). Since this is a full mage, we'll assign sorcery and Conjuring both to 6. Because almost everyone knows how to fire a gun, we'll give 3 points to pistols. Our dwarf is highly charismatic so it would be useful to have negotiation, lets put 2 points into negotiation. Being a mage may require arua reading, we'll therefore assign 3 points to it, leaving 7. We'll put 5 into Etiquette (street), and the remaining 2 into Bike.

    Now that we have Active skills, lets do Knowledge & language skills. Ok, we assigned 5 to intelligence, hmm, 5 times 5 is 25, we have 25 knowledge points, and 5 * 1.5, 7.5 rounded down, 7 knowledge points! We'll do knowledge first. English and Japanese are the two most common languages in Seattle, so we'll put 5 in English (highest we can because of attribute limits) and 4 in Japanese. This however takes our language points to 9, 2 above what we're allocated. Fine, we can take them out of knowledge skills, so we'll do that, bringing our knowledge points down to 23. This character should have knowledge of origions and workings of magic so we'll give him 5 points in magical knowledge. Our character is interested in the simsense starlets so we'll give him 2 points there. Interested in his own physical self we'll give him 3 points toward Metahumanity, specializing it for dwarves, setting Metahumanity to 2 and dwarves to 4 (see skill list to help understand that). Coming from a high end corporate family he has knowledge of Magecorporate politics, lets say 3 points worth, leaving 10 points unassigned. Origionally planning to be like his father he has about 4 points worth of Economics knowledge. We'll also put a few points (3) in Psychology, and the last 3 points into Safehouse locations, from when he began his shadowrunning career.

    Consulting the basics for creating a shadowrun character the next step is to assign perks and flaws. Note we've been generating a sort of background for the character as assigned skills and knowledge, this will add a bit more spice to the mix. Ok, we have to perk points to start with. How why would our dwarvish friend here have started shadowrunning? Perhaps he was a little too curious about something somewhere and caught the attention of the wrong person. Therefore we'll give him the curiousity flaw allowing us an additional 3 points for perks. With our 5 points lets spend them on photographic memory (3 point perk) and Fast Healing (2 point perk).

    Next we get cyberwear, well cyberwear reduced essence with in turn reduced magical ability, so we'll skip on the cyberwear.

    Weapons, we gave out character skill in pistols so we should probably buy him a pistol. Consulting the Samurai Catalogue, I see a Beretta Model 101T Light Pistol for 350 nuyen. It has a 12 shot clip, and does low damage, but its better than nothing and besides the gun is for emergencies, his magic should protect him reasonably well. According to how we assigned priorities resources give us 90,000 nuyen to play with. 90,000 minus 350 still leaves us with 89,650 nuyen for the rest of our gear. Lets look at that now.

    Choices, choices, we should start with clothing, nude characters rarely last long on the streets. Lets get some ordinary clothing for 50 and a secure long coat for 650, leaving 88,950. We'll jump down to the magical equipment section now, knowing that foci are usually expensive. We'll get our dwarf a spell lock for one of his spells. They cost 45,000 and one of our spell points. This leaves us with 43,950 nuyen and 24 spell points. We should probbably figure the character will have at least a partial hermatic library, being from a high corporate family and all, so we'll get him a sorcery rating 2 hermatic library on disk for 4000 (2^2 * 1000) nuyen. We still have 39,950 nuyen, lets go back up to the general gear. To read that hermatic library our dwarf is going to need a computer of some sort. We'll go for a Pocket Computer with 1000Mp of memory for 5000 nuyen, he will rarely have it in a combat situation, but if he has to abandon his apartment suddenly, he won't want to lug around a large desktop computer. Lets buy a lifestyle before we spend too much on stuff, we could afford a high lifestyle for 3 months, but it would be better to go for a middle lifestyle for 5 months, leaving 9950 for the rest of the gear. Lets get a pair of binoculars (100), and a survival kit (100). We'll get a Docwagon basic service for a year (5000). Leaving 4750 remaining. BAck to the magical equipment this dwarf is going to get two Elemental Conjuration Materials at R2 (2000 each, totaling 4000). That leaves us with a measily 750 nuyen. Lets finish with our gear then. We convert the resources to actual money (750 / 10) and add the 1d6 * 100 nuyen starting cash (I got a roll of 4, remember to roll a dice for your character don't just use this 4) totaling 475 nuyen the character starts with.

Pool	Value
Combat	8
Astral Combat	9
Control	-
Hacking	-
Karma	1
Spell	6

How we need to assign our pools. not having a cyberdeck or a Vehicle Control Rig (VCR), we'll ignore the hacking and control pools. Now, to make it easier, we'll work form the top down. The combat pool is quickness plus intelligence plus willpower, the sum divided by two, ok that makes 5 + 5 + 7 or 17 divided by 2, 8.5 rounded down, 8! Next is astral Combat, Charisma 6, intelligence 5, willpower 7, sumation 18 divided by 2 is 9. Karma, well thats easy, 1. Spell pool, intelligence 5, Willpower 7, Magic 6, 18 again, divided by 3 is 6. And those are our pools.

    Now we acquire our character's spells. We have 25 - 1 point. (Remember the spell lock foci?) Hmm, a good manaball spell is as good a place to start as any, we'll assign 3 to manaball. Improved invisibility is useful, probbably how he escaped origionally. Well set that to 4. We'll give him chaos at 2 (he always liked things that caused trouble) and Mind Probe at 3. He should have some more combat spells, being we only gave him a pistol, so lets assign 3 to each of Power Bolt, Hellblast, Ram, and Powerball. That finishes off his spell points. Now we need to assign with spell the spell lock foci is linked to. Lets set it to improved invisibility, so he doesn't have to concentrate too much on that.

    Last but far from least we have character description. I'm not going to create a huge background for the sample character, but just from basic character generation, rationalizing each of the skills and spells the character knows we have a character that grew up in a high ranking corporate family where he was going to take over for his father when he became too old, this character learned something he shouldn't have and his father couldn't help him so he went into hiding. He has a thing for the simsense starlets, and is highly charismatic, easily gaining people's trust. He now needs a name, lets call him bob.

    Note this character's description is far from my minimum requirements, and the entire character was generated in less than hour including writing this document, so isn't the best example of a character. A character I actually plan to use usually has two hours of background thought up before I even start the character generation. I then assign priorities, attributes and skills so they fit within the framework I've created for this character, finally after all that is complete do I put the character on the character sheet. Remember a character should have goals, a purpose, a life. These steps can be taken in almost any order with the exceptions of the priorities must be chosen first, and the pools have to be generated after the attributes are assigned and the equipment is purchased (for the control and hacking pools). Below is the character we just made all condensed together.

Name	Bob
Class	Hermatic Mage
Cash	475 nuyen

Middle Lifestyle (5 months)
Docwagon Basic Service (1 Year)

Attributes

Body	4
Quickness	5
Strength	4
Intelligence	5
Willpower	7
Charisma	6
Essence	6
Magic	6
Reaction	4

Skills

Sorcery	6
Conjuring	6
Pistols	3
Negotiation	2
Aura Reading	3
Etiquette (Street)	5
Bike	2

Knowledge

English	5
Japanese	4
Magic	5
Simsense Starlets	2
Metahumanity	2
Dwarves	4
Megacorporate Politics	3
Economics	4
Psychology	3
Safehouse Locations

Spells

Manaball	3
Improved Invisibility	4
Chaos	2
Mind Probe	3
Power Bolt	3
Hellblast	3
Ram	3
Powerball	3

Gear
Beretta Model 101t Light Pistol (12 rounds)
Ordinary clothing
Secure Long Coat
Pocket Computer 1000Mp
Binoculars (50x)
Survival Kit
Hermatic Library R2 (disk)
Spell Lock (Improved Invisibility)
2x Elemental Cojuration Materials R2

Pools

Combat	8
Astral Combat	9
Control	-
Hacking	-
Karma	1
Spell	6

Perks and Flaws

Curiousity	Flaw
Photographic Memory	Perk
Fast Healing	Perk