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Controlled Characters Is that another scream of frustration I hear, my dear fellow gamemasters? Have you sat down to begin a new campaign, and once again have half a dozen characters handed to you that look like they represent the legal firm of Munchkin, Power Gamer and Rules Abuse? Has the group loon tossed you another version of the psychic street mime turned operatic porn star? Has the local power gamer turned in yet another version of his oft-played ork street samurai, complete with the standard six page equipment list and the personality of a large slab of granite? Take heart, my friends, there is a solution close at hand. But it requires you, the gamemaster of the group, to step in and take the players by the hand. Stand firm, for often the players will balk at such measures, but only together can you craft the all-important foundation for your game: the Player Characters. The first thing you need to do is sit down with your players and find out what type of game they’d like to play in, or at least give them an idea of what sort of campaign you’re interested in running and see what they think. "What’s that?" I hear you asking. "You’re advocating player input?" Well, yes. Of course I am. I may be a bastard, but even I know that a game isn’t going to survive if the players aren’t interested in playing it. Once that’s done, you need to determine the power level of the game. Are you going to play a "street punks" game, with the PCs having little beyond the clothes on their back and the switchblade in their pocket? Are you going to run a high magic game, a pure espionage and spy style game, a guns a-blazin’ merc campaign, or a cyberpirates game? Will the characters (and likewise, the bad guys) be toting around LMGs, or will even seeing a heavy pistol evoke a sense of fear in both the PCs and NPCs? Determine what level and style of game you’re going for before character creation has even started. At the very least, it ensures that the players have an idea of what types of characters they should create. After all, a ganger is a bit out of place in a high-level corporate espionage game. Once you’ve determined the theme and power level of the game, you need to define the skills and attributes a bit for your game. Standard Shadowrun assumes that a 6 is an expert level skill, or the max a human can normally achieve. Of course, under normal character creation rules, it’s quite likely you’ll have characters with multiple 6s in both skills and attributes. It’s often unrealistic, so you may want to take steps to remedy this situation. There are a few methods you can use to try and do this. The first is to simply alter the "norm" for a skill. Where 2-3 was an average skill level, now 4-5 is average, and 6 is above average. A 9 in a skill makes you an expert, and 12+ makes you world class. This brings a starting Shadowrun character back down into the more average realm, and allows for guards or other potential enemies to have similar stats without suddenly having every corp guard and Lone Star cop become a highly trained expert just so they are a threat to the PCs. Another route to go is to limit the characters in some way. Reduce the starting build points if you’re using the SR3Comp creation method, or reduce what the priorities give you in SR3. This gives the players fewer points to work with, and they’re less likely to have a lot of maxed-out stats and skills. This is useful if you want the characters to be "newbies" to their profession. This doesn’t work for an ex-Special Forces character, but it does work well for a former wage-slave turned runner or a street ganger going out on his own for the first time. Yet another way to scale-back starting characters is to set limits on skills and attributes. Assuming that a starting character is only going to have a single "expert" level skill, allow only one skill to be taken at a rating of 6. Allow two or three skills to be taken at rating 5, and no more than three or four rating 4 skills. They can still blow a lot of points this way, but it forces them to vary their skills a bit and you know you’re not going to be looking at four rating 6 skills for a starting character. Likewise, for attributes, a 6 represents what amounts to a professional level athlete—a rarity. A 9 is the max a human can go, but those are very rare and represent the best of the best. Like skills, a 6 represents the results of a lot of training, or just some really high natural talent. Anyone who’s got all 5s and 6s for attributes isn’t going to be wasting his time shadowrunning; they’re going to be a professional athlete, a supermodel, or something similar. Nobody except the mentally unhinged would be be shadowrunning for a living if they have a lucrative option available to them, and even the SINless can find a way around that particular drawback, especially if they have a manager waiting to sign them to a multi-year, multi-million nuyen contract. So again, you set some limits. Allow a 6, probably in their "main" attribute. Allow a couple 5’s, and the rest at 4’s. Again, this helps diversify the character a bit, and forces him to spread his points out a bit. Utilizing both methods, you will hopefully end up with a very well-rounded character. He’s going to be good at some things, but not at everything, and he’ll have a couple points here and there in skills he would have otherwise ignored in order to pump up other skills. At this point you should consider gear: what do you allow, what don’t you allow? Restricting how much money a character can start with is a viable option. Don’t want the million nuyen samurai? Then don’t allow a million nuyen to be bought at chargen. Think long and hard before allowing this much money for character creation, as it can be abused easily. You can also limit the availability of gear to a certain rating, but keep in mind that you will most likely need to be open to a case-by-case inspection of gear. Some gear has very high availability and shouldn’t be that hard to get a hold of at chargen, while some has a low availability and you may not want characters to have it. Be willing to put your foot down and say no, but also be willing to allow in some things if you take the limited availability route. Characters should be allowed to take gear that can be justified by their background. Once you have what sort of game you want, and what sort of characters will fit your game, it’s time for character creation to begin. I heartily recommend that character creation be done as a group. This way, you can address everyone at once, lay out what character creation limits you are imposing, and can make a request for or limit certain character types. If you don’t feel comfortable with or don’t feel you can use a decker in the group, or you have a storyline that revolves around an NPC decker you want to have working with the group, forbid deckers. Or, if you have some great ideas for a game that requires a decker, request that one of the players play a decker. If you want a magic heavy game, suggest that more than one player make a magically active character. If it’s going to be combat heavy, make sure a couple players are making tough samurai/merc types. Likewise, have them work on their personalities as a group. Sure, there are some things that they may want to keep secret from each other, especially if you aren’t starting them as a team that’s worked together before. But you need to make sure they all know the basics about each other. Having a Luddite in a group full of cyber/techno junkies isn’t going to fly, and having a Humanis member in a group full of trogs is certain death for the Humanis thug. If two players insist on playing characters that will be at odds with each other, pull those players aside and talk with them, and have them talk to each other. Make sure that this isn’t going to disrupt your game. If you’re going to allow "conflict characters" into your game, make sure that all players are mature enough to role-play this without hurting each other’s feelings , and make sure both players are aware that they are a team and need to be able to work together. As I said above, minor conflict and tension can be rewarding, but two characters so at odds with each other that they can’t even stand to be in the same room together will cause disruption and chaos, and such situations have caused the downfall of many a game. As a GM, you are many things, both in game and out: bandleader, storyteller, babysitter, cat herder, referee, protagonist, antagonist, confidant and mortal enemy. You need to be able to juggle these duties, responsibilities, and roles. It’s a heavy burden, to be sure. Just remember that in the end, you are the GM. You have the final say on what goes and what doesn’t. You need to cater to your players tastes, but likewise, they need to take direction from you. Good luck, my fellow GM. You’re going to need it. |