Shadowrun Play > Rules and such

Qualities dictating a Young Character

(1/7) > >>

Gorstavich:
So, either I'm missing it in the 5th edition books I actually own, it's covered in a book I don't own, or it doesn't exist.  I figured I would inquire.

A friend has asked me if it was possible to play a teen, or pre-teen, character.  She is new to the game and due to her real life occupation immediately jumped onto the whole rates of physical vs. mental maturity differences between metahuman types (specifically, Orks and Trolls), and is considering the idea of playing an under aged character (which she also sees as giving her a good role play-able excuse to not knowing some of the in-game lore).

Are there any qualities, positive or negative, specifically for this?  And while on the topic, are there any that cover newly created characters that are past the prime of their life expectancy?

adzling:
no Qualities for young'uns faik.

there is a Quality called "aged" for old'uns.

SpellBinder:
Not really much for under-aged characters.  Neoteny (Run Faster, 121) is typically for changeling characters that look like their prepubescent metatype, and in part reflects this in a Physical Condition Monitor of 6 + (Body/2, round up).  It's not a bad start to reflect a much younger character.  Personally I ignore the +10% for custom armor, equipment, and lifestyle as IMO it makes no sense (someone on Dumpshock did some research and found modern kevlar vests for kids are no more expensive than for adults, for example).  I would likely use the Physical Condition Monitor, but without any requirement of being a Changeling or extra karma.

Also, Attributes of 3 tend to reflect the human average (or racial minimum +2, typically, for other metatypes).  Having a Body and Strength of 2 would be more typical for a young teen or preteen type of human character, which I have also seen in NPC stats of kids.  Unless the kid is some kind of Doogie Howser or Sheldon Cooper, mental attributes would likely be more like 3's.

SR5's BRB, page 131, gives examples on skills and what rating is equal to what, relatively.  Sort of.  Going off of a better description from SR4a's BRB, page 119, and converting to SR5's skill range, a preteen likely would have no skill above a 3; maybe one at 4 for a skill of particular interest, and nothing higher unless the kid, again, is some kind of Doogie Howser, Sheldon Cooper, or has practiced incessantly for much of his/her short life (like an Olympic gymnast or figure skater).  Considering the character's age, it'd also be very unlikely he/she would have any kind of vehicle handling skill at all (maybe Ground Craft 1 to represent occasional off roading on a motorcycle or ATV).

Marcus:
Speaking as a GM, I would strongly caution against pre-teen characters. In a game as violent as SR can be, bringing a pre-teen along is  purely contraindicated, your committing enough crime as it is, why add corruption of Minor to the list? Further exposing minor to that sort violence has it's own serious moral question attached.  It can/should alter table dynamic in unhelpful ways. Teen characters on the other hand are perfectly legit, lots of tables have teenage characters at them.

Beta:
Depending on the nature of your particular game, you could probably adapt or re-skin some existing qualities to reflect this. 

For example, if you are running pretty standard shadowrun, where Johnsons are hiring teams of proven criminals to go after serious targets, being young could make it hard to get taken seriously -- a penalty to street cred could reflect that, or a negative penalty to social limit.  There are a number of qualities that have such impacts that could be used this way.

The impact of the aged quality could also be used to reflect not being physically all the way mature -- just that you could buy off in game, if the game runs long enough.

A number of positive qualities reflecting sharp senses, trustworthiness, flexibility, etc could be used to reflect various aspects of youthfulness.

Perhaps a cut down version of uneducated, to reflect a limited education?

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page