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Providing pre-made characters

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Onion Man

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« on: <08-05-11/0025:32> »
What are the rules (if there are any) about providing premade characters other than the hit or miss mess that is the sample characters from SR4A for unprepared or new to the hobby players for use with missions?
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Charybdis

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« Reply #1 on: <08-05-11/0102:10> »
Don't know of the official rules, but surely if the Character is built according to Missions guidelines, all is kosher, yes?
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Onion Man

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« Reply #2 on: <08-05-11/0107:43> »
That's what I'm hoping for.  Couldn't find an answer at the Demo team website or in the mail in forms (I'll mail them next week, I swear).

I'd like to provide some characters that are a little more well built than say the "Weapons Specialist" and on some fairly standard character sheets instead of photocopying those pregens, but at the same time I don't want to step on any toes or even worse, find myself in breach.
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Charybdis

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« Reply #3 on: <08-05-11/0113:12> »
That's what I'm hoping for.  Couldn't find an answer at the Demo team website or in the mail in forms (I'll mail them next week, I swear).

I'd like to provide some characters that are a little more well built than say the "Weapons Specialist" and on some fairly standard character sheets instead of photocopying those pregens, but at the same time I don't want to step on any toes or even worse, find myself in breach.
What are they going to do? Send you to Shadowrun jail? :P
'Too much is never enough'

Current PC: Free Spirit (Norse Shamanic)
'Names are irrelevant. Which fake ID do you want me to quote from?'

Phreak Commandment V:
If Thou Be In School, Strive To Get Thine Self Good Grades, For The Authorities Well Know That Scholars Never Break The Law

Crash_00

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« Reply #4 on: <08-05-11/0114:53> »
I haven't found anything against it, so I would assume that its ok (the rules tend to be what you can't do rather than what you can do). I've been doing it for all the groups I run missions for. I have a simple edged based character that I toss to people who show up with no character. Its simple, easy to learn, and missions lets them transfer karma to an actual character they build after the first session if they want.

I'd actually like to see a sub-section of the missions forums for Missions Characters.

Onion Man

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« Reply #5 on: <08-05-11/0122:49> »

What are they going to do? Send you to Shadowrun jail? :P

They might not ship me my t-Shirt.  :shrug:

I should make a list.  Not going to know how many will arrive unprepared (or even if my backup guy will need to break out a second table and run 2 groups through Missions).

Probably going to arrive at one of their Friday Night Magic days with a handful of runners and at least go through stuffer shack to draw some attention and see who fits in.  I know going in that I have a minimum of 3 players available as for sures and it's fairly likely to grow fast (Wisconsin is still the Mecca of Gamers, I seriously have to turn people away from my games most times because they are just full up).
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UmaroVI

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« Reply #6 on: <08-05-11/0607:51> »
I've actually been working on this too; I'll post mine up when I finish. Should be in a couple days; I'm at the final editing.

Chrona

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« Reply #7 on: <08-05-11/1923:24> »
I did this when I ran 04-00, worked okay

Bull

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« Reply #8 on: <08-09-11/1547:30> »
As long as they're legal Missions characters, it's fine.

We use the Archetypes from the books mainly because it's quick & easy.

FastJack

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« Reply #9 on: <08-09-11/1551:22> »
Bull, any chance of getting together with Lone Wolf to add a checkbox in the Character Creation in Hero Lab like Pathfinder has for Pathfinder Society? It sets it to "lock-out" stuff that's not allowable in regulation play.

Bull

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« Reply #10 on: <08-09-11/1807:47> »
It's been discussed with them, and is totally doable.  Just a matter of finding the time to get the Eratta updated and cleaned up, and sending them that information.

WHat would be really interesting would be if they could find a way to do Calender Tracking as well.  That might be more than is feasible though.

Bull

Dr. Meatgrinder

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« Reply #11 on: <08-09-11/1902:00> »
The main problem I see with that is the addition of new sourcebooks that are legal but have not yet been converted.  At present, the only way to make a character who uses anything outside of SR4A is to build the components yourself.  And I suspect Catalyst will continue to publish new books more quickly than Lone Wolf can convert them, if only because Hero Labs also supports several other game systems that also need to be kept up to date.

One of the problems I had with RPGA (in Living Forgotten Realms) was that they let the software (the 4e character generator) limit play, rather than the other way around.
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FastJack

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« Reply #12 on: <08-09-11/1912:15> »
The main problem I see with that is the addition of new sourcebooks that are legal but have not yet been converted.  At present, the only way to make a character who uses anything outside of SR4A is to build the components yourself.  And I suspect Catalyst will continue to publish new books more quickly than Lone Wolf can convert them, if only because Hero Labs also supports several other game systems that also need to be kept up to date.

One of the problems I had with RPGA (in Living Forgotten Realms) was that they let the software (the 4e character generator) limit play, rather than the other way around.
Not necessarily. The biggest "crunch" books have already been published (Arsenal, Augmentation, Runner's Companion, Street Magic and Unwired). Other books haven't been as "big" as the quints, so they'd be easier to put into the system. Right now, Lone Wolf is doing a great job of getting their Pathfinder chargen updated so that the biggest delay I've seen is Complete Magic wasn't entirely done until about three weeks past the book's release -- and that was because they had added the Magus and Words of Power alternate magic system in the book. All the alternate classes, spells, magic item, etc. were in Hero Lab the day of the book's release.

nojosecool

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« Reply #13 on: <08-09-11/2250:24> »
The main problem I see with that is the addition of new sourcebooks that are legal but have not yet been converted.  At present, the only way to make a character who uses anything outside of SR4A is to build the components yourself.  And I suspect Catalyst will continue to publish new books more quickly than Lone Wolf can convert them, if only because Hero Labs also supports several other game systems that also need to be kept up to date.

One of the problems I had with RPGA (in Living Forgotten Realms) was that they let the software (the 4e character generator) limit play, rather than the other way around.
Not necessarily. The biggest "crunch" books have already been published (Arsenal, Augmentation, Runner's Companion, Street Magic and Unwired). Other books haven't been as "big" as the quints, so they'd be easier to put into the system. Right now, Lone Wolf is doing a great job of getting their Pathfinder chargen updated so that the biggest delay I've seen is Complete Magic wasn't entirely done until about three weeks past the book's release -- and that was because they had added the Magus and Words of Power alternate magic system in the book. All the alternate classes, spells, magic item, etc. were in Hero Lab the day of the book's release.

Slightly off-topic:

Honestly, (and this is just my personal preference for simplicity's sake) I'd like to see Missions restricted to the aforementioned "quints."  The other stuff is just too much to keep up with IMHO.  I mean, seriously, Stealth program 10!?  Battle rifles?!  I see these severely affecting game balance.

I can see a lot of reasons to keep all source books as missions legal, but there are enough mods that have shown up as necessary for game balance purposes without them.  I was at Origins, and I'm not complaining.  Great con!  Missions is awesome.  I'm just worried about overcomplicating its future.
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UmaroVI

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« Reply #14 on: <08-10-11/0631:52> »
I think Catalyst is (pretty reasonably) hesitant to start banning stuff in their official campaign that isn't explicitly optional rules.