Shadowrun
Shadowrun Missions Living Campaign => Living Campaign Discussion => Topic started by: falar on <09-18-15/1634:21>
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I am going to be playing in my first Missions sessions at GameHoleCon in a couple of months, so I'm starting to think about the characters I'm going to run. However, I've kind of run into some philosophical issues with how I should build my character. It seems to me that generally people think you should highly-specialize your character to be effective in what it is - but the Missions FAQ seems to advise the counter to that:
When creating a character for Shadowrun Missions, one thing to keep in mind is that when playing at conventions or in Open Play games, you never know who or what is going to show up at the table with you. Nor can you be certain that a given adventure will focus on one particular aspect of the game. Because of this, it’s usually not in your best interest to hyper-specialize a character[/br. Gamemasters will do their best to keep all players engaged in the adventure and story, but if your character only does one thing, it doesn’t matter how well they do that thing if it’s not useful to the adventure or if there’s four other characters that are all able to do that thing as well. Keep flexibility and diversity in mind when designing a new character.
This seems to be to imply that you should have your specialty, yeah, but you should only really build to the low-upper tiers with it. About 11-14 dice pool size. But then you should have a pretty wide range of other things that you can do that are in the 8-10 dice pool range.
When building my rigger/decker/street sam/mage/face/infiltrator, which is the better way to go for Missions? My gut says I need to hyper-specialize because the time I did a few missions out of Sprawl Wilds (which are old Missions fodder, IIRC), our team always ended up relying on Force 8 Spirits to make it out alive. But that's counter to the FAQ, so I'm not sure.
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There's two pieces of advice I can give, one for character creation and one for the runs.
For character creation make sure your character has three things. Some way of contributing to combat, some way of contributing out of combat and some way of assisting with Legwork.
What does this really mean? It doesn't mean every character needs to be rocking assault rifles and combat spells. I recently GMed a run where the decker only uses Pistols but had the biggest impact of the entire combat by turning off the power. Almost none of the gangers had any sort of vision enhancement gear and about half of them where Humans and thus had -3 to all their rolls because of the Dim Light environmental modifier. Not a big deal to a runner level character, but a significant chunk out of a ganger's dicepool. The shotgun toting shaman? Didn't fire a single shot and used only two combat spells.
I'll touch more on contributing to combat in my second main point. But what about out of combat? Be the group's wheelman, medic, tracker, interrogator, engineer, forensics expert, scout, liaison, etc. Want to just be the weapon's master and shoot people? Crank up your perception, learn about criminal forensics and be good at analyzing evidence. Now you can walk into the scene of a fight and use your knowledge of a wide variety of weapons to reconstruct a scene. What weaponry was used? How well trained where they? Where there any survivors? These become questions your character can answer. Roll medic into that roll and you may even be able to take things further with a field autopsy. Want to be a spell slinger? Learn about awakened plants and animals, the spirit world, magical theory, magical groups... become the resident expert on magical weirdness.
Contributing to legwork can be as simple as what you know and who you know. Knowing about the criminal underworld, the syndicates, coperate politics, etc. all of these can tell you who you need to talk to. Have contacts in useful places like, coroners, detectives, dispatchers, administrators, etc. These people can give you a higher level peek at what's going down, maybe even take a look at evidence you've found, or pull official files for you to take a peek at. All of these things are useful in putting together the bigger picture and getting an idea of what's really happening.
I mentioned earlier that I had some advice for on runs, and I also said I'd talk more about contributing to combat... well they're one and the same. Remember that Decker who cut the power just before the fight broke out? This is exactly the sort of thing I'm talking about, battlefield control. Sure sorcery has lots of combat spells for taking enemies out directly, but it also has lots of other options. Illusion and Manipulation have a multitude of spells to mess with the area, making it dark/too bright, coating the floor in ice, sending small objects flying around everywhere, raising walls of magic or elements to separate groups, confounding the senses. Good at tossing grenades? Most people go for the gas grenades... try a paint grenade filled with industrial lubricant or riot control foam, it's much harder to resist the floor and all your gear being coated in a frictionless surface of covered in rock hard foam than a gas grenade. All of these can have a huge impact on the battlefield, if your opposition if facing penalties and you're not, then you have the upper hand. There's an old saying about combat, if you're in a fair fight, you haven't prepared for it properly.
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What he said
There is no way to have your character prepared for everything that may be needed.
make sure you are good at your role. if a street samurai, then you better be able to fight
what happens if you are in a mission where combat would be bad, or you are in a combat light group? high perception to spot physical security measures, hardware or locksmith to get pass them
at the meet, a few dice in negotiations may help the face out, or you may end being the face character.
just don't plan on having a skill for everything, just be good at what you got
also never hurts to have an off skill.
example: many years ago, playing my first cyberpunk game as a Solo. when I made the character, I had a few odd points left over which I put into drive. during the mission, we had to steal a garbage truck. I ended up driving the truck because our panzerboy (ie, rigger) con't drive a regular vehicle. great in a panzer, crap everything else
after that, always made sure my characters could drive.
after you play a few missions, look at what skills seem to be always needed, but don't neglect a good concept or theme character.
your character may not do much one mission other then look mean
the next mission he may have center stage
because I GM a lot, and play a little, I try to bring characters to the table to help balance a team. Also I'll talk to the GM on what is needed more.
those same characters I bring is usually some crazy concept I want to try and have fun with.
make a fun character for yourself and others, that fills a main role, but can augment another role as needed
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Two skills every shadowrunner should have, even if it's only at 1 point each: Etiquette and Sneak.
Any other advice I'd give is covered by the two worthies above.
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Negotiation and Perception are important too.
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There's two pieces of advice I can give, one for character creation and one for the runs.
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This.
If you have the skill points, it is always good to have a secondary specialization.
I play a Combat Specialist who is great with Longarms and Automatics, and even better with unarmed attacks. But he also has Outdoors Group 5 for tracking down targets and has at least 7 dice in Etiquette, Con and Negotiation to aid or BS someone for info.
One thing you can do, and I see a lot of players do this for Missions, is to pick up "Jack of All Trades" quality after chargen and pick up 1-2 ranks of useful skills that you feel you may need once in a while. Sometimes is sucks to default.
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One thing you can do, and I see a lot of players do this for Missions, is to pick up "Jack of All Trades" quality after chargen and pick up 1-2 ranks of useful skills that you feel you may need once in a while. Sometimes is sucks to default.
That's an excellent idea, and I did it for my main. It's even more useful because there are some skills to which you can't default, like the Engineering skills, and 1 Karma for a Rating-1 skill is a bargain.