SR dumpshock thread on playing a Normal

[Joose]

I know dejects character in Petes campaign is currently aug and magicless, so when I came across this thread on dumpshock I thought it might be interesting reading. Its more focussed on character creation, but a lot of it is just as applicable for character progression. Not saying "this is what you should do", but it might give you some ideas.

Just bear in mind whilst reading it that the average dumpshocker prizes "optimal builds" over character, where we tend to be the other way around. Dont take it personally if someone on there says that making a Norm character is stupid because there are more efficient ways of spending build points. With thier way of thinking, im surprised they dont all play mystic adepts...

Anyway, thread is here.

[Dog Pants]

I see what you mean about Dumpshock being dice orientated. Although didn't the original brief state the character should be competent in combat? I have a similar line of thinking in SLA - a normal human should be useful, you shouldn't have to be an alien or a biogenetic, and I took that into SR with Al. A normal human has the advantage of being one of the masses, and therefore masively less conspicuous than any other player character. True, in SR you can get augs that make you better at the urban recon aspect, but they're only an enhancement and can't replace the social skills.

[Joose]

SR is a little different to SLA though. In SLA, you can be a regular human, just like anyone else but with a smidge more training, and thats fairly normal for a starting character. In SR, you are not playing normal people. Shadowrunners, even low level ones, are supposed to be a significant step above mr Joe Average.

In purely mechanical game terms, its a balance thing. If you want people to be able to be mages or trolls at the start, you cant have other players as just regular humans without there being a serious mismatch in power. In "in character" terms, its pretty obvious: you have a job which means that you regularly interact with superhuman people, some of which actively want you dead. You need some sort of an edge. The easiest way of getting that edge if you were not born magical is to have augmentations. This means that *some* level of augs is the norm in the SR world, even for non runners. Ok, so most people wont go the full cyber torso route, but an average dude having some low level cybereyes, or implanted comlink or the like is not unusual.

That doesnt mean you have to be either magical or auged or you will suck though. There are other ways of giving your character the edge. Maybe they are extremely highly trained, maybe they have shitloads of expensive gear, maybe they are just really well connected. But you do need something. It would be like making a SLA character that didnt have any weapons, armour or tech/social skills. Its technically possible, but you are going to not have a lot of stuff in the game that you are any good at.

Another thing to consider is the in character reason why. There are augs that are pretty effective and cheap (for a shadowrunner), so why would your character not take advantage of that? One reason would be if you were a mage/technomancer, but that doesnt apply here. Another might be if you had an allergy, or the Sensitive System quality; you dont have augs for medical reasons. Religious reasons would be another. Just finding it icky/not wanting to sully your body works too, but bear in mind that is the Shadowrun equivalent of the kind of person who in the real world doesnt own a telly/car/mobile phone for reasons other than cost. You will be considered slightly odd by other characters.

[Joose]

A normal human has the advantage of being one of the masses, and therefore masively less conspicuous than any other player character.

Oh, also this is a very good reason. Because most shadowrunners are either magical or augmented, the fact that you are not will automatically make people less likely to tag you as a runner. Course, bio-augs *slightly* crimp this excuse by being almost undetectable, but they are also much more costly. And hey, almost undetectable isnt entirely undetectable.

[deject]

Would you say that Alvrin is well equipped/trained well enough to make up for the lack of augs? I tried to maximize the number of skills and such that I could give him, and he did start with a relatively large cash reserve. I haven't been involved in too much actual combat to really get a sense of if he's outmatched against an average runner overall. I know I need to work on his social skills to take advantage of the high Charisma he has, but outside of that I haven't noticed him being lacking so far.

[HereComesPete]

In terms of straight up mob fights like the ones you're engaging in now with the meat beasts his skills are more than enough, as evidenced by the katana death dealing at the crash site. But if he was to take on other runners then the lack of initiative and init passes would start to show very quickly.

I would avoid trying to get him better at social aspects too early, it tends to spread the character too thin and there's others in the group that will be better at those tasks no matter how much you spend.

For Alvrin, expensive Bio such as muscle toner, muscle augmentation and synaptic booster at higher grades would cost hundreds of thousands, but would minimise essence loss and make him stronger, faster and smarter, including more init passes. Something like a mimic false front would allow him to physically alter his muscle and bone structure to change his appearance to look like a random person, or a specific target and boost the infiltration aspect of his line of work. This also avoids the problem with the sensitive neural structure as bio doesn't affect it.

[deject]

In terms of straight up mob fights like the ones you're engaging in now with the meat beasts his skills are more than enough, as evidenced by the katana death dealing at the crash site. But if he was to take on other runners then the lack of initiative and init passes would start to show very quickly.

I would avoid trying to get him better at social aspects too early, it tends to spread the character too thin and there's others in the group that will be better at those tasks no matter how much you spend.

For Alvrin, expensive Bio such as muscle toner, muscle augmentation and synaptic booster at higher grades would cost hundreds of thousands, but would minimise essence loss and make him stronger, faster and smarter, including more init passes. Something like a mimic false front would allow him to physically alter his muscle and bone structure to change his appearance to look like a random person, or a specific target and boost the infiltration aspect of his line of work. This also avoids the problem with the sensitive neural structure as bio doesn't affect it.

Interesting. I'll read up more on such things.

[Joose]

Yeah, I didn't mean to imply that Alvrin is lacking *now*. Its more that improving a mundane, non-auged character is tricky, and its easy to rapidly fall behind the curve.

If you want to keep up the "absolutely no augments at all", then there is some pretty good non-implanted gear to be found. The things you will have problems with sans-augs is sheer speed. There is pretty much no way to get increased IP's without magic or augmentation, so eventually you will end up in a fight with someone who just does three times as much stuff as you per turn, and you will be gutted like a fish. The only way around that is to go balls out stealth: make sure you get the drop on them, and take them out before they can react. There's a lot of good gear in that direction: predator style light bending suits, for example.

Like Pete says, if its just that you want to minimise essence loss, Bio is the way to go. Its pretty much as good as cyber, costs way less essence, and is almost undetectable. It is sodding costly though.

Of course, there is another option. You are not a mage, but you do have a mage in the group. There's nothing to stop Jasper enhancing your shit with his voodoo magics. Armour would kind of ruin any sneaking, but would pimp you out for combat, and there are a variety of stealth spells and attribute enhancing stuff. You might want to help him out by contributing to buying a sustaining foci or the like though.

As for the social skills side: Do we actually have a Face in the group? If we do, then I would stick to improving your stealth/fighting type skills. If we don't, there's nothing wrong with being a Face who is not useless in a fight, or a fighter who has decent Face skills. Again, theres Face helping gear available, and creepy social-enhancing bioware if you want to go that angle.

[deject]

Yeah, I didn't mean to imply that Alvrin is lacking *now*. Its more that improving a mundane, non-auged character is tricky, and its easy to rapidly fall behind the curve.

If you want to keep up the "absolutely no augments at all", then there is some pretty good non-implanted gear to be found. The things you will have problems with sans-augs is sheer speed. There is pretty much no way to get increased IP's without magic or augmentation, so eventually you will end up in a fight with someone who just does three times as much stuff as you per turn, and you will be gutted like a fish. The only way around that is to go balls out stealth: make sure you get the drop on them, and take them out before they can react. There's a lot of good gear in that direction: predator style light bending suits, for example.

Like Pete says, if its just that you want to minimise essence loss, Bio is the way to go. Its pretty much as good as cyber, costs way less essence, and is almost undetectable. It is sodding costly though.

Of course, there is another option. You are not a mage, but you do have a mage in the group. There's nothing to stop Jasper enhancing your shit with his voodoo magics. Armour would kind of ruin any sneaking, but would pimp you out for combat, and there are a variety of stealth spells and attribute enhancing stuff. You might want to help him out by contributing to buying a sustaining foci or the like though.

As for the social skills side: Do we actually have a Face in the group? If we do, then I would stick to improving your stealth/fighting type skills. If we don't, there's nothing wrong with being a Face who is not useless in a fight, or a fighter who has decent Face skills. Again, theres Face helping gear available, and creepy social-enhancing bioware if you want to go that angle.

I don't think we really have a face guy. The other group has Al (and Leland to a very minor extent), but I don't think this group has one.

[HereComesPete]

I would tag Jasper as the best to expand into that area. Very high charisma, extra con dice and capable of getting himself possessed by spirits that can manipulate. But like Joose says, a few kama into being able to provide second line face work would be useful and it would work well as a secondary useful for the infiltration side of things.

To improve a non-aug/magic/drug user guy in line with a runner group would need a lot more karma, as your base attributes are the things needing buffed, the cost gets exorbitant. To add those kind of extra dice with aid from gear or even regular injections of essence burning super drugs costs in the low thousands for the basic cyber or a needle in the arm. You can then get therapy (or buy back essence with karma) to cover the loss of essence and get new bio version of your implants. It's hard to run a non-aug when it's so cheap to make them faster.

Joose! Can we please carry on with the Chopper's been possessed story arc! I want to give Kamisori a run out whilst Frank is vatted.

[deject]

Interesting. I'll read up more on such things.

After looking at all the options, it looks like until Alvrin gets 160,000 nuyen, he'll be heading down the path of Jazz addiction whenever he needs that edge. I'm definitely not going for Cyberwear because the Essence hit is ridiculous, even though it's affordable. The Bioware is ridiculously expensive though.

[Joose]

I would tag Jasper as the best to expand into that area. Very high charisma, extra con dice and capable of getting himself possessed by spirits that can manipulate.

That might make him alright at facework now, but magic users have a lot of Karma and cash sinks in the mojo throwing fields. Someone who concentrated in Face stuff for a bit would quickly overtake him in that line of things. Unless of course Doggers wants Jasper to be a Face mage, and concentrates his magic improvements on the social side of things.

Joose! Can we please carry on with the Chopper's been possessed story arc! I want to give Kamisori a run out whilst Frank is vatted.

I want to, but im a bit bearded out with the Powers stuff at the moment. After ive got the first bit of testing stuff out to you guys, I'll pull something shadowrunny together whilst I wait on the results.