The Depth of Cardboard

Note to the readers: While the last article was a ranting, it made for a much happier and calmer NightLife. So as I promised, a new article with a brand new topic. One with lots of help and advice for you to read.

In the many games I’ve played in or GM’d there is at least one or more persons who have characters who are as deep as cardboard. A statement that I’m quite fond of saying. What this means, is that their characters have absolutely no personality or emotional content. They are as one dimensional as, well, cardboard. This results for a couple of reasons. One: they are what gamers call munchkins: The biggest, the baddest with the best equipment and skills that a calculator and a liberal view of a game’s rules can get them. Two: there are also the Mini-Maxers, those who calculate out the best character they can get for the fewest points. I.E. Someone who takes unarmed combat, concentrates in boxing, then specializes in punching. They cram everything they can get legally into a character and use the rules and its loopholes to achieve a character who can squeeze every bit of an advantage they can get for the fewest penalties. Hence the name Mini-Maxer, the most advantages you can get at a minimum cost. After those two there are those who just don’t know how to role-play. While usually they try to make interesting characters that are alive and vibrant they always fall flat. You ask them what kind of character they have and they reply with stats and gear. “Well I’m a Street Sam” O.K. What makes you a Samurai? “Well, I have wired reflexes 3 and dermal plating…..” No, what makes you a Street Sam? (The player flips over the character sheet.) “Well, I have an Ingram Valiant and a Predator 2.” No, who are you and what made you into who you are? “I’ve got all these guns and, and…(blank stare)”. Never mind geez. They really try and just fall flat on their faces. Now that the problem has been stated let’s get onto the solution.

There are a few steps to handle this, while none of them alone promise success, the total combined with a modicum of acting ability will provide a role-playing experience. The most basic technique is to have them start by filling in the twenty questions in the main book. There are also more extensive versions of these questions. The one that I use, I got off the Internet which is 50+ questions. I’ll post them at the end of this article. Now the mini-maxer and munchkin will give you one or two word answers. Which don’t add up to much. Send them back, until they have produced a version of these answers that are whole sentences. Also make sure none of the answers are cliché. Nothing like “Well, all my relatives have been killed off” or “My parent(s)/sister(s)/brother(s)/friend(s) don’t like me or believe me to be dead”. I’ve never encountered anybody with no family. They may hate each other’s guts or they may not even know that the other exists or they may not even have seen them since they were three years old, but they exist. Never settle for a PC that has no emotions. “I’m an ex-corporate soldier or I’m a Mafia Leg Breaker” etc….who has had his ability to feel, totally destroyed by their employers. Everybody has emotions no matter how deeply they’re buried. I can’t tell you how sick I am of coming across Street Sammie wannabes with the attitude of “Nothing Bothers me” I can kill and kill all day long. Barbecue kids in front of their parents and napalm a school bus full of elderly nuns. These characters may have buried their feelings so deep they may have trouble finding them, but they do surface from time to time, usually late at night when they’re all alone. Remember that being all alone is what drives people to the brink of insanity and over it. The munchkins, who play these characters are just trying to get into a situation where power is the answer to everything. These munchkin style characters have no personality nor disadvantages. All they want is the pros of being two tons of death and none of the cons. They cram every bit of cyber/bioware they can into their bodies all they can fit at beta grade or better. They ignore the real cost of being two tons of death and destruction. They gleefully run past the price that they have paid with their humanity. That is if they bothered to have any. With this loss of their character’s humanity comes the lack of any real life. This loss precludes the chance they had to interact with the rest of the human race. When they get around to playing mages they always have a fire elemental or two on hand. Their personalities are always cold and calculating, devoid of any social graces, and they have a moral code that most mad scientists would call inhuman. When they are badgered into playing shamans they always pick combat totems and/or completely ignore the precepts of that totem. If they can’t find a totem they like, they will make their own. With all the bonuses they want and no disadvantages. Like some of the versions of Tiger and Panther I’ve seen on the internet. These are the gamers who play the runners who have 1.5 million on hand, and live in luxury penthouses, and only run for the thrill. Bull, no sane individual runs the shadows for longer than they absolutely have to. The shadows aren’t fun to live in and more characters have died there than can be counted. (Now that was a little rant wasn’t it.? :-) ) Back to the answering questions. After getting back answers that resemble whole sentences. Review the answers you get back and make sure that one of two things hasn’t happened. One they have just created a duplicate of themselves. These duplicates are only one step removed from the actual player. The only difference is that the character has more power than the actual player. Or two: The character is practically a clone of a previous one. With problem #1 make send them back until you’re sure the character that has been created is a separate entity from themselves. With option #2 send them back to make someone different. Supervise it if you have to, and hit them with a rolled up newspaper if they try it again. (That’s a joke son.) The next step is to turn the questions into a character biography. A story if you will, of how the character developed into who and what they are today. I’d suggest a length of no less than 3 typed single spaced pages. Anything less lets the munchkin and mini-maxer off the hook as all you will get is their two word answers fluffed out a bit to make the required length. Typos don’t matter unless they make the bio look like something a fifth grader would write. These Biographies should all have a strong starting point for the character. Now while it is not necessary for them to map out their entire childhood some major points of changes should be listed. Things like when they joined the gang in their neighborhood or when daddy shipped them off to military school. Next should come their adolescent years aged from 13 to about 17 that will entail how they begin to make the transformation from child to adult. It will include graduations, leadership roles, rising in a gang’s power structure or making those first fledgling steps to the world of the shadow going from being a fetch-it boy to a thug. The ages of 18+ are when the character finally steps into the lives they are going to lead. While this may sound cliché, most runners are in their 20’s, but there are always exceptions like one character in my campaign named Tool who went on his first run when he was 46. In this process I’ve just elaborated on, make sure they note when they began to pick up their skills and how they learned them. List out when they got their cyber/bioware and why. Have them make up a story to describe how they first discovered their arcane powers. Did they intuitively toss a spell or manifest their physical adept’s powers spontaneously in some crisis or did some teacher see their hidden talent and shape them. Did your shaman’s totem choose you or have you always been in sync with it. Did your god tell you of your destiny or did you find an icon of power that told you of your path. These are the defining events I’ve been speaking about. This is what gives a sense of depth to a character and takes them beyond the numbers that give a player dice. After you have the bio together it’s time to come up with a detailed character description. Flesh it out as much as possible, with things like favorite color schemes or styles that your character always likes to wear. How does your PC style his or her hair? Are you a jumpsuit type of character or do you favor the latest styles from Paris. Are you a wanna be cowboy or a gutter punk. How tall is your character? Is your character a man or a woman, and human or a troll or one of the many other metas and their variants. Is your character overweight or slender. Rail thin or all bulked up like Lou Ferrigno. What ethnicity is your character are you Italian or African American, Native American, Irish American or as German as it can get. (Ve haff vays of making you talk.) Does your PC have an accent or a particular way of speaking. Do anything to add another level of detail to your PC. If you fancy yourself an artist draw a representation of your PC, if you have a buddy who can, bug him into drawing one you like. The list goes on and on. As a GM always have these accessible to you so you can remind people of when they are acting vastly out of character. That way when they say I’m role-playing you can remind them of the very precepts they laid forth themselves. As a GM always be sure to reward those who role-play their characters correctly and well. If they have a deficiency that they role-play well and falter when they are supposed to without being reminded reward them. I had a situation in which my players had entered a building and proceeded to their objective. When they got there and found a nest of devil rats the mage panicked and launched a mana ball. Everybody except for the mage and the Decker fell over including the Street Sammie from Hell. The Decker who had always described himself as the ultimate pantywaist fell to the ground and started to suck his thumb, having decided now was a good time to go catatonic. Or like another time Tool the 46 year old techie who had never fired a shotgun in his life was assaulted by a giant spider. Firing at it he missed. The sammie blasted it and the pile of goo fell to the ground. He fired the shotgun on single shot mode at the puddle emptying of the clip of his gun. After he expended his 15 rounds he fell to the floor moaning and went almost completely catatonic because he had never been in a fire fight before in his life. Things like this always enhance the role-playing experience. Once the components of the questions with the bio and character description you should be ready to rock & roll or is it rock and troll?

Now for the 50+ questions I told you about.

What is your character’s sex?
What is your character’s physical size?
What is the color of the character’s hair, eyes, and skin?
What is the character’s general appearance (i.e., How does he dress, etc.)?
Where was the character born (City, State, Hospital Name)?
What is the character’s date of birth?
What was the character’s family life like?
Has the character begun his own family?
Where or how was the character educated?
Has the character ever done anything else for a living?
What are the character’s beliefs on church and state?
Describe the character’s moral code. Include how mercenary he is, whether or not he’ll kill innocents, etc.
Does the character have any goals?
Why does the character run the shadows? (Why does he run the shadows still, rather than getting a “real” job?)
What kind of personality does your character have? This should not necessarily be obviously stated in the background, as it is more important for actually playing the character, but it may color or add mood to the history.
What special qualities does the character possess? This does not refer to skills, but rather at other things, such as how he gets along with people, does he plan ahead, etc.
Are there certain things the character can’t or won’t do? Why?
What things, people, or ideas does the character hate?
What things, people, or ideas does the character love?
What is the character’s name? Give both full birth name, as well as nicknames, street names, etc.
Determine what your character used to do, before becoming a shadowrunner (very important).
Decide why your character left his or her old job, if he had one. (also important).
Come up with a reason for why the character became a shadowrunner. (This very often will tie in with #22. This is not the same as #14, but rather why he started running the shadows originally. What led him to it?)
How did your character come to know his or her contacts? Contacts are an important part of Shadowrun, decide how and why you know them.
Does the character have a SIN? Does the character actually use it? Or is the character one of the SINless masses? This may be affected by the character’s previous employment.
Is the character a full-time shadowrunner? Or does the character lead a Batman-like double existence?
Which person(s) or group(s) do you love the most?
Which person(s) or group(s) do you hate the most?
Which person(s) or group(s) do you respect the most?
Which person(s) or group(s) do you fear the most?
What is your favorite color?
What is your favorite food and/or drink?
What place would you most like to visit?
Which person(s) or group(s) are you most loyal to?
What pastime (that you participate in regularly) gives you the most enjoyment? (WARNING: Answering Sex for this question can and will result in penalties to your character!)
What pastime (that you participate in regularly) gives you the least enjoyment?
What annoys you the most?
What (if any) is your favorite form of art?
What is your greatest goal?
What do you think is your character’s best quality?
What do you think is your character’s worst quality?
What is the most important thing you have ever done?
Which religion (if any) do you follow?
What is your most treasured possession (and why)?
What are your three most common dreams?
What is the character’s current relationship with his family?
If the character’s family is still alive, what do they do, and where do they live?
Where did the character learn his skills?
Does the character have a good luck charm? What is it, and why?
What type of music does the character like?
List any past serious relationships that your character has had, and give a brief overview of the relationship.
Where does your character live? Why does he live there?
Remember, your Gamemaster likes detail, so if you can think of any other little details, quirks, or whatever that you think might please the almighty GM, then add them in as well. Oh, and your GM won’t use any of these details against you at a later date. Trust me… :)

Questions originally produced by Bull at (chaos@ncweb.com)