Writing Classic Characters

From Shadowrun: Awakened

If SRA wants to "be faithful to the established fiction of Shadowrun, while still telling our own stories", then Shadowrun Awakened must foster a capability to produce enduring characters to inhabit every corner of our world. The Writing rules cover guidelines of creating a character in the game world, but this article seeks to discuss the qualities of fleshing one out in a Shadowrun story. This article was compiled with the help of the TV Tropes Wiki, perhaps the best waste of time on the internet.

Character-Driven

What is a story? Ideally, it is not a random sequence of events. It should be a chain of action, guided by decisions made by characters. While there is a place for happenstance in any story, the most cohesive means of writing a story is grounding it in the action of characters. Without that basic connection, the narrative will move in unforeseen directions and will come to conclusions disconnected from impact with the players.

All stories in Shadowrun: Awakened should seek to be grounded in characters. One of the key flaws of existing MMOs is how NPCs stand on street corners, tell you what to do, then only appear again for a cheap payoff. They have no lives, no goals, no virtues, vices, or flaws. In our world, we wish to make NPCs integrated drivers of the story, secondary to the players, but still the most potent manifestations of the 2070.

Writing Characters

Some qualities of a character are innate. Their gender, race, and overall appearance are a combination of luck and habits. Provocative characters can often live in images alone, just ask any model. In SRA, there is a certain technical challenge in customizing character appearance, so try not to rely on it.

Every moment in your life has led up to you reading this article. For every moment after, you will be shaped by the experience in some even infinitesimal way. Your mind is a unique accumulation of events that may be mundane, like this one, or exhilarating. You're special, just like everyone else. Simulating the phenomenon of personality for fictional characters is difficult.

The 20 Questions

In older edition SR manuals, there was a list of questions that helped players determine their character's history, personality, and appearance. While you need not answer the questions for all characters, it is one time-honored formula for summing all aspects of a character.

Borrowing from Stereotypes

As a writer, you should always strive to be original, but in the absence of a new idea, try delivering expert renditions of existing ideas. The audience's consumption of TV, movie, and book will already give them a set of expectations for the stereotypes in the game. Shadowrun in particular likes to play to the character archetypes below. Feel free to play them straight or turn them on their head as you see fit.

Archetypes

• Anti-Hero - Shadowrunners are criminals who steal, destroy, kidnap, and murder. But, many have a view that sometimes, that's the right thing to do.
• Dumb Muscle - Most Trolls don't know enough to know they don't need to know much at all.
• Lovable Rogue - Most any good-guy Shadowrunner has to be one of these for others to like them in the shadows (or very wealthy).
• Rebellious Spirit - Most runners do the work just
• The Chessmaster - Deception and devious plans are the fuel for the shadows.
• Tricksters - Some people run for the money, others just do it on impulse or to tear down authority.
• Turn Coat - Duplicity equals survival in the shadows and that means someone's back is going to get stabbed eventually.

Specific Personalities

• Blood Knight - Some run for the money, some just run because life without a gun in their hands isn't worth living to them.
• Cultured Badass - A stark relief to the thugs around him, sometime
• Crazy Awesome - Someone who's enhanced by a touch of madness, not inhibited by it.
• Deadpan Snarker - Someone prone to sarcastic asides, letting on that they generally take nothing seriously.
• Death Seeker - A lot of people are fatalistic, but some turn to Shadowrunner because they will most likely die.
• Ethnic Magician - Magicians tend to be elves, Amerindian, or otherwise natural outsiders.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold - The karma system explicitly rewards good deeds for even the most hardboiled characters.
• Magnificent Bastard - Everyone in the shadows has contingencies, but some runners, Johnsons, and most of all dragons seem to exist to manipulate.
• New Meat - Not everyone has the same level of experience, so being the "new guy" is often a distinct role.
• Non-Action Guy - Hackers, magicians, and faces sometimes dedicate themselves support roles to the point where when bullets start flying, they just have to hide.
• Old Soldier - A career warrior who's still fighting strong, an excellent companion in the Shadows if you can suffer the old yarns about the days of the wired Matrix and Ford Americars.
• Playful Hacker - Coders who are in it for the challenge and the fun, as opposed to the profits or the fame, tend to live n the shadows longest.
• Punch Clock Villain - Some adversaries are just professionals on the other side, sometimes downright bored with being evil and just wanting to cash the next check.
• Shell-Shocked Veteran - A lot of veterans of the Euro Wars, the conflicts in California, and anyone from the underworld can turn into burnt out emotional husks fueled by revenge tempered by a lingering desire for redemption.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist - Eco-terrorists and violent Amerindian-rights activists, along with a lot of people with aspirations of re-forming lost nations, can be seeking good ends with wicked means.

Writing Characters in Teams

Characters in Shadowrun tend to operate in groups, which means writers must be prepared to not only craft distinct personalities but also weave then into a complementary sets. Teams can be dysfunctional or united, brought together by common goals or necessity for each other's diverse skills. Often times, just figuring out how many members to have is a challenge. The motivations and combinations are myriad, but here are some of the common formulations.

Small Teams

It is very easy to build contrasts of personality groups of two or three. Given that they must economize abilities and roles across so small a number of people, they tend to have natural differences that make them easy to play against.

• Battle Couple - Romance in the shadows is hard, but it can also be very exciting.
• Beauty, Brains, and Brawn - A three role trio, in SR terms perhaps a face, a hacker, and a street sam.
• Blood Brothers - Owing another your life means paying back over a lifetime for some, resulting in immense loyalty between two people.
• Order versus Chaos - Duos tend to resonate on the same wavelength as far as good-versus-evil; however, their attitude toward carrying it out tend to contrast.
• Power Trio - A trio where one is connected and passionate, one is detached and intellectual, and one mediates between the extremes, often acting as the leader.
• The Odd Couple - Two character forced together by circumstance or united by a single common bond who are otherwise total opposites.
• Terrible Trio - One leader plus two henchmen, usually the henchmen represent an odd couple.
• Three Faces of Adam - Personalities driven by a combination of age and perspective, reflecting the views of a man over his lifetime. The female version is referred to as Three Faces of Eve.

Big Teams

Teams of four or more will still exhibit copious differences in personality and roles. The main difference with a small team is that they are more likely to function as a family, as opposed to a set of siblings.

• Four Temperament Ensemble - In teams where it's difficult to specialize by skill, it's often good to split them by personality.
• Five Man Band - The classic formula of assembling a leader, a loose cannon, a smart guy, a strong guy, and someone with a heart (often a girl).
• Five Races - The general idea of forming a team based on racial stereotypes is very workable in Shadowrun given each race can lend to a role with minimal subversion of stereotypes.
• The Magnificent Seven Samurai - A rag-tag team with diverse skills that fill out a total continuum of personalities, with some points of overlap and strategic quirks.
• Standard Royal Court - Members of a non-combat-oriented organization, like the head council of the Yakuza, tend to fall into a hierarchy laid out along the lines of a royal court.

Ensembles

Characters sometimes associate without forming teams or many teams might exist within the same larger organization. In storylines and when building factions, it's important to give an ensemble-wide approach to building the cast. Often, you will combine two or more of the teams listed above, then relate the teams by matching the leaders with complementary personalities.

• Captain Smooth and Sergeant Rough - A cultured commander with a gruff supervisor, reflecting a contrast in background and social class. This could easily connect a team of mercenaries with a small team of technical gurus or corporate overseers.
• Token Evil Teammate - Runners are bad people, but there always seems to be one guy on the team who make the rest seem not so bad.