Character Creation

Go ahead and use the 6e rules for character generation. I will require some backstory, ie at least a hook or two, for me to bring different characters with different backgrounds together. It won't be as simple as a 'you all get a message from Mr Johnson' type of start.

Only one stipulation for background, none of your characters must be currently residing anywhere in the Far East (unless you have a compelling backstory for it). This is because Chapter 0 involves your actually getting to neo-Tokyo. You can have contacts in neo-Tokyo or in the east if you want, and I'll help flesh those out.

@thevagrant If you own a vehicle, we'll find a plot or background reason for why it is in the city or somewhere you need to be.

I'm prepared to reconfigure the story around the kinds of characters all of you build.

@deadpool_qc It seems to me the reason why the skill check is there is for combat, ie. you're plugged in, someone tries to hack your gun, you roll a check to see if you can disconnect in the heat of battle. Outside of combat we can assume you can toggle on and off freely (so long as you have Electronics). I can consider not needing the check, but that changes gameplay if the team tries to hack the enemy's weaponry, and they can just toggle it off without needing checks; it renders that strategy useless.

@thevagrant Interestingly, there are hardly any Intuition bonuses / boosters anywhere. I suspect it's a redesign thing, to avoid the reaction / speed / initiative race builds. I'm going to ask that we leave it be for now.

@thevagrant The drone can have a Stealth autosoft, p202, equivalent to its Pilot rating. When jumped in, use the character's Pilot skill rating instead.

Adjustment points are points you can use to increase your attribute scores at character generation. Normally, a character can only have attribute scores of 1-6 at chargen. Using adjustment points, you can add to them so that they are higher, subject to your race. You can add them specifically for those attributes that go beyond 6 for your race. (eg a Troll can have 1-9 Strength. You can use 6 attribute points to make it 6, and an additional 3 adjustment points to 'adjust' it to 9.)
They can also be added to Edge, Magic or Resonance.

On that note, when everyone is ready, can they post here what their Priority Selection is. For example:

Priority A: Skills
Priority B: Resources
Priority C: Attributes
Priority D: Metatype
Priority E: Magic or Resonance

depending on how you choose.

Yup!

I'll be reading those today!

It's SR, so reviewing character sheets are taking longer than I thought. Hang in there. Let me settle the submissions in order.

@runekyndig, two main edits first:
At character creation, your Magic rating can only go up to 6, not 8. This means you have spare adjustment points, put them in Edge? This means you'll have to rethink your spell selection.
You can only have up to 20 points of negative qualities.
I'll look at nuyen and equipment later, after you finishing tweaking these.

Next up,@thevagrant. Also two edits for now.

You can only have up to 6 qualities at character creation, whether positive or negative. Total negative qualities capped at 20 Karma points, so you'll have to remove some.
Small typo: I assume the Influence skill is at 1, not 0.

I'll do nuyen and equipment next, and then check essence.

Ooo good catch I misread that. Nah wasn't planning to house rule at all on this, so please proceed.
Applies to you too @thevagrant, although you still have too many qualities.

@melanqolia, two edits for now as well:
I think you have 1 more point to spare for your Attributes. You should have 16 (+4 adjustment points). By my count you've used 19. Did you account for the fact that Edge starts at 1 too?
The other is a typo. Engineering skill should be at 1.

For the 3 who've submitted so far, I'll do the nuyen and equipment check next (and check on essence). Yikes I need a calculator or excel sheet.

@dejoker a blank custom character sheet with a link to whatever shared document or sheet you're using is fine too

Reads to me like 6 qualities total.

I lol'ed at the idea of a rigger jumping into a medkit.

@thevagrant I've figured out the legality issues. I will be adding a small house rule on weapon concealability on vehicles and drones. After all, if character weapons and clothing affect concealability, so should vehicle weapons.

@runekyndig I've completed your character sheet, you're good to go.

@melanqolia I'm working through your hacking stuff next.

@dejoker and @deadpool_qc you're in the queue. Shadowrun's crunchy specs... *smh*

Short answer to that is that every edition of SR puts weapon mounts as restricted, forbidden or illegal.

My own take on it, flavour-wise, is that the setting isn't a world where law enforcement deploys armed drones legally and remotely to handle violence and crime, ie. even those who are permitted the legality aren't deploying. It hasn't reached that stage, yet. :) Whereas if armed vehicles and drones were freely available and also legal for private citizens, then it'd be a war zone out there. However, this could be up for discussion - I haven't asked what kind of setting all of you prefer.

The combat drone model listed in the book is legal, as are all vehicles and drones.

I missed one line of explanation regarding slots, I'll edit. Number of slots = Body rating. (This comes from mashing SR5 rigging rules into SR6)

Nope, just a free language.
Conceptually I figure a character can only ever have one native language (Linguists, fight me! :P )

Except for your native language, which is free, and the free one I just gave you, the rest of your Knowledge and Language skills require points. And language levels cost 1 point per level.

Character sheets update:

Ok @melanqolia you're good to go.

@dejoker A few things.
1. Maths tweak. Initiation costs 11 Karma, (10+Grade 1), not 10. Easily solved because you have 1 spare point of Karma remaining anyway.
2. You can't take the Sensitive System quality because you have a Magic rating.
3. We've been discussing Magic spell categories. I've put some changes in the house rules thread, to do with similar spells. No change to the fact that Clairaudience and Clairvoyance are separate spells, like Hush and Invisibility.

Btw, because the old Animal Handling skill doesn't exist anymore, I'm happy to house rule that it belongs under Outdoors, and if you want you can take it as a specialisation, and let me consider using Charisma for its linked attribute (as opposed to Intuition for Outdoors).
The Spider Mentor house rule is firm, so go ahead and use it. You get 2 free levels of Hang Time as an adept. I'll paste the Hang Time description in, but basically you're Spiderman.

@deadpool_qc I'll need your character creation priority selection ranking to figure out your sheet.

House Rules on magic spells updated. This affects @runekyndig and @dejoker with regards to your spell choices.

I considered that and was intending to work through everyone's contacts with them before we start. I see these possibilities:

1a. You have one or two contacts in your current location. They somehow are still relevant even when you get to Tokyo. (I might weave it in.)
1b. We can't use those contacts somehow. In which case I'll create a story opportunity to gain new ones in Tokyo.
2. You have one or two Tokyo contacts already. They'll definitely pop up in the story.
3. You can't think of anything. Then give me whatever backstory you can. I need details to spin something!
4. You may or may not know each other. That's perfectly fine. There'll be individual threads first.

@thevagrant's questions first:

1. For drones such as the gnat, hornet, flying eye, etc, which have certain attacks features not described as 'mounted weapons', it'd make better sense for them to deliver their payload via a weapon targeting rather than a manouvering autosoft.

2. Yes, but to clarify, Hot Sim VR + Synaptic Booster 1 give:
Init dice: 1 for default init, 2 for VR init, 1 for synaptic booster
Actions: 1 major 1 minor for default, 2 minor from the VR dice, 1 minor for synaptic booster (you double-counted the first and last)

3. Yes to the calculation of weapon mounts. (6e uses Body/3, 5e additional Rigger rules abandons that formula but uses the optional rules for modification slots, hence the confusion).

4. Yes the control rig cost is Rating squared. Rating 1 is a x1 multiplier. Rating 2 is a x4 multiplier etc.

5. For specialisation, no more than 1 specialisation per skill at character creation. If you want to propose some specialisations feel free to ask. 'Jumped in'? Hmm, let me think on that one...

Let's park horse-riding as (a specific sort) of Animal Handling. So Outdoors (Animal Handling). Outdoors normally uses Intuition, but Animal Handling uses Charisma (from the older editions). Not sure about using Agility, which is used for very specific things in SR like firearms and close combat.

@deadpool_qc the latest character sheet you sent me looks good to go, just a few finishing touches is all. Go ahead and transfer to your GP sheet.

Everyone, it looks like for the five of you who've been working on character creation, we are largely done, apart from a few small questions to tie up. This means we can start! Get your avatars set up too if you haven't done so. I'll be writing up some intro posts this weekend. Thanks for being part of this. :)

@falconloft let me know what your priority selections are for your character so I can do the maths

And whoever hasn't given me backstory, I need at least a bit so I have a start point for you.

I'll work with whatever you've put in, and let you know if I'm tweaking it.

Language skills seem a bit confusing still. Let me give the context, and then explain.

Previous editions had language with numeric skill ranks, like any other skill. One of the problems with that was that the numeric distinction of language skill ranks makes very little appreciable difference to gameplay.

In 6e, language has four discrete skill ranks, in line with how skills function: 'Ability to Use', Specialised, Expert, Native, in increasing order. All characters get one, and only one, Native language. (Functionally a Native language means you never have to make skill checks for that language, you automatically understand everything.) 'Ability to Use' means you possess that language (as opposed to if you didn't possess it, which would prevent you from understanding any of it). Higher ranks give bonuses to dice.

Finally, remember that Cityspeak is also a language, it is the language of the streets.

@falconloft, two minor maths tweaks.

By my count, you still have 1 more attribute point, and 2 more adjustment points to spend. The attribute point can go anywhere, but the adjustment points can only go to Edge, since you've maxed your Magic already.

Also, you have 4 Karma left yes? If you're not spending it, making a note of it somewhere.

Thanks @falconloft it all checks out. I miscounted a priority table number.
@dejoker I don't need a standardised sheet after all. Don't want to make everyone key in everything again into a sheet.

@thevagrant nope, license for the gun presumes you're permitted to use the ammo.

Gear looks good @deadpool_qc. Now gimme a reason what this pimped out cowboy is currently doing, and I can get started on the story.

Approved all character sheets. All of you can post with your avatar now!

@runkyndig No need to reverse engineer the backstory, play or describe it in the game thread instead.

Sorting out some collaborative backstory

@dejoker if it's a cosmetic tweak just rename them however you want to, no need to change the price. It only makes a difference if the capacity of the item is affected.

And for everyone, one reason why I'm running a Chapter 0 is so we can iron out kinks in character sheets, and swap some stats if necessary. So keep tweaking if you need to.

@jackwolfking and @legionchimera7, you may use this thread for character creation. Select your Priorities first, then go for it. Holler if you need help.

Don't neglect your contacts and backstory, because I use those quite extensively to begin a solo thread for each character. The only backstory requirement is that your character starts anywhere but neo-Tokyo. And the solo thread is a 'Chapter 0' of sorts to get you there and explain why you end up being a shadowrunner there.

@thevagrant, I'm giving you 3 drones, the Rotor-drone, which is the gift from Watanabe, the Hornet, which you're 'inheriting' from the case, and your faithful anthro-drone (you didn't think we were going to lose the dog did you? :) )

Now that's I've gotten everyone started, I'll be working on your Bonds next, in terms of either Debts or Favors. I didn't want to arbitrarily make everyone pick another character and propose a debt or favor. Instead I've started the three threads so that you can pick up a bond from there. So,

Missy and Domino, can you work out a bond between the two of you. How are you connected? Plot-wise I'm about to link the two of you up...

Eunbyeol and Jack, same thing. Consider if there was some chance for a connection back when both of you were in the UCAS.

Clint, Hotaru, Gon. For Hotaru and Clint, since we have an existing chapter for the two of you, let's agree that Hotaru owes a Debt to Clint for pulling his ass out of the fire. For Gon, can you decide whether you have a bond with Clint?

Update these on your character sheet, or if you prefer, I'll create a thread for Bond tracking.

Sounds good Machiabelly, could you and Falconloft work it into the thread?

Kaejae I like your bit of background, gives me ideas! The fake SIN idea for Missy when she arrived in Japan is a good angle, go for it: Runekyndig this works for you? I'll bring Missy and Domino together very shortly.

Dreamblade, I made some assumptions about your character in my latest post. Let me know if it works, if not we can retcon it. Still waiting on some backstory detail from you so that I can describe things that are true to your character as I don't want to impose my view on Gon Arai.

Very nice you both!

I'm ok with that Deadpool, if Vagrant and Dreamblade are.

This means all of you have either a Debt or a Favour with one other person for now. I will be building an opportunity for another Bond soon, when the threads meet further.