Sunday Tabletop #0001 - Shadowrun Character Creation

May 25th, 2014

Word Count: ~718, Estimated Reading Time: About 3 Minutes, 36 Seconds.

My Sunday Gaming Group recently switched from Pathfinder over to Shadowrun (5th Edition).

We’ve had one character creation day, and it went well, though we are having a second one today because of some absentees and for others to finish up. It’s also the time of year when getting everyone in the same room seems to become difficult, so there is that as well.

My character is nearly finished, I just have to write out his Character Detail Sheet so that he is fully fleshed out. I’ve just now added a page for him on my website if You would like to check his sheet out.

But I thought that I would talk a bit (briefly, don’t worry) about character creation in Shadowrun. It comes down to about 7 or 8 steps, and though I lost access to my scratch file for Keith over there, I wanted to at least delineate those steps here.

  1. Concept

    You have to have a character concept (ie at least a bit of fluff) before You can make a character.

  2. Priorities

    This appears to be the most difficult for new players to wrap their heads around, so I will take a few sentences to explain it a bit.

    Basically, there are 5 rankings: A, B, C, D, and E. A is the ‘best’ and E is the ‘worst.’ Calling them rankings instead of priorities helped me, as I grew up on jrpgs and other video games where You can have a character with a high ranking/level in one thing and a low ranking/level in another.

    You also have 5 parts to Your character: Metatype, Attributes, Skills, Resources, and Magic/Resonance. Now, the important part:

    You need to assign each of those 5 parts a ranking, and can only use each ranking once.

    Then, You use the table in the book to note what that gets Your character. That is pretty much it.

  3. Attributes and Special Attributes

    Depends on two rankings: Your Metatype and Your Attributes.

    You spend Your Attribute points on the following attributes: BOD, AGI, REA, STR, WIL, LOG, INT, and CHA. Your special attribute points, on the other hand, go to: EDG, MAG, and RES.

    Spend all of them; they cannot be saved.

  4. Qualities

    If You have played Dnd or Pathfinder, these are like Feats and Flaws.

    You start with 25 Karma. You can spend exactly 25 Karma on positive qualities. You can also gain up to 25 Karma by taking negative qualities. You can not spend more than 25 Karma on positive qualities. You also can not gain more than 25 Karma by taking negative qualities.

    Do not feel like You have to use all of Your Karma, It is actually useful in step 6.

  5. Skills, Group Skills, and Knowledge Skills

    This was the part which annoyed me the most. You have the two values from Your priority chosed for skill: Your normal skill points / Your group skill points. However, there is a third type of skill point which is hidden in the skill section of the text (page 89, if You need a reference.)

    Every character gains Knowledge Skill Points equal to (INT + LOG) x 2. This should really be stated better in the text, as our entire group nearly missed it. These points can only be spent on Knowledge Skills.

    Also, You get one language at the rank of ‘N’ for free.

  6. Resources

    This is shopping. Spend money, get things. Only note I have is You need to spend to get under 5000 nuyen, or lose that money for no reason.

  7. Karma

    This is the most fluid section. I would recommend talking to Your DM about it, or if You are the DM, reading the section in full. Basically, You can use Karma for a bunch of things, including: Familiars, Contacts, Skills, Magic, and more.

    Have fun.

  8. Finishing Up

    There are some final calculations to make, as well as Your character details. Basic TTRPG stuff here. Hard work is done already.

And there You have it. A finished shadowrun character in 7 or 8 steps. Depending on how things go today, I may talk more about it in the future as well.

  • Christopher