Background Questions Most of these questions should be answered within your background, via the story you tell. You don't need to answer all of them; this is a list of suggestions, not a checklist. Do NOT simply answer them one-by-one. If you do, then sadly, we will have to reject your background. [Editor's Note]: Let's try that again, since people don't seem to be getting it. Write a narrative story in which these questions are answered - do not answer the questions one by one, or we WILL reject your app. 1. What is your character's age, sex, and race? 2. What is your character's physical height, weight, and appearance? 3. Preferred manner of dress, speech, actions. 4. What were the circumstances of your character's birth and early childhood? When was your character born? 5. Does your character have any family ties left? Has he/she started her own family? 6. Where or how was the character educated? 7. What circumstances brought them to Denver? 8. What has the character done for a living in the past? 9. What are your character's religious/ethical/moral views? 10. Does your character have a code of honor? 11. What are your character's goals? Why are you in the shadows? 12. Describe your character's personality. 13. What sort of special qualities do you have? 14. Does your character have any addictions/dependencies/compulsions? 15. Does your character have any obnoxious personal habits? 16. What is your usual operating style? 17. Are there things you won't do, especially for money? 18. What sort of things does your character love/hate/like/dislike? 19. How did your character acquire the contacts he/she has? Does your character have a SIN? If it's a fake SIN, where does it come from? Did you once have a Real SIN that has since been erased? Question 1 What is your character's age, sex, and race? Note: only orks and trolls 'goblinize' in their teens. Elves and dwarves are born like that. Orks and trolls *can* be born as orks and trolls. Also, just because the parents are metahuman does not guarantee the child will be the same metahuman race, or even non-human at all. It makes it more *likely*, definitely. Most characters start out younger than 'average'… mostly because most players seem to be younger than 30. Some people start characters under the age of 18. Remember: if you're that young, people treat you as such. Johnsons don't always take you seriously. Neither do other runners. Plus, you don't have the benefit of a lot of real-world experience. You'll probably be cocky, impetuous, and inexperienced. Question 2 What is your character's physical height, weight, and appearance? Exact numbers and a full description aren't needed here. But if it's out of the ordinary in any way (exceptionally ugly, scarred, exceptionally beautiful, tall, short, skinny, overweight), then it might well be mentioned in a background. Hair color and eye color can be mentioned, though these often go in your @desc. If your character's appearance has been significantly artificially changed (e.g. biosculpting), this might be something worthy of mention in your background (i.e. how and why?). Especially mention, if anything is extreme, how it affected the character while growing up. Question 3 Preferred manner of dress, speech, actions. Does your character adopt the dress and speech mannerisms of a street ganger, or does she have a more cultured upbringing? Does your character prefer the military mode of action, or is he pure civilian all the way? These sort of things are better if you *show* them, rather than describe them. Question 4 What were the circumstances of your character's birth and early childhood? When was your character born? Sometimes this is relevant, sometimes not. But who *were* your parents? Did they have an effect on your character's development? What sort of environment were you raised in? And don't be afraid to have your parents still be alive, and to have had a fairly normal upbringing. A lot of apps we get involve abusive parents, or orphans, or the mother dying in childbirth and the father blaming the child, or some organization toasting your parents and you being out for revenge. These aren't disallowed, of course, but just remember that it's not the only way. It's good to, if possible, coordinate your character's age with time of birth and figure out when various 'global' events happened. Sometimes those sort of events can have a profound impact on a character's life. Oh, and one more thing. Implanting cyberware in somebody under the age of 15 or 16 is generally not done, simply because the body continues to grow while the 'ware doesn't. Thus, the 'ware would have to be replaced occasionally, at great expense. Question 5 Does your character have any family ties left? Has he/she started her own family? These can be important, or not, depending on circumstances. Sometimes these are good background hooks for plots. i.e. Remember that high-school sweetheart? Well, you got her pregnant, and she hunted you down, and here's your daughter. She's an ork. Hope that's okay. :) Seriously, though — even if your parents got whacked, what about your grandparents, uncles/aunts, cousins… ex-boyfriend/girlfriends? Do you still have feelings for any of them? Sometimes your old sensei can be like a second father to you. Question 6 Where or how was the character educated? Education of some sort is generally available to everybody who's 'legit'. Children of corporate employees generally go to corp school, where they're fed the company line to a degree, but it's generally a very good general education. The SINless sometimes have to get their learning from the street. If you're trained in martial arts, guns, computers, vehicles, or magic, then you probably learned it somewhere (especially if you have a skill above 3 or 4). We expect to see any skills 4 or above mentioned somewhere in your background (at least in general). Another note. Was your character trained for birth to be a cold-blooded killer? Or did she actually spend at least some time in kindergarten finger-painting in between target-practice sessions? You'd be surprised the number of backgrounds we see containing nothing but combat training apparently from birth. When did you start your 'non-mainstream' education, and why you, instead of all the other kids? Question 7 What circumstances brought them to Denver? Were they born here? If so, that's perfectly fine. But if they weren't, then why'd they come to the Mile High City? There are a lot of good reasons, and other players can help you come up with some if you can't think of any. Also, does the character plan to stay here, ICly, or is this just a stopping point? That plan can change, too, through role playing. Question 8 What has the character done for a living in the past? How did you survive? If you just finished training, well, you're probably pretty green. And if all you can do is kill people — well, basically, your choices are fairly limited as to employment opportunities. It's just not something you put on your resume when applying for a customer service position. "I'm helpful and friendly to our customers… oh, and I also kill people efficiently and tracelessly." Other skills, especially job-skills, can come in handy. A mage can make a fairly low-key low-risk living doing some routine enchanting work. A street-sam might have worked as a security guard while being trained, so you've seen the other side of the fence. Question 9 What are your character's religious/ethical/moral views? I expect to see this at least touched on in all backgrounds, at least indirectly. You'd be surprised the number of 'my character has no ethics' people we get. There's a name for this sort of people: psychopaths. Nobody wants to play with them, because they'll turn on their chums just as quickly as on the bad guys. Is your character religious? In 2069, the influence of Christianity is much reduced from today, but there are still plenty of other religious views to adopt. Does your character believe in *anything* beyond his wallet? Would he kill his own grandmother for a fistful of yen? Does he have any problem toasting innocents to accomplish his goals? How is 'innocent' defined? Most characters have something beyond themselves that they believe in — and the meaning of 'street samurai' carries with it the implication that the character has a code of honor. These things are important for making your character more than just a cardboard cutout with a list of stats stuck on her forehead with a Post-It note and a gun in each hand. Question 10 Does your character have a code of honor? This is slightly different than the above question, yet ties in with it closely. Does your character keep his/her word? Do you fight fair? Do you see battles as being between Good <tm> and Evil <tm> or being instead a contest of worthy adversaries? Or are you the only person on the planet with the right to live, and everybody else can go get fragged? 'Survival' isn't a code of honor. It's the lack of one. 'I do what it takes to survive' simply gives you carte blanche to do whatever you feel is appropriate. A code of honor restricts a character in certain ways, yet it also gives them depth, shape, and form. Question 11 What are your character's goals? Why are you in the shadows? Long-term and short-term goals are good — and these can change over time. We're not going to hold you to these, because in-character events can very much change these. What we're asking is, in your character's mind, why in the hell are you going into a risky occupation like Shadowrunning? You looking for enough yen to retire? Do you find the whole concept terribly romantic, in character? Are you out on some holy crusade, or looking to score some quick cred to pay for for grandma's face lift surgery? Maybe you got blacklisted by all the corps, and this is the only real option to exercise your skills. Whatever the reason, we'd like to know — if nothing else, so that we know you've thought about it. Question 12 Describe your character's personality. This is another thing that is far better shown than explained. Are you aggressive? Confident? Shy? Humble? Boastful? Do you shoot more for the quiet, reserved kind of confidence, or are you more into telling the world how great you are? Are you compassionate toward others, or could you really not give a frag? Showing a few scenes where the character interacts with people can really help to illustrate what kind of person your character appears to be. And with most people, there's the reality, underneath, and then there's what gets shown to the world. Most people don't reveal who they really are 'blatantly'. Somebody who's shy will still make an effort to interact, but it'll come out in small ways. Question 13 What sort of special qualities do you have? This is a catch-all category for quirks. Like whether you're quick with ideas; if you're more of a leader than a follower. Any hobbies and special interests are worth mentioning here — they add depth to a character. Question 14 Does your character have any addictions/dependencies/compulsions? Lots of people smoke in 2069, now that cancer has been pretty much licked by medical science. Lots of people drink, too, and the legal drinking age has been dropped back to 18 (especially now that most cars have an autopilot). Marijuana is now legal as well. The harder drugs are still illegal, but not too hard to get a hold of. And soykaf is the staple drink of a lot of people. If you character is addicted to any drugs, or uses them occasionally, it can have effects on their motivations and behavior (especially the harder ones). How did they get started using them? It might bear mentioning. Also, not only drugs can be addictions. Sex can be an addiction, as can religion. Just about anything, in fact, can be lumped under a 'compulsion' of some kind. Question 15 Does your character have any obnoxious personal habits? Most people do. Whether you have hay fever in the springtime that causes you to sneeze excessively, to occasional flatulence, or the tendency to interrupt others, or to lie poorly… all of these things add depth to a character. Question 16 What is your usual operating style? What is the way you like to do missions? Are you more of a guns-blazing frag-attacker, or are you more into stealth? Do you prefer subtlety or overpowering force? Are you cautious or impulsive? Do you tend toward a balls-to-the-wall style of assault, or are you more interested that they never even know you were there? Question 17 Are there things you won't do, especially for money? This sort of fits in under moral code, but not entirely. What we're asking about here is values. What do you value more, for example: family or career? Do you regard a threat to those you love as worse than a threat to yourself? Are there certain corps they couldn't pay you enough to work for? Do you do wetwork (i.e. assassination)? Question 18 What sort of things does your character love/hate/like/dislike? This one is important, too. Not just love and hate, but like and dislike? What does your character enjoy? Is a night watching the trid pretty cool? Does your character secretly enjoy the thrill of being hunted, or does he hate even the thought of that? Do you love your pet cat, and hate the neighbor's dog next door? What is it that really cheeses you off in life? What is it that other people do to push your buttons, sometimes? Question 19 How did your character acquire the contacts he/she has? Does your character have a SIN? If it's a fake SIN, how did you acquire it? Did the character have a real or criminal SIN that's since been erased? SINs are important. Just about anybody who was born in legitimate circumstances has a SIN assigned from birth for a specific country. This SIN is tied to your fingerprints, your DNA records, your blood type, and a lot of other information including physical description. Having multiple identities is good for 'runners, but fake SINs are expensive. They're also limited to rating 6 in chargen. The code in chargen will enable you to set up your SINs, but you should still explain how you acquired any fake SINs you have in your background. Also, contacts are important. How did you meet these people? What have you done for them, or vice-versa?