If you read one thing on my webpage read the link to Uber characters.
I'm Christian Savage. I'm in a rag tag group of runners. This site isn't about them or I should say, its about me and them as a group. I myself play many characters, my group became character crazy. Unlike a few elements of the group I try to make as full a story as possible for each character. I enjoy writing character stories, some become novels, some are unfinished even though they are more pages then I have fingers.
I'll talk more about my self before I talk about the group. First my failings:
I'm a rules lawyer if I disagree with something, I will follow it to the breaking point. There is a good side to this, in situations where a GM doesn't remember something, I can save page flipping and wasted time.
The only characters I make are Uber. You don't like it I don't care. If I can find the loop holes, tricks, and grey zones then I'll exploit them. Every one in my group has learned that you don't counter a Christian made with a SWAT team. The results are never pretty, nor good roleplaying expierences.
I am blessed with dumb (emphasis on dumb) luck. I need an 18 to take down a helicopter with a hunting rifle then done shes going. I'm not the only one to have this happen but I'm the one who gets them at really annoying dramatic moments.
I'm arrogant, over confident, and not modest. Never lost a character, almost never take heavy hits, never failed a mission, hard to suprise. All these things make it hard for GM's to challenge a group with me in it.
In most runs the cops are bumbling idiots who need a gift from the heavens to catch a runner, they are thorns that slow down a runner but not much more. In my runs the police are a highly organized group that have a very good chance of catching you or being able to ID you in the future.
I have the highest death rate of all the GM's in the group. I've killed 3 characters in my GM'ing career. One from his own bad decisions, one from some messed up die rolls, and the lasst and most recent had some enemies close in on him and gave up.
Characters have a bad habit of picking up a league of enemies all of which have legit reaons to desire the characters death and mutilation. I personally don't think this is totally my fault, but seeing as it is most common in my runs I came to the conclusion it must be me.
I feel like a burnt out GM. I was the first GM and I feel like the cool stuff I used to do is gone and every run is basically the same thing, kill the V.P. of research in XYZ inc., find the scientist who made some widget for corp A and bring him to corp B. Destroy this illegal place, slaughter this gang. Everything seems the same and boring.
If I have to improvise a run, or try to pull a quickie run (because I don't feel like GM'ing) it never ever has good results. Police or angry mobs always enter into the equation.
I feel like the barrens are to nice a place. I haven't figured out how to make it into Beruit or Mogadishu instead of a bad nieghborhood where the GM says violence is common but the runners either feel singled out (IE to much violence directed at them) or liek its a place where one can go about his business in peace (IE lets go to the barrens to find the assualt rifle, norhing but some crappy gangers who don't care about me there.)
Don't own anything expensive (especially cars,) or have alot of money (especially if this money has no purpose.) Vehicles get trashed so quickly it is usually better to have a crappy one than one full of toys, thje more expensive the larger the fireball it makes in my runs (riggers excluded for some reason.) I hate it when characters have several hundred thousand and nothing apparent to spend it on. Why run if you have enough pay to live in a high or luxury for a few years?
Now that you know why I'm a bad person lets talk about what makes me fun to have around:
Safety, most of the time if I have a character involved the run will have a good resolution. Guess the other GM's over compensate for my faults. Most runs go by smooth as the firing mechanism in an Uzi.
I make a good point man/high risk combatant. Because I have Uber characters the decker, rigger, shaman, and street sam have less to worry about. I can usually take out the opposistion quickly so the other runners aren't bogged down with combat.
The suprising and effective strategy is guarenteed. My plans are all encompassing with multiple contingency plans and escape measures. Many a time the team will not need many dice rolls other than the ocaasional stealth check. Give me an objective, building map, and 5 minutes and I'll give you an assualt plan that will screw up what ever the GM has planned.
I try to role play more than dice roll. I would rather talk than use a negotaitions roll. All of my stories include some twist which I leave open ended to GM's to exploit. I also give dramatic speeches about my characters life. This usually adds flavor to the game and my characters will have the run focus on something in there story instead of a standard shadowrun, which if used sparingly creates a more diverse game.
My characters are going some where. When one of my characters became a fixer it added a whole new level of game play for the group. All of my characters live dynamic lives.
I'm creative. Even though you could write a handbook about how to make my characters none of them are like the stereotypes. My plans are always original, never the same strategy twice. I try to make different off beat stories instead of the oh so common, my person was in the military where he got all of his chrome/magic training. He left because he hated the bueracracy/he was scapegoated by a higher up and is now in the shadows.
The group has a vast age mixture from 14-15 a few 18-20 (I'm in that group) and a venerable 50+ person. there are always culture and style clashes, but the group has been able to maintain itself for a year. Often times because of conditions I describe later our plots seem more like action movies than freeform actors workshops.
My group uses an interesting system to figure out who is left to the dubious task of GM'ing. I don't advocate this system for the average group. A set GM will make the story seem much more coherent, hell you will actually have a plot line thats going somewhere.
In a group where no one wants to GM, this system will hold the group together. Every one who can GM picks up a D6, we all count down from either 3 or 5 depending on who the counter is and then roll them the person with the highest number is the lucky winner. Ties are broken by rerolling unti lthere is only one. Our group uses the, "you've played long enough, you can GM method." There is no set amount of time, when enough people in ther group believe its time for a person not to get away they are included in the roll.
There are several major flaws in this system. One is people who have never seen the inside of a rule book are thrown into the hot seat. Another is only a few GM's are allowed access to classified material (I.E. the secrets of Target: Awakened Lands.) Another problem is everyone wants to have a character around for the first romp through the Arcology or the festivities of the second awakening, so no one touches those source books for fear of being forced to GM those time periods. Runs seem more like a 30min to 8hour TV show. We don't have a long term plot, every run is like an episode that has no connection to the rest. We also make a ton of characters because if one GM is doing something and doesn't get the roll then those characters are frozen in time as it were.
The bounus to this system is everyone will GM at some point some alot more than others but everyone rolls a winner at some point. The other bounus is not everyone has to show up, if yesterdays (yes we played that often at some points) GM can't make it, we're fine because there will be a new GM anyway.
Weapons catalog
Here is a catalog of guns i have made. they shouldn't off set game play that much (unlike some other monsterous weapons I've seen on the web) because I made them using the rules in Cannon Companion. If you feel this will really screw up your game just raise the availability, or say these guns are out of production.
Character stories
I don't feel it right for me to post my character sheets. I don't many carbon copies of my brillant character designs. I will post the character stories though. Some are quite long, all have horrible grammer so stick with it. These are some of the best, I'll try to update once I recover more from a computer crash.
WizKids, LLC has sole ownership of the names, logo, artwork, marks, photographs,
sounds, audio, video and/or any proprietary material used in connection with
the game Shadowrun. WizKids, LLC has granted permission to Christian Savage
to use such names, logos, artwork, marks and/or any proprietary materials for
promotional and informational purposes on its website but does not endorse,
and is not affiliated with Christian Savage in any official capacity whatsoever.
