Character Creation Information and Basic Archetypes.

Keep in mind these are all just very basic character concepts, all of which can be mixed, matched and combined. I treat Shadowrun like I do White Wolf games - a huge world-setting sandbox for the players to make a mess in. I'll throw things at you, but what you do with those things is 100% up to you.
The Fixers.

• You're the face man. The mover and shaker. You know the people that have the jobs. You know what makes the streets go around and how to make it spin the best way for your people. Changing voice or appearance with spell or technology as needed. If it's information, negotiation or deals to be made, you're up to the task. Your weapon of choice is the sweet words and better dirt.
  
• You're the supplier, the fence, the dealer. If an item needs to be unloaded or lost, be it animal, vegetable or mineral, you can make it happen. Body needs to vanish? Person needs to vanish? You deal with the little details that keep the world (and the black market) going around.
  
• You're the smuggler. You may be a transporter that moves very specific items or people on commission or a mass-mover of guns, illegal and exotic food, banned hardware and software, drugs and BTLs. Someone has to get things moved around - be it large scale smuggling or small scale transport. Checkpoints, tarrifs and laws are what keep you in business. If they made it legal, no one would need to pay you.

The Mercenaries.

• You're a soldier. Former member of the military, an independent group or a corporations military forces, you decided to break ties and fly solo for better money/fewer rules. Or an operation went real bad, and now your former employer wants to take the damage out of your hide. You've got training for tactics or other specializes skills from military, including knowledge of their procedures and hardware. The streets are a new place, but you have to pay the bills.
  
• You're a cop or detective. With Knight Errant, Lone Star, or as a rent-a-cop for the corporations. Maybe you saw one to many crooks get away, or got stabbed in the back when you crossed the thin blue line. Perhaps some one crossed the thin blue line to take you out of the force. Clean or dirty, you're on the outs and you know the streets like the back of your hand - you've made friends and enemies on them.
  
• You're the street samurai. Independent on the streets to make a living, or with ties to the Yakuza, Mafia, Seoulpa, Triads or Tongs. Bushido, honor, or simply to protect your own - you have a code you follow. You've got cyberware that can make you faster then the naked eye, riding the razor edge to stay in the lead ahead of the next guy who may come looking for you.
  
• You're the assassin. Whatever your other persona is you maintain - wave slave, corporate bitch or any other number of other things. What you really specialize in is making high-profile people dead, and making it look like an accident. Or at least, a kill no one can tie back to you.
  
• You're the covert ops. With special training from either the government, corporations, or criminal elements, you know how to find the vulnerable points ways in and the ways out. Be it by physical means, by fast talking, technology or disguise, nothing keeps you out when you've got a target to break into.

The Technos.

• You're the decker. The technical wizard, you specialize in the software side through the vast Matrix of information in our world. Hardware means nothing - it's a tool to access the network of knowledge. You're the guy who cuts through the threads of data that hold our world together like a hot knife.
  
• You may specialize in cracking encryption, forging electronic documents and files, removing/adding people to the SINer registery.
  
• You might be a security cracker for runners, opening doors, deactivate security, shut down traps or tap into communications.
  
• You're the rigger. If it has moving parts, you can make it dance. Let the deckers make the electrons sing - when the hardware stops, so does their work.
  
• You've got the hot shot pilot of metal, keeping the escape vehicles ready to roll or hijacking convoys for run. You keep drones going to provide high-spy, mechanical or long distance support. Where it's too dangerous for man or magic, your little toys can go in.
  
• When the decker can't, you 'override' things with your little gadgets, the wire tap, new circuits or just knowing what to smash.

The Magical.

• You're the physical adept. Magic is not found in books or among trees - it is found through reflection, awareness of self, discipline and mental focus. You use it to make your body into the ultimate weapon - Kung Fu movies have nothing on you. You may have learned your arts from a order, dojo or simply a teacher – but now you make a living by
  
• You're the hermatic mage. Long hours of study through a prestigious institution or a burned-out wage mage with enough whiskey have given you the amazing skills you possess now. Magic is just a new science that can be harnessed through formulas, logic and knowledge. You may seek the Astral Plane for answers beyond - but whatever path you take, you fully intended to command it's forces.
  
• You're the shaman. Magic is all around us, and part of nature and the world we live in. Your teacher showed you the way to bring spells forth through emotion and your Totem. Magic is an art, to be practiced with respect for the forces your aid you are asking - not to be ordered around. With that respect, you can call on spirits of nature and man to come to you.

The Others.

• You're the explosives guy. You can take bubblegum, a paperclip and the chemicals called 'food' from the dispenser and make an explosive to get other people where they need to go. You may just make your own, or it could be a larger outfit for an organization. Chemistry is fun kids!
  
• You're the gang member, a member of an urban sprawl trying to make a living. You own a peice of road turf with a go-gang through the streets. A ganger that defends a peice of turf or shakes the area of protection racket. You might work with larger criminal organizations, or drive them out of your turf.
  
• You're a cult member. Praise be to Hubbard! Metahumans go home! Join the Universal Brotherhood, find love and acceptance! You can be good-intentioned (Universal Brotherhood) or part of something darker, but you are first and formost a servent to your beliefs and order. (requires ST permission)

Other things to think about.

Location and date of birth - this matters a lot, because depending on age or race. Certain very tumultuous events may have happened while you were alive and would frame your opinion.
Where did you grow up and how? On the streets, child of a wage slave or corporate suit, military, in one of the Native American or Meta Human countries? Some of those are a mite hard to get out of, or get back into, so keep it in mind.

Metahumanity:

Are you one? Remember when you look at all the shiny stats you get with playing a Elf, Dwarf, Ork or Troll, that you take some social disadvantages with that. Magic only began it's return in 2012, and these races have only really been on the scene en-mass for twenty, twenty five years. Racism is very real, especially in more traditional areas like organized crime.

What do you think of the other races? Brothers in arms is all well and good, but most people have an axe to grind with somebody. Even if it's as minor as “All Elves are prancing-fancy magic users”. Got any prejudices? Why? How much of one? If you don't have a good reason for a dislike at start, the ST will make one.

Ties and Organizations:

Are you a member (past or present) of any organizations? Some skills require special training, which often comes with a price tag - be it in nuyen, difficulty in making departures or enemies. Depending on what skills or background you take, this may not be important or we may need to have a long chat.

Any policlub memberships? As with everything, they can have fantastic flavor to your character, but they have pluses and minuses.
Policlubs offer additional resources, people, sanctuary and support that you might not have otherwise.
They also will request your aid and services in exchange, when they have a job. That might run counter to a job you've been hired for.
They also come with rival policlubs and enemies you may make in the process.

What do you do for a living? Just running the shadows and having a good old time, or do you have businesses/plans on the side between jobs? Do you have ambitions of any kind? What brought you to Seattle and to Shadow Running?

Keep this in mind, as I allocate extra skill points specifically to encourage you to think about this one. For 'flavor' or profession skills – stuff you might not necessarily use on a run, but add depth and realism to your character outside of the 30xGun or Combat skills. Not all problems can be shot to death.

Any addictions? Drugs, alcohol, BTL's (Better Then Life simsense chips), prostitutes, matrix diving, driving really fast? Other disadvantages, quirks, misfortunes of humanity?

You get extra points to spend, but keep in mind I will use them and they will be meaningful disadvantages. And getting rid of them will not be as easy as spending points.

I'm going to be providing a list of optional disadvantages that Shadowrun community has created over the years, plus personal favorites, for folks to look over.

SIN or SINless:

SIN isn't anything with religions or cults – this is your System Identification Number. How UCAS and other governments register, track and monitor citizens since the 2030's. Any new citizens (that are born in hospitals) are registered at birth now. Many people who've come to the shadows since 2030 have had their SIN removed to get them off the grid.

The plus sides: You get access to all the benefits of being an official citizen. Ooooo, aaaa. You can vote, you have some rights to due process, and you might get a check or other benefits from the gov'ment depending on your home country. You aren't a total nobody, and are less likely to get shot completely out-of-hand by the cops depending on what they caught you doing.

The downside: Being an official citizen means anytime your ass passes through a scanner or drops your official ID'd credsitck into a scanner, you can be backtracked. By the government. Or the corps. Or any decent decker. Those benefits to due process also don't count for much in our business chummer. Getting caught in our line of work usually means we're worm food long before a court date. Most Shadowrunners tend to be SINless, by choice, birth or desperation.

In most places, being SINless isn't a crime (yet). If you were born SINless and have been arrested/finger printed in the last five years, you've been issued a criminal SIN at the time, putting you on the books to some extent. If you want a lifestyle above Low, you'll also need some form of SIN to get a lease, turn on utilities and the like.

Fake ID's and SINs exist, with varying degrees of accuracy and lifespans - but cost. Take that into account when deciding lifestyle and ask your ST if you want to purchase fake ID. Good = expensive.
As with all decisions, the ST is evil, and will use and abuse it no matter what you chose – so go with what makes sense for the character you want and will have fun playing with.

More Optional Character Customization Rules: Edges and Flaws.

I found an awesome website Here that lists all the 'standard' Edges and Flaws that were added in 2nd edition with the Shadowrunners Companion, as well as a bunch of others.

((Cough vehicle empathy cough))

We have the Shadowrunners companion in print and PDF, but the site has a more complete list.

Character Creation: Contacts and Reputations

In the cyberpunk world, you can live or die by your friends and reputations. Contacts are friends, fixer's, agents - people you can depend on to help, hide or ditch the body for you when the heat is on.

Reputation is what kind of cred you've built up with a given group or area - are you known to be some one reliable, trustworthy and on the level? Do you remember the reason for the run, go above and beyond for them? They can also help you out in a bind and have many more connections, but generally help/info/gear from the reputation group comes at a much higher price then a Contact.

While Knowledge and Etiquette skills represents how much you know about the group, reputation represents how well they know you. Most starting characters aren't going to have a whole lot of rep, but you might have some prior connections their you can hit up.

Example: Reputation (Ork Underground) 3, Reputation (Japanesse Yakuza) 2, Reputation (Aztechnology - Denver Office) 3.

Every starting character in Shadowrun gets 2 x Charisma in starting points you can spend toward Contacts and Reputations. Up to five points can be spent on a single Reputation, but you can also spend multiple points into a single Contact to improve your relationship with this person.

Contact Levels:

Degree 0 - Dude on the Street
Isn't going to reveal anything to the character unless she makes it worth his while. A little cred will open doors anywhere.

Advantages: None! Items and info sold at whatever price the street can support.

Degree 1 - Contact

May know information that a character needs and will probably reveal it--but may keep it to himself just because he doesn't feel any particular loyalty to the character.
Advantages: The GM may make an Intelligence (6) Test for the contact to determine if the contact can recall information about the runner when asked.

Sells equipment and services at Base price.

Degree 2 - Buddy
Will always provide the information a runner is looking for and may even "keep her ear to the ground" for a runner if she has the time.
Advantages: A runner receives 1 extra die for any Etiquette Tests made to acquire information from Level 2 contacts. In addition, the GM may make an Opposed Willpower (5) Test for the contact to determine if the contact can successfully refuse to answer questions about the runner.

Sells equipment and services at 10% discount from Base price.

Degree 3 - Friend for Life
Knows the runner well and interacts with him or her on a regular basis. The character may not even think of his or her friend as a contact, but the runner will surely find what that person does or knows useful at some point.

Advantages: A runner receives 2 extra dice for any Etiquette Tests made to acquire information from Level 3 contacts. In addition, the GM may make an Opposed Willpower (6) Test for the contact to determine if the contact can successfully refuse to answer questions about the runner.

Sells equipment and services at 20% discount from Base price.