[black0ps]

I had a group that tried this approach once.  Just once, because even the character generation caused friction between the players.  Once they got into the game itself and I began my usual process of introducing complications it got worse, and the game collapsed entirely when one girl got upset that her boyfriend chose not to save her in favour of saving two others.

Normally I have no issues with this, but I suppose my experiences have been different than those stated above. I normally encourage new players to play themselves to ease them into the experience. I find new players never know 'what to do'. However I have never had someone bring in there actual relationships into the story. Normally they just bring in how they would bring in their personality. Back story, name, and current relationships would be from the in-game story itself. Therefore avoiding the problem quoted above.

[pariah3j]

I see the same for the game master.  When one of the other's in our group (who is an historian) runs a game, we often end up with obscure references to old legends.  When I run a game, it's often about viruses and other diseases, as I know that quite well.

Well you know the old adage - 'write what you know'. We all impart ourselves into the worlds we GM or the Characters we play to some extent (least all of the better role players that I've played with do) . Gearing or sculpting a character to fit our knowledgebase or our personality isn't bad. However just saying that your character is a carbon copy of yourself so you don't have to do any actual roleplay just strikes me as lazy and unimaginative.

[Mr. Black]

Aryeonos, I expanded the traditional Shadowrun 20 questions into something, well, much bigger. I wanted a tool to help ground my players in the Sixth World. I also find it greatly helps character creation when it comes to Qualities. Players in my neck of the woods seem to get overwhelmed/lost. For example when they answer the question about education levels if they say they have a college education, I have them take that Quality right there and then. Questions about how much "real" food they eat may lead to a higher Lifestyle. I prefer that players spend time visualizing their character before the number crunching starts. All that time spent also helps to wean out Pink Mohawk tendencies, as after all that time building your character you are more likely to try and keep him or her alive.

You can find the questions here.

[farothel]

Very nice.  I hope you don't mind me copying those questions for later use.

[pariah3j]

Aryeonos, I expanded the traditional Shadowrun 20 questions into something, well, much bigger. I wanted a tool to help ground my players in the Sixth World. I also find it greatly helps character creation when it comes to Qualities. Players in my neck of the woods seem to get overwhelmed/lost. For example when they answer the question about education levels if they say they have a college education, I have them take that Quality right there and then. Questions about how much "real" food they eat may lead to a higher Lifestyle. I prefer that players spend time visualizing their character before the number crunching starts. All that time spent also helps to wean out Pink Mohawk tendencies, as after all that time building your character you are more likely to try and keep him or her alive.

You can find the questions here.

Awesome - I may just have to borrow those

[Mr. Black]

Please feel free to use them or alter them. I created them back in 4th Ed, and some things have changed (like the number of Free Spirits and AI's running around.)