As long as you're working on it, then I can get to it. The main issue is that I'd like to have one format for everybody - I had a temp job as a professor's assistant in the literature department one summer, and it was extremely hard work because almost everybody had a different format, so I couldn't just use one schema to quickly analyze and grade them all.
Chummer's got advantages of adding things up for you (which can also be done in Excel - that's how I start all of the characters I make), as well as marking where everything's from. This makes it easy for me to say "aha! That's from Gun Haven, and I don't have that, so it's not valid" - without that I would look at it, wonder if I'd forgotten it from somewhere else, and then spend hours looking through the books for it.
Speaking of, I've finished going through a couple of character proposals and have this feedback currently, focusing on the biggest red flags for now:
@ mtfeeney: Baron has a mafia don at C6L6, but no Made Man quality or background for such a powerful, loyal figure.
Baron has multiple prejudices, but no background/history regarding ANY prejudice. A single prejudice is easily something that could be a recent acquisition or buried across the important portions of a character's history, but 3 of them is too much not to have something tying into backstory.
You have Initiated 3 times, but I'd rather not start with so much to start with.
Maximum initiation for character creation: 1. You'll have the opportunity to initiate more than once as the game progresses. Also: if you want group initiation or ordeal on your initiation, there needs to be a strong background reason for it (since you're not having to deal with any of the trouble of gaining it in play), but you have nothing to tie it in.
You have a powerful magic group, but no contact for it and no character history for it. One of those two has to be present for something as powerful as a magic group on character creation. You have SINer, but if this is supposed to be your link it doesn't say what nation/corp you're linked to - is it Tir Tairngire?
Your background seems to tie relatively well into your attributes and skills (nothing about being awakened, but you're not a Spellcasting 6, so no big deal).
@ Aryeonos: Chinese is a
language family that includes over a half-dozen dialects/languages. For simplicity's sake, we can say that this world has Mandarin (the official state language) and Canton or Cantonese (southern and diaspora common language), both mentioned explicitly in a couple books in Shadowrun 4E.
You've requested Flashbacks, but don't have any character background bio/history that ties into it - qualities are great for fleshing out characters, but I'd like them to be something that is directly relevant to the character and the past that made him/her what it is.
You have different corps linked to your SINer and Records on File - unless you have a character history reason for this, I would recommend that they be the same entity.
Your character is a Naga with a phobia of snakes - there's got to be some interesting background or past event(s) for that.
Your commlink is custom and all of your programs are hacked, but you're not a hacker, don't have a hacker contact, or background of hackers/hacked programs. At least some background would help prop this up.
Your skills and role seem to be well-defined.
@ Mirikon
I want a file from you (even if it's excel, even the mac computers on campus can read that) to make it easier to go over what you have.
I'm not allowing Ultrawideband Radar (the sensor or cyberware) on character creation.
I don't know what books the Shiawase Arms Tactical Model 73, SIG Sauer 574, Nemesis Arms Praetorian, or HK MG-14 are from, but I don't seem to have them so I can't okay it.
Contacts look good, and I like the description you give for the lifestyles to make them seem like places instead of "point arrangement 5274".
