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    A common problem I've seen through my years of game mastering is in the character creation process: mini-maxing, or the optimization of characters. The vast majority of players I've seen try to make them the most powerful they can. While this is not bad in itself (I don't like characters who totally suck neither) when this is the central and only concern in the creation process, that, quite simply, sucks.
 
    It is easy to figure out that a player is mini-maxing: if the player chooses his race by just checking the bonus they carry without looking at anything else (I have a player who made a "night-one" without even knowing what it looked like...) or if he chooses the million (an all time favorite) then there's the possibility of mini-maxing (especially for the first criteria). In general these players tend to build their character so they hit the hardest (every single possible bonus is added), move the fastest (wired-reflexes level 3 anyone?) and are unintelligent, low-charisma, under-willpowered persons. After making this, they slap a story the way they can (the gm: "Where did he get all his stuff?", the player: "He killed the people who had them and stole it", gm: "I should have guessed...") and a personality ("my character doesn't like anybody, doesn't talk much and loves killing": the typical personality line for a lot of characters, sadly) because they have to.
 
    Once this has been done (usually you end up with a character with an average of 4 actions per turn in which he does 18D two times with a base difficulty of 3) the player starts, well, playing. Having probably almost no talent that doesn't involve killing people these characters (and their players) just wait until there is someone to kill, not doing anything active until then. When that moment comes it usually doesn't last long (with those 4 actions he acts before everybody, and with that 18D he kills everybody in one shot) and then the player sinks back into lethargy.
 
    You can now understand my concern: these characters are unidimensionnal (not even cardboard thick) and boring to have in play. How is it possible to make more three-dimensional? Well, quite simply, make the background before the character, keeping in mind what you want to do of course. Think about what you want to play before thinking about how hard you want him to hit, think about how your character thinks before you decide what gear he has. That way, you will end with something that is, at least, a little bit more "human" (please, none of the "my character doesn't have any feelings" shit, your playing a (meta)human being, not a computer) and who have done something with his life before shadowrunning.
 
    Another thing: try to vary the character's personality. Some people just seem to able to play one type of personality (usually one of those "Rambo" types...) but make multiple characters (I've even seen people doing multiple characters with the same name, go figure). Variation is fun! Try it, you'll like it!

    All in all, what I ask for is characters with possible personality, that have not been made to kill the fastest way possible but to have a life of their own. When everybody will do this, role-playing will be more fun than ever... 1