Role

Teams of shadowrunners tend to comprise of members with vastly different areas of expertise. While some teams come together for a specific job, those that last are the ones that cover as many bases as possible, and choose their missions to match their strengths. As such, part of your character concept should include which role you would like for them to fill in the team.

Some characters can fill multiple roles at the same time, while others can be specific enough to share their role with another. If you're having trouble choosing, check with the other players and see if there's any notably missing roles or niches you could fill. Of course, don't feel forced to do something you don't want - it's better to double up on a role than to play a character you don't enjoy!

Face

The smooth talker, the negotiator, the conmaster, or the bait. The Face is the person you want people outside your team to see and to talk to, so that the Face can play them like a fiddle. The Face's responsibilities include, but are not limited to, haggling with Mr. Johnson to maximize pay, find contacts with insider intel during legwork, and talking themselves and the team into places that others wouldn't want them to enter.

Of course, every Face knows that words don't always work, and few runners leave their house without a trusty pistol, even if they never plan to use it.

Street Samurai

Whether guns, hand-cannons, or good old fashioned swords, a Street Samurai is a master of destruction. When you're surrounded by gangsters, corpsec, or law enforcement, the Street Sam is who you want up front. Most Street Samurai are kitted out with heavy weaponry, body armour (or all-natural troll hide), and enough cyberware or bioware to keep an entire bodymod clinic afloat.

Of course, no runner has to act tough all the time, and even the toughest Street Sam needs to let someone through his tough shell sometimes.

Rigger

For some people, having a fancy ride isn't enough. Riggers are drivers, but they're also so much more. Flying a surveillance drone for reconnaissance, controlling an assault drone to provide covering fire, and occasionally repairing all the bulletholes that end up the rest of the team's gear. A Rigger is an artist of machinery, with all the gear and expertise that comes with it.

And yes, of course they have a fancy car. No, you can't "take it for a spin".

Mage

Between throwing a fireball, summoning a spirit of the storm, and healing a wound with a touch, there's little that magic can't do in the Sixth World. A Mage is a wildcard in any team, able to specialize in any of a dozen different fields - from offensive spells, to illusions, to summoning spirits, to astral reconnaissance. Some treat it like science, others as an art, and others yet as religion. Defining your perspective on magic is no less important than defining your actual spells.

Of course, magic always comes at a cost, and while the occasional nosebleed isn't too bad, every Mage either knows their limits, or dies in an attempt to find them.

Adept

Not quite a mage, not quite mundane, an Adept uses mana to enhance their body and mind, making their natural abilities into supernatural talents. Between supernatural reflexes, the ability to run up walls, and the strength to punch through concrete, an Adept symbolizes the peak of what metahunity can achieve without the aid of technology.

Decker

Putting the cyber in cyberpunk, a Decker is a citizen of the Matrix as much as they're a resident in their own home. A Decker's job is to hack into computers, comms, cameras, and servers - extracting data, deleting data, modifying data, or whatever else the team needs. Breaking into a secure compound is much easier when none of the doors are locked and all the security footage is looping on an empty corridor.

And if worst comes to pass, turning that guard's smartgun into a brick is always a neat trick.

To create a Decker, you must take a Cyberdeck as one of your Assets.

Technomancer

Where a Decker dives into the Matrix, a Technomancer breathes it. Where a Decker hacks the Matrix, a Technomancer weaves it. A Technomancer is a person with the innate, and as of yet not-understood, ability to access the Matrix with their mind - no deck of commlink required. This lets them fiddle with things in ways that most Deckers can only dream of, but at a cost - if a skilled Decker can brick any device on the matrix, and a Technomancer's brain can connect to the Matrix like any device, then....

Metatype

Metatype

Lifestyle

Lifestyle

Aspects

The meat and bones of a character, Aspects describe their various... aspects.

In general, an Aspect is a short phrase that describes something that's true about the character. Aspects define your character's narrative capabilities and place within the story, while providing a mechanical anchor for those descriptions. It's recommended to have one of your Aspect describe why your character is a shadowrunner, what their motivation is, or what's trapping them in the shadows.

Each character has five Aspect slots, three of which have special purpose:

High Concept

Your character's High Concept embodies their core essence, typically describing their personality, role, and maybe a some special quirk.

Trouble

Your character's Trouble is a part of their personality, identity, or otherwise something about them that somehow always ends up getting them into trouble and drama.

Drive

Your character's Drive describes why they're a shadowrunner. Few people this way of life as their first option, so you should think about how your character ended up here.

Some common reasons include doing it to provide for their family, to care for the members in their community, trying to stick it to the man in the name of the little guy, an attempt to grasp at infamy and glory, or simply being an adrenaline junky.

Bond

Your Bond aspect describes your character's relationship with another character. This can either be to another player character, the crew as a whole, or an NPC that's central to your character's identity.

When writing an Aspect about another player character, work with the other player to discuss how their character percieves the relationship. When writing an Aspect about an NPC, work with the GM to define them.

Free

In addition to the above three Aspect, your character has a free Aspect slot that can contain anything else the player chooses. This can be positive, negative, or a mix of the two.

You don't have to fill in your free Aspect during character creation, you may leave it blank and figure out what to write in it later.

The Ladder

Many things in Fate have a numerical rating that describes their scale, level, or other degree of power or importance. Fate uses both numbers and adjectives to refer to levels on the ladder, as follows:

Attributes

Assign the following scores to the skills and approaches, in any order:

• Skills: one Good (+3), one Fair (+2), two Average (+1), two Mediore (+0), and one Poor (-1)
• Approaches: one Fair (+2), one Average (+1), two Mediocre (+0), and one Poor (-1)

The attributes are as follows:

Skills

• Crack is used to break or dismantle things. Example uses include demolishing a wall, cracking an encrypted file, or dispelling a spell.
• Create is used to build, fix, or summon things. Example uses include jury-rigging a weapon, repairing a bricked cyberdeck, conjuring a magic ward, or summoning a spirit or sprite.
• Endure is used to resist things that would harm or impede you. Example uses include persevering through your wounds, resisting mental manipulation (magical or otherwise), and holding your ground all despite attempts to move you.
• Fight is used to attack and avoid getting hit. Example uses include firing a gun, swinging a sword, slinging malicious code, and casting an offensive spell.
• Know is used to learn or recall information. Example uses include Identifying an unknown object, knowing the right guy, and searching the Matrix for a given topic.
• Move is used to get places. Example uses include running, climbing, sneaking around, and exploring in both the astral plane and cyberspace.
• Sway is used to get people to do or think what you want. Example uses include negotiating, lying, intimidating, and using mental magics.

Approaches

• Careful is used when you pay close attention to detail and take the time to do something right. Examples include meticulously performing a long ritual, lining up a long-range shot, and carefully prying apart a server's firewall to avoid tripping an alarm.
  
• Flashy is used when you do something that draws people's attention. Example uses include making a loud distraction, flaunting your wealth to bribe someone, and embarassing the opposition by how awesome you look compared to them.
• Forceful is used when you take the direct approach, throwing caution to the wind with no holding back. Example uses include wrestling a troll, chucking a fireball, and powering through a rain of bullets.
• Quick is used when you act with agility and precision, with no time to think. Example uses include suddenly ducking behind cover, cracking encryption on a file now, or summoning a spirit in the heat of combat.
• Sneaky is used when you do something deceptively or secretly, trying to avoid notice. Examples include silently hacking open a lock, scouting a place in astral space, or bluffing your way into a secure compound.
  

Rolls

Fate uses dice called Fate Dice or Fudge Dice, which are a special d6 with two sides showing a + sign, two sides showing a - sign, and two blank sides. Every roll consists of rolling 4 fate dice (abbreviated 4df or 4dF in many dice rolling apps), counting the number of dice showing + and subtracting the number of dice showing a -. Roll totals are labelled according to The Ladder, like skills.

Whenever you make a roll, you add the value of the most relevant skill and approach. If there's more than one skill or more than one approach that could potentially apply to the roll, the GM decides.

NPCs and inanimate objects typically use simpler skill lists than player characters, and the GM may choose not to roll for them and instead automatically take their skill value as their result. This is mainly done to save on time at the table, though it should be avoided for particularly dramatic rolls and major villains.

Outcomes

Whenever you attempt something dramatic, with stakes riding on your success or failure, that is resolved as an action, which typically requires a roll of the dice.

Each action has a difficulty set by the GM, and they will usually tell you what it is before rolling. The difficulty is usually Fair (+2) for the standard dramatic but not exceedingly difficult task. The difficulty may be lowered to Mediocre (+0) if the task is relatively simple and there's no major obstacles or distractions, or raised to Great (+4) or higher if the task is particularly difficult or there are serious distractions.

If the action is resisted by another character, whether a PC or an NPC, compare your roll to your opponent's, instead of to a static difficulty.

• If the roll total is lower than the difficulty, the action fails.
• If the roll total is equal to the difficulty, the action ties.
• If the roll total is greater than the difficulty, the action succeeds.
• If the roll total is greater than the difficulty by three or more, the action succeeds with style.

Actions

Now that you know what the character is trying to do and how to figure out whether or not they succeeded, it's time to figure out how to represent the action in the game's mechanics. Fate has four actions that cover anything a character tries to do in the story:

Create an Advantage

Creating an advantage represents any action you take in an attempt to help yourself or one of your friends in the future. Taking a moment to carefully aim a shot, tripping the cop who's threatening to arrest you and your friends, spending an evening poring over ancient forums to find a spell formula, or bribing a guard to let you into the gala later that night, are all actions that would be represented with Create an Advantage.

When creating an advantage, you can either try to create a new Aspect in the current scene, or try to press an advantage on an existing Aspect.

• If you fail: if attempting to create a new Aspect, either you don't create the Aspect you intended, or you create the Aspect but your opponents get a free invoke on it. If attempting to press an advantage on an existing Aspect, you get no benefit, though may continue using the Aspect by spending Fate Points (see below).
• If you tie: if attempting to create a new Aspect, you get a Boost instead. You can invoke the Boost once for free, then it goes away. If trying to press an advantage, treat this as a success.
• If you succeed: you create a new Aspect with a single Free Invoke, or add one Free Invoke to an existing Aspect.
  
• If you succeed with style: you create a new Aspect with two Free Invokes, or add two Free Invokes to an existing Aspect.
  

Overcome

You use the Overcome action when you're trying to get past something that's blocking you from achieving your goals. Picking a lock, leaping up to a balcony, and sneaking past an alert guard are all overcome rolls. Trying to eliminate or change an inconvenient situation Aspect is often an overcome action as well.

• If you fail: you have a tough choice to make. You can choose to simply fail- the lock stays locked, the watching guard notices you. Or you can succeed at a major cost- maybe you drop something valuable, or bigger trouble is coming soon, or you suffer harm. Decide with the GM what the cost of failure is.
  
• If you tie: you attain your goal, but at a minor cost. A minor complication is introduced, or the scope or degree of your action is more limited than you intended. Decide with the GM what the minor cost is.
  
• If you succeed: You accomplish what you were trying to do. The lock is open, you land safely on the balcony, or you make it past the guard unnoticed.
  
• If you succeed with style: As a success, but you also gain a Boost.
  

Attack

Use an attack when you try to hurt someone, whether physically or mentally. Swinging a sword, shooting a bolt of flame, or commanding a truck into someone. The primary purpose of an attack action is to cause damage and Stress, with the end goal of inflicting Consequences on the target or taking them out of the scene altogether.

• If you fail: your attack doesn't connect. Your stab is parried, your fire is dodged, the target jumps out of your way.
  
• If you tie: your attack doesn't connect strongly enough to harm, but you can use its momentum to aid you in the future. You don't inflict any Stress, but you gain a Boost.
  
• If you succeed: your attack hits and you cause Stress (see below)
  
• If you succeed with style: as a success, plus you have the option to reduce the damage your hit causes by one to gain a Boost.
  

Defend

When you try to actively stop someone from doing something, whether that something is Creating an Advantage, Overcoming an obstacle, or Attacking you or someone else. This is the only action that is performed during another character's turn, and typically only a single character may actively defend against an action.

• If you fail: the target succeeds in their action, though if it was an Attack that targetted someone else, you may choose for it to target you instead.
  
• If you tie or succeed: the target doesn't entirely get what they want, resolve the effect according to the original action (i.e. its tie or failure effect)
  
• If you succeed with style: as a success, plus you get a Boost.
  

Fate Points

Fate Points are a tool players get to take the reins of the plot and the fate of their characters into their own hands, and away from the mischievous dice. At the start of the game, each player gets three Fate Points. If at the start of a session you have fewer than that, you refresh back to three points. If you finished the previous session with more than three points stocked up, you don't lose the excess.

At the start of each scene, the GM gets a number of Fate Points equal to the number of players participating in the scene. These may be used for any NPC or object in the scene, much like a player can use theirs, though they are lost at the end of the scene if they go unused.

Fate Points can be used in two main ways:

Invoking an Aspect

Sometimes you make a roll and aren't satisfied with the results. If your street sam has an Aspect "reflex enhancers", it wouldn't make sense for the average guard to out-draw them because of a die roll, right?

Whenever you or someone else makes a roll, you may spend a Fate Point to Invoke an Aspect relevant to the action in order to either get +2 to the roll or reroll all the dice.

Free Invokes and Boosts

Instead of spending a Fate Point whenever you want to invoke an Aspect, you can use the Create an Advantage action to generate free invokes. A free invoke can be used to invoke an Aspect just like a Fate Point.

Boosts are a special type of free invoke, that aren't tied to an individual Aspect. You usually gain a Boost when rolling a Tie or Success with Style. Boosts are a brief opportunity that your character has to gain momentum in the scene, and typically vanish within a turn or two if gone unused. A Boost may otherwise be used like any other free invoke.

Compelling an Aspect

Every character has positive and negative Aspects, and if your character's Trouble is "I drunkenly stumble back and forth on the line between courage and stupidity", you probably want to get some compensation when your drinking habits get you into trouble.

At any time, any player (including the GM) may offer another player a Fate Point and suggest a course of action that follows from one of the character's Aspects. The player receiving the compel may accept, in which case they get the Fate Point and narrate their character following the course of action, or they may refuse the compel by paying a Fate Point to whoever suggested the compel.

A player may also suggest a self-compel, where they suggest a course of action for their character that would get themselves in trouble. If the GM accepts the self compel, the player gets a Fate Point for their trouble. Of course, if the GM refuses, the player may still act as they suggested, they simply don't get the Fate Point.

A player who doesn't have any Fate Points must accept a compel, since they can't pay to refuse it.

Damage, Conditions, and Recovery

Damage, Conditions, and Recovery

Assets

After you have Attributes to define your character's core competencies and Aspects to describe them narratively, Assets help fill the gaps and make your character truly unique. There are several types of Assets: Stunts which describe what you can do, Gear which describe what you own, Contacts which describe who you know, Powers to describe yousupernatural abilities, and Critters to describe your minions.

You can invoke and compel an Aspect that's attached to an Asset like you could any other, and you can mark and recover their Conditions like you could your own.

At character creation, you get one Asset Point's worth of Contacts, and four Asset points to spend however you want. If you want more Assets, you can reduce your initial Refresh to purchase additional Asset Points on a 1-for-1 basis.

Stunts

A stunt is a unique trick or technique that your character can perform, which lets you bend the rules of the game in one way or another. Stunts are incredibly varied in the benefits and limitations they can provide. In general, a stunt typically follows the following formula:

• [Stunt name]: Because I [describe a way your character is cool or interesting], I can [describe a benefit] when [describe a limit or condition].

A stunt's benefits can be either narrative or mechanical, and should be approximately equal in value to a two Fate Points or a total of +4 bonus a rolls per session. The benefit can be larger if a Stunt is likely to see frequent use, and it should be weaker or carry an additional cost if it's likely to come up very frequently.

You can find many examples of stunts in the Sixth World Assets Library, with a few examples listed here:

• Photographic Memory: Because my eyes are like a camera, I get +2 to Know rolls to remember or recognize something I've seen before.
  
• I Know a Guy: Because I'm always collecting contacts, I can spend a Fate Point to create a temporary Contact (see below) for a scene. I can't accrue debts with this temporary contact.
• Market Expert: Because I know everyone and everything in the business world, I can roll Know when trying to obtain a rare or illegal item, instead of Sway.
• Incredible Reflexes: Because I have supernaturally quick reflexes, once per scene, I can automatically succeed when Defending a against a single physical attack.
• Situational Awareness: Because I'm always alert, I can always act first in a fight scene, unless there's some extraneous circumstances.
• Riposte: Because I'm a master duelist, when I succeed with style on a defense roll by parrying an attack with my sword, I can forgo the normal boost to automatically inflict a 1-Stress hit to my attacker.
• Whirlwind: Because I'm a tornado of deadly steel, once per scene I can Quickly Fight to attack every character in my zone.
  

Gear

Typically, a character is assumed to have basic equipment that's relevant to their occupation as a runner: a handgun, a commlink, few fake IDs, some cash, maybe a bike, and so on. But sometimes a piece of gear is central enough to a character that it warrants being a permanent part of their character sheet, which we'll denote as capital-G Gear.

Many characters will want Gear that represents Weapons and Armour, or Cyberware and Bioware. Deckers are required to take a Cyberdeck, an may also want some Programs.

A piece of Gear has the following properties:

• An Aspect that defines the Gear's function, something like "my trusty Ares handgun", or "infravision-enabled cybereyes"
• A Lasting Condition to describe the Gear being broken or out of commission, such as Broken, Bricked, or Out of Ammo
• One of the following:
  • A 2-box Current Condition signifying the Gear being damaged, typically used for items like Armour or a Cyberdeck which you expect to take a hit for you
  • A Minor Stunt representing a unique action the gear lets you perform. This should either be +1 to actions in a specific circumstance, or a special ability you can use once per session. You can represent the usage of this ability on your sheet with a Special Consequence. This ability should be weaker or more limited than a standalone Stunt.
    

Contacts

No one gets by in the shadows on their own, and even if they aren't personal friends, Contacts are an invaluable asset in the Sixth World. Contacts don't accompany you on runs, but they can help you between runs - a fixer will help you get in touch with whoever you need, an arms dealer can get you sweet guns, a streetdoc can patch you up, a hacker can help with legwork, and so on.

A Contact costs half an Asset point, and has:

• An Aspect that defines the Contact's role or relation to the character, such as "shady fixer", "talismonger and weekly drinking buddy", or "streetdoc who saved my life more times than I want to admit"
• Two Conditions:
  
  • Debt (Special) - You can mark debt to call in a favour, or to gain +2 to a roll with the Contact's help. They won't help you again until you pay off the debt, either by doing them a favour in return or by paying a hefty sum of money.
    
  • Credit (Special) - The opposite of the Debt condition. When you do the Contact a favour and aren't already indebted to them, you can mark this condition. You may then clear this condition instead of marking Debt.

Critters

While a Contact helps you in downtime or legwork, a Critter can join you on runs and can even fight alongside you. The most common types of Critters are spirits, sprites, and drones, which all use similar base rules.

During your turn in a fight scene, you can direct a Critter to act instead of you. They share your Approaches. If a Critter takes a hit, you must absorb using any combination of its Conditions and your own.

At base, a Critter costs one Asset point and has the following features:

• An Aspect that defines its general identity, such as "playful fire spirit", "an animate blob of bugs and malware" or "quad-copter with every type of sensor known to man"
• One skill at Fair (+2), the rest at Mediocre (+0)
• Either a Stunt representing a special ability or specialization the Critter possesses, or a second skill at Fair (+2).
• A Lasting Condition to describe the Critter being out of service. This is typically Banished for spirits, Corrupted for sprites, or Broken for drones
• A Special Condition signifying something about the Critter's current state. This is typically Physical for spirits, Loaded for sprites, or Jumped In for drones

Whenever you take a Stunt, you can choose for it to apply to one of your Critters instead of to you.

Powers

Mages, adepts, and technomancers each have their own sorts of unique supernatural abilities, detailed in Spells, Adept Powers and Technomancer Assets respectively. They also require taking specific Archetype Stunts, as described above.

Some powers require you to exert yourself in order to activate them. When a power says that you must or can Drain, mark a physical condition. For example, the Levitate spell can usually lift a human-sized object, and lets you accept Drain in order to lift something larger. Meanwhile a Technomancer's Cleaner power requires you to Drain in order to use it at all.