Next time you GM, ask your runners the following question: “So, what are you good at?”. Odds are you’ve receive some mundane response such as ‘magic’, ‘shooting people’, ‘rigging’, ‘decking’, ‘running the shadows’, etc. While these responses may be fairly accurate on an individual basis, they tend to reveal a lack of serious direction that effects many PC archetypes.

For instance, a magician may have the goal of making himself the best darn magician he can possibly be. Perhaps he’ll even choose a main area of study, such as manipulation spells, and he’ll muscle up in that category more than others. He’ll get all the neat spells like Light Ray, Wall Of Fire, Turn Beer Into Piss, etc. and, eventually, turn himself into a fearsome example of what not to mess with in the shadows. But, even after he does all of this, you can probably ask him the same “So, what are you good at?” question, and he’ll still respond with something like ‘magical manipulation’.

Boring. Probably as much for the player as it is for the GM. Sure, the PC has a job and a personal specialty, with it’s as ambiguous as identifying an F-16 fighterpilot simply as ‘pilot’. What, exactly, does the magician do with his skills? Why does he learn one particular skill instead of another? Often, the magician won’t know, similar to the way a Sammy won’t really know the precise reason he just bought that M22A2, other than the fact that it’s got the nifty integral grenade launcher.

Many players attempt to escape this process of ‘directionless professionalism’ by working together to create entire shadowrun groups based on a particular job, such as DocWagon Response Team, Rocker Band, etc. This seems to work OK is some places, but many feel that pre-determining such a stringent professional category often leads to frustration and conflict as 5 different people try to create 5 similar - but not too similar - PCs designed to do 5 different sub-jobs while still trying to integrate personal interests into the whole mess.

Sometimes it’s easier to let the runners create a general shadowrun group, and then just nudge them in the direction of a particular profession that’s broad enough to encompass all of their talents, while not restricting their initial character creation options. When the GM sees his or her chance, they gently guide the group into a possible area of specialty while, at the same time, giving them the room they need to back out if the runners discover it’s something they’re not really into. One example of a possible specialty: Weapons Of Mass Destruction.

So the runners take on a WMD run and, either through smarts or good luck, they manage to get through it without a hitch. Perhaps Runner A successfully used his minuscule electronics skill to defuse some kind of nuke, Runner B used her decking skills to create an on the spot program to keep the fuse mechanism occupied, and Runner C stood on standby, just in case his levitation skills might have been needed in order to get rid of the bomb had Runners A and/or B screwed up. So the runners get back together with Mr. J, explain how well things went, when - wow, talk about your breaks - another WMD run is available the next week. Even though the concept of playing around with objects that could kill 10,000,00 people in an instant makes the runners a bit nervous they figure, hey, the last run went well, so why not try another?

So over the next few days they decide to read up on nukes, perhaps formulate a spell or two designed to contain radiation, pick up a microtronics toolkit designed by a bomb squad, and blow a few karma points on improving their electronics skills. The next run comes around and, with their new knowledge, the runners handle this one even better than the last. As time passes, the complexity of these runs - and amount of pay received for completing them - increases substantially. The runners invest this cash in cyberware designed to pick up the smallest of radiation leaks, programs that circumvent timers, and drones designed to defuse bombs from a distance. Soon Johnson’s from other countries are contacting the runners’ own Mr. J, asking for support. Finally, it becomes known in the shadows that if you’ve got a problem with WMDs, you contact this group of runners and nobody else. After all, WMDs is their specialty.

A WMD profession would provide for all the traditional shadowrun activities - breaking into stuff, kidnapping, moving shipments, etc. - but would also give the runners an idea as to how they should develop their skills, talents, and abilities. When they sit down to decide what part of themselves they’d like to develop, the answers will come much easier because they have something to focus on. If, eventually, the runners get tired of their particular area of expertise, they may choose something else along similar lines or move onto something completely different.

Having a specialty makes the lives of both the GM and the players much easier by giving them something to shoot for. The game, and the PC’s lives, finally have direction.