Help - Bored!
I think I'm doing something wrong!

'I get that character's are supposed to have goals but I am having a hard time with this. So far it has been simply to become "really god at doing X". This is a terrible goal as, based on my limited knowledge of the game, the only way to get better at X is to accumulate UE and stay alive. That just isn't fun. '

It is a terrible goal if you aim to merely have a certain descriptor on your stat sheet.

The reality of it is that skill level isn't the only thing that matters. It varies based on your craft - a good skill is much more relevant in some disciplines than in others - but being able to think outside of the box and leverage your services tends to be much more important. You can have all the UE in the world in a skill, if your character isn't applying themself then they might not be that attractive to work with over another.

My advise is to do yourself a favour and not immediately 'do-over'. If you're not happy with where you are, come up with an excuse and look for an IC reason to push your character in a new direction. Give them ambition. Get them out of their bubble. Being good at something doesn't mean anything if you can't take advantage of it and use it to stir up some RP. Look at this way; the worst thing that can happen if you start taking risks now is that your character dies, but that's inevitable anyway if you would otherwise just make a new character.

This will let you play with a character that already has some skills, but moreover it will let you see more aspects of the game. This will give you a better idea of what you enjoy and what you want to do with future characters, rather than jumping into a new character before you really even know what you're going to enjoy.

Where does your imagination stop?

A Decker might break into the systems that control the very operations of the Dome.

A chemist might start a drug revolution from the ground up distributing their product at the club-level and developing into a sprawling empire.

A combative type could do any number of things regardless of their ability, ranging from low end grunt work to high end private contracts. They might carve their name into the history books in violence, or with integrity and dependability.

An auto-tech doesn't have to sit and wait for people to come to them. Get creative. Get a crew together and start boosting shit. Start a chop-shop.

If your career relies on fixing peoples broken shit and shit ain't breaking, get a crew together and get that shit broken or steal it outright, then enjoy that biz funnelling back to you.

It's hard to offer 'some RP opportunities for XXXX character' because the opportunities are literally endless regardless of the skills you picked and don't even have to necessarily gravitate around your skills!

There should've been some goals and interests there that you can seek out.

Expand on those and even make some new ones.

What is in your dark and secret (or not so dark but still secret) past that brings you to Withmore?

However, I decided that instead of re-rolling my character, I should try and RP more ambitiously.

Like many people mentioned above, I reviewed my character's goals and made new ones. Ones that may seem almost impossible, but the thing that's so wonderful about SD is that it's a game where almost anything is possible. So after making a goal, I started to think up ways to achieve it. On the way to achieving this goal, my character was able to bump into a lot of other characters and get sidetracked. (That's called RP) You can either:

a) Stash away your character's master plan and go along the side path until it ends and you get bored. Then, walk back to your main path and continue along with your main character's goal.

b) Continue along your path ambitiously to achieve your character's main goal.

Who knows? Maybe you'll never get to your character's goal in the end if you keep getting sidetracked, but you'll get warped up into other people's goals, having a lot of excitement while doing so.

On the way to achieving your character's big dream/goal, you may also have smaller goals planned out to help.

e.g Don't have enough money? Start planning to get the money.

When you earn your money (through RP ideally), you can proceed to part 2 of your goal.

Lacking experience or knowledge? Using your character, connect with others to get useful information and contacts. (You may need backup. Who knows?)

Don't have a goal and have no idea what to do, but you still want to RP? Ideally, you should squeeze a goal out, but if you can't. Share a goal with another character.

e.g X gets close to XB and proves his loyalty, gaining XB's trust. Now, X will help XB with achieving all his goals (like a string puppet, but you can't come up with your own goal so don't complain. When you do though, break free from the strings!).

Don't know how to start achieving your character's crazy goal? Get advice ICly from a character your character trusts. Or find out through different and more shady means that you can come up with...

Also remember: Skills/Stats do not mean everything! You can always bluff...

RP fearlessly and take risks! I mean, you're already considering re-rolling, right? So what's the worst that could happen?

Definitely, don't try to play your self. Boor-rinnng. (Speaking from experience.) Or someone too much like yourself, that is. Naturally of course every character is going to have some of their player in them, but, playing someone who's not me and is frankly intended to be not-like me in important ways pays off.

I think one symptom of this which I honestly think hampers a lot of characters in their IC progress, relationships and goal-seeking is a bleed from the player's own human decency. I see a lot of characters who won't lie, won't cheat, won't steal, won't swindle, won't employ violence or won't employ someone else who will employ violence on their behalf. I also am convinced that this tendency to try to go against theme correlates VERY strongly with player boredom.

(Cyberpunk is not about personal integrity and uncorruptibility. Someone who won't allow their character to make morally dubious choices and potentially harm or take advantage of others with their actions is NOT going to get the most out of the game.)

Dare to have your character do things you might not do in real life. Not only will the difference in progress be amazing, the difference in your rleplay and gamelay experiences will also be amazing. Fluffybunnyism isn't thrillng and isn't competitive.

See the discussion about how week-old characters are able to generate wild RP despite their coded inexperience. One doesn't even have to be a veteran player, new players have made this kind of thing happen too.