And even if that works, it does not mean the rest of the group will not break up for IC reasons. Most of my characters would not like to work with people who shot their teammates in the face on suspicion.

True and true, although I tend run "character pools" because steady "Shadow Teams" streches my suspensive of disbelief in a Pink Mohawk world and I make it clear to everyone beforehand that I run an extremely ammoral no holds barred game where PvP is a very real possiblity. Thus far, I've actually found PvP to be relatively rare.

For those saying no to the Shapeshifers... Why not? If it's for background reasons, require anyone who plays it automatically takes the Hunted negative quality. One for the fur, one for the 'potential genetech' research. Think of the bounties on the character. Enemies go from group enemies, pissed corp sec, enemy runner teams, to include bounty hunters and humanis policlubs. My shifter was a phys ad, hunted, computer illiterate, and a few other things. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

It is not a balance problem but has to do with the fact that in SR shapeshifters are unusually intelligent animals that can sometimes look like humans. This is exceedingly difficult to roleplay so a lot of GM forbid them.
Additionally sometthing as conspicuous as a shapeshifter does not fit well into a shadowrun team or the community in general. A lot of criminals would simply whack the shapeshifter over the head and sell him, as soon as he is identified. Assensing does that.

Precisely, something like an SR shapeshifter is going to have a highly inhuman mentality, roleplaying them is difficult, this is why I only allow them for players I know can handle the stretch and put together a full write up on the potential character. Even then it isn't a sure thing.

I'm dancing in unison with DakkaDakka
Shapeshifter are Animals ,and its very difficult (for me personally too difficult) to play them correctly
Its also very difficult to explain,why an animal stays in a Megaplex and keeps on Running,when its natural habitat is outside
and third but maybe the biggest Point. I've so far only once encountered a SS Player that didn't use his Char as a Powergamer (but I must admit that my last experience with Shapeshifter was in SR3 I think they're not so "mighty" anymore in SR4A)

Hough !
Medicineman

Generally speaking most of the alternate character concepts don't lend themselves to a team-based game.

They've been depowered, but not as significantly as some people think in my opinion...

Yeah, I can see some of the RP issues being prohibitive. They aren't _too_ powerful comparatively. What dropped me was a Toxic Shaman casting a Toxic Fireball. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) Body at three and Mystic armor at four... Yeah-No. Bounty hunters were always going after me, and soon they were using silver-powdered gloves/cyber fists, silver bullets, and silver lined swords. My regen was useless. Especially[GMs, feel free to use this] a silver powder EM grenade. Basically replace a portion of the aluminum slivers with silver slivers. Yeah, that hurt. Anywho. Basically have to try for a more basic[not primitive] mindset, and go for them being at least a few years old, so they have some experience and knowledge with humans prior to gameplay.

A race is a race. It's not a personality archetype. Yes, many shapeshifters will have trouble adapting to a metahuman lifestyle, but not all of them will. Some will even embrace it. The notable shapeshifters listed in the Runner's Companion even demonstrate some of these. Ulric is even noted as being a very capable field commander, which is something bears aren't exactly known for. Yes, shapeshifters are Awakened animals, but they do have metahuman intellects and are fully capable of adapting to metahuman society.

It's absurd to say othewise, and even more absurd to say things like "play them right." Or, what, playing a Troll Face who's smooth, intelligent, and sophisticated is playing a Troll wrong? Because they're all supposed to be socially-inept and mentally-retarded outcasts? Same exact difference.

Well, Doc, it's not always how a guy acts, but how he reacts. In other words, you can choose how you interact with the world, but you can't choose how the world interacts with you. So, if a Smooth Troll Face acted like he'd never received any sort of discrimination, I'd not believe it. Though I do agree with you that shapeshifters aren't just animals, they're animals which turn into people. Why wouldn't they be curious to see how people live? A good RPer can explain the whys and make it work.

There is a fundamental difference between something that is metahuman and something that is not metahuman, soemthing that thinks in human terms and thinks in animalistic terms, that's not to say that a shifter couldn't learn otherwise but their nurture enviroment is going to predispose them to think in another way. In particular your citing the example of a person who is General officer equivalent implying he's been around and doing that for many many years not someone fresh out of the treeline.

Shapeshifters have language, can reason, can tool-use. Just think with that little reptilian brain near the back of your skull and you're good to go.

It's a good thing new characters in Shadowrun aren't "fresh out of the threeline." Characters start off as experienced, fully realized characters and people. Hell, most of my regular characters are usually in their 30s or 40s when I start a new game, and I've played a senile old man (inspired by Chiun from The Destroyer) before, too. So yes, my citing of a person who is a general is equivalent to a player character if they've been active and living in metahuman society for some time.

As mentioned, there's a difference between acting and reacting. A player with a shapeshifter character can be so human as to fool anyone if that's the type of character he is, but if someone finds out who he really is there'll be consequences and reactions to deal with. Yes, a shapeshifter will often have some quirks associated with their animal instincts, but those can be as minor as any other metahuman's quirks or as obvious as the player wants to make 'em.

Again: A race is not a personality archetype or stereotypes. At all. No more than all dwarves have to be surly miners who hate elves, or all orks have to be street punks who are way too into the Orxploitation movement. If you're going to hold all shapeshifter character to one stereotype, you damn well hold all characters to their associated stereotypes, too.

(Oh, and when/if you reply, be sure to tell us how your best friend is a shapeshifter. Racism, as a person, is awesome. Even when talking about fictional characters.)

A race could very well affect personality when the character in question is not actually a person! Wern't you the one bitching just a little while ago that shifter characters put signifigant point drains on them without an efficient benefit for their powers? That right there implies assuming all else being equal a shifter character is going to have less skills and resources then a likewise built human mundane. Yet for some reason you want to say that a starting shifter is directly equivalent to a shifter that has literally risen as high as he can possibly go within his particular paramilitary organization. An organization which would presumably feature other awakened and metahumans. You can compare your runners or play them however you like, but your example your trying to pass off as typical is leterally A-typical by the books on wording.

shifters are both sentient and sapient, I fail to see the distinction you're trying to draw.

[edit]claiming alien intelligence is one thing; but most roleplaying games presuppose the ability to play a wide variety of alien intelligences, and GMs are expected to routinely do so even in this game. (see: elves in this and that other game, vampires, supernatural beings in general, otaku/technomancers, dragons, etc.)

What the Hell are you on about?

Pay attention to this part because it's about to blow your mind (apparently): Shadowrunners are atypical characters! Most people have issues about commiting murder, breaking into top secret facilities, pissing off corporate security forces, and flaunting the law. Are you going to go on a bitchfest about how they're not acting like typical metahumans? If not, why the Hell are you doing it with shapeshifter characters?!?

As I've said twice now: A race is not a personality profile. No matter what racist bullshit you have stuck in your head. Not all white people are trailer trash rednecks. Not all black people like eating fried chicken with hot sauce. Not all Asians are mathematical whizkids. Not all Amerinds are expert trackers. And not all shapeshifters are raving, bestial critters just barely holding on to a semblence of sentience and sanity. Some -- just like some of the ones listed in the fraggin' books -- are well-adjusted, relativey normal individuals. They just happen to have been born as an animal. That's what they are, not who they are.

And as I've also said before: If you're going to stick to this pigheaded and blatantly ignorant view, you should be doing the same thing for every other character race in the game. Just remind me to never play in a game with you, cause I'll be pretty pissed if someone tries telling me how my character should act and behave. Especially if it's as one-dimensional and painfully ridiculous as the one you're trying to paint for shapeshifters.

Heres a whacky idea- I would bet that the shapeshifters that come "out of the treeline" are the ones that have some affinity with metahumanity and want to interact with it... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

My objection to shifter PCs is more so that they (like drakes, AI's, Free Spirits, sentient paracritters, infected and even technomancers or characters with certain Qualities like high level enemies or amnesia) come with significant character and game world related baggage that tends to detract from a team-oriented game and monopolize the GMs time and energy. They are fine for solo games, if the GM wants to deal with them, but in a team-oriented game the GM is forced to either address these issues (at the expense of the rest of the group) or ignore them (AKA give the shifter PC a pass on significant drawbacks of the character type). This is not to say that a creative GM could not use one character as a plot hook to engage the whole team, but its just generally not something I want to deal with.

But I should point out that despite this I have never barred shifters from any game (I've only ever had one, in an SR3 game).

@Method-- My GM would always send a few bounty hunters[out of the sample characters pages with a few differences] with added karma to match us in power to _augment_ the capabilities and strength of what we were already facing in the normal campaign. Didn't help that my fox was a combat monster.

setting aside that SR3 shifters dominated most tables by virtue of having a legitimately broken statline, the issues with corporeal, sentient and sapient, living creatures (Shifters, Drakes, some Infected, Technomancers, etc.) aren't particularly more difficult to deal with than the racism against your run of the mill 5 metatypes.*

if your table mostly avoids dealing with racism beyond the occasional humanis screamsheet headline then it may seem to be more of a burden; but when you consider that the typical shadowrunner is a misfit socially if not physically, adding some physical misfits into the mix doesn't really burden the game that much more, they just get hated for different reasons.


*indeed, some of the specialist types in SR4 appear to be *more* accepted in many plexes than a troll would be in say, Neotokyo; or than trolls/orks were treated generally in older editions.

Man, if a guy is excited enough about playing a certain character type, I'll work anything into a game. For some people, it takes a specific thing to get them interested and keep them involved in a game, so, whatever that may be, I am gonna hook that in like it's my duty. Of course, I'm driving this buggy, but if there's call to make stops in Functionally-Impaired-Character Town I'll detour so long as it's not too far out of the way.

For a guy who preaches often and unabashedly about freeing ones mind from established norms I think it's you and not me that's stuck. The material has stated shifter thought processes and mentalities are different from that of a human, that means as much as you decide to have a coronary about it there is literally no baseline in real life for comparison. For the record the same could be said for free spirits, AI's and anything else in the setting that doesn't start out or is templated as metahuman. To put it in plain english in order to be racist shifters would have to be of the same race as humans or within the conventions of shadowrun humans, but actually if I'm guilty of anything I guess to be properly accurate (as much as can be said in the context of theoretical game characters) species-est. The game material makes the point of stating that shifters, AI and free spirits are not metahuman and by a large don't think in many of the same terms they do. That's not to say that they might not fit in with society, especially in the loose context of a runner group but what the original objection is so few people even want to try and get it right. But rather then do that or explore the possible difference you'd rather take the lazy route 'My shifter thinks exactly like a human being and is indistinguishable because don't you know that's so unique"

On the positive side under 4th edition with shifters finally being not quite so rediculous at least you migth believe the guy who tells you he wants to play one for the roleplaying aspects.

So you're saying that in your game having a dude that can turn into a dracoform is of no more consequence than troll being in the wrong part of town? Interesting. At any rate I'm not just talking about racism. IMG trolls aren't actively hunted down to be captured or killed by any number of factions, but thats just me. Plus metahuman racism is all well and good, but when every character is subject to a different flavor of "racism" the game can quickly degenerate into trying to figure out who can go where and do what based upon who hates them the least or who's hunting them or all kinds of other shit. Personally, I don't enjoy that kind of game, but then metahuman racism isn't a center piece in my campaign- its a background element.

And I will say again that in a solo game or adventure these characters are fine. They might also work in certain specialized games or with certain play styles. But to restate my original point *generally speaking* alternate character concepts don't lend themselves to your standard team-oriented game.

well, I did say 'particularly' -> it's more difficult but in a general way: the negative reaction to the exotic metatypes/alternate races will tend to be more immediately physical and more present, but when it comes to the typical run of the mill activity: How many runners are really out and about in public that often if they're not the face?

necessarily a dracoform isn't likely to live in a normal neighborhood, but neither is a typical street sam with 0.1 essence.

Keep in mind that in order to avoid becoming entangled in one's clothing (if new_body < armor value -> take [armor] damage and become entangled, if new_body > armor -> destroyed armor)* a drake would have to be naked (or nearly naked). When they shift back they'll be naked anyway.

*Based on a response I got from Tyger Eyes about what happens to worn items when a shifter shifts.