I know the magic v. cyber argument has been pretty much beaten to death around here; and that currently the general voice seems to be about 2/3 feeling that the rules favour Awakened generally, and adepts specifically.

However.

We've been running an on-line open admission long-term campaign for, what, over three years now? We were running it in SR3, we somehow managed a roughshod conversion to SR4 in mid-stream, and it still keeps on ticking. Each player gets one character and only one until PC death -- so it could well be the same character for the entire years-long life of the campaign. We've had applicants who wanted Awakened PCs and mundane PCs, roughly 2:3 ratio (mundane cybered having the edge). Of those who stayed with the game, the ratios remained close to the same -- but for full spellcasters the ratios shifted rather drastically, to approximately 1:8 against. (It's also about the same ratio against metas.) In fact, among those who fell out of the game, that ratio is almost even between mundanes and full magicians -- even though there continue to be far more mundane characters than full magicians.

If the rules favour the Awakened generally, why are we getting this result? (Note: not objecting. We were initially concerned that we would be innundated with people wanting full magicians -- but it never became an issue.) We even made extremely low ES a true social issue, strongly recommending against anything below 3 or 2.

The only reason I can think of is that we never glossed over training and skill improvement -- in fact, easily 90% of the game is "downtime". It could even be said that the entire point of the campaign is the downtime -- by design. But surely that can't explain it fully?

Slight edits to clarify.

Shadowrun is still a cyberpunk game with a dash of magic. Cybered characters are cool. Magicians on the other hand appear in every other game.

Also, most people think that magicians are physically weaker than the more mundane ones.

You could also ask yourself why in other RPGs people still rather play fighters and rogues instead of mages and clerics, who in the end will all be better and stronger than the non-magical classes.

Not everybody is a winning obsessed gamer. Some just like to play a role, and in SR, mundane characters are still viable, though the rules favor the awakened for now.

I play an awakened character, but wouldn't mind playing a cybered one either.

Also, some like to play different meta-races, though elves and trolls are stat-wise in most cases the best to play. Still, there will be people playing mere humans, dwarves and orks.

And last, this situation does not have to apply to every group. I know of another group that has four awakened characters and only one is mundane, and this people rather always create magic-capable characters for their gaming session. .

Been a lurker, first time poster, but here's my take on it.

Awakened are good at min/max, as in, if you have a thing you want to do really well, you do it. (Problem is, it's not always magic, Awakened can choose to spy, kill, infiltrate, be a face, even hack)

Most other guys can do at least 2 things passably well to get through the scenarios. At least in my experience, most missions don't require you to do any one thing for the team extremely well, at no point do you have to outfight a greater dragon, hack a rating 7 device, so if you do choose to be awakened, there's a high chance to hit downtime between the things you do well.

And more downtime = more dropped players.

Well, imo, cyberware just feels more gritty to me. Even with all the social pressure and prejudice Awakened face, it's still easy to approach such a character as someone with a special gift to be cherished and nurtured. Meanwhile, mundanes are the underdogs forced to trade in a pound o' flesh for the right to have an edge over their opponents. It may be a bit suboptimal to pass on adept powers, but it sure as hell can be fun.

Just because people acknowledge that the game can easily be broken (especially in the long run) by Awakened characters doesn't mean everyone's just itching to do so themselves.

But this would seem to imply that, with canon rules, solid GMing, and a long-term downtime-oriented campaign, no one is willing to do so themself.

Should that be a factor in determining whether something actually is broken? After all, a thought experiment is meaningless if it doesn't apply within practical experience.

Or maybe it just means Dumpshock isn't really as significant a slice of the Shadowrun playing population as you think (either in that their opinions of what's broken is incorrect, or that they don't play in that one game enough for their statistics to really matter, or some combination of the two).

I don't know. It's a statistical sample, but which way biased I have no way of knowing.

Outside Dumpshock, I've never heard the "broken" argument before.

Just curious, since this is a "downtime-oriented campaign", how much time has passed in the game in the 3+ years it's been going? Could this be why the mages that are trying to learn new spells or whip up a batch of orichalcum have sat idling in somewhat of a time warp?

Does SR4 favor the magically active so much any more?

I´m a dissonant voice on "the awakened have it better". The advantage of unlimited growth potential (initiation and magic increase) is there, but most characters will have plenty to do with their karma anyway. Magic has the best chance to break the game due to extreme dice pools, but breaking the game has little return-on-investment. And gamebreaking PCs attract unwanted attention by the GM.

Those players who do not look for breaking the game are attracted by both the unique abilities of magic (invisibility etc) and the broad spectrum of abilities mundanes can offer. Street sams have BP to spare and higher attributes, quite attractive if you don´t know where the campaign is going beforehand.

The cost of the magic attribute and magic specific skills, combined with the magic cost of cyberimplants, greatly reduces the magician's overall out-of-the-gate effectivness unless the player is able to creatively apply spells with make up for the low stats and skills (and I'm not talking about buffs). The problem being the the huge selection of spells, each with their own drain code, requires a player to keep track of a great deal more information to operate with equal general effectiveness to a cybered character. And lets not forget about spirits. Sure, everybody can remember to SPAM stunbolt in combat, but how about remembering which spirit to summon if you want Movement?

A well-played chargen legal magician with a good spell and spirit selection can be superior generalists and superior munchkins compared to cybered mundanes, but making them so takes a great deal of effort. A mundane is easier to min-max and easier to play. And you don't need a cheat sheet to tell you how much damage you take every time you use your cyberware.

But how much general talking about the game do you do outside of dumpshock? I don't go up to people at the water cooler at work as say, "So, did you hear about Emergence?"

Back in college in the gaming club it was generally accepted that awakened were more potent. Especially in freaking 3rd edition, where they kept making more rules that hurt cyberware and more that helped awakened.

In 4th I think the adpet has had a major role change. And they tend to be "broken" at non-combat things. Which makes it not so bad.

The mage however is still extremely potent, however.

Mage are harder to play. A new player wanting to be a mage has to know everything the sammy does, and then a whole extra set of rules. Getting that extra power takes even more comprehension. And it also takes more effort and thought in game. In an online game where postcount is slow that could be a problem potentially. A sammy can just keep driving along with the plot. A mage has to spend time doing stuff and juggling a bunch of balls as they go along. For example they need ot be turning foci on and off. Push through wards, send out watcher spirits to scout, set up trid phatasms to draw off an ambush etc etc etc. A mundane can "just get on with it."

Also they aren't that much better. I don't know that I would call them broken. Just expremly potent. At least until the cash and Karma really pile up.

Mages require a fair bit of micromanagement. Then-again, there are whole computer games out there that are all about the information management, and you could say similar things for drone riggers, hackers, and technomancers. As such, you'd probably want to give them to experts who understand the whole thing, or let a newbie play them with the assistance of an expert (who could potentially be the DM, although it's best to keep such interactions to cheat-sheets so they don't get too personal).

Telling a 'noob' at character generation that mages are expensive and won't have very good attributes is only going to discourage what looks like a complex process. Telling them they can use their skills and other abilities to counterbalance their weaknesses isn't going to hold much weight, as then they're just taking it on faith from you when they can see the lower attributes already.

Give them a bit of a taste of the power they have, however, and they soon start kicking ass and taking names. They very quickly learn what works and what doesn't, from my experience. I ran a game at a the UK student role-playing and war gaming nationals this year, and ended-up handing-out a couple of mage characters to some fairly new players. Even without a cheat-sheet, or even IIRC a set-in-stone spell selection, they were played fairly effectively.

A quick print-out of casting force, expected and maximum effect, and some info on expected and potential drain damage, is definitely a good idea for any caster who hasn't committed all of the stats to memory, however. Not that you need to remember all the stats, but do remember that some people (particularly some role-players I've known) just have really good memories.

Just because you can do something doesn't mean you will.

As a point of clarification, it isn't keeping the mage types away. We've got several very active ones. It's just that we were expecting to be innuncated with magician types and weren't -- and that about the same number of magicians and mundanes dropped out, even though we had far fewer magicians to start with.

I think you are absolutely right about the PBP bias -- although the one PC I ever submitted to a (different) PBP was instantly accepted, even though he was almost exactly the opposite of what you describe -- absolutely a first-timer to the run part of the shadows, in fact. Thus maybe the bias exists more from the player's pov in wanting to have a potent PC throughout than from the GM's pov?

I'm going to focus on this, because it's an interesting observation:

It's not just skimping on the Attributes and Skills, but needing so many unique skills to mages plus the ones every character needs. So Skills that would normally be known just cannot be afforded. SR4 increases the skill gap by breaking down 2 primary magical skills into 6, having to buy Magic, as well as creating a few more Attributes.