During the time that I really played SR a lot (SR1 and SR2), the players used to make teams of characters that fit in together with a background that causes minimal intercharacter friction (as much as possible). That said, when we started playing SR3 (I wasn't GMing anymore), we started adding character trees, wherein each player would design 3 or 4 totally different characters, then the GM will select which of the player's characters the "fixer" will call, based on the job requirements.

Now I noticed that since there is no more Team Karma Pool in SR4, what reasons (other than minimal intercharacter friction) would a group of PCs have to make a team?

Also, what do the rest of you guys think of character trees?

If you play often and/or you have means of handling character progress that don't make unused characters fall behind too much, then I think that character trees are a good idea. If players have a favorite character which is never getting any action, they're likely to bitch and complain, so it really depends on the players, I think.

In my group, I'd say that most players have only one character, but some have or have had more than one at some point. Usually though, players were asking the GM - poor old me - to design games based on the character they felt like playing rather than allowing me to pick and choose.

We've never used Team Karma Pool all that much, I must say. We were never much of a team, I guess.

Hmm.... I don't remember most of the 3 ed rules... how (roughly) did team karma work? I might want to incorporate into my SR4 game at some point... It might actually help get my team on a more team oriented mindset (which has been a real issue in my campaign, and has also ALMOST convinced the Elf to join the Ancients, and the Troll to join the Sons of Sauron on the condition their new friends will kill the other runner....)

Oh, and I like the character trees.

I guess it does depend on the players, in a way. We've actually combined Team Karma and Character Tree several times, the "fixer" selects which runners fit the profile of the job, they form a temp team (sometimes part of a team since not all the characters like each other too much) and off they go.

Back then there were 2 kinds of karma, good karma and regular karma. Good karma functions similarly to edge. You can contribute to a team karma equal to the amount of karma contributed +1 which the entire team has access to. Of course, backstabbing or betraying the team would result in all the karma going south or alternatively being divided among the other team members (house rule).

Depends on the game/group/campaign.

When we had a SR club (15-20 people) back in high school, we pretty much left it open to people to either play a specific character or rotate as they saw fit. We had 3-4 GMs all running at the same time, in a shared world. During the mid-session breaks, they'd coordinate to keep each other up to date on what was happening, just in case one of the groups managed to bump into each other (which only happened twice, as I recall).

Since then, the groups have gotten smaller. Usually we pick a character and stick with it, unless someone ends up in the hospital for an extended stay.

These day, I prefer people to stick with a character long-term. I don't plan on running long campaigns, so character hopping doesn't really do anythign except disrupt the group.

Also worth noting... I have a house rule for new characters: If a long-term character gets killed (or retired or incarcerated or otherwise taken out of action against their will), the player may, if they wish, carry over a certain percentage of that charcter's XP to their new one. Usually its 50% if the character died (or otherwise put out of commission against their will), 25% if was voluntarily retired.

(When I ran D&D, new characters started one level lower than the group average. Any more than that was just too lethal for the new character.)

Thats pretty close to the same situation, we have a large group that will, in the future, be playing in the same campaign world, 6 of my 8 players now will be the GMs (we are all just getting aquainted with the SR4 rules). Our pool of players will be some 30 players, some of whom might rotate from group to group.

We, the GMs, have planned several individual story arcs, several related story arcs, and a grand story arc that will end with a large 3 day game involving all the players. We tend to play once every other week or thrice a month at most, however it seemed to us that sometimes specialist characters would be needed and we aren't sure if we'd just shovel in an NPC to fill the role as few of our players so far has shown any desire to be deckers/technomancers (total of 1) and none want to be riggers.

Charactertrees are great for conventions or for mission-based gameplay in general. It is the question how you want to play. Both is possible, some Johnsons will call for a whole team, some for special people. Most Johnsons don't like teams, because they have more resources, trust each other and one person can speak for the whole team at negotiations. But teams for a sole mission can blow up the whole thing, because they don't agree with each other.

I prefer both, at last the chance to switch the characters as player is great, so you won't get too bored from of your favorite character.

Coldan

You might cure that pretty quick by showing them the chaos a decker can cause in a team's comms etc, and the weapons and suerveillance platform that a Drone Rigger can bring to the party... One of those aspects has got to appeal, neh?

Then again in a group of 30, you're likely to get some characters who can "deputise" for the missing "archetype", even if it is restricted to 1 character per player.

We aren't all going to be playing together except perhaps towards the climax. I'll be GMing 2 groups, one of the other GMs and the other with just regular players.

Though we planned the arc to incorporate decking and rigging, our players aren't really into it, due to memories of SR1 and SR2 mostly.

*sigh*

I'll see if there is a way to convince them.