I just came to the forums to play some SR, and it seems like everyone needed magical support in their groups, and I thought "well I CAN play it, but I'd rather play something else." then I realized that's probably what everyone else had thought.
so my question is: why do people prefer not to play mages.

If I had to guess, I'd say it's because mages are at their weakest when they're first made. they have to put high points into magic and resources to buy spell points. this leaves them with lessened atributes and skills, as well as a barely sufficient arsenal of spells.
Now make a gunbunny, or a tank, or a physad, or a decker, or a rigger. you can make them into a powerhouse right at chargen.
Mages take alot of karma to get going, and so you don't want to play a mage if you're only going to do a one-shot run.
Many GMs make this problem worse by not allowing any change over between cash and karma. lets say the group gets 50,000 and 8 karma each (a big run). the Samies go for getting new cyber and some custom guns, and maybe a skill up. mages get a spell, and then... sit on 50,000. sure they could buy a couple elementals (thousands of nuyen which will have no lasting effect, unlike the sammie's new cyber). they could buy a focus, but they have no karma to bind it. They don't need much gear, so they sit on the money, or find ways to burn it uselessly.
So while everyone else is increasing their gear and going up, the mage is barely able to keep up.

Now of course, the mage keeps going up long after the sammie and the decker plateau out, but really, how many people know when they go into a game that they're going to be able to keep playing that long?

Just a thought

well you'll always get the people who just like magic playing magic support. No amtter the system, no matter how sucky, a magician/supernatural power guy will be my 1st choice if it exists.

Besides I'm not so sure its a power thing. Mages can be potent, but I think you can micromanage character creation a bit more on the other archtypes. I find it fun at least to gimick characters all over the place. I can gimick on tons of different levels as a Sam, or a rigger, but as a mage the biggest thing I can usually mess around with; money is in short supply. Or IOW for me at least while I prefer a mage its more fun to build any other archtype. Its not more fun to play but its more fun to build. Now if you have just as much fun playing a mundane as a mage then you'd minds as well play the mundane who you had mor efun designing.

I'm with Cray on this, always a ton of magic users, but I think that's because our games last long time periods, and advancement of a mage is so much more interesting. They can be any and everything a Sammie can be, plus so so so much more. If you know you're going into a campaign, why would you play anything else?

Sphynx

I've found quite the opposite in the group that I play with. Usually, I'm the only one who takes a non-magical character.

Currently, the party's makeup looks like this:

* elf "Hummingbird" shaman (don't ask me for details, the player made up the totem and the GM approved it)
* troll (fomori) Sun shaman "druid"
* troll physical adept
* non-magical SURGE'd human, with very little implantation (my character)
* (in flux -- this player usually has a John Woo-ish two-guns-blazing human physical adept, but he's discovered an artifact which is slowly metamorphosizing him into some more "evolved". In the meanwhile, he has a temporary ultra-fast mega-samurai with 6 points of ambidexterity and dual-wielded katana. That character, which will shortly be retired, is to be replaced with a werefox shaman of, what else, Fox, until the original character comes out of his cocoon.)

Total of four magical types and one non-magical. And we lost two players recently, both of whom also played magical types.

I have to go with everyone else magic seems to be the character of choice in a long game as to a short game then yeah you get fewer.

Now as for me I don't care long or short I like magical characters I have 8 magical characters as of right now. Do I play other types of course and I love to play them as well. But my main character type is and always will be a magical character.

Ditto everyone else, everyone is magically active or near so. with most of them playing full mages.

It completely depends on the player. In my experience, I've had players that all they wanted to play were cybered up hack and slash characters. Those that actually get into the characters, and don't mind reading the extra rules, love playing mages. My group has the attitude Yum Donuts described regarding deckers. However two of my favorite characters have been a mage and a decker.

I tend to agree with the majority of posters on this board.

The two main varieties of characters that my group (which is Dim Sum's group and has already gone through a couple of incarnations) plays are gun-bunnies and Awakened.

I'm the one usually stuck playing either the (combat) decker or, more recently, the (combat) rigger, though truth be told, I really don't mind it. My suspicion is that the rest of them are just too frickin' lazy to read the rules properly.

I find that quite a number of Singaporean players like playing Awakened characters for some odd reason.

Well for the record, I wasn't counting Adepts among the magical ones for this discussion. I realize they're magical, but they can also come off the assembly line quite powerful.

But I've apparently learned that I have just been experiencing a statistical anomaly in my gaming time. oh well, point rescinded.

Personally, I tend towards mundane characters even if I'm playing in a long-term campaign. Of course, the munchkin in me recognises that on a strictly linear scale of progress, a mundane will be outstripped in terms of growth in the long run by an Awakened character whose growth potential is, essentially, limitless. However, I still like the "idea" of playing a non-magical character simply because of you can channel character growth in other ways, specifically into the role-playing aspects of a character, and I'm quite happy playing a "limited" individual.

Anyway, when I GM, it's true that the preference here is to play Awakened individuals but I usually limit the number to a max of two (in my group of four to five players) - statistically, that already far exceeds the number of skilled Awakened people in the world EVEN IF you toss in explanations like "Oh, that's 'cos you encounter more of them in our line of work." I don't want players to see deckers and riggers as useless (IMHO, they happen to be two of the most useful archetypes around) or play characters simply because powergaming sense tells them it's better to play Awakened characters. I want my players to play what they FEEL like playing without having to number-crunch their future.

I like to play a mundane, because their growth potential is limitless, as opposed to mages, who after a certain point are either working for someone as essentially a slave or dead.

~J

I like to play mundanes, because they aren't karma sinkholes like Awakened are.

Plus, if I do ever get a character to 250+ Karma, I'm usually bored with a series of "random runs" and want something else to play. i.e. a metacampaign that requires new characters and more interesting situations.

I think it's kind of interesting how people here seem to make mages, focusing on many spells and few skills. I am starting to gravitate toward the other side of things: great attributes/skills and only a few spells to speak of. The standard method is nice if you get all the spells you care to have, because then you can just dump karma into Sorcery and turn into a casting machine. Still, that gets really expensive, really fast. Wouldn't it be more efficient to make a character who started with great attributes and skills but dumped karma into spells, where it's cheap?

I agree with you BW...Sdaly alot of people don't play that way...They don't think you are as uber out of the gate unless you can cast Force 8 powerball, manaball, stunball, lightning...etc etc

not meaning to insult anyone, I think a lot of that stems from a minor munchkin-esque play style. Sort of like the people who claim to start with str 15 trolls that "aren't even twinked" or 20+ die ina single combat skill at start...

THat kind of power gaming is extremely close to munchkining in my book, and I find it funny how people think it is the system of d20 that allows for the worst munchkining...all games allow it if you you know you to exploit it. It isn't a problem with the system, its a problem with the player.

One thing people really seem to forget is that Mages can do everything a Mundane can do. Spend that "useless" money on a rocket launcher or AV ammo for an assault rifle! Then have someone tell you that mages can't handle a drone..

One trick to getting players to play magically active characters is to move away from the stereotypes of mage characters. By deliberately limiting one's sorcery abilities, for example, a run of the mill shaman can be forced by neccessity into a role as a conjurer.

I am playing what is (to date) my favorite (of 4) awakened characters in the form of a magically active parageologist. Sure, folks look at you funny when you tell them that your 4 best spells are detect gold, detect orichalcum, shape earth, and shape metal, but they sure are thankful when they learn that your only combat spell is spiritbolt (after you zap an elemental back to the fetid metaplane it came from) or when you reduce a blood-thirsty cyber-pirate crew to a mass of quivering blobs by yanking out all their (bling) gold teeth with a shape-metal spell. Not exactly your typical spellslinger, but great fun to play.

How do you get line of sight to all their teeth at the same time?

Most scurvy cyber-pirates are mouth-breathers, so it's easy....

That, or a quick control-emotion spell (happy) to make 'em all smile.

Hey I resemble that remark

Personally, I'm not too fond of the Shadowrun Magic system in general.

I'm fairly new to the game, and I really only have experience with what is in the SR3 core book, but the Mage/Shaman magical spells and abilities just don't appeal to me. However, I LOVE the Physical Adept character...

I think the real strength of SR is in the skill system, so I really enjoy characters that have lots of diverse skills like Stealth, Unarmed, Electronics/B/R, Etiquettes... One problem I have with magic users is that by the time you prioritize your Mage you have...

Full Mage
Resources 400k
Attributes/Race
Race/Attributes
Skills

You NEED the cash to buy spell points and Foci and/or elementals, and you NEED the attributes or you're gonna die... So your skills always languish. That's one of the reasons I really dislike Magic users. They are not skilled enough to do anything but cast spells, (usually the prep spells like Mask or Invis at the start of the mission) then they take some drain and and have high target numbers for the rest of the night...

And what is up with Astral Projection? After some 10 or so Shadowrun Missions I have YET to come across a situation in which I thought Projecting would be a good idea. As far as I can see in the SR3 book, there is no form of Astral Stealth. So if your objective is guarded by Magic users (which they all are) then trying to scout via projection is like showing up with a big "Kill Me" sign...

Am I wrong?

-Z

Zeittotschlager:

I think you've got it wrong there... here are the options

A: Full Magician
B: Attributes/Skills/Resources
C: Attributes/Skills/Resources/Race
D: Attributes/Skills/Resources/Race
E: Attributes/Skills/Resources/Race

I put Resources pretty low, because I don't so much care about spells at the beginning. I build characters from the ground up, starting with natural ability and working from there. So a mage for me might look a lot more like...

A: Full Magician
B: Attributes
C: Skills
D: Resources
E: Race

I'd adjust Race as needed to fit the character, but I tend strongly toward humans. This gives me good attributes so my character can survive longer, perform better in a variety of ways, and buy up skills cheaply. Skills are put as high as possible, which I still think is a little low, but it's the best option left. Resources are nice and low, because I simply won't need a lot. You take a few basic spells, usually ones that aren't very force-dependent, and (for now) you use basic mundane equipment to take care of the holes that a lot of people want to fill with magic. Use your post-creation cash to fill in any gaps you missed. After that, spend karma freely and happily, picking up more spells as needed and enhancing your already-decent skills when possible.

bwdemon, I suppose you're right, but I'm really coming from a group similar to that of the original poster in which every character wants to play either a mundane, or an adept. So when you're the ONLY Mage/Shaman in the group, they really expect a whole lot o' whoop ass from you. That's why I always considered Resources to be a top priority.

-Z

Ehh, personnally I don't play many mages. The rules to me are just too complicated. Not that I disapporve of others playing them, it just seems like a lot of effort learning rules when the main reason I'm there is to have fun and Reconnitor with Ares Inquisitors.

By the way, anyone ever play a nega-mage, and would you recommend it?

Says the person who thinks nothing of playing Riggers.

~J

I started a thread on that and there are some good answers.

-Z