So, what do you all find yourselves playing?

I had to mark several, because I do run the gamut. I enjoy hybrids alot, myself; mixing a couple archetypes, but not getting too weird, can fit in most games and still be highly effective. At the same time, I also have in my roster much weirder stuff, as well. And sometimes, I just like to play an old-fashioned archetype. It all depends on mood, really.


Yeah, I have characters that run the gamut of normal(I do have some ''normal'' Sams, Deckers, and Riggers in my collection), a Combat Face, a Repo Man, an ex-pit fighter, and then the weird stuff like said vampire adept(though mine is not a pro-wrestling superhero. But a cookie to anyone who gets that reference. The Kicking Ass for the Lord reference is pretty given. )

Is there anything that floats your collective boats? Some or all of the above? You can give examples of past stuff, as well.

I think the poll lacks an option for typical characters of later editions.
A sam without any bioware is hardly imaginable in an SR3 or 4 game and since the end of 3rd ed., the social adept has become more and more common.
Also, the average rigger nowadays will be the drone swarm commander, not the wheelman and i hardly think that any SR4 player would regard a matrix character without a cyberdeck as unique.

For myself, i somehow always end up playing casters (even though i'd love to play my concept for a completely deranged heavy weapons ork sam sometime soon).

Typically, they're not the hermetic variety, and oftentimes have a unique take on their tradition (academic shaman, streetpunk druid and so on- also working on a transhumanist wujen nutjob and a houngan with plans to build a golem version of Project Mayhem).
And somehow, they all happen to be party animals of some kind...

Besides that, i like to give them all a unique focus, both as far as style and roleplaying are concerned and regarding their stats and possible tactics in game.

The problem is that all your "different" examples can be just standard archetypes played with a certain flair. Shadowrun Duels had the Street Deacon, who was basically just a street samurai with a penchant for quoting scripture.

mainly what you'd call 'hybrids' personally i tend to spell slingers who are also 'faces'

Oh. I didn't know we could select more than one.

I selected hybrids. My basic archetype is usually the "Covert Ops Specialist" and then I add combat/matrix/magic specialisation onto that.

However, I like "Different" too. An example is Astro, my french syrian party-girl artist who is also a hacker, or Blackie Pilger, who's a subversive photojournalist.

I went with 1 and 4. I do love some of the old twinkery we got up to in 1e & 2e. Also really weird characters are fun to play upon occassion.

You forgot the "god" option for us GMs.

Yeah, sorry I forgot the ''New Archetype'' option. If you like that option, just say so. And the God option, of course.

When I do polls, I always do manage to forget a few things. but then again, I should put in my first post ''add what you feel is appropriate.''

I'm surprised there aren't more weirdness players. Perhaps they're just around me or something.

mostly hybrids, because i won't play ANYTHING that can't at least hold itself up in a fight and live to tell . . so combat/face for example . .

I just shelved the chipped beef ganger/sammy for a bit to play a covert ops spec/weapons spec undercover cop w/o any real cyber (just flare comp and damper) as a "let's see what we can manage au naturale" challenge after reading a "no cyber and/or magic and you're TEH SUXOR" post a while back.

I'll keep y'all posted on how much ass I kick with him...

I voted [1].

The point of archetypes is they are quite focussed, and the point of roleplaying a team is people work together.

The Street Samurai isn't a Decker, the Decker isn't a Fixer, the Rigger isn't a Mage.

There's a focus in an archetype, even if there's an overlap with other roles, that's the point.

Yah, sure - you can piss about with the rules and make a Character who can be a Fixer/Decker/Mage/Street Samurai/Rigger, but that's not a Character, it's an exercise in number crunching for max effect [which may/may not be the point of the exercise].

I got into SR via reading Cyberpunk books and watching early Cyberpunk films/manga - the Characters that inspired me are the "classic" archetypes...
...And that's what inspires me to play now.

Actually, it's more likely to be an exercise in sucking at all things equally, unless you have unlimited supply of karma and .
In that case, it isn't pissing about the rules, but just munchkiny "look, i can do whatever i want when i ignore restrictions to the point that i can do whatever i want", which is indeed kinda inane.

Fully agree on the focus and teamwork parts, though.
And also on the fact how inspiring archetypes can be.
It's been a staple of RPGs since D&D first came out.

Even though i love playing characters that fall outside of those archetypes, they would be much less entertaining if these archetypes didn't exist in the first place.

Personally I love mixed support. I have been debating between keeping my war veteran medical marine turned combat medic with some magical power brought about by shell shock or my doctor who used his rank and clout to hack files and get medical aid to those who needed in the process becoming a respectable cracker.

In the end I know I'm going to have to use the combat medic mage but the back story for the medical hacker makes me want to use his later just because it seems like an interesting build.

i forgot to mention this: i voted for 2 and 3 O.o

I always think there's a place for the archetypes, but somewhere down the line I fell in love with the hybrid. I think my Combat/Face did it for me, to be honest. I wanted to play a guy who had all the Faceman skills(ok, so he wasn't a Pornomancer in skill, but he did very well), but I also like the ''deceptive badass'' who could kick someone's ass twelve ways from Saturday-but doesn't necessarily look like he can. A bodyguard for a sometimes-sought after politician with some shady past he was trying to leave behind worked awesome for a background(someone who could speak and kick butt if necessary), and ever since then in Shadowrun(alright, so i've been playing 'gish' builds in D&D for ages), I've loved the Hybrid, and sort of find it hard to play a one-trick wonder anymore.

But I can see the draw in the ''classic archetype combo'' as well.

I play a lot of hybrids--the decker with a combat shotgun, vat-job weapons specialist, aggressive negotiations face. The concepts are perfectly manageable in their specialties, but have uses outside of their niche.

Example:
Well the mission is to go deep into Amazonia and collect certain telesma for the Johnson. Do we take the face to the meet and leave him at home the rest of the job since talking to awakened bears has never proven effective? Nah, that'd be boring for that player and besides, the face can shoot a gun as competently as any beat cop. As a corollary, we may run into customs officials who would rather we not leave the jungle with 50 kilos of mud to keep the flower alive. Aren't we glad we brought the face with us?

I tend toward either pure Archetypes or weird as hell characters(or both), but lately I have been forced into the hybrid role as we do not have enough people playing to cover all the bases and so it is better to cover two medium-well than one great for me since everyone else hyper-specializes.

Chris

I swear by the character archtypes. Film noir will always have its' gunsels, conmen, private detectives, wise barmen, and women with dangerous secrets, and cyberpunk, as an evolution of that, really deserves nothing less.

Voted 2 and 3. I usually focus on some major aspect for the character which I flesh out, then add a second minor one in which he won't be able to compete with someone who took this as his major area of focus but is able to hold his own.
Teamwork is king, but you need to have a fallback if one of your teammates is incapacitated.

Playing? It's possible to play SR? I've actually played - as opposed to GMed - a whopping 7 sessions in the past decade - one with my namesake (combat mage/gunbunny), three with an ork adept, one with a burned out mage, one with a street sam/hacker, and one with a hacker/mage.

Traditional archetypes are fine and dandy when you need a one or two-word summary of what your character can do. But they shouldn't limit. If your PC wants to ride about the Seattle sprawl on the back of a white steed, swinging a broadsword in the name of the Lord or play Damien Knight's pool boy then, by God, he should. If I want to deal with the headaches of character class limitations and multi-class penalties I'll play D&D.