Recently I have noticed that there is a prevalence of spellcasting characters in our campaign. This causes issues for us in terms of game balance and party balance.

Does anyone have any ideas that have worked for them in the past for limiting the number of spellcasters in the group?

As a side note, does anyone remember seeing something in one of the books where they indicated how rare magic folk are? I know I've seen something I just don't remember where.

The best way to balance magic use is to use the Build Point system. Not because it limits magical characters, really, but it takes away the penalties for mundane characters that the priority sets up. (since power is all relative, I guess penalizing one and rewarding another are pretty much the same thing, but cest la vive). Once you're using BP's, you can adjust the cost of magic use very finely, and should be able to balance it however you please.

As far as percentages of the population, I belive that 1% is awakened, but that might be 1% of the population is full mages (not including adepts and groggies). Can't site it right now, though. They do mention (and you should keep in mind) that the percentages of shadowrunners will be much higher than the general population, because the magical talents lend themselves more to secretive operations in the shadows.

I would do things to make mundanes more attractive to play (like give everyone an extra 10 build points, but make awakened characters cost 10 points more - effectively giving the mundanes a 10-point boost), rather than limit the numbers of awakened characters. If you only allow so many people to play awakened, it will be almost impossible to implement without seeming to show favoritism, plus the people stuck with mundanes will be watching the ones playing awakened characters with seething resentment. Let people play what they want to play - the point is to have fun!

I agree. Give mundanes a small boost.

It may be that you use a lot of magical challenges in your games, too. Magic is hard to combat when you're mundane, so if you use a lot of magical opposition then it's perfectly logical for them to make magical PCs. If this is the case, reduce the number of mage/spirit opponents that your players face. If they're fighting a hoarde of elementals every game then you can hardly blame them.

Howza'bout the GM sez, "we've got too many awakened. If you wanna play in this game, you'll be mundane." Simple. That's how I'd do it.

I've noticed the same problem with FASA's published adventures. There's always a magician and several cybered-out goons. Magic is rare and 'ware is expensive. I end up changing a lot of baddies into guys hopped up on preformance enhancing dope. Add a few pals with SMGs and that makes up for the loss of cyber and magic. But maybe thats just me.

Let them have as many awakened chharacters as they want.

Just say that maximal two (depends on group size) are allowed in your mission, campiagn, etc., etc.,....

Thats how we handle it. If i dont want an awakend char in my campaign, then i say: Sorry, no mages this time...

Wouldn't the best way be for a run to require a well rounded team - if you've got 6 characters then feasibly how many can be magicians if you need a decker, a rigger and a couple of combat experts? Not everything can be defeated by magic alone... Having Mr J suggest that at the meet and providing alternative team members (let the Players have secondary characters to use) is a nice idea.

The build point system is a good idea even without requiring additional cost for magic. Try and recreate any of the SR3 archetypes in the bps - mundanes (especially humans) will be up to 6 points better off (the Sammy is a good example), whilst magic users will be a few points worse off...

He's probably got the Elf decker-shaman, the Dwarf rigger-shaman, the Elf face-shaman, the Troll adept-mage-by-night, the Tiger shapeshifter-adept, the Eagle shapeshifter-magician-adept, and the gunbunny-combat mage.

That's not counting the munchkin, or the two players competing to see who can make the most useless magician.

Personally I'm of the 'more spell casters the better' as a GM. But we play a very heroic level game. So, if I wanted to limit spell casting, I'd use the optional rules in MitS I believe. Simply add a +1 or +2 to all TNs when it comes to drain. People tend to only play Magic characters if they're really into that aspect when they're guaranteed to take drain from any/every spell the cast. Also, don't let Trauma Dampeners reduce spell drain if you want to reduce spell casters.

Sphynx

Like others have said, simply asking your players to limit the number of magical characters they use is best. And if they fall into squabbling amongst themselves about who plays the magicians, then go with teh suggestion of having them rotating characters (i.e. each has a magician and a mundane character, when one player plays his mage, the other plays his mundane).

Explain to your players that writing scenarios for a full magician team is different to writing games for a mixed team. Depending upon what you as GM want to run this should affect your decision. E.g. if you only want to run published scenarios then a mixed team is best, however if you are prepared to custom write adventures specifically tailored for a group of magicians then let them all play them.

Thank you all,

I think that we are most likely going to be limiting the number of people who can cast spells in the group to 2 per gaming session and get the other people with magical characters to run alternates when it's not their turn.

I'm actually pretty lucky with my current group..

One player always wants to be a mage and/or shaman..
Another always wants to be a sammy and/or adept...
Another always wants to be a vehicle rigger..
Another always wants to be a drone rigger and/or decker..
And another always wants to be a face and/or B&E specialist..

So my groups are usually very well rounded, and I can force them into all kinds of situations.

Don't Nosferatu target magically active characters?

So do security forces, troll with assault cannon, and so on tihs dosen't really stop the players.

Just over one in a hundred people are magically active in 2063. Most shadowrunning teams shouldn't have more than one magician and one adept. GMs, if your players insist on stacking the group like that, it's easy enough to sic a group of NPCs on them who are tailored for anti-mage combat. Send a physad with magic resistance, a dwarven sammy with 8 willpower, a couple of drones, and a cyberzombie after them. The cyberzombie is the real kicker; he'll not only be nearly impossible to kill with combat spells, but he'll generate a level 1 background count. Have the enemies come up on them while some of the PCs are off circle-jerking in the astral plane. Yes, it will result in players getting killed, but there comes a point when a GM has to stop being nice and start being realistic. Sooner or later, a team with a glaring weakness is going run out of luck and run into enemies who are well-suited to take advantage of that weakness. If your players insist on playing whatever kind of character they think is coolest rather than the kind that their team needs, then they need to be reminded of the value of teamwork.

1% of the population are awakened, 1% are full mages, most don't ever see their talents/get it "ruined" by cyberware, let's say about 50% don't see it, what's left is about 0.49 per one hundred people that are adepts or aspected.....
just say "how many fraggin' mages can you HAVE in one group?"
either that or let them feel the ouchy side of spellcasting, getting attacked by hordes of enemies, no initiating is a very nice way to get your point through, and when they meet many difficult enemies (because the team didn't have sterotype X here) they will probably die, especially if you let the enemies play smart, and use the "d&d" houserule to invisibility spells: any action to living beings cancels the thing.....

now, i know i said the opposite on another topic, but i'm a hater of awakened characters!

Its easy. Pack the players up in boxes and send them to me, who cant get ANYONE to play a mage.

1% are maically active, that is a lot more than you would think...
for example:

.2% of the population of the US is doctors.
1.5% of the US population is government workers.

if magic were around today in the US, there would be 2,308,098 magically active people in the US.

that is a lot of people, and there may be lots of jobs, but there is a lot of money to be made in the illegal arenas too.

just thought I would share.

-Mike R.
(http://www.census.gov/statab/www/ranks.html)

Just out of curiosity, what 'game balance issues' are you having as a result of having multiple magic users in a group?