Phaeton really inspired me to play an amnesiac character, specifically one with the hunted flaw. Here's the hard part: If he just wakes up somewhere, I can't concieve a situation in which he could become part of the Shadowrunning team. Well, that's not true. If they already knew about him, it'd be a quick snatch and grab, but then it wouldn't be long before the "who am I" question got answered right quick.

Anyone with more experience care to elaborate?

Easy, have the Shadowrunners rescue him from some corporate research facility and then get double crossed by the Johnson who hired them and have to waste the Mr. J. Maybe your character breaks out during the chaos of a run and joins up that way. Hell, he could break out of an ambulance during rush hour deadlock and hop in the runners' car. Or he could wake up in his flat and only have his gear and a cell phone with the number of a fixer who refuses do discuss the characters past other than to say that he's "paying back a large favor to someone" by hooking your character up with jobs. Perhaps the fixer doesn't even know who he's doing the favor for, only that he's being paid a lot of money to connect your character with other runners.
The amnesiac thing is really easy if you sit down and think about it. (and in my opinion, slightly pase) Where the fun starts is with the "Mysterious Cyberware" flaw.

Just as a side note, that flaw is the only way that I would let characters in my game start with beta or delta grade cyber. If you want the fly gear, you gotta pay the price.

Thanks. I'll probably come up with something better in the morning.

Assuming I don't try that nutmeg buzz Zazen is talking about a few posts over.

Well, both of my amnesiacs woke up with messages from the Johnson. How did she know how to contact them? Well...

NOTE: KYLE, DO NOT READ. I WILL SHOOT YOU IF YOU READ THIS. SAME FOR ANDREW.

Depending on the level of amnesia, the character could simply meet the other Runners in the normal course of business.

Over beers, the amnesiac admits -- "Gee, I don't know how I know to wire a bomb -- I can't remember anything beyond two weeks ago."

Watch the other Runners snarf their beer.

-Siege

Ummm, well my name is Andrew I hope. That Kit isn't talking to me.

We are doing the amnesia thing with a char also right now. What my GM did was had us meet coincidentally in the normal course of buisness. Then later on my character was contracted to kill his. So the odd couple was made..

I had a character who maxed out the Amensia.

The team was smuggling in Madagascar. One of the soft-hearted team members found him and took him on board. Since he knew how to fight, they kept him around.

How to get the amnisiac character into a shadowrunning group?

Easy. The character woke up with a cell phone in his pocket. There was one telephone number in the cell phone, no name attached. Character called it, it went to a fixer.

The fixer said "I don't know who you are. How did you get this number?"

The character figured out that he was a mage and called the fixer backto say that he was looking for work- fixer then set the character up with the rest of the team.

The big hole in all that is- how did the character figure out he was a mage? We kinda glossed over that one.

It's kinda like the question - if you have no memory, how do you have any skills? He can't remember becoming a mage, but he remembers how to do magic and magical theory. Game-convenient querk of the amnisia.

Amnesia doesn't have to mean you forget _everything_.

Odds are you still remember how a door works, how to work a toilet and so on.

There are plenty of stories about mages and shamen who summoned spirits or cast spells without realizing what they were doing -- it's not inconceivable the amnesiac does something vaguely familiar and blows apart the trid unit while twitching his fingers.

-Siege