Another thread got me wondering. When do your groups retire characters? My group tends to peter out in the 100-150 range and then we start over. Our longest SR game ran 17 months and 180ish Karma. I'm curious what some other groups do.

They retire when "it's time to retire". Some characters have a built in shelf-life to their career. Some have no reason at all to hang up their guns. I can't see retiring at 100 karma though. To my eye, that's where you really start to get comfortable with playing the character and really start to enjoy it.

Retire? What a strange word.
Seriously - I tend to retire my character when the game folds, and if possible return to the character when the next Shadowrun campaign starts. I usually don't retire my characters until they're either dead, or I've got a new concept I find more interesting. The two characters in my sig? One's from 3E, the other's a concept I came up with 4E. Either one I'll use in any campaign that springs up.

I'm usually one of the players that wants to draw things out longer. Many of the players in my group always have new ideas they want to try out. It can get frustrating at times.

When you can afford a permanent luxury lifestyle.

When their leg gets blown off by spray-and-pray ex-ex

Eh, tell 'em to just walk it off.

leg blown off? sounds like its time for a Cyberleg...or grow a new one?

Did I not make it obvious enough? Should I have said "explosive tipped arrows"?

When their back is placed on the cold slab for the last time. Our group loves long-run games.

Shadowrunners are not Adventurers Draco, Arrows to the knee do not effect them the same way

/me pokersnout.

Funny enough, Grand Theft Auto V answers this question quite nicely through its entire story.

Sometimes you retire when you are able to. Sometimes you retire after only one big score. Sometimes, you never retire at all.

All depends on the person.

Kane isn't about to give up what he does any time soon, for example.

I guess the only way to know when it is time to retire is to ask your character. Does he have a reason to stop running the shadows? Much of this question can be traced back to "Why does your character run the shadows" question

When to retire?
When you've crushed your enemies, seen them driven before you, and heard the lamentations of their mother corp.

Really?

I call that, "Tuesday".

You misunderstand. You retire when you've crushed ALL your enemies. All of them.

Those bullies from high school who're just getting on with their lives as wage slaves can be hard to track down, and that's not even getting started on that guy who stole your toy when you were both 6...

I'd be happy just crushing the b*tch I worked with at Home Despot. She went out of her way to make my life a living hell.
"I need change, I'm running short." "Last call for change was an hour ago, the vault is closed and they went home." "Um, you never told me last call..."
"It's hot out here [garden center], can you bring me a bottle of water?" "Sure thing" Twenty minutes later. "I'm fucking dying, I need water!" "Just a minute, right after this customer I'm helping." Twenty minutes later. "Hello? Is anyone out there? I asked for water..." *Different head cashier* "Come inside, it's too hot to have anyone in garden today."

I usually don't allow old characters who I wasn't GM in my game.

And unless a player feels like retiring his character, I decide when the player retires his guy. Better said, when he enters the realms of NPC. And this happens after the climax of my campaign.

I tend to swap GMing duties with another player, and we transfer characters back and forth. In the games I run, the characters I used in his game become NPCs, and often left in the shadows, then come out into active duty when he's running his games, and vice-versa. I don't think either of us see a reason to make the characters actual 'NPCs' (as in 'retired'), unless it makes sense to the player who owns the character. One thing we never do however, is take over anyone else's characters. That's considered strictly verboten.

When do I retire?
When I run out of things to BURN!

EDIT: Yeah, *Sings* I'm a man with a one track mind, so much to burn in one lifetime!