So, I'm wonderin: How do you folks run the shadows? Are you the GM or the players, what roles do you play, how do you handle team dynamics, what does a typical run look like for you, etc.

Well, for me, I GM and play. Our group has 3 guys(including myself) who are willing to GM, and we trade off on GMing duties. No real schedule, it's just "hey, who wants to run the game next time? I kinda wanna play", someone picks up, and we have fun. The fun part about it is that it creates a dynamic, fluid party where people trade in and out at different times. Which works for us.

Now, as a player, I like tech guys. Magic is cool, but I love the fact that we're in the future, and technology is everywhere. So Riggers, Deckers and Gun Bunnies. Even my Gun Bunnies tend to be decent at a variety of tasks outside of shooting people in the face.

Now, regardign Team Dynamics, we have a very curious system. Most groups I know of have a "leader" and other people. We don't have any one leader. I tend to take over a lot of the planning, but I'm not authoritarian. This is actually a bled over from our IKRPG gaming, where we typically do the same thing.

Now, as for my typical runs? I'm a very big fan of direct action(aka combat), so generally, I have no problems with shooting people, and shooting people is generally the plan. First though, we gather intelligence about our objective, and come up with a plan. Then we discard that plan in the middle of the run, because someone forgot to mention they could levitate us, and we adopt another plan that we had discussed.

But my general idea is "be sneaky, find out as much about the target as possible, then hit it as hard and fast as possible, and get out before anyone can respond."

We're more Heat, less Oceans eleven. More Way of the Gun, Les Italian Job.

I'm solely player. We are still sticking with SR3, if we play at all.
I would not dare try GMing with my group of friends . . i have had more success herding cats!
I am the Muscle. Combat Monster. Troll, Dorf, Ork, no dandelion eaters and no breeders usually.
No Magic. No Matrix or Drones for me either usually.
I TRY to be the voice of reason . . but as stated above, that does not work with my buddies often.
We mostly have a bet going about:
"Who's going to get sick of over planning and say: 'Hold my drink, this is gonna be awesome!' "
And i TRY not to be it . . but it happens!

I am also what's considered an optimizer and min/maxer.
It went so far as the GM asking me to make NPCs that could be considered a threat to my character.
I did. And in theory they were. But i managed to get rid of them anyway. Due to Troll-Dice i'll admit.

We, as a Group are . . Well, usually 2 or 3 of the others are more of a danger to each other and to the rest of us than to anything else.
It is a SAD day, when the Troll has both the highest Int Score on the Sheet and actually acts the smartest as well ._.

I am both GM and player. The groups I play with (I play in a rather dynamic environment that's, basivcally, two and a half groups) rotate GMing; there's no fixed GM - player dynamic as I tend to read about. Maybe it's just me, but I have never had a gaming group where one person solely GMs.

I usually am among the planners and tend towards mundane combat and support characters - rigger, hacker, medic, streetsam. I prefer human, ork and elven characters, trolls and dwarfs are too impractical, in-game, for my tastes. Similarly, magic is just not up my alley.

My groups rarely have a fixed leader either. Usually, it settles itself; sometimes it's group democracy, sometimes it's someone who becomes leader by competence or by apathy of others (usually the latter), sometimes everyone just does their own and occasionally coordination happens.

Our runs have no typical framework, depending on who's running things, who's playing and what hsn't been done in a while (and prep time). It's usually a mix of investigative and classic break-in adventures, with some combat, but nt too much. Personally I am not all that much for tabletop RPG combat - it takes forever and isn't that incredibly rewarding to me. Other players in my group think differently, though. We play relatively close to the metaplot, but also - with one GM mainly, and me as a deputy - a homebrew plot based on Shadowrun's deep, magical metaplot (based on a German audiobook series named Gabriel Burns).

My ideal run involves hard planning and legwork and a fast, coordinated operation, successful navigation of surprises and, ideally, getting out was quietly as in. Doesn't work often but hey! Some madness occasionally rocks, too.

My ideal run is a mix of Ronin and Spy Games, with some Burn Notice and Deus Ex. Occasionally some FC3 BD, Die Hard or Indiana Jones; not so much Death Machine or Dredd.

When I was in NJ we played 3rd even through 4th edition.
We generally had the same one guy GMing.
We rotated GMing but by game- I GMed DND for example.

Our typical Shadowrun consisted of meeting the fixer and then between getting intel on the objective and doing our planning it's like 5 hours later. 5 minutes into the plan it would fall to pieces and we'd adhoc it from there. And no matter how many times this appened we still obssessed and overthink the planning. Go figure.

I still play with the same GM but online and he's switched to 5th so that's what I play. Some things I miss from 3rd but I think that's mostly because when I started playing the group had all the books and so it felt like a more complete game. 5th may have a ways to go before feeling complete, but the one thing that's nice is the death of target numbers from 3rd....it forced you to almost always buy a cybernetic smartlink unless you were a mage- now the smartlink is (while very very useful- not totally detrimental if you don't have it).

The thing that's frustrating about online gaming is how long it takes to get anything done. 5 minutes of planning real time can take 3 days online- or more with certain players. I try to log in every single day (usuually multiple times a day) so that no one has to wait for me- some people I notice don't respond to the thread they're playing even if you see that they logged in and made comments in other sections of the forum. A bit frustrating that.

Lastly, I'm not a big fan of pink mohawk. I can deal with it if an occasional run turns pink mohawk but those player that want to do it in overdrive every session- let's just say not my thing. Just to be clear, I'm not saying that people who run those types of games are wrong it just not me. It's like me prefering Asian woman- doesn't mean that I don't find other women attractive. Just a preference thing.

Tried skype, TS or a text messenger? That works really well for me and is just a lot faster than Forum games, for which I usually simply lack the patience. I play online for the most part too, usually on TS or IRC.

I miss playing shadowrun on mIRC. All it took was to hear the name "mr. white" and you'd all groan.

I too find PbF games to be disgustingly slow, even when you can tell everyone's doing their best. The best paced PbF game is, to me, a fraction of the fun an absolutely mediocre live group can provide, be it face to face or through VoIP. I just can't bear it.

Speaking of which, would anyone be interested in forming a Skype group? I'd love to get something new going, Shadowrun has way too many aspects to it for me to explore satisfactorily through just my current two campaigns. I'm sure there'll be others in the same boat as me. Anyone?

Regarding the original subject, I currently GM a 3e campaign set in mid-50's Seattle that's been going on for about 18 months now (2x/month), and play in another monthly 5e campaign (GMed by one of my 3e players) set in Lisbon in 2075. Both campaigns entered a hiatus last month because we wanted to try out different games (and to stave off GM burnout in my case), but we're counting on resuming them very soon.

I naturally tend towards "rogue" types, with a propensity for smartassery. I dislike being useless in combat and social situations, and never dump intelligence even if it doesn't really benefit my build mechanically.
On the magic-cyber spectrum, I see appeal in either pole or anything in between, really. Actually, there aren't many character concepts I wouldn't see myself ever playing.
I am fond of both trog races, then humans, then elves, then dwarves, and find all "exotic" race options obnoxiously cheesy - don't see myself playing them, discourage my players from picking them, and it's extremely rare that I choose one for an NPC.
I don't enjoy straightfaced black trenchcoat - because I need some "funny" in my fun - but find prolonged bouts of pink mohawk to be tiresome. Calculated plan gone awry due to shenanigans, and then fumbling and bollocksing your way out to a cigar finish and a mid-jump freeze-framed high-five... THAT's how I like a run to go! I like it as a player, and I like it as a GM.
As a player, I can't seem to deviate my moral compass very far from "Chaotic Good with Chaotic Neutral tendencies": seemingly a bit of a bastard, but hiding a good heart. I can go as far as pure "selfish dick", but not downright malicious and evil. Goody two-shoes neither. All attempts to play those two extremes inevitably end up in obvious parody. The "superslick, ultra cool, silently grey professional" type I just find utterly boring, so I never play it either.
In play, I'm usually an inciter to action. Too much planning annoys me, as does decision paralysis. I'll be kicking doors down while other players argue whether it's best to steal a maglock card or just bypass it. That said, I also prefer surgical, incisive action - pistols over SMGs, sniper rifles over shotguns, stunball over fireball. I always add some type of hand-to-hand for defensive purposes, but rarely end up using it.
Lastly, I'm far from a min-maxer, and don't like to integrate groups where ultra-specialization is expected or demanded..