QUOTE (binarywraith @ May 6 2016, 10:04 PM)

Blah blah blah special snowflake something something other game.
So, something the GM for my current Pathfinder game did, which worked out
really well.
Special Snowflake cards.
Step 1: Heavily restrict what counts as "core" (in the case of Pathfinder, this is easy: the core player's handbook)
Step 2: Make up a whole bunch of "snowflake cards" that each have a top half and a bottom half. You're going to need a minimum of 4 per player.
Step 3: Figure out the top and bottom halves. The top half should generally be a "major" effect (e.g. "be any ACG race," "start with one piece of equipment worth $1000") and the bottom half will be something minor ("get a +2 trait bonus to a skill of your choice," "add one of [list of tertiary books*] to your list of allowed source material")
Step 4: Deal them out to people. This will take a while and it works like this:
Going around the table, one at a time, each player draws 3 cards from the deck and secretly reviews them.
- One they keep face down
- One they hand to another player (face down, but that player looks at it)
- One they put back into the deck
People can announce what types of cards they want to be given, but you aren't allowed to say "oh I have a..." and figure out who wants it (each player may only receive 2 cards, everyone will end with 4).
Once everyone has 2 cards each, they pick one to flip face up and let the group know what it says.
Once everyone has 4 cards each, all are revealed and players then choose for themselves 1 Major snowflake and 2 minor snowflakes each from different cards.
The first card you give out also establishes some kind of background relationship between those two PCs, and some aspect of that relationship (e.g. giving someone the +2 trait bonus to some skill might mean that you ran into each other at some point and taught them some tips about said skill; doesn't have to be that rigidly defined, but allows for some creative ideas about why these people know each other).
As a group we still ended up super snowflakey, but not as much as we would have without restrictions (I had a weird race, someone else had a weird class, a third person had a legacy item...). The first card I drew and picked for myself was "be any ACG race" to which I went "yes plz, Kobold" but that precluded one of the other players from being a ratfolk. Inadvertently I ended up not giving him a card he was looking for for one of his other ideas, only because I hadn't realized that it was what he wanted.
Not quite sure how it might translate to Shadowrun, but maybe someone will give it a shot. For reference, while the link still exists, our snowflake cards are
here (credit goes to
bobson for the pdf and its exact contents, though he got the idea from someone else over on the Paizo forums), although it's a bit messy to read quickly, as the cards are bunched up next to each other with little distinguishing the top/bottom as being different than the dividing line down the middle. If anyone does take up this idea, post something over in house rules and let me know, I'd enjoy hashing out a few ideas.
*[Ultimate Combat, Ultimate Magic, Ultimate Intrigue, Advanced Class Guide, or Occult Adventures] were the "main RPG line" from which everyone got to pick one for free, the minor snowflake was a
second one, with a different Major snowflake that was "pick
any Paizo book." Equipment in said books was purchasable by anyone in the party ("hey can you buy me a..."), classes, feats (etc.) were only for the one player.