I was wondering what everyones favorite type of character to play is, so I decided to try this.
Yes, I realise, not everything is up there, but they only give you 10 slots. So, post away, I'm interested to see what everyone thinks.

Gotta respect the PhysAd!

Norse style Shark shaman. Not a psycho killer, just extremely ruthless in combat.

Well, the posting name comes from a character I played that was a mage-vampire. not much fun to play after 100 karma or so. I play pretty much whatever, based off what the group needs. Also depending on my mood, the weather, tightness of my shorts.

(an extra karma for anyone who gets the reference from the last sentence. )

Coyote & cat shamans are a blast as well.

I voted other, simply because looking back over my characters, there isn't really a pattern to what I like to play the most. It generally depends on the campaign and if a particular character and associated archtype comes to me in some interesting format.

I've done everything from a Turkish Muslim hermetic mage, Oguon voudoun, troll polearm wielding ganger to a variety of riggers.

I'm currently on a bit of a magic kick though. It's sorta cyclical, you see.

Over half of my characters had a computer skill over 4 and a datajack. So I guess I like playing deckers.

Anything the group doesn't already have. Which with my PnP group means I usually end up being the mundane face a lot.

Definitely Shamanic characters are my most common. Adepts are the alternative.

Screw the rest of the group. They can work around my character!

Been playing my drone rigger for AGES now. So I guess it's Drone Rigger. I also enjoy my mountain man type redneck militia streetsam a lot, though.

Generally, I like play mundane characters. Dunno, I just am more at easte with them.

And yeah, you gotta respect the physad, especially after the 3rd or 4th initiation, and with a decent weapon focus.

My favorites are riggers (both kinds, I don't believe in separating the two),
and mages that double as faces. Of course, I like to make all kinds of characters, most of which never see the light of play.

I suppose that my other characters in the various RPGs I've played could also be considered PhysAds, but the only character I've played so far in SR is a Magician's Way Adept, following the Hermetic tradition.

Although my GM doesn't use the Adept "Ways" because he feels that they're too restrictive, I like to consider him a follower of the Invisible Way.

--Foreigner

sammy. we can make him stronger, faster, better.



and don't forget to change the oil ever 3000 killings.

Am I the only person here who loves the Investigator archetype???

I mean, there is so much you can do in the world of Shadowrun where your skills come in handy. You're part face, part thug, and maybe even part street shaman or adept.

Then there's so many mysteries and shadow deals going on in the world that you're always chasing some theory. Something you find on last week's run may have a (real or imagined) connection to that project you've been working on for the past 2 years, but put on the back burner 3 months ago....

Investigator? Yes, very cool. But the picture of him in the BBB is ridiculous, I hate it.

Personally, I'd say deckers and PhysAds are my fave.

Hmmm, yes. The picture is a bit on the stupid side. Certainly an ugly Sherlock Holmes with tusks thing going on.

I love hermetic magicians. They're my absolute favoritist. If the decking wasn't such a pain (taking time from the rest of the group) I'd play them more. As it is, I play street sams when I don't play magical types.

I love playing Street Sams, to death.

Magical Adepts (though it only edges out the physical adept by a count of 1).

I'm split up between adepts and sams, although currently playing a face.

Must admit i normally play magical characters but i have found a new one and i am loving it. completely non magical!!

it is a weapons specialist / mercanary.

she is arsey and compleatly off her head but she has been great fun to play and has worked well with the team. Hopefully this on will last for a while?


thogh i still like to play my troll cat shamon who is as hard as nails!


torz x

I've put in the most time playing mages, but that's less because they're what I prefer to play than because a spellcaster of some sort is pretty necessary and I'm frequently the only one at the table who isn't scared of the magic rules (and I'm not sure why... they're easier than the decking or rigging rules, and maybe even easier than figuring out the seventeen hojillion different kinds of cyber available these days). I've never played a shaman; I'm not down with dancing around, chanting, and waving roadkill in the name of the great spirits.

Mortax

Did you hear the one about the dyslexic insomniac agnostic Dog shaman?

He stays up all night wondering if goD really exists!

Phys Ad's are the stealthiest, most deadly, (and possibly some of the slowest) fighters out there. And, mine always have skills like botany...

Of the characters I've played, more have a VCR than other archetypes. However I'm rarely in a group with enough players that I don't need to fill at least one other function so most of my characters have had VCR1s or even 2s and saved essence to be rigger/deckers, rigger/faces, or even rigger/mages (Which is surprisingly fun, particularly when you start seeing what horrors you can create by casting spells to make your drones meaner).

Since you split up Rigger, why not split them all up? Ask someone if they like to play deckers that uses Access, Control, and Files, or if they like to play a decker that uses Index, Slave, and cybercombat? Or do they like to play a mage that uses magic on Tuesday, or one that uses magic on Thursday? Or a Streetsam who is good at melee, or a streetsam who is good at ranged? Ooh, or how about your Faces that use Negotiation, do you like them more or less than Faces that use Etiquette?

~J

ex merc isn't a choice?

PhysAd. **scoff**

Nah, seriously, they're good for stealth.... esp if they remember to buy some ruthenium.... and a weopon focus for assassination from behind.

....
Not the best in an open fight, but hey, if you like anime style high kicks, and running around in the shadows (ya know, like some games name might imply) then yeah, they're not that bad.
Just not my cup of tea.

Leave my body 2 miles out on a blimp and I'll send in drones to do the same job, plus when the dreck hits the fan TOO hard I can always just cash out my losses, and not worry bout getting the hell outta dodge (or chicago.... ya know, whatever).

I'm a little surprised that nobody has opted for the vehicle rigger. Sure the category was split between vehicles and drones but I've still seen more riggers played in my groups than deckers.

physad, either a gunner or social
social is fun to play, and gunnery 12 starting = leadhose

Themed character based around a template character that's been developed and used in almost every game I've played. Same one I got the name from.

SR incarnations to date are: adept, magician/adept.
Future ones? Well, we'll see. Might end up with a mundane version, but that'd be harder to do. Might be possible though.

I voted other as well, because I rotate around a lot with my PCs. Played deckers, shamen, Wygen, Sammis, magical girl adepts (what a odd game that was), gang fodder, combat medics...
But I still have a soft spot for riggers.

> I don't really like categories, it's one of the things for what I love Shadowrun. Generaly I don't play true Street Sam and I'm can't roleplay a face because I'm too shy (so generally i play a kind of soft razorguy). In fact the better kind of character for me are "funny" character. I mean character not optimized but with a personnality and a lot of flaws. For example my last charachters is an Ork and his dream is to create a big international weapon traffic in Europe. Unfortunatly he is honnest and he lost a lot of money in any operation he deal (1 in Negociation skill with a flaws which improve the difficulty for each test).

For the moment my favorite character is called Jia. This is a mix of different kind of character however I find that the character is coherent and really good to play.
- She is a former member of an intervention unit of the Korean Police, so she have good combat and action skills (assaut rifle, pistol, SMG, stealth, athletic)
- She is an adept. It's her "plus" in the interention unit with power like combat sens in urban area (geas) or perceptive sens. (and some other)
- She can cast spell (magic power) but she's a beginner for that (4 in spellcasting, 1 in sumoning, and spell at 2 excepted Flash at 6)
- She's korean and technophile so she have an induction datajack, chipjack and 30mp in memory.
Finally, I like the duality of this character and its paradox. You surely alredy see Magician who can also fight. This is the other side. She don't consider herself as a magical support and she never say she is magician. Magic is not her main interest. In the same time, she is MMORPG addict (so fun to play ) and spend a lot of time connected. She's not a decker but she begin to do some little search when it's needed. Add some fun flaws (MMORPG addict, no orientation sens, sweet talk flaws, etc) It's difficult for me to explain well the character (and sorry for my english) but I hope you see a little what I'm saying about. Anyway this is not a power character but it's really good to play it.

> Daegann

Daegann: Come time, come Karma, come power. Trust me.

A friend of mine once played a dwarf named Ben, whose powers were roughly the same as your characters'. He reached considerable power. It took him just a little more time than it would take a specialist - but compensating for that, Ben was literally a Jack-of-all-trades. He could cast some spells (support for himself to get close to enemies, mainly), was a very good closed-range fighter, decent with pistols and SMGs, a killer with shotguns, and a passable decker as well.

Such characters tend to take ages to develop, but can become muchmore powerful than specialists in the long run.

posted other: gotta love those former spooks.

For me, nothing is better then a sammy. I'll play a physad or a decker as a change of pace, but within a week or less I'm blowing off the dust on my old sammy sheet.
I've played a few sammy's that don't seem like sammy's until they go near a metal detector, always fun those ones are. And there is nothing funner then going into a fist fight with an initiated adept and win because he didn't expect me to have a cybernetic heavy pistol in my forearm.

"You may have mastered the martial arts, but I have mastered cheating."

That's all great, but you can't use pistols in hand-to-hand combat.

Perhaps I phrased that wrong, it went like so...
I am out of ammo for all other weapons, and the last target is an initated physad, he looks me up and down and considers me no challange and does one of those silly kung-fu movements or whatever, I point out my arm and shoot him with the very few APDS rounds I managed to get a very long time ago, he goes down I cheer, end of story.

Also, you can use a cybergun as a club? You learn something new each day here!