[MachineGunBallet]

If you absolutely insist on weaker characters then pick the street level entry point.  Heck its hard not to optimize in shadowrun.

The other option is to pick fun maximums... like 15 dice. (This will eliminate gun slinger adepts... )  Any optimizer will tell you that increasing those last few dice is really really hard.  Going in other directions for less than primary capabilities can really make it interesting.

I prefer to think of the story before character design, before the optimizing. 

Another idea is the make each player choose dual primary roles, and set dice minimums for secondary capabilities.  Face + Street Sam, Mage + Rigger? Decker Rigger?

[Reiper]

I do see a problem, the player being so optimized that it nearly forces other players to over optimize their characters as well for combat. It seems that not all of your players seem to want to be straight up combat junkies, but they may feel that they need to be.

A simple fix I'd do for this is put them in situations where combat is not a good idea. You could have them infiltrating an area where there are already HTR teams in place (I did this last weekend with 10 fireteams of Red Samurai in a building, plus normal corp sec for an extraction, and the Face owned the scenario and did some really quick thinking on her feet).

Basically, put them in varying situations where the players may understand that the entire game isn't revolving around just combat. You still do want to throw in combat as well to give the combat junkies something to look forward to, but this will put other players at ease with being able to avoid combat when needed.

[The Wyrm Ouroboros]

That's an issue with how the GM is approaching combat, though, not how the players are.  Other characters should not have to be combat-optimized; in fact, it's self-defeating if they are.  Fighter should be combat-optimized; Decker should be Matrix optimized; Mage should be magic optimized, and Driver should be driving optimized.  Should they be useful in combat?  Sure, for whatever definition of 'useful' they want to be, whether that's hacking the other guys' links, tossing a manablast downrange, or sending a grenade-carrying drone down to bomb the suckers.  But they should not feel pressured into being optimized to live up to another character's prime competency.

See my more extended thoughts here.

[prismite]

I dont think its a case of combat envy. What I'm seeing is this:

Party agrees on roles and there end up being 2 full mages.
Mage A says that he will be mostly illusions and face-based skills.
Mage B says that he will be a combat mage.

Then, when characters are presented, Mage A ends up being a better Face than the Face, a better gunner then the adept gun bunny and a better offensive caster than the combat mage. Its like everyone agrees to a certain power level, but then one person goes outside of those parameters causing the others to feel like they have to make changes to reclaim their role.

Now, to be fair, I never instituted the 10-Cap like I was thinking. And yes, despite all I see on here, I think it would make for a great low-powered start campaign. But I realize that "low-powered" doesnt interest everyone ... and that was my misgivings.

Also, I've spoken with the player in question and we talked for a long time about his expectations and my expectations. It feels like we're in a happy spot right now. He has some issue with tailoring his guy to be weaker just to satiate someone else in the party and I understand that ... but after this last session with the aforementioned Troll SuperSoaker running amok and causing him to fail the mission, it seems like he re-evaluated his stance.

Generally speaking ... all's well at my table now.

[MachineGunBallet]

prismite:  I hadn't really thought of it that way.  Your description pretty closely follows what the our Face Elf, Mage is doing.

If you look under the hood at what is being argued about here, its 3-6 dice, right?  1 or 2 bonafide hits for a dice toss in Shadowrun terms.  I don't think its worth getting excited about.

Furthermore, I think there is really more depth to combat characters than shooting a single gun real good.  Troll McShooty has gyro stabilizers to bring his heavy guns to bear. He's naturally fast, and dodges really well (Defence).  He's normally wearing heavy armor, and digitally locked down.  In short, he's meant for a higher form of combat.  He lives for the days that he can wade in with his Gatling gun or Panther XXL.  On those days, your combat mage better bring his Armor spell, and make quick with the healing magic.  Your Decker better make his cyber gear doesn't get bricked.

For me, balance more than anything else means that all the players can participate at all times. If the game master really wants more balance in the game, I feel that demanding the players seriously add two roles to their characters be made a requirement.  Otherwise, find a way to let each of the players shine.

[Glyph]

I think players who wind up overshadowed in their main role, by someone who has it as a secondary specialty, need to take some responsibility too.  They need to realize that other players are going to have some ability in "their" area, especially for things like combat that most characters will participate in.  So if they want, say, being the gun guy to be their role, they need to commit to that role.  If you want to be the gun guy, and you are playing someone with Agility: 4 and the Firearms skill group at 4, then don't whine and pitch a fit if the face outshines you with Agility: 5, muscle toner: 2, and pistols: 5 with a specialization in semi-automatics.  I don't have a lot of sympathy for someone who wants a designated role, won't make the simplest, most obvious choices to be good at that role, and then complains when someone else is "better" at it.

I'm not turning around and putting all of the blame on the overshadowed players, though.  People playing characters with their A Priority in "Asskicking" still need to remember it is a group game, where everyone wants their own niche and their own time in the spotlight.  Assume the gun guy at least tries, and has, say, Agility: 5, muscle toner: 2, and the Firearms skill group at 6.  The close combat guy might have two cyberarms with maxed-out Strength and Agility with retractable spurs.  But whoops, he has two ranged skills at 6, with specializations and reflex recorders, so despite close combat being his main thing, he is also rolling 5 more dice than the guns guy, with guns!  So at that point, maybe the close combat guy needs to dial back his ranged combat a notch, so the guns guy won't be overshadowed.  It all depends on how well-rounded each character is, though.  If the guns guy is also a break-in guy with some face abilities, it may not be as big a deal if he is overshadowed at guns, especially if the close combat guy is a more narrowly focused combat machine.  Sometimes four dice pools of 12 can be as good as one dice pool at 17.

If your group has such problems with stepping on each others toes, maybe (if it is feasible) they could do character creation together, as a group, in the future, so everyone can play what they want and have some protection for their individual roles.

[Reaver]

Also keep in mind that as the group earns karma, things get muddy fast. That huge dice pool advantage takes much more to improve then the middling pool.

After 1000 karma, there really isn't such a thing as archetypes anymore, as all characters have a good amount of high skills...

After 3000 karma.... the only difference is "are they mundane or awakened?" As everyone has maxed out several lines of skills... (our hacker is the weakest in combat... with only 18 dice for is pistols, automatics, and heavy weapons.)

[JimmyCrisis]

Have you considered making their character for them?  Ask them what they want to play and go from there.

At my table, I'm the guy who knows the books, and I'm frequently the one stuck GMing.  I always have extra characters that I've made- I do it for fun.  Nowadays, when we have a new player to the game, or someone just needs a new character, I offer to let them pick through my back-up characters instead of spending the night making a new one.  They're happy and the characters are all in-line with the power level that we've already established.

It's worked for me so far, in both my gaming groups.

[Glyph]

I'm not sure that would work for his group.  The whole problem is that there isn't an "established" power level.  Plus, it is a lot harder to get excited about playing a pre-gen character when you are used to creating your own characters.

[The Wyrm Ouroboros]

Which is why the GM needs to be an active part of character generation, so that he can say, 'no, that's going to screw with everyone else, I don't want to allow that.'  And why the player needs to be aware of the stories that the GM - and everyone else at the tale - are trying to tell, and not get in their way.