They have been presented in that format from 1st edition on, and it can be a bit confusing. The reason it is presented that way is that they want to give you ideas, not just give you "here's Fighter A" to jump into the game with. They hope to inspire you to create your own, since it is a class-less system and you can build a mage that can deck, for example.
funny. this may be a case of change blindness - but within 4e or 5e. 6e has simply inherited the blindness from the earlier edition.
I took a quick scan of the 1e, 2e, 3e and 5e rulebooks (didn't have access to 4e - thank you friend for helping me here!)
in 1e, 2e and 3e, there is a clear description of what the archetypes are, what they are meant for, how they should be used, and basically allows those to jump right into the action.
in 1e, pg 32, the sections "Generating Characters" and "Archetypes"
in 2e, pg 44, the sections "building characters" and "Archetypes"
in 3e, pg 64, the sections "sample characters"
in 4e - don't know
in 5e - there is only a list of archetypes - without any preamble or description of what these are or how they should be used *this is change blindness, as it is assumed that you know from previous editions what to do with this section
in 6e - following the same method as 5e, the archetypes are listed as-is without any discussion about *why* they are there or how they are to be used. *see commentary above for 5e
now, don't get me wrong - I'm not looking to argue - at all - I accept your answers as given! However, as a fairly experienced GM and as a SR first timer looking at the book for the first time this section *is* confusing. its not obvious how this information should be used. when talking about this with a friend who is more experienced with different editions of SR - he agreed, it's confusing. a single paragraph, like in 1e-3e would have done wonders to "close the circle" as it were for these pages.
specifically Fast Jack - I think your reply assumes prior knowledge of different editions. - ie, change blindness
you said: They have been presented in that format from 1st edition on, and it can be a bit confusing.
1e-3e is pretty clear what these archetypes are for. it very explicitly states:
for example, in 1e, Archetypes on pp. 32 state: "...to create a shadowrun character, start with one of the classes presented in the archetypes chapter. this lets you get started right away. No fuss, no muss. right into the action..."
you said: The reason it is presented that way is that they want to give you ideas, not just give you "here's Fighter A" to jump into the game with.
1e-3e explicitly states that the archetypes *are* to be used to jump into the game with right away.
1e. "...this lets you get started right away. No fuss, no muss. right into the action...."
2e. "...Players who want to jump right into Shadowrun can simply choose one of the Archetypes, pre-generated, typical characters, provided on pp. 49-64."
3e. "...the following section provides sixteen pre-generated Sample Characters that can be used as starting characters or as the base for building new characters....
you said: "They hope to inspire you to create your own, since it is a class-less system and you can build a mage that can deck,"
this is awesome! exactly what I would want when given examples - however, the archetypes as presented - actually don't help in this regard - because there is no way (without effort) to figure out how priorities were used, how attribute or skill points were spent and how the classless char gen system can be engaged to inspire players to create our own concepts...
anyway, tl;dr. a minor point. i totally respect your answer and not tying to be a d*@k at all. I *Get* what they are trying to do here but it assumes, IMO, prior edition knowledge to parse why there is a section called "archetypes" without any preamble or context attached to it.