[ArkangelWinter]

Here's the situation: I'm running a game set in 2050, that will have in media res and between session time skips to get to the 2070s. The team is a sword adept elf, a heavy weapons troll with Wired Reflexes 3, an Asatru shaman/face, a rigger, a cybered B&E expert, and...an unaugmented, non magical bushwhacker type.

I'm not one to limit his decision since that's his concept, and it fits that an older man wouldnt have cybered up by the 2050s. But I foresee problems on being fair to his player, because the 2 cybered combatants could probably do a lot of his job much better. That being said, he is.an extreme generalist, covering about 18 more or less random skills.

Suggestions on things to do with him that others couldnt do better?

[Walks Through Walls]

How much edge does he have? I recently played a 7 edge character who had cyberware also, but no dicepools to write home about. Once I kicked in edge it doubled my dicepool and I often ended up with 6-9 successes. If he has a high edge he can also use it to get extra passes or go first in a pass. If the character has a high edge he probably could hold his own in a lot of things when things "go his way". Also it would be reasonable for a character of that type to survive on his edge. The spattering of skills plays well into this also.

[ArkangelWinter]

If I remember correctly, he's Edge 5, with some other "surviving by luck" qualities: Erased, Blandness, and I think Gremlins

[farothel]

Try to find him a niche that he can fit in, something none of the other do (or do well).

Also, depending on the build, he can be the number two in everything.  So that if the group splits up, this guy can do whatever task is the primary task of the people not in his group.  It means he shines a little less than the other members of the group, but they will appreciate him enough.

[UmaroVI]

An unaugmented mundane can command rig only a little bit worse than an augmented mundane and will be significantly worse at everything else.

[lurkeroutthere]

The question is, what can you find that your not going to let the others do better?

About the only thing I can think of is you hammer the cybered types with penalties for being heavily cybered when dealing with other ludites. THe problem is your essentially punishing them because he wants to play the special snow flake.

Mundane humans can't really compete outside of really high edge, and there's nothing that forbids cybered characters from having high edge so.....

Sometimes you have to just let a crappy concept be crappy. BMX bandit does look kind of silly next to angel summoner.

[Teknodragon]

Sometimes, someone comes up with a concept that sounds great, but falls flat in actual play. Other times, a concept sounds unworkable, but the player manages to pull it off, especially when the team has the main bases (guns, stealth, magic, social) covered already.

Personally, I'd consider being fair is the world reacting reasonably to the character's actions and appearance. I've also been in groups where we needed a certain skill that doesn't relate to talking, death, magic, or sneakiness, and nobody had it. Sounds like that is this guy's moment to shine.

Gremlins quality on a non-augmented mundane, though? Ouch! Gremlins is _always_ against the PC's benefit. If he needs something to work, it doesn't (lower glitch threshold by quality). If he needs something to not-work, raise glitch threshold by the quality (such as an enemy holding a gun on him, or trying to reboot their system).

[GiraffeShaman]

Look carefully at the character's backstory and cultural background. See if there is any particular group the character is likely to have an advantage in dealing with and make heavy use of them in the campaign at times, which allows the character to shine. Some example groups include Amerindians, Knight Errant, gangers, mafia/Yaks,smugglers, corporate types, eco terrorists, military/merc types. You can also play up both the fear of Awakened types and the average joe's fear of obvious cyber enhancements. (Although admittedly it is lessened in the 70's)

The non cybered and non awakened guy comes out ahead simply because he has no particular type that hates him. The normal guy can kind of act as a lesser stand in for the party Face, since normals and corp types are less likely to hate/fear him. And while the Face is the best at the social stuff, sometimes a con takes at least 2 to pull off.

There's an old Shadowrun edition archtype called the detective that was a non awakened Human with no cyber enhancements. He got by through the use of contacts. (Although admittedly many of the old archtype characters suck) The famous Shadowrunner Dirk Montgomery was an unaugmented Human and was kind of based on that archtype. He's in the novels 2XS and House of the Sun. Reading those may give you ideas on how to handle this character type and they're darn good reads too.

[Csjarrat]

does he have any skills in demolition? he could be the demoman..
does he have any skills with heavy weaps? he could be there to do suppressive/supporting fire with grenade launchers, or know how to use a LAW rocket launcher against an armoured target or something.

[UmaroVI]

The famous Shadowrunner Dirk Montgomery was an unaugmented Human and was kind of based on that archtype. He's in the novels 2XS and House of the Sun. Reading those may give you ideas on how to handle this character type and they're darn good reads too.

2XS and House of the Sun are cautionary tales about how trying to shadowrun as an unaugmented mundane will bring you nothing but failure and sadness, and how if you don't luck into being a magician, you had best suck it up, get some cyberware, and quit angsting about it.

[Kat9]

Sometimes you have to just let a crappy concept be crappy. BMX bandit does look kind of silly next to angel summoner.

I lul'd. BMX Bandit rules!

[GiraffeShaman]

Sometimes you have to just let a crappy concept be crappy. BMX bandit does look kind of silly next to angel summoner.

Hey, the bike courier hero is a staple of the 80's. And don't forget Dark Angel, although she was augmented. The spandex clad byciclist has also become a Seattle archype in RL.

And yes, the bike courier hero is back again in 2012. Ignore the rules about riggers hitting you with sports cars and panzers, your GM is sure to create scenes for you where you evade them in alleys, cafes, and other places larger vehicles can't follow.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1oBxSPohVzY

[All4BigGuns]

The famous Shadowrunner Dirk Montgomery was an unaugmented Human and was kind of based on that archtype. He's in the novels 2XS and House of the Sun. Reading those may give you ideas on how to handle this character type and they're darn good reads too.

2XS and House of the Sun are cautionary tales about how trying to shadowrun as an unaugmented mundane will bring you nothing but failure and sadness, and how if you don't luck into being a magician, you had best suck it up, get some cyberware, and quit angsting about it.

And yet in SR3, there was an unaugmented mundane in my group that consistently held it's own amongst a group of characters that consisted of augmented mundanes with Essence < 1, two mages and a troll PhysAd (none of which--well maybe one--were particularly ineffective either in build or in practice).

[Kat9]

Sometimes you have to just let a crappy concept be crappy. BMX bandit does look kind of silly next to angel summoner.

Hey, the bike courier hero is a staple of the 80's.

Or http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFuMpYTyRjw

[Glyph]

The famous Shadowrunner Dirk Montgomery was an unaugmented Human and was kind of based on that archtype. He's in the novels 2XS and House of the Sun. Reading those may give you ideas on how to handle this character type and they're darn good reads too.

2XS and House of the Sun are cautionary tales about how trying to shadowrun as an unaugmented mundane will bring you nothing but failure and sadness, and how if you don't luck into being a magician, you had best suck it up, get some cyberware, and quit angsting about it.

And yet in SR3, there was an unaugmented mundane in my group that consistently held it's own amongst a group of characters that consisted of augmented mundanes with Essence < 1, two mages and a troll PhysAd (none of which--well maybe one--were particularly ineffective either in build or in practice).

Yeah... but it's harder to do, and not every player with a suboptimal concept is going to have the roleplaying or tactical chops to do it.  Higher dice pools and extra initiative passes matter in a quantifiable way in an incredibly lethal game.  Edge can do the same job, but it is a finite resource.  Unaugmented mundanes are tough enough to play - this guy is a generalist on top of that.

The game is built to showcase transhumanism and create hyper-capable criminal specialists, which is shown by how comparatively cheap magical and technological boosts are, and how effective high dice pools are.  So this concept is really going against the grain of the system.  The real question becomes, how much is the GM willing to metagame, fudge things, and disrupt the verisimilitude of the game, to accomodate this character?  Because unless the player is highly capable and adaptable, or stays mostly in a support role, I don't see the character lasting very long otherwise.