I love the idea of High Concept in Shadowrun. To me, its an excellent way of changing things up from time to time. Throwing in an element of 'what the?' that players aren't expecting really helps shake things up and keeps a game from feeling monotonous.
A few examples:
Back in SR (before we had editions), I got talked one weekend into running for a group at a local gaming club that included both ridiculous ('Monty Haul' level) characters and average ones. The real power creep players were ones that had their own shell megacorp in game and figured whatever a GM could come up with they'd have whatever they wanted to throw at the problem to solve it. So I went completely off the charts, passed up superheroes and went straight to aliens; A Predator II remake came to mind.
My feverish mind quickly set on an unknown craft recorded breaching Seattle airspace and disappearing somewhere around Hell's Kitchen, Puyallup (it burrowed itself under the lava flows). The players went to investigate, took everything they thought they would need and found themselves unprepared for an alien hunt that stretched all the way back into downtown and left them feeling like the hunted. In the end, a good time was had by all that weekend. And I have one player that to this day is still in a gaming group with me playing Shadowrun.
----------
My second installment of High Concept was when I developed a SR3 story that involved a single A research division that was delving further along 'Dreamchipper' paths of artificial implanted personalities. They were focusing along 'hero' concepts to make super soldiers, and had developed a dark knight/vigilante persona. One of the VPs in charge of the project had a son that was bad into BTLs and was hopeful that some of their research would lead to a 'cure' for his son. To sum up the rest, the beetlehead got ahold of the chip, slotted it thinking it was a fix, became 'Batman', took the experimental armor and rigger gear/vehicle housed on site (bad choice for corp, good for plot) and started terrorizing street gangs.
Enter the players. They meet with the Johnson, get a job with nuyen too good for any of them to pass up, then find they're up against a super hero they need to take down and bring in alive along with all of his gear. Not what anyone expected, but again a fun time delivered by introducing some High Concept.
----------
Lastly, I've been delving into the idea of playing a free spirit in the group I'm currently with. I figured since free spirits are a bit off the norm anyways, I'd go ahead and run with it. The idea is to play an air spirit that had been continuously summoned over a number of years by an old Chinese monk who had a taste for retro 2d video games of the previous century. Mortal Kombat in particular. Elemental Attack- Electricity? Check. Martial Arts? Check. Straw douli hat? Check. Look out SR4, here comes Raiden!
High Concept is a wonderful thing to play with from time to time. And I hope 'true believers' will keep developing it.
