There was a great podcast (found here) that discussed a major problem with Shadowrun, wherein the traditional fiction from which it finds it's inspiration is constantly full of loners. Even in the books themselves the team is hired by a fixer or other shadow broker, presumably having never met before.
And then you break the entire premise by wrangling the team together for several missions. From a narrative stand point having runners you can rely on is good, but having runners that become close friends is a liability. That's typically not how they operate. Additionally, not all jobs need every archetype to succeed. If the footwork dictates that a Decker isn't needed then why spend the money?
In my own games I do a lot of hand waving to always include whatever characters the group can come up with. I believe this is just good Game Mastering, because it's our job to facilitate joy. If they are ill-equipped to deal with a specific task I play it down, and only present it in a circumstance where there are other means to deal with it. Challenge should always come with balance. But lately I was thinking of how one would go about running games within the Shadowrun universe without breaking the narrative contract of the source material (other than ignoring it).
The first one is to have player's roll multiple characters, so that there's a genuine pool of Shadowrunners in the city, and they're taking jobs with one another on and off as intended. The disadvantage is that the player may not become attached to any of their characters, OR they become attached to one in particular and try to shoe horn them into every mission, again breaking the narrative contract. Another option is to create non-shadowrun teams; Tír na nÓg specialists, Knight Errant SWAT or my favorite, DocWagon High Threat Response Teams!
Then there's the third option! Probably one I will run in the future. I'd like to see a group of Prime Runners who are tired of the deep shadows but still need to "get on with it". So they've formed bonds and maybe friendships (even when they shouldn't have) and they all have a good amount of Nuyen but can't quite retire. So they go legit, fill out the paperwork, cut through the red tape and open an investigation firm. Pulling strings for permits and greasing the wheels of bureaucracy drains the war chest. But now they don't have to get their hands dirty all the time. Now they can sell their skills to the little guy, maybe even do some work Pro Bono for the really hard up slummers. I think a smaller group of 3 to 4 players would do well. How would you shake up your next Shadowrun campaign?
