Quote Originally Posted by Telok View Post
SR is not, intrinsically & up through 3e (last ed I played or cared for), a hard niche protection game. Characters are generally built point buy or by a priority system, neither of which promote hard niches. A forum/internet meta has evolved around super specialized characters, but its similar to the D&D 5e "has to have espertise & reliable talent & buffs to hit the base skill DCs" thing. So, the internet meta is basically only true if the GM is upping difficulty to match the PCs with the higest numbers.

D&D 5e has rather stronger niche protection than SR, with the caveat that (as always) a strong optimizer using all possible options without any GM input and with a whiteroom setup can bend the rules into a pretzel & break/cross niches. Clerics heal & buff, wizards get the control & area blasts & utility, warrior types hit stuff, rogue types get all the non-intelligence skill stuff, etc., etc.

Edit; players playing into the "not over-specialized" thing is depends on there being noticable, significant, & meaningful drawbacks to specialization, in addition to the opportunity to meaningfully generalize. D&D is bad at that by having generally linear/exponential advancement for specialization and generalizing being normally a trap option (ex: wizard 15 vs wizard 8/fighter 7).
Our experiences differ. The target numbers in 5e D&D in my experience are low enough that even someone with a +1 modifier can meaningfully contribute most of the time (ability checks). And I'm thinking at a higher level of generality--both a cleric and a wizard can contribute to combat even if neither one does anything the other does (ie one buffs and the other blasts). A bard and a fighter can both contribute socially (in different ways). Etc. The required (by teh system) level of specialization is...basically none. It's only DMs stuck in the 3e (and especially 4e) mode of "only specialists need apply" or "DCs should be set to challenge the specialist" that cause issues.

And Shadowrun (likely earlier editions) was an example I'd heard (but never played) of one where you need a decker (who generally can't do magic or really contribute much to combat and who cannot be replaced/helped by anyone else), a mage (who engages in whole adventures in magic-land where no non-mage can even start to assist), and a rigger (who is the only one who can really do much with vehicles in any kind of important scenario even if everyone else can drive during narrative time). It doesn't have niche protection (from what I've heard) in combat, but a heavily-built street samurai-type or martial adept can generally do orders-of-magnitude better than a non-combat-specced person.

Whereas in 5e D&D, even a bog-standard fighter without proficiency in any of the relevant skills is only a factor of 2 or less different from a rogue with expertise.