Keeping Player Concept relevant?

[DontEatRawHagis]

I just got handed the reins of the Group I am with and am doing a Cyberpunk campaign. Doesn't really matter the system because my question involves keeping my players relevant.

Right now we have three players on skype and three in RL. But the main problem revolves around roles each player plays. here is a rundown:

• Hacker/Inventor
• Gadgeteer/Drone Controller
• Super Soldier
• Sniper
• Courier/martial artist
• Courier/Imposter/Investigator

The problem is that redudancy usually happens in our group and if we have too many people for a given role someone is left in the dust because they don't have a high enough stat. For instance in our first game, I was tasked with recruiting the other hacker, because my charisma stat wasn't high enough I wasn't allowed to do it. Instead the James Bond reject did.

How do I make sure that another player isn't stepping on another's toes?

Second part to the question, does anyone else plan every action their players could take in a given situation? Because I have to make sure that in every mission every player has something that they can do to keep themselves entertained. And I am unsure how to make sure that three of my players don't start browsing the internet during the game.

[Gnomish Wanderer]

Group them up? Sounds like three groups of two man teams completing mini-objectives to then have all six completing the main objective could work. Make the individual tasks convoluted enough and with enough challenges that it takes two people to complete.

[BRC]

Group them up? Sounds like three groups of two man teams completing mini-objectives to then have all six completing the main objective could work. Make the individual tasks convoluted enough and with enough challenges that it takes two people to complete.

But then you're splitting the party, with the focus of the game jumping around between people. While it makes sense from a narrative standpoint, it means that, at any one time, the majority of players are just sitting there.

[Gnomish Wanderer]

But then you're splitting the party, with the focus of the game jumping around between people. While it makes sense from a narrative standpoint, it means that, at any one time, the majority of players are just sitting there.

Unless ya got skillz. Try giving enough of an info dump to have the three teams all planning their heist at the same time. If you can get them all in combat time simultaneously it would be the same as running a single combat just with three different scenes to describe.

[DontEatRawHagis]

The system I'm using caused so much confusion that everyone is remaking their characters.

One person is actually making their character something completely different. Problem is the rules for the new character are harder to understand than the previous one.