Shadowrun
Shadowrun General => General Discussion => Topic started by: JanessaVR on <11-17-15/0149:51>
-
As much as I like Shadowrun’s magic system for delving into the how and why of what magic is and how it works, it has some problems. Mainly, it tries much too hard to be “one size fits all” at the expense of allowing the existence of traditions that are actually unique from one another, instead of near clones using the same, barely-varying template; it has a few other problems as well. This alternative approach to magic in the Sixth World is designed to change that. All of the Karma Points figures below are in SR4 costs as I’ve only purchased some of the SR5 books.
“Welcome to McMagics, Can I Take Your Order?”
Picking a tradition in Shadowrun reminds me a lot of ordering fast food. “Ok, for $9.99, you get one main dish, three sides dishes and a drink. Pick your items and pay the cashier. Next!” You get some limited choices, but each plate is much like any other. This has always struck me as not only an unimaginative cookie-cutter approach, but also not very…well, magical, either. The solution? Drop the “one size for everyone” mentality and build each tradition separately. Or, more accurately, let each player build how they interpret the paradigm of their tradition to be. How do we do this? Well, instead of bland, standardized packages (you’d think one of the megacorps designed this system – by committee), we go to strictly À la carte pricing; you pay for what you want. And if you want more, you pay more. It’s that simple.
To start, if you want to be a magician (we’ll just touch upon “Full Magicians” here – if you’re looking to build a Mystic Adept or the like, feel free to tweak costs accordingly), you pay 15 KP for the Magician quality. This just grants you the ability to cast spells, conjure spirits, perceive astral space, and project astrally. But, until you learn spells (by paying KP to learn each spell), you won’t be casting any.
As for spirits, until you learn how to conjure spirits (by paying KP to learn to conjure each type of spirit you want to be able to call upon), you won’t be conjuring them, either. So you start out just being able to perceive astral space and astrally project yourself; I’d start looking for a teacher, posthaste, and save up some leftover KP in your build.
Spells and Spirits
Learning spells is relatively straightforward, and requires no departure from the existing rules. You start out knowing no spells unless you pay 5 KP per spell to know its formula and thus be able to cast it.
The rules for spirits require some more substantial reworking, however. As per the SR4 Core Rules, pp. 169 – 170: “A tradition associates each of its spirit types with a category of magic. These associations serve to color how that tradition views a particular type of spirit. They also limit how a bound spirit of that type may serve a magician of that tradition.” I have to say, this seems like one heck of an artificial limitation. If one tradition associates, say, Earth spirits for Health magic but another tradition associates Earth spirits for Manipulation magic, they can each clearly see that Earth spirits have more uses than the one category they’re choosing to limit them to, and so the whole thing just makes no sense.
Even more restrictive is how spirits are conjured. Do you want to have your spirits interact with the material world via Materialization or Possession? Pick one, because you can’t have both! But why not? Because…um…reasons, that’s why! This is just yet another case of the cookie-cutter mentality behind the design of magical traditions.
Instead of this system of artificially-limited spirit usage, you pay 15 KP for each type of spirit (Earth, Air, Fire, Water, etc.) that you want to be able to conjure. When you do summon them, you can use them for whatever you want, though naturally some spirits are, by their natures, better at some things than others; I might very well ask a Fire spirit to toast some ghouls for me, but I’d think twice about asking it to “lay hands upon me” for a healing spell. :-) Under this system, you pay more for access to spirits, but your use of them is unrestricted, and if you want to be able to conjure every type of spirit, instead of just 5 of them, you can – if you feel like paying the KP for it.
As for what form your summoned spirits will take, pay 15 KP for either Materialization or Possession or pay 30 KP and get both; in this case, when you summon a spirit you choose which method it will use to appear in the material world.
Just Keep Initiating Until You Finally Get it Right!
Another idea that has never made much sense to me is initiating multiple times. Allow me to consult a dictionary:
Initiate:
Verb (used with object), initiated, initiating.
1. to begin, set going, or originate.
2. to introduce into the knowledge of some art or subject.
3. to admit or accept with formal rites into an organization or group, secret knowledge, adult society, etc.
If you’ve already been “initiated into the deeper mysteries of magic”, then why the heck should you keep doing it again and again? Were you not paying attention the first time? Maybe magicians should take better notes in class. But again, the fix is simple. Pay 15 KP for initiation, and you gain access to the metaplanes and the ability to learn metamagic techniques; this is a one-time fee. Once you’ve been initiated, you don’t need to do it again.
This also fixes a blatantly “game mechanics feel” that has been a part of the society of the campaign setting, and which I’ve never liked. To wit, it would be completely in-character for magicians in the Sixth World to have the following conversation: “So, how many times have you initiated? Three so far? Ok, that means you know exactly three metamagic techniques – which three did you pick?” The phrase “life is like an RPG” is apparently very true in the Sixth World. A more “organic” look-and-feel would be to use something like the Optional Rules for Learning Metamagic in Street Magic (pp. 52, 133), and that is essentially what I’m advocating here. If you want to learn a metamagic technique, learn it from a teacher or buy access to the formula (and pay 15 KP for each technique).
This also gets rid of some clunky mechanics, and simplifies gameplay. Take the Flexible Signature metamagic technique – every runner magician ought to have this in order to leave behind no magical signatures, that is if they don’t want Lone Star on their trail after every job. As per the canon rules, you have to either constantly limit the Force rating of your spells to no more than your Initiate rating or this ability isn’t all that useful. But really, do you know how to do it or not? You do? Great! Then do it and stop worrying about this “matching the level” nonsense. If you have a metamagic ability, you can apply it to your spells. In any case where there’s a contested roll that would involve your combined Magic + Initiate ratings, just use your Magic rating. What’s that, you say? You like having a high combined Magic + Initiate rating to win spell duels? Well then, start buying a higher Magic rating – it’s (New Rating * 3 KP), just like any other attribute; the maximum Magic rating you can ultimately have is whatever your GM decides it can be.
A Unified Cost Structure
Again, in this revised approach, you only pay for what you want, and if you want more, you pay more. I recommend pricing everything in KP, to keep it simple; Shadowrun’s approach of having more than one “point buy” system in the game is needlessly confusing and just adds to unnecessary bookkeeping.
Qualities / Components to Purchase
• Magician Quality (grants the ability to cast spells, conjure spirits, perceive astral space, and astrally project) (15 KP)
• Summon Spirits via Materialization (15 KP)
• Summon Spirits via Possession (15 KP)
• Learn to Summon a Specific Type of Spirit (15 KP)
• Learn a Spell (5 KP)
• Initiation (15 KP)
• Learn a Metamagic Technique (15 KP)
-
Is this 4th edition or 5th edition? Most of it doesn't really work for 5th edition since be default you use priority system.
I'm not sold on the ideas for spirits. If you can use any spirit for anything, there isn't much incentive to use more than one type, just pick the one with the powers that you feel are most useful to your character and ignore the rest. Thematically, the idea that spirits are used for certain things makes sense. While my hermetic mage sees fire as the elemental force embodying destruction and the consuming flames, so that's what he uses his fire elemental for. Even when he sees the Buddhist practitioner use his fire spirit for illusion, the dancing flames that conceal, the hermetic can't fathom why as it doesn't fit his world view and seems pointless. To him a spirit of man is the elemental purity of the human form, naturally used for healing, his neighbor the shaman doesn't see man as a force for healing, instead he sees man's power to change things to match his needs and therefore uses his spirits of man for manipulations instead and instead relies on mother earth to sooth his wounds while the hermetic sees earth as the element of construction. Seeing the relationship as arbitrary and artificial instead of using it to flesh out the character's perceptions and ideals is what makes the traditions all feel cookie-cutter-esque.
The traditions function in a similar manner because for the most part, magic is magic. The restrictions the various traditions have are not there because they are required to magic to exist, they are there because they are required for the meta-human mind to comprehend and manipulate it.
Multiple initiations make sense. each time you are initiated to a new meta-magic, while continued practice and broader understanding helps you to better your current abilities, you gain additional understanding by being initiated into new practices and techniques. Sure, the general term for these is "meta-magic" but you need some kind of term to compare ability. Similar to the belts in various martial arts, most of which use red to represent the 9th or 10th rank, so if you see someone with a red belt, you can be sure they are fairly advanced, even if you aren't sure which technique they use. "Do you do martial arts?" "Yeah, I'm a red belt." "Cool, what martial art do you practice?" "Judo." Isn't that much different than "Are you an initiate/magician?" "Yes, I'm a 3rd level initiate." "Cool, what kind of magic do you practice?" "Hermeticism, I do some geomancy but mostly I specialize in combat and counter combat spellcasting."
As with everything in an RPG, things are only as unique or different as you role play it out to be. If you aren't interested in the flavor aspects everyone might as well be the same anyways.
-
Is this 4th edition or 5th edition? Most of it doesn't really work for 5th edition since be default you use priority system.
As stated in my first paragraph, primarily SR4. I haven’t really seen the need to upgrade, beyond picking a few bits here and there from select SR5 books.
I'm not sold on the ideas for spirits. If you can use any spirit for anything, there isn't much incentive to use more than one type, just pick the one with the powers that you feel are most useful to your character and ignore the rest. Thematically, the idea that spirits are used for certain things makes sense. While my hermetic mage sees fire as the elemental force embodying destruction and the consuming flames, so that's what he uses his fire elemental for. Even when he sees the Buddhist practitioner use his fire spirit for illusion, the dancing flames that conceal, the hermetic can't fathom why as it doesn't fit his world view and seems pointless. To him a spirit of man is the elemental purity of the human form, naturally used for healing, his neighbor the shaman doesn't see man as a force for healing, instead he sees man's power to change things to match his needs and therefore uses his spirits of man for manipulations instead and instead relies on mother earth to sooth his wounds while the hermetic sees earth as the element of construction. Seeing the relationship as arbitrary and artificial instead of using it to flesh out the character's perceptions and ideals is what makes the traditions all feel cookie-cutter-esque.
Actually, in the system I drew up, nothing’s stopping you from limiting yourself for the heck of it, but the canon magic rules do not make sense within the Sixth World as written. The first time members of two different traditions come into contact with one another and notice that it is demonstrably possible to use a spirit for more than just the one limited type of use they’ve been using them for, the system stops making any real sense. Saying that they “can’t fathom why” implies that all magic practitioners are colossally stupid and unable to make the very short logical leap to a very simple deduction.
The traditions function in a similar manner because for the most part, magic is magic. The restrictions the various traditions have are not there because they are required to magic to exist, they are there because they are required for the meta-human mind to comprehend and manipulate it.
No, the traditions function in this manner because the developers were lazy and made up the tradition rules in such a fashion that (mostly) guaranteed “play balance” at the expense of making all traditions basically the same, save for superficial differences. It rather reminds me of ND&D 4e (NOT Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition), come to think of it.
Multiple initiations make sense. each time you are initiated to a new meta-magic, while continued practice and broader understanding helps you to better your current abilities, you gain additional understanding by being initiated into new practices and techniques. Sure, the general term for these is "meta-magic" but you need some kind of term to compare ability. Similar to the belts in various martial arts, most of which use red to represent the 9th or 10th rank, so if you see someone with a red belt, you can be sure they are fairly advanced, even if you aren't sure which technique they use. "Do you do martial arts?" "Yeah, I'm a red belt." "Cool, what martial art do you practice?" "Judo." Isn't that much different than "Are you an initiate/magician?" "Yes, I'm a 3rd level initiate." "Cool, what kind of magic do you practice?" "Hermeticism, I do some geomancy but mostly I specialize in combat and counter combat spellcasting."
If your characters can actually use the phrase “3rd level initiate” for in-character conversation (and have that immediately understood as having “initiated” 3 times), then you’ve proven my point for me; your characters obviously know that they’re just characters in an RPG world if they would actually use such terminology. In real life, peoples’ skill levels are not so easily discerned; I don’t go around telling people that I’m a “15th level Programmer” or something. The free-form approach I’ve outlined is more realistic.
As with everything in an RPG, things are only as unique or different as you role play it out to be. If you aren't interested in the flavor aspects everyone might as well be the same anyways.
The system I’ve outlined allows for more flavor than canon. Some quick examples:
1) Your mentor spirit is a volcano god. You can summon spirits of Earth and Fire.
2) Your mentor spirit is an ocean goddess. You can summon spirits of Wind and Wave (Air and Water).
In both of the above examples, you could define your tradition as only encompassing those elements, and thus you could not summon any other spirits (save perhaps Watchers). You could use those spirits for whatever you wished, keeping in mind some obvious logical limitations (asking the Water spirit to set things on fire probably won’t work out very well).
Neither of those traditions could exist in canon, but could easily exist in the system I outlined.
-
Well, for one; just because someone calls themselves a 'third level initiate' does NOT mean they are metagaming characters. If you go through the process of initiation, which is a known process, 3 times... Well, you've gotten to the third level of initiations. It is an in-game process with multiple 'levels' or tiers.
Secondly, I think magic mechanically functioning the same (which is different from thematics) is better for the setting. It means the theurge that believes God gives them their magic, the Shaman whose totem empowers them, the hermeticist who studies it like a science, the voodoo practitioner who beseeches the Loa, all have equal capabilities. It doesn't get to the point of 'well, this one is obviously more powerful, therefore it is the right option.' It is a good way of side-stepping some concerns about what is true or false in Shadowrun.
As far as spirits go, yes there could be better implementation. My house-rule is that any spirit you can summon can do any task; that said, they take penalties for doing non-role tasks. It really doesn't help that only some spirits of Man can actually heal; no-one else can, thus the Health domain spirits are all worthless.
-
Initiations could easily be compared to the grades of expertise in martial arts, e.g. Karate.
-
though some mages tend to go with much more flowery names, like Master of the Five Winds and so on.
-
Several times in the novels mages often refer to their initiation level as grade. Granted it's usually in vauge words (High grade initiate) but the point remains. Initiation rank can be comparable to martial arts belt rank.
-
The link between spirit type and spell type is which category of spells the spirit can add dice to. That is all it should be. The fluff in Street Grimoire is idiotic and unworkable - spirit services simply don't fall under spell categories. Categorizing a spirit as a "healing" spirit means it is essentially useless it is bound and giving you extra dice for a healing spell, for example.
Spirits should be different - but not because of being arbitrarily linked to a limited, ill-fitting role tied to a particular spell category. They should behave differently according to the tradition that summons them. A hermetic mage who summons a fire spirit gets a tractable elemental that does what it is told but lacks initiative. A Norse mage who summons a fire spirit gets a fire giant, who is treacherous and desires tribute for performing its services. Someone who practices Wicca might see a fire spirit as a fickle but powerful fae being who must be treated with care and respect. Generally, traditions that make spirits harder to deal with should also make them more potentially helpful.
-
My fire spirits are shiny red fire trucks...
Cause: why not?
-
So you have the Siren mentor spirit?
-
So you have the Siren mentor spirit?
.
..
...
More like "Stripper" mentor.
What do you expect from an alcoholic who spends most of his waking time in seedy bars?
On the other hand, my spirits of man really steal the show!
-
So you have the Siren mentor spirit?
.
..
...
More like "Stripper" mentor.
What do you expect from an alcoholic who spends most of his waking time in seedy bars?
On the other hand, my spirits of man really steal the show!
Not sure how he gets fire truck manifestations, though might be a variation on the Barfly Tradition which typically looks like this:
Combat: Earth (Bouncer)
Detection: Beast (K-9 5-0)
Health: Water (Booze)
Illusion: Plant (Duuuude)
Manipulation: Man (Wowza)
Drain: Willpower + Intuition
-
I admit I am very drawn to allowing extra spirits for a tradition especially the "newer" ones that are goal orientated rather than type orientated task vs beast. I'm thinking as a metamagic so you initiate you take the metamagic "Expanded Theology" (or a better name) and then you select one additional spirit type you can summon, at the time of selection you also have to pick another tradition that can summon it as a base for the terms of its role/abilities. So a Hermetic mage who's spent their time summoning elemental spirits may take a beast spirit after studying shinto and it'll be tied to illusion spells for terms of adding dice or what have you and flavour wise alter their behaviour slightly even if only in regards to that type. So while they may command their elemental spirits they'll need to bargain with the beast ones. You can alternatively expand your spirits capability by taking another religions views on that spirit's capabilities so a shinto priest could study the shamanism of the native american's and expand their beast spirits abilities to include combat as well as illusion as they gain a greater understanding of what a beast spirit is.
-
Attempting to compare a character’s “Initiate Rank” to the internal rankings of some organization in the Sixth World makes no sense. To wit, how does being a 33rd-Degree Freemason correlate to one’s magical ability? Or being the Grand Poobah of the Water Buffalo Lodge? It doesn’t. There are lots of different magical societies in the Sixth World, and they will rarely – if ever – use any kind of common ranking system.
By contrast, a character’s Magic Rating, and, in current canon, their “Initiate Ranking,” are actual, quantifiable measurements. Letting characters know this rating is essentially equivalent to letting them peek at their own character sheet. A metagaming perspective cannot be avoided with this approach, and at present this is exactly the situation as characters can exactly count the number of metamagic abilities they are capable of by the number of times they’ve initiated.
This makes about as much sense as if the next supplement book to come out was to include an in-game article proclaiming that scientists in the Sixth World have scrapped all work on the Unified Field Theory, as it’s been proven beyond any doubt that all of the laws of physics can be accurately accounted for just by using a bucket of 6-sided dice.
Game mechanics are abstract measurements that exist for the benefit of the players, but they are not, or at least should not, be literal representations of reality in the game world. As written, “Initiate Ranks” unavoidably break this rule.
-
Martial arts ranks are a quantifiable ranking measure of ones skill level in the unarmed arts. They are representations that are also labeled in a literal way like you'd see on a character sheet (and in some game systems, literally are).
-
Martial arts ranks are a quantifiable ranking measure of ones skill level in the unarmed arts. They are representations that are also labeled in a literal way like you'd see on a character sheet (and in some game systems, literally are).
No, those are purely subjective measurements that are unique to a given martial art form/tradition. Game stat ratings are objective ratings, each rating point signifying one 6-sided die to be rolled (for the Shadowrun game system, in this instance).
For instance, I hereby found the martial art of "Janessa-Fu," and I decree that it has 313 ranks. Why 313? Maybe I like prime numbers, maybe I just drew it out of a hat.
But a quick check of Wikipedia tells me that Taekwondo, for instance, has "color belts" of: white, white yellow, yellow, yellow green, green, green blue, blue, blue red, red and red black.
Sounds like their ranks wouldn't translate well to Janessa-Fu ranks (and prospective students must memorize the 313 unique color shades before advancing to Rank 2 - yes, there will be a test later). And how would either directly translate to the Shadowrun game system? They don't.
-
Um, for a skill, that's what the table on page 131 is for. People in game will refer to ones level of skill in something (or power when talking about magic) that is more abstract, and sometimes that abstraction can be a literal number. I could easily see more academically minded mages referring to themselves like this, even if others think it's a dumb way of trying to measure something that is more arbitrary. You could use that table to mark a "title" to ones level of advance mystic knowledge. Are you a level 2 initiate, your character is still a novice when it comes to the higher arts of magic. Are you a rank 10 initiate, then you are an elite master of the higher arts!
Basically, take the arbitrary out of game number, and give it an arbitrary title relevant to the character that others around her will understand. The reason initiation has an in-game number rank is because the number of times you undergo this arduous process is easy to know and can be quantified by such.
-
My point is that gaming mechanics should not so directly translate to the reality of the gaming world, which is what the current system of “Initiate Ranks” does. If you’re going to go that far, you might as well just go all the way and have your characters directly announcing the rest of their stats as well. “Hey, I know I’m smarter than this other runner, because my Logic rating is a point higher than theirs!” There’s no difference between a character knowing their “Initiate Rating” and their Logic rating - both are objective, gaming mechanics values. And at that point, you might as well just acknowledge that your characters all know that they’re merely characters in an RPG world and that their fates are decided by a group of players rolling dice.
Suspension of disbelief is broken when you can plainly see the gaming mechanics so blatantly intruding on the game world. The “Initiate Ranks” system is essentially vending machine magic. Do the same thing over and over again, pay your Karma, and come away with exactly one shiny new toy each time. “Welcome to the Metaplanes Warehouse! Please, look over our selection of attractive metamagics. Pick out the one you want and bring it to the counter to pay with Karma when you’re ready. Thank you and please come again!” It kind of re-casts the Dweller on the Threshold as a sort of store security guard with a bad attitude, who gets his jollies hassling the shoppers.
-
Maybe they use a lumin scale based off of auras....
-
You do realize it is okay for the mechanics to translate to the reality of the game occasionally, yes? I mean, the mechanics are based on how people think it would work. If people across various traditions advance in power (if not in direction) at a similar rate, then a general 'hey, they are at ___-level' is going to happen no matter what. That it could be seen in a similar light to the mechanical version isn't really a flaw. The mechanical version is there to delineate between various power levels already.
Also, while you're entitled to your opinion, a number of us do not agree with it, so making it sound like yours is the only truth doesn't really appeal.
-
My point is that gaming mechanics should not so directly translate to the reality of the gaming world, which is what the current system of “Initiate Ranks” does. If you’re going to go that far, you might as well just go all the way and have your characters directly announcing the rest of their stats as well. “Hey, I know I’m smarter than this other runner, because my Logic rating is a point higher than theirs!” There’s no difference between a character knowing their “Initiate Rating” and their Logic rating - both are objective, gaming mechanics values. And at that point, you might as well just acknowledge that your characters all know that they’re merely characters in an RPG world and that their fates are decided by a group of players rolling dice.
Suspension of disbelief is broken when you can plainly see the gaming mechanics so blatantly intruding on the game world. The “Initiate Ranks” system is essentially vending machine magic. Do the same thing over and over again, pay your Karma, and come away with exactly one shiny new toy each time. “Welcome to the Metaplanes Warehouse! Please, look over our selection of attractive metamagics. Pick out the one you want and bring it to the counter to pay with Karma when you’re ready. Thank you and please come again!” It kind of re-casts the Dweller on the Threshold as a sort of store security guard with a bad attitude, who gets his jollies hassling the shoppers.
I'm sorry but I'm not seeing how that's different from any other skill. To use your example I create a character who's a master martial artist of JanessaFU each rank (skill point) they take in unarmed combat equates to a die, specialization in JanessaFu = another 2 die when using that style, the advanced skill = a maximum of 13 die from ranks + 2 die from specialization for a total of 15 die for their skill in JanessaFu and then they can't learn any more in that style.
Same with any other skill each skill point purchased = a quantifieable 1 die increase in your skill wheras in real life its not that cut and dried sure but its easy enough to go the other way. I purchase 4 skill ranks in skill X or 4 initiations and I've gained greater knowledge and skill from study and practice that greater ability is what's represented by the extra dice I've gained. I have spent the past four years studying with my mentor spirt and meditating on its lessons in the wilderness as a result I have a greater knowledge and undertsanding of my magic. That is I don't +4 die to magic because I'm a level 4 initiate but rather I'm a level 4 initiate BECAUSE I have 4 dice more magical skill than someone who didn't spend 4 years with a crotchety spirt slapping you upside the head every time you made a mistake reciting the 313 principles of JanessaFU.
Just like any fourth year in a course is going to be expected to answer questions of a certain difficulty level sure the actual questions might differ based on content level but ANY experienced person in that field will agree if you can't answer their questions you need more study because you aren't at the appopriate level. Its why you have thousands of people with doctorates even if Bob with his doctorate of philosophy or Tom with his engineering doctorate are not who you'd want treating your broken leg.
-
If you’ve already been “initiated into the deeper mysteries of magic”, then why the heck should you keep doing it again and again? Were you not paying attention the first time?
I understand your issues with the system, and I sympathize, but I think what they mean by "initiation" is "initiation into ONE of the deeper mysteries". Each initiation introduces you to a new mystery, and also progresses you in all your previous ones, representing your continuing study in those other areas.