Shadowrun
Shadowrun General => General Discussion => Topic started by: Strill on <11-28-15/0208:49>
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I'm trying to get a picture of what the daily routine of a wagemage is. I'm guessing it's something like, summon a handful of Watchers, then spend 6 hours recharging a ward or binding a new spirit. If someone trips a ward, they astral project to the place to scope it out and maybe sic a spirit on the intruders.
What else would they do?
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Well, that's very limited. Wagemage isn't just some security nerf-herder. Keep in mind, there are more fully-trained doctors (PhD-certified medical personnel) than magic users per million; that doesn't even get into the quality of those magic users (only a fraction of them are wagemage level). Even fewer of those are going to be dedicated to law enforcement/security/military. Their rarity does mean there will be a bit of overlap, though... Let's see...
Magical research (new spells and such don't make themselves, and exploring the metaplanes is very lucrative).
Talismongering (where else do reagents come from?).
Magical services (Healing, among other things).
Alchemy (people love them some magical compounds and preparations).
Artificing (foci are really good money-makers, and make your job easier).
Practicing/Initiating (makes you more valuable and better at your job).
So yeah, just because they're a wagemage, don't expect them to be professional security personnel. The majority will have bound a spirit or two and said 'guard this area' to provide some support; low maintenance wards as well, perhaps. Otherwise, a lot of them have more important duties than sitting around, waiting for bad things to happen.
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Yep in my opinion security wage mage while the main focus of the books is actually the most limited area as it pretty much boils down to protect against other wage mages trying to steal our secrets. Outside that though there's a huge range of options available to company's looking to employ wage mages particularly if they're on contract i.e. paid X amount per year not X amount per spell.
Teaching: Someone has to educate the new crop in the company spells/magical procedures.
Health & Beauty: A luxury bonus for the rich and wealthy in exclusies spas spells like "Healty glow" make you look good for that important dinner or "Dream" helps someone escape bad nightmares for a good nights rest.
Law Enforcement: As an aid to scientific forensics you have spells like "death replay" for the weird cases and "analyze truth" for a witnesses statement.
Examination: Equipment A keeps having an intermittent failure and we can't pin it down as no one's on site when it happens "Analyze device" but a technically trained mage what don't I know about this machine? Oh there's ants in that component.
Disaster Relief: "Detect Life" will tell you there's survivors under that rubble over there even if they're unconcious or "Light" gives you a lightsource with no danger of igniting flameable gasses.
Medical Field: Lots and lots of spells here starting with "Diagonose" for those VIP clients who are too busy to give up the timel for a normal examination for potential problems.
Diplomacy: For those important conferences "Translate" will let the two people involed discuss the details directly even if they don't share a common language.
Entertainment: Spells like "Trid Phantasm" suddenly let popular performers put on an open air performance with all the props that usually require a full CGI set and a film studio to produce.
Decontamination: Long term and requires a lot of mages or a sealed off area but you can turn a contaminated area of land/air/water into a clean one with the "clean element" spells.
Multipurpose: Spells like "Fashion" and "Makeover" can see usage in a lot of different fields and roles.
All of that's just off the top of my head.
There's going to be a lot more if you just look around and think about how you could use a wage mage to make certain tasks easier/safer. I'm currently doing repairs on a location that caught fire and it gets horribly hot in there when you have 35+ degree's celsius day's in an unairconditioned, brick building with little space, lots of electrical equipment heating it up and half a dozen people inside. We're running 2 portable AC's normally and they're not always able to keep up especially since we occasionally have to turn one or the other off so we can actually hear the instructions from the engineer in a different part of the building when we're tracing/running wires. One on staff wage mage with alter temperature assigned to the jump until something more important comes along removes all problems with noise and keeps the workspace nice and cool all day long regardless of the outside temperature. A wagemage with the summon great form spirit ritual summons some random spirit to create a massive storm over a bushfire or even just between said bushfire and the homes of people. In the health service for the ICU or a major vital location for a corporation that HAS to keep running main powers out, batteries have been running for 5 hours and is about to cut out, a generator can't be gotten in till tommorow . . . corporate wage mage shows up and casts recharge on the batteries bang you have another 6 hours runtime while they head off to the next ICU hospiital to recharge their batteries. 2/3 mages cycling through keep the ICU and emergency rooms running till the generator is delivered to provide an ongoing power supply till power is restored.
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So I'm getting the impression that they'd largely be on-call for high-ranking corp executives, in-between long stretches of relatively repetitive magic use.
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Maybe, maybe not. Most of them would serve the higher ranks simply because trained magic users are very, very rare and they're going to be in high demand with a relatively small supply you can't increase with better training programs. So any mage with sense is going to make a fortune serving the very wealthy or spend a lot of time helping the lower rungs of society out of a social concience. Still there'd be some in PR slots helping the general populace, ones on call for the very wealthy sitting around doing nothing because when you need them you don't want them tired out from something else, others who do the two of them combined (healthy glow over and over for the wealthy spa goers), some serving the general public in order to steal market share from other groups, those in research or government jobs, university teachers, mages doing pure research from the thrill.
It'd come down to a combination of factors are they a contractor being paid per spell in which case they'd be doing lots of different things for different groups and making money hand over fist, are they Johny CEO's private mage who spends most working day's in their office watching movies and the like except when they're calledin to help the CEO (any time day or night) in which case they better be ready to do their job, are they a corporate mage who's going to have job after job keeping them busy if only because your not going to want that resource going to waste, are they in a specific field and spend all day casting the same spells on different customers/products, are they a researcher or security mage? What their lifestyle is going to be like is going to depend on where they fall in there.
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You are going to find awakened in every job there is. Why? Because they are just people. People who have a unique ability granted, but that doesn't mean it shapes and takes over their life.
You could find awakened working in kitchens if cooking is their passion. Or cutting hair... or sitting at the boardroom table. Or researching a cure of diseases. Or constantly drunk at a bar.
Mages are people, and people squander their talents all the time.
And that is not even considering individual moral rationales. IE: if a person is a total pacifist, they are never, ever join a security detail - they might have to hurt someone!
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Never forget, a person is a person, is a person. You can't ever judge them or hole-peg them just cause of the color of their skin, or what talents you think they have, or what creed or ethos they keep.
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True I was just assuming they were looking for actively working awakened rather than just active as it were.
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Hmm, if I remember correctly, awakened make up about 1% of the population. I know they're not all mages, or even full mages, but that's actually still reasonably common (thumb in the air, about 5 times more mages than lawyers). There would enough for any corporate location in a city to have at least a few dozen on the payroll.
I tend to agree with previous posters about the varied roles of mages, the security mage is the person who runners bump into most often, so is *perceived* as being the main role.
I would also think that there would be alot of mages involved in government work, such as espionage and magical bodyguarding. An aspect of magic often ignored by the writers of the setting is that mages can read minds. Every single politician would need one, also every exec above a certain level. Lawyers? Mobsters? Police departments? Secrets would only stay as such while the target had a mage bodyguard. Probe thoughts may be range touch, but control thoughts and control actions are not, "Email me everything on the xyz project", etc. I imagine this would keep alot of mages employed. This in addition to those listed by previous posters.
I would imagine alot would go into magical policing and enforcement as well (licencing, etc)
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Well, keep in mind there are fewer magic users than (medical) doctors. The math done previously puts full mages at about 250 out of 1,000,000, 1,600 aspected mages, 650 adepts/mystic adepts (none of the numbers given ever say exactly how rare mystic adepts are; I generally put them at the '50' in 650, if that), etc. Then there's about 7,000 people with magic who either don't know they have any, are too weak to do anything, or are insane/broken because of it. If you count the latter, they do outnumber lawyers. If you only count the functional, there are more lawyers.
As far as magical bodyguards go... There's not that many of them, so getting on without is probably common. On the plus side, that also means there aren't that many of them who make you need a magical bodyguard unless you run in the circles where the bodyguard is provided.
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Being in such short supply and high demand does put them in an interesting position as a valuable asset of the company as you can see in the following which comes from another thread.
<snip>
<snip>
"How can you let Johnson sleep on the job Higgins?"
"I didn't know if he sleeping, meditating, practicing his feign death skills or astrally projecting and conducting a security sweep sir and you recall the last time I woke him up that tentacle thing got lose in the offices."
<snip>
And of course all the stress relief, good pay and job conditions as its a skill you can't train unless they are part of the 1% to possess it naturally, specialized training and research trips. Mmmmmmm probably wouldn't be like that in Shadowruns grim and gritty reality but here? "You want to cut my pay to barely even with inflation, remove no forced redundancy and retention of pay because they're unconstitutional while politicians still get indexed pensions regardless of getting other jobs after 2 terms? Ok fine here's my resignation I've got 15 job offers that have better terms and conditions so I'll not debate it with you but good luck getting anyone to hire on to replace me. Yesss Mmmmmmm is most appropriate.
It does sort of put them at odds with the usual dystopian outlook as you can only browbeat a mage so far in the office because replacing them is not so easy.
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Don't forget that a typical wagemage is brought up and trained on corporate dime. Meaning, if he tries to quit, the corp can just slap all the bills on him. But, if he saved enough nuyen to pay of Don Corpsuit...
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Being in such short supply and high demand does put them in an interesting position as a valuable asset of the company as you can see in the following which comes from another thread.
<snip>
<snip>
"How can you let Johnson sleep on the job Higgins?"
"I didn't know if he sleeping, meditating, practicing his feign death skills or astrally projecting and conducting a security sweep sir and you recall the last time I woke him up that tentacle thing got lose in the offices."
<snip>
And of course all the stress relief, good pay and job conditions as its a skill you can't train unless they are part of the 1% to possess it naturally, specialized training and research trips. Mmmmmmm probably wouldn't be like that in Shadowruns grim and gritty reality but here? "You want to cut my pay to barely even with inflation, remove no forced redundancy and retention of pay because they're unconstitutional while politicians still get indexed pensions regardless of getting other jobs after 2 terms? Ok fine here's my resignation I've got 15 job offers that have better terms and conditions so I'll not debate it with you but good luck getting anyone to hire on to replace me. Yesss Mmmmmmm is most appropriate.
It does sort of put them at odds with the usual dystopian outlook as you can only browbeat a mage so far in the office because replacing them is not so easy.
So it sounds like for a wagemage to become a shadowrunner they'd have to either be in the middle of a seriously major scandal that prevents them from working in public, or be philosophically opposed to working for a corp (which ironically they'd still end up doing, even as a shadowrunner).
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Or maybe they just don't fit (a number of shamans or odd traditions could fit there), or they get a better offer from some other group (private or government instead of corporate sector). There's plenty of reasons out there.
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Yeah it comes down to their specialty, just like engineers or doctors, Mages are skilled talented employees. They have extra gifts, sure, but that doesn't mean all wagemages are going to be patroling around the astral looking for brawls, only your security group will be up for that.
Routine mage stuff: create and maintain wards, Medical related (heal spells, detox, sterilize etc), Summoning (Binding) assigning spirits to do stuff, Spirits have a huge number of powers and uses, talismonger/enchanting/alchemy, creating new spells, recruiting, meetings, ascencing services (you have to figure companies would jump on using ascencing, with it you can learn all kinds of stuff, healthy not healthy, truth detection).
If were to make wagemage book the biggest section that would be off interest would have to be group magic, while mostly ignored in the Normal level play imagen what you could do with it in a magic team, wanna move dirt? No need to get millions worth on construction gear, call up a high force great form earth ele, and let it grade the site. There are so many large scale uses for group magic that I'm sure could blow away the way normal things get done.
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I admit it'd make interesting reading even if it's probably not viable as a product "Rituals, Wagemages and life in the corporate world".
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There is some talk about how corp life is for mages in Street Magic, as I recall. You'd probably find more info in the older magic sourcebooks, too.
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So moving away from the actual jobs and being aware there'd be a top/bottom end what do people think the conditions for an average wage mage would be?
Would they work a 6 hour day, a 8, a 10, a 12, 24 hours with 8 hour sleep section and then a 24 hour break before the next shift? Would they have a 20 hour week, a 40 a 60+? Do they get a corporate car, games and other entertainment to unwind on?
If they're involved in a ritual going over 8 hours do they get a mandated 24 hour break before returning to work and a 48 hour one for rituals going over 12 hours.
Is there a hard limit of 2 hours continuous astral projection then 40 minutes break?
Do they get a 30 minute lunch or an hour?
Do they get overtime for excess hours worked or time in lieu/flexible hours?
Do they get 9% superannuation and 4% pay raise each year for cost of living increases?
Do they get an indexed pension and retirement at 60?
Are they on call 24/7, do they get 4 weeks leave a year or 8?
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Magicians are valuable; you can't just train a new one, or go out and hire them easily (partially due to rarity and also Tradition meshing). As a results, they should be getting it better than the average wageslave.
They probably work 9 to 11 hour days on their regular schedule, 4-6 days a week, depending on their preference and what is needed (of course, the more hours you work a day, the more likely you get another day off).
Any magicians on 24-hour duty are probably only there for a limited duration due to projects, time constraints or security concerns. I doubt they would be getting a corporate car, but magicians likely get paid about around 80,000 nuyen for entry-level, with definite increases as experience is accrued.
Recuperation times after long rituals are likely as well; probably not for any less than 12 hours, though.
I doubt there is a set 'this much break after this much exertion' when it comes to the usual workday. The megacorporations treat their wagemages well, but they're still dystopic assholes.
An hour is likely given. That said, working lunches are probably encouraged.
Overtime is probable; they need them to work more to make up for their rarity, so compensating them is a must. Flexible hours are probably a thing as well in most places.
Pay increases might be like that; I don't have exact numbers, but of course the higher they get and the longer they're there, the more they earn.
Retirement is very iffy. Orks and trolls live shorter lifespans than metahumans; elves and dwarfs live significantly longer. Who knows when they start to dip out of the workforce?
I would say yes, mages are likely on call (even non-combat ones), and probably 4 weeks of leave with some other options thrown in there.
Keep in mind, any of this can be taken away by their Corporation as punishment. Maybe not blatantly, but 'sorry, we need you to pull all the late shifts' and 'your leave was denied again, sorry' are definitely possible. 'Oops, we forgot to file your overtime, we'll have accounting fix that eventually.'
The biggest thing about wagemages is their value; you need to keep them happy or they can and will go elsewhere. There needs to be incentives to keep them around for sure. That said, it IS a megacorporation we're talking about. While they might have relaxed requirements, of course they'll be encouraged to do extra. They'll use any means in the book to milk more out of them without being overtly oppressive, and one of the best ways is to make the workplace competitive. Give the wagemage with the best production rate or newest innovations or what-have-you (maybe they geeked a 'runner who messed up their workplace) a nice bonus, a free vacation or something. The better you perform, the more you're given. That will push the others to want that, thus making them think it is their idea to work 12 hour shifts for 6 days a week over the course of a year just for that 7 day cruise.
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I was just putting out ideas to get the ball rolling and see what people thought.
For me personally this is my standard entry level position (modified with your 80k starting value) or at least as close as I can remember when I'm away for work, there are also apprenticeships and higher level positions but this one assumes your applying for a job not training.
Required
1) Magic Licence.
2) Valid SIN (if they found you and you don't have a criminal one they may provide a limited one).
3) Proficient at one of the following summoning, enchanting, spellcasting, ritual spellcasting or assensing (Rank 4 in game terms)
Magic Licence and any other tickets required for your role must be kept current e.g. first aid, induction to a high security area etc.
Basic Conditions
Standard Hours: Flexitime between 6am and 6pm monday to Friday so long as you work a 40 hour week actual hours within this range are at your own discretion.
Lunch: 30 minute paid break.
Breaks: May be taken at own discretion within job requirements (more detailed legallese in contract but basically as long as you are there when your meant to be and get all your work done to the standards required you can watch TV, read a book, go catch a movie etc just be aware of your relaxing too much your manager will give you more work).
Pay: Base Wage of 80k with a bonus of 1% per additional field of proficiency and a bonus of 10% if you are suitably skilled in all roles e.g. if you have spellcastig and ritual spellcasting you get 80,000 + 800 = 80,800 a year, if you have all 5 categories you get a base wage of 88,000 a year (of course more experienced mages know 8,000 bonus is not worth the extra work you get assigned). In addition you receive a %4 pay rise each year to represent cost of living increases and 9% superanuation. Overtime above the 40 hour work week is paid at usual rates (double time if you can get it but most offices have an unspoken expectation you'll be putting in unpaid overtime to "look good"), shift work 6pm to 6am and weekends is paid at usual rates but compensated with extra leave time and can be used to replace the usual flexitime hours. Overtime and shift work require manegerial approval.
Leave: 4 weeks per year annual leave, 15 day's sick leave of which 6 can be taken without certification and 6 can be accrued for future illnesses, additional leave for each quarter that shift work is undertaken accures at a rate of 1.5 days' per quarter. After 10 years working for the company you receive an additional 4 weeks long service leave per year. After 30 years working for the company this increases to 8 weeks long service leave each year. A total of 1 month worth of annual and long service leave may be kept above the years accrual unless a long holiday is being planned for and managerial approval is given. Or to put it another way if your getting 2 months long service and 1 month annual leave a year you need to plan out holidays in advance for that year to use up 2 of those months then the next year you have 1 month accrued, 2 months long service and 1 month annual your holiday plans have to use up 3 of those months.
Medical: You receive full medical, dental and optical coverage but are required to maintain a certain basic level of healthiness (spelled out in more detail in the contract) as no one wants a mage keeling over of a heart attack mid ritual with checkups every 5 years, 2 years if over 40, 1 year if over 60 or have previously failed a check.
Extras:
1) You receive a company car for work purposes or annual travel pass to local transit system depending on area.
2) You are guaranteed 3 star accomodation or better if required to stay away for work + 170 nuyen a night for expenses. Accomodation must be approved and booked by management, receipt must be supplied after stay.
3) You are granted access to the common corporate spells for your duties (need to sign various non-disclosure agreements for this).
4) You agree to a full security background, physiological and pyschological examanination to determine fitness for work.
5) Standard corporate requirements e.g. no browsing porn at work, dressing respectibly, not commiting fraud or accepting bribes etc.
6) Any advances or discoveries made with corporate property (such a nice vague term considering you technically are company property as an employee) belong to the company.
7) You are guranteed 1 hour of time per normal working day (5 per week) to use the computer.
8) You get all common public holidays off or if required to work are paid at double time and a half for that day (can also take 2 and a half day's off as leave instead).
9) 1 years probationary period to determine if you are suitable extended by any holidays taken in that time frame.
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I'd honestly go with less requirements if the Megacorporation can nab them early, Senko. They're likely to put anyone they can find into school just to get them on their side.
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Keep in mind this is aimed at already qualified people so they should have rank 4 in something, will have a magical license anyway and the SIN is usually granted as long as the background checks out. There are also appreciate positions which while not as good don't require a license or proficiency. 60k base pay, no car, work to your mentors schedule, guaranteed time to study/attend training, 6 years to gain proficiency in one area and acquire your license and a guaranteed position when you do so long as you are the right tradition, aren't caught embezzling or other criminal act and so on (even if you are the wrong tradition they'll probably do a swap with someone else who had someone awaken as the wrong one e.g a Japanocorp pointing a Christian tradition mage to the Vatican in exchange for them directing Shinto makes to them).
It's more for enticing a person who's got their qualifications and is looking for work than to provide those qualifications and entice them to see how good the company is but there's plenty of the other sort too starting with young kids if they can identify potential in them.
If this were an add on a job board the very first line would read "If you have magical potential and don't think you meet the requirements for this position then click this link and apply for our apprenticeship program great pay, similar conditions and we will give you all the training, licensing and opportunities you need to qualify for a permanent position on graduation."
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I don't believe that license would be an issue. I'm sure that a megacorp would happily supply you with all necessary permits, a SIN, and any other paperwork in order to get their hands on a new magician. Hell, they would probably make any legal issues with unlicensed magic use go away, unless it's something really nasty - we wouldn't want anyone who could tarnish the good name of the company, right?
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Maybe eligible for a license then for your world. For me if your applying for this the only reason I can see for not having a license is not having a SIN or having done something bad enough to have it revoked. If you just couldn't qualify you're looking at the apprenticeship. As I said not having a SIN they're more concerned about what crimes you may have committed and if you seem legitimate they'll 9 times in 10 provide you with a limited Corp one. However in that case there's a good chance you'll be recruited in a different way since your not likely to be browsing the Corp job postings and may not even be able to read or access the net.
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What might a corp require that could piss off a wagemage? What might make them become a shadowrunner?
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That's easy; something that offends their morals. Discovering cybermantic rituals, abusing the environment, killing their family... The list is as long as bad things Megacorporations do.
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Which doesn't even consider the personal double crosses, scapegoating, other people taking credit for ideas, discrimination based on sex/metatype, better offers, Being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Anyone else want to offer up job conditions for a mage?
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What might a corp require that could piss off a wagemage? What might make them become a shadowrunner?
Too the first all the normal thing that drives peeps away from companies now in real life, spanning from petty personal shit, to serious legal violations. Too the second, deciding to run the shadows is more complicated, Mages have an easier time of it then some, as they just need learn some spells, and some new skill, attune a focus or two and can skip all the surgeries. But that's gotta be the more interest part of the equation. Why doesn't the mage just swap corporate masters? Blacklisted? Fed up with corporate life? Out for Revenge? Trying to help <insert person, place or thing>? Got Religion? Saw something (Shadiem, Bug Spirits, other supernatural threat?)