Shadowrun
Shadowrun General => General Discussion => Topic started by: Senko on <09-27-16/0329:00>
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I've been going back over my books and just noticed the rule that lodges are the size of a room and necessary to learn spells. Now locally there's a huge housing shortage and lots of 1 bedroom apartments are being built to "counter it" (there are other issues). From what I've seen the shadowrun world has a similar housing issue (in part because of the way the corps run things) so I'm curious how people handle lodges in their games do you . . .
1) Hand wave it "You have a lodge somewhere perhaps a self storage".
2) Alter the rules "You can learn spells without a lodge the DC's are just higher and it takes longer."
3) Insist mages find a 2 bedroom or better "You need a medium or higher lifestyle to have room to place a lodge even if you purchase one."
4) Allow multipurpose rooms "The decorations of the living room allow it to also double as a lodge provided you pull the couches out of the way."
5) Have "work" provide a room for the mages lodge either officially for corp mages or require the runner base to have one.
6) Something I've not thought of?
I've seen mention in the fiction of mage's living rough by choice because of their beliefs so obviously there's some way of dealing with it.
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I usually go with #4 and require Low. As there's no specific rules about what the lodge has to look like specifically (no "Hermetics require a circle at least 10-feet in radius...") I assume that it's often mostly a normal room save for what's in it includes charms, talisman, and various things to turn a room into a lodge. Basically, "is a lodge" is a modifier that may be applied to any room.
Since magicians can end up spending a very long time in those rooms, studying, binding, etc, it makes sense in my mind for them to be able to be comfortable. A hermetic lodge very easily could have a basic writing deck and a comfy chair. If your magician is a geomancer and cares strongly about feng shui then they would probably have that connected to what their lodge is, requiring less "its own room" and more just the fine-manipulation of an existing room.
These are just examples of justification, but basically yeah: Lodge is a modifier applied to a normal room, is how I see it.
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Eh, there are lifestyle options for exactly that purpose. If you live on the street you can just create a temporary or a low force one that you can assemble quite quickly.
Also, I see no reason why you can't live in your lodge - sleeping inside one is actually a good way to prevent astral intruder assassination/recon.
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Mostly I go with 3) for my mage characters and take at least middle lifestyle, putting the lodge in the spare bedroom. It also gives the mage something to do with his nuyen. :)
Or go with a low lifestyle with an extra space option (we're still using 4th edition rules with advanced lifestyles, I'm not sure if 5th has similar options already).
Also remember that lifestyles are not always the same in the world. Look at today's housing prices across the globe. What get's you a one-bedroom apartment in downtown Tokio for instance, can get you a couple of acres of land in some rural area in a developing country.
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Sure, if the sale goes through I'm spending 530,000 for a two bedroom apartment if I were buying the same in a nearby city it'd be 1 million+ if I were buying further away (stupid commute problems) I could get a house for 400-500 thousand. Still most runners are in major cities as far as players are concerned which is why I was wondering.
5th Ed has some advanced lifestyle rules don't think that extra space one is in there though.
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I've quickly looked it up, it's in the Runner's Companion of 4th edition (I assume that you can adapt the ones that don't exist in 5th easily enough if you want them, and if the GM agrees), p162:
Workplace +1
The home has an attached garage or an available large space,
secure from the elements, to work in, operate a small business, or
house a magical lodge. This could be a warehouse, large loft, or even a
storefront. This raises the space aspect of Necessities by two levels.
Magical lodge is even mentioned specifically.
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Actually, there is something similar:
RF p. 223
PRIVATE ROOM
Point Cost: 1
Type: Asset
Monthly Nuyen Cost: 20¥
Minimum Lifestyle: Squatter
This is a simple empty, two-meter-by-two-meter space that has been built out of the view of passers by. It provides concealability (–4 dice pool penalty for Perception Tests to notice a person in the room from the outside) and full cover. A barricaded alley or abandoned cars are examples things that could serve as a private room for people who do not live in an actual building. For people in a building, this is simply a room cleverly placed to be difficult to see.
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In the wake of wars, treaties, VITAS plagues, natural disasters, and worse, most major sprawls in Shadowrun are left with blighted and abandoned "barrens" -type areas, where utilities and infrastructure are not maintained, emergency services are limited or nonexistent, and security and police do not go except in force. These areas can be as small as a neighborhood (e.g., El Infierno in Los Angeles), as large as a major suburb (e.g., the Rox in Boston), or even bigger (e.g., the Puyallup Barrens south of Seattle is a third the size of Rhode Island). When you take a Squatter lifestyle, you can have pretty much any kind of space you can hold in the barrens. It may not have running water or electricity, but there's always room to set up a lodge if you're not picky. You might want to bind a spirit to long-term service to make sure no one absconds with it when you're not home, though.
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Actually, there is something similar:
RF p. 223
PRIVATE ROOM
Point Cost: 1
Type: Asset
Monthly Nuyen Cost: 20¥
Minimum Lifestyle: Squatter
This is a simple empty, two-meter-by-two-meter space that has been built out of the view of passers by. It provides concealability (–4 dice pool penalty for Perception Tests to notice a person in the room from the outside) and full cover. A barricaded alley or abandoned cars are examples things that could serve as a private room for people who do not live in an actual building. For people in a building, this is simply a room cleverly placed to be difficult to see.
I'm not sure if this is the same (I don't have the 5th edition book) as it only speaks of a private room, but doesn't clearly state that it's an extra room. The Workspace quality clearly states it's extra space you get when you take it, while here it's only concealed space. Also the cost is quite different, although this can be due to the differences in lifestyle cost calculations between the two editions.
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Of course the flip side of that is that the lifestyle options don't really specify room numbers that's more detail than it seems to want to go into.
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The lifestyle system in SR is pretty vague...
A "low" lifestyle can be a 4 bedroom house... It just happens to be in a area with no electricity and running water, and a massive gang problem...
Or it could be a coffin sized room in the sub-basement of a high-lifestyle condo unit in the downtown core.
The same can be Said of a High Lifestyle. That could be a penthouse 3 room apartment, or a mansion in the suburbs.
Generally, I look at the force of the lodge to determine the actual size needed. a rating 1-3 lodge will fit in a closet. 4 to 8 you need a small room (utility room/service room/coat room sized). When you start to get into the "big" lodges of 9+ then you start to get into living room sized.
But honestly? Never really been an issue as its usually the mage with the best lifestyle of the group. And I am not going to sit there an tell a player that his character needs to move out of his medium lifestyle into a high lifestyle, or buy a second lowlife style to house his lodge while the troll gun bunny lives a low lifestyle with his 501 firearms, and ammo, and explosives, and...... (or the Rigger! Please, don't get me started on the Rigger! For the love of God, NOT the rigger!!!!)
But then again, sometimes, something like that can add a new little spark to your game, if the group is invested in roleplaying.
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I see no reason why you can't make your entire apartment or bedroom into your lodge, assuming it's not too big.
Some stuff actually says "The mage has to stay in here for the duration of the ritual/whatever, if he leaves he has to start over" and the ritual in question might take days or weeks, and they even point out that smart mages take precautions to have everything they need for that time within the lodge. Aka bed, toilet, food, water, etc. I guess "I have a roommate who can give me food" works, but "I have a roommate who sleeps in the comfy bed and goes to the toilet for me instead" doesn't work quite as well. So yes, including your bathroom into your lodge might actually not be a terrible idea :)
Once you have the materials, find a space to put it, like your apartment, or a cave in the wilderness, or a secret abandoned sewer tunnel—someplace you won’t mind spending some time
Apartment is even mentioned as an example. It doesn't mention anything about a min or max size there. It also doesn't say "The lodge has to be a single room".
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I rather like the idea of scattering parts of it around a normal apartment so you have talismans up on the bedroom walls, a shrine in the living room, some incense burning in the kitchen etc makes it a lot easier for the mage to set up one rather than needing a large room just dedicated to that.
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A Workspace is available in the Core 5th Edition Book for an additional 1000 Nuyen/Month.
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During a prolonged out-of-town mission, our team rented a loft to use for living space. It was a big open space being used by five of us. We used dividers (like in a cubicle) for a bit of privacy. In that space we actually ended up setting up two different lodges (we had magicians of two different traditions). My magician set up her lodge as a part of her living space, she spent her personal time and slept in the same area as her lodge. That being said, the entire space was very spartan to begin with (since it wasn't permanent living space). So basically, having a cot in your lodge wasn't really an issue.
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Only slightly related to the original question:
Can Adepts create a Lodge and if so, what does it do for them?
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Only slightly related to the original question:
Can Adepts create a Lodge and if so, what does it do for them?
Physical adept?
Nope.
And 'nothing'.
A lodge serves three basic functions.
1: its a place where a mage can learn spells,
2: a place to conduct ritual magic,
3: act as a mana barrier.
For a physical adept, only the last point has any real use to them.
Mystic adepts?
Yes, and its needed for:
Learning spells,
Casting Ritual magics.
Mana barrier.
Without a lodge, a mystic adept can never learn new spells.
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Personally, I wouldn't let it cover an entire home/apartment.
Maybe its just me but I don't see the "spiritual connection room" as being something that every person in the house walks through.
But I see no problem in letting your lodge be in your bedroom as that is a bit more off limits.
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My problem with that Tarislar is ritual magic specifically.
1) You're dealing with potentially multiple people casting the ritual so they all have to be present.
2) A ritual MUST be cast in a lodge, p.g.296 core rulebook "A ritual must be cast in a magical lodge appropriate to the leader's tradition, which is referred to as the foundation for the ritual." and "Once the lodge is active no participant (except a spotter) may leave the foundation until the ritual is complete without causing the ritual to fail.".
3) Most rituals take force hours to complete with some taking force day's.
That's a very long time for a group of people to be crammed into a small space. They can't leave or the ritual fails, they sleep together, eat together, use the facilities together. Similarly if your trying to pull off a major ritual you could have a dozen participants (or more) for them to fit in comfortably you'd be looking at a space larger than a lot of modern apartments.
Its another one of those rare rules I think was made for balance considerations without considering how it would actually work in practice. Ritual magic needs multiple people to really be effective and it has to be in a lodge therefore the lodge has to be big enough for everyone to fit in and if the rituals going to take day's or even a day they'll need to eat and use the toilet at some point.
There's also a lot to be said for your entire home to be spiritually warded and part of your magic especially for those like me who don't want visitors and would have very few people passing through. Others may well want, be able to afford a huge facility elsewhere as their lodge but for a lot its going to need to fit around their lifestyle and still work with the rules as written.
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If you want an entire building to be warded, that is what the Ward ritual is for.
I agree that magical lodges aren't supposed to cover an entire apartment, I usually limit it to one room, maybe two if you have an open floor plan. For instance, in my example earlier about the loft, the "lodge" was limited only to the personal living space for that character. So even though the full living space was a big open area, because it was partitioned into separate spaces, that contained the lodge.
I do sometimes wish that lodges had a range of how big they should/can be. For example, a Rating 1 lodge might be able to range from 1m radius to a 5m radius space. I definitely think a larger rating ward should both require more space, but also allow for a bigger area. But you shouldn't be able to outright replace the Ward ritual with being able to just set up a permanent lodge. There's definitely a limit to how big a magician's lodge can go.
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If you want an entire building to be warded, that is what the Ward ritual is for.
I agree that magical lodges aren't supposed to cover an entire apartment, I usually limit it to one room, maybe two if you have an open floor plan. For instance, in my example earlier about the loft, the "lodge" was limited only to the personal living space for that character. So even though the full living space was a big open area, because it was partitioned into separate spaces, that contained the lodge.
I do sometimes wish that lodges had a range of how big they should/can be. For example, a Rating 1 lodge might be able to range from 1m radius to a 5m radius space. I definitely think a larger rating ward should both require more space, but also allow for a bigger area. But you shouldn't be able to outright replace the Ward ritual with being able to just set up a permanent lodge. There's definitely a limit to how big a magician's lodge can go.
There used to be a size requirement back in 3rd ed. for the mage variant, which were called Hermetic circles, they had to be 1m radius pr. point of force and were used for summoning and ritual magic and you had to use a hermetic library to learn spells, shamen hade lodges. Pr. 4th ed. evryone had lodges and the size requirement were gone. So it would be easy to make as a houserule if you want.
In my games your lodge is of Paramount importance because it represents the physical center of your connection to magic, so i always require a thorough description of the lodge and that it is set "aside" from the normal living areas, because it is the place where you center yourself in order to Work advanced magic. Now if you Work in the capacity as a wagemage then your workplace will provide a lodge area for you, and most magical Groups will also have 1 or more lodges ( another advantage of being in a Group ). In my version of the SR you could certainly sleep in your lodge if you had a need for it, but you cannot live in your lodge, it would simply mess too much with the astral energies/equilibrium needed to make the lodge Work as it is supposed to, so if you only have a 1 room flat or something, then you'll need Space elsewhere or make do with temporary lodges.
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Bah, a shaman's lodge was traditionally the place where he lived. If the place where you can be yourself isn't the place where you are in tune with your magic I'd say something is wrong with your magic or with you.
Not having annoying guests over while you try to work intricate magic is an entirely different topic.
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*Well that was sort of my point. I did say that you could certainly sleep in your lodge if you wanted to, but not "live" in it, because for most people in the 6th World "living" in a place includes a Whole host activities that would certainly affect any permanent astral construct, including having annoying guests over. Now if you were a hermit or a tribal style shaman it might be different, and many tribal societies used specific medicine lodges or other specially prepared ritual areas for important ceremonies, and i'm very sure that in most if not all of those societies the shamans hut was NOT a place you went for a casual visit as it was considered a sacred and potentially dangerous place.
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As I said my problem with that is the ritual magic rules. Get rid of that and have lodges being only necessary for learning new spells (hermetic library, shamans lodge, Vodou shrine, etc) and you'd get rid of my objections. You can ward a building seperately afterall and needing to spend some time in a specific room to learn spells isn't a big deal. Its the ritual magic one (something I suspect that doesn't come up for a lot of players I admit) where limiting the lodge like that (1m per force, seperate room, etc) really makes ritual magic a pain in the neck to manage.
If your casting one of the rituals that takes day's or even longer than sunrise-sunset you aren't going to want to use a temporary lodge but a permanent one with those restrictions makes it practically impossible and its not easy to start with if you want to really take advantage of it. Lets say your casting a fairly simple one 6 particpants (including the leader) casting a force 6 ritual. You have 6 people in one room for either 6 hours or 6 day's. That's a long time to spend cooped up in a small space with other people, just cramming 6 people into a room that may only be a few meters square is bad enough. If its an apartment containing the lodge you can have people in different bedrooms resting, eating in the kitchen, using the toilet and chanting in the living room.
Dump the ritual magic requirement to be in a lodge and you can cast it in the woods, a warehouse, a corporate office or wherever. Everyone has their own tastes but having your home being your lodge, a place of sanctuary and magical identification makes sense to me. I'd possibly object if your trying to claim a 5 bedroom, 3 bathroom, poolhouse, gardens, etc as one lodge unless it was very high force but a normal apartment that's 50-100m2 I can see being reasonable. As long as its one area i.e. no detached garage. Tthe lodge ends at the boundaries of your home and I'd probably rule that as being at the walls of it i.e. no balconies unless they're entirely enclosed.
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I'd be willing to say you can do an entire house if there was some sort of measurement for Materials & space.
Like 1 Unit is enough for 25 Sqr Feet at Force 1.
4 Units would quadruple the space or the Force but not both.
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On this topic.. could you erect one inside a cargo container?
And would it stay active if the container was moved? What about inside a cargo plane?
I know these are a little crazy, but the issue is actually likely to come up soon in my game.
I'm leaning towards yes, because you could make all the symbols and items stationary with respect to each other.
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Wards and (I believe) lodges are anchored geographically. Meaning they can not be moved once set up without being dismissed, (or in the case of lodges) broken down to their reagents.
While I don't have my book on me, I think this is listed in the SG book.
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I don't recall that Reaver, there were rules about moving lodges i.e. you need to break down a lodge and reassemble it at a new ste but street grimoire also implies if you build that site on a moveable location you don't need to do so. See p.g 224 when its talking about talismongers . . .
Talismongers because of the nature of their work will work out of a physical shop. A talismonger needs tools, some place to store their reagents, and a proper work area to enchant (also commonly referred to as their magic lodge). This would typically be a storefront known as a lore shop, which most reputable talismongers prefer as it makes it easy for their clients to find them. Alternatively this could be the back of van or other type of vehicle, as some talismongers prefer to remain mobile and harder to find, while also keeping the location of their permanent magic lodge secret.
So going by that if you build your lodge on a mobile location "cargo crate, car, plane" and then move that container you move the lodge. Its just a matter of you initially building/placing the lodge with that in mind and accepting if you don't secure things inside you could wind up with you lodge elements cracking you over the head (see the top gear episode where Jeremy modified a car into an english cottage). Incidently it also seems to indicate there may be some customer movement inside that lodge storefront but that's more debateable.
@Tarislar
Ok I'd like to build a lodge that covers an apartment and you want a measurement of space so lets see if we can work something out we're both happy with. A good starting point I think would be to use the force as indicated in the 4th ed rules with some modifications. I have created a thread here http://forums.shadowruntabletop.com/index.php?topic=25034.0 (http://forums.shadowruntabletop.com/index.php?topic=25034.0) for us to discuss a houserules lodge area rule if anyone's interested in contributing.
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Good find Senko.. so that's a yes. It can be done.
On a boat.. or with a goat..
In a box.. or with a fox..
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Yep, I was wrong.
Its only wards that can't be placed on moving objects.