[Moonshine Fox]

A thread on Reddit got me thinking, just how common is background counts? The poster was saying that he has an almost constant background count of at least 1, but that seems a bit much to me. Even a 1 is a point of strong emotions or pollution that a normal apartment complex or office wouldn't have. There may be brief spikes when an affair is had, or someone gets a promotion/gleefully backstabs a co-worker, but I was always under the impression that these would fade pretty quickly after the event that generated them stopped.

Have I been doing background count wrong by saving it for more special environments rather then applying it all the time, or is all the time excessive? I know always being at a weakened power level as a mage or adept would annoy the hell out of me, so maybe I'm just not doing that to others?

[Sendaz]

BGC can be a fun one, mainly it comes down to your campaign.

If you say that most areas have it, then the locals there should also be acclimated to it, so by default they are back to zero anyway. 
At least for them, the new guys on the block may have some issues.

There is nothing wrong with just saving it for special places/situations and will make your keeping track of the paperwork that much simpler.

Of course if you DO want to lay out a feng shui map of Seattle with its eddies and currents with BCG counts charted block by block, knock yourself out (literally if you are the mage).  It can add a level of flavour when you work the hot mana spot you are aspected to for that added kick or lure a critter into a  mana dead spot to make it more vulnerable.

[CitizenJoe]

It is typically about a 1, but you acclimate to it so it is no big deal.  Now, if you take a job in Tacoma when you're acclimated to downtown., then you've got an issue.

[Hobbes]

Chicago CZ background count defaults to a 2 and that had a baby nuke and a swarm of Insect spirits overun the area murdering everyone and has been a wasteland of desolation and horror for the last couple decades.  That's a two.  One is certainly not good.

A GM can certainly take a beat to describe what the local astral space is like without giving it a mechanical penalty. 

[adzling]

The Kowloon Walled City in Hong Kong is a 3.
I ran my runners through there a few times now and the street sams really shine while the mages and adepts struggle every time.
It makes a nice change to the standard "magic run" that Srun has devolved into.

[Senko]

Chicago CZ background count defaults to a 2 and that had a baby nuke and a swarm of Insect spirits overun the area murdering everyone and has been a wasteland of desolation and horror for the last couple decades.  That's a two.  One is certainly not good.

A GM can certainly take a beat to describe what the local astral space is like without giving it a mechanical penalty.

I'm inclined to agree with this, I may be a bit biased as I like playing mages but when a place like Chicago is a 2 I have trouble accepting that everywhere else is essentially a one. For me I'd probably put a one at somewhere like the asylum movie where a doctor spent years inflicting pain and suffering on children to "cure" their trauma and then got himself killed when they snapped and rioted through the place not your average office block or apartment complex. Its not just a large sudden spike of emotion e.g. Bob coming home to find his wife is having an affair with the young woman next door, its when something has had time to soak in and become a part of the astral scene such as Bob and his wife kidnapping said woman and keeping her prisoner for years as their sex slave.

[Checkmate]

2 is the general area around chicago. The closer you get to the CBZ the worse it gets. IIRC ground zero is like a 12...

[Senko]

True but its still the "general" area that was near a nuke and had people being hunted, killed and consumed by insect spirits for years. Long term pain and suffering as well as a spike that is way off the normal charts to leave that value. We're not talking about a normal office building where the worst you normally have is a violent argument between two people or one person snapping and throwing something heavy at another. I'm not saying there wont be highish background counts in other cities there will be its just that they aren't going to be as universal as the OP made it seem people were talking about. It'd have to be place with a major incident (Japan's recent fukashima plant explosion) or something that took place over years of time with the stimulous reinforcing itself and yes older cities are going to have more of those because they've been around longer and had time for those events to happen but not fade.

[Whiskeyjack]

Background count is obnoxiously overcommon in this edition. It's absolutely nothing special anymore. It's magic Noise. A kid whose birthday party goes to shit probably generates a point of it. I hate it.

[Hobbes]

2 is the general area around chicago. The closer you get to the CBZ the worse it gets. IIRC ground zero is like a 12...

From mission #4, season 5. 

"The background count around the edge of the crater
is a 6, and it gradually increases to 12 a half-block from
the center. The background count is aspected towards
radiation. The center of the crater itself is a mana void.
There simply is no astral plane there. "

That's the edge of the crater.  It's still a two just a little ways away from the crater, Mission #3? season 5 takes you pretty close and its still 2 even when the Rad levels are borderline uninhabitable. 

[Checkmate]

Then I agree, that seems oddly low. Especially considering SR5's Background count goes to...20? I think. SR4's only went to 12 so it would've made a little more sense there...

[Halinn]

It should also be remembered that most background count will be short term. A murder in a small town might spike it to 3 for a radius of a hundred meters around where it happened, but it'll be gone in a month. In the Barrens it might be +1, 20m radius, gone in one or two days.

[Senko]

See right there is where I think I sort of disconnect from it as a player and one day maybe GM. I don't feel that a one off event of that scale should be enough to taint the background magic count. Leave an impression sure but to have a big enough impact that you leave an impression on the spiritual world that affects peoples connnection with it you should be looking at a massive event (nuclear explosion, great fire of london, countrywide plague), something that keeps hitting the aura with the same impressions over a prolonged period of time or maybe a powerful ritual. A one off murder especially a relatively clean one such as shooting/stabbing should leave an impression but not be enough to raise the background count it just feels wrong to me.

[CitizenJoe]

Background counts don't stack, at least not directly.  A murder in the Barrens won't have a noticeable effect because the prevailing background is stronger than the impact of a solitary murder.  A murder in a peaceful village would spike it.

[Raven2049]

Background counts don't stack, at least not directly.  A murder in the Barrens won't have a noticeable effect because the prevailing background is stronger than the impact of a solitary murder.  A murder in a peaceful village would spike it.

exactly my thoughts.

a base background count of 2 for chicago means to me that there has to be something that creates a worse background count than 2. EX a certain run that lothan tasks you with that takes you into a building where the background count raises up because of the type of spirit that is inhabiting the compound. or a certain run where giant fans are used to blow debris (nice way of putting it) into the surrounding area and a recurring big bad comes into play.

both those examples have exceeded the base background count of 2 and subsequently replaced that with their own count. They are not cumulative (not sure on RAW on this but thats how i would put it)