[Senko]

I don't mean the generally used 1% of the larger population. I'm curious how many aspected mages to a full mage, how many adepts and mages to mystic adepts that sort of thing.

For example 9 aspected mages to a full mage or adept and 5 full mages or adepts to 1 mystic adepts.

So in 102 awakened people you'd Have 90 aspected mages, 10 mage/adepts (probably 5 of each as I figure these two are equally common) and 2 mystic adepts.

[MijRai]

Well, the general consensus in the past has been...  Well, not much of a consensus.  There's some clear points (a general 1% of the world population is Awakened, with variable counts in a number of regions to either direction (Aztechnology/Aztlan has an average of 2% Awakened, for example).  Your example of 9 Aspected Magicians for every normal Magician is actually accurate as of...  Street Grimoire, I believe. 

The main issue is where the books explain that only a 'fraction' of the 1% are actually functional.  A lot of the Awakened end up being:
A.  Unaware of their Awakened status; the talent needs to be found and nurtured, and they got missed. 
B.  Burned out, whether it be from drugs, 'ware, Essence drain or something else.
C.  Ineffective.  A number of the Awakened aren't really mana-slingers, they're just sensitive to the presence of magic or things going on.  There aren't really any by-the-book mechanical means to represent this at the moment.  Maybe they tried and couldn't cut it, maybe they just never bothered. 
D.  Insane.  Magic does weird things to your head, and a lot of people who try to learn it can get all sorts of messed up.  This is also where Toxics, Bug Shamans and Blood Mages fall. 
These factors can make them the equivalent to a magical non-entity. 

So, how big is this fraction of functional Awakened compared to the dross?  Most people tend to make it less than 50%, because why call it a fraction when it's a majority?  After some discussion, I (and a few others) went with a flat 25% of the Awakened population is functional; i.e. they have an appreciable Magic Rating and skill.  This is anywhere from the Magic 1, newly Awakened street-punk who can light cigarettes with the snap of his fingers to Harlequin-level, dozens-of-initiations super-magicians. 

The other 'problem' is they never give a clear proportion of adepts to magicians.  Sure, there's 9 Aspected Magicians to every Magician, but how many Adepts to the spell-slingers and summoners?  I pulled 20% out of my ass, mostly because nothing suggests they're more common than magicians, but not extremely rare either. 

So, the numbers I and a few others use, out of one million:
1,000,000 People.
Now, 1% of 1,000,000 is the 'Awakened' Metahuman population. 
-990,000 Mundanes.
10,000 'Awakened.
The functional fraction we're using is going to be 25%. 
-7,500 Crazies, Incompetents, Untapped Talents, Burn-Outs.
2,500 Functional Awakened. 
This is where we break it down into the kinds. 
1,800 Aspected Magicians
~600 Conjurers
~600 Sorcerers
~600 Enchanters
200 Full Magicians
500 Adepts

Now, I don't give a slot for Mystic Adepts.  I generally figure they're much rarer, and they'd mess up my pretty, even numbers.  So I just hand-wave that they pop up occasionally in the Full Magician or Adept pool once in a while. 

[Senko]

Nice and detailed thank you although I'm looking more into potential I guess as you'd put it. That is for this I don't really care if they're insane burnt out, too young, not interested just what percentage of a population of awakened individuals is what then from that your other values can be applied e.g. in a town of 120 thousand there are 1,200 magically awakened of which 900 are x, of those 900 234 are actually usable because of X, Y and z circumstances.

I find your comments on adepts vs mages interesting as I'd always gotten the impression those two where roughly equal in numbers even if they moved in different fields (sports as opposed to corporate jobs)

I'm also a little disturbed my 9 to 1 value matches up to street grimoire as I picked it because it was 9am when I made the post. Same with my mages to mystic adepts actually it was 8:5 something so I went with 5 to 1.

Not a lot of functional full mages that only 4,200 for the whole of Australia and less than 60 thousand worldwide given our current population, a sellers market I guess .

[Beta]

Don't forget that not all mages are 'full' magic, either.  (Although personally I count this into those 75% that were listed as non-active) 

That many are awakened, but have only 1-3 magic, so not much good for most spells or summoning, but still helpful in a ritual team (for full mages or aspected casters), or are just a little better at some things (adepts), or make some small money gathering reagents possibly (aspected alchemists).  Probably feels like rather a ripoff to be a summoner with 2 magic, but still can astrally perceive, do some small spirit security patrols, or maybe be able to initiate and study up to a higher ability level.

[Raiderjoseph]

So let me get this straight. In theory there are actually lots of unaware awakened? But they burn out or never get guided through their magic? Couldn't a totem or somethint intervine?

[MijRai]

That gets a little more difficult Senko, as they never give us an accurate measurement of what a talentless Awakened can do (or any clue as to how many people are like them).  Do they have a Magic rating of 1 and can use Assensing only?  Can they cast a single spell intermittently?  We don't have the answers for that.  As far as the undiscovered and insane go, that's simple enough; just take a chunk out of the 7,500 out of the non-functional Awakened and apply the same proportions as the functional. 

Everything I remember on adepts vs. magicians is that Adepts are more obscure/less common overall.  It might not be a 4 to 1 difference, but I'm pretty sure there is one. 

Beta, I factored in the Aspected Magicians.  Those are functional, as much as some folks around here denigrate them.  And you're really down-playing the spectacular results an Aspected Conjurer can get with some work put in. 

And to be specific Joe, there are a fraction of the populace like that.  It's never stated how big of a fraction, but that it is mentioned as a reason some Awakened don't/can't use their talents, I would assume it is at least 5% of the non-functional Awakened.  Any smaller and it isn't really worth mentioning.  As a lot of schools do magical testing around puberty, I'd figure most of the people who go through their lives without really knowing that they are Awakened are late bloomers or latent talents. 
As far as mentor spirits go, there's 7 billion people in Shadowrun.  People can get missed.  Or an appropriate mentor spirit can't find them.  Or the mentor spirit in question only helps those who call out to them.  Or the mentor spirit looks at the person and go 'eesh, something ain't right, let's leave this one alone...'  There's any number of options as to why a mentor spirit wouldn't try to mess with people. 

[Reaver]

Don't forget, harnessing magic takes effort. Migraine inducing, blood vessel popping effort! And in the case of overcasting, Heart stopping, skin burning, mind frying effort!

When sonething takes that level of effort to achieve success, MOST people don't even make the attempt...

And to many people, magic is scary (read the intro to Street Grimoire again), so they never make the effort to try to learn.

People waste God Given Talent everyday. So many people choose to do the easy thing rather then invest in a natural talent (such as Art, dance, music, mathematics..)... I don't find it hard at all to believe that a majority of people with magical talent don't even realise it.

[Senko]

Speaking from a purely mechanical perspective and without access to my books I don't think any magic skills can be used untrained which as said above argues toward it having to be a concious directed decision to perform a Magic task so I can easily see someone slipping through the net especially in a lot of the world where they don't even get education much less have a mage go through looking for potential. You'd need to be found and trained or have the talent (of some nature) and the drive to develop the techniques yourself probably with lots of failures.

I did sort of assume those collected by a mentor spirit are in the functional group as not everyone does have a mentor spirit and not all mentor spirits work/Teach the same way

On a more personal note I see aspected mages as falling into lesser and greater groups. The lesser ones are the ones who get used in job lots for ritual circles or "mundane" tasks like reagent hunting. The greater role are those as skilled in their field as a mage but hired by smaller companies for less (they can only o 1 role of 3 but thats all the company wants and is willing to pay for) or are more skilled in their field than a full mage because they could focus on one area and become a specialist. You can hire one person who is average at spellcasting. Summoning and enchanting or one person who is excellent at spellcasting, summoning OR enchanting. It depends what the company wants. Full mages on the other hand tend towards learning at least some of all 3 fields and are more valuable than the average aspected because instead of hiring 3 people to do the work you hire one at 1.5 to twice the amount and give them all the jobs saving you money overall. That is. . ..

Average aspected: can only do one thing earns 80k before tax
Average mage: can do 3 things earns 120k before tax.
Specialist aspected: can do one thing really, really well earns 150k+ before tax usually consulting at thousands of Nuyen an hour.

Just my personal view on how aspected vs full mages interact with companies and of course there are exceptions those doing grunt work who earn a lot less and those full mages who are very, very skilled cough Harlequin cough.

[Medicineman]

>> I'm curious how many aspected mages to a full mage, how many adepts and mages to mystic adepts that sort of thing.
Oficial SR5 Fluff is:
90% of all Mages are aspected (its in the Street Grimoire)
generally half of the Awakened are Mages of different Traditions and the other Half are Adepts , including Mystic Adepts.
(afaik the fifty fifty Ratio of Mages and Adepts is Canon since 2nd Edition)
I don't know the Ratio of Mystc to vanilla Adepts.

just for the Records:
1% awakened among the Population is the Maximum.
You have to subtract those that are yet too Young, already too Old, those that got killed by dumb, superstitious mob (like in some Islamic Countries), those that got crazy or couldn't cope mentally and also with too small a Talent (f.E. the MAG 1 Spökenkieker)
but that has already been mentioned up above

>> (Aztechnology/Aztlan has an average of 2% Awakened, for example).
Wowey....I didn't know that   Did You get that from Shadows of Latin America ?

With a non-Awakened Dance
Medicineman

[Medicineman]

So let me get this straight. In theory there are actually lots of unaware awakened? But they burn out or never get guided through their magic? Couldn't a totem or somethint intervine?

not really a lot.
There is a kind of Magic Screening for Kids in School (sponsored by friendly Megacons ) to seek and aquire those talents
and they have .... Talent Scouts searching among the SINless to give those Kids a Chance in Life ....
(that means putting them in a golden Corp Cage and Brainwashing them)
and there's also the organised Crime thats also interessted and last but not least the Gouvernment/Secret Service /Militarty Organisations that are also looking for Awakened...
but some have to fall between the filter, or else there wouldn't be any PC Mages and Adepts

with a filtered Dance
Medicineman

[MijRai]

That number is out of the Aztlan Sourcebook, actually.  Where's the source for the 50/50 Mage/Adept split?  That'd be a nice thing to find. 

[Medicineman]

>> Where's the source for the 50/50 Mage/Adept split?
Holla die Walfeeh....
From the 90's I guess SR2 or 3 (I'm sorry , but i don't own those books anymore)

HokaHey
Medicineman

[Rosa]

That number is out of the Aztlan Sourcebook, actually.  Where's the source for the 50/50 Mage/Adept split?  That'd be a nice thing to find.

It does seem to be a recurring theme, that the awakened or magic friendly nations ( Amazonia, Aztlan, Paraguay, both Tirs, Siberia, Manchuria and at least some of the NAN nations ) have a higher than average number of awakened ( about 1-3% higher ). Which does seem to suggest that the 1% globally is probably a temporary number. More accepting environment and better testing ( all of which they have in the awakened nations ) will likely boost the number globally at some point in the 6th worlds future.

[MijRai]

Or, all the regions where they aren't so accepting of magic end up with lower-than-average zones as well.  I am reasonably sure it'll stay around a global average of 1%; any more, and it might saturate the setting too much. 

[Senko]

This is why I asked. From one source I don't have I find out that some countries can have a higher or lower percentage and from another it is 50/50 for mages and adepts. Which suggests possibilities for mystic adepts although I suspect that will come down to GM preference (I know I'd like to get rid of aspected mages as they offend me).

As for the global percentage you also need to consider the reason they are higher is mages want to live there. Say you awakened as a shaman with coyote mentoring you in one of the anti-magic or slanted towards s specific tradition would you risk your life staying there or run for somewhere you can practice openly?

I thought the testing was more of a guide on who to look at, I know I read something about it not being entirely reliable. I do know there's enough poor areas that wouldn't have the VR for that testing, they don't even have proper schools for Street kids and be dangerous, remote or too extensive for a mage to catch everyone. Although I do expect it happens often enough some Kids dream of a wealthy, powerful mage appearing to whisk them (and maybe family/friends) off to a life of privilege and luxury.