[Weldûn]

So I'm running a "Saints Row" style campaign, and two PCs are magicians. One is a Shaman with the Dragon mentor, and the other is a Buddhist Wu Jen. (As a gang lieutenant. Yeah, I know.) In this campaign, I've given all PCs Home Ground for free.

So, the Wu Jen keeps getting slapped down by spirits any time he tries to summon a "dragon" in their home ground. The ONLY successful summoning that he has performed in their home turf was a water "fury". Even the watcher summons have resulted in failure and his need to buy stocks in a pharmaceutical corporation. While amusing, it is starting to be a bit of a disturbing trend, to the point where I've been fudging the dice to give him at least 1 net success, unless I feel the summoning won't drive the story forward. Still, I'm not happy with it as a solution and I'm curious as to whether or not other GMs have had similar experiences.

Story-wise, we've been playing it as the spirits pointing to the other magician and stating "You've already got a dragon here, stop being greedy." *thwap*. But having to resist 8 boxes of drain is no fun.

[Charybdis]

A) To not roll a single success on summoning means there are some statistical issues with either Magic Rating, Skill Rating, or Edge Rating
B) To resist 8 boxes of drain means trying to summon F8 spirits.

If these two things are happening at the same time, it implies the player/PC is trying to Summon things they're just not ready for...

[Weldûn]

B) To resist 8 boxes of drain means trying to summon F8 spirits.

Well, you're exactly half right.

Summoning Drain
The Drain Value for Summoning is equal to twice the hits (not net hits) generated by the spirit on the Opposed Summoning Test (Minimum 2 DV).

It is, of course, involving some bad Dice Karma to get some of these results.

[Tsuzua]

How big is the summoning pool and what force spirits is he trying to summon?  Even a modest sized pool should be better than that.  Summoning 4 + Magic 5 is 9 dice, a force 6 spirit rolls 6 dice so you should succeed 60% of the time.  If you use a specialization, that's a 72% chance of success.

[Critias]

Yeah.  Either there's some really weird probability happening here (all the GM's luck and all the player's bad luck cashing in at once, every time he tries to Summon), or someone is misunderstanding the core Summoning rules somewhere along the line.

[Weldûn]

It is mostly just dice karma. But it just keeps on happening. Like I said in the original post, I've been fudging it so that he gets at least one net success unless it's an egregious abuse of summoning. It's more of an oddity. Pretty BIG oddity as every time he leaves home ground, he has no problems at all. It's freaking weird.

[The Cat]

There are some characters the dice simply love messing with.  There are som eplayers the dice simply love messing with.  Sounds like he's either that character or that guy.  It will likely keep happening so long as "the curse" is there with no rhyme or reason involved.

I have a player who, in every system we play cannot roll anyhting good when he absolutely needs it, but can nail any roll (and then some) on the dumbest stuff.  By way of SR, he can miss a guy standing right next to him with a highly skilled combat adept (SR3 rules) but on a social test to win over a hostile group of homeless guys that have no plot value at all, he can roll 4 dice for 4 successes and two of them will invariable be over 30.  It's just the will of the dice gods and eventually gets folded into his character make-up as a running bit of weirdness that he had thanks to the fates.

That seems to be the best approach, make it a character building thing.  Make it his "unwanted claim to fame" in the area, have other spirits poke fun at him over it, have other spellslingers pity him for his bad luck quirk.  Give him occasional bonuses on social tests or little discounts on gear because the guy knows who he is just because of his apparent inability to get it right.  If the player is doing everything right and the dice simply refuse to cooperate regularly, toss him a bone with the consolation prize over it; it won't make up for the lack of spirits but it will take some of the sting out of it.

Alternately, have some fun with it by GM fiat.  The dice mess him up, he does get a spirit, the dumbest spirit that there ever was, one that's a comical hinderance for a short time before it completely flakes out an wanders off on its own.  Give him a "wrong number" on occasion with an annoyed free spirit showing up (What?  What do you want?  You're like a telemarketer calling and calling and calling!  I don't do that sort of thing anymore!). Have the local Buddist temple hear of him and constantly offer to take him in for "training," worse, have one that's not local hear about it and do the same except, naturally, the "training" is a big waste of time in the downtime and is a mortifying experience (they put me with children... five year olds...  and they wouldn't give me a juice box, either).  Basically, make it something fun until it clears up.  If you're lucky, he'll start looking forward to it not working.

[baronspam]

I would like more into on the mechanics of the situation.  What is his summoning pool?  What force spirit is he trying to summon?  How many times has he failed?  Something sounds funky here.

[Teknodragon]

This reminds me of a game a while ago where the mage tried summoning a fire elemental, and they both rolled exactly the same successes. So, for kicks, the GM had the elemental show up out of curiosity.

A bit of RP later, and Master, the fire elemental, was owed a favor by a shadowrunning team in exchange for a bit of burn-work...

[Mason]

Oh, i so just made that a potential outcome house rule.

I am reminded of my magician character in my prior group who summoned forth a Force 6 Spirit of Fire and got 2 net hits and a glitch. The spirit had been doing something important in hos own dimension and wasn't pleased, and then the magician made it worse by subtly and unintentionally badmouthing the spirit and his entire category of spirits. Then the two started ****ing with each other for the whole run, and the mage made it a point to call THAT SPECIFIC SPIRIT for all combat situations where fire is needed, getting the spirit disrupted on 4 separate occasions. That spirit came back later as a great form free spirit who was NOT happy.

[Weldûn]

...the mage made it a point to call THAT SPECIFIC SPIRIT for all combat situations where fire is needed, getting the spirit disrupted on 4 separate occasions. That spirit came back later as a great form free spirit who was NOT happy.

Force 6 Spirits of Anything aren't something you intentionally antagonize, not if you want to keep drawing breath. Please tell me that the spirit has wealth, that way it can keep hiring the mage through various cutouts to go on runs that keep having uncomfortable results.

[Mason]

Nope-well, sorta. Too bad the campaign is over. The spirit was a magician and has ways and ways of popping up when he is least wanting it to and frag with him. Oh look, he's running across an open area to get to the cover his team is behind. Spirit pops up and Glue strips the open area. While bullets fly everywhere. Mage had to leave his feet behind-literally. Spirit was Force 11 by campaign end. Kept tricking the mage into giving him karma in different guises and excuses. Player was real gullible.