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Message no. 1
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Allen Smith)
Subject: Further questions regarding Magic Loss
Date: Thu May 24 01:30:01 2001
Hi. Looking over the Magic Loss rules in regard to Deadly Damage has
brought up a few questions in my mind in regard to Magic Loss in
general, and how one is supposed to count the Magic Attribute for such
purposes. I am talking in the below solely about full mages and
aspected magicians, BTW, not physical adepts or physical magicians.

A. If a mage has lost Magic (through any means) and has taken
a Geas, does the Geased point of Magic count for purposes
of Magic Loss rolls? I suggest not; otherwise, those who
have chosen against Geasa are the ones furthest from the
way of the burnout, not those who are closest to it.
B. If a mage has lost Magic from bioware, do these Geased
points of Magic count for purposes of Magic Loss rolls? I
don't think so, from the M&M description ("all effective
game purposes"; pg 78).
C. If a mage Initiates and chooses to use a Geas on the gained
point of Magic as an Ordeal, does this point of Magic count
for Magic Loss rolls? I really don't know on this one...
Sorry if people have discussed this before, but if so, I haven't
spotted it in the archives.

Yours,

-Allen

--
Allen Smith easmith@********.rutgers.edu
Message no. 2
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Chris Maxfield)
Subject: Further questions regarding Magic Loss
Date: Thu May 24 09:05:02 2001
Records show that at 01:35 on Thursday 24/05/01, Allen Smith scribbled:
> A. If a mage has lost Magic (through any means) and has taken
> a Geas, does the Geased point of Magic count for purposes
> of Magic Loss rolls? I suggest not; otherwise, those who
> have chosen against Geasa are the ones furthest from the
> way of the burnout, not those who are closest to it.

IMHO the Magic Loss Test is made against the character's actual Magic. This
is the lower rating without Geasa considered. The wording in MITS says that
Geasa allows a magician to function "as if" he had the Magic point(s), not
that Geasa restores Magic point(s). Therefore it seems logical to me that a
Magic Loss Test would be made against the unaugmented Magic Attribute.

> B. If a mage has lost Magic from bioware, do these Geased
> points of Magic count for purposes of Magic Loss rolls? I
> don't think so, from the M&M description ("all effective
> game purposes"; pg 78).

By the rules, a magical character with bioware cannot take geasa since the
bioware only suppresses the magic, not destroys it. (You may, like me,
still have a house rule allowing virtual geasa to counter bioware's
suppression of the magic point.) Nevertheless, since no Magic is lost
through bioware, all Magic Loss Tests are made IMHO against the full Magic
Attribute (suppressed Magic points and all).

> C. If a mage Initiates and chooses to use a Geas on the gained
> point of Magic as an Ordeal, does this point of Magic count
> for Magic Loss rolls? I really don't know on this one...

The Geas Ordeal just seems to impose a condition of use on an initiate's
new Magic point. Nothing more sinister. The initiate still has the extra
Magic point gained through the initiation. Therefore, any subsequent Magic
Loss Tests should be made against the increased Magic Attribute.

Chris
Message no. 3
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Allen Smith)
Subject: Further questions regarding Magic Loss
Date: Thu May 24 17:30:01 2001
On May 24, 9:17am, Chris Maxfield wrote:
> Records show that at 01:35 on Thursday 24/05/01, Allen Smith scribbled:
> > A. If a mage has lost Magic (through any means) and has taken
> > a Geas, does the Geased point of Magic count for purposes
> > of Magic Loss rolls? I suggest not; otherwise, those who
> > have chosen against Geasa are the ones furthest from the
> > way of the burnout, not those who are closest to it.
>
> IMHO the Magic Loss Test is made against the character's actual Magic. This
> is the lower rating without Geasa considered. The wording in MITS says that
> Geasa allows a magician to function "as if" he had the Magic point(s), not
> that Geasa restores Magic point(s). Therefore it seems logical to me that a
> Magic Loss Test would be made against the unaugmented Magic Attribute.
>
> > B. If a mage has lost Magic from bioware, do these Geased
> > points of Magic count for purposes of Magic Loss rolls? I
> > don't think so, from the M&M description ("all effective
> > game purposes"; pg 78).
>
> By the rules, a magical character with bioware cannot take geasa since the
> bioware only suppresses the magic, not destroys it. (You may, like me,
> still have a house rule allowing virtual geasa to counter bioware's
> suppression of the magic point.)

Whoops... I knew that; why did I say "Geased"?

> Nevertheless, since no Magic is lost
> through bioware, all Magic Loss Tests are made IMHO against the full Magic
> Attribute (suppressed Magic points and all).

That gives rise to bioware being worse for Magic than is cyberwear...

> > C. If a mage Initiates and chooses to use a Geas on the gained
> > point of Magic as an Ordeal, does this point of Magic count
> > for Magic Loss rolls? I really don't know on this one...
>
> The Geas Ordeal just seems to impose a condition of use on an initiate's
> new Magic point. Nothing more sinister. The initiate still has the extra
> Magic point gained through the initiation. Therefore, any subsequent Magic
> Loss Tests should be made against the increased Magic Attribute.

I tend to agree.

Yours,

-Allen

--
Allen Smith easmith@********.rutgers.edu
Message no. 4
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Rand Ratinac)
Subject: Further questions regarding Magic Loss
Date: Thu May 24 20:35:00 2001
<snipt!(TM)>
> > Nevertheless, since no Magic is lost through
bioware, all Magic Loss Tests are made IMHO against
the full Magic Attribute (suppressed Magic points and
all).
>
> That gives rise to bioware being worse for Magic
than is cyberwear...
<snipt!(TM)>
> -Allen

You say that, but you don't really mean it. At least,
you wouldn't if you were thinking straight.

Sorry guys, but MNSHO is that any shadowrunning mage
who'll voluntarily accept limitations on his magic is
a freakin' idiot.

In SRII you had to accept a geas if you lost magic and
you didn't want to become a burnout. In SR3, geasa are
optional. Unless you're dealing with huge amounts of
magic loss due to pumping yourself full of cyber,
accepting the limitations of geasa is, IMNSHO, a
losing proposition. (And even in this case, because of
the number of geasa necessary to compensate for
massive magic loss, you're likely to be screwing
yourself.)

If you're a researcher or something equally innocuous,
it's not such a big deal. You can afford to dance
around, wave your arms, chant, blah blah blah. But if
you're a runner? Well, that chanting or singing or
whatever screws you around if you're trying to sneak
past a guard. Any kind of movement stuffs you up if
you're dealing with motion sensors. What if your geas
only works at night, but your enemies hit your doss
during the daytime.

Sorry, but geasa are just a good way to get yourself
into trouble, IMO.

====Doc'
(aka Mr. Freaky Big, Super-Dynamic Troll of Tomorrow, aka Doc'booner, aka Doc' Vader)

.sig Sauer

If you SMELL what THE DOC' is COOKIN'!!!

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Message no. 5
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Allen Smith)
Subject: Further questions regarding Magic Loss
Date: Thu May 24 21:20:01 2001
On May 24, 8:54pm, Rand Ratinac wrote:
> > > Nevertheless, since no Magic is lost through bioware, all Magic
> > > Loss Tests are made IMHO against the full Magic Attribute
> > > (suppressed Magic points and all).
> >
> > That gives rise to bioware being worse for Magic
> than is cyberwear...
> <snipt!(TM)>
>
> You say that, but you don't really mean it. At least,
> you wouldn't if you were thinking straight.
>
> Sorry guys, but MNSHO is that any shadowrunning mage
> who'll voluntarily accept limitations on his magic is
> a freakin' idiot.

Umm... I was referring to the suggestion of the bioware-suppressed
Magic being counted for purposes of Magic loss rolls - not whether it
was Geased or not. With SR3, after all, as you point out, geasa for
cyberwear are optional (and not available for bioware).

> In SRII you had to accept a geas if you lost magic and
> you didn't want to become a burnout. In SR3, geasa are
> optional. Unless you're dealing with huge amounts of
> magic loss due to pumping yourself full of cyber,
> accepting the limitations of geasa is, IMNSHO, a
> losing proposition. (And even in this case, because of
> the number of geasa necessary to compensate for
> massive magic loss, you're likely to be screwing
> yourself.)

Agreed, in general. Doing it for a short period of time, when you have
an Initiation lined up, is anther matter. There are also geasa that
aren't _quite_ as bad - e.g., Astral Perception conditional Geasa.

Another consideration is if your character's interested in joining a
group - note the +2 modifier for joining if you don't take Geasa?
(That's also an argument for Geased magic not being counted for
purposes of Magic Loss rolls, incidentally; otherwise, those who've
taken Geasa would be heading faster for completely-burned-out
status...)

Yours,

-Allen

--
Allen Smith easmith@********.rutgers.edu
Message no. 6
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Chris Maxfield)
Subject: Further questions regarding Magic Loss
Date: Fri May 25 11:25:01 2001
Records show that at 01:37 on Friday 25/05/01, Rand Ratinac scribbled:
>Sorry guys, but MNSHO is that any shadowrunning mage
>who'll voluntarily accept limitations on his magic is
>a freakin' idiot.

I think you're stating your case far too strongly here Doc. ;-)

>If you're a researcher or something equally innocuous,
>it's not such a big deal. You can afford to dance
>around, wave your arms, chant, blah blah blah. But if
>you're a runner? Well, that chanting or singing or
>whatever screws you around if you're trying to sneak
>past a guard. Any kind of movement stuffs you up if
>you're dealing with motion sensors. What if your geas
>only works at night, but your enemies hit your doss
>during the daytime.

Very strong disagreement here, I'm sorry. Geasa are sensible on so many
levels, I don't know where to start.

But first: Doc, you're shaking a huge straw man in your paragraph above.
Geasa can be perfectly innocuous. For example, a talisman geasa is
completely stealthy. So are most conditional and action geasa. Even if the
geasa is not passive, there's far more to runs than just being stealthy. At
the very least, if covert conditions apply, there is still much the
magician can do without the geasa conditions applying.

Secondly, IMO, it's the refusing of a geasa that is crippling for a
magician. The magician's Magic Attribute is important across so many areas
of his capabilities. Letting his power fade can be deadly for a magician
(and his chummers) in the high risk shadows and so the benefits of well
chosen geasa exceed any minor limitations they introduce. A runner needs
every edge he can get.

Thirdly, taking a few restraints on a character's abilities adds some
interesting colour to that character. It can generate some story line hooks
for the GM and raises some great roleplaying opportunities. E.g. the shaman
that will only run at night, another magician that insists on always being
spotlessly clean, a third that refuses to ever take off an anklet, and so on.

Lastly, and probably only personally, the magicians of legend and fiction
frequently have some sort of conditional talisman or some other
restrictions on their powers. All modern fantasy, of which Shadowrun is a
part, communes with these historical and modern allegories/folk tales.
Therefore, if for no other reason, there's a certain pleasing narrative
aesthetic or symmetry to having something similar in the game.

Chris
Message no. 7
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Rand Ratinac)
Subject: Further questions regarding Magic Loss
Date: Fri May 25 12:50:01 2001
> But first: Doc, you're shaking a huge straw man in
your paragraph above. Geasa can be perfectly
innocuous. For example, a talisman geasa is completely
stealthy. So are most conditional and action geasa.
Even if the geasa is not passive, there's far more to
runs than just being stealthy. At the very least, if
covert conditions apply, there is still much the
magician can do without the geasa conditions applying.

Okay, sure, but geasa are limitations for a reason -
they limit you. If you lose that talisman, for
example, you're screwed. It's true, not every geas is
bad for stealthy shadowrunning, but they're all bad at
one point or another.

> Secondly, IMO, it's the refusing of a geasa that is
crippling for a magician. The magician's Magic
Attribute is important across so many areas of his
capabilities. Letting his power fade can be deadly for
a magician (and his chummers) in the high risk shadows
and so the benefits of well chosen geasa exceed any
minor limitations they introduce. A runner needs every
edge he can get.

Rubbish. But there's no way I'm going to convince you
of that, because it comes down to personal experience.
I'll give you that a 'well chosen' geas won't hurt you
too often - but sometimes it will. When you're dealing
with a point, two at most, the limitations, IME,
usually outweigh the advantages. And I, personally,
don't like playing mages with more than a point or two
of 'lost' magic. When you've got the choice of a bunch
of geasa, though, and force 1 spells? Well...:)

> Thirdly, taking a few restraints on a character's
abilities adds some interesting colour to that
character. It can generate some story line hooks for
the GM and raises some great roleplaying
opportunities. E.g. the shaman that will only run at
night, another magician that insists on always being
spotlessly clean, a third that refuses to ever take
off an anklet, and so on.

Can't argue with that, although such things would
usually be minor considerations for my characters - I
like to define them with history, not gimmicks.

> Lastly, and probably only personally, the magicians
of legend and fiction frequently have some sort of
conditional talisman or some other restrictions on
their powers. All modern fantasy, of which Shadowrun
is a part, communes with these historical and modern
allegories/folk tales. Therefore, if for no other
reason, there's a certain pleasing narrative aesthetic
or symmetry to having something similar in the game.
> Chris

Definitely personally, Chris. :) I'm a street shaman
kinda guy. :)

Look, here's my beef with geasa in a nutshell. They're
limiting. True?

The true strength of a shadowrunning mage is in
versatility, not raw power. Taking geasa constrains
your versatility, which, IMO, is a very bad thing.
That's it. Sure, sometimes for a character a geas or
two can help you shape them - but on the whole, you
can keep 'em. :)

====Doc'
(aka Mr. Freaky Big, Super-Dynamic Troll of Tomorrow, aka Doc'booner, aka Doc' Vader)

.sig Sauer

If you SMELL what THE DOC' is COOKIN'!!!

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Message no. 8
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Allen Smith)
Subject: Further questions regarding Magic Loss
Date: Sat May 26 03:15:00 2001
On May 25, 1:03pm, Rand Ratinac wrote:
> > Secondly, IMO, it's the refusing of a geasa that is crippling for
> > a magician. The magician's Magic Attribute is important across so
> > many areas of his capabilities. Letting his power fade can be
> > deadly for a magician (and his chummers) in the high risk shadows
> > and so the benefits of well chosen geasa exceed any minor
> > limitations they introduce. A runner needs every edge he can get.
>
> Rubbish. But there's no way I'm going to convince you
> of that, because it comes down to personal experience.
> I'll give you that a 'well chosen' geas won't hurt you
> too often - but sometimes it will. When you're dealing
> with a point, two at most, the limitations, IME,
> usually outweigh the advantages. And I, personally,
> don't like playing mages with more than a point or two
> of 'lost' magic. When you've got the choice of a bunch
> of geasa, though, and force 1 spells? Well...:)

All this is likely to depend heavily on the situation and the
geas. That bunch of geasa, if you _do_ have to violate them, means
you're pretty well screwed by the combination of the Magic loss and
the difficulty modifiers. Comparatively, the penalties for doing
without a single geas are pretty light, especially for a talented
mage.

> > Thirdly, taking a few restraints on a character's abilities adds
> > some interesting colour to that character. It can generate some
> > story line hooks for the GM and raises some great roleplaying
> > opportunities. E.g. the shaman that will only run at night,
> > another magician that insists on always being spotlessly clean, a
> > third that refuses to ever take off an anklet, and so on.
>
> Can't argue with that, although such things would
> usually be minor considerations for my characters - I
> like to define them with history, not gimmicks.

Something can be both. For instance, how about an adept who hasn't
discovered yet that she's an adept, because by the time the power
awoke (say, as a result of Deepweed exposure), she'd already gotten
some cyberwear, and the geas on the cyberwear'd magic happened to be
"won't activate unless needed for survival or the GM wants it to", and
the rest of her adept powers are inobvious ones? (I'm currently
putting together a character like that, as it happens...) Similarly,
what if a geas is present for an emotional reason - that talisman is a
heirloom from an ancestor who taught the character magic?

> The true strength of a shadowrunning mage is in
> versatility, not raw power.

Is there a need for a single character to be versatile, or for the
entire team put together to be versatile? I've been taking a look at
The Neo-Anarchist's Guide to Real Life, and the security section is
full of situations where what you're needing is a _combination_ of
abilities - at different times to get around a well-constructed
security system, you'd need a decker, a mage/shaman, a thief type (cybered,
bioware, adept, combination, whatever), a few samurai and/or combat
adept types in case something goes wrong, etcetera. Often, having one
Awakened type capable of doing illusions and another good at astral
combat and/or controlling/banishing to take out the spirits is exactly
what you need (you don't want the same mage who's sustaining those
Trid Phantasm and Silence/Stealth spells to be the one trying to take
out the spirits (which tends to be an Exclusive action!)).

Another point, this on the player end of things. What do you do if
you've got two players in a group wanting to play an Awakened type?
Having them both be generalists leads to both having less to do.

Yours,

-Allen

--
Allen Smith easmith@********.rutgers.edu
Message no. 9
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Rand Ratinac)
Subject: Further questions regarding Magic Loss
Date: Sat May 26 22:00:01 2001
<snipt!(TM)>
> All this is likely to depend heavily on the
situation and the geas. That bunch of geasa, if you
_do_ have to violate them, means you're pretty well
screwed by the combination of the Magic loss and the
difficulty modifiers. Comparatively, the penalties for
doing without a single geas are pretty light,
especially for a talented mage.

Yeah, that's pretty much how I see it.

> Something can be both. For instance, how about an
adept who hasn't discovered yet that she's an adept,
because by the time the power awoke (say, as a result
of Deepweed exposure), she'd already gotten some
cyberwear, and the geas on the cyberwear'd magic
happened to be "won't activate unless needed for
survival or the GM wants it to", and the rest of her
adept powers are inobvious ones? (I'm currently
putting together a character like that, as it
happens...) Similarly, what if a geas is present for
an emotional reason - that talisman is a heirloom from
an ancestor who taught the character magic?

Yes, that's true, and those are a couple of good
examples. It comes down to personal preference,
though. I prefer not to limit my characters with such
things when I generally give my GMs more that enough
purely historical hooks to hang my characters by the
nads many times over. :)

> Is there a need for a single character to be
versatile, or for the entire team put together to be
versatile? I've been taking a look at The
Neo-Anarchist's Guide to Real Life, and the security
section is full of situations where what you're
needing is a _combination_ of abilities - at different
times to get around a well-constructed security
system, you'd need a decker, a mage/shaman, a thief
type (cybered, bioware, adept, combination, whatever),
a few samurai and/or combat adept types in case
something goes wrong, etcetera. Often, having one
Awakened type capable of doing illusions and another
good at astral combat and/or controlling/banishing to
take out the spirits is exactly what you need (you
don't want the same mage who's sustaining those Trid
Phantasm and Silence/Stealth spells to be the one
trying to take out the spirits (which tends to be an
Exclusive action!)).
>
> Another point, this on the player end of things.
What do you do if you've got two players in a group
wanting to play an Awakened type? Having them both be
generalists leads to both having less to do.
> -Allen

I think you're seriously undervaluing the utility and
versatility of magic, Allen. You could have ten
players creating new characters and all deciding to
create mages - if they worked together, they could
easily come up with a bunch of characters with
maxed-out spell points and only a few overlapping
spells between them. Only in the highest powered game
(or if your two mages decide to take the exact same
spell list) are you going to have the potential of
them getting in each other's way. You could say the
same thing about having a couple of samurai on the
same team, but no one ever suggests that having them
generalise in their abilities is a bad thing. In most
cases, having a couple of mages who can back each
other up is never going to cause problems - even if
they do have identical abilities, that just means they
can switch duties - one doing astral overwatch, one
sustaining spells, or dealing with spirits, or etc.
etc.

However, let's look at what you suggested - an
astral/banishing specialist and a spell specialist.
Okay, that's fine to start with, although I'd suggest
that simply by design they're both going to have less
to do - if you're dealing with a situation without
enemy spirits, that curtails the first guy's role, for
example. But as this is a discussion of geasa, let's
get back to that - what happens if your banisher is
breaking a geas for some reason and the GM throws a
big, nasty spirit at you? In this situation, the
generalists could switch duties, the guy who'd been
doing the spellcasting moving into point role against
the spirit, the guy with the broken geas backing him
up. With specialists, though, either the banisher is
going to have to work at a handicap because of his
broken geas, or the spellcaster is going to have to do
his very level best to deal with something outside his
specialty.

Now, I don't deny the value or fun and roleplaying
value of specialist characters. I've got a character,
for instance, who's a sorcerer, limiting him to begin
with. Add to that his spell selection - he's a very
talented spy and infiltrator, but everything about him
is subtle, even, for the most part, his damaging spell
selection. Open combat is definitely not his forte.
Even so I really like him and I bet he'll be fun to
play. But there are a lot of places where he could get
into trouble if he doesn't play to his strengths. When
you're shadowrunning, though, you're often being
reactive - you can't ensure you play to your
strengths, you just have to play the hands you're
dealt. That's why I submit that any shadowrunning mage
who willingly limits his abilities is setting himself
up for a fall. Sooner or later he'll find himself in a
situation where he's not at his peak, or, at worst, is
completely useless.

I know I came at this discussion like a hardass, but
to be honest, I just think a lot of players focus on
raw power over versatility (when it comes to the geas
discussion at least) and that's not the best way to
operate in the shadows. Honestly, I think that saying
bioware is worse for awakened characters than cyber
because you can't compensate for the magic loss with
geasa is a totally skewed view of things. That's all.

====Doc'
(aka Mr. Freaky Big, Super-Dynamic Troll of Tomorrow, aka Doc'booner, aka Doc' Vader)

.sig Sauer

If you SMELL what THE DOC' is COOKIN'!!!

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Message no. 10
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Chris Maxfield)
Subject: Further questions regarding Magic Loss
Date: Sun May 27 00:35:06 2001
Records show that at 17:53 on Friday 25/05/01, Rand Ratinac scribbled:
>Okay, sure, but geasa are limitations for a reason -
>they limit you. If you lose that talisman, for
>example, you're screwed. It's true, not every geas is

Or a decker loses his deck. Or a sam loses his gun. Or a technician loses
his toolkit. Most characters depend on tools. Losing them makes the job
harder. That's life. So what?

>I'll give you that a 'well chosen' geas won't hurt you
>too often - but sometimes it will. When you're dealing
>with a point, two at most, the limitations, IME,
>usually outweigh the advantages. And I, personally,

As you say, in your experience. Mine has not been so terrible.

>don't like playing mages with more than a point or two
>of 'lost' magic. When you've got the choice of a bunch
>of geasa, though, and force 1 spells? Well...:)

In truth, the only characters with more than two geasa I have experienced
have been NPCs. I created them and I had an immense amount of fun playing
them. :-)

>Can't argue with that, although such things would
>usually be minor considerations for my characters - I
>like to define them with history, not gimmicks.

If a GM allows them to be just gimmicks, then he's a crap GM. A character's
history is not fixed. It is being created in every game.

>Definitely personally, Chris. :) I'm a street shaman
>kinda guy. :)

I'm not sure that I'd agree with that classification. ;-)

>Look, here's my beef with geasa in a nutshell. They're
>limiting. True?

Magic loss is limiting. Accepting a geas or not accepting a geas is a
choice. Both involve limitations of a sort.

>The true strength of a shadowrunning mage is in
>versatility, not raw power. Taking geasa constrains

"True strength"? No. "A strength", yes. One of many.

>your versatility, which, IMO, is a very bad thing.
>That's it. Sure, sometimes for a character a geas or
>two can help you shape them - but on the whole, you
>can keep 'em. :)

This is pure subjective choice, then. Where you see power, I see
personality; good roleplaying with characters that respect their magic.
Further, though I admire the choice of magicians that accept absolutely no
limitations, I feel this tends more to paranoia than to versatility.

Chris
Message no. 11
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Strago)
Subject: Further questions regarding Magic Loss
Date: Sun May 27 00:50:01 2001
Chris Maxfield wrote:

> Records show that at 17:53 on Friday 25/05/01, Rand Ratinac scribbled:
> >Okay, sure, but geasa are limitations for a reason -
> >they limit you. If you lose that talisman, for
> >example, you're screwed. It's true, not every geas is
>
> Or a decker loses his deck. Or a sam loses his gun. Or a technician loses
> his toolkit. Most characters depend on tools. Losing them makes the job
> harder. That's life. So what?
>

So a decker can make/buy another deck. A sam with only one gun? Puh-leeze. Most
of the sams I play pack at LEAST 5 guns while on a run (2 pistols, two
SMGs/ARs, and a holdout in a forearm holster for those "shit I'm out of ammo"
moments...). Talismans (men?) are very different. They've got to have three
distinctive things about them, which means if you lose it, you're hosed FOREVER
not just inconvenienced for a little while like the characters in your
examples.
<SNIP>
--
--Strago

All Hail Apathy! Or don't. Whatever. -abortion_engine

Down with the Moral Majority
-Green Day
Message no. 12
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Chris Maxfield)
Subject: Further questions regarding Magic Loss
Date: Sun May 27 03:30:01 2001
Records show that at 00:53 on Sunday 27/05/01, Strago scribbled:
>So a decker can make/buy another deck. A sam with only one gun? Puh-leeze.
>Most
>of the sams I play pack at LEAST 5 guns while on a run (2 pistols, two
>SMGs/ARs, and a holdout in a forearm holster for those "shit I'm out of
ammo"

I never said the sam had only one gun. I was speaking generically. A
situation that can strip a magician of a secured talisman will strip a sam
of all his weapons.

>moments...). Talismans (men?) are very different. They've got to have three
>distinctive things about them, which means if you lose it, you're hosed
>FOREVER
>not just inconvenienced for a little while like the characters in your
>examples.

Rubbish. The magician just gets another one very similar to the original.
Until then, the magician is still functional at reduced effectiveness (and
not even that if he can Center away the penalties). The decker is useless
until he can acquire another deck.

Chris
Message no. 13
From: shadowrn@*********.com (shadowrn@*********.com)
Subject: Further questions regarding Magic Loss
Date: Sun May 27 04:10:01 2001
On Sun, 27 May 2001 00:53:55 -0400 Strago <strago@***.com> writes:
<SNIP>
> So a decker can make/buy another deck. A sam with only one gun?
> Puh-leeze. Most
> of the sams I play pack at LEAST 5 guns while on a run (2 pistols,
> two
> SMGs/ARs, and a holdout in a forearm holster for those "shit I'm out
> of ammo"
> moments...).

You're kidding ... two SMGs/ARs? Why? Personally, I don't have any
characters who own even one assault rifle ...

> Talismans (men?) are very different. They've got to
> have three
> distinctive things about them, which means if you lose it, you're
> hosed FOREVER
> not just inconvenienced for a little while like the characters in
> your
> examples.
> <SNIP>

Uhm, mister jeweler, how much would it cost to make silver medallion
inset with a quartz crystal and a gold chain to hang it from? Really?
Well, in that, case, I'll take a dozen. :P~

I think your're blowing "three distinct characteristics" way out of
proportion ...

--
D. Ghost
If a cow is tipped in the forest when no one is around, does the IRS
really have to know?
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Message no. 14
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Gurth)
Subject: Further questions regarding Magic Loss
Date: Sun May 27 06:20:27 2001
According to dghost@****.com, on Sun, 27 May 2001 the word on the street
was...

> Uhm, mister jeweler, how much would it cost to make silver medallion
> inset with a quartz crystal and a gold chain to hang it from? Really?
> Well, in that, case, I'll take a dozen. :P~
>
> I think your're blowing "three distinct characteristics" way out of
> proportion ...

Not to mention that you can pick some object that's much easier to get hold
of as a talisman. "A rubber ball with a smiley face on it" will set you
back maybe 2 nuyen (I forget how much Dvixen paid for it :) and can be
found in many more stores than, for example, "A platinum ring with
intricate dragon decorations."

--
Gurth@******.nl - http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html
Who needs that now?
-> NAGEE Editor * ShadowRN GridSec * Triangle Virtuoso <-
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Message no. 15
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Hahns Shin)
Subject: Further questions regarding Magic Loss
Date: Sun May 27 15:10:01 2001
> Not to mention that you can pick some object that's much easier to
get hold
> of as a talisman. "A rubber ball with a smiley face on it" will set
you
> back maybe 2 nuyen (I forget how much Dvixen paid for it :) and can
be
> found in many more stores than, for example, "A platinum ring with
> intricate dragon decorations."
<glib comment> It depends whether or not the ball has to be made out
of "real" or "natural" rubber. :-) Or maybe Flubber (mmm... Flubber in
SR. Alchemy?). If it has to be made out of natural rubber, you might
have to have the smiley ball imported. "What? Made in Amazonia??"
</glib comment>

Sure, geasa are limiting. But what is the alternative? Losing a point
of magic? Eventually, you will burn out or at least be inconvenienced.
And some mages don't have a choice... I had an adept sniper in my game
just recently take major toxin damage (the GM refused to disclose what
type, since my medical education tends to make me a butthead when it
comes to antidotes for most known toxins) and lost magic from the
resulting Deadly wound.

I think the point is that different mages will see geasa differently.
Some shamans will see dancing or chanting as a required part of thier
magic (or even mumbling to themself while arguing with their totem).
Or maybe a baseball-loving mage will chuck spells like throwing a
baseball. Or maybe an Albino Awakened character prefers to work at
night and sleeps during the day. Or you have the Street Mage who knows
the value of not taking geasa. I think there are perfectly valid
reasons for both taking geasa and not taking geasa, just like taking
or not taking cyberware (Awakened or not), buying levels of Lifestyle,
etc.

Hahns Shin, MS II
Budding cybersurgeon
Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball (TM).
Message no. 16
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Allen Smith)
Subject: Further questions regarding Magic Loss
Date: Sun May 27 20:20:01 2001
On May 26, 10:13pm, Rand Ratinac wrote:
> <snipt!(TM)>
> > All this is likely to depend heavily on the situation and the
> > geas. That bunch of geasa, if you _do_ have to violate them, means
> > you're pretty well screwed by the combination of the Magic loss
> > and the difficulty modifiers. Comparatively, the penalties for
> > doing without a single geas are pretty light, especially for a
> > talented mage.
>
> Yeah, that's pretty much how I see it.

Umm... then why do you keep talking about a mage who's broken a geas
as being majorly "handicapped"?

> > Something can be both. For instance, how about an adept who hasn't
> > discovered yet that she's an adept, because by the time the power
> > awoke (say, as a result of Deepweed exposure), she'd already
> > gotten some cyberwear, and the geas on the cyberwear'd magic
> > happened to be "won't activate unless needed for survival or the
> > GM wants it to", and the rest of her adept powers are inobvious
> > ones? (I'm currently putting together a character like that, as it
> > happens...) Similarly, what if a geas is present for an emotional
> > reason - that talisman is a heirloom from an ancestor who taught
> > the character magic?
>
> Yes, that's true, and those are a couple of good
> examples. It comes down to personal preference,
> though. I prefer not to limit my characters with such
> things when I generally give my GMs more that enough
> purely historical hooks to hang my characters by the
> nads many times over. :)

Your choice. What I do depends on the character. If it makes sense for
the character, I give them limits. If not, not.

> I think you're seriously undervaluing the utility and
> versatility of magic, Allen. You could have ten
> players creating new characters and all deciding to
> create mages - if they worked together, they could
> easily come up with a bunch of characters with
> maxed-out spell points and only a few overlapping
> spells between them.

Sure... but each of those ten characters _is_ specialized
(non-versatile, in terms of how you've been talking about geasa vs
versatility) in some respect, unless every one of them has a spell
list that looks like a random draw (which would take a _lot_ of
explaining to do, if I was the GM).

> Only in the highest powered game
> (or if your two mages decide to take the exact same
> spell list) are you going to have the potential of
> them getting in each other's way. You could say the
> same thing about having a couple of samurai on the
> same team, but no one ever suggests that having them
> generalise in their abilities is a bad thing. In most
> cases, having a couple of mages who can back each
> other up is never going to cause problems - even if
> they do have identical abilities, that just means they
> can switch duties - one doing astral overwatch, one
> sustaining spells, or dealing with spirits, or etc.
> etc.

I can see both sides on this. I've seen situations (admittedly in
other systems) where things have worked out either way. Sometimes, you
can have people backing each other up as you suggest. Other times,
people get in each others' way. It does depend to some degree on the
cooperation skills of the players - _and of the characters_. Note the
underline on the last. It can limit what sort of characters are
possible, which isn't a desirable thing.

> However, let's look at what you suggested - an
> astral/banishing specialist and a spell specialist.
> Okay, that's fine to start with, although I'd suggest
> that simply by design they're both going to have less
> to do - if you're dealing with a situation without
> enemy spirits, that curtails the first guy's role, for
> example.

Note the astral part.

> But as this is a discussion of geasa, let's
> get back to that - what happens if your banisher is
> breaking a geas for some reason and the GM throws a
> big, nasty spirit at you?

How likely this is depends on the geas, of course. The astral
perception/projection condition geas is not bad on this, for instance.

> In this situation, the
> generalists could switch duties, the guy who'd been
> doing the spellcasting moving into point role against
> the spirit, the guy with the broken geas backing him
> up. With specialists, though, either the banisher is
> going to have to work at a handicap because of his
> broken geas,

How much of a handicap? See above...

> or the spellcaster is going to have to do
> his very level best to deal with something outside his
> specialty.
>
> Now, I don't deny the value or fun and roleplaying
> value of specialist characters.

Thank you...

> I've got a character,
> for instance, who's a sorcerer, limiting him to begin
> with. Add to that his spell selection - he's a very
> talented spy and infiltrator, but everything about him
> is subtle, even, for the most part, his damaging spell
> selection. Open combat is definitely not his forte.
> Even so I really like him and I bet he'll be fun to
> play. But there are a lot of places where he could get
> into trouble if he doesn't play to his strengths. When
> you're shadowrunning, though, you're often being
> reactive - you can't ensure you play to your
> strengths, you just have to play the hands you're
> dealt. That's why I submit that any shadowrunning mage
> who willingly limits his abilities is setting himself
> up for a fall. Sooner or later he'll find himself in a
> situation where he's not at his peak, or, at worst, is
> completely useless.

Sure. The same is true of practically any character... there are going
to be situations where that character is not at their peak, unless
you've made the utterly-boring "generic man". You mention
character-history hooks above... there are times when those are going
to be a problem also. If, say, you've got a (negative) history with
some megacorp, and your team gets captured by said corp, they're going
to offer you a lot worse choices than they will the other
characters...

> I know I came at this discussion like a hardass, but
> to be honest, I just think a lot of players focus on
> raw power over versatility (when it comes to the geas
> discussion at least) and that's not the best way to
> operate in the shadows.

Agreed.

> Honestly, I think that saying
> bioware is worse for awakened characters than cyber
> because you can't compensate for the magic loss with
> geasa is a totally skewed view of things. That's all.

Whether or not I'd _use_ the choice (which, as I've said, depends on
the character), it's still preferable to _have_ it, in my view.

Yours,

-Allen

--
Allen Smith easmith@********.rutgers.edu
Message no. 17
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Rand Ratinac)
Subject: Further questions regarding Magic Loss
Date: Sun May 27 22:30:01 2001
<snipt!(TM)>
> Sure, geasa are limiting. But what is the
alternative? Losing a point of magic? Eventually, you
will burn out or at least be inconvenienced. And some
mages don't have a choice... I had an adept sniper in
my game just recently take major toxin damage (the GM
refused to disclose what type, since my medical
education tends to make me a butthead when it comes to
antidotes for most known toxins) and lost magic from
the resulting Deadly wound.
> Hahns Shin, MS II

Um, Hahns...ain'tcha never heard of initiation?

====Doc'
(aka Mr. Freaky Big, Super-Dynamic Troll of Tomorrow, aka Doc'booner, aka Doc' Vader)

.sig Sauer

If you SMELL what THE DOC' is COOKIN'!!!

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Message no. 18
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Rand Ratinac)
Subject: Further questions regarding Magic Loss
Date: Sun May 27 22:45:00 2001
> > <snipt!(TM)>
> > > All this is likely to depend heavily on the
situation and the geas. That bunch of geasa, if you
_do_ have to violate them, means you're pretty well
screwed by the combination of the Magic loss and the
difficulty modifiers. Comparatively, the penalties for
doing without a single geas are pretty light,
especially for a talented mage.
> >
> > Yeah, that's pretty much how I see it.
>
> Umm... then why do you keep talking about a mage
who's broken a geas as being majorly "handicapped"?

Sorry, Allen, I misread what you were saying. What I
thought you meant by 'doing without a single geas' was
not taking a geas to compensate for a single point of
lost magic. That I don't see as a big problem.

> > I know I came at this discussion like a hardass,
but to be honest, I just think a lot of players focus
on raw power over versatility (when it comes to the
geas discussion at least) and that's not the best way
to operate in the shadows.
>
> Agreed.

Glad to hear it. :)

> > Honestly, I think that saying bioware is worse for
awakened characters than cyber because you can't
compensate for the magic loss with geasa is a totally
skewed view of things. That's all.
>
> Whether or not I'd _use_ the choice (which, as I've
said, depends on the character), it's still preferable
to _have_ it, in my view.
-Allen

That’s fair enough. Personally I don’t think having
the choice is necessary. But then again, I don’t like
geasa, do I? :)

One thing I did forget to mention though, is that when
I said ‘shadowrunning mages are idiots if they
voluntarily take geasa’ (or something like that) I was
looking at things from a real-life POV, not a game
POV. That colours everything, really. I mean, if this
wasn’t a game – if this was the real world and we were
talking about REAL mages who REALLY ran the shadows
and who’d just like magic points and had to make this
choice between taking a geas and forfeiting a magic
point… That’s how I was looking at it. In that
situation, all that matters is staying alive and
making money, and that’s where I see the limitations
of geasa as being a bad thing. Sure, depending on your
world view (especially if you’re a shaman or the like)
you’d likely take an appropriate geas – but that by no
means invalidates the fact that the smarter choice
would be to accept a small decrease in your power in
order to retain your versatility. In most
circumstances, that’d extend your life expectancy more
than having just a little more power would.

====Doc'
(aka Mr. Freaky Big, Super-Dynamic Troll of Tomorrow, aka Doc'booner, aka Doc' Vader)

.sig Sauer

If you SMELL what THE DOC' is COOKIN'!!!

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Message no. 19
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Strago)
Subject: Further questions regarding Magic Loss
Date: Mon May 28 00:25:01 2001
dghost@****.com wrote:

> On Sun, 27 May 2001 00:53:55 -0400 Strago <strago@***.com> writes:
> <SNIP>
> > So a decker can make/buy another deck. A sam with only one gun?
> > Puh-leeze. Most
> > of the sams I play pack at LEAST 5 guns while on a run (2 pistols,
> > two
> > SMGs/ARs, and a holdout in a forearm holster for those "shit I'm out
> > of ammo"
> > moments...).
>
> You're kidding ... two SMGs/ARs? Why? Personally, I don't have any
> characters who own even one assault rifle ...
>

Two SMGs OR two ARs. And those are for the kick. ARs are for the heavy
duty runs where stealth don't matter as much as the ability to knock down
three or four guys every round (3 seconds).

>
> > Talismans (men?) are very different. They've got to
> > have three
> > distinctive things about them, which means if you lose it, you're
> > hosed FOREVER
> > not just inconvenienced for a little while like the characters in
> > your
> > examples.
> > <SNIP>
>
> Uhm, mister jeweler, how much would it cost to make silver medallion
> inset with a quartz crystal and a gold chain to hang it from? Really?
> Well, in that, case, I'll take a dozen. :P~
>
> I think your're blowing "three distinct characteristics" way out of
> proportion ...
>

To me, the "three distinct characteristics" rule was just a guideline, and
the more important factor was that it was valuable enough to the mage to
become a crutch. I've always ruled that the talisman had to be something
of some sentimental value to the character BEFORE it could be a talisman.
I'd allow, say, a rabbit's foot, even without three characteristics,
because it's a lucky rabbit's foot. Or that silver medallion inset with a
quartz crystal and a gold chain? Why that? Maybe it was a gift from an
ex-girlfriend (or the current one) and so it's got sentimental value.
Stuff that would make the PC twig out if it got lost or stolen, and
probably make him/her go on a rampage until it was returned. But that's
just me. :^)

>
> --
> D. Ghost
> If a cow is tipped in the forest when no one is around, does the IRS
> really have to know?
> ________________________________________________________________
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Down with the Moral Majority
-Green Day
Message no. 20
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Lady Jestyr)
Subject: Further questions regarding Magic Loss
Date: Mon May 28 03:00:01 2001
At 12:20 PM 27/05/01 +0200, Gurth wrote:

>> Uhm, mister jeweler, how much would it cost to make silver medallion
>> inset with a quartz crystal and a gold chain to hang it from? Really?
>> Well, in that, case, I'll take a dozen. :P~
>>
>> I think your're blowing "three distinct characteristics" way out of
>> proportion ...
>
>Not to mention that you can pick some object that's much easier to get hold
>of as a talisman. "A rubber ball with a smiley face on it" will set you
>back maybe 2 nuyen (I forget how much Dvixen paid for it :) and can be
>found in many more stores than, for example, "A platinum ring with
>intricate dragon decorations."

And not only that, but you can pick an object that's not obviously a
talisman.

"Silk boxer shorts with a Clavin Klein logo on the elastic."

What opponent in their right mind is going to assume that your underwear is
a magical talisman? (Please, no jokes. :-) How are they going to tell? So
you have expensive taste in underwear... big deal.

And further, it's only going to be under very unusual circumstances where
they're going to be able to get rid of your well-thought-out stealth
talisman of that nature. Under those kinds of circumstances, you probably
have bigger problems than just being at slightly reduced magical
effectiveness anyway.

Lady Jestyr
~ Hell hath no fury like a geek with a whippersnipper ~

* jestyr@*****.com | URL: http://staff.dumpshock.com/jestyr *
Message no. 21
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Gurth)
Subject: Further questions regarding Magic Loss
Date: Mon May 28 05:00:00 2001
According to Lady Jestyr, on Mon, 28 May 2001 the word on the street was...

> What opponent in their right mind is going to assume that your underwear is
> a magical talisman? (Please, no jokes. :-)

That's asking a lot, you know... :)

> And further, it's only going to be under very unusual circumstances where
> they're going to be able to get rid of your well-thought-out stealth
> talisman of that nature.

It seems to me that a great many SR players have traditional magician
images in mind, and have a hard time letting go of them even though
magicians don't need to fit this stereotype in SR.

--
Gurth@******.nl - http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html
Who needs that now?
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Message no. 22
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Lady Jestyr)
Subject: Further questions regarding Magic Loss
Date: Mon May 28 05:10:01 2001
At 10:55 AM 28/05/01 +0200, Gurth wrote:
>According to Lady Jestyr, on Mon, 28 May 2001 the word on the street was...
>
>> And further, it's only going to be under very unusual circumstances where
>> they're going to be able to get rid of your well-thought-out stealth
>> talisman of that nature.
>
>It seems to me that a great many SR players have traditional magician
>images in mind, and have a hard time letting go of them even though
>magicians don't need to fit this stereotype in SR.

Actually, one of the things that's bugged me most about the geasa debate -
and admittedly I've skipped a lot of the more involved messages, so may
have missed something about it - is that people seem to be approaching the
debate from the PoV of rules-based efficiency. It's just painful to read,
time and again, about people making stat-based choices for their
characters, instead of personality-based choices.

These characters are supposed to be a game-based depiction of people who
could be -real-. Who the hell makes all their life choices based on
efficiency? Do you get exactly the right amount of sleep every night, never
eat anything unhealthy, have the perfect career path mapped out and
followed to the letter, etc etc?

No. You're all real people, and your desires control a large proportion of
how you live your life - not some objective assessment of what's the
optimal way to manage your life, but a subjective desire to enjoy good
quality of life. Shouldn't your characters behave the same way? For every
hardened super-efficient cool-headed killing machine, there will be ten
guys who are 'good enough' at their job, and make their lifestyle choices
based on quality of life, not some mythical goal of efficiency. And apart
from realism, a lot of the time it's more fun anyway to play the 'real
person' character, not the super-efficient one.

Sorry. Rant over. :)

Lady Jestyr
~ Hell hath no fury like a geek with a whippersnipper ~

* jestyr@*****.com | URL: http://staff.dumpshock.com/jestyr *
Message no. 23
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Chris Maxfield)
Subject: Further questions regarding Magic Loss
Date: Mon May 28 05:25:01 2001
Records show that at 19:16 on Monday 28/05/01, Lady Jestyr scribbled:
<<snip>>
>No. You're all real people, and your desires control a large proportion of
>how you live your life - not some objective assessment of what's the
>optimal way to manage your life, but a subjective desire to enjoy good
>quality of life. Shouldn't your characters behave the same way? For every
>hardened super-efficient cool-headed killing machine, there will be ten
>guys who are 'good enough' at their job, and make their lifestyle choices
>based on quality of life, not some mythical goal of efficiency. And apart
>from realism, a lot of the time it's more fun anyway to play the 'real
>person' character, not the super-efficient one.

Thank you for two excellent, clarifying posts posts dear Lady. ;-)

Chris
Message no. 24
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Lady Jestyr)
Subject: Further questions regarding Magic Loss
Date: Mon May 28 05:35:01 2001
At 07:30 PM 28/05/01 +1000, Chris Maxfield wrote:
>
>Thank you for two excellent, clarifying posts posts dear Lady. ;-)

Stop, you're making me blush. *grin*

Lady Jestyr
~ Hell hath no fury like a geek with a whippersnipper ~

* jestyr@*****.com | URL: http://staff.dumpshock.com/jestyr *
Message no. 25
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Chris Maxfield)
Subject: Further questions regarding Magic Loss
Date: Mon May 28 08:05:01 2001
Records show that at 19:42 on Monday 28/05/01, Lady Jestyr scribbled:

>Stop, you're making me blush. *grin*

<Chris passes Lady J a double-choc coated caramel-flavoured Tim Tam then
opens the door and flees this thread.>
Message no. 26
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Sebastian Wiers)
Subject: Further questions regarding Magic Loss
Date: Mon May 28 12:10:01 2001
>>According to Lady Jestyr, on Mon, 28 May 2001 the word on the street
was...
>>
>>> And further, it's only going to be under very unusual circumstances
where
>>> they're going to be able to get rid of your well-thought-out stealth
>>> talisman of that nature.
>>
>>It seems to me that a great many SR players have traditional magician
>>images in mind, and have a hard time letting go of them even though
>>magicians don't need to fit this stereotype in SR.

I think the Shadowrun BOOKS (rule and fiction) often have traditional mages
in mind. The "modern mage" always seems to be in there more as an anomoly
than as the norm.
The talisman geas certainly seems along those lines- its based on the
concept of an "arcane juju", not some easily replacable trinket. I'd thing
a non-traditional mage would pick a non-traditional talisman, but it would
still be something with arcane signifigance within a modern context-
something like a fairly nice portable computer loaded with a hermetic
library, say. Not a cheesy set of underwear.

-Mongoose
Message no. 27
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Hahns Shin)
Subject: Further questions regarding Magic Loss
Date: Mon May 28 14:00:01 2001
<snip my own post>
> Um, Hahns...ain'tcha never heard of initiation?
<in character> "Yep, I've heard of them fancy things before. Some
university mage was hootin' and hollerin' about it, but I'z done
decided that it just ain't right for me. Fancy Sixth World drek." </in
character> Initiation takes karma, and not all Awakened may know about
it, especially bush shamans (The totem may lead them to initiation,
but if they have an intelligence of 1...), street mages (especially
the brash young ones), and uneducated adepts. Sure, it's available in
the game, but that doesn't mean a character will choose initiation
right off, or even choose the eliminate the geas when they initiate
(metamagical powers can be seductive). 18 Karma for self-initiation to
grade 1 is pretty hefty (and it only goes up)... it's at least 3 runs
in our group, and more likely 4 or even 5 depending on how we screw
the runs up. The character in question lost Magic in a session last
week IRL, so I don't know if he'll decide to go for initiation or just
take the power point or what. But in the short term, geasa will make
up for the loss in Magic (and resulting loss of self-esteem) until
initiation occurs. It need not be permanent. My friend had a mage that
kept taking the same geas each time he lost a point of magic until he
lost the geas through initiation (Happened 3 times, the poor bastard).
My point in the last post is that geasa exist for a purpose, and it is
a matter of roleplaying and personal preference whether or not a
character takes a geas.

Hahns Shin, MS II
Budding cybersurgeon
Message no. 28
From: shadowrn@*********.com (shadowrn@*********.com)
Subject: Further questions regarding Magic Loss
Date: Mon May 28 16:00:01 2001
n Mon, 28 May 2001 19:42:17 +1000 Lady Jestyr <jestyr@*********.html.com>
writes:
> At 07:30 PM 28/05/01 +1000, Chris Maxfield wrote:
> >
> >Thank you for two excellent, clarifying posts posts dear Lady. ;-)

> Stop, you're making me blush. *grin*

Someone posting about underwear of a magical bent, blushing? I am
doubtful. ;)

However, I must admit that I have fallen into stereotypes in this debate.
It wasn't until your underwear post that I really thought of a "talisman
geas" as a convenient name for an object dependant geas. I add my praise
to Chris's. Thanks, and pipe up more often. :)

--
D. Ghost
Profanity is the one language all programmers know best
- Troutman's 6th programming postulate.
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Message no. 29
From: shadowrn@*********.com (shadowrn@*********.com)
Subject: Further questions regarding Magic Loss
Date: Mon May 28 16:20:03 2001
On Mon, 28 May 2001 00:30:24 -0400 Strago <strago@***.com> writes:
<SNIP>
> Two SMGs OR two ARs. And those are for the kick. ARs are for the
> heavy
> duty runs where stealth don't matter as much as the ability to knock
> down
> three or four guys every round (3 seconds).

Apart from interpretting your statement to include one AR and 1 SMG,
that's how I read it. I think the closest my characters come to that is
one SMG ... My weapons gal character has two Savalette Guardians, a SMG
(Colt cobra, IIRC), a Hammerli light pistol, a Walther PB-120, a Beretta
200ST, and a heavy sporting rifle. I have found these to be more than
sufficient. The only heavier weapons are mounted on vehicles ... however,
that's me. To each his own.

<SNIP>
> To me, the "three distinct characteristics" rule was just a
> guideline, and
> the more important factor was that it was valuable enough to the
> mage to
> become a crutch. I've always ruled that the talisman had to be
> something
> of some sentimental value to the character BEFORE it could be a
> talisman.
<SNIP>

Well, if you have house rules that affect how play something, you should
mention them in a discussion about it so that we're all on the same page,
so to speak. I thought you were arguing that Talismans were difficult to
replace by the book. In this case, I'd say you're too harsh. If it can't
be replaced, or is nearly impossible to replace, then it should offset
more than a mere one point of magic loss.

--
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Message no. 30
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Rand Ratinac)
Subject: Further questions regarding Magic Loss
Date: Mon May 28 21:20:00 2001
> <in character> "Yep, I've heard of them fancy things
before. Some university mage was hootin' and hollerin'
about it, but I'z done decided that it just ain't
right for me. Fancy Sixth World drek." </in character>

*snicker*

> Initiation takes karma, and not all Awakened may
know about it, especially bush shamans (The totem may
lead them to initiation, but if they have an
intelligence of 1...), street mages (especially the
brash young ones), and uneducated adepts.

True...but we're discussing shadowrunning mages - the
kinds of people who tend to know about initiation AND
initiate - if they want to stay alive. I have no
qualms with the kinds of 'ordinary Joe' mages you're
talking about taking geasa. They're not all that
likely to lose magic points, anyway - unless they go
in for cyber enhancements - they're not likely to get
shot at every day, are they? Ganger mages/adepts and
the like - well, they're a different ball of wax
entirely. Never claimed they were smart. :)

My point is this: taking out all game considerations
of character and roleplaying fun, the smart
(calculating, you might say) shadowrunning mage will
not rely on geasa to pump his power up. Rather, he'll
accept magic losses (if they're small) and then
compensate for them by initiating ASAP. Thus, I don't
see why the inability to compensate for
bioware-induced magic loss via geasa is a problem.

Of course, looking at this more objectively, I can see
that this opinion largely comes back to my dislike of
geasa (which in itself largely comes back to the fact
that we were FORCED to take them in earlier editions
of the game if we didn't want to burn out). So take it
with a grain of salt.

However, I still maintain if you're playing
specifically to win (from a 'real mage' POV, of
course) taking geasa is generally not the way to go.

<snipt!(TM) gaming reasons for taking geasa>
> My point in the last post is that geasa exist for a
purpose, and it is a matter of roleplaying and
personal preference whether or not a character takes a
geas.
> Hahns Shin, MS II

Quite right. Even looking at things from the
'real-world' angle I was taking, there would certainly
be magickers who would take geasa - esp. the purists
and the oddballs. I don't think that invalidates my
main point, however.

And remember - not so long ago it WASN'T a matter of
roleplaying and personal preference as to whether
you'd take it.

And one last thing - don't take this the wrong way,
but even taking roleplaying and gaming considerations
into account, I still think taking geasa is a dumb
thing to do. But that's okay. I do dumb things in the
name of roleplaying, too. :)

====Doc'
(aka Mr. Freaky Big, Super-Dynamic Troll of Tomorrow, aka Doc'booner, aka Doc' Vader)

.sig Sauer

If you SMELL what THE DOC' is COOKIN'!!!

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Message no. 31
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Allen Smith)
Subject: Further questions regarding Magic Loss
Date: Tue May 29 02:40:08 2001
On May 27, 3:25pm, Hahns Shin wrote:
> I think the point is that different mages will see geasa
> differently.

Plus it may very well be a matter of how the mage's subconscious (or
shaman's totem) works/thinks. While I wouldn't tolerate a GM saying
"your character has a geas of such and such" or "your character does
_not_ have a geas, it'd be too limiting", I can very well see myself
deciding that a character had a geas (or didn't have one), no matter
what the character's (pragmatic or not) attitudes on the subject
were, and no matter what my pragmatic evaluation of the situation is
(beyond avoiding making the character unplayable, of course... that
would rather defeat the point!).

> Some shamans will see dancing or chanting as a required part of thier
> magic (or even mumbling to themself while arguing with their totem).
> Or maybe a baseball-loving mage will chuck spells like throwing a
> baseball. Or maybe an Albino Awakened character prefers to work at
> night and sleeps during the day. Or you have the Street Mage who knows
> the value of not taking geasa. I think there are perfectly valid
> reasons for both taking geasa and not taking geasa, just like taking
> or not taking cyberware (Awakened or not), buying levels of Lifestyle,
> etc.

Quite.

Yours,

-Allen

--
Allen Smith easmith@********.rutgers.edu
Message no. 32
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Allen Smith)
Subject: Further questions regarding Magic Loss
Date: Tue May 29 02:55:01 2001
On May 27, 11:08pm, Rand Ratinac wrote:
> > > <snipt!(TM)>
> > > > All this is likely to depend heavily on the situation and the
> > > > geas. That bunch of geasa, if you _do_ have to violate them,
> > > > means you're pretty well screwed by the combination of the
> > > > Magic loss and the difficulty modifiers. Comparatively, the
> > > > penalties for doing without a single geas are pretty light,
> > > > especially for a talented mage.
> > >
> > > Yeah, that's pretty much how I see it.
> >
> > Umm... then why do you keep talking about a mage who's broken a
> > geas as being majorly "handicapped"?
>
> Sorry, Allen, I misread what you were saying.

Understand.

> What I thought you meant by 'doing without a single geas' was
> not taking a geas to compensate for a single point of
> lost magic. That I don't see as a big problem.

I don't really see either way as being a big problem, personally.

> > Whether or not I'd _use_ the choice (which, as I've said, depends
> > on the character), it's still preferable to _have_ it, in my view.

The below came out full of odd characters, BTW (replacements for
various types of quotes). I've done a search-and-replace.

> That's fair enough. Personally I don't think having
> the choice is necessary. But then again, I don't like
> geasa, do I? :)

Differing viewpoints, yes :-}.

> One thing I did forget to mention though, is that when
> I said 'shadowrunning mages are idiots if they
> voluntarily take geasa' (or something like that) I was
> looking at things from a real-life POV, not a game
> POV. That colours everything, really. I mean, if this
> wasn't a game - if this was the real world and we were
> talking about REAL mages who REALLY ran the shadows
> and who'd just like magic points and had to make this
> choice between taking a geas and forfeiting a magic
> point. That's how I was looking at it. In that
> situation, all that matters is staying alive and
> making money, and that's where I see the limitations
> of geasa as being a bad thing.

These are not necessarily the only goals that people are running the
shadows for... indeed, unless they've already got people after them
who wouldn't tolerate them in the limelight, somebody who's Awakened
could make a _lot_ more money a _lot_ safer if they weren't running. I
would envision those Awakened who are in the shadows are there for one
of two reasons. Either if they stuck their heads out, they'd get blown
off, or they've got goals (including exploration of the world through
a non-megacorp/government/academic viewpoint, political goals,
etcetera) that can't be satisfied otherwise. (If the current SR
direction of more controls on magic is continued, I suspect more
(i.e., possibly closer to the proportion of players with Awakened
characters) Awakened types are going to be running the shadows for
both reasons - they've violated some law and don't want to be stuck
in prison simsense or their magic removed, they're working to oppose
the crackdown using extralegal means, or both.)

> Sure, depending on your
> world view (especially if you're a shaman or the like)
> you'd likely take an appropriate geas

Quite. Although, as I said in my last message, that might not be a
choice the _character_ (or at least the character's conscious mind)
_has_.

> - but that by no means invalidates the fact that the smarter choice
> would be to accept a small decrease in your power in order to
> retain your versatility. In most circumstances, that'd extend your
> life expectancy more than having just a little more power would.

Possibly... although keep in mind that "most".

Yours,

-Allen

--
Allen Smith easmith@********.rutgers.edu
Message no. 33
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Allen Smith)
Subject: Further questions regarding Magic Loss
Date: Tue May 29 03:10:01 2001
On May 28, 5:15am, Gurth wrote:
> According to Lady Jestyr, on Mon, 28 May 2001 the word on the street was...
> > And further, it's only going to be under very unusual circumstances where
> > they're going to be able to get rid of your well-thought-out stealth
> > talisman of that nature.
>
> It seems to me that a great many SR players have traditional magician
> images in mind, and have a hard time letting go of them even though
> magicians don't need to fit this stereotype in SR.

To some degree, the existing system enforces that, unfortunately. The
elements, for instance. While there may indeed be a lot of mages (and
even more so with shamen) running around who are looking at things
from that viewpoint, there are going to be others (chaos magicians
chief among them - it is, after all, based on "do what works" (a
pragmatic viewpoint that I, as a scientist, thoroughly appreciate as
an application of the scientific method)) who don't. Timothy (the mage
character I've been working on, and have played as a psionic in a
Shadowrun-like GURPS world) is a chaos mage, and doesn't have at all
the normal associations with spirits, for instance. He's got a power
focus that looks more like a circuit board made out of silver (metal
radical), orichalcum, and crystals (mineral radicals) than anything
else...

As I just wrote, that is someplace where the Object Resistance table
is rather of a headache. OK, I can see reducing magical capablities
when messing with the aura in various ways (cyberware and
bioware). But why should magic and tech be otherwise opposed?

Yours,

-Allen

--
Allen Smith easmith@********.rutgers.edu
Message no. 34
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Allen Smith)
Subject: Further questions regarding Magic Loss
Date: Tue May 29 03:10:11 2001
On May 28, 5:31am, Lady Jestyr wrote:
> Actually, one of the things that's bugged me most about the geasa debate -
> and admittedly I've skipped a lot of the more involved messages, so may
> have missed something about it - is that people seem to be approaching the
> debate from the PoV of rules-based efficiency. It's just painful to read,
> time and again, about people making stat-based choices for their
> characters, instead of personality-based choices.
>
> These characters are supposed to be a game-based depiction of people who
> could be -real-. Who the hell makes all their life choices based on
> efficiency? Do you get exactly the right amount of sleep every night, never
> eat anything unhealthy, have the perfect career path mapped out and
> followed to the letter, etc etc?
>
> No. You're all real people, and your desires control a large proportion of
> how you live your life - not some objective assessment of what's the
> optimal way to manage your life, but a subjective desire to enjoy good
> quality of life. Shouldn't your characters behave the same way? For every
> hardened super-efficient cool-headed killing machine, there will be ten
> guys who are 'good enough' at their job, and make their lifestyle choices
> based on quality of life, not some mythical goal of efficiency. And apart
> from realism, a lot of the time it's more fun anyway to play the 'real
> person' character, not the super-efficient one.
>
> Sorry. Rant over. :)

Fully agreed!

Yours,

-Allen

P.S. BTW, as one of the M&M authors, I do trust you aren't feeling
insulted by my (and others') work on realism et al corrections... I
wasn't surprised to see that you have a (bachelor's) degree in
molecular biology, BTW. It's just that my background has left me with
a considerable amount of knowledge of the areas concerned... partially
because I'm interested in doing it in real life.

--
Allen Smith easmith@********.rutgers.edu
Message no. 35
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Lady Jestyr)
Subject: Further questions regarding Magic Loss
Date: Tue May 29 03:25:01 2001
At 03:10 AM 29/05/01 -0400, Allen Smith wrote:
>
>P.S. BTW, as one of the M&M authors, I do trust you aren't feeling
>insulted by my (and others') work on realism et al corrections... I

Oh, certainly not. I'd hope there aren't (too many?) factual errors in the
text. There are doubtless plenty of areas for disagreement over the
*probability* (or plausibility) of certain pieces of 'ware or trend
directions (especially with an issue like nanotechnology), but hopefully
not too many disagreements over the *possibility* thereof. My collaborator
Marty (who has a BSc in Chemistry) and I wrote the nanoware section,
though, so anything else has nothing to do with us. And even a fair chunk
of the Nanotech chapter was significantly edited, so even then we may not
have written the specific things people take issue with. (On the other
hand, there's every chance that we did. It was written about two years ago,
so my memory of what we wrote and what we didn't has faded somewhat ;-)

Lady Jestyr
~ Hell hath no fury like a geek with a whippersnipper ~

* jestyr@*****.com | URL: http://staff.dumpshock.com/jestyr *
Message no. 36
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Thorger_SÃŒnert)
Subject: Further questions regarding Magic Loss
Date: Tue May 29 04:30:01 2001
[Lurker mode off]
My greatest problem with geasa is, i really can't see how it works from a
character point of view, I mean I catch a bullet and suddenly I need to wear
a red socks to cast a spell with full force ? I can see it work if it is a
geasa which works as a kind of concentrations help but else ? I really have
my problem with a in-game explanation, ( wich is by the way my real problem
with a hermetic mage, how you can explain magic in scientific way in a age
where there are nuclear power plants ? )

MfG
Antifa
[Lurker Mode On]



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Message no. 37
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Allen Smith)
Subject: Further questions regarding Magic Loss
Date: Tue May 29 05:15:01 2001
On May 29, 4:52am, somebody using non-ascii characters wrote:
> [Lurker mode off]
> My greatest problem with geasa is, i really can't see how it works from a
> character point of view, I mean I catch a bullet and suddenly I need to wear
> a red socks to cast a spell with full force ? I can see it work if it is a
> geasa which works as a kind of concentrations help but else ?

A character won't suddenly need something that makes no sense for
them. OTOH, if the person was semi-superstitious regarding red socks
(and a few other characteristics of said socks), so that they felt
luckier when wearing such, it could indeed become a Talisman.

> wich is by the way my real problem with a hermetic mage, how you can
> explain magic in scientific way

As I tend to see it, there are (unfortunately) a couple of different
things being confused with regard to hermetic mages:
A. coming up with magic by the same way any other science is
done, namely the scientific method - what works;
B. usage of symbols et al that are associated with ritual
magicians in western culture (essentially).
I can see the reason for the confusion between the two, given that a
lot of past scientists were also members of the latter (Newton was an
alchemist, for instance; Francis Bacon is another example). But
somebody could perfectly well approach magic in a scientific fashion
and get rather different results (e.g., the wujen; I doubt full-scale
shamanic magic would be fully compatible, since "because the totem
told me so" isn't really an acceptable scientific answer (which is why
it's impossible for Creationism to be scientific, BTW)... only if you
check (in an unbiased fashion, without assuming the totem was right)
and it works the way the totem said would it be so, and many totems
wouldn't get along with that sort of "doubting" (especially the (at
least attempting) to be unbiased). Chaos magic (a real-life
movement/idea, BTW) is perfectly scientific...

> in a age where there are nuclear
> power plants ?

Well, it's pretty apparent that _some_ physical laws (not all, such as
the ones giving us nuclear power, existence of life on Earth,
etcetera) altered - or, rather, that those physical laws were a subset
of the actual physical laws. That's perfectly scientific; there are
current hypotheses (I'm not sure I'd call them theories yet) in
physics related to changes in fundamental constants, for instance. As
long as there is a self-consistent logic behind such changes that can
be determined via experimentation (including observations directed
toward finding facts/evidence that prove or disprove a
hypothesis/theory), it's perfectly scientific. An experiment can be
defined as "you make a prediction, according to a hypothesis/theory,
as to how things will be (or how things were) in a given set of
circumstances, and you check to see if it's right".

-Allen

--
Allen Smith easmith@********.rutgers.edu
Message no. 38
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Gurth)
Subject: Further questions regarding Magic Loss
Date: Tue May 29 13:10:07 2001
According to Thorger Sünert, on Tue, 29 May 2001 the word on the street
was...

> My greatest problem with geasa is, i really can't see how it works from a
> character point of view, I mean I catch a bullet and suddenly I need to wear
> a red socks to cast a spell with full force ? I can see it work if it is a
> geasa which works as a kind of concentrations help but else ? I really have
> my problem with a in-game explanation

You can say they're psychological aids for the magician. This is a good
argument for requiring talismans to be objects that are _somehow_ related
to what caused the Magic loss, BTW: "When I was shot I was wearing my silk
boxer shorts, and I survived! But after that, whenever I wasn't wearing
them I just couldn't keep my mind on my magic..." This also neatly covers
initiation as a way to get rid of a geas: spending the Karma represents
overcoming the mental block.

> ( wich is by the way my real problem with a hermetic mage, how you can
> explain magic in scientific way in a age where there are nuclear power
> plants ? )

IRL, how is a nuclear power plant different from magic? Sure, it's not
magic if you understand the science behind it, but for the vast majority
of people it might as well be.

Anyway, if you see hermetic magicians as scientific types investigating
magic, you can get a good explanation. Magic exists, there is no doubt
about that. So what a hermetic mage does is see _how_ it works -- if I pull
this, what happens? If I pull it again, does it do the same thing? And once
I know what it does, how does it do it?

--
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Message no. 39
From: shadowrn@*********.com (shadowrn@*********.com)
Subject: Further questions regarding Magic Loss
Date: Tue May 29 13:45:01 2001
thorgersuenert@*****.com wrote
>>>My greatest problem with geasa is, i really can't see how it works from a

character point of view, I mean I catch a bullet and suddenly I need to wear

a red socks to cast a spell with full force ? I can see it work if it is a

geasa which works as a kind of concentrations help but else ? I really have

my problem with a in-game explanation, ( wich is by the way my real problem

with a hermetic mage, how you can explain magic in scientific way in a age

where there are nuclear power plants ? )<<<

Here's how I see it (your milage, of course, may vary).

Magic loss is a trauma for a magician, just like any crippling injury. Most
magicians look for a way to overcome that trauma, just as the disabled learn
to compensate for their disability. The Awakened experiment with different
magical techniques appropriate to their tradition to get back to the level
they were once at. For many this takes the form of a magial "crutch" (i.e., a
geas), a little personal ritual that helps them focus and overcome their new
limitation. For a few it involves a lot of introspection and magical training
(i.e., initiation) to get back to where they once were, not unlike physical
therapy for an injury. The rest say "to hell with it" and live with their new
limit, but they've pretty much said "magic isn't all that important to me"
and started sliding down the slippery slope toward burnout.

Acquiring a geas isn't something that happens instantly, it takes some time
and experimentation, but I usually have that stuff happen "off stage," so the
next time the magician character is in play, POOF! he has a new geas
(assuming that's what the player chose).

As for "hermetic magic as a science," I'm afraid that creates some
misconceptions. Websters defines "science" as "an area of knowledge that is

an object of study." In this sense, hermetic magic is a science, but it
doesn't necessarily follow the laws of the physical sciences (indeed, it
quite obviously violates them in a number of places). It's "scientific" in
that it has an organized body of knowledge which is regularly added to by
theory and experimentation. It is NOT just another branch of the physical
sciences.

Even hermetic magic is just as much "art" (or "craft" if you like) as
"science" and heavily dependent on the abilities of the individual magician.
For example, I don't have to know how an electric light works to turn it on.
That's applied physical science. But not only do I have to understand the
symbolism and magical theory to cast a light spell, I also have to have
sufficient magical talent. I need a combination of knowledge (science) and
technique (artistry), along with the right genes, in order to be a magician.

Hope that helps,

Steve Kenson

Talon Studio
http://members.aol.com/talonmail
Message no. 40
From: shadowrn@*********.com (abortion_engine)
Subject: Further questions regarding Magic Loss
Date: Tue May 29 16:55:01 2001
From: <TalonMail@***.com>
> thorgersuenert@*****.com wrote
> >>>My greatest problem with geasa is, i really can't see how it works from
a
> > character point of view, I mean I catch a bullet and suddenly I need to
wear
> > a red socks to cast a spell with full force ? I can see it work if it is
a
> > geasa which works as a kind of concentrations help but else ? I really
have
> > my problem with a in-game explanation, ( wich is by the way my real
problem
> > with a hermetic mage, how you can explain magic in scientific way in a
age
> > where there are nuclear power plants ? )<<<
>
> Here's how I see it (your milage, of course, may vary).
>
> Magic loss is a trauma for a magician, just like any crippling injury.
Most
> magicians look for a way to overcome that trauma, just as the disabled
learn
> to compensate for their disability. The Awakened experiment with different
> magical techniques appropriate to their tradition to get back to the level
> they were once at. For many this takes the form of a magial "crutch"
(i.e., a
> geas), a little personal ritual that helps them focus and overcome their
new
> limitation. For a few it involves a lot of introspection and magical
training
> (i.e., initiation) to get back to where they once were, not unlike
physical
> therapy for an injury. The rest say "to hell with it" and live with their
new
> limit, but they've pretty much said "magic isn't all that important to me"
> and started sliding down the slippery slope toward burnout.
>
> Acquiring a geas isn't something that happens instantly, it takes some
time
> and experimentation, but I usually have that stuff happen "off stage," so
the
> next time the magician character is in play, POOF! he has a new geas
> (assuming that's what the player chose).

My thought regarding geasa stems largely from the old-school "What You Think
Is What You Get" school of SR magic, wherein magic itself is neither
hermetic nor shamanic nor anything in-between; the only limitation of magic
is the caster themselves. Generally, magic is so great a force that the
mortal mind cannot comprehend it in its entirety, and as such, we use
rituals and states of mind to limit it in a way that it is understandable to
us. [I say "mortal minds" because, according to ED, Dragons are, as a rule,
exempt from such limitations.] What this means is that if you believe magic
comes from a archetypical bear on some metaplane, then /for you/ it does.
And if you /believe/ that you need a talisman to cast a spell, then you do;
but not everyone does.

What this means in accordance with geasa is that any percieved limit
becomes - with great rapidity - a real one, a transformation of thought into
Pattern. And I believe anyone here can understand the power of superstition.
What soldier has not found his good luck charm, or some ritual he must
complete before he goes into battle, lest he die? It is so simple, in magic,
for that percieved need to become real.

You're only lucky at night; you know that, because the only time you brushed
death was that one foolish time that you ran during the day.

You should have died that time, with the barghest, but you were wearing her
ring. You know, if you don't use it, you'll be powerless.

It's just one shot, you tell yourself, before leaving for work. But soon, if
you don't down a shot, you find yourself slipping. You knew you should have
had that drink. Damn it; you're never leaving the house without a shot
again.

The concept comes easier to me, I suppose, than I can explain it; I am
clinically obsessive-compulsive, and rituals and superstitions are my
stock-in-trade. Perhaps, like the nature of magic, I have imprinted -
projected - my expectations onto a larger concept I cannot understand
without the limitations I have imposed. But that is how I percieve geasa,
for what it is worth.

> As for "hermetic magic as a science," I'm afraid that creates some
> misconceptions. Websters defines "science" as "an area of knowledge
that
is
> an object of study." In this sense, hermetic magic is a science, but it
> doesn't necessarily follow the laws of the physical sciences (indeed, it
> quite obviously violates them in a number of places). It's "scientific" in
> that it has an organized body of knowledge which is regularly added to by
> theory and experimentation. It is NOT just another branch of the physical
> sciences.
>
> Even hermetic magic is just as much "art" (or "craft" if you
like) as
> "science" and heavily dependent on the abilities of the individual
magician.
> For example, I don't have to know how an electric light works to turn it
on.
> That's applied physical science. But not only do I have to understand the
> symbolism and magical theory to cast a light spell, I also have to have
> sufficient magical talent. I need a combination of knowledge (science) and
> technique (artistry), along with the right genes, in order to be a
magician.

My opinion of magic is again coloured by my background and by the WYTIWYG
theory of SR magic. I percieve hermetic magic to be not necessarily
/directly/ scientific. You need not have studied formulae to practice the
hermetic path; you simply need to find magic to be a logical force
controllable by the caster in a linear fashion. You need to believe that two
things are necessary for the casting of spells: the caster and mana. No
third party is needed. When you summon, you envision the spirit as an aspect
of that force [mana] imprinted with will. You do not percieve it to be
independant of mana; it /is/ mana.

Were magic real, I would certainly be hermetic; my mind is rational,
scientific, mathematic. I percieve magic as a set of conditions,
manipulatable by will. Generally, I think of it just like a computer
program. Think of anchoring - here's this example again - an anti-bullet
barrier to a detect bullet spell. I would cast the spell much like this:

var Bullet=concept "Bullet"
if detect Bullet enact BulletBarrier

You'd need other variables, as well, like DetectRadius and BarrierRadius, of
course, but you get the idea. And the marvelous thing about magic of this
sort is that, with each establishing characteristic being a variable,
anything can be substituted therein: you could make Bullet=CreamPie just as
easily, and, suddenly, across the board, your barrier, your detection, your
actions all revolve around cream pies. Also, all of the mental "code" is
easily copy-able and paste-able; any time you need a concept you've used
before, you simply take this base code and alter it.

But this is simply /my personal/ view on hermetic magic /if I used it./ I
would [hopefully] not be so foolish as to believe every mage would feel and
think this way. And I certainly wouldn't try to think that shamans somehow
use magic in a similar fashion.

My point is, I have never studied magic, never been trained in magic, but if
magic existed, it is obvious what sort of mental filter I would be running
the mana through: a mathematical one. This would make me hermetic, even
though I wouldn't necessarily practice it as a "science" and study it as
such.

As usual, just my point-of-view.
Message no. 41
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Allen Smith)
Subject: Further questions regarding Magic Loss
Date: Wed May 30 03:45:01 2001
On May 29, 2:07pm, TalonMail@***.com wrote:
> As for "hermetic magic as a science," I'm afraid that creates some
> misconceptions. Websters defines "science" as "an area of knowledge
that is
> an object of study." In this sense, hermetic magic is a science, but it
> doesn't necessarily follow the laws of the physical sciences (indeed, it
> quite obviously violates them in a number of places). It's "scientific" in
> that it has an organized body of knowledge which is regularly added to by
> theory and experimentation. It is NOT just another branch of the physical
> sciences.

I'm afraid that Webster's is not following along with the definition
of science as most scientists use it (namely the use of the scientific
method). If you were following that definition in MitS, then your
hermetic mages would not, in fact, be following a science of any sort
(modulo your comment above regarding experimentation). Chaos mages
pretty definitely are scientists (in the sense of using the scientific
method), at least going by modern-day chaos magic, BTW.

Any mage (or member of another branch of magic) who is using the
scientific method _is_, in fact, following a branch of the physical
sciences (even with the psychology of the mage being involved - that
psychology is going to be from the physics/chemistry/biology of the
brain plus the involvement of how mana et al work).

> Even hermetic magic is just as much "art" (or "craft" if you
like) as
> "science" and heavily dependent on the abilities of the individual
magician.
> For example, I don't have to know how an electric light works to turn it on.
> That's applied physical science. But not only do I have to understand the
> symbolism and magical theory to cast a light spell, I also have to have
> sufficient magical talent. I need a combination of knowledge (science) and
> technique (artistry), along with the right genes, in order to be a magician.

Well... the _application_ of hermetic magic may indeed have a heavy
"craft" component (although I would personally argue that science -
_all_ science, or at least all good science - involves art, in that
coming up with hypotheses for testing is often a matter of what feels
right), but its study as a field does not. I've read about a professor
of physics, specializing in optics, who has been blind from
birth. That's the same sort of situation as a non-Awakened individual
studying magic is in; the theory is comprehensible to everyone (modulo
the possibility that higher levels of Initiation may alter thinking
patterns - which has relevance to the idea of a Shadowrun sanity
scale), but the practice is limited to things that other Mundanes
could do (using Anchored Foci, binding free spirits if you know their
Name, etcetera).

Yours,

-Allen

--
Allen Smith easmith@********.rutgers.edu
Message no. 42
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Gurth)
Subject: Further questions regarding Magic Loss
Date: Wed May 30 06:05:01 2001
According to TalonMail@***.com, on Tue, 29 May 2001 the word on the street was...

> As for "hermetic magic as a science," I'm afraid that creates some
> misconceptions. Websters defines "science" as "an area of knowledge
that is
> an object of study." In this sense, hermetic magic is a science, but it
> doesn't necessarily follow the laws of the physical sciences (indeed, it
> quite obviously violates them in a number of places). It's "scientific" in
> that it has an organized body of knowledge which is regularly added to by
> theory and experimentation. It is NOT just another branch of the physical
> sciences.

That doesn't actually matter, does it? The dictionary definition you quoted
essentially says that, too: science observes what happens and then tries to
explain it. Since magic obeys certain rules, you can try to find out what
those rules are. This is exactly what physics does for the material world,
so I don't see why magic couldn't be a science.

> Even hermetic magic is just as much "art" (or "craft" if you
like) as
> "science" and heavily dependent on the abilities of the individual
magician.

As is a lot of practical chemistry :)

> For example, I don't have to know how an electric light works to turn it on.

Not anymore, at any rate -- which is because scientists figured out how to
make electric light accessible to everyone.

> That's applied physical science. But not only do I have to understand the
> symbolism and magical theory to cast a light spell, I also have to have
> sufficient magical talent. I need a combination of knowledge (science) and
> technique (artistry), along with the right genes, in order to be a magician.

So what about anchored spells? Anyone can activate them if they know how,
but only some people can make them; this isn't that different from
electrical light, IMHO. You can only make electrical lights with the right
equipment and abilities, but once it's made anyone can turn it on by
flicking the switch.

--
Gurth@******.nl - http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html
Who needs that now?
-> NAGEE Editor * ShadowRN GridSec * Triangle Virtuoso <-
-> The Plastic Warriors Page: http://plastic.dumpshock.com <-

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Incubated into the First Church of the Sqooshy Ball, 21-05-1998
Message no. 43
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Allen Smith)
Subject: Further questions regarding Magic Loss
Date: Sat Jun 2 05:20:01 2001
On May 29, 5:16pm, abortion_engine wrote:
> My thought regarding geasa stems largely from the old-school "What You Think
> Is What You Get" school of SR magic, wherein magic itself is neither
> hermetic nor shamanic nor anything in-between; the only limitation of magic
> is the caster themselves. Generally, magic is so great a force that the
> mortal mind cannot comprehend it in its entirety, and as such, we use
> rituals and states of mind to limit it in a way that it is understandable to
> us. [I say "mortal minds" because, according to ED, Dragons are, as a rule,
> exempt from such limitations.] What this means is that if you believe magic
> comes from a archetypical bear on some metaplane, then /for you/ it does.
> And if you /believe/ that you need a talisman to cast a spell, then you do;
> but not everyone does.
>
> What this means in accordance with geasa is that any percieved limit
> becomes - with great rapidity - a real one, a transformation of thought into
> Pattern. And I believe anyone here can understand the power of superstition.
> What soldier has not found his good luck charm, or some ritual he must
> complete before he goes into battle, lest he die? It is so simple, in magic,
> for that percieved need to become real.

[...]

> The concept comes easier to me, I suppose, than I can explain it; I am
> clinically obsessive-compulsive, and rituals and superstitions are my
> stock-in-trade. Perhaps, like the nature of magic, I have imprinted -
> projected - my expectations onto a larger concept I cannot understand
> without the limitations I have imposed. But that is how I percieve geasa,
> for what it is worth.

This does, however, imply that a sufficiently strong-willed magician
should be able to override Geasa. (If the mage has OCD, it might take
a SSRI (Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor, like Prozac) in
addition...) This could be either through not losing Magic as much in
the first place, or through having it easier when Initiating to lose
Geasa. The current rules don't allow for this, however...

> My opinion of magic is again coloured by my background and by the WYTIWYG
> theory of SR magic. I percieve hermetic magic to be not necessarily
> /directly/ scientific. You need not have studied formulae to practice the
> hermetic path; you simply need to find magic to be a logical force
> controllable by the caster in a linear fashion.

And, if one then approaches it via the scientific method, the mage
is a scientist.

> But this is simply /my personal/ view on hermetic magic /if I used it./ I
> would [hopefully] not be so foolish as to believe every mage would feel and
> think this way. And I certainly wouldn't try to think that shamans somehow
> use magic in a similar fashion.

I can see some "Idol"-following Shamen doing this - especially Creator
or Fire-Bringer, the latter in particular.

-Allen

--
Allen Smith easmith@********.rutgers.edu

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