From: | "Leszek Karlik, aka Mike" <trrkt@*****.ONET.PL> |
---|---|
Subject: | Noticing Spellcasting and Magic and the Law |
Date: | Wed, 19 Nov 1997 10:53:06 +0000 |
writing:
<a lot of liberal snipping done below>
> The reason I started this was to introduce the concept of magical
> registration. A way of forcing players, by legal and moral statutes
> to think before casting hellblast in main street.
Well, the problem is, your average runner is SINless. Why do they
need ANY registration?
> All of the modules, bar a couple are based _in_ a city. The game
> itself is Urban in nature or - IN a city. Where there are witnesses,
> people to terrify, people to see. But nowhere in the rules does it
> state, that a mage has a physical "manifestation" for casting
> spells. Only another mage, if there happens to be one, will notice,
> and then only if he makes the perception test at the time of casting
> (Page 98 Awakenings) (Hence my and Pauls remarks about "kill with a
> thought" which seems to have misinterpreted)
NONONONO. It was pointed out here that noticing powerful spells if
fairly easy, according to the rules from BBB:
Perception TN: (Magic - Force) * 2
So, a Magic 6 mage casting a F6 manabolt is TN2 to notice.
Magic 6 mage casting a F1 fireball is TN 10 to notice, but what's a
Force 1 Fireball gonna do?
> Awakenings, p. 98: ". The decision to observe the spell must
> be made during the same combat turn as the casting. After that any
> trace of the physical manipulation of magic through the caster is
> gone."
Ehh. You're quoting out of context. This "decision to observe the
spell" applies when mage tries to scan the spell itself for the spell
signature.
Noticing that the guy over there, near the stuffer shack,
is casting a spell uses the procedure from BBB.
That's why all those FASA pictures have their mages with funky
mistical effects courtesy of ILM. ;P
<snip>
> It states in six of the 74 sourcebooks I referenced (the six that is
> - so far) during this discussion that Magically active people are
> _extremely_ rare. And that includes those who don't even know
> they're active. I have such a problem, with teams of mages running
> around taking the control of a game away from the GM, and the GM
> having to resort to "extreme measures" to handle it.
Yes. One in a hundred. Now, thing about it - cybered people with
augmented reflexes are also rare. Yet nobody complains about the
group with Wired sammies.
Shadowrunning tends to attract magically active and heavily cybered.
The rest is taken care by by the attrition.
> > It seems that Paul especially handles magic in such a way that =
it is
> >all powerful and untraceable.
>
> Actually, no he doesn't. Paul is as tight and hard on magicians as
> I am. We don't make the character class unplayable, but we make it
> as hard as it is for the others, and add in "responsibility".
>
> Think about it. A mage can carry a hellblast, fireball, mana ball
> in memory. Once he's learned it it's always there, ready for
> instant use.
>
> Yet, the sammy can't carry his assault rifle/mg/cannon around ready
> for instant use 24 hours a day. Nobody can wear a full length
> armoured duster in mid summer, nobody. Also, if you've ever tried
> carrying a weapon like an AR for any length of time, you'll know
> they're damned heavy, carry that in a concealed fashion, and you
> whole way of moving becomes more strained, and more tiring. So, how
> do you compensate for that? Make the spell visible. Give it a
> legality rating. Make sure there are "direct" consequences to
> casting. Not just a "possibility" of being spotted.
Uhhh. Spellcasting IS visible. And you can't make known, "carried"
spells visible... (How? Small spell "icons" hovering around the
mage's head? <grin>)
> >The simple truth is that the use of magic
> >can be detected at the time of casting by a mundane.
>
> Can it? That's not how I see the rules. It doesn't state anywhere
> that I can find so far, that there is a "visible" trace of magic
> around the caster - that's an assumption some people make, and one I
> enforce in the game. How does a mundane notice astral energy being
See BBB, page XXX (;P), in Magic section. Noticing spellcasting gives
the TN for Perception test, and "the GM may modify the TN by -2 if
the observer is a mage himself". Ergo, the Perception test for TN 2
for noticing that F6 Manabolt can be made by mundanes.
<snip>
> No mage works Shadowruns, when he can earn enough money to live like
> a lord working for Ares, Mitsuhama, Renraku, Fuchi, whatever. No
> mage.
<sarcasm mode on>
Yeah. Sure. Smart people need only cash, and that's their only
motivation. They work just for money. They never want vengeance, or
anything like this. They never want to change the world (while
helping themselves, too ;P). They LIKE being told what to do and how
to do it, and when to do it, especially the shamans among them.
</sarcasm mode off>
> Question. Seeing as Shadowrunners are effectively unSINed and are -
> for want of a better word - outcasts from society - let's face it,
> Shadowrunning doesn't pay enough for what happens - although I've
> seen some incredible numbers bandied about here on the list. Why
> would a mage work the Shadows?
'Cause he hates corps? 'Cause he values his personal freedom? 'Cause
he needs the money and refuses to work for soulless corporations?
'Cause his totem told him to? 'Cause...
The reasons are many.. Read some quotes in the Archetypes section of
the BBB... ;>
> The last three runs my players have taken was to deliver a box to
> somewhere else 500 (overall, not each). Second delivery, a bit more
> involved, they got shot at, their contact was detroyed in an
> explosion, and a police man is hunting them... 3,000 (overall, not
> each)
Well, so you're playing a low-cash games. Doesn't mean everybody
does. What's the "standard" cash award for runs in FASA-published
adventures? Do you get 3000¥ for Queen euphoria, or one of the
Harlequin's Adventures?
The truth is, shadowrunning DOES pay. Maybe not in your campaign, or
in Paul's, but in some it definitively does.
<snip>
> In a thousand or two thousnd years of game time, I will change the
> way I do things, by then there won't be any humans left in the world
> and everything will be magic. <that was sarcasm by the way> Until
> then. I like the way FASA dealt with Shadowrun magic. It's rare.
> And in my games, it's damned rare, and the people are afraid of it.
> And I rather like the "buy a licence" logic from Lone Star
> Sourcebook.
So, do your sammies have permits for their Assault Rifles? They
don't have Assault Rifles? That's OK by me, I can play in low-level,
gritty campaigns as well as in guns-a-blazin-cinematic-action-heroes
type campaigns.
But looking at the Archetypes in BBB, FASA prefers the guns-a-blazin
type. Look at all the gear Archetypes have. LMG Valiant. Get a permit
for that... ;P
<ka-snippa>
Leszek Karlik, aka Mike - trrkt@*****.onet.pl; http://www.wlkp.top.pl/~bea=
r/mike; FIAWOL
FL/GN Leszek/Raptor II/ISD Vanguard, (SS) (PC) (ISM) {IWATS-IIC} JH(Sith)=
/House Scholae Palatinae
Don't just DO something,STAND THERE!