From:	Damion Milliken <adm82@***.EDU.AU>
Subject:	Re: No mage bias?!!! (Was: potential ...)
Date:	Fri, 21 Apr 1995 18:07:47 +1000

Luke Kendall writes:

> Mark D. Fender wrote:
> > Never, in all my years playing SR (since thta glorious day the Blue Book
> > arrived in stores) have I ever heard anyone complain about how SR is mage
> > biased.
> Our whole group thinks it is. So that's eight people. My eyes bugged
> out when I read the quote, above. I'd guess that you're misunderstanding
> some of the magic or character generation rules. (Or I am!)

Or everybody else I've ever spoken to has as well. Seriously Mark, why do
you not think the game is biased (perhaps biased might not be the best word,
but comparatively, magicians can easily be made much more powerful than
mundanes. The rules are set so that a magically active person can be much
more effective than a mundane. That's why they're feared so much, the
addition of a magician to one side of a mundane-mundane battle will almost
certainly turn the tide. And have you not heard the oft called phrase - at
least in my games - "geek the mage!"?). Magicians are always the first and
primary target in any engagement, if you can take out your oppositions
spell-slinger, then your own will pretty much toast what's left.

luke still thinks them too powerful, and his group has made many a
modification to the rules to limit the power of magically active persons. In
the Grimything, there is a line which says "Welcome to the Sixth World,
where magic is power." And it is all too true in my (and many other's)
experience.

And, while I grant that there are exceptions to my observations (riggers in
T-birds tend to be pretty nasty power-wise), magicians tend to have the
advantage as far as ability and effectiveness goes. [Generalisatins again,
gee I'm naughty aren't I Bob? :-)]

As far as role-playing goes, well, I won't delve into that... <grin> (But
suffice to say I agree with Bob - a remarkable occurance eh? :-))

--------------------
Jason Ustica writes:

> [Magicians suck at the start and end up real grunty]

More or less, yeah. A magically active character will not be as good as a
mundane in the mundane aspects (like stats, skills, resources), but I think
MAGIC makes up for this plus a bit (a lot actually). And this is only
accentuated by the things you mentioned about growth and devolpment of
magically active characters. But, I tend to like it that way myself too (and
there are always exceptions which are fun to play).

---------------------
Jani Fikouras writes:

> Why would anyone want to initiate beyond grade 0 anyway. It costs
> LOADS of karma and all you get for it is masking. Why not just
> increase your attributes/skills... ?

I find that about the only reason to go beyond Grade 0 is to replenish lost
Magic Points. It sucks to be a magician with a Magic Attribuet of 3. :-)
(like one of my players, can we say "burn out"? He is a 1st level initiate,
and has a Power Focus rating 2, and still only has the Magic Attribute he
started with <evil GM grin>). Otherwise, the benefits just do not befit the
extreme karma cost.

---------------------
Mark D. Fenderwrites:

> Haven't made a metahuman recently, then, have you? Now,
> _there's_unbalancing. Although there is the possiblity of the rulebook
> not saying anything about taking multiple allergies. . .

Well, if you use the _optional_ More Metahumans rule, and the _optional_
allergies rule, then you gotta expect Metahumans to be more powerful. If you
use neither, then they are maybe even underpowered in my view. You gotta find
a balance.

--
Damion Milliken University of Wollongong E-mail: adm82@***.edu.au

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