| From: | The Digital Mage <mn3rge@****.AC.UK> |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Re: Gradual Initiation (was Re: SR Comp Comments) |
| Date: | Sat, 7 Dec 1996 16:43:19 +0000 |
> I agree, mages and phys adepts already burn karma like crazy. Ever
> checked out the karmamic cost for a good ally spirit. Or bonding a foci
> of any power. If I were playing with you, I would never play a mage.
Well my intention was to prompt players to step back and say "hmm
initiation is rather expensive karma wise, I could maybe become more
powerful sooner by just trying to learn more spells, increasing my sorcery
skill or bonding a foci". Maube its just my experience but players seem to
want to go straight for initiation and don't get the power foci (I don't
think I've actually GMed a game where a mage had one), ally spirits,
improved magical skills, and more spells.
> Mages burn karma to fast anyway just trying to learn spells and skills.
If this was occuring in my game then I may not be feeling it necessary to
increase the karma cost.
> Now you doubled or even tripled the cost for initiation. SUre, it is easy
> to get to initiate grade 0. How easy is it too get to initiate level 6?
Grade 6 initiation is IMHO _extremely_ difficult to get to, these are the
sort of magicians who have been studying magic for many years.
> Under the normal system, assuming lone initiation without ordeals, 189
> karma. Under your system, 315 karma. Hmm...one of the guys in my group
> has been playing the same character for three years and he just barely
> passed 300 total karma.
A magician going from not being an initiate to being a Grade 4 or 5 in
just 3 years is IMHO something incredibly rare -assuming game time equates
to real time. To do that I would suggest that you'd have to be studying
almost exclusively on the magical arts and under the constant tutelage of
a very powerful magician.
> So you have made it so if the mage wants to
> initaite to any level, he won't improve any skills or get any new spells.
> I thought that was the opposite of what your aim was.
Like I said my intention is to prompt teh players to think of other ways
to make their magician powerful.
> If you want your
> player's characters to be more rounded and more skilled in all of the
> magical arts rather than just initiating, you can do that. Just say when
> they try to initiate again "It feels that your lack of understanding in
> the theory of magical manipulation is preventing you from gaining further
> insight into the manipulation of metaplanar energies." They will get the
> point.
This is good for people who have a strong idea about their character and
their role, however its not usually these players who need the prompting
-in my experience.
> But by raising the cost of initiation, all you have done is make
> the magical characters much more difficult to run.
You don't have to be an initiate to run a magical character, even
beginning magicians are incredibly powerful.
> Besides, its kind of
> weird to compare mages initiation to sams skill raising. There not the
> same. Sams get to improve themselves with bioware and cyberware. Mages
> can't without extreme cost to themselves. Are you going to double the
> price of cyberware and bioware to balance out the sams with the mages?
Well again this all comes down to my view on the atmosphere I want -I keep
teh money at a low stage as well, so sammies with Wired 2 aren't all that
common.
> If
> you disagree with 0 initaite mages getting access to all of the metaplanar
> powers, don't let them.
Hence my suggestion of an alternate gradual initiation process allowing
players to choose how fast they go up in grades, traded off by the number
of meta magic powers they learn.
> Give them to them one at a time or force they to
> go research them or travel deep into the metaplanes and learn them from
> great and ancient spirits or what ever.
I do this too and I always try to get across teh fact that initaition
despite the literature written by academic mages is still a relatively
vague subject area and characters wouldn't know the specifics of it all.
> In summary, I agree that players often initiate too much to the expence of
> other skills, but I think that attempting to stop this buy raising the
> cost of initiation is counter-productive, and rather devestating to the
> magical characters...
Maybe your campaign has a much higher magic focus, or a high threat level
where you are constantly up against initiates and teh like. My game
however whilst still threatening keeps things low powered and so upping
teh initation cost is hardly 'devastating' to magical characters.
I'm just trying to prevent initiates becoming trivialised through being
seen and defeated every session.
The Digital Mage : mn3rge@****.ac.uk
"So that which I imagine, is that which I believe" -Rush
Shadowrun Web Site http://www.bath.ac.uk/~mn3rge/Shadowrun.html
