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Posted by: Machiavelli Apr 10 2011, 03:09 PM

I want to play a mage that refuses tech and weapons as "mundane-humbug" and focuses completely on magic. This is his lifestyle and his conviction and above that, he also hates to be dependent on accessories of any kind. So he also wouldn´t ever rely in foci or talismans, neither would he use fetishes or learn limited spells. This is simply his "thing", to be as independent as possible from anything that somebody can take away from him. He, of course knows, that having one or more commlinks is an absolute necessity in 2070, so since he lacks the skills and the interest to take care for his tech by himself, he tried to hire a reliable hacker just for himself (he has several contacts that would fit). But the GM always complains that something like that is not possible, that nobody can refuse to accept the tech and everybody has to learn some relevant skills to survive in 2070. I don´t think that people are forced to accept the tech except of a very low niveau (bank transfers, showing ID in restricted zones) and that you might be looked upon like being a freak, but that´s it.

Posted by: Makki Apr 10 2011, 03:15 PM

go read Harry Dresden . Although, actually, Tech refuses Harry.

I'm pretty sure, one can deny the use of tech, the same way as billions of people can barely afford a Meta Link. Hell, there's paper money still around, make him prefer getting paid cash
But isn't shadowrunning about that job, that makes you good and fast money, but it's too dangerous for most people? Why does he risk his life, if he doesn't need any material wealth? Unless you plan on investing all the money in blackjack and hookers. Maybe some no-gear survival vacations?

Posted by: wylie Apr 10 2011, 03:43 PM

Your GM is right in a sense. To survive everyday life, you must learn basics of computers and such. It sounds like to me that your mage grew up normally, until it was discovered he had magic. From there, your mage could taken the opinion tech is bad, or any foci is a crutch. Maybe it was his teacher, or some life experience.
Let me ask a few questions:
Does the mage live in the woods?
How does the mage get around the town?
Without a commlink w/ SIN, how does the mage buy food?
What does the mage use for money?
How about a armored jacket?

from a GM's point of view:
Q1: If you live in the woods, then your lifestyle is squatter, which has its own qualities....
Q2: if the mage refuse to ride with in a vehicle, teams will stop having him on their team when they have to wait a half of day for the guy ot get acros town.
Q3: no commlink, no SIN? throw up all kinds of red flags
Q4: Corp script will raise eyebrows, and glass beads don't get much. Hmm, glasss bead may be considered tech too
Q5: armor spell can't stop everything

Roleplaying aspect the concept sounds good. I think you need to draw a line though. Refuse guns, or any form of crutch, that is a players choice and RPing it out can be interesting. No commlink or refusing tech is general will just get annoying and players will get tired of it real quick, asking you either change character, concpet, or not play as you are ruining everyone else's fun.

with the new Attitude book out, look into switiching the concept into a steampunk. You just refuse to deal modern tech as much as possible, except what is needed to make it through everyday life.
IMO

good luck with the idea

Posted by: whatevs Apr 10 2011, 03:58 PM

I wouldn't say the concept was impossible (like your gm says), but it seems like it's not just a technophobe character, but a dependancyphobe character. This kind of concept has to be worth some build points during chargen as a psychological condition or something along those lines.

I see shadowrun as being about synergy, so i can understand your gm trying to move you away from the idea. But Labeling a concept as 'impossible' and moving on is weak on his part. There are definately lots of role-playing opportunities here, and lots of ways for the gm to f witchu also.

Posted by: Machiavelli Apr 10 2011, 04:21 PM

It is not that he refuses tech completely, but he doesn´t take care of it like the GM wants. He has a commlink (even two) but he doesn´t want to keep them maintained nor does he do anything with them above the most basic things. This means he takes calls, writes PIN´s, pays things when he has to and turns them off/on if needed. But he is not doing resarches, he doesn´t cares if his porgrammes are up-to-date, how his persona looks, if his agent is fitting to his concept, if the infos he is showing when his commlink in online are "hip" or anything like that. He knows that he cannot completely refuse tech, but like we all, he pays people to do things he doesn´t want to. One thing that is definitely not going to happen, is that he is spending one single karma-point into any technological skill. That is what a hacker is for. The matrix is simply something he sees as a useless dream-world, far away from reality and therefore he deals with it only if it is absolutely not preventable. He earns a lot of money so why shouldn´t it be possible to have your own personal hacker that keeps programmes updated, checks for enhancements (processor, signal etc.) and builds new commlinks for him. If he needs a research....he calls the hacker. I offered him 10k/month but our GM said that no real good hacker does the job for that little cash....and i am not going to change the character-background.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Apr 10 2011, 04:46 PM

You're both stubborn crazies, but that's okay. None of the things you describe as 'keep the commlink maintained' are really maintenance, just weird fluff. You could certainly hire a *not* 'real good hacker' to be your secretary. Hell, a premium MSP basically does all this anyway.

But, as a shadowrunner, you're also a moron. You're just asking for someone to track your every movement, intercept your calls, etc. That's fine, too, cuz it's 'in-character'. Why doesn't your group just have a hacker, anyway? Incidentally, did you take 'Unaware' in computer skills, or just no ranks? Rank 0 is still very proficient, after all; Rank X is the one that means you're brain-damaged.

Posted by: Glyph Apr 10 2011, 05:02 PM

I think you're forgetting how incredibly user-friendly consumer tech in the 2070's is. I understand you will have a very basic commlink, for functioning in society, and communications with the team. But if you're keeping up your lifestyle and your payments to your MSP, you don't really need to do anything with your commlink. Programs will update automatically, and you will get a message when it is time to take it in for an upgrade, or get a new one.

Your GM is right that an on-call hacker just to keep your cheap commlink upgraded is not a practical idea. But it is not a necessary one, either. Although one compromise - if your character has a contact who keeps his tech updated, it doesn't have to be a hacker, just someone with a computer skill of 1 (or even 0) who is not a technophobe.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Apr 10 2011, 05:04 PM

Exactly: a not 'real good hacker', or the MSP (Advanced MSP included with Medium Lifestyle).

As long as you don't have a Computer skill of X… a *real* committed technophobe would, though.

Posted by: Machiavelli Apr 10 2011, 05:53 PM

No, i don´t have the "unaware" flaw and he is not lacking the technical understanding or the intelligence to do otherwise, it is just about lacking interest. Even nowadays where nearly everybody has access to internet, mobile phones etc, i know a lot of people without a TV or a mobile phone. It is weird, it is inconvenient, but it doesn´t make these people unable to work or live in a modern society. And if one of this people needs access to one of the "refused" services, i or sombody else, help them out. That is basically what i want this character to be...focused on the things he is interested in and if there is something he doesn´t want to do by himself, he hires somebody to do it. So he can sit down in his basement to do magical rituals, negotiate with spirits, make love-potions in his laboratory while his hacker is doing the matrix-stuff for him (check out for new magical rumors, magical sites and stuff that seems interesting). I really don´t get the problem of my GM, it is like you already said, some kind of Harry Dresden...and i think that is quite cool.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Apr 10 2011, 06:02 PM

I dig it, you misled us with 'tech-hating'; you meant the 'too busy for secretarial work' type of person. I'm sure any number of scientists, artists, corp managers, etc. are 'too busy' to read blogs and take phone calls.

I want to reiterate that you keep describing a secretary, not a hacker. Or, as I mentioned, the free remote Agent 2 that comes with your Medium Lifestyle's Advanced MSP Services. Say, 'agent, Browse/Search for new magical news and crap', and he does it. Slowly.

Posted by: Machiavelli Apr 10 2011, 06:15 PM

No, tech hating is still quite correct, but he differs between hate and need. And with research i mean more than a google-search the agent is capable of.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Apr 10 2011, 06:20 PM

Well, make up your mind. Is it "just lacking interest" or is it "hating"? Is it "research" or is it "check out for new magical rumors"? I ask because it's very relevant to the answers we give.

Posted by: longbowrocks Apr 10 2011, 07:37 PM

I understand the desire to be independent, the one man who IS an island. I think the commlink is still acceptable even with this character type as long as you have a party. Say the commlink is a spare that one of your team mates lends you for missions. If it get's stolen, whatever! It's only a few hundred NuYen.

Posted by: Machiavelli Apr 11 2011, 06:04 AM

Is it both. I thought the initial post was quite clear on that. Tech is mundane humbug and in addition something that can be taken away from him. Besides the fact that he dislikes the mundane world, his interests lie completely in the magic field. So tech is a "no-go" until the point you are forced to use it. If he can pay somebody to make this stuff for him, even better.

Posted by: TheOOB Apr 11 2011, 06:55 AM

And why would this character be a shadowrunner rather than say a spirit healer in a small Salish village? Shadowrunners are creatures of the sprawl, and they need every advantage to survive their job. Why would a character who wants nothing to do with commlinks and guns and high tech security systems enter a career defined by those things?

And my 2 nuyen, the GM has a right to disallow a character concept that would create an undue amount of extra work for them such as this.

Posted by: Epicedion Apr 11 2011, 07:37 AM

Your commlink is a basic necessity. It is absolutely vital to be able to communicate with your contacts to get jobs, to send updates to your team during legwork, and to communicate with your team on a run. You need it to manage your accounts, since cash is rare -- to receive payment and to buy things.

You don't need to hire someone to do all this for you, since the tech is supposed to be dirt-simple to use. Not that you'd want to hire some street-level hacker to "manage" your bank accounts and things, anyway.

Don't think of the commlink as the 2070 cell phone, or the 2070 laptop, or some sort of fancy PDA, or anything like that. It's necessary to basic survival in a city, unless you want to live in the Barrens and raid food trucks for soy bars, now with meat flavor.

So unless you want to be a loom-smashing Luddite, you'll pretty much have to use basic tech. You can dislike it all you want, but you do rely on it, so you can't just completely ignore it or pass the buck off for someone else to deal with.

Posted by: Blade Apr 11 2011, 09:56 AM

Licing without a commlink in 2070 isn't like living without a television/computer/cell-phone in 2011. It's more like living without electricity.

Posted by: Manunancy Apr 11 2011, 10:40 AM

Note : going to the logical extreme of what you're describing, the charcter is likely to have some trouble with hte rest of the group : by refusing to invest into naything even remotely technological, that's going to create a burden the others PCs wil have to shoulder in his stead. Things like vehicles, alarm-disabling tech, medkits and the like. Anytime one such item will be needed, it will be out of someone else's pocket.

I'd expect the other PCs to get somewhat grumpy about it unless you're willing to fork some of your earnings into a 'party pool' for just that sort of things. Especially since a mage has an easier time staying saving cash than a riger or sammie.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Apr 11 2011, 02:23 PM

Machiavelli, the answer to my last question can't be 'both', because "hating" overrides "just lacking interest", and "research" overrides 'just check rumors'. It's like saying you're both miffed *and* furious. Hehe.

Posted by: KarmaInferno Apr 11 2011, 02:30 PM

This sounds less like a character and more like a shtick.




-k

Posted by: Mongoose Apr 11 2011, 02:43 PM

I don't see why its such a disruptive character concept. Any character who has the Gremlins flaw is pretty much forced to live as this character would. Indeed, taking that flaw would be a fine way to justify (or portray) his attitude. Many people who dislike technology will subconsciously sabotage their efforts when using it; for a mage, that could include literally jinxing himself.
If the flaw is valid, why isn't simply choosing to not use technology for certain things?

Posted by: Doc Byte Apr 11 2011, 03:57 PM

Or buy him a horse...

Posted by: longbowrocks Apr 11 2011, 05:04 PM

Why don't you just take two spells to get rid of all those downsides?
1) critter power: movement. This will give you a run speed of up to 150 if you aren't a troll or dwarf. Plenty to keep up with a car.
2) some spell to allow communication. I know there are a few, but I don't look at spell lists that often.

Posted by: longbowrocks Apr 11 2011, 05:05 PM

Even better, you could consider your lack of tech a kind of life training that gives you one or two power points to invest in these "basic needs" spells.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Apr 11 2011, 05:09 PM

What spell is 'Critter Power: Movement'?

Posted by: Tanegar Apr 11 2011, 05:34 PM

There's already a term for that. It's called a "mystic adept."

Posted by: KeyMasterOfGozer Apr 11 2011, 06:37 PM

My thought was you could summon a spirit and get it to Movement power you. Or you could create a new spell to mimic the Movement power and get a sustaining focus to help you along.

Posted by: KeyMasterOfGozer Apr 11 2011, 06:41 PM

Oh and Mind Link or Mind Net spells to do you communications.

You could "live in the woods", and if someone needed your help with a mission, they could walk their ass out and talk to you. This might be desirable to them because you would probably be cheap, as you don't need much cash.

Posted by: Angelone Apr 12 2011, 06:01 AM

A commlink is your cellphone, ID, computer, and gps rolled into one. Meanwhile I forgot the rest of my point, so yeah.

I would like to point out hating tech doesn't necessarily mean you don't use it. I hate flying and riding on boats. I do it when I have to though.

Edit- Levitate is a nice travel spell.

Posted by: TheOOB Apr 12 2011, 07:12 AM

This whole idea is very similar to the players who want to play unawakened non-augmented characters but want to be effective in combat. Shadowrun is a dangerous, gritty, and unfair world, and shadowrunners do the most dangerous, gritty, and unfair jobs in said world. There are two types of shadowrunners, those that buy, steal, and scrape up every advantage they can, no matter what said advantage is, and corpses.

Posted by: Epicedion Apr 12 2011, 08:07 AM

I think you could possibly get by if you made a highly-skilled unaugmented human with Lucky and max Edge.

Posted by: TheOOB Apr 12 2011, 08:36 AM

If by "get by" you mean do what someone with wired reflexes 1 can do cheaply all the time for 8 round a run for 95BP, and not have any edge left over for anything else, I suppose. You could also take drugs to get IP, but at that point you are taking dangerous addictive chemicals for a small combat boost, why wouldn't you take the safer, more socially acceptable, and ultimately cheaper route to get those IP's, and while you're at it get some muscle toner and reflex recorders.

Posted by: longbowrocks Apr 12 2011, 08:43 AM

Hm, sounds dicey.
You might be able to 'edge your bets with some extra points in AGI too.
But remember: try not to push your luck.

Posted by: Glyph Apr 12 2011, 09:13 AM

The thing is, even a Mr. Lucky build can be made with augmentations, and will outshine a completely unaugmented Mr. Lucky in combat.

Mundane, unaugmented characters will be like Deckard in Blade Runner, constantly struggling to survive against superhuman foes. They can be effective, but they take a lot of work and tactical thinking to do what an augmented character can do effortlessly.

Posted by: Machiavelli Apr 12 2011, 12:16 PM

Right. Being upgraded is simply easier, but some people simply want to have a hard time coming around. Maybe you get such a phase after several years of powergaming....i hope i will never have this phase.^^

Posted by: Epicedion Apr 12 2011, 05:24 PM

I mean "get by." When you're able to semi-regularly toss 18-20 dice at with exploding 6's at a combat roll, you may just not need to roll more than once.

Posted by: Irion Apr 12 2011, 05:49 PM

But why buy the augmentation with precious BP instead of mission rewards.
Jeah, if you only get 1000 bucks the run, it won't work. But some give around 100.000 bucks a run, if you do it right. (Save this unsavable but incredible rich guy)

Posted by: sabs Apr 12 2011, 08:30 PM

You could also have the Gremlins Negative Quality. Because a Mage character with the Gremlins neg quality is something all new and different.

Posted by: Machiavelli Apr 13 2011, 06:03 AM

It would be Harry Dresden on a low-level.^^

Posted by: TheOOB Apr 13 2011, 06:24 AM

Playing a completely unrealistic character(ie a shadowrunner who escews technology) is not powergaming, it's roleplay, my runners would never team up with a liability who doesn't own a commlink, or goes into batter with no magic or 'ware.

Besides, by 2072, it's not about having a hard time coming around, 'ware was commonplace well before the vast majority of character were born, and the internet and information technology outdates their grandparents.

Posted by: Machiavelli Apr 13 2011, 07:46 AM

I know that there are other opinions, but i still think that this char. is not much of a problem. He IS using tech, but only as much as ABSOLUTELY needed. Like i already pointed out, he is simply not sitting at home, checking for new versions of programmes (i don´t talk about updates, i mean higher ratings, ICE, agents, etc.), maintaining his tech (updating hardware, system), making researches in the matrix or checking for the latest inventions in ammo, weapons, cars and so on. This is what he wanted his own personal (and reliable) tech expert (not necessarily a hacker) for and i also still think that 10k/month is a good fixed-costs coverage for a such a person. Nobody wants this tech-expert to hack into security systems without an extra-charge. The char. uses 2 commlinks like everybody else, he wears a microtransceiver and sometimes even image-inhancing goggles (if he has to wear a helmet) and something like armor is nothing he would ratify as "tech", this is clothing if you want to say so.^^ He has strenght 1 so he is definitely not the one that carries the medkit or all the other stuff a team needs. He is the mage with an old, low-tech bike who rather initiates or quickens new spells to gain benefits possible through technical means, than simply accepting ´ware because it is easier. Up to now the GM is the only one that complained about that, the other players are fine with it as long as he does his job. The whole problem was simply about having a personal hacker/technician that is taking care for all the stuff he has zero interest in...and i think the term "personal" was the big problem for the GM. But if you have the money to do so...? Why not?

Posted by: Epicedion Apr 13 2011, 08:19 AM

I think you're confused on what "normal" people in Shadowrun do with regard to tech. I'll suggest that it's not sitting at home, checking for new versions of programs, or maintaining their tech. Much in the same way that in reality most people don't obsessively download new operating system updates for their cell phones -- for most people these sorts of things are performed by the system itself, silently and automatically. Most people just play with their tech, and could care less about how efficiently it's running or how well-maintained its software is.



See, this is just weird. Does anyone pay $10,000 a month for someone to keep their iPhone updated? In Shadowrun, you don't have to be some sort of computer whiz to operate your commlink. Much like modern cell phones, you basically just have to have thumbs. EDIT: Or some sort of http://kottke.org/10/02/meat-stylus-for-the-iphone.

I don't understand what this "taking care of stuff" is actually supposed to entail. If your commlink breaks, or gets a virus, or takes a bullet or whatever, you go plop 300 down on a new one at Stuffer Shack. Hell, if you're willing to spend 10k a month on it, you can go buy a new one every single day of each month and save yourself 1000 .

Also, thematically, any character born after about 2025 is going to be much more comfortable typing up a quick note on their Pocket Secretary or commlink than they would be scrawling things down on paper. Unless they were born in a dirt farm commune somewhere in the backwoods of the CAS. They're still using Windows XP down there.

Posted by: Machiavelli Apr 13 2011, 08:42 AM

I repeat myself once more, but the char is not about "not knowing" how to deal with tech, he is about "not wanting" to deal with tech. There are a lot of "low-tech", "back-to-nature", "dandelion-eater" -characters is SR and especially in the magical community it is quite common to be a little bit old fashioned. I cannot give a reference, but i read more than once that magical chars. that use high-tech libraries on chip are as common as mages that like having their books in paper-form. This might be an exceptional lifestyle for everybody else, but we are talking about magic here and especially for mages things like ´ware is even in 2072 not "common" as long as it costs you a magic-point. Paying 10k for a personal tech-slave is nothing else than decadent (which caused the problem) and if you want to have this lifestyle for your runner i wouldn´t see a problem with it. So from my side of view i definitely understand the arguments you and your foreposters made, that it is unusual and maybe inconvenient to deal like that, but it doesn´t impede the runners abilities to do his job and so i don´t get the point why somebody (e.g. the GM) has a problem with it. Maybe i will annoy him a little bit with my own personal caddy that carries along all the stuff i need to have (whatever you all pointed out) but i don´t want to touch?

As i understand it, things like commlinks, corresponding fake-SIN´s and all the stuff that belongs to it, are something that sometimes don´t even last one run if the shit hits the fan. We change existing SIN´s every month, if we are attacked by enemy hackers we have to check the programmes and if you need your trojan-commlink actualized (or after you have thrown away your old one (happens quite often)) somebody has to update the new one. IMHO this is a lot of tech-work a basic-user cannot do. If you steal/loot a low-cost commlink from a dead body and need it a little bit better so that the programmes you have can be run, it needs extense knowledge in hardware. Maybe we play a little bit too hard/realisitic, but tech is quite a thing in our group.

Posted by: Makki Apr 13 2011, 02:30 PM

sending a Watcher is like instant messaging, right?

Posted by: Yerameyahu Apr 13 2011, 06:17 PM

Actually, Machiavelli, you were very clear that this character wouldn't invest in Tech skills: that's 'not knowing'.

--
I'm not saying this is a bad character, or a problem for the team, or that your GM is right, just pointing out some inconsistencies. My original answer is still right: premium MSP or secretary, unless you literally need hacker services (research involving breaking into systems) or hardware/software services (top-flight comms and programs). Technically, the latter isn't even a hacker job in SR4, though there's overlap. The typical method of getting 'retained' hacker or hardware/software services is a solid Contact, of course.

Posted by: longbowrocks Apr 13 2011, 07:58 PM

Isn't he talking about the fact that 0 in a skill is still rather proficient?
Ex: you can have 0 in historical knowledge about the US, but still know that Mt. Rushmore has past presidents' faces engraved on it. Well, that would be valid if you lived in the US anyway.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Apr 13 2011, 08:33 PM

It's minimally proficient, plenty for trivial everyday tasks. It's not an X (Unaware), which we talked about earlier in the thread. For a shadowrunner, it's definitely "not knowing", though. It's "not knowing" how to upgrade your commlink, write programs (or use them effectively), do online research of any kind, etc. My point is that it's not as though this character *can* do any of these things and simply chooses not to; he definitely *can't* (and also chooses not to).

Posted by: longbowrocks Apr 13 2011, 11:49 PM

Gotcha. Just saying that 0 rating still allows you to do things that you shouldn't have to roll for (I guess that makes sense actually).

Posted by: Hamsnibit Apr 14 2011, 01:14 AM

Hey, Machiavelli would you mind posting the stats of your character? Im really interested in what you built there.
Just the attrib skills and Spells if you dont mind.

Posted by: Glyph Apr 14 2011, 02:19 AM

I think my biggest logical problem isn't him wanting someone to mess with fixing/upgrading his stuff (a lot of us have probably been in that role, in an office, or to a tech-clueless relative, at some time or other). Okay, so he wants a personal servant to do that for him? A bit eccentric, but still fine.

The thing I have a harder time wrapping my head around, is him trusting some bloke he's hired with, basically, his money, his identity, and possibly even the evidence of the crimes that he commits on a daily basis. I don't see someone whose very existence is illegal being that keen on having a stranger messing with his commlink, MagLock, and everything else.

Posted by: Machiavelli Apr 14 2011, 08:42 AM

@Hamsnibit:

Race: Elf
Body: 3/1 (dermal armor)
Strenght: 1
Reaction: 2( 8 )
Agility: 2
Logic: 4
Willpower: 5
Charisma: 7
Intiuition: 5
Initiative: 7(18)+4 initiative passes

Manabolt
Manaball
Fireball
Stunball

inp. Invis
Physical Mask
Levitate
Mob-Mind
Influence
Detect Life

Increased Reaction
Heal
Increased Reflexes/Initiative
Prophylaxis

i should have some more, but i don´t remember them all.

Initiate grade 2: masking, quickening.

@Glyph: i have some really reliable contacts that could fill this role. It is basically like the teams hacker that could play around with all your data if he is responsible for the maintenance of the teams tech. No big difference, except that this one is only working for me.