But 99 out of 100 individual will have no way of knowing that you're a mage and most people with Astral Perception won't turn it on to assense a random janitor because of the danger inherent to doing so (nothing quite so annoying as being clotheslined).


However, even in areas where astral scrutiny is highly likely, your forgetting two things. You don't have to register as a magician and your magical status is not a part of your SIN.

Magicians do not have to register in any country in North America. They do in Great Britain, and possibly some European and Asian nanny states that the sourcebooks haven't covered well, but not in any standard campaign setting other than Britain.

No but if you don't want to be hasseled by Lone Star you should get a licence from them.

I'm not sure if bound spirits require a license (don't have my books handy at the moment), but spells? Most spells are perfectly legal and the ones that aren't shouldn't be an issue unless you're a complete and total moron. For example, blowing up a megacorp CEO's limo with Powerbolt outside a AAA hotel in broad daylight. Do you really think it would matter if he had a license or not? It's like worrying about having a license for your AK-97; practically any situation in which you'd be toting it around let alone using it is going to be illegal anyway, so what's the point?

This argument doesnt realy hold much water. People constantly underestimate just how many mages thier are. 1 in 100 is down right common. The local airport has over 250,000 people fly out of it in a single day. Thats 2,500 magicly active people just going into it. Not counting all the people landing from incoming flights. If you think even a quarter of those people are stopped and questioned, then you greatly overestimate the capabiliteis of airport screeners.

Also, I and my family are Arabic, and none of us have ever been stopped, questioned, or even looked at funny going thorugh the airport.

You forgot about the staple of all magical security: Watcher spirits. They're dumb as a post, but you can summon a lot of them with no drain worth worrying about. And they can follow simple commands, like: "Watch this line, and tell this guy here is any of them look different in astral space." They're not going to willfully misinterpret a command, since they're not bright enough for that. And a lowly watcher is all it takes ot identify you as a mage.

If the watcher reports you as a mage, your ID had better match. I don't know about "any country in North America", because Saito and TT both registered mages. You also cannot be in possession of *any* focus or spirit greater than Force 2. So, unless your ID says you are a mage, you are screwed without masking.



It used to be that any spell over force 2 was illegal without a license. In SR4, spells are cast at whatever force you want; so you can't prove that someone learned a spell illegally.


I've also been through airport security several times over the past year. I congratulate you, on three different occasions, I was "randomly" pulled aside for extra security checks. I wasn't the only minority in the slow line, either. In fact, when I got there, there was only one white guy in the line. More came later.

But that's now. In 2070, you need to go through a full ID check when you reach the airport. Your Fake SIN is not only examined, it's run and information is checked against you. If their security watcher says "Dur, he's a mage, boss!" and your SIN says something different, you will be pulled aside for a "random" check.

You really need to drop this from your argument. It relies solely on the runner being a complete and utter moron who gets a fake SIN that doesn't include his magical status, which is especially stupid if he doesn't have Masking -- which is the entire point. You might as well have his fake SIN saying he's black even though he's the whitest white boy the world has ever seen.

Saito is gone and TT is under new management (apparently). The UCAS, CAS, NAN, Aztlan, and CFS never registered magicians. According to Street Magic, nobody in NA does anymore. And it is kind of silly to do so. Canon SINs, likewise, don't have any place for magical status.

With memory being so cheap, I would doubt that. If not the SIN itself, then the associated database would hold a lot of information on you. It has every place you ever lived, every grade you got in every class, everything you've ever purchased... you think the fact that you're a mage would escape notice?

Given that magical status is a genetic condition that cannot easily be tested for without magic, I presume that there are more than a few magicians out there who don't even know that they are magicians. But being in databases is different from being in the SIN. Checking those databases takes effort, and the more databases checked the more effort is required. Most ID verification systems wouldn't bother checking so deeply, and if they do then your fake SIN likely has bigger problems than a lack of references to your magical status.

But in the UCAS, your magical status is not in any government databases, unless you were employed by the government as a magician.

Lone star handling the licencencing of mages is part of theyr contract for policing a city.
So they will have a databace of licenced magicians.

Your watcher arguement holds little weight too. They get 2 dice for assensing. TWO! The chances of the successfully determining that you are a mage are about equal to them critical glitching. (I'm not a statistician, so I don't know/care how to calculate this out, but its pretty close).

But having a magic rating != being a mage.

Every infected, every "sapient critter" introduced in RC, some changelings, and anyone with a magical knack has a magic rating...but that doesn't make them mages.

Astral perception, by itself, won't be able to determine who is a mage and who isn't - only the presence of a magic attribute or lack thereof, and relative rating compared to the perceiving mage (and that's ignoring masking completely.)

The only way a Lonestar check of your SIN would show anything is if: A) you're a registered mage or B) you're NOT a registered mage AND they witnessed you casting magic. How would they even be able to tell otherwise? It's not like they've got so many mages they send them out on street patrols.

Magical status isn't genetic, as far as anyone can tell. No one's quite sure what causes it. But on a good assensing roll, they can tell not only that you're a mage, but an initiate as well, and the exact level of your Magic. Someone with Latent Awakening has a Magic of 0, so he won't show up as being particularly magical. You might find out he's got magical potential, though.

At any event, the more suspicious they are, the more likely they are to dig into your database, which will definitely put your Fake SIN to the test. Sure, they won't do anything but casually examine most people-- but if you don't hide the fact you are a mage, you will get unwanted attention.

Actually, your numbers are off by a bit. I'm no mathemagician, but I believe the odds are roughly 1 in 9 of them succeding, and 1 in 15 for them rolling a critical botch. A non-critical botch is slightly more likely, but I don't feel like crunching the numbers right now.

Astral perception, by itself, can differentiate between a Fire spirit with Realistic Form, and a human magician in disguise. Look at the assensing table on p183. Two successes is not only enough to tell what "class" or magic you have, but also enough to instantly recognize your aura. Your only defense is Masking.

As for your Lonestar point: if you do not have Masking, anyone assensing you will know, on just one success, that you are a mage. That's how they find out. And let's admit it, by the time Lone Star comes to check your ID at the station, you're long past the "screwed" point. It would have been better to not have been caught in the first place-- e.g., learned Masking.

If I'm doing the math right, approximately:

[strikethrough]a 19.5% chance of a critical glitch[/strikethrough]
a 44.4% chance of one hit
a 11.1% chance of two hits
[strikethrough]and a 25% chance of merely failing[/strikethrough]

A non-critical glitch is impossible with two dice - you can't get >50% ones and succeed.

ETA: I did screw up the math 1 one and a fail != critical glitch

so, a 2.8% chance of a critical glitch and a 41.7% chance of merely failing.

Would anyone really be that stupid? My elven magician follower of The Dark Goddess, immediately worked towards Masking and extended masking, then flexible signiature. I use physical masking and Masking/Extended masking to cover my identity almost all the time. Noone outside of a small circle has ever even seen what my mage really looks like, it's a running gag almost. I even payed attention to detail on multiple fake SIN's. You also forget that if they can sense that you're a mage, but don't notice your level of initiation, you can try bluffing.


"I'm awakened, really?!" "That is so cool, do we like go to clubs or something?" "Is there a secret magician handshake?" (IMG:style_emoticons/default/eek.gif)

Did I bring up a spirit? No - just (relatively) normal people. One success will tell you if they're awakened, but there's NO laws about being an unregistered awakened. If you didn't train as a mage or adept, you didn't need to register.

Class: "fire elemental, manipulation spell, power focus, and so on" Debateable if that includes hermetic vs. astral sight knack.

And it takes 3 net successes to tell if the target's magic is higher/lower than the perceiving mage's. Which would imply that two aren't enough to differentiate a non-raiseable magic of 1 (i.e. not-a-mage) from Mr. I've-raised-my-magic-to-14.

No - one hit says you're awakened. That is not the same as being a mage. There are plants that are awakened.

And once again, you've got a mage doing basic patrols, otherwise, why be arrested as an unlicenced mage? A LS patrol officer is somewhat less than 1% likely to be a mage. Their mages have better things to do, like provide astral overwatch on organized missions, or just be on-call for real emergencies. Patrol Officer O'Luckless isn't particularly likely to have the authority to call in a mage on anything less than an active magical threat, let alone some random stop.

Once you're in active LS custody, being spotted as a mage is probably the least of your worries.

Hrm, did some googling on dice statistics and such...
Looking at this nice image here

I get:
Single Success: 12/36 or 33.33%
No Glitch, No success: 9/36
Critical Glitch: 7/36 or 19.44%
Glitch: 4/36 or 11,11%
2 Successes: 4/36 or 11.11%

So, then we can group this up a bit. Success + 2 successes + Glitches (They are still a success) = 55.55%
Failure + Critical Glitch = 44.44%

Its a very 50/50 shot, and if you put glitches off on their own, as they're kind of a mixed bag, you get
Failure + Crit Glitch: 44.44%
Success + 2 successes: 44.44%
Glitch: 11.11%

Not exactly odds I'd bet for when they're going to have issues almost half the time. Like I said, its a very 50/50, with glitches being the winning factor for getting 1 succses.

Depends on where you are, and what you are. If you're a ghoul, you definitely don't want any attention at all.

Let's put this as the hypothetical situation. If you've played Missions, you'll recall the border checkpoints in Denver. You have to line up, wait your turn, and go through single file. You have a brand new fake SIN, which you bought at a slight discount. But you forgot to make sure it says you're a mage. It just saysyou're an Indonesian national.

Standard security layout for a place like this means they can't afford a mage to assense everyone. Instead, they have a typical layout: a bunch of watchers who report if they see anything unusual, and/or will find the big spirit assigned to patrol this area.

The watchers have a 55.5% chance of spotting you, each. One of them spots you, one succeeds but with a botch, one rolls a critical botch and gets distracted by a shiny penny. The two watchers go running to the human guards. "Hey, that guy over there has magic!" "Yeah, he's got magic and he's a dragon in disguise!" (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wavey.gif)

The guard becomes interested in this report, even though that makes for the sixth dragon this week. He calls the on-shift mage to come astrally and assense you. This guy has a reasonable skill: 4, and 4 for Intuition, equaling 8 dice. That's an average of 2.66 successes, rounded up to 3. He not only knows that you're a metahuman magician, he knows your magic ability in relation to his own. He manifests and reports this to the guard.

Now, at this point, the guard has no reason to suspect you of anything. But then, you swipe your SIN, and he doesn't see "mage" written on it. Just to me sure, he runs it again, but still no mage. He comes back to you: "Er, Mr. Baht Man, right? Could you come this way? There's a slight irregularity on your SIN, and I'd like you to help me clear it up. Won't take a minute."

From here on in, you're basically screwed no matter what you do. You could run the border, but then you'd never be able to use this checkpoint again, or any other one to this territory. If you go with him, though, your fake SIN will eventually collapse. Maybe you can talk your way out of it, but then you'd still need to abandon that SIN as soon as possible.

Or, we could back up a bit, and pretend like we bought Masking instead of Invoking. Then, this whole thing would never have happened.

Crit glitch is not distracted by a penny, it'd be he comes over with the other two, one says "That guys magical!" One says" Yeah, and hes a dragon in hiding!" and the third goes, "NO HE ISN'T!"

Watchers are good for nothing.

I can tell you have a low opinion of watchers, and you're right that they're severely limited in their use. But a watcher is too stupid to lie. When the other two went over, he'd still be trying to pick up the penny. Remember, a critical botch is supposed to be bad for him, not necessarily good for you.

Yes, bad for him on the assensing test. Not "i got distracted and tried to pick up a penny". Its not a logical thing on a botch. However, him thinking you are not awakened when you are not(completely false information) is a perfectly legitmate critical glitch. He isn't lieing, he actually thinks you are awakened, because of his critical glitch.

IF he had merely failed, he wouldn't be sure.

But you don't need a license to be a magician. You only need a license to use certain dangerous spells and to possess certain magical goods. The database check won't tell then that he an "unlicensed magician", though it will tell them that he never went to a magic college, (which is perfectly reasonable, there are plenty of Shamans, Mambos, and such who have no formal education), that he doesn't have any licenses for any restricted spells (also reasonable, not every magician knows every spell) and he doesn't have any licenses for any focuses (also reasonable, they're expensive).

This lack of any alarming information is more likely to put them at ease than it is to make them suspicious, as licenses for mental manipulations or combat spells would.

Close Hyzmarca. You don't need a license for using spells you just need one for the items your carry. There is nothing in the spells that say Restricted or Forbidden unless you consider that carrying a spell that has a restricted or forbidden rating translates over to the spell you use. This is just something that you can never check ever. How do they know what spells you have in your mind? Carrying foci, or fetishes you might need a license, and it may or may not show up on your SIN that your a mage. Most likely not though. However the reason why Watcher spirits suck is because they are unreliable. Lie detectors are not 100% and in many cases if something is not close to 100% then it is useless. A spirit that fails that frequently will have to take a looooong hard look to see if a person is mundane or awakened. Then on top of that if they critical glitch then they might think a mundane is awakened or vice versa.

The reason why people throw up stats is that a watcher spirit trying to process hundreds of people all at once will considerably screw things up constantly. If they only get one glance at someone at a checkpoint and not 20 to 60 glances then they are useless. Even the information gained will be wildly varied to be able to gain useful information from the watcher spirit. Also the only one being able to make us of the wildly varied information is the mage who might not want to zip all over the place because their dump as a post watcher spirits constantly screw things up.

Even if they check 100 times, it'll be almost 50/50 that they screw up as much as succeed.