I dont understand this either.

What I dont understand even more though is why these mages are even shadowrunning at all. With Mind Control, he could simply walk up to a stockbroker and instantly become one of the world's richest men. Might as well also then get a meeting with the leader of every nation and just Mind Control them to turn over their power to him. All he has to do is succeed in a Mind Control vs the President's Counterspelling + Willpower, and viola! King of the world.

If spirit possession commonly available and so easy to do, then all the Force 10 spirits would just possess the leaders of each country and live a life of luxury, power, and authority.

Why would a Force 10 spirit, if they can possess anyone in a matter of seconds, do some low-life scum's bidding when all they need to do to fulfill their lust for power is possess the leader of the UCAS.

BTW, what ever happened to LOKI? He is still around in the Shadowrun world. According to the Lore, he would not only be real, but according to the rules he would be constantly possessing leaders to cause chaos and havok in the world. That is, until ZEUS decides to come down and possess the Leader's bodyguard, shoot the leader, then Astral Combat LOKI. But without overcasting, ZEUS would most certainly LOSE! :O

Yes, they did. Almost all stories and fictional worlds work that way. And if they change anything to be different from their source, crying that they are somehow wrong now, as the way it's depicted in the source is more correct, is wierd, to say the least.


AFAIK, there isn't a single fluff piece in SR saying that possession is extremly difficult to achieve. A source from outside SR depicting it as difficult is completely meaningless for the SR-world.


No, he's just playing shadowrun as intended as opposed to a personal homebrew version while claiming he's somehow more real than the real thing...


No, no it's not. The ED-SR link is a fun little easter egg. The SR universe was never intended as a one-to-one depiction of a futuristic ED world. ED events have been woven into the SR-metaplot for fun, but that's it. The magic system in ED is significantly different from the one in SR, which is no problem, as they are not the same.
Apart from that, most SR novels are written outside of the actual SR-development team and have a tenous connection to the "real" SR-world at best. They are, for the most part, non-canon.


Yeah, I think I'm done now... Why did I try reason in the first place?
Fine, your SR is better than my SR and it's better than that wannabe-SR depicted in the official books as well.
Happy now?

I think I'm following Muspellsheimrs example...

I didn't read anything after this.

I dont know if you're just confused or ignorant of other's culture or what, but this is simply false.

Almost everything in the Lore is directly based off of something in the Real World. Shadowrun Lore is entirely based on stereotypes, exagerations, beliefs, cultures, mythology, and all forms of stereotypical fantasy combined with stereotypical cyberpunk.
I actually dont even know if I can think of a single thing that is original, besides the actual idea of combining everything together (which is entirely GENIUS! Very original to combine everything unoriginal)

There is literally nothing I can think of that has no been implemented in the Shadowrun Lore. Everything from Greek Cyclops, Satyrs, Goblins, Ogres, Oni's, Wireless Internet, Religion, Native Americans, near-future technology, Bigfoot, the Lochness Monster, Vampires, Zombies, Virus, etc.

The authors of Shadowrun must have read numerous articles about near-future technology, many cyberpunk and high fantasy books, and especially lived in the recent years where Wireless internet came about.
LOL... they didnt even have wireless internet in the future before it came to pass in reality. Then the entire SR4 matrix was revamped to reflect our real world.

Hmm... the rise of the Native Americans and the split of the USA was very original, I'll give them that.

To say that Shadowrun was created from scratch is denying the most beautiful thing about it. It's more wonderful than the X-File's World where mythology, spirituality, and urban legend comes to life, or M' Night Shamalananananana's "Unbreakable" where Comic Book Superheroes were explained as real.

To deny reality and the world's sources and cultural beliefs is to deny the very beauty that is Shadowrun. Posession is not, nor will it ever be, an easy part of Shadowrun- solely because that is not found in most cultures. The Shadowrun Lore adheres to a beautifuly crafted "If a lot of people believe it, then it's in the Lore, with a twist!"

Not ot mention that any GM or Writer who allows easy possession is perhaps (regardless of Shadowrun Lore) a HORRIBLE writer, not as an opinion but as a fact. To pull off easy possession while maintaining an "Its an opinion, not a fact that I'm a horrible writer" you would have to entirely change the game to "Possession 2: Its all about the spirits" and devoid yourself of any attachment to Shadowrun. Not to mention your story would suck to everyone but those who love stories entirely themed about possession and how easy it is. But still, it would be a matter of opinion that you suck, not fact. But in the Shadowrun world, easy manipulation and overpowered abilities (whether possession, mind control, or explosives) is a fact that the GM is a horrible writer, unless the amount of spirits that can possess are extremely uncommon, or its an entire story-arc about a massive disturbing force of possessive spirits. Else your world would consist of this:

Tommy is a mundane, ordinary, middle-class 14 year old in a nice, clean city.
Tommy goes to the supermarket.
Tommy wakes up in a porn store with his pants down.
Tommy sighs, "Man....possessed again..."

Also, there would be another Mega-Corp called "The Ghostbusters" whose sole income is just capturing spirits that constantly possess people, with an entire Division to catch Pervert Spirits who prey on 14 year old boys.

You do if you want the spirit to do what you want, rather than what you say. The core books clearly point out that spirits are to be treated as independent, thinking entities. If one such feels put upon, say by an "impudent conjurer" (SM, p. 95), then the command "Kill those guards" could be followed in many ways that meet the letter of the command but cause collateral mischief and woe for the conjurer. What constitutes an impudent conjurer versus a magical master is linked, albeit loosely, to the Magic attribute of the magician in comparison to the Force of the spirit. A magician who continues to summon and command uber-spirits will sooner or later pay for it.

The smarter the spirit, the more fun for the GM.

Based on, but different. There is no Troll in any mythology that is metahuman or walks among men as one of them. The Mayan calendar says the cycle ends and begins again on 21 December, 2012, not 24 Dec, 2011. The game we discuss here follows the core books, with all their 'twists', as you point out. GMs and players are free to interpret, change and manipulate the rules as they see fit.

I don't see what the argument is about. Play it the way you want. Someone else's interpretation is just as valid for their game. Tell us your vision, and maybe we can learn from it. Or not.

I would have tons of fun as a GM screwing over overpowered munchkin players at every opportunity, until they ragequit and go off to use wallhacks and aimbots in CS and exploit in WoW.

I had one player walk into a pizza restaurant as a 14 year old, and randomly start hitting customers in the head with a iron pipe. It wasn't shortly after that he was taking out the trash in an alley and was facing 6 sawed off shotguns which left him to be the sausage in the next pizza.

Yes, and it's the beauty of Based on, but different, that I love about shadowrun.

The argument right now is that he says it was created from scratch, and not based on anything- when the opposite is true. Ive never seen more of other people's cultures and ideas than in Shadowrun. It literally has every belief, every culture, and EVERYTHING combined into one world.

I told him everyone is free to do their game as they want, but that it will not be part of the Shadowrun Lore to possess everyone commonly and easily. Just because the rules make it easy, doesnt mean they intended on this to turn into The Exorcist en mass. He argues otherwise. People are free to change the world- but they must admit that they are changing it. It is ludicrous IMO to say "I am changing nothing!" when it's quite obvious it is different from the shadowrun world. If Possession was a common and easy occurance in shadowrun, the world wouldnt be the way it is. It would be very, very, very messed up, and different. Not to mention spirits would rule the world.

Your posts are wonderfully intelligent though, and I entirely agree with almost all of them. Great points, as always.

I see your side, I just don't think it is as easy as you think it is. In part, I suspect massively powerful possession spirits are abused because people (GMs and players alike) don't apply all the caveats to the possession power.

Well I dont know how easy it is. I only assumed it was easy because ive read numerous amounts of people claim its very, very easy. I assumed they knew what they were talking about.
Perhaps not my wisest assumption...lol

I have limited experience with magic, as I'm having a problem with it ruining my street-level campaign, so I'm keeping it out or low until I can rather find a balance or do a 400bp campaign. The most expensive piece of equipment that the players have is only a 4R shotgun and a 4R machine pistol. Nothing more than 4 availability at the start of our 300bp redmond barren street campaign. My mages have only ever used combat spells, so I dont know the power of Mind Control and Possession, outside of the many many posts I read stating their power and what people have done with them.

You are fully correct in that the possible fallout could be really bad news for the conjurer. The devs most likely didn't intend for maxxed starting chars to be able to summon force 14 spirits that proceed to burninate all reasonable opposition.
It's still possible, though, which is why I'll play the devils advocate some more and say that having a force 14 spirit come back to burninate his old conjurer as revenge for his impudence to summon him is, in essence, GM fiat not unlike having an ares strike team blow up his apartment because he used too much lethal force in his last run against the corp. Both are technically possible and everyone will draw the line between "possible repercussion" and "kneejerk GM reaction" somewhere else.
Which is precisely the reason I and others would have preferred more concise guidelines beyond "if the conjurer tries "too much", have the spirit not like it", which could alleviate possible friction between the player of said conjurer and the GM if they happen to have vastly different opinions about what is reasonable and what isn't.

Yeah, well I too think some ideas and guidelines could have been elaborated. As in any roleplaying game, the GM is clothing-overborne... forced to wear many hats and walk in a lot of shoes.

I think that an availability of 4 is a bit low; try 6 or 8 for better results. Otherwise, the magical guys will run right over any mundanes. For example, the availability for wired reflexes-1 is 8, so for any mundane to have an extra IP pass requires at least avail 8.

Take a look at Wak's 320 point challenge for some samples.

But even at an availability limit of 4, you can still get:
Remington 990 shotgun (7P -1)
Ruger 100 rifle (7P -1)
AK-97 (6P -1, autofire)
Several different sorts of SMG (AKSU-97, HK MP-5, Uzi IV) all 5P, autofire
and both the Manhunter and Predator Heavy Pistols (5P -1)

So your walking around weapon is going to be a Predator (5P -1)
and your go to weapon is going to be a shotgun (7P -1) or AK-97 (6P -1, autofire).

If you try to fight it out with light pistols and machine pistols, you'll probably get someone angry enough to come over there and kick you in the head, but you certainly aren't going to kill them.

It's entirely reasonable for a magic 6 mage, knowing almost all there is to know about spellcasting (skill=6) with an incredibly powerful focus, to obliterate almost anyone. The magic rules actually work pretty well (despite a handful of unbalanced spells); where things fall down is that anyone hyperspecialised can walk over any opposition. I had a player with a PC heavily optimised for combat. In a fight he was nigh unstoppable, but anywhere else he sucked. Even then, a lucky hit with a shotgun made such a mess of him he took ot being a little more careful.

As for possession spirits, remember that a vessel that isn't prepared get's an additional +6 dice to resist possession. This won't stop a Force 9 spirit, but then again, not much should. Summoning a force 9 spirit is not trivial, and the spirit is an NPC, with desires and motivations determined by the gm. If a mage is optimised to summon high force spirits, there's not much you can do beyond encourage your player to make a less specialised character.

I don't think that your suggested houserule adds anything to the game, or makes magic more balanced. It just makes foci become muct have items. If you want a mage to rely on objects of power, enforce a fetish geas on your mages. I have actually toyed with the idea of applying a specific to geas to each tradition, to make traditions a little more distinct from each other under the rules, but I've not raised it with my players.

Actually, it's the other way round. The spirit gets an additional +6 dice if trying to possess a prepared vessel, which makes possession all but assured in such situations.

Really? I read the rules quite carefully this morning, and could have sworn it was a bonus to the resistance pool.

I shall reread them when I get back home. It's a moot point for me, since I have no possession traditions in my game right now.

As I have the book available at the moment.


Emphasis mine

Hmmm... My bad, I guess.

However, my misreading could form the basis of a houserule to make possession more appealing to its detractors. I'd play it by RAW first tho'.

Only one problem with the hyper-possession summoner. He would most likely break the golden rule of role playing. That leads to a warning, followed by a cow from space to remove the annoying character, followed by a "Get the hell out" if the player tries to make a character like that again.

In case your wondering, the golden rule is "Make sure the game is fun for all involved". When you have someone doing something that makes all the other players and GM bored/pissed/apathic to the game, well you gotta fix the problem.

In Canada, the preferred ungulate is the moose. The antlers aid in guidance, and targeting of the offending player.

Wow, another SR player on the prairies of Canada? Woohoo! All hail the orbital moose!

Weird. I always thought that the role of a GM was to make things fun and interesting for players, instead of abusing them until they get pissed off and quit.

As a GM, if you don't like a character you can say so. Don't want an overpowered caster in your game? Give him restrictions on character creation and tell him to make a new character, or modify the existing character to be inline with the restrictions.