Um, not quite sure what you're saying here, but just in case... the extra cost for raising an attribute to 6 only applies during character generation.

Basically I take away racial mods and initiate level from the relevant stats before working out karma cost. IE an elf tak Cha from 7-8 cost 30 Karma not 40 (racial mod 4), and Grade 4 Initiate treats his magic as 4 less for costing purposes so going 8 to 9 costs 25 karma (effectively 4-5). It keeps costs down to just pricey rather than Good god.

I myself prefer the "reality hacker" method,* because I'm such a code nut.

Also, XKCD.

(I have no idea why the structured, logical, and reality hacker type tradition got the Chaos moniker)

Me either.

The only thing I can think of is some connection to "universal entropy" and tapping into that.

I, of course, have read So You Want To Be A Wizard and would like to see a mage on the other side of that entropy line....

How-do,

It's actually rather arbitrary, to be honest, and it should be pointed out that it has nothing particularly to do with the mythological idea of chaos (although that is important to some individual practitioners). I've heard it from Pete Carroll, and people have largely snipped his words to make the following extract from the wikipedia page on the subject...

The first edition of Liber Null does not include the term "chaos magic", but only refers to magic or "the magic art" in general.[4] Texts from this period consistently claim to state principles universal to magic, as opposed to a new specific style or tradition of magic, and describe their innovations as efforts to rid magic of superstitious and religious ideas. Psychonaut uses the label "individual sorcery as taught by the IOT".[4]

Chaos came to be part of this movement defined as "the 'thing' responsible for the origin and continued action of events[...]. It could as well be called God or Tao, but the name Chaos is virtually meaningless and free from the childish, anthropomorphic ideas of religion."[4] The Symbol of Chaos used to signify it was apparently, but not explicitly, lifted from the fantasy novels of Michael Moorcock. Carroll wrote that the chaotic aspect of this magic aims for "psychological anarchy[...] The aim is to produce inspiration and enlightenment through disordering our belief structures."[4]

4. Liber Null & Psychonaut, 1987. Peter Carroll, ISBN 0-87728-639-6

-----

I'd add to this that there was a lot of interest in the mathematical concepts of chaos, or as we are more likely to call them now, non-linear dynamics, inspired particularly by James Gleick's popular book 'Chaos'.

It could have been called results magic, it could have been called pragmatic magic, but the particular blend of magic, art and science just clicked with the ideas about chaos circulating at the time. Now of course some folk take many parts of the movement as a virtual religion, which was never really the point!

The key of the whole thing, as Pete put down clearly in 'Liber Kaos', is simply that one becomes a magician by realising that belief is a tool, and then acting on that realisation.

Oh, I see, they are referring to the Chaos that created the idea of...well, everything. Not chaos as in disorder, entropy, or randomness, but the concept that allows for other concepts to exist.

Which makes perfect sense.

Edit:
Exploiting Madelbugs of the universe. Essentially.

Several old Mediterranean religions/mythologies talk about the creator deities/world emerging from the form Chaos.

To OP.

I suggest reading the published traditions.. 2 in SR4a and more in street magic. Present the player w/ ones suitable to the characters background/outlook. I also suggest avoiding possession traditions until you're more intimately familiar w/ the magic rules. (or just tweaking the tradition to change 1 spirit type, or change from possession to materialization).

Then choosing an appropriate one. As you're evidently new and having issues. You don't want to get into custom crafted traditions. Also there's another problem for you as a GM... how does the tradition fit into the game. The single biggest problem w/ a custom tradition is that there's nowhere to buy spells or instructors from!


Some of the things like allowing MA reduced costs are broken. MA's are the single most powerfull type you can get, the price they pay for this is that it costs them more to advance their magical abilities. I can see giving them astral perception for free, (or allowing it as a metamagic on initiation). But otherwise I'd limit that. Also one thing which can really help a MA is a power focus (it adds to both adept and magician powers based on magic...) A little karma expensive but far less so than raising the magical stats in question. (IE: common combat monkey MA trick is to get power focus and health sustaining focus and use increase reflexes spell over the adept power).