Also, the sense behind loyalty is that its fluid, or at least potentially fluid. Sure you can have a friend for life, which also entails a broader set of options that still allow friendship, but much like any individual there will be a threshold beyond which you'll even wreck the loyalty of said friend. Course, another variant is the brainwashed cultist who's been twisted into ways that allow you a free range of abuse on them, but i wouldn't really equate a loyalty 6 cultist with a loyalty 6 friend.

I think the slavery statement goes too far, but there are different ways some people define slavery. If slavery is just not being able to walk away from a contract with your employer then most in 2070 that work for a corporation, criminal organization, or armed forces are all slaves. This may be true in an abstract philosophical sense but I think most people would consider it a gross exaggeration and an insulting comparison to people who are actually made slaves. Is the person kept locked up, made to work for no pay, made to sleep with who ever you chose and their children made slaves? Slavery is in reality horrific and goes hand in hand with beatings, dehumanizing, racism, and rape. That said, there have been many institutions though out history that are almost but not quite as bad as slavery. Surfs had to work where they are told on the land of their lord and had basically no rights when it came to protection from abuse by nobles, but they could marry who they chose, for the most part go where they want and do as they chose. Shadowrun "wageslaves" are similar but they have a few more rights. Chain gangs were similar to slavery but they theoretically still had rights and their imprisonment would not last forever (maybe). I am no expert on these topics but I would hope that the relationship with an ally spirit is normally better.

A slave is anyone who is stuck to their current situation with little to no way out.

You hit on it when you mentioned a wageslave. They are corp workers who earn just enough to stay in debt to the corporation for life.

Everyone, even people nowadays are slaves to something. Be it our employers, spouses, families, hobbies, etc. Can you realistically leave your family / wife /husband / children / work / etc and not come back? Very few people can do that, not even the rich. Why not the rich? They are slaves to their fortunes.

BTW, it doesn't have to go hand in hand with abuse. It often did because the enslavers were of small minds and little imagination. But indentured servitude was a common form of slavery (in essence, slavery with a binding contract). Generally indentured servants were treated well. It was a profitable business. It was often used in apprenticeships to Masters too. In fact, anyone who signs up with the military has such a thing. For X years the military can do what they want (within legally defined boundaries) with you. In return, you get certain benefits. For my time in the US Navy, I got a basket of benefits that I found to be very useful. All I had to do was sign the contract and follow through on it.

If you wanted to have an ally spirit with such restrictions, let your player(s) know it's part of the ritual. Perhaps the player has a flavor of magic that requires such negotiation. Maybe the spirit bargains with its summoner after the ritual is over. Perhaps over time the spirit decides it wants to go free. Nothing stops the spirit from asking its summoner. If the summoner disagrees, it could cause a rift. Anytime the ally gets unhappy, the summoner will be unhappy. SM was very clear that summmoners need to treat their spirits properly (as defined by their magical tradition).

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

Don't stress yourself out Neraph, I don't want you to lose any sleep over it. You have your viewpoint, and I don't agree with it (assuming I'm correct in my understanding that you think slavery is an ok institution).

At any rate, bottom line for Ally spirits is you'd better treat them well, or they'll probably turn on you the first chance they get.



Well, an ally spirit must do whatever its master commands, and is only compensated/rewarded whenever the master feels like it. Also, it can never leave its master's service (unless the master frees it, or it manages to escape while he's dying).

What exactly would you call that?

Oh, come now, while Neraph can be unclear at times, there's no way to get that out of what was said.

I'll be honest then and say that I still don't see what he was getting at. Neraph, were you simply trying to say that slavery is alive and well today? If so, yes I know that. And no, I still don't think it is ok.

If your point is that an ally spirit won't try to break free if it is well treated, then you probably missed where I admitted as much back on the first or second page (edit - It was post #68 on the 3rd page, my mistake).

If I'm incorrect in my understanding of what your point is, could you please state it again, as clearly and simply as you can?

What he was trying to say is that in certain places, under certain forms of slavery, many slaves did not feel the need to rebel against their masters. At least, that's my reading of it.

But there's nothing in his posts that says or even implies that real life slavery is ok.

I'm not sure how that relates to what we were talking about, unless he was, in fact, agreeing with me (which didn't seem to be the case).

For clarity's sake, my initial position (which I recanted a few posts later), was that an ally spirit would try to break free whenever it got the chance, regardless of its treatment. I was under this impression because of working in the previous editions (where it is strongly implied, but refers to a spirit possibly choosing not to break free), but recanted when I found my recollection was slightly faulty.

I agreed, probably in an unclear way, that a very well treated ally would probably not try to break free from its master.

So again, if Neraph is disagreeing with me, what is the point he is trying to make? Because I appear to be completely missing it.

I suspect what happened is that Neraph missed where I changed my position, and I wasn't clear enough in my responses, and so we've been arguing a non-issue for a while. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wobble.gif)

As to the slavery being ok bit, I go the impression Neraph was ok with it from this comment:



It was the completely normal bit that stuck in my head. Re-reading it, I can see now that I may have been mistaken in my interpretation of what Neraph said, so my apologies to you Neraph, if I've gotten your viewpoint wrong.

Sorry for the delay on getting back to you all, but even I need sleep sometimes.



Yeah this. I was stating that there existed laws in many cultures for slaves that prevented them from being hurt and allowed them to own property, get paid for their work, and even allow themselves to buy themselves from their masters or to stay on for life after their time was up. Point being, as Mooncrow said, "What he was trying to say is that in certain places, under certain forms of slavery, many slaves did not feel the need to rebel against their masters."

Just because America had a bad experience with it and just because human trafficking is an extremely bad example of slavery in recent history does not mean that:
1) All experiences were bad (and this does not neccessarily mean I support it), and
2) We should place our beliefs on real world slavery onto the imaginary mana constructs of an imaginary game placed in an imaginary future where imaginary people are imaginarily referred to as "wageslaves."

Also, thank you for looking at my signature.

1. Sure, not all slaves were treated badly, but this doesn't address anything I said, does it? Or are you still arguing against the post that I've (repeatedly) mentioned was in error?

There are no imaginary laws in the imaginary Shadowrun universe that I am aware of that prevent ally spirits from being hurt or allow them to own property, require they get paid for their work, or even allow themselves to buy themselves from their masters. So again, how is this pertinent?

2. I'll direct you to what I said a bit earlier in this thread in response to Badmoodguy88:

"Well, an ally spirit must do whatever its master commands, and is only compensated/rewarded whenever the master feels like it. Also, it can never leave its master's service (unless the master frees it, or it manages to escape while he's dying).

What exactly would you call that?"

I would think that, short of needing to invent some imaginary word for our imaginary game to describe this imaginary relationship, we could just use a real world analogy. Slavery certainly seems to fit the bill, and not the happy-go-lucky slavery that apparently exists everywhere but America.

My post was not neccessarily in direct response to you. You needn't get so defensive/offensive.

In any event, as a creature of pure mana that can live forever barring being tracked down to its native metaplane or other extensively difficult measures, being "shackled" to a mortal for a mere 70 years (in the shadows, more like 4 'runs) in return for combat experience and being brought into existance seems a fair exchange. He's going to be a Free Spirit for far, far longer than he was ever an Ally Spirit.

Soooooooooooo..... It is Okay to trreat them as Slaves?
Just Curious, as, in my opinion, that justification really sucks... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wobble.gif)

How about we all just agree that the nebulous "treating spirits nicely" fluff is poorly written and unsupported by any actual mechanics?

Since the only rules are "whatever the GM says", in this case it seems to be more profitable to talk to your GM prior to running and find out what his guidelines are.

I'm fairly certain that he was saying the spirit does not see it has hostile slavery in and of itself. Sure a mage can be a jerk, but the idea of being an ally spirit is not directly tied to a slavery thought for the spirit since it is short lived and he gets stuff out of it. Indentured servant, slave, job with a contract that doesn't let you quit, call it what you want. The spirit does not see it as a bad thing in and of itself.

All of which is only an opinion...

But No worries... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smokin.gif)

That's why your Free Spirt is also a face. You wan't to join this pact for 1 karma a week for drain dice. Also It will be come a better deal in time as I rias my power you get more drain dice. I mean I think most PCs would be tempted for 6+ extra drain dice for 1karma a week.

Or if 1karma week is a bit high 2-3 karma a Luna cycle would work perfectly.

If you go on the long term plan you would expect some price cut as an incentive added to the ability to use the drain at your leisure and when surprised. Normally this kind of pact would be negotiated right before a big run.

The spirit might give a price cut for paying up front too. Getting a years worth of karma all at once is a very nice thing and deserving of a discount.

Very true. I once ran a 350 bp solo game with this being my goal. I must say its harder you can't afford the ubercontact (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

Well, if your GM lets you play the NPC's, sure. Go ahead and have them give you all their money and property while they're at it.

But money and property isn't in the same rating as small amounts of karma. For a drain pact on a force 2 sprit it is worth 12 karma plus nuyen as a focus. Offering cheaper in the short term and most-likely long term as your spirits force will grow worth 6 karma every time it happens. A force 36 drain pact is worth 36 karma per-person that takes it. I can't be bothered to the all the math right now on the payment/actual worth counting the nuyen cost and the fact the sprit will grow in power how ever it looks like it's close to brake even to take the pact for a year and if the 200 people agree and we decide the very conservative .5 karma a week or 2 a Luna cycle. You're looking at 5200 karma a year from 200 people.

Edit:
The math.
The nuyen cost of a centring focus is 15000*force that equals rather neatly 6 karma at 1 karma=2500 nuyen. It also costs 6*force karma.
So each extra drain dice is worth 12 karma.

So for a force 6 drain pact a charge of 72 karma is breaking even though a focus wouldn't cost more over time how ever each increase of the spirits force ups the cost by 12 karma per person in the pact.

So for 200 people in the pact. 14400 karma is for the selling of the pact evenly to 200 people.

You can selling the pact at it equivalent cost get to 595 force with profit of 120 karma . Assuming 0.5 karma a week from 200 people it would take you about 278 years to pull off so you better sell only to elves or some thing. How ever for every person you sell you pact to the quicker the advancement and the high you can reach with out over charging. This assumes contently 200 customers paying the full price of the pact. I'm sure some one could build a better moddle that takes in to account the customer numbers and such. Every customer is worth force*12 karma if your playing fair.

Quite simply this 200 customer moddle for 2 karma every 4 weeks is viabel for over 200 years if you care about it being worth more or less than just buying the focus. Once your spirit reaches almost 600 force it can't increase in power fast enough to give the customers a good deal. By then every (unless you sell to GDs or IEs) customer can overcast to there limit and soak it no matter what.

What are you talking about? Free Spirit PCs cannot just buy NPCs with spirit pacts.

You can talk about making deals and whatever but unless your GM let's you play the NPCs there is no mechanic for doing what you're talking about.

There's no mechanic other than the same mechanic as selling your gear ect. This pact if you dump the karma in to force almost exculively is a deal better than buying the focus for every one you offer it to. The closest you can get to buying NPCs in a sense in group contacts and it has solid mechanics in how much they cost and what loyalty will get you. You don't even need rating 6 if your offering a good deal 4 would do.

What you are offering is a pay monthly plan on a centring focus that will increase in power and likely end up with you paying about 50% of the value. Hell by RAW you can buy every on in the 6th world as a group contact at loaylty 6 with 1% awakened and say 25% of those mystic adepts/mages and a population like today you could sell the pact to 15,000,000 people though logistics could be an issue. It would also put you in an odd situation upping the power of every mage fro a price.

Ignoring that insanity. How many mages wouldn't buy a focus that they can't lose that will grow in power for a small cost? I'm sure that even in a small geographical area ignoring the fact you can visit all over the world in 3 seconds. I'm sure finding 200 wouldn't be too hard a few negotiation rolls ect and your set.

I think it is just having fun with hypothetical situations.

As someone else pointed out: what makes shadowrun what it is normally, is the fluff.

You could even just take the whole environment, monsters- I mean critters, weapons, spells, and game mechanics and do a D&D style dungeon crawl into materialized alchera in search of cool loot.

There is nothing really stopping you from doing a war game either. Having masses of troupes in the form of your groups that you wage war with against corps, gangs, and magical threats.

The whole investigation and infiltration thing is cool and very shadowrun but it does not neeed to be that way.

If someone came up with better vehicular/fast moving people combat rules a game of Battle Angel Alita Rollerball would be cool. Basically highly cybered street sams on motorized cyberskates, going around a long and dangerous track at hundreds of kilometers per hour, wile trying to be the one holding the ball when you cross the finish, and beating at each other with melee weapons.

It would all probably suck but I can dream. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/cyber.gif)

Heh, I get the mental image of the Free Spirit turning into Collections for this group as well.

"So, I see you were late on your last payment, and it was only a partial payment."
"I'm sorry sir - it's just, times have been hard for me lately."
"While I appreciate that, do know that we only have a 3-day grace period here at Coyote, Goat, and Deer*. We expect you to make your next payment within the next four hours, otherwise we'll have to penalize you and drop you from the program..."

* Bonus points to whoever can find the reference.

angel