 Would you allow PC's to play magical threats? |
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 Oct 27 2006, 03:39 PM
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#1
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Dragon  Group: Members Posts: 4,589 Joined: 28-November 05 Member No.: 8,019  |
I can understand no allowing people to take Blood Spirit invocation. Oh joy, infinite energy drain! But really, are the metamagics so broken? Potency's gone, so they have to initiate just like everybody else, and the ones that they give don't seem so overpowered. And since we're talking about shadowrunners, morality shouldn't be a problem.
In case you're wondering, I'm thinking of making a toxic mage character. |
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Oct 27 2006, 03:52 PM
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#2
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Immoral Elf Group: Members Posts: 15,247 Joined: 29-March 02 From: Grimy Pete's Bar & Laundromat Member No.: 2,486 |
*Gasp* You don't say ... |
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Oct 27 2006, 03:57 PM
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#3
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The back-up plan Group: Retired Admins Posts: 8,423 Joined: 15-January 03 From: San Diego Member No.: 3,910 |
In short my answer is No.
A longer answer is Possibly, but there are several problems...Blood Mages, Insect Shamans have huge bounties on their heads, there is the problem of madness and alien intelligences twisting and tearing your brain, to name a few... That said, I am in a game where an insect summoner is going through the path of the burnout (gotta love cyberware) just to remove the threat of the magic within her. I am still waiting to see how it plays out... |
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Oct 27 2006, 04:08 PM
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#4
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Prime Runner Group: Banned Posts: 3,732 Joined: 1-September 05 From: Prague, Czech Republic Member No.: 7,665 |
Toxic Mages and Insect Shaman aren't conceptually a problem.
Mechanically, it's a problem. Not because Toxic spirits are overpowered, but because there aren't any fucking rules for them! I know, to first approximation, it looks like there are rules. There are some pages with text on them that look kind of like rules but here actually aren't any. The Gamemaster gives Toxic Spirits whatever powers and attributes hefeels like giving them. Then there are examples, examples that don't have a 1:1 correspondance with any spirit type. So when a Toxic Magician enters play or conjures a spirit, there are no rules anywhere for what powers that spirit has or even what its attributes would be. That's... problematic. Insect spirits aren't nearly that difficult. I mean, you can just ignore the problem where Evanescence takes effect every day and Inhabitation takes most of a week. I happen to know that the author intended for Evanescence to shut off s soon as the Inhabitation process starts - and so do you, it's totally obvious. From a character perspective, you're going to be killing a lot of people anyway and you can put spirits into pigs without anyone caring. So it works pretty well. The rules are cumbersome and often hard to understand, but they can be made to work. --- Verdict: Being a Toxic Mage is a problem only in that being one requirres your GM to write up five balanced spirits for your character, and that's bullshit. Other than that, there's no reason to keep players from playing them. Being an Insect Mage is only a problem in that the rules are more complicated than they need to be. They are actually playable. Blood Mages are an infinite power loop and totally unsalvageable as PCs or villains. -Frank |
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Oct 27 2006, 04:42 PM
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#5
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 124 Joined: 26-February 02 Member No.: 2,072 |
I could see allowing players to play magical threats. But not in a PC way.
More like the PC would be a "Assistant GM" or a "Opposition Player." Not like in allowing a Dragon or Master Shedim to be on a runner team. |
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Oct 27 2006, 05:03 PM
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#6
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Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 5,430 Joined: 10-January 05 From: Fort Worth, Texas Member No.: 6,957 |
It would depend on the threat, but it could work in the proper campaign. I wouldn't let Joe Mage in an otherwise normal Mercenaries for Hire campaign play one.
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Oct 27 2006, 10:44 PM
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#7
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 360 Joined: 6-September 02 Member No.: 3,234 |
It mostly depends on the kind of magical threats...
Insect Shamans: Ewww, really not. Mostly because of the Revulsion factor, and since these guys are far too alien in outlook. Toxic magicians: the avengers extreme eco-warrior/terrorist brand looks quite playable for me. Nothing really different from your average obsessed murderous vigilante. The poisoner type is more questionable, as it's far more defficult to give the character any sort of sympathetic light. Well-covered by the rules. Blood Mages: what, aren't they assumed to be standard PC option already ?? With the possible exception of Invoking Blood Spirits, which may rise legitimate game-balance issues and should proably kept off-limits to PCs, blood magicians and adepts look quite playable to me. Ethically, their modus operandi is not really different from contract killing (standard shadowrunners fare) and blood metamagics are verll well covered by the rules and quite playable by PCs. Necromancers/Faustian Mages/Zealots/twisted adepts/Demonlogists: same as blood magicians. Standard PC fare. Dark paths are an integral paths of many mystical traditions. |
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Oct 27 2006, 10:51 PM
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#8
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Shadow Cartographer Group: Members Posts: 3,737 Joined: 2-June 06 From: Secret Tunnels under the UK (South West) Member No.: 8,636 |
Assuming that my game wasn't set up for standard shadowrunning scenarios, but was more player driven, then I'd have no real problem with a toxic PC. Some blood mages and any sort of twisted path type that could summon shadow spirits would be out for balance reasons. Insect shamans would be out not for balance, per se, but because the player is logically going to start building a hive and the game becomes a war-game / strategy game of managing your troops. Don't want that. |
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Oct 27 2006, 11:06 PM
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#9
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 212 Joined: 30-November 04 Member No.: 6,858 |
My experience of allowing threat-type characters in the past has been that they tend to be quite self policing. If they are too obviously evil around their team mates they tend not to last very long. Even if whatever little accidents that start happening aren't immediately fatal, the player soon gets the message and retires the character.
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Oct 27 2006, 11:08 PM
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#10
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 360 Joined: 6-September 02 Member No.: 3,234 |
From an IC perspective, I agree. But theoretically, any kind of magician or mystical adept can summon shadow spirits. They are just vanilla free spirits with a nasty attitude. As a matter of fact, on further reflection, the barrier between twisted and vanilla Awakened PCs got far thinner in 4th Ed: Being on a twisted path is just a matter of OOC roleplaying perspective and IC getting the right mindset and tradition (they use just the same rules than other PCs), for blood magicians/adepts and toxics in addition to that it's the matter of learning the appropriate metamagics. It's insect magicians that requires special GM's permission for jumping into another, special ruleset. |
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Oct 27 2006, 11:09 PM
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#11
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Midnight Toker Group: Members Posts: 7,686 Joined: 4-July 04 From: Zombie Drop Bear Santa's Workshop Member No.: 6,456 |
Non-metahuman magical threats would require special rules for non-metahuman characters. Obviously, playing a team of Wraith is right out unless you want to make some massive changes to Chargen mechanics.
However, there is a reason why Street Magic doesn't explicitly disallow PCs from playing magical threats. Toxic and Insect traditions are handled like any other tradition. The blood metamagics can be found on the list of metamagics that are available to PCs. In previous editions these things were explicitly disallowed to PCs because they were sick and twisted and PCs are supposed to be idealized Robin Hoods. The fact that Street Magic doesn't disallow them shows a shift away from the paradigm of the paradoxical good and selfless professional criminal who happily kills innocent people because the were in the wrong place at the wrong time to a more diverse shadow ecosystem. Blood Spirit Invoking can be fixed by stating that changes in essence augment Force rather than altering it. So, if you summon a Force 6 blood spirit and it drained 6 points of essence, its would force would be 6 (12) instead of just 12 and its essence would be 6(12), as well. Likewise, if this spirit lost 7 points of essence its Force would be 6(5) and its essence would be 6(5). Since augmented essence is limited to twice base essence this compromise makes Blood Spirit Invoking viable. It also makes Free Blood Spirits viable. Really, under the canon rules there is no reason for a Free Spirit with Essence Drain to ever have less than a quintuple-digit Force. |
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Oct 28 2006, 12:43 AM
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#12
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 524 Joined: 12-April 06 Member No.: 8,455 |
The succubus can be especially nasty, as a smart one can go into business and rake in karma and cash without getting shot at (much). A few years of stealing karma under the radar is more powerful than blowing up a mall for power.
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Oct 28 2006, 12:54 AM
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#13
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Midnight Toker Group: Members Posts: 7,686 Joined: 4-July 04 From: Zombie Drop Bear Santa's Workshop Member No.: 6,456 |
Yeah but the succubus is going to be suffering from diminishing returns. As it gets more powerful it needs more karma to raise its Force. The blood spirit has no such limitation. It gets a purely linear rate of 1 force point per essence point. They can gain 6 force points for every uncybered character that they eat and uncybered characters are far more common in SR4 than they were in previous editions. A small mall will only have a few dozen shoppers but a big one will have thousands. All an enterprising blood spirit has to do is barricade the exits of a medium sized mall and start dining. 200 uncybered people later and your wimpy Force 1 blood spirit is a godlike Force 1201 blood spirit. |
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Oct 28 2006, 03:09 AM
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#14
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 261 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Massachusetts Member No.: 2,115 |
I totally need to run that adventure. That will definitely convince my players that I'm a fair GM who doesn't kill PCs for the fun of it. |
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Oct 28 2006, 04:13 AM
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#15
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Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 5,537 Joined: 27-August 06 From: Albuquerque NM Member No.: 9,234 |
Have the PCs bodyguarding a greater dragon when the force 1200 Free Blood Spirit comes for him. Look out for the force 1200 manaball with 300 successes. |
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Oct 28 2006, 09:22 AM
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#16
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Runner Group: Members Posts: 3,314 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Lisbon, Cidade do Pecado Member No.: 185 |
Actually no, the rule specifically states that immediately after the Inhabitation power is used (by the spirit) the effects of Evanescence are halted (p.150) - this happens regardless of the duration of the process or the power's degree of success. As to the general use of Threat magicians in games... there are specific reasons we introduced the Playing the Twisted sidebar, but not one for Insect shamans or Toxic magicians. While the Twisted may be sociopaths and psychos, in the official setting, both Insect shamans and Toxics are pretty much certifiably insane and their mental frame of reference is so "inhuman" that properly roleplaying one (even one pretending to be normal) would prove ultimately prove disruptive in a group context. That being said the rules are written to allow you to play one with minimum hassle if that sort of craziness fits your game. |
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Oct 28 2006, 12:19 PM
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#17
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 360 Joined: 6-September 02 Member No.: 3,234 |
While I heartily share your overall approach, I harbor some doubts about the Avengers/Reapers brand of toxics magicians, i.e. the extreme eco-warrior/terrorist mindset. The ones that value the environment so much, or deem it so endangered, that happily and enthusiastically engage in mass murder to protect it. While this mindset is certainly fanatic, extreme, criminal and "evil" under any humanistic code of morality, I have severe doubt that it would always mean certifiable insanity and RP-disruptive inhumanity. To recap a classical 3rd ed. example of the mindset, I can certainly envisage and see myself cooperatively RPing an extreme eco-terrorist magician that would deem the SR enviroment so endangered that he would advocate the ruthless slaying of anyone endangering it further as a rational(ized) choice, such as exterminating subsistence farmers that settle at the border of tropical forest and clear it away for farming ("So what ? there are still going to be billions more of these human parasites, crawling upon and despoiling the face of Mother Earth, while once the forest is gone, is gone ! The time for mercy is long past. Anyone that endangers the Green Mother shall pay the ultimate price"). Psychopathic, maybe, but no more certifiably insane or inhuman than your average shadowrunner contract killer or zealot. Now, if you tell me that the 4th. ed. approach to toxic mindset has changed, and in order to be a proper avenger/reaper toxic magician, it is no longer sufficient to be an extreme Awakened ecoterrorist that happily uses lethal force on anyone that endangers the environment, but it needs to be a nihilist that proactively plots to achieve the extermination of the whole human race, well then the caution about "deep green" toxic magician PC might be more justified. |
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Oct 28 2006, 12:35 PM
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#18
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Runner Group: Members Posts: 3,314 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Lisbon, Cidade do Pecado Member No.: 185 |
Street Magic has redressed the old Toxic mindsets. The "Avenger" is now a form of Twisted (an deep green fanatic/eco-zealot). His magic is essentially that of a normal shaman, it's just his perception of the world, his mind, and his overall goals that are, well, Twisted. The Poisoner (and the other new twists on Toxic mindsets) is something else. A Toxic magician's magic is tainted and a-natural. It reflects the corruption of the world's natural order and flows. Each Toxic is unique in his craziness but we've grouped the crazies under general outlooks. Different Toxic outlooks have different goals but they are all ultimately nihilistic. The Poisoner outlook in specific is most often out to terraform the natural world into a new mutated, toxic order which it sees as evolution in action. |
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Oct 28 2006, 12:49 PM
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#19
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 360 Joined: 6-September 02 Member No.: 3,234 |
Ahhh, yes, as I suspected then. Yep, it's a sensible difference, and indeed it explains nicely why all toxics should only be considered as PCs with extreme caution, just like Insect magicians. As a matter of fact, the toxic metamagics do not fit well with the Avenger mindset (as opposed to Blood Magic metamagics, which fit nicely). As I said, I see no difficulty whatsoever with RPing Twisted PCs in SR (apart from having a bounty on your head, but then all good runners are wanted criminals with a deed sheet to justify at least a couple life or capital sentences anyway, aren't they? 8) ) |
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Oct 28 2006, 04:01 PM
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#20
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Prime Runner Group: Banned Posts: 3,732 Joined: 1-September 05 From: Prague, Czech Republic Member No.: 7,665 |
I know that. And you know that. And we all know that's what Lars meant. But what it says is that Inhabitation "immediately" halts Evanescence. Page 101 however says that you make your test at the end of a multi day period. So since it doesn't at any point say that beginning the Inhabitation process halts Evanescence, people would not be behavig illogically if they assumed that it didn't do that until the process was finished (like all the other effects of Inhabitation). That effect should say that it takes effect before the process is complete, rather than "immediately". Now, it's damned obvious that it means "immediately upon initiating the Inhabitation process" - but only because insect spirits would be damned useless otherwise. --- On the Insect mindset: Honestly, who cares? You have goals that are completely self interested and not dependent upon the non-enslavement of the entire human race. You kill people for personal gain, and you have a posse of spirits that you commit for hard labor all the time. There are obviously Shadowrunner teams that you won't fit into. But there are a lot of Shadowrunner teams that you will fit into. Any team that does Wetwork on a regular basis would be happy to have someone who can turn whole potential bodies into bound spirits. Shadowrunners are criminal and insane iconoclasts. Insects value teamwork. This makes them relatively stable and reliable as far as potential team members go. It's seriously not a deal. -Frank |
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Oct 28 2006, 05:50 PM
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#21
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Target Group: Members Posts: 72 Joined: 15-December 05 Member No.: 8,075 |
I would definitly allow Faustians and Necromancers and various other twisted paths (I have no idea WHY Faustians are listed as a twisted type, it sounds like the defining characteristic is that they make bargins with Free Spirits . . .). Blood mages I would allow characters to learn Sacrifice (but would expect them to use their own blood or animals) but only Sacrifice, other blood magics are clearly for villains. Insects or toxics no way in hell.
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Oct 28 2006, 07:51 PM
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#22
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Runner Group: Members Posts: 3,314 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Lisbon, Cidade do Pecado Member No.: 185 |
Unsurprisingly, I beg to differ. If you're an insect shaman, your goals are anything but self-interest driven (in a very real sense). They're driven by the desires of your mentor spirit and the needs of the hive/nest. To put this in perspective: at the very least Insect spirits are out to colonize the Gaiasphere, this means not only gradual enslavement of parts of the human race but also their conversion into something definitely inhuman and alien (through the destruction of the host mind). Insect shamans do this not to one or two individuals, but en masse as their colonies grow. This is something I doubt most humans, no matter how callous and hard-boiled will relate to easily. It takes a special type of crazy to accept that for the magician who has your back, shadowrunning is a part-time activity to his day job of transforming people into human/alien hybrids—and its not the same kind of crazy that allows you to rationalize shooting innocents as collateral damage or a survival strategy. What's worse, you'll always be wondering whether he'll try to do it to you (not exactly confidence building...). An insect shaman's primary alleigence is to his mentor/Queen spirit, and his teammates would be constantly wondering how far they can trust him when the group's agenda might not the Insect mentor's, the hive's priorities take precedence over a mission, or the Queen decides the insect shaman's companions are actually handy vessels for a few of the new Soldier and Scouts its bringing over from the Hive. But, as usual, it's up to individual groups to dictate what is acceptable or not at their table. If a group is willing to trust an Insect shaman as a member (or a nihilistic Toxic who thinks humanity is better off mutated or decimated) the basic rules are in place to allow it. |
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Oct 28 2006, 08:54 PM
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#23
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 619 Joined: 18-April 03 From: The UV Nexus Member No.: 4,474 |
Here's an idea. Maybe you should have the GM play the runners, while the rest of yous play the threats. Idea #2: Emo can GM. Diabolical Idea #3: Combine ideas 1 and 2. |
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Oct 28 2006, 10:29 PM
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#24
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Midnight Toker Group: Members Posts: 7,686 Joined: 4-July 04 From: Zombie Drop Bear Santa's Workshop Member No.: 6,456 |
Insect Shaman do not have to owe allegiance to their totem. Some could see it as simply a way to obtain magical power. In fact, insect shaman with this perspective are probably far more useful to their totems than the ones who whole-heartedly embrace the hive as they can infiltrate human institutions far more easily than the classic stark-raving lunatic insect shaman. Likewise, this is probably the best perspective for insect shaman who aren't possessed of absolute loyalty in the face of imminent betrayal. History shows that summoning a Queen is pretty much a death sentence.
The most long-lived insect shaman will be those who have never summoned a queen. Their hives will remain small due to the limit on the number of spirits that they can have, but this may not be a bad thing. Small hives are far less conspicuous than large ones and small bands of flesh forms under the leadership of a metahuman can infiltrate high society far more easily than Scientology can. The biggest problem is that many Inave have nothing but disdain and contempt for the shaman that summon them and will not be loyal beyond that which is required by the summoning process. Queens and Mothers, since they can summon others of their kind, will probably kill the shaman at the first opportunity. Many insect shaman will not know this but those who actually bother to do a little bit of research will. This does not engender loyalty to the hive. This promotes self interest. As tempting as it may be for the male mantis shaman to summon a female for that promised sexual liaison he probably should know better. |
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Oct 28 2006, 11:04 PM
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#25
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Shadow Cartographer Group: Members Posts: 3,737 Joined: 2-June 06 From: Secret Tunnels under the UK (South West) Member No.: 8,636 |
I suspect that male Mantis shamans are the ultimate S&M fetishist. At any rate, I don't think they'd be long for this world. The problem with insect shamans as PCs is not the fluff (as you've demonstrated an alternative to the standard fluff), but game balance. Firstly, the inhabitation power of the insect shaman's spirits is open to a lot of abuse. Possession isn't so bad because it's usually short lived and also has no possibility of keeping the victim's knowledge, abilities and skills. With inhabitation, the shaman has easy access to allies that will stick around forever, are, as stated in SM, totally devoted, are potentially very very powerful and have that lovely access to knowledge and abilities of the victim. If a player running an insect shaman doesn't shortly have six troll good merges inhabited by Force 6 Soldier spirits, then it will only be due to player restraint. And given the fluff, it would probably be bad role-playing not to. Given insect shamans' status in society and the power that they possess, they're pretty much an all or nothing. Either the player runs amok and takes over everything, or the powers that be will wipe him off the face of the map. It might be interesting to run a insect shaman game, but I don't think they can be integrated into a normal game or non-insect team with RAW. |
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