The 1 percent, Magicians, Magic, and the financial issues Options

[VagabondStar]

If the awakened represent one percent of the population, and magic is such an incredibly destabilizing factor... why would anyone with that power ever become a security guard?

Or a shadowrunner, for that matter?


You'd think that the incentive to join the establishment for a big signing bonus would secure the loyalty of nearly anyone. I mean, one can only live on the street for so long using his level 3 power focus as a pillow before the urge to come in from the cold becomes overpowering...


So what are our magically active characters' and npcs' motivations for remaining in their less than corporate optimized positions?

[Cthulhudreams]

It makes no sense. Consider the application of the movement power to the transport industry. Why would anyone work as a security guard?

[Wintersmith]

Perhaps they bear a personal grudge against the corps, or they won't work for them for moral issues (I know, I know, unthinkable). Perhaps they fear that once the corp has them under control they will begin to experiment upon them.

All that being said, in my campaign most mages work for corporations. The characters run the Shadows all have their own reasons for doing so that we worked out at character creation.

[Cold-Dragon]

Not everyone would necessarily work for a corps because competition amongst mages would...well...be dangerous. They're a rare resource, so a corp is going to want the most ideal choice out of the ones they can find. Not every 1% is a Houdini or Karl, some are just Masters of Rabiit-pulling, and of limited use.

So, that leaves the weak ones out to dry.

There's also those with the grudge, or lack of cooperation with Corps. Messing with a mage's head is dangerous - a lot of things can burn out a mage, so brainwashing isn't ideal.

Then, if you're sinless and a mage, there's the matter of getting said interview. You can't exactly walk up and say 'I want to work for you'. Not everyone takes it at face value. Even if you do get the job, the fact you're 'special' shouldn't net you the high spot immediately - the Corp wants to know you're worth the trouble. So you start low (usually), and prove yourself, thus getting promotions. If you make a good security mage, eventually you'll move up (assuming you don't die). Worse case, you won't make it out of security, but you may at least get a raise, since you can provide useful security measures the others can't.

It's a lot of little things, but they add up to give a good reason why there aren't more rich and fancy spellslingers.

[Cthulhudreams]

You could just work into a magical recruitment agency who have the capability to exactly quantify your ability by asessensing, and THEY can get you a gig. Sure they will take a cut, but you're still sitting pretty.

[sunnyside]

A couple things.

First of all 1% is a small segment of the population. But not that tiny, especially since the vast majority likely go on to develop their abilities since others are always on the lookout. It means that there are more mages than doctors, even assuming a fair chunk of the 1% goes adept.

Second a security mage isn't just another Barney Fife. They're elite and well compensated for their position. It isn't that bad a deal. Also security is a big hiring source for mages. While generally useful there are only so many non security related magical jobs out there. Magical healing being pretty fast and all.

Finally those out in the cold. Some are held by loyalty to their gang or somesuch. Others have personal issues that make them hard to hire. Shamen in particular. But a lot of runners are just messed up in various way. And something that falls into is trust. A guard that goes bad can cause a lot of trouble. If the sec mage decides to burn the corp it's going to be horrible.

[Cthulhudreams]

Who the hell would use a sec mage for security.

They have the movement power dude.

The MOVEMENT POWER.

A staff of 40 mages with teh capability to use the Movement power at R4 on jetliners would generate Emirates an estimated additional revenue of ~3 billion dollars a year US annually. Assuming the a margin of 20% (higher than their currnet margin of 15%) and significantly increased overheads, those mages are each worth 375k a year salary.

And thats a conservative estimate. Its a hugely conservative estimate actually because they are saving you 11 billion dollars of capital costs on the way there.

[Cadmus]

Don't forget, that in general like gangers many shadowruns are simply, mentaly unbalanced, Don't forget you can have a perfectly normal seeming guy standing next to you..though on the week ends he shoots people in the face. the diffrence is he really does enjoy it (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

oh and ofcourse you guys the guys that have magic but frankly might not be to bright or they simpyl didn't think of that. oh and lets not forget the normal egos and power trips that go along with things on the no no side of the fence (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Cthulhudreams]

They wont even have to think of it. Consultants will think of it and there will be MASSIVE RECRUITING DRIVES.

And if you think anyone is going to be a ganger when you can get 375k dollars (which is about 1/2 a million nuyen) and unlimited first class travel on emirates even if they do like stabbing people, you're still going to sign up.

Bloody hell, if you are slightly deranged they can cut you salary to a 'mere' 1/4 mil and use the rest to pay for a therapist per 2 mages.

You know that means your saving 325k a year while living a high lifestyle? You need to pay 100x the lifestyle cost to retire don't you with a permanent lifestyle? So thats what, retiring at 35 in a permnant high lifestyle?!?

hahaha.

Seriously, there are not going to be sec mages but no mage with magic 5-6 is ever going to have to run the shadows.

Note I'm ignoring the heal spell. You could get a job as an ER doc and clear 300k a year with the heal spell alone I suspect. And this is even ethically warm and fuzzy.

[sunnyside]

I was figuring in the heal spell. The trick being that it's a pretty fast spell, so there wouldn't be a massive demand for mages doing it. Though you'd need more if you paid them for all the time they spend sleeping off drain.

The movement thing falls into a broken area of the rules where they fail to account for scale very well if at all. Resulting in hypersonic arrows and, I don't know, could a spirit just accelerate the earth and send it out of orbit?

[Muspellsheimr]

1% Awakened population consists of Magicians, Mystic Adepts, Adepts, & Spell/Spirit Knacks. Of those, at most 50% will ever exceed a Magic of 2, and maybe 5% will exceed a Magic of 4 (pre-augmentation). Of those that exceed Magic 4, most will never Initiate. The number of Initiates in the Magic 1 - 3 range is so small as to be 0.

Note - none of the above is Cannon (at least that I am aware of), but rather simple reasoning based on the supposed attribute values of the general population.

That being said, corporations look for magical talent - aka Magic 3+, preferably Magician/Mystic Initiates. This still leaves a significant number of Awakened that are generally unable to find employment as such due to a lack of abilities.

Of those that can reasonably take employment in a corporation, it is safe to assume a decent number would prefer not to be a WageSlave, and pursue their own endeavors - enchanting, mercenary, commission artist, thief, or other.

Put simply, I can see many reasons why one cannot/would not become a corporate employee, or have a low-level corporate job (security guard).

[sunnyside]

Nah I'd say you'd see a lot more magic 3-5. The reason being that they use magic for their job. The grunt type NPCs that have been presented typically manage 3-5 in their job related attribute.

Now I suppose there's some selection going on there. i.e. the smart guys take the thinky jubs, charismatic people take charismatic jobs, but nearly all potential magic users go that route.

But even so I'd think it'd be rare to see magic 1-2 people on the job. Maybe as freshly traind rockies.

[Riley37]

How is Movement and Secmage incompatible? Get on the plane, summon a spirit, have it Movement the plane, and meanwhile, you're on call; if an alert comes in, warn the pilot that Movement might end, and astrally project to the location that generated the alert. That way, you're getting paid all the time for work your spirit is doing all the time, AND you're getting paid all the time for occasional alert responses. Meanwhile, every few hours, the plane stops at an airport, you stop by the airport clinic, you cast Heal on someone, you get paid, you recover the Drain during the next leg of travel.

I hurt my chin this weekend, got 5 stitches at an ER because it was Sunday and the regular clinics were closed. An ugly wound, but it can't be worse than 2 boxes, since five such wounds would not put me into overflow. I woulda paid a thousand dollars or more for a Heal spell to fix it instantly, if that were an available alternative to stitches.

[sunnyside]

Like the book says mages often pull sec duty on the side. Likely the mage summons a spirit in the morning to keep the plane booking all day sending it off on a remote service. Then they get to business putting up wards for their corp. But like doctors they may well be on call, expected to respond if there's trouble. Also they might well pull a couple security sweeps in a day.

Though, again, I dislike movement working on everything and anything so easily. I think you should have to work for it if you want to make an aircraft carrier outrun some airplanes.

Note from the FAQ

Not all critter powers require a Success Test or an Opposed Test, so how do you determine their effect against nonliving objects like drones? For example, does the Movement power only affect living beings, or does it also affect vehicles?

To determine if a critter power that doesn't normally call for a Success Test or Opposed Test affects a nonliving object, have the critter make a Magic x 2 (Object Resistance) Success Test. If the critter does not score enough hits to beat the Object Resistance threshold, then the object is unaffected.

So they at least need to make a test. But personally I think the threshold should scale with size.

[Blade]

First, please note that in most "First World" countries there is about 2 doctors per 1000 inhabitants. Yet, doctors aren't that uncommon. Helps you put things in perspective I guess.

IIRC, there was supposed to be some official text about the use of magic (and specifically the movement power) and why it's not as common as some would think.
As for the heal spell, I really doubt it'd be widely used. Chances are that magical healing requires authorization from Mundane doctors, and I'm pretty sure they'll be reluctant to give it, seeing how they're usually reluctant to new unorthodox treatments. Further you have to realize that magical healing must be applied quickly and even if it can fully heal, it can also have little to no effect (1 or 0 hits) and you can't apply mundane medical treatment afterward. So I guess that even if medical healing can be popular in some cultures, it will probably be less developed in a lot of places.

[Cthulhudreams]

Note that my 400k is actually a ludiciously low estimate. You'd be much better off using the guy to push cargo ships around.

Note that movement 6 on an oil tanker would allow you to pay a magician ~150 billion dollars a year and you'd make a profit of ~150 billion dollars a year

And yes I mean billion

Who's used a magic user of 4+ on sec mage duty in a game. Do you have any rational reason for him not to be off using movement on oil tankers considering that he'd be able to make a billion dollars a year?

A mage using movement 4 on cargo ships would generate profits (conservatively estimated at) 22 billion dollars per annum.

so after you pay him 2 billion dollars per annum, you then pocket the cool 20 billion you made.

Seriously guys, no mage on earth would ever do anything with a real material risk of being killed when you could just work shipping instead and demand billions of dollars.

Please note, my estimate includes no value attached to the fact your ships are 2-6 times faster in delivering time sensitive cargo which may carry significant economic benefits when hauling some cargos, resulting in further profits.

Another application of Movement. The military. A movement 6 enhanced strategic bomber could actually outrun most surface to air missles thanks to its almost hypersonic speeds, making them significantly more useful. A supersonic fighter would be impossible to shoot down conventionally.

[Shiloh]

so after you pay him 2 billion dollars per annum, you then pocket the cool 20 billion you made.

Seriously guys, no mage on earth would ever do anything with a real material risk of being killed when you could just work shipping instead and demand billions of dollars.

Except that no mage on earth would move more than one cargo at that markup. Why bother, when you have 50 million in the bank? So the Corps won't pay that much, so there isn't the incentive.

As has been pointed out, there are micro features of the Sixth World that have "unforseen consequences" if we assume they just scale up past the parameters of the game as envisaged by its creators. Since there are, indubitably, Magic 4-6 Mages working as elite security, or even as plain Ward-ens for the corps, and the canon doesn't speak of superspeed bulk carriers, and there *are* initiated hermetic magicians working as freelancers, perhaps we should be looking for the reasons why our assumptions about scaling are mistaken?

[Cthulhudreams]

Edit: Any corp that didn't pay that much would instantly loose all its mages to defections to whichever corp did pay that much. Why squabble over a reduction in margin of 10% when you already making 80% or more on the underlying assets. Maybe your an idiot? It would be seriously hard to stop a rank 6 mage being able to defect when you are letting him summon spirits and cast spells.

I dunno, its not like bill gates stopped after his first 50 million. I'd keep working until I can afford my own on site medical team which, being in that I'd need to pay mages for it, is actually quite expensive.

Part of the problem is that SR keeps reducing the amount of people in the fluff as a precentage who are awakened while simulatenously introducing more ways to become awakened and saying more people are awakening.

Which is dumb.

If you blow out the percentage of awakened to like 5%, and say full mages are 1%, adepts are another 1% mystic adepts are 1%, randoms with spell knacks are 1% and squibs with magic 1-2 are another 1%, the game almost makes sense.

In that case supply would drive down salaries of, say, shipping workers.

[Heath Robinson]

So they at least need to make a test. But personally I think the threshold should scale with size.

Note that "Highly Processed Objects (Computers, Complex Toxic Wastes, Drones, Vehicles)" require 4+ hits. You can scale this value however you like. Given that Aircraft in 2070 contain their own miniature networks for running fly-by-wire and maintaining internal atmosphere as well as computing flight paths and processing data from ground and sat on various environmental factors and all these aspects require Computers, requiring 8 or more hits is perfectly reasonable. Large cargo vehicles are just that complex.

This means that you have to possess truly atrociously powerful mages to repeatedly pull off applying movement reliably to these vehicles. Those mages will be earning princely sums because they're so very powerful and are still corp-loyal. They have a lot of better uses than putting movement on jumbos or tankers, though.

I actually think that a lot of (most?) Wagemages are Magic 1-3 types. The kind who can cast Crank, Healthy Glow, Fast, Stim and Nutrition but don't require good wages or job conditions. Wagemages like this are also going to end up providing counterspelling for security, because they're not amazing and that means that they don't expect the world for just showing up. Corps prefer reliable, cheap service for consumers and widespread security, they prefer to reserve the expensive, tempramental or high-maintenance things for strategic benefit like protecting the CEO or the futuretech R&D lab.

As for why mages will end up in the Shadows; all the same reasons other archetypes end up in the Shadows. This is reinforced by the fact that many mages have a strong ideology that takes precedence over loyalty to a corp, and this makes them less desirable than the Hermetic willing to sell his services to the highest bidder.

If you really hate Renraku turning thier dead CEO into a kami and take this as the proof of the complete disregard of the sanctity of your religion by the corps, then you're probably more offended than any corp can compensate. These kinds of things are often underestimated factors in decisions.

[masterofm]

There are a lot of magic 1 or magic 2 people. It's not like every mage has magic 3-6. A magic 1 mage would have to overcast just to slap on a movement 2 on a vehicle, and the most a magic 2 would be able to do is 4 (that is if they want to risk bleeding out their ears, which most people won't do.)

At our table we run the movement power as "within reason." A force six spirit might be able to movement a medium sized boat, but a huge heavy tanker is most likely not going to happen. Spirits are generally meant to be able to movement objects the size of people, drones, and small vehicles so applying a fairly low force spirit to movement something thousands of times larger then that I would think might not be done at most tables.

I do however believe that 1% of the population being awakened seems kind of silly. I always thought in my mind it should by somewhere between 2-5%.

*edit* as to the reply above don't forget that some Shadowrunning mages just screwed the pooch so hard that they can't get a gig for any corp anywhere. *edit*

[Cthulhudreams]

Yeah, but while the 1-2 mages as sec mages is nice.. thats not actually what the published adventures call for in terms of sec mage power.

YMMV.

Most of them semto be at the 'big' end of town. And seriously, magic 5 is probably better in the ER!

[Isath]

Well...as it has allready been pointed out not every mage is eligible to work for a corp. There are many reasons not to hire a mage if he's more trouble than benefit. Also there are those that still do not want to work for a corp, massive sallary or not.

So... why do mages fullfill security duties anyway - because there is a demand for it. The corps make the market here and they decide what mages will be used for. They need magical security, so they hire mages for it. Sure, they also hire mages for other purposes, but with magic being dangerous a factor they will want measures to be safe. Also as with mudane people, there are talents and preferences, maybe some mages do not want to be pilots or magical liftloaders and maybe some can't (same goes for security ofcause).

Some mages deal in entertainment other become investigators and others again become researchers or medics. Maybe some mages even do the liftloading, still there are many factors in all of this. So let's have a look at magical healing. Magic means of health are potentially more potent than medicine, as you can infact work wonders - you will need to have a specialist though. Now look at the way many medical means are handled today and project it to the SR scenario (though it probably doesn't make a huge difference). It is always more profitable to treat a disease, than to heal it. So even if there are enogh corruptable mages out there, the pharma industry just is better off selling regular treatments and therapies, than they might be with wonderous healing.

There also might be the opic of bias agains magic and their users but I won't open that box right now.

There sure is a number of complications coming with the use of magic in some sectors and some threats tend to be drawn more to magic than to the mudane, especially in the more "feral" areas (like the open sea for example).

After all there are many arguments one can come up for something fantastic to be plausible or not - it will most probably stay hypothetical.

[Yoan]

I don't buy that the average Mage can just use Movement to retire after a year, but if that's how you wanna run your, uh, 'game': cool.

I tone down the number of Awakened a few notches, and even then I remember a chunk of 'em are Shamans, who are statistically (depends on totem/calling/motive) less likely to work in the clockwork Corporate world. Then a lot of 'em are barely capable of little more then parlor tricks-- still an asset and looks good on the resume, yeah, but not a full-fledged spell slinger. Maybe the wilder ones were part of a Wizkid gang when they were teens before growing up and settling in for the exciting, intricate world of accounting.

All that fluff aside, there's also the fact that most posters here have a hard-on for large numbers (perhaps encouraged by the game designers-- don't care, it's nowhere to be found in my campaign): a security mage with a Magic of 5 or 6 is a little much. Maybe if he's the "Head of Ares Magical Security Assets" or "Head of Shiawase Paranormal Security" of the whole building/office/facility or, hell, all of Seattle or respective district. Maybe.

[Cadmus]

For the people talking about healing and cargo moving, don't forget there are a lot of areas with high backround counts around the world, hell most citys have areas with nasty backround counts if you belive the fiction, and as posted above given that the core book says most prof type people have skills and att's at lvl 3 many of the mages we play with 5 and 6 magic levels and lvl 6 spell casting would be in the minority, granted skill wise you would have higher levels in reaseach dept. in corp and goverment style area's, as well as schools like MIT's magic branch (i forget the full name) but those guys are researching it not using it so much, then you have the mercs, solders,corp teams, ect with higher skills becouse its there job, now to how the rules of the game run, high skill does not mean high att, but then if you are smart enough a mage with a magic stat of 3 can beat a 6 if he's sneaky (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) granted it changes if you bring spirits into play,

As for the healing part, don't forget about peoples mistrust, magic is not super rare but its not on every corner of town either, and people don't like what they don't understand. So even when offered many people would most likly turn it down. and not many doctors in major citys would use it most likly, and in the end don't forget, reguardless of how unbalanced runners are the char's we make for games are more or less at the top of there feilds skill and stat wise, They might be down, they might be out, but we are running char's with pistol skills of 4-6 or hacking skills or magic skills ect, these are ranges for what would be considered the best of the best, if you really want to get into why would a mage not just run cargo or healing, well. Why would a hacker hack with such high computer skills? what about your teams hot shot rigger? or your teams face? why isn't he out in hollywood making a mint? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) its a fun arguement but all mote,


In the end just look in the mirror and repeat to your self, Its in the script.

[Isath]

Yes, I think you are absolutely right there. For my part I am more of a creative person and I have my problems functioning with bureaucracy and corporate clockworks (having out of the norm sleeping habits as well). If I imagine, that I would have to work some more esotheric, paranormal talents for some bureaucrats that do not understand how it works and what is necessary or hindering when doing it, it makes me shiver. Actually I do not know if I could really manage that. I have had a few jobs with smaller agencies though that supported a more creative working climate, that worked quite well for a while.

Now depending on tradition and the individual, I can see many awakened having a hard time with corporate employment. If you put a spirit guide into the equasion you just might not have an easy time with planning any sort of carreer.