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> Categories, Semiotics and Magic, Enter John Williams, Esq.
Riley37
post Sep 17 2008, 07:55 PM
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Several spells work on a category of thing, and not on other things.
For example, Detect Enemies involves a definition of "enemy".
Vehicular Mask involves a definition of "vehicle".
Ram/Wreck/Demolish, Clean (element), etc.

So far as I understand nature, it doesn't really work by categories. Categories are darn handy for making sense of the world, but nature sometimes doesn't follow them with the simplicity which most people prefer. Iron's a fairly canonical metal, but tin has metallic qualities and nonmetallic qualities. Some species can interbreed, and biologists have to draw complex diagrams to even approximate how it works, diagrams that don't fit on the pages of an introductory science textbook. Light has wave and particle aspects. And so forth.

A game, however, needs abstraction and simplification. A gun does DV 4; if you increase the muzzle velocity slightly, you don't get DV 4.1, damage either stays at DV 4 or jumps to DV 5. The cartoon "Order of the Stick" gets a lot of its humor from people living in a setting in which the world works that way - and they *know* it; a bowyer can tell you "This is a +4 bow" rather than "Hm, this seems about 20% more accurate".

You can fire an SMG in each hand. You cannot fire an assault rifle in each hand. If HK makes a submachine gun, then a similar gun with a slightly longer barrel, and then another one just a little longer, at some point they cross the categorical division... and the dwarf and the troll, when asked "Hey, can you fire one of these in either hand?", have the same answer: model #3 is suitable for two-gun, and model #4 is just a little too large for that.

"Is a wheelbarrow a vehicle? How about a skateboard?" "I dunno. Cast Vehicular Mask on it; if the spell works, then clearly the subject is a vehicle."

So in Shadowrun, are the limits of spells such as Vehicular Mask determined by deep structures of reality, or by the caster's understanding of magic? If Thrasher Mage is 100% convinced that a skateboard is a vehicle, and Mall Mage is 100% convinced that it isn't, then either a) they can use Vehicular Mask to test it, and the results are final, one is right and the other is wrong, or b) Thrasher Mage can use Vehicular Mask on a skateboard and Mall Mage cannot.

The paranoid mage casts "Detect Enemies" and all the people who don't particularly care about him, who *would* take his stuff if they could get away with it, they all appear as enemies. Which is a lot of pings when you cast it in the Barrens. Maybe the sniper actually drawing a bead on him yields a stronger result. Meanwhile, the Buddhist sniper who merely means to send the target into another incarnation, a better one, does not show up as such an enemy.

As I read "Street Magic", it leans towards scenario B. Magic is what you make of it, exceptions happen, proof is elusive, the Christian theurge and the Wiccan are equally unable to proove the nature of the Divine and the afterlife to a neutral third party by how magic works.

Enter John Williams, Esquire, Semiotic Therapist. You know the Vehicular Mask spell. You know that a skateboard is not a vehicle. You have some reason to disguise a skateboard as a wheelbarrow. So you hire Mr. Williams to persuade you, with hypnotism, neurolinguistic programming, and a bit of virtual reality, that a skateboard *is* a vehicle, and so is a wheelbarrow. Also, when you need to destroy that skateboard, you can do it with Demolish Vehicle!

Alas, although Mr.Williams has been able to persuade a willing subject that the Ares Alpha is really an overgrown submachine gun, he hasn't yet done so well enough for Bubba the Love Troll to fire a pair of grip-modded Ares Alphas effectively from each hand. But he's working on it.
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Ancient History
post Sep 17 2008, 08:57 PM
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QUOTE
So far as I understand nature, it doesn't really work by categories.

Not technically true, and your examples are shite. The key issue here isn't whether "magic" or "the natural world" recognizes such distinctions, because the spells themselves are crafted by metahumans, dragons, et al. who can recognize such distinctions.

QUOTE
So in Shadowrun, are the limits of spells such as Vehicular Mask determined by deep structures of reality, or by the caster's understanding of magic?

Technically, its probably dependent on the understanding and intentions of the person that crafted the spell (and, for that element of the Ineffable, the gamemaster).
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WeaverMount
post Sep 17 2008, 09:14 PM
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QUOTE (Ancient History @ Sep 17 2008, 03:57 PM) *
Not technically true, and your examples are shite.

Is there a categorical truth you would like to champion? But yes that said, I would have focused on the clearly subjective spells like demolish[<blank>], and purify water.

QUOTE (Ancient History @ Sep 17 2008, 03:57 PM) *
Technically, its probably dependent on the understanding and intentions of the person that crafted the spell (and, for that element of the Ineffable, the gamemaster).


Ok that's valid, but really just backs up the question to creating rather than casting spells.
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Riley37
post Sep 17 2008, 09:34 PM
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"Not technically true, and your examples are shite."
AH, you can do better than that!
Could you express disagreement in a way which sheds more light on the topic, please?

Light is a classic example of categories such as "wave" and "particle" not applying easily.
If you happen to have a model of light that works well as only wave or only particle, there are some people in Stockholm who might have some money for you.

The point about spells as artificial phenomena is quite valid. Perhaps Thrasher Mage has a formula for Vehicular Mask which will work on a skateboard, and Mall Mage has a formula which will not work on a skateboard. Perhaps some formulae for Slay Ork work on oni and others don't.

In which case, we have a difference between spell formulae which is finer than the granularity of RAW.
No matter how well-written RAW is, there are interesting questions at finer grain than any given RAW.

And in which case, John Williams, Esq. may come to the rescue, at his usual high rates.

What about aspected mana warp effects? Those are not spells, not written by sapients; they affect some spellcasters, not others; does that also depend entirely on the mage's perspective? Or the perspective of a summoned spirit (it gets affected or not) or a free spirit? If so: yet again, hire Mr. Williams, when you want to enter a cyberzombie's aspected field and experience it as being to your advantage.

Incidentally - shared credit to WeaverMount, Stormcrow and MasterofM for the conversation which invented Mr. Williams.
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Tarantula
post Sep 17 2008, 09:49 PM
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Like you said, this is a game system. If a skateboard is listed as a vehicle, then it is a vehicle, if it is listed as gear which modifies your base movement speed, then it is not. If it is not listed, then it is up to the GM to decide.

Its that simple.
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Ancient History
post Sep 17 2008, 09:50 PM
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Well, let's take an example: the Detect Enemies spell.

First off, there are two elements at work here. The first is that this is a detection spell ("Detect"), and that should be blindingly obvious to everyone. There are two important things to take away from this: one, the subject is a being able to perceive the output of the spell (i.e. intelligent and aware, at least to a degree) and two, following the Limits of Sorcery (p.160, SM) magic is not intelligent. Second, the definition of the spell itself, which gives that the targets must be a) living and b) have hostile intentions towards the subject of the spell.

Taken together, these two elements rule out the absurd (casting Detect Enemies on a rock and having it triggered by nearby lavaflows) and any partiality on the part of the caster - because the spell does not depend on the caster's intentions or understanding of the intentions. The magician's paranoia, to take the example in the first post, would not have any impact on the spell because the spell detects hostile intent in the target, not what can be construed as hostile action. To take the Buddhist sniper, again from the example, even if the sniper is well meaning their intent is undeniably hostile - while the sniper that's aiming for the poor schlub next to you and misses, hitting you, wouldn't ping the spell at all.

Okay, obviously that's a simplification. Here, the definition of "hostile" is definitely key - Zen and the art of sniping doesn't give free license to PCs or NPCs, natch, the character's intent would have to be completely free from any hostility whatsoever. You'd need the serene peace of mind involved with raking gravel into meaningful patterns. In other words, the character would by most definitions would have to be completely delusional or psychopathic, not too far removed from "random firing into the crowd guy."

Anyone interested, there was a great example in, as I recall, Awakenings about reading emotions in someone's aura and acting.
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WeaverMount
post Sep 17 2008, 10:25 PM
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So honest question, where in the process of creating, casting, and sustaining detect enemies is "hostile action" defined? I understand that "magic isn't sentient" so where do the subjective decisions/definitions about what is hostile or what is a gun get made? Is this actually something that could help differentiate traditions because a hermetic formula for demolish [gun] has a hermetic definition of gun, where as shamanic formula has a shamanic definition?
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Muspellsheimr
post Sep 17 2008, 10:57 PM
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If someone intends you harm, they have hostile intentions. Harm is defined as, obviously, physical or mental damage to your person/mind. Where it gets a bit fuzzy is if stealing from you is considered harm. I would personally rule 'no' in most situations, but it is up to the GM.
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Ancient History
post Sep 17 2008, 11:00 PM
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In the case of dispute, the exact arbitration would fall on the GM.

Let's just take a nice example: the Slay Cat spell. "Cat" is a descriptive term for a fairly wide range of animals - from wild cats and house cats to "big cats" (lions, tigers, ligers, oh my!) to paranormal cats (blackberry cat, talis cat, sabertooth tiger). It certainly wouldn't apply to anything that happened to be simply cat-shaped - no metahuman shapechanged into cat form would be susceptible to this spell. The given examples are not exactly helpful - the spell really doesn't apply to spirits at all (though a case could be made for spirits with a biology, i.e. flesh form insect spirits et al.), there are at least four species of dragon, and One Less Ork obviously works well enough for Oni and other metavariants. So it'll fall on the gamemaster to adjudicate what the spell would and would not affect.

For me, that's probably any of the many breeds of housecat and small-sized wild cats would be fair game, "big cats" would not be, and neither would paranormal cats. Other gamemasters might include paranormal cats of about the same size as a housecat. It's a table-by-table decision, really. Certainly the caster's idea of what a cat is doesn't enter into it. The sorcerer casting the Slay Cat spell might never have seen a cat before in their life (and be really pissed when they were packing Slay Tiger and needed Slay Liger).
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the_real_elwood
post Sep 17 2008, 11:18 PM
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This is an interesting argument, but it's clearly an attempt to game the system and do something which the rules definitely do not intend. When the letter of the rules and the spirit of the rules don't seem to agree, I tend to err on the side of the spirit of the rules. I don't think any reasonable GM would go along with this, but I'm sure there are lots of unreasonable GM's out there.
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WeaverMount
post Sep 18 2008, 03:48 AM
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>This is an interesting argument, but it's clearly an attempt to game the system and do something which the rules definitely do not intend.
Project much? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

No I'm actually most interested in how SR magic works in character.

QUOTE
If someone intends you harm, they have hostile intentions. Harm is defined as, obviously, physical or mental damage to your person/mind. Where it gets a bit fuzzy is if stealing from you is considered harm. I would personally rule 'no' in most situations, but it is up to the GM.

I'm not trying to split hairs about what 2008 English speakers mean when they say 'hostile intentions'. That has a pretty straight forward definition. But the spell isn't an English speaker. So how did an expression of English get 'into' a spell. Some IC entity encoded it some how. I can infer from AH's posts that it is at the time when the the formula was made.


QUOTE (Ancient History @ Sep 17 2008, 06:00 PM) *
So it'll fall on the gamemaster to adjudicate what the spell would and would not affect.

QUOTE (Ancient History @ Sep 17 2008, 06:00 PM) *
It's a table-by-table decision, really. Certainly the caster's idea of what a cat is doesn't enter into it. The sorcerer casting the Slay Cat spell might never have seen a cat before in their life (and be really pissed when they were packing Slay Tiger and needed Slay Liger).

Yup I totally get how it's just the GM's call. But it's a GM call about what some spell maker meant, what tools they had, and how well they did it. which raises the question what tools do they have?
QUOTE (Ancient History @ Sep 17 2008, 06:00 PM) *
The sorcerer casting the Slay Cat spell might never have seen a cat before in their life (and be really pissed when they were packing Slay Tiger and needed Slay Liger.

You could pay karma a a learn a spell that targets something of which you are wholly unaware. So the working definition has to be hammered out in the spell formula
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the_real_elwood
post Sep 18 2008, 03:59 AM
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I didn't mean to sound offensive, it's just that this comes off like an argument that an unscrupulous player would make to try to find a way to get their character to dual wield assault rifles and whatnot. As an in-character academic argument, it's very interesting and something that you could debate with numerous thaumaturgical scholars. But as soon as you try to do things with the rules of the game system (like getting a character to dual wield assault rifles, or using a "Slay Cat" spell to take out some paranormal feline critter, I think you have to start interpreting the rules the way they were intended to be written, regardless of the way magic works in-character.
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masterofm
post Sep 18 2008, 04:24 AM
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We were talking about this at our table not to break the game, but to gain more understanding on how a spell works. Just FYI. It gives a better understanding of the fluff and the world of Shadowrun, and that is why it was brought up in our table.

What I find odd about your argument Ancient History is you talk about Slay Cat as a spell. Now saying that you can't just slay any bigger feline, but only waste cats (yet still kill more then just a cat,) and at the same time be unable to kill a metahuman who has turned into a cat is where things get all fuzzy for me.

Vehicle mask. All vehicles you can mask. Now is that ground vehicles and air vehicles? Is it really odd crazy drones? I mean drones act like vehicles. Now the problem is when dealing with "slay cat" vs. "vehicle mask" is what the heck makes someone decide that "slay cat" only slays these certain kinds of cats and "vehicle mask" masks just about any vehicle. Is vehicle mask limited in the way that slay cat or wreck (blank) is limited?

Yes I get 80% of this falls under the GMs decision if not 100%. However when dealing with the spell wreck (blank) I understand the rules perspective and game balance purpose of it, but how are these spells created? What is to say that someone just can't make a spell wreck metal instead of wreck gun, wreck vehicle, wreck armor. Now wreck metal is kind of bullshit as a spell since you can basically destroy almost any weapon, vehicle, armor, building wall, trash can, cyberware, a pipe or anything else that has a portion of metal in it. Besides a GM saying no thats the stupidest thing I've ever herd and I won't allow it (which is what anyone in our table would say) does this just not happen in the SR world? I understand why it is not done, but I want to know if there is any fluff to support it.


Lets make this easier then all of these spell examples. Native American magic, is not the same as Tir magic, is not the same as Aztec magic, is not the same as great dragon magic... and yet all of their spells seem to do the same thing with the same effects. A heal from a Native American mage is the same heal as a Tir mage, or Aztec mage (maybe not the dragon but you never know.) They all need to touch the target for healing despite whatever else they may need to do to get their heal spell off the ground. Is magic open only as far as the mage is willing to open his/her mind or is there something more finite and inflexible towards magic.
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Riley37
post Sep 18 2008, 08:25 AM
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Thanks AH for bringing up the Limits of Magic bit about nonsentient magic.

Tarantula wrote "Like you said, this is a game system. If a skateboard is listed as a vehicle, then it is a vehicle, if it is listed as gear which modifies your base movement speed, then it is not. If it is not listed, then it is up to the GM to decide."

Shadowrun is also a setting for novels. The novel author gets to decide whether Vehicular Mask works on a skateboard, and decides on the basis of what's a more entertaining story. As a novelist, I'd err on the side of allowing the scene in which a team of skateboarders uses Vehicular Mask to look like a bike gang, or a convoy of tanker trucks, or whatever... in a way that I might actively discourage as GM (or player) when game balance is at stake.

Say a target has a Detection Spell Sustaining Focus and the PCs know she keeps Detect Enemies active all her waking hours. Say the PCs *could* pull off a Concealed-and-Movemented hit-and-run to zoom in, triggering the spell but closing before the target has time to summon help, grab the target's briefcase (over her strenuous objections and by "strenuous" I mean "lethal force"), and get away, in two or three combat rounds, played out in about two hours. That's a reasonable, typical use of game session time. AH raises the possibility of a *delusional* attacker who has no hostile intent yet does harm. What if the PCs manage to persuade some pawn that the target is unknowingly or unwillingly carrying a briefcase bomb, and is in terrible danger, and they persuade the pawn to save the target by grabbing the briefcase? Maybe they use drugs, or psychotropic IC, or mental manipulation magic on the pawn? Maybe the pawn is a PC, who agrees to let the other PCs mess with his mind for the sake of pulling off a job? It might take the PCs *more* effort, and it might take the players *more* time to game out, than brute-force methods; it's not the optimal strategy for munchkin purposes; and it also might be more entertaining than yet another fight scene.

What if the paranoid mage has the skills to create a new spell formula, and creates a version of Detect Enemies that *does* trigger on that mage's particular interpretation of "enemy"? Again, not a particularly munchkin-optimized move, but potentially part of an amusing story.
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Suenert
post Sep 18 2008, 10:40 AM
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QUOTE (Riley37 @ Sep 17 2008, 09:34 PM) *
"Not technically true, and your examples are shite."
AH, you can do better than that!
Could you express disagreement in a way which sheds more light on the topic, please?

Light is a classic example of categories such as "wave" and "particle" not applying easily.
If you happen to have a model of light that works well as only wave or only particle, there are some people in Stockholm who might have some money for you.


Wave-Particle-Dualism got killed in 1926.
Quantum theory shot it in the head and burried in the desert.
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Riley37
post Sep 18 2008, 05:31 PM
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Derailing a thread on the nature of fictional magic, into a thread on the physics of light, would be unusually intellectual even for Dumpshock.

Wikipedia says: "Wave–particle duality is deeply embedded into the foundations of quantum mechanics, so well that modern practitioners rarely discuss it as such. In the formalism of the theory, all the information about a particle is encoded in its wave function, a complex function roughly analogous to the amplitude of a wave at each point in space."

If you had a defense spell that only worked against elemental attacks based on wave phenomena - call it Wave Shield, it's like Shield but specialized and causes less Drain - it would work against Sonic damage. Would it work against a spell doing Light damage?

Would it depend on whether the person writing the spell formula for Wave Shield followed, say, Carver Mead, who in 2000 was publishing a not-so-far-clearly-refuted theory that light and matter are both fundamentally wave phenomena, or Richard Feynman? Feynman says: "I want to emphasize that light comes in this form—particles. It is very important to know that light behaves like particles, especially for those of you who have gone to school, where you were probably told something about light behaving like waves. I'm telling you the way it does behave—like particles." From QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter (1985), p. 15, by Richard Feynman. (He received a Nobel prize in 1985 for work on theory of light, along with Julian Schwinger and Shin-Ichiro Tomonaga.)

Just for kicks, let's say the person creating the formula for Wave Shield is a LOG 1 CHA 5 shaman who can't even spell "vibration" but describes emotions as "vibes", and the formula is an artistically hand-crafted prism. Let's say his Trickster initiate group leader could persuade him that light is a wave, or is not a wave, at will.

Meanwhile, the scientists and engineers bringing us the high tech of 2070 are probably redefining "science" as "the study and explanation of observable, quantifiable, repeatable phenomena - when they're not being trumped by magic".
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