Asking unbounded spirits nicely, you're not the boss of me! Options

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

I never viewed a spirits associated spell category as making it a healing spirit. A spirit of earth can take many forms, a rock slide of doom, a country physician, a burial plot representing death etc and this could all be from the same tradition and same mage.

Yeah, Me neither, but apparently some do. Personally, I focus more on the Tradition of the caster and then style from there. And If I am not sure on the Tradition, well, I enjoy the research involved in learning more about it.

[Shemhazai]

Isn't it cooler to think of spirits being bound by pact rather than being sucked into this world against their will?

[Sendaz]

SpiritRun™

Where the Players are various Spirits that can be summoned by the ever mysterious Mage Johnson and offered Pacts to perform various dubious activities in exchange for Karma and other worldly delights.

PC's have access to a variety of magicks and Cypherware (special runes etched into their very essence, granting them numverous enhancements).

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Isn't it cooler to think of spirits being bound by pact rather than being sucked into this world against their will?

Again, depends upon the Tradition. In some cases, I would agree with you. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)
Of course, the Pact idea works great in Werewolf, the Forsaken... I think that it could also work well in Shadowrun, but not for all Traditions.

[Sendaz]

Again, depends upon the Tradition. In some cases, I would agree with you. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)
Of course, the Pact idea works great in Werewolf, the Forsaken... I think that it could also work well in Shadowrun, but not for all Traditions.

In some cases it is may be more of an Offer You Can't Refuse. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[Shemhazai]

I know that some people hate how "overpowered" awakened characters are, and I've read how some people think that bound spirits were the worst thing about Shadowrun that didn't get "fixed" in this edition. So at some tables this proposal could pan out as:

Shaman: How can you enslave your own ancestors or venerated spirits of river or sky? If you bind spirits, it's as bad as diablerie in WoD. You'll be hated from then on and forsaken by your totem.

Mage: You're already despised by spirits for the inherently abusive ways of your tradition. They will resist you with all of their strength, naturally spending edge to resist anything you try to do with them, and be as conniving as an evil genie granting a wish in D&D.

[shinryu]

Differentiating between the difficulty or distastefulness of tasks, to a spirit, rather than X number of services, is not a bad notion in theory, but I don't like the proposed implementation. It is too arbitrary - spirits are only associated with spell types for purposes of what kind of spells they can aid. Making combat or illusion their "purpose" is oversimplifying them even as you are adding an extra, cumbersome set of rules.

I think a better idea is to look at two things. Basically, is the spirit being summoned in an environment, and for a task, that it feels comfortable with? A beast spirit probably wouldn't mind being summoned to rip and tear some security guards, no matter what spell type it can give bonuses to, but wouldn't like being summoned in the middle of a sterile, hard concrete urban area. A water spirit might be okay with scouting the terrain ahead, but wouldn't like being summoned into a stream polluted with runoff from the factory just upstream, or in the middle of a desert. Conversely, a fire spirit from the black magic tradition might be fine with being summoned anywhere except underwater, but wouldn't like being commanded to do something "good".

So a nice, simple rule would be: if one of these conditions is negative, the spirit gets -1 dice to its actions, and if both are present, it will perform one less service as well. If one of these conditions is positive, the spirit gets +1 dice to its actions, and if both are present, it will perform an additional service as well. Most services and environments should be fairly neutral, but things like summoning a fire elemental into a downpour, or getting a trickster spirit to help with a practical joke will actually make a tangible difference now. And with a slight tangible reward/detriment involved, players might be slightly more likely to use spirits in ways that make more sense, rather than as throwaway Swiss army knives.

while i disagree with your assessment of the proposal as cumbersome, i think we're basically in agreement in terms of the spirit of the thing. i'd rather penalize summoning than the summoned spirit, but these ideas are quite good.

overall, i'm a little surprised that people find the idea of spirits for a particular tradition being aligned with specific tasks so undesirable. clearly, certain elements are aligned with particular spell classes for a particular tradition, so i don't see why it's such a huge leap to say that the spirits of that element for that particular tradition tend to be aligned with that task or mindset as well. if your tradition happens to see earth as its combat element, then the earth spirits that you in particular summon are combat oriented. if they see them as healing spirits, you get healing spirits. i agree that this is something that it would be nice to see handled by roleplaying, but i would rather have hard rules to manage this since it really should affect the difficulty of summoning and using spirits.

diablerie is actually a good analog to the situation. in vampire, the fluff is pretty clear that the act of eating another vampire's soul is badwrong and other vampires usually kind of want to kill you if you do it. however, there are also clear mechanical consequences in terms of loss of humanity, potential deragnements and a clear stain on your aura from the act. while (arguably) not acts of the same scale, it's instructive to compare these penalties to the consequences of spirit abuse in shadowrun as currently written. one is clearly bad from both a setting and mechanics perspective (if incredibly beneficial), while the other is almost entirely frowned upon in the fluff but this cost for your actions is not in any way meaningfully enforced by the rules. so much for 5e and everything costs and all.

[Shemhazai]

Do you think that binding is abusive? Would it be in either hermeticism or shamanism?

It looks like this is leading toward a set of house rules to add dice penalties to most spirit tasks, spirits using edge against the conjurer being the norm, and an incredibly restrictive definition of spirit abuse that once met could be permanently catastrophic to the character.

[RHat]

For such a system to be of any use, it would need to work on the basis of if the spirit type is opposed to the task, not if it is simply not quite in line with the spell type. For example, a combat spirit would likely only be opposed to stuff that falls under Healing. This could tie in nicely to a spirit attitude system, but requiring a roll simply to give the instruction seems off.