If there are otaku, where are the miggers, Sounding board for new adept type Options

[Botch]

One of my players recently got her character geeked and needs a new runner. She came up with a new concept after a quick perusal of some internet resources. During her research she came across the following spell - VCR emulation.

VCR Emulation

Now this is clearly a custom spell and not canon, but it raised an interesting question. If there are magical deckers (Otaku), where are the magical riggers? Every other aspect of magic in SR apears to come in pairs:-

Spirits/Elementals
Nature&Man spirits/Insect Spirits
Toxic/Non-Toxic
Mages/Adepts
Hermetics/Shamans
Astral Plane/Matrix

If the VCR emulation is deemed a permissible spell how would it be implemented as an Adept ability? We have compared similar items in terms of game balance cost, these were Increased Reflexes and VCR cyberware, both of which have the same essence cost to install. So if we took the same powerpoint cost for Increased Reflexes and used it for the new power VCR Emulation it would cost

2.00 - Level 1 emulation
3.00 - Level 2 emulation
5.00 - Level 3 emulation

As to the general rules concerning this new type of adept, we were thinking of initial play-testing using the Adept of the Magician's Way archetype switching the Magic Point power for VCR emulation power.

Do any of you have some CONSTRUCTIVE CRITISM, better ideas or just a decent name? Migger (Magical Rigger) is starting to get on my tits.

[Bigity]

I'd pick a different term to call it, first off.

But, assuming that Otaku are magical beings of any sort is quite a stretch, so I'm not sure the basis for the idea is even there.

Seeing how, by canon, things like the matrix and technology in general do not mesh well with magic, my feeling is that this kind of thing shouldn't be allowed.

If you want to be a rigger, play one. If you want magic, play a magician. If you want to be able to use magic, and drive well, be an adept with some power points dropped into improved skills.

[Botch]

The interest we have in it is how the concept is trying to make magic and technology meet in the middle. Yes, tech and magic don't integrate, but this proposition doesn't either. It is using magic to alter the body to connect to tech.

From memory (I don't have Otaku rules to hand), otaku have to spend a priority pick on magic ability (although no non-matrix effects) and in IC they undergo "Deep Resonance" that is akin to meeting a totem.

Finally almost all adept powers have a cyber counterpart, why not push it a bit further? After all an adept's powers are based on their affinity with a type of behaviour pattern, why do all rev-heads have to be mundane?

[Demonseed Elite]

Don't go so far as to conclude otaku are magical. The investment, point-wise, in making an otaku has more to do with mechanical balance than with magical ability. Otaku are "supernatural", in that they are above the norm, but they aren't necessarily magical. And while technoshaman otaku certainly see the Deep Resonance experience as being much like meeting a totem, cyberadept otaku do not.

The mystery of exactly what makes someone an otaku is likely not going to be answered anytime soon.

[Botch]

[tjn]

[Demonseed Elite]

But despite the analogous terms in the rule books, just as strong an argument can be made as to why otaku are not magical, because they don't display any evidence of being magical in the SR world.

In essence, there are those who think they are, and those who think they are not, and I doubt you're going to see a clear-cut answer either way.

[Bigity]

My feeling is, that if some kind of magic/tech integration was going to happen to make magical riggers, it would involve advanced magics, similiar to the rituals used for cybermancy. A way to use magic to force the body, or at least the brain, into a more "vehicle-like" state.

[Botch]

[Bigity]

Not so magical when you recall the Program Carriers of SR1. They allowed Matrix access with just a datajack. Wasn't magical either.

[GunnerJ]

I once made a custom adept power for a "mental adept" path called Vahicle Rapport:

Veichle Rapport

Cost: 1
Description: The adept has an innate ability to operate vehichles and his/her driving/piloting ability rivals that of many riggers.
Effects: Each level provides +1 to reaction and +1 to initiative while driving a vehichle, and each level beyond one costs double the preceding. The adept with this power has a control pool equal to half his/her magic plus the level of Vehicle Rapport. The adept must be physically driving the vehichle for this bonus to apply. The bonuses provided by Vehichle Rapport do not stack with any other reaction enhancements, including those from a VCR. Any vehichle test modifier that uses the rating of a VCR also uses the level of Vehichle Rapport, and adepts with Vehichle Rapport get a +1 bonus to their manuver score per level. In addition, each level of Vehichle Rapport adds one to a "Rapport Tally," which refreshes as the karma pool does. Rapport Tally points can be used to re-roll the results of a stress test at a rate of one point per re-roll, or it can lower the TN for a stress test, at a rate of -1 for every two points, to a minimum of 2.

[Botch]

[Botch]

Nice idea there GunnerJ, but that is just a good driver power with lots of additional sub-clauses not a rigger substitute.

[Herald of Verjig...]

An AI can make an otaku out of any random metahuman. By all accounts, totems find magically able humans to greet (or the human calls to the totem, but something like that).

Deus had plenty of magically active banded to study magic. There is no evidence that it managed to create a single mage where magic did not previously exist. This indicates that magic is significantly unlike the neurological re-write that creates otaku.

Otaku can SURGE and gain simple magical ability. This SURGE is explicitly forbidden to already magical characters. I don't remember what happens when an AI overwrites a mage into an otaku.

As for the magical appearance of otaku, 99% of humans are non-magical (higher among deckers). Humans often fear what is beyond them, so 99% of humans are likely to fear magic. If you wanted to make an army in a setting where you can define the appearance of reality, you would get added benefit by making them appear to be magical to the scared mundane outsiders (deckers).

[Demonseed Elite]

[Cochise]

[prettz]

Personally I don't think it is a good idea to create a magical rigger (or at least an obvious magical rigger) at this point because it doesn't seem that technology has advanced far for a good fusion between magical and technology.

It would probably be easier to use the otaku as a base to create a new kind of rigger. Look at the otaku as see the how they are like deckers and different, they use that as a template to create this new type of rigger. While I don't like the idea of a magical rigger I do think that the idea of a otaku version of a rigger is interesting provided it has an equally interesting story of its existence.

Either way the name should change. Perhaps name it puppet master or something similar, but translate it into a different language (german perhaps, why I don't know).

[Ancient History]

FOr those adepts who want to be riggers, I suggest forgoing the invasive VCR surgery and instead investing in a rigger protocol emulation module and a high-rating rigger control emulation utility, in a stripped-down bare-bones deck. Much cheaper and almost as efficient.

As for otaku, it is a given that mechanics-wise they are at least a parallel development to magicians, but that's as far as you can logically go.

[Botch]

[Demonseed Elite]

[Botch]

[Kagetenshi]

[Botch]

[Wireknight]

When something in one's mind snaps, and one decides that Otaku are some form of paranormal expression, rather than the result of an ASIST-driven re-encoding of human neural pathways and neurochemistry, does one immediately learn to disregard the fact that Otaku abilities are in no way impacted by the character's Essence and Bio Index ratings, and, in fact, it is very beneficial for Otaku to invest in augmentations, both to boost their mental attributes/hacking pool, and to compensate for their overall poor physical attributes?

I mean, seriously, no matter what type of magic you're practicing, or if you're a paranormal animal, Essence correlates very directly with degree of(at least initial) magic rating, potency of paranormal powers, number of power points, astral survival time, etc, etc...

Given that, I don't see how Otaku can be perceived as being a magical expression, and feel the need to interject the aforementioned every time someone suggests they are magical.

[Demonseed Elite]