 Magic as madness, Some idea from good old SR1... |
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 Apr 7 2005, 04:03 PM
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#1
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Target  Group: Members Posts: 17 Joined: 7-April 05 Member No.: 7,302  |
With all those Rockster, Cityspeak etc threads I remembered an old idea of SR1. In the old Grimoire there was an rather interesting definition of magic which later wasn't used again. I'll just quote:
I think that idea is rather fascinating, and it could be interesting to bring it back with SR4. |
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Apr 8 2005, 03:19 AM
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#2
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 775 Joined: 31-March 05 From: florida Member No.: 7,273 |
you have to realize that this is a hermetics definition of shamanism.....its this way simply because shamanism doesnt fit into the hermetics rule bound world, either that or a defintion on an aspected mage.....either way i take it as poisoned fruit
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Apr 8 2005, 05:05 AM
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#3
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Target Group: Members Posts: 19 Joined: 19-February 05 Member No.: 7,098 |
hermetisicm is calculated madness
awakened people just get rewarded with power for being insane - the rest of us get nothing but scared relatives and dwindling money and a straight jacket that makes you itch on the back of your neck where you can't scratch it AT ALL SO YOU HAVE TO RUB UP AGAISNT THOSE DAMN PADDED WALLS tHaT MakE a SObbiNG SOUND all NIGhT lONG THAT SOUnD JuST LIkE ThE SoBS FROM tHE OH SHUT UP ALREADY YOU WHINING BABY! Just wait till he falls asleep then you can slip out into the night and be free, free, FREE! |
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Apr 8 2005, 05:13 AM
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#4
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Grumpy Old Ork Decker Group: Admin Posts: 3,794 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Orwell, Ohio Member No.: 50 |
Shadowrun's books have always been, to some degree, iffy on exactly what is and isn't true due to the "in Character" nature of the early books.
This was kinda nifty, once upon a time, as it gives plain rule books some flavor, but... It leads to issues as well. A prime example I like to give is in one of the Tourney's a few years back, during round 1, I had a player who ended up with the last of our pregen characters, looked it over, and was going to leave. He refused to play the charcater, and was convinced that we were planning to screw over the group. WHen asked why, it was because one character had a Synthacardium (IIRC). He was convinced that this character wouldn't survive the tournament because of that Bioware. In Shadowtech, there was a post that said something to the effect of "Yeah, they're great until your heart explodes." His GM was pretty ruthless with this, despite the fact that there were no rules for Bioware failure anywhere. As far as he was concerned, they would burst on a regular basis, and this were useless and only taken by people with a death wish. <shrug> That's a tad extreme, but I've seen this sort of thing on a smaller level more than a few times. Folks that won't use certain guns cause they're "prone to breaking down" and the like. It's all shadowfluff designed to help enhance the world, and it does... But it can also add serious confusion unless there are rules to back up the half baked claims. Magic is in the same boat... I think it's better to present, through the rulebooks, just the "facts". It might be interesting to add a "RPing these characters" section or something, but whether that's really needed, warrented, or economical is all up for debate. Much better to present different viewpoints in the pure fiction, or in the "In Character" sourcebooks that can concentrate on fluff. prevents confusion. Bull |
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| Guest_Crimsondude 2.0_* |
Apr 8 2005, 03:32 PM
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#5
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Guests |
Oh, for the love of god... I can't take it anymore.
Magic as Madness is in MitS on page 27. |
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Apr 8 2005, 04:09 PM
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#6
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Grumpy Old Ork Decker Group: Admin Posts: 3,794 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Orwell, Ohio Member No.: 50 |
What, you exect people to actually look in the book before arguing??
But then... Then... Some of their points might be invalidated!! ;) This is why I'm slowly convincing Rob to make SR4 into SRd20. :] If everyone has cancer, well... After a while, no more arguing! <grin> Bull |
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Apr 8 2005, 04:13 PM
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#7
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Manus Celer Dei Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 17,006 Joined: 30-December 02 From: Boston Member No.: 3,802 |
You do realize that Shamans are just wrong, right? ~J, hermetic of the snarky way |
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Apr 8 2005, 05:24 PM
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#8
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 778 Joined: 6-April 05 Member No.: 7,298 |
Magic as madness never made sense to me. If it's so carefully controlled and predictable ("My shaman is casting a force 5 powerbolt"), and it lasts such a brief time (maybe half a second), what's the difference between saying that's madness and saying that moving is madness (that uses your brain in a way that it's not used when you're still!) or sneezing is madness or (etc.).
If they actually implemented it as madness, with highly variable outcomes (including you not really even knowing what the effect was) and various psychological traumas that lead to permanent psychoses and such, rather than the more mundane exhaustion of drain, then okay, madness it is. But that doesn't make for a very fun game since it tends to ruin your magical characters after a few spells by making them crazier than a loon. It's just Sixth World media hype, I think. You know, UFO baby channels Elvis, Trolls: the devil reborn?, Magic Is Madness!, etc. etc.. Good for sensations and headlines. Not a useful way to explain things. |
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Apr 8 2005, 05:50 PM
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#9
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 527 Joined: 26-February 02 Member No.: 1,118 |
Trolls aren't the devil reborn?
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Apr 8 2005, 06:07 PM
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#10
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Target Group: Members Posts: 17 Joined: 7-April 05 Member No.: 7,302 |
Yes, and it is rather hidden. I think that definition should get into the BBB. It would be one or two sentences - small enough to get it into the introducing fluff text of the magic section.
We've tried it with a Shadowrun game on the base of Interlock rules. Drain lowered temporarily your Humanity, and with low Humanity you began to experience something similar to cyberpsychosis(megalomania, loss of reality and such things). With some time you regenerated your humanity, and your psychosis went off. It worked pretty well, and it could be done in SR rules as well. For example you could give for every box of drain damage 1 point in a mental handicap, or something like that. With healing the damage you lose that handicap again. |
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Apr 8 2005, 06:19 PM
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#11
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The King In Yellow Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 6,922 Joined: 26-February 05 From: JWD Member No.: 7,121 |
That'd be a rather ridiculously demanding system ... if every box of drain meant picking one psychological flaw. Even if you'd choose them at chargen and never change them, it'd still be quite demanding to play.
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Apr 8 2005, 06:22 PM
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#12
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 778 Joined: 6-April 05 Member No.: 7,298 |
I've done similar things in the AD&D setting, but that's a huge change in the way magic works from a gaming standpoint, and a major revision of the SR universe setting. Between the novels and sourcebooks and adventures and so on, magic isn't this super-ultra-weird foreign form upon whose mindless insanity mortal souls break like glass ornaments shaken from a Christmas tree.
That might be fun, but that's not SR. Saying "what you do is madness" is a nice jab by Hermetics at shamen, but I wouldn't take it too literally if you want to stay in character with almost all the published SR materials. Psions say that magic isn't real. Should we put that as an explanation, too? I'm happy to have lots of explanations floating around; people can take the one they like the best. This seems to be a particularly bad choice for being the explanation, however, if people feel there needs to be one canonical explanation. (Note: MitS does have a short section on "madness" as an unusual magical tradition on p.27, and this is supposed to be related to twisted way paths. But the point is that these are aberrant uses/causes of magic, not typical ones.) |
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Apr 8 2005, 06:27 PM
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#13
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Manus Celer Dei Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 17,006 Joined: 30-December 02 From: Boston Member No.: 3,802 |
On that topic, I'd like to see a shift away from the idea that belief shapes magic. It probably won't happen, but it'd be nice.
~J |
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Apr 8 2005, 06:39 PM
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#14
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 778 Joined: 6-April 05 Member No.: 7,298 |
I don't see that anything has happened in the sixth world that would really demonstrate it one way or the other. So "belief shapes magic" seems fine as an IC explanation, and "no it doesn't" seems fine too. And OOC--well, really, do you think your characters are going to change beliefs on a wide enough scale to make a difference?
Or if you mean personal belief--well, it kind of has to to some extent, doesn't it, or else how would people end up with the right magical tradition? ("Go AWAY you stupid Bear totem, I don't believe in you. I'm studying how to summon elementals!") |
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Apr 8 2005, 06:43 PM
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#15
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Target Group: Members Posts: 17 Joined: 7-April 05 Member No.: 7,302 |
It wouldn't be a major revision... It would only put the rules closer to the background. Or, better said, it would bring back an old background element that seemed to be vanished since SR2.
I see also quite a difference between "One definition of magic is the ability to go mad in a very specific way for a limited time" and "foreign form upon whose mindless insanity mortal souls break". Wielding magic should do something with your mind, but it shouldn't regurlarly go so far that it puts you insane like meeting Great Cthulhu. That "1 box = 1 point flaw"-thing is rather harsh, but it was just an quick idea to give something at hand. You could as well use another relation, or a new system which works more on the base of role-playing than hard rules(like CP2020 cyberpsychosis or V:tM humanity, for example). |
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Apr 8 2005, 06:43 PM
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#16
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 288 Joined: 3-December 03 From: Boston, Mass Member No.: 5,874 |
I dunno I always sort of thought both the Shamanic and Hermetic form of magic was sort of fluff. Shamans create spell design using pictures, drawings, and other such stuff. I never understood how this "picture" could give you a formula for a spell? The same goes true for Hermetics. They have complex formula's and other such stuff and at the end they get a spell like solving a different differential calculus equation? Magic is magic. It's made up, it doesn't exsist. It's only a visual for "stuff" that happens behind the scenes. There are wiccians who would disgree with me but really it's magic it's made up. It doesn't have to make sense really. Shadowrun is a game, it's fun, you roll dice and roleplay and have fun. That's the important thing. Knowing how a mage or shaman casts a spell is irrelevant because magic isn't real so any paradigm you come up with is purely made up as well. Honestly I don't want magic to make sense. If we totally understand it like say physics or a science where's the "magic" in the magic. I always thought magic was a form of psychic awarness. Some sort of stuff in a higher plane of exsistence that awakened folks can channel. It's just sort of there. Why or who they do it isn't really relevant to having fun. I like magic being sort of vauge. Granted having rules for what magic can and can't do is important I like to just have fun. Use your imagination and simply don't worry about it because in the end it's all just fluff like Bull said. No matter how you explain magic it's still fun. And any explanation is still just fluff. I think Maddness is sort of an interesting take on the whole thing but in the end it's fluff. A marshmellow peep bunny by any other name is a marshmellow peep bunny.
Execept when you microwave them......That's a Turn to Goo spell if I ever saw one. |
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Apr 8 2005, 07:18 PM
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#17
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Immortal Elf Group: Members Posts: 11,410 Joined: 1-October 03 From: Pittsburgh Member No.: 5,670 |
i think magic-as-madness is an interesting option. but i don't think it should be applied to all characters. likewise, i think that "magic is shaped by belief" is an interesting option, but it shouldn't be a hard-and-fast rule. ideally, i want to be able to do a test, in-game, of whether or or not belief affects magic, and prove beyond all shadow of a doubt that it does not--fifty percent of the time. the other fifty percent, it should prove beyond all shadow of a doubt that belief does affect magic.
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Apr 8 2005, 07:28 PM
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#18
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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 |
I'm not sure what you mean, Are you saying you want a Saving Throw to disbelieve? |
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Apr 8 2005, 07:30 PM
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#19
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 668 Joined: 15-February 05 From: Ontario, Canada Member No.: 7,086 |
Magic and psychic awareness is not proven fiction. It is likewise not restricted to Wiccans -- it's universal to every religion in the modern world that I am aware of -- including Christianity. Specifically, the Catholic church, which practices transmutation (transformative magic), healing rituals and exorcism. Islam does not practice magic, but acknowledges the existance of it -- by making it a religious crime to practice it. It's your opinion that magic does not exist, much like whether or not you believe in God is your opinion. That being said -- I rather LIKE the descriptions of shamans and hermetics. They're both actual styles of magic that are used present day -- some practitioners are ceremonial, using complex formulai of symbolism and corrospondense, others its a form of intuitive relationship internal to the person. |
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Apr 8 2005, 07:32 PM
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#20
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Chrome to the Core Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 3,152 Joined: 14-October 03 From: ::1 Member No.: 5,715 |
Take one point of damage! |
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Apr 8 2005, 07:37 PM
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#21
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 778 Joined: 6-April 05 Member No.: 7,298 |
Right. And Daniel Howling Coyote, wielder of some of the most potent magic the Sixth World has seen, had what happen to his sanity?
Right. My point is that if you capture "madness" in such a precise, distilled form, there's no point calling it madness any more. You try to get your brain to do something that you want, it does it, and then you're back to how you were before. Sounds pretty un-mad to me.
It's hard to deal with things that don't make sense. There's a difference between something not making sense and not knowing how it works. If you try to deal with something that fundamentally doesn't make sense, and you combine it with anything else, that won't make sense either, typically. Suddenly, you find yourself doubting the existence of self and knowledge. Not too healthy. If you try to deal with something you don't understand, then you just have to remember not to trust your predictions too much when you're dealing with that thing. No big deal. Having magic unexplained is fine. Having magic inherently nonsensical is not, though, because you may come up with explanations like, "Magic is the desire of the living given form and power"--and then you destroy all life that has desires and find that there is still magic. That makes the original explanation pretty powerless, doesn't it? One way out is to say, "Well, that was the right explanation, but it doesn't make sense!" But the better way is to say, "I guess that was the wrong explanation!" If you want solid explanations in the game, the trick is that the consequences of those explanations should hold. For example, if mana has something to do with life, then absence or destruction of life should have an effect on it, and in SR3 it does. That's something that makes sense, is (slightly) explained, and adds to the flavor of the game world. So I think that explanations can be positive, if they're thought through before hand and are consistent. If you're not going to check them for consistency with the rest of the game world, then it's fluff, and not particularly useful fluff at that (aside from giving an insight into the pop culture/psychology of 2070). |
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Apr 8 2005, 07:37 PM
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#22
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Immortal Elf Group: Members Posts: 11,410 Joined: 1-October 03 From: Pittsburgh Member No.: 5,670 |
no, i'm saying that things like "magic is shaped by belief" should never be concretely, 100%, definitely for-sure. i think that sometimes, belief should shape magic, and that other times it should not, and that there should be no way to reliably tell which will apply at any given time. i think the game would be boring if any one system of magic could be proven "wrong". i think that, in-game, those who say magic is shaped by belief should have just as much evidence to back up that claim as those who say it doesn't. |
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Apr 8 2005, 07:38 PM
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#23
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Manus Celer Dei Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 17,006 Joined: 30-December 02 From: Boston Member No.: 3,802 |
Not that I'm arguing for insanimagic, but he clearly went cracked enough in the head to engage in the Great Ghost Dance. ~J |
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Apr 8 2005, 07:45 PM
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#24
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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 |
What's the alternative to 'Belief shapes Magic'? Hermetics believe a certain thing, and their magic works the way they believe it should. Shamans believe a another thing, and their magic works the way they believe it should. As do Houngans, Psionics, etc. If belief doesn't shape magic, what does? |
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Apr 8 2005, 07:52 PM
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#25
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Freelance Elf Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 7,324 Joined: 30-September 04 From: Texas Member No.: 6,714 |
Magic shapes itself. Your beleif in it is only your way of harnessing that potential (and is, in some ways, actually a limit on magical power, such as with Geasa, rather than an expander of it). I think magic is more than is capable of being really understood with any human beleif system (and certainly more than an ancient, organized, religion can handle and properly teach).
But, hey. That's just me. |
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