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hyzmarca
I can see the magical security measures on aircraft being much more severe than allowed by law on the ground.

Think about it, letting a magician on an airplane is equivilant to letting someone a sealed lead-lined case onboard. They can't prohibit magicians from flying, of course, but they can take extreme security measures to ensure that magicially active passengers don't mind control the pilot into ramming Renraku Arcology or fireball the plane into oblivion from the inside.

I imagine that passangers who are known to be magically active will be required to submit to a mindprobe before boarding to make sure that the character doesn't known any dangerous spells. They might even go so far as the create extreme background counts on international flights.
chevalier_neon
Or they can just "blind" the magician, which is still the best way to do things, and use spirits inside the plane to secure it...
hyzmarca
QUOTE (chevalier_neon @ Oct 17 2005, 10:02 AM)
Or they can just "blind" the magician, which is still the best way to do things, and use spirits inside the plane to secure it...

True, but then would you fly with an airline that forced you to be blindfolded every time? It would have to be less obtrusive and more convient for the sake of commercial viability. Bound spirits would probably work best. They don't have to be paid and they don't havea union, which makes things even beter.

That's a great idea for a campaign there, magical Pinkertons to bust up the new International Union of Security Spirits.
chevalier_neon
On the other hand, I was wondering (yeah, I know, I should be working but... wink.gif ), almost all the flight are orbital (or whatever the name in english)... which can be really dangerous for the magician... So they might put everybody in a kind of artificial sleep for 15 min, aren't they ?
Eyeless Blond
Or you could just, you know, close and lock the door between the cockpit and the cabin. That would pretty much prevent LOS, and they mostly do that now, ever since 9/11.
hyzmarca
QUOTE (Eyeless Blond @ Oct 17 2005, 10:38 AM)
Or you could just, you know, close and lock the door between the cockpit and the cabin. That would pretty much prevent LOS, and they mostly do that now, ever since 9/11.

It would make stealthy attacks difficult. It still wouldn't do much against a Wreck Door spell or worse. It would be a precaution, but not the only one. Magic can be the equiviant of a Panther Assault Cannon in the right hands.
Jaid
QUOTE (hyzmarca)
QUOTE (chevalier_neon @ Oct 17 2005, 10:02 AM)
Or they can just "blind" the magician, which is still the best way to do things, and use spirits inside the plane to secure it...

True, but then would you fly with an airline that forced you to be blindfolded every time? It would have to be less obtrusive and more convient for the sake of commercial viability. Bound spirits would probably work best. They don't have to be paid and they don't havea union, which makes things even beter.

That's a great idea for a campaign there, magical Pinkertons to bust up the new International Union of Security Spirits.

i would personally consider it less invasive to wear a blindfold as compared to, say, letting someone else muck around in my head. i mean, you can just remove a blindfold pretty easy. not so easy to fix your grey matter.

more likely, they would just ward the plane like crazy. if they're really clever, they'll make it a lodge somehow, since there is no limit other than time and a small amount of money in terms of making a ridiculous astral barrier if you make it as a lodge.

anyways, suborbital flights are the standard i think, and i don't believe those go high enough to cause background count. semiballistic, OTOH, goes high enough for that i believe...
Lung Han
QUOTE (Fleinhoy @ Oct 13 2005, 04:47 AM)
Hey fellas, this is my first post here, just though I'd toss in a few words.

By the way, please forgive me if this has been said before, didn't have the patience to read through all four pages.

What is this DnDish obsession with game balance in so many of posts here? What's the fun in an RPG if all races and types of characters are exactly equally strong in every situation?

In my view there should be differences, mages should be powerful, and their powers should freak most people out. Probably enough to make an obvious mage the target of first choice for any opposition with half a tactical brain.

Another point is that all this (the decrease in the force necessary, drain etc) may be done on purpose. Remember that the mana level in the Sixth World is steadily increasing, and that should, logically speaking make magic easier to manipulate and more powerful as time goes by. 

I don't have the 4th ed book yet, but judging from many posts here this seems to be implied by the magic section.

MAYBE someone else answered this question already, but I think it can't be repeated often enough (was that grammatically correct?)

IF the magic using Chars get to powerful, there wouldn't be any point in playing a heavily cybered streestam/Combatmonster anymore because... well, just because It's no fun If I as the Streetsam got to wear the "useless" Marker on my forehead. And besides I can't imagine it being fun if I had to take a second or even third backup char to every gamesession just because every magicuser regardless of character age (= Karma/experience/gametime) just laughs at me and atomizes my a** into tiny little peaces.

So, IF there wouldn't be any point in playing a Streetsam, I guess no one would do that, right? And, well... Shadowrun without Streetsams... I don't know. If I wanted to play that i'd rather Play D&D or something like that.

Lung Han

EDIT: Maybe I exagerated a little bit, but I think you can see my point.
Azralon
Game balance exists out of fairness. Game balance is difficult to achieve because players seek diversity. The more diversity, the more difficult it is to have balance, and therefore the harder it is for a game to be fair.

And if you think D&D is balanced, then hoooo boy have you not played it much. biggrin.gif
Jaid
he is right about it being obsessed with balance though. D&D is very obsessed with being balanced. they just don't always succeed.

besides, no system is unbreakable. not D20, not shadowrun, not GURPS, not world of darkness. nor any of the other systems i am sure is out there. but that doesn't make the system totally unbalanced, just because there are things that can be abused. that's why we have GMs.
Shemhazai
Airports (or any public place for that matter) would not be full of wards for people to walk through. My last character would have become a terrorist if an airport set up a ward so that quickened spells would permanently end. Setting up a ward in public would be a crime. I would think that a ward, even one in your apartment, would need a special permit just like any building.

The rules concerning barriers and sustained spells are weak. A sustained spell is not being cast through the barrier.

At least astrally projecting or dual-natured characters get this:

QUOTE
The character may also bring a number of friends, spirits, active
foci, sustained spells, or other astral forms with him through
the barrier equal to the net hits scored [on a Magic + Charisma Opposed Test]., 4E Core, P. 186.


As for what might be on an airplane, a magically active air marshall is a great idea. (I think I read about it on this forum.) The air marshall would likely have: Detect Enemies, Analyze Truth, Control Thoughts, Increase Reflexes (locked), Decrease Willpower, Manabolt and Heal. A magically active air marshall would likely be very good at counterspelling. This kind of NPC would be highly trained at using pistols and carry a pistol and a taser.
FrankTrollman
As long as we are on this tangent, why would airports do anything about magic at all?

In every real sense, the only thing that keeps planes from being brought down all the time is the general good will of the people who fly on them. The fact is that people in general rarely engage in terrorist activity, and the total number of deaths caused by terrorism just isn't that high. The United States lost more people to highway accidents in September of 2001 than it did to airplanes flying into stuff, so as soon as the question of airport security goes out of the hands of grandstanding politicians who want to show that they are "Tough on TerrorTM" and into the hands of technocratic corporations interested only in the bottom line - those inane precautions are out the fraggin window.

The 9/11 jokers were able to pull off their stunt because before they did it passengers of airplanes were told to just let hijackers have whatever they wanted and wait until fully equipped police could intervene when the plane landed. Well that trick only works once. There haven't even been any attempted hijackings since then, because the current thing that passengers have been told is that if someone hijacks the plane they are dead anyway so they may as well go down fighting. All the security measures are just for show - there's still guns made of ceramic and plastic that can be brought through metal detectors, and of course you can still always bring down planes from the ground.

The fact of the matter is that if a Magician wants to bring down your plane, he's going to invoke the LOS range on Wrecker, and simply tear your plane a new one from the bed of a truck in the middle of Iowa during your flyover. And Renraku knows that, so why would they waste valuable resources putting on some lame show of security whose primary actual effect would be to irritate a section of their clientelle? Magically active people make more money and travel more than any other section of the populace. You'll find a megacorporation spending money on a program which has no real impact except to annoy that section of the population when Hell freezes over and they stop concerning themselves with the acquisition of wealth.

-Frank
Xenith
I'd like to say something about federal standards... but that likely is thrown out the window in that particular day and age.

I image magical security is in place at some air ports.... the ones where you pay extra for the privilage...

Or perhaps they make money off of permiums for letting magical stuff go through. You want to fly with your magical stuff... pay up. smile.gif

I'll generally assume theres light magical security; a mage and watcher spirits with various secuity thats asks for a permit if someone has a spell active and not much beyond that.
hyzmarca
QUOTE (FrankTrollman @ Oct 19 2005, 02:35 AM)
As long as we are on this tangent, why would airports do anything about magic at all?



-Frank

Why would airports do anything about bombs?
While we're at it why not just legalize murder and give everyone free assualt cannons?
After all, very few people commit murder and very few people blow stuff up with assualt cannons.


QUOTE
All the security measures are just for show - there's still guns made of ceramic and plastic that can be brought through metal detectors, and of course you can still always bring down planes from the ground.

Yes, there are. They are called toys. They sometimes squirt water, shoot plastic darts, or launch foam balls. However, most often they do nothing at all.
It is all but impossible to build a working firearm that doesn't use some ferrious metals using modern materials technology. Even titanium guns have steel barrels because titanium simply isn't strong enough to reliably contain the explosive gasses. The plastic gun is an urban myth created by gun controll groups who like glocks so much they they apparent used one as a trepanning tool on themselves.
Even using the Canon Companion gun making rules the guns in Shadowrun don't contain any less steel. You can take fully ceramic construction multiple times, but there is always a possibility to setting off MADs.

QUOTE

The fact of the matter is that if a Magician wants to bring down your plane, he's going to invoke the LOS range on Wrecker, and simply tear your plane a new one from the bed of a truck in the middle of Iowa during your flyover.


The chances of a magician actually having LOS on a plane for three seconds are slim to none. A comercial airplane would be miles away and moving at very near the speed of sound. Even if the magician can get LOS, he or she has to overcome object resistance. A magician taking down a plane in flight from the ground is as likely as a sammie hoting down a plane with an assualt rifle.
A dragon can attack a plane. A Great Dragon can match a plane's altitude and velocity, however. Most metahuman magician's can't, albino satyr legged Night One Horse shamen notwithstanding.

QUOTE

Magically active people make more money and travel more than any other section of the populace. You'll find a megacorporation spending money on a program which has no real impact except to annoy that section of the population when Hell freezes over and they stop concerning themselves with the acquisition of wealth.


Magically active people fly. This includes magically active criminals. As a general rule, one wants to capture the criminals while making the inconvience for others as minimal as possible. Magically active people who have all of their permits will just have to produce them and they're a-ok. Magically active people with illegal spells, especially illegal combat spells, will be detained.
Of course, this doesn't apply to chartered flights and flights from private airfields, only public commercial flights. As a result, there would be geat business for private pilots who are willing to ferry Shadowrunners.

QUOTE (Shemhazai)
Airports (or any public place for that matter) would not be full of wards for people to walk through. My last character would have become a terrorist if an airport set up a ward so that quickened spells would permanently end. Setting up a ward in public would be a crime. I would think that a ward, even one in your apartment, would need a special permit just like any building.


How would your character have become a terrorist? Did he have spells that prevented him from blowing up?

Setting up a ward in a place that you do not own would certainly be a crime. However, it would certainly not be a crime to ward something that you own, even if it is publicly accessable. Publicly accessable buildings with Wards would probably be required to post signs to this effect. Many would probably label their wards with dual-natured ink just so that blind and projecting magicians can read them.

Courthouses and airports would probably have wards just as they have metal detectors today. They would simply have a security checkpoint in front of the ward so that people can be given permission to pass through it.

Airfields would be warded to prevent incursions from spirits and dual-natured critters as well as to prevent casting at planes that are taking off or landing, which is when they are most vulnerable. However, anyone with legal quickened or sustained spells and any dual natured being with a legitimate reason to be there would be given permission to pass through the ward by a security mage.

News at 11, a pack of ravenous ghouls climb the fence at JFK International airport and sneak onto a plane. After the plane took off they made themselves know and prceded to butcher and eat the passengers and crew, leaving only the pilot so that he could land the plane. When interviewed, one of the perfertrators said "Like sardines in can. Sardines yummy. "
Rotbart van Dainig
QUOTE (hyzmarca)
Even using the Canon Companion gun making rules the guns in Shadowrun don't contain any less steel. You can take fully ceramic construction multiple times, but there is always a possibility to setting off MADs.

Sorry, but a Level 3, the weapon was completly undetectable by MAD as per CC - same for the Raecor Sting in SR4.

Not that it matters very much anymore, since Cyber Scanners find normal weapons, too.
Fleinhoy
I never meant to say that DnD is actually balanced; their obsession with that very issue normally boils down to powering up everyone and everything a bit at the time and the result is general imbalance.

This is so silly that it works against its intended effect and simply encourages players to look for loopholes, and this again leads to imbalance due to power gaming.

When I play any roleplaying game I don't play the character in order to make them as powerful as possible (but of course the increase in overall ability is entertaining in its own way) I create the character for the personality and the enjoyment of placing myself into a different mindset than the one I normally occupy. That is something the DnD system, and many of its players as well, seem to have lost sight of (if they ever had sight of it in the first place) in favour of the aforementioned balance and the general two dimensional hack-slash-n-toast. Therefore my original comparison.

As for the scenario with the street sam and the mage: this would generally depend so much on so many variables that it can't really be used. How fast is the mage, and the sam? Who acts first and how often? How are the opponents positioned? can they be taken with an area effect, or one by one? and the characters? can the bad guys do the same to them? How is the visibility/lines of sight?

I could go on, but I guess you get the picture.
Demosthenes
QUOTE (hyzmarca)
As long as The chances of a magician actually having LOS on a plane for three seconds are slim to none. A comercial airplane would be miles away and moving at very near the speed of sound.

Just a nitpick, but a commercial aircraft at high altitude moving at near the speed of sound would be within LOS for a distant subject for longer than it would be for a nearby subject...(funky stuff with angular velocity, y'know...)
You know...look up at the sky next time you hear a plane fly over, and see how long you can keep your eyes fixed on it.

On the other point of airports/airlines and magicians, I think the most likely solution would be fairly simple - everyone gets assensed before they go through the metal dectectors (remember that interesting camera that turns up in SOTA 2064?). If you have the right credentials, you're golden (though you might have to pay a higher rate for the flight or for travel insurance...).
If you don't have the right credentials/ID and they twig you're a magician...well that won't fly. And neither will you.

I'd imagine that corp bigwigs get preferential treatment when flying as always - whether they're magicians or not. But then, Company Men can probably find ways to get firearms aboard planes one way or the other...
Lung Han
QUOTE (Azralon @ Oct 18 2005, 03:32 PM)
Game balance exists out of fairness.  Game balance is difficult to achieve because players seek diversity.  The more diversity, the more difficult it is to have balance, and therefore the harder it is for a game to be fair.

And if you think D&D is balanced, then hoooo boy have you not played it much.  biggrin.gif


Ok, in basis thats what I wanted to say, I'm just not good with words.

As for the D&D and balanced part, I've played a lot of D&D and I never said it is balanced. It's just, you know If its of no use to use cyberware because it's inferior to... well, anything else, I could just as well play D&D there cyberware doesn't exist, At least not in the common sense of word.
littlesean
I think there may be a little confusion over cost effectiveness and general effectiveness. With cost effectiveness, the question is "Do I make more money than I lose by doing this?" But with general effectiveness the questions is simply "Does this work?"

In the "War on Drugs" the answers are yes and no respectively. The politicians, in supporting a tough on drugs position, benefit from being reelected. For them it is cost effective to continue the war. But does it work? Hell no.

Now looking at airport security in the awakened world at public terminals, not private or charter, as they will write whatever rules they feel best fits. Is it still cost effective for politicians to institute restrictive laws on boarding for public flights? Only if the government is providing the security. If it were requiring the airlines or airports to provide the levels of astral security mentioned above, the airlines and airports would go bankrupt annually. The unions for pilots, air traffic control, and aircraft maintenance would create such an uproar that it would be political suicide to support such measures. Thus it no longer becomes cost effective for the politicians to support those measures if they want to keep their jobs.

Now for effectiveness, it all depends on what level of effectiveness you are looking for. You WILL get what you pay for. Minimum wage sec guards using equipment they are pooly trained on and is not that reliable in the first place would be cheap, and would allow the airlines to say that they are doing something, simply finding a scapegoat (one of those minimum wage sec guard shmucks) every time something goes wrong. But a bad record would decrease revenues as consumer confidence drops. The tradeoff would be more money spent on security in hopes that it would reduce the incidence of security breaches.

The best place to put the money is in forensics and PR. When you let the world know that messing with this specific airline means that you will be found and flat out executed, and any organization you were working for will be hit repeatedly by deniable assets until it is defunct can be the more effective deterrent. Especially the second part. Not just you, but your bosses, too. This would also help against the mage lying on his back in a pickup in Ohio with binoculars or a good telescope, as spell signature forensics can be traced if you are good enough.

These are just my opinions though, having worked in both aviation and security, I think that they are reasonably well founded, but you may not.
Azralon
QUOTE (hyzmarca)
albino satyr legged Night One Horse shamen

Heh.
Shemhazai
QUOTE
How would your character have become a terrorist? Did he have spells that prevented him from blowing up?


He would have been so upset that he would have gone out of his way to harm the airline that did such a foolish thing as to place a magical ward where people walk.

QUOTE
However, it would certainly not be a crime to ward something that you own, even if it is publicly accessable.


Zoning regulations often require a permit to build even a tool shed. In Shadowrun you need a permit to even cast health spells. Don't you think magically active law enforcement needs to know where wards are? They could be astrally chasing something and then BAM -- WTF??? Who put this here?

QUOTE
Courthouses and airports would probably have wards just as they have metal detectors today.


Wards would be around places where people are not supposed to be. A judge's chambers would very likely be warded, and there would be obvious signs at the door. The public areas of the courthouse would have magical security such as assensing and sustained Detect Magic spells. Of course there are cases where there would be wards in public, and there would be magicians there that could grant access, as you said. My point was that they would not be scattered about in a liberal fashion. They would be used when necessary and made obvious to the public.
Kagetenshi
Considering that it's illegal today to obstruct the external view into a motor vehicle, I second the challenge to the assertion that warding one's own property is necessarily legal without a permit.

~J
RunnerPaul
QUOTE (Kagetenshi)
Considering that it's illegal today to obstruct the external view into a motor vehicle

The way that vehicles have been described by the various sourcebooks, while it may be illegal today, sometime between now and 2050, that law has been repealed.
Kagetenshi
That's true, but there is precedent for laws requiring one's privacy to be easy to violate in some circumstances.

~J
Fleinhoy
In the Corporate controlled environment of 2050++ a lot of the laws we know today most likely still exist, if for no other reason that no-one has gotten around to repeal them yet, but I seriously doubt whether they are very stringently followed and upheld.

In this dystopian view of the future those in power have to worry even less about breaking the law than they do today. They are effectively above it unless they for some reason lose the protection and well-wishes of their leaders.

The forces of law enforcement on the other hand are stretched beyond capacity and tend to go for easy targets in any case. Why bother about that vehicle with shaded windows when there's possibly a bloke with a gun or someone twice their sice and four times their weight in there. Not to mention the world of trouble they's get if they stopped one of the aforementioned people set above the law.
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