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Rifleman
This one completely blindsided me, so I need some advice on this one.

We've decided that it obviously has more in common with the shaman style of play than the mage, and we have decided that it has a shamanic mask of sorts in the form of music that seems to play in the background when the mask is manifest.

Charisma is the main stat (for obvious reasons,) and it works off of the 'music of the spheres', the drain is caused by them working their 'music' in this grand celestial symphony.

Spirits is where we broke down. We felt that the spirits were based upon 'the five natures of music' but we could not agree as to what spirit went with what magical association with what type of music. Now, I could pull rank as GM, but I'm not so sure myself.

Here is what we were looking at:
My Opinion
Classic/Blues:-------Healing
Rock:----------------Detection
Alternative:---------Illusion
Punk:----------------Combat
Rap:-----------------Manipulation


The Player's Opinion
Classic:-------------Healing
Rock/Punk:---------Detection
Rap/Scat:-----------Combat
Blues:---------------Manipulation
Pop:-----------------Illusion

We didn't even get to the spirit types. Feel free to post your own opinions/thoughts.
PlatonicPimp
Charisma is obvious. Of course, I'd say that as a rocker mage, he'd have to stick within things that could be considered rock and roll, as opposed to all musical stylings. Because even a connoseur tries to keep some consistencey on his mix tapes.

Combat --- Earth spirits --- Heavy metal
Detection --- Spirits of man --- Protest music/Folk music (cause it's about spreading the truth)
Healing --- Fire spirits --- classic rock. (That old time rock and roll, it just soothes the soul.)
Illusion --- Water spirits --- Synthisyser (Cause it ain't the real deal)
Manipulation --- Air Spirits --- Pop. (Cause pop music manipulates the minds of young listeners.)
Kyoto Kid
Bards in the 6th world.....

I like the concept. I'll have to work a bit with this myself & get back to you.

(BTW, I still have my old copy of Shadowbeat too).
Rifleman
I didn't think to call it a bard! (And here we were wondering what to call it, lol.)
littlesean
If you can find a copy, check out "Gossamer Ax" by Gael Baudino. It really gives a good feel for a rock mage, even though the setting is 20th century.
Azralon
Ew. Bards. *shudder*
snowRaven
QUOTE (PlatonicPimp)
Combat --- Earth spirits --- Heavy metal
Detection --- Spirits of man --- Protest music/Folk music (cause it's about spreading the truth)
Healing --- Fire spirits --- classic rock. (That old time rock and roll, it just soothes the soul.)
Illusion --- Water spirits --- Synthisyser (Cause it ain't the real deal)
Manipulation --- Air Spirits --- Pop. (Cause pop music manipulates the minds of young listeners.)

Not bad.

I propose the following:

Combat / Fire Spirits / Rock and Punk
Detection / Air Spirits / Classical music
Health / Earth Spirits / Blues, country and gospel
Illusion / Water Spirits / Synth and computer-generated music
Manipulation / Spirits of Man / Pop music and Rap

...though I'm not completely certain...the three categories are abit difficult to match up, I think. Possibly switch places on Water spirits and Spirits of Man...
NightmareX
Don't forget Dark Angel (not exactly a rocker mage, but definitely magic)

Anyways, props to PlatonicPimp and Snowraven, but here's my version:

Combat spells - Fire spirits (rock, punk, and all things heavy metal)
Detection spells - Earth spirits (hip hop, rap, r&b)
Healing spells - Water spirits (classical, the blues)
Illusion spells - Air spirits (alternative, pop)
Manipulation spells - Spirits of Man (industrial, techno)
snowRaven
I was considering your set up for manipulation, but I couldn't really fit rap into detection and be comfortable with it...
FrankTrollman
Wouldn't a Rocker Mage just play Rock? Sure, the different spirit types could come out of different types of Rock, but it's all going to be Rock. Otherwise it's not a Rocker Mage, it's a Music Man.

So while it's all very well and good to play Thrash Riffs when casting Combat Spells, Rythm Guitar when casting Detection Spells, and subtle chord progressions when casting Manipulation spells, it's all going to be Rock. Similarly, the spirits aren't going to pop out of the woodwork representing non-rock musical genres, they are going to represent different facets of ROCK.

So you get five spirit types. All of those spirit types represent Rock, they all rock and roll all night and party every day. All of them. You'd probably call them things like "Amplifier Spirits" and "Spirits of Listeners", and they'd in turn probably have no elemental feel to them at all. It's all about the music, and it's only Rock and Roll. But I like it.

My suggestions would be:

Air - Illusion (Spirits of Sound, "Amplifier Spirits")
Ancestor - Health (Spirits of Roots, "Classic Spirits")
Beast - Combat (Spirits of Dance, "Pit Spirits")
Man - Detection (Spirits of Listening, "Audience Spirits")
Worker - Manipulation (Spirits of Support, "Roadie Spirits")

All Rock, All the time.

-Frank
Rifleman
Actually his idea was a 'Music Mage' , just aspected towards Rock. We decided a renamed Mentor would fit that bill, but first we had to go through everything else.

[Edit: That, and as the player just told me upon examination of your suggestion, "It's about the music."]
hyzmarca
QUOTE (FrankTrollman @ Oct 20 2005, 06:15 AM)
Wouldn't a Rocker Mage just play Rock? Sure, the different spirit types could come out of different types of Rock, but it's all going to be Rock. Otherwise it's not a Rocker Mage, it's a Music Man.

Well, Rock is a rather amorphous genre that incorporates many different elements from many different genres and that includes many sub-genres. In reality, one could relate practically ever genre of music to rock in some way or another.

ELO is a great example of this as their music seamlessly incorporates what is traditionally considered "classical" with rock.

Personally, I would avoid the genre distinctions and instead go with the emotional themes of the music.

For example, a combat spell could be associated with songs about violence, no matter the genre. Violent gangster rap would work, but so would Iron Man or a violent folk song.

For illusion, songs about altered perceptions, such as Take a Walk on the Wild Side.
snowRaven
QUOTE (hyzmarca)
For illusion, songs about altered perceptons, such as Take a Walk on the Wild Side.

of course!!! Illusion spells are linked to Psychedelic music!!!
yesman
wow. great minds think alike....

http://www.smarmybastard.com/srun/ace.htm

tee hee.
NightmareX
QUOTE (snowRaven)
I was considering your set up for manipulation, but I couldn't really fit rap into detection and be comfortable with it...

If your talking classic rap (Run DMC, etc) then yeah, it could be a stretch. But newer stuff (Dr. Dre etc) I can see it (barely).
NightmareX
QUOTE (FrankTrollman)
Wouldn't a Rocker Mage just play Rock? Sure, the different spirit types could come out of different types of Rock, but it's all going to be Rock. Otherwise it's not a Rocker Mage, it's a Music Man.

biggrin.gif Why is it your work is almost always cool?
apollo124
Taking a look at what's been written so far, with the exception of yesman, all the others have discussed this as a Hermetic thing. I tend to think it would be more appropriate as a Shamanic deal, since it's less about logic than creativity.

Try this on for size:
Mentor spirit: Musician (or Muse, if you want to open it up to other types of artists)

Musician is part of the heart and soul of all men. Whether in the annoying tri-vid ads, classical music, or the latest Trog-Rock, Musician communicates the deepest of feelings with a driving beat. He is about setting loose the bounds of creativity and touching the souls of those listening, but he does have more than a little of the showboat in him. Life cannot be properly appreciated without sharing it with an audience.

Advantages: +2 dice for magical tests when belting out a tune at full volume, which also grants +2 dice to Perception tests for others trying to notice him casting spells.

Disadvantages: -2 dice for magical tests when attempting to cast without attracting much attention.

I would think a Musician Shaman would use the Hermetic traditions' spirit associations with Drain :Willpower+Charisma. The reason for using the Hermetic associations is that music is first and foremost about Men, not Beasts.

A Musician Shaman would always have a shamanic mask, but only auditory, not visual. As he casts a spell, he would be surrounded by invisible sources of backup sound as a Mana effect. The more powerful the Force of the spell, the louder and more complex the backup sounds. Think of it as an invisible chorus or band singing along in tune.

Rather than setting aside specific styles of Rock for various spell catagories, I would suggest either leaving it open to the spontaneous judgement of either the GM or the player, or setting up specific songs for individual spells. Imagine if you will, "Iron Man" whenever you cast Armor, elevator Muzak when you cast a Stunball, or Metallica's "Of Wolf and Man" for your Shapechange spell.

For some other ideas, you should check out SOTA 2064, the Path of the Adept chapter, pages 40-68. Lots of great ideas in there dealing with Artist Adepts, some of which can translate to a full magician.

Hope this helps.
NightmareX
QUOTE (apollo124 @ Oct 21 2005, 12:56 AM)
Taking a look at what's been written so far, with the exception of yesman, all the others have discussed this as a Hermetic thing.  I tend to think it would be more appropriate as a Shamanic deal, since it's less about logic than creativity. 

While the mentor spirit write up you offer is good enough, what makes you think that any of the versions offered are Hermetic? Or shamanic for that matter? That binary distinction has been lost in SR4.
apollo124
QUOTE (NightmareX @ Oct 21 2005, 02:45 AM)
QUOTE (apollo124 @ Oct 21 2005, 12:56 AM)
Taking a look at what's been written so far, with the exception of yesman, all the others have discussed this as a Hermetic thing.  I tend to think it would be more appropriate as a Shamanic deal, since it's less about logic than creativity. 

While the mentor spirit write up you offer is good enough, what makes you think that any of the versions offered are Hermetic? Or shamanic for that matter? That binary distinction has been lost in SR4.

I don't know, I just kind of "got the feeling" that it seemed hermetic, with everyone trying to logic it out which spirits/spell categories went with which types of rock. I do have to admit to a bias, very pro-shaman. Even the name I use here is based on my first SR character, Apollo, a Dog shaman. wobble.gif

And the link on Yesman's post leads to his Kiss Shaman's character sheet, so that one was easy to figure as shamanic.
NightmareX
QUOTE (apollo124)
I do have to admit to a bias, very pro-shaman. Even the name I use here is based on my first SR character, Apollo, a Dog shaman. wobble.gif

No prob. smile.gif Guess I'm not the only one who used one of their characters as their online persona.
Nikoli
Well a music based tradition lends itself to both stles (Shamanic and Hermetic) Freeform Jazz with no sheet music to speak of would be shamanic, where classical music that is exactly metered out and played would be more hermetic. Virtuoso's playing with half notes up and down from the music as written aside.
FrankTrollman
I don't think you're going to get agreement on which genres of music correspond to which schools of magic. I don't think it even makes sense to try. The thing is that both the genres of music and the schools of magic can evoke very different emotional states. Consider two old-timey songs: Down by the Water and Keep on the Sunny Side. The first is a graphic first person account of brutally murdering a woman and stashing the body, the second is an uplifting exhortation for optimism and perseverance in the face of misfortune. Same genre, radically different emotional/magical effects. One might be appropriate for combat or illusion spells, the other might be appropriate for detection or health spells. Similarly, let's consider a single spell: Mob Mood. It's important to consider this spell, because as a Music Man you are going to cast this spell more often than all other spells combined. All by itself, it can be successfully represented by any song with any emotional impact, that's the whole point.

That being said, I still think that you are going to want to pick a genre and go with it. Remember, even performers who collect music from different traditions generally put their own spin on them, and in turn are actually lumped into a genre. That genre is either "Folk Rock", "World Beat", or "Noise", depending upon whether the musical stylings you've collected were originally made by white people, brown people, or in the case of Noise Bands - lots of different people and played sequentially at high speed in the same song.

To be the big Music Man, you're going to want to play music from all kinds of genres and cultures, and you're going to want to switch those out as fast as you cast different spells - so you're going to be switching from an upbeat Gospel Riff to a discordant powerchord in often less than 3 seconds. So you're going to end up sounding like Naked City, and the genre you belong to is "Noise".

So all of your spirits are there to help you mix various musical styles into a "perfect" whole that encompasses all and belongs to none. So you're going to want an Ancestor Spirit to find old music for you (Detection). You're going to want a Worker Spirit to patch things together (Health). You'll want a Warrior Spirit to destroy traditional ways of looking at things (Illusion), and you'll want an Air Spirit to generate harmful and unappreciated dischords (Combat).

Finally, you'll want the most important Spirit in your inventory: a Man Spirit to represent your actual performance (Manipulation). Remember, Manipulation is where your Mob Moods and Influences come from, so that's always going to be your focus.

Of course, you resist drain with Charisma. That goes without saying.

QUOTE
I like big Butts and I cannot lie...

"You can't just sit here in the dark listening to classical music."

"I could if you hadn't turned on the lights and shut off the stereo."


-Frank
Rifleman
Fortunatly, I'm not trying to get the many opinions of the web to agree with me. biggrin.gif The player in question is already considering the options put forth on the board, and I think by the end of work tomorrow I'll be ready to put up our end result.

We're gonna end up going more with the 'emotions behind the music' as of right now.
Azralon
QUOTE (NightmareX @ Oct 21 2005, 03:45 AM)
While the mentor spirit write up you offer is good enough, what makes you think that any of the versions offered are Hermetic?  Or shamanic for that matter?  That binary distinction has been lost in SR4.

The two traditions have blended, yes, but they aren't the same entity.

It's true that the only functional distinctions in SR4 between any two traditions are their drain-associated attribute and their category-associated spirits. It's also true that you can dress up anything with appropriate (non-game-mechanic flavor) and call that a difference: "My magic has green sparkles! Yours has screaming skulls! That guy's has an R&B soundtrack!"

It's the skill synergies that really make the tradition what it is, beyond the roleplay flavor. My hermetic cyberdoc relies heavily upon his Logic. On the other hand, our group's other caster is a shamanic faceman with a good Charisma.

Besides, after a few expansion books SR3 no longer had a binary magic system. Voodoo casters, druid casters, and elven casters all had their peculiarities. For every player and mythology there are new traditions getting imagined; why not simplify things while still allowing them some variety?

If every one of your magicians is a generalist then yes, the traditions are very similiar on paper. With creative use of the Qualities of Incompetence, Spirit Affinity, and Spirit Bane you can further customize your own traditions within the Adept, Mystic Adept, and Magician frameworks.

Don't think of it as homogenized. Think of it as flexible.
NightmareX
QUOTE (Azralon)
The two traditions have blended, yes, but they aren't the same entity..........Don't think of it as homogenized. Think of it as flexible.

Very true on all counts. My point was more that a new (or unique in this case) tradition can no longer be associated with either the Hermetic tradition or shamanic tradition with ease or by rote.

apollo124
After I posted that remark about shamanic/hermetic which has engendered so much discussion, I went back to the original post on this thread and read that he was originally leaning towards a shamanic style. Shame on me for failing to notice that.
biggrin.gif biggrin.gif biggrin.gif
Kremlin KOA
hmm makes me remember a musicmagew design I made years ago for a game... the idea was that they had multiple walkmans (in SR a commlink with skinlink would do) and when the music played to their ears it wopuld cause their entire body to vibrate with the music (turning them into a speaker) the sng would last/ be repeated as long as the spell was active (so for sustaned spells you had full songs, but mere riffs for instant spells

stealth and silence magic were anathema to this guy (not sure if i would make him immune or say his magic doesn't work within it.)
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