In Shadowrun, to have magic or not to have magic is a life choice, like race. To have cyberware and specific equipment of specific kinds is also a life choice but of a slightly different variant: invest the initial meganuyen in a deck and relatively few other options will occur; invest half or more of total Essence in a VCR and you have just invested a significant portion of your life into those skills, that job ... that vocation?

In your games: is what you do integral to who you are, or is it just another role you fill, another variant on the 9-5 job that happens to pay better than most (supply and demand, don't you know)?

The first two options on the poll I designed for magically active PCs, while the second two are for non-magically active PCs. I'm curious if there will be a significantly different pattern of response between the two.

I'm just posting to move this one on top. I screwed up on the other one, but that's the one that seems to be garnering the views.
(Is previewing and/or editing poll options going to become possible in the future, or is this just not something available with this software?)

Well, I guess it really depends on the character you play. I, as a player can not answer this question/cast a vote since all my characters would give different answers.
Ohanzee does it only for the money and is planning to get out of the business as soon as possible. He doesn't have a regular job but he most definately has a (rather active) life besides running.
Nate also leads a real life when not running, but only to earn some extra cash and maintain a cover identity. He is running only for the trill of it.
Jack Frost however, runs because that's all he can do, really. He never learned anything else.
None of them are magically active.

I don't know ... to do something simply because nothing else has ever been known to be be available? Does that qualify as a true choice? How would Jack Frost react if he did know other options existed, and they could be made viable for him?

(Silly me. Clicked on the "view results/null vote" option - and now it looks like I'm not going to be able to vote on my own thread. Maybe with cookie removal ...)

Well, fighting is all he can do. He learned a little woodworking in the past. It's actually a long story, but I'll try to cut it short. Here's a rather complete description of Jack and his history

History
Jack grew up in a remote village, somewhere in Alaska. He was one of the view children in the village and the next school was too far away for him to visit it. All he learned, he learned from his parents.
His father was a woodworker, from whom Jack learned to handle sharp things like knives, saws, chainsaws, etc. His father also made him train his body really hard because he needed his help with chopping wood, carrying logs, etc.
Through all this time he worked with more-than-obsolete machines. An old diesel truck, old woodworking machines... There was no electricity in the village except for the one coming from generators, which where running on diesel, which was hard to get. So it was spared for when it was really needed. Let's just say this made Jack a little... "technologically impaired".
When he was 14, his totem, Fenrir, came and chose him (guess I was wrong about none of my characters being magically active... oops.)
He's an adept, not a shaman, but he still follows the tradition of Fenrir, although he get's none of the bonuses. I chose the flaws accordingly, though (combat monster and such).
Fenrir outfitted him with great combat abilities and he used them to get the village under his own little reign of terror. After some time the villagers wheren't going to take it any more. They took the few weapons they had and tried to force Jack out of the village. They eventually suceeded, but he killed many of them in the course. He then lived in the woods near the village for some time and fed on cattle and food supplies which he stole from the village. He lived like a lone wolf. Of course, he killed still more villagers when they where causing him any more trouble (like keeping him from stealing the little cattle they had).
In a final show down they managed to make him flee for good. Of course, the remaining villagers (who moved away from the village, since there was not much left of it) are trying to hunt him down since they want to see him dead.
When he was 20 years old he came to Seattle with not much more than an old pickup truck (which he still drives), some camping equipment and some primitive weapons (knives and a chainsaw, mainly). Of course he wasn't assigned a SIN in his little remote village.
He noticed that there wasn't much to do without a SIN and therefore turned to the Shadows. After all, this was his place anyways. There he had an outlet for his aggressions, managed to earn some money and generally life well within his own, low standards. Currently he lives in a small hut in the forests just outside of Seattle, heating with wood, eating mainly what he hunts himself.

General Description:
Jack is a simple guy. Not dumb, but simple. He doesn't know a lot about the world, actually he knows hardly anything about the world. He is ill-tempered and quick to anger, and believe me, you don't wanna be too near when he gets angry. He has the attitude that you can reach almost every goal by means of violence. However, he doesn't blindly run into action when he can clearly see that he doesn't stand a chance. In the Shadows he quickly found out that he isn't invincible.
He's quick to judge people and tends to get violent when he feels insulted even the slightest bit.
Oh yea, he doesn't talk much. He rather likes his actions to talk for him.
Also, Jack doesn't have much experience using modern weapons. He is somewhat familiar with shotguns but uses close combat techniques whenever possible. If he has to go for ranged attacks he tends to throw things at his opponents, which he is rather good at. He claims to have killed a guy by placing a pencil in his one eye from 25 feet distance.

Hmm... this got kinda lenghty... I hope you don't mind?

Well, occasionally after all the decking, searching, covering-up, and
writing code to update the tools is done ...

... .... My decker character likes to go play Dawn of Atlantis!

His Lizardman Swordmaster is already 5th Circle!!!

Life outside the matrix is scary and the rain stings.

I have to agree with Mr Sandman666 here. Depending on character, I could give a variety of answers here. Most do have some kind of life other than "the biz", but to Senex, the mage, magic is all that matters.

I would think that any awakened character's off-time is still defined by his Magic.

The character I'm currently using, Major, had some... trauma, shall we say, in her teens.
Ever since then, she has been fighting. Fighting to forget, perhaps. Regardless, it is as much what she is as what she does. She'll probably only ever retire the hard way.
Besides, she loves it too much.

~J

Magic tends to be a life feature. A magician can use magic to help in almost every circumstance where high combat skills and reflex enhancements help relatively little in everyday life. Shamans also have relatively little choice in the matter (what with the totem and all) so I'd expect more macic users to involve magic 24/7 in their lives than sammies. Having said that many Cybered characters are going to have taken cyber to help them in a particular field (rigging/decking ETC) as they are highly interested in that field.

I'm a wheel girl. If not running the shadows I'd be hanging around race tracks and autoshows.

Lengthy, short: it's all good. And I always appreciate expansions upon PC personality.

I'm especially curious about overall outlook - patterns that run through multiple PCs or (for GMs) through their groups. If options don't exist because the PC doesn't know about them in-game, speculate: if the PC knew of a viable alternative (viable to them, I mean), would they even consider it? Could they?

And curiously it does seem to be splitting along the magic/non-magic line ... even though it is no less possible to commit one's life to a particular role or skillset whether Awakened or not. It's just as possible to be a "wheel girl" as to be a "magic girl": live and breathe vehicles, live and breathe magic.

But, perhaps: it is differently possible? Does the ability to wield magic alter outlook on one's non-work time that much? Does it make a difference which branch of magic one follows?

Well the ratios speak for themselves i think.

Awakened: 90%: its my life.

Non-awakened: 50%: its my life.

Ah, but it's not just the "what", it's the "why" and the "who" and the "how".

I once spent nine days crucified on an oak tree while a talking squirrel revealed the secrets of the universe to me. I came out of it with a Moderate wound, another Magic point, and a metamagic. You tell me where my priorities are...

Aaahh yes, good idea to model an initiation rite on Odins selfsacrifice. Seriously though i would assume that most awakened people in SR sees their magic as a gift, blessing...etc. something that is inherently always present and therefore always a part of that persons life, i would imagine that many magicians spend their free time studying, communing with spirits or just plain zipping around in astral space for fun i know i do.

I guess if there is a connection between all my characters then it would be obsession and passion. None of my characters have ever run the shadows for a "larf". Even characters who don't want to run the shadows do it for a reason, generally emotional. One character because they have to keep brining in the nuyen to pay for his wife's medical treatments (which are freakin' expensive!). His love for her transcends everything else. When he runs he runs by her moral code, not his own (as in he would do things he himself would find repulsive as long as she would forgive him for it in time). Another character runs the shadows for the best of intentions; he's the ultimate hood character; working for corps to help the little guys he grew up amoung.
All my characters are usually quite different (avaricious, selfless, arrogant, irritating, loveable) but all of them are touched by obsession no matter whether they are Awakened or not.

That said, most of them have a life outside of the Shadows (or in the Shadows more accurately). Once again it dffers from character to character. One character plays in the nightclubs as one hell of a singer and keyboard player. Another is involved in environmental work. Another indulges in stock trading. That same character also spends lots of time working on various Conspircy Theories.

Some of the characters have alternative options (though alot don't) but they simply don't choose to follow them. The reasons differ. One doesn't because she hates the corporate lifestyle (she was an extraction target turned Shadowrunner). Another runs the shadows simply because their is no other way to make money (at least in his opinion).

I think it all comes down once again to obsession and passion. Why do anything that could get you killed every hour of the day? There is a reason people do things and usually the more extreme the thing done, the more extreme the reason it is done in the first place.
And there is little in the human mind more extreme than obsession.

Hey Ronin! Did you steal that idea from me?
One of my favorite characters runs to pay the medicine and treatments for his wife (and the rent, telefone bills, etc...) and eventually the one operation (or operations) that will heal her.
And I thought I did something unique for once...

I like Face characters, so running is just an aside - making *legitimate* money on the side is part and parcel of most of my faces...

Being magically active is a part of who you are to the very fibre of your being. It's not like the razor girl who can leave the gun home when she goes on a date. You are aware of and interact with a whole level of existance that most people barely knows exist. spirits and elementals are a part of your life and you have "powers and abilities far above those of mortal men."

Sure you're not levitating a cup of tea to your hand or blasting roaches with mana bolts, but being a mage/shaman is a part of you.

But what about a razorgirl who can't, say, leave her Wired Reflexes, Cyberspurs, and Tactical Computer behind when she goes out on said date?

~J

A possible direct comparison: the street samurai who has devoted as much Essence as (meta)humanly possible to speed and improved attributes - better living through cyber - and the physad who has done the same, through magic. There would not seem to be any innate reason for one to see what they do as more of either a job or a vocation than the other - both have invested as heavily as possible of what they have into what they are.

Yet people generally do tend to see the two types of investments differently, and frequently even they themselves would ...?

And I'd be really curious to hear from the two people who noted magic as job and not "who I am". What's your take? What kind of magician do you play?

I'm not one of the two, but I can certainly see some mages getting fed up with being singled out and being treated as 'special' for their entire lives, not to mention being annoyed with the superior attitudes a lot of magic-users hold. Said mage would probably do magic as a job (after all, it does pay well, and it's a shame to waste the ability), but do things at home the 'mundane' way. I.e. getting up and getting a beer from the fridge instead of using magic fingers, using the tube or the phone to get in touch with friends instead of manifesting, etc. Sometimes you just want to feel like a regular person, you know?

Only the ones with a husband named Darren!

Well, I think it's hard to answer any of these questions any one way for all your characters; for example, take the Svetlana Markova character from my examples in the Shadowrun/Silhouette conversion I'm putting together (you can see a brief synopsis of her character here), I don't think she sees running as her "job". Her "job" was being in the Rangers or working for Eagle Security. Since she slipped into the shadows, I think she just sees it as something she does because she doesn't have a lot of other options open to her, and she's gotten tired of the "system" as it were. And, I think her attitude is similar to mine about how I feel about sysadminning -- it's something I'm doing so that later I'll be able to do something I really want.

I think someone who is a mage though is going to definitely be more focused -- it's hard to think of a parallel in real life though. It's like being extraordinarily gifted to the point where if you don't get a job where you use it, everyone else (and you, too, maybe) feels that you're letting something go to waste. I mean, if you have an unbelievable gift for math, and you decide to be a painter....I dunno, it seems like a waste, and I'd think you would feel like you are wasting your time. On the other hand, I can see feeling trapped and wanting to rebel -- working on your other abilities instead of your magic because you don't want to be "the mage". I definitely agree with Person 404 -- I can easily see someone not using magic in their everyday life it is their job, much the same way I feel about computers sometimes.

Seems there's been a bit of a shift here, from the idea of the specialised skill/interest as one's job or one's life, to the question of how those skills/interests are applied. I see the skill/interest as primary: the same skills being applied in the Rangers or in Eagle Security as in the (temporary) running, for example, which suggests it's still the same skills which are central to one's life. Is the application of those skills - in whatever arena - what is dominant in the character's life, though? Could she shift to something which required her to develop differently? Do her interests diverge from the nature of her work?

No one wants to tackle the street samurai / physical adept question?

Also I'm of course making a point of bringing this one - the fixed thread - up.

I think it's a matter of character note -- we all know people who are obsessive and work or hobby consumes their every waking moment.

We also know people who just "do a job" and don't take it home with them.

Some jobs just demand a higher level of attention and that can't help but bleed into their personal lives --> professional snipers and surgeons tend to share certain characteristics, most notably a meticulous (sp) attention to detail and precision. It's rare to find a sloppy surgeon or a slovenly sniper but it's not unheard of.

I would say the more specialized a career, the more personal interest the person takes in it.

For "awakened" people, they can't just stop being active, but that doesn't mean they don't have a life outside of what makes them special. I'd make a similar comparison to the razor girl with enough 'ware to decorate a Christmas tree.

Just because the wizards can assense anything that moves, it doesn't mean that they will. A razor girl who can hear a whisper from across a football field during half-time doesn't mean she's going to crank up her enhancements on a date.

Now, what was that about the "adept and samurai" question Tal?

-Siege

The first character that i actually managed to play(but for a short time) was a streetsam/face. Running was just a sideline, to sustain her high lifestyle. Her real job was a tatoo artist, sometimes, she deals drugs, and having, at that time, a driving skill of 8 and some real nice ( 300k worth) sports car (mazda RX series i customized), also participated in drag races (which were exclusive for nonriggers) for that extra cash, though she thinks of herself as just a ganger. Most of her contacts were gangers too which she called up whenever she's in trouble. Sorta like the summoning spell for a face, 'cept takes a little longer to arrive.

She's the chik on the two artworks on my SRartgroups folder.

Sort of like the job which keeps the roof over our heads is so often only what we do so that we can pursue what we're really meant to do?

Shadowrunning is a hobby for me, which really annoys some of my team members, though it's turning into a job.

I live on the streets, always have, always will. I have spells to clothes me, feed me, clean me, heal me and spirits to watch my back when I settle in for a squat.

I obviously have my eye on what's what in the streets. If it's affecting the lives of regular homeless people, I'm getting involved.

Lately, I had this idea where I plan on saving up enough to buy a large warehouse in Puyallup and turn it into a refuge for street kids, I'll probably have to keep running to keep playing the bills after that, we'll see.

My main job is to just go around helping people, people who can't help themselves.

Sunday.

Well, I was (and am) posting OOC, so I apologize for any confusion.

There are jobs that exist outside of mega-corps, although it's unlikely you'll get the same perks as a corp stiff.

Geeze, the ever-popular bar haunts that litter every shadowrunner's pasttime leap to mind.

Although I have to admit, my imagination is failing at the moment.

-Siege

The best bars are run by former runners. If only for the periodic brawl.

As for the samurai/adept question, I think it tends to manifest thusly:

Adepts are jocks --> be it martial arts, athletics or stealth, they are skill intensive and that tends to be perceived as a lifestyle choice. And that fairly common mentality tends to manifest itself among players, "oh I have 12 dice of unarmed combat...I must spend a lot of time meditating and sweating in a dojo, etc." After all, it's what martial artists do, right?

Samurai are primarily known for their augmentations, cyber and bio which doesn't need regular lifestyle support. Why go jogging every morning when you can spend half an hour at the street doc getting your muscles tweaked and juiced?

This is not to say that a physical adept need to "live the lifestyle" since his or her powers are magical in nature. The geek sitting in advanced physics and suddenly manifesting can by an amusing image.

By the same token, the samurai would probably still hit the gym regularly and practice his or her combat skills to maintain the edge that seperates them from the street scum. Maybe the "street" samurai got his start in the Services before coming home and getting tricked out, which puts him on the range at least three times a week.

I'd also point out that most samurai can "turn off" most of their enhancements, although some enhancements don't lend themselves well to being easily disengaged like body sheathing or muscle augmentation. Assuming, of course, the samurai doesn't get off on having voices whispering in his head and basking in the power of his augmentations.

Adepts could fall into the same category for some of the more outlandish powers -- the human adept probably doesn't see in thermo on a daily basis and probably doesn't try to engage his "select sound filter" to overhear every conversation. But because the adept's powers tend to be more integrated (like skill boosts), it's harder to not be "exceptionally athletic". It would be like asking Michael Jordan not to be so tall or a prima ballerina to be unconsciously graceful.

-Siege

Okay, I was torn between the last two answers, so I closed my eyes and clicked on one of em.

I'm a Rigger through and through. I can fix and repair my drones and the helos that I fly on runs. Sure, I'm an ORk, but I'm also a Geek. A Weakling according to my fellow Orks. So what I do when I'm not running, I sharpen my Rigger skills by building and fighting robots.

If you try to change me from what I am, I think you'd find that it's like trying to change a Troll back into a Human. It aint workin.

Keep in touch,
NightWind

NightWind, your answer suggests that I worded it badly. What you describe is what I'd intended by the last option - living and breathing what you do. The third option I'd intended as approaching what you do as a 9-5 job: you do the run, and then you go wherever you go and do your own thing ... which has nothing to do with what you do on the job.

I wasn't able to answer you before, Siege, so please forgive the delay.

That was the point I was trying to make -- as the magic just "manifests", a scrawny text-book hauling geek suddenly whips out increased reflexes, killing hands, strength boost and improved combat dice and procedures to brutalize the schoolyard bully.

I suppose I should have added </sarcasm> after my "After all, that's what martial artists do, right?"

A lot of GMs don't care for the "well, my powers just go 'poof'", although for physical adepts, it does happen that way. Insofar as I know, there aren't any guidelines for how an adept's power should, would or even might manifest.

Arguably, the poor soul manifesting may never even be remotely interested in physical activity and suddenly they can do really weird stuff.

Most players tend to create adepts based on the common concepts -- which is why you see a lot of "ancient mountain dojo students" wandering through downtown Seattle, instead of creating a history of a person who suddenly becomes an adept.

The serial-killing mage who based his magic on a worship of the "Old Ones" proves that the magic manifests based on the person, not necessarily on the standard routes.

-Siege

I think an aspect that tends to get missed when talking about this is Fun. That's right, fun. Most of my characters run because they love doing it. Sure the money good, and the women are hot, but the job itself is a lot of fun. Where else can you pack heat and blow things up on a daily basis. Kick the crap out of some guy who needs it because you are better at what you do.

My chars spend the off hours honing there skills, shooting at the range, working out at the gym, sparring at the local dojo. You have to be good if you don't want to be dead. Besides this job is so much damn fun I don't ever wanna quit.