Okay, I was answering some questions on RPG.net about Shadowrun and I realized that I could not find a discussion of Domains in the core of Street Magic. Did they kill this rule? I searched but did not see a related topic so I apologize if this is a redundant thread.

Yep, Domains are dead.

The unified theory of magic combined the best elements of both Shamanistic Summoning and Hermetic Summoning.

While domains are sadly dead, remember that non bound spirits cannot be more than 100 meters away from their summoner.

Not as cool as domains but still a restriction.

BlueMax
/misses domains
//Enforces them through spirit preference
///A water spirit would prefer to remain in contact with water

Uhhgg.. Yeah, that sucks. I realize that it added some complexity to summoning but it was good complexity!

I like your idea of spirit preference. That is a good way to reign in the potential problems of not having domains. Hmm, what were they thinking.. Thanks guys..

Another question then, how do my fellow Shadowrun GM's deal with this issue of no domains?

Treat the spirits as cold hard stats + powers.

BlueMax

Realize that no domains applies to everyone, and spirits move very fast, as do astral mages. Realize that Materialized Spirits are Duel natured.

Enforce the ĵ(|{ out of the Binding rules.

Simple. There are no domains.

Realize that, helping a noob GM.. Thanks for the blunt advice..

As for the other post. Good ideas.. See, the guy has a character that has spirit bane (Spirits of Man) and I was telling the GM that Pretty much All of Seattle was the domain of the Spirits of Man.

I guess that still applies in a way, that character can be fragged anywhere in Seattle still!

He can be fragged anywhere!

Note that Spirits of Man is a term that sums up a whole lot of entities, from Shamanic hearth, street and field spirits to ancestor spirits to representations of a chaos mage's unconscious.


As far as domains are concerned, i don't enforce them in my game at all, but they do come up in the fluff when i'm playing shamans.
Often, the spirits will have a clearly visible link to the place of their summoning.
They may even transfer a service to another spirit if they reach the boundaries of their domain (ruleswise, it's the same spirit with the same stats and the same number of services, but in the description, the hearth spirit may disappear before passing the treshold of his house and pass his duty on to a street spirit).

That is an interesting idea, I like it...

Though keep in mind, fire spirits don't like being summmoned underwater, and if they go free will kill the summoner....

(Not in the rules but the fluff does note that)

This right here is a great idea everyone should take to heart.
I fail to see how simplifiyng the mechanic "killed" anything at all. The differences are (and should be) what you make of them. A shamanistic hearth spirit is not the same as a wujen ancestor spirit or a citycentric earth elemental, just because the happen to use the same statline and summoning rules now.
Giving them different rules doesn't differentiate them, describing them as thinking, looking and acting differently does.

That's all right and good, until you play with new people. Be it new people to your table, game store or local convention, new people and interpreted fluff is a recipe for traction. Thinking , looking and acting differently requires more trust.
Its best just to treat the darn things like cold hard stats, that way its fair to everyone. At least with new folks around, at my table the players go out of their way to enforce domains more often than I.

Heck, I didn't even mention Missions.

BlueMax

Yeah, as far as mechanics are concerned, i'm all about clinging strictly to the spirit rules.
E.g., i won't punish people playing shamans by enforcing domain restrictions and a kinder, more respectful treatment of their spirits.
I limit that strictly to the fluff.
The abovementioned example of a "swapping" of spirits is something that takes place entirely ingame.
When it comes to the rules, there'll be no difference towards the elementals summoned by a hermetic.
Both players will be able to deploy their spirits freely, sending them on missions across what would have been domain boundaries in previous editions.

To expand on my concept, it's not required that the cold hard line of stats is represented as a single entity in the description.
Rolling a summoning test could as well mean the shaman opens up to the spirit world as a whole, with spectral entities peeking out of every corner of the sprawl, from the ancestors walking unseen among the crowds to the storm spirits dancing between the tops of the skyscrapers, from the gleaming in the eyes of the alley cat to the songs the subway tracks sing to the shaman (yeah, i have a very...urban approach to shamanism).
They'll all share one line of stats, one condition monitor and one set of powers, but in the description, the shaman may be interacting with a totally different creature each time he asks for a service.

The idea behind shamanism and other animistic religions is that there is live in all things, that the spiritual world is everywhere.
Domain restrictions where an interesting approach to highlight the strong connection between the spirit and the land, but in retrospect, they fell short to fully encompass the scope of a shamanistic world view.

On a mechanical level, i understand if people dislike the loss of hard, crunchy differences between the different traditions, though- it required a certain kind of planning and added variety to the game as far as the rules where concerned.

But with SR4's magic rules, it is so much easier to represent one's own take on a given tradition.