If a character had Astral Hazing, I am not so sure how they would get around in New York, especially if the run was in Manhattan. I am wondering how other SRM GMs handle Astral Hazing.

A NYPD watcher/mage spots a -4 background count (AKA a magic “disturbance”) walking down the street. Do they send the cops to check it out? Then, do you hose the whole party for the crazy PC who took Astral Hazing?

IMO, like hunted, a difficult quality to role play in a living campaign. In a home game I could just say – “no”.

Thoughts?

How does a Watcher discern wether or not that Rating 4 Background Count is a Problem?
It's completely natural. As natural as they come i'd say. Way more Natural than for example in the Death Cells.
And isn't a rating 2 Background count more or less par for the course for most big cities anyway? Especially New York?
I'm thinking Ghostbusters 2 here.
How close does the Watcher have to go to figure it out? Close enough to go poof from the Background Count?
Does the mage who created the watcher know the difference in that poof from the watcher flying into the site of a drive by shooting?

Rating 4 Background Count, not 2.

Maybe the background count of 4 is not as uncommon as I think.

I might agree that a Watcher might not think a rating 4 background count bad, not sure really.

From what I read Manhattan has good security. One of the missions takes the PCs into Manhattan; I propose having a rating 4 background might be a huge problem there. So much so that it might hose the party by drawing attention - including that from NYPD.

Go find me the 5 meter area of Manhattan that has a bad smell. It smells really bad. However, it moves around, it fades away, and less then 1 percent of the population can actually smell it. And to some who smell it, it actually smells good. Good luck.

Not that it isn't noticeable, but the right people in the right circumstance have to notice it, and care.

A watcher would likely not be able to penetrate Astral Hazing. While the GM and players know OOCly that the Background Count is centered around the character with Astral Hazing, it should take quite a bit to Assense that the character is the cause of the Background Count/has Astral Hazing or that it is centered on him. You are looking at a -4 to the dice pool and the character may or not have been detected astrally, if say, he was using Infiltration.

I think while it is possible for the character to know that he has entered a BC, it is not as easy to detect its boundaries or what is causing it. IIRC isn't there a metamagic that deals with detection of astral phenomena?

Astral Hazing is sort of an affliction-- like someone coughing with TB on the astral plane. You can "ask for it" IRL. You could get it a number of ways: Homicide Detectives (serious ones) would probably have a count of 1 or 2, due to how much time they spend in places with such a BG count. Drug users could generate such a thing, even paramedics and surgeons would have a small chance of getting a BG of 1. Military persons that fought in the Chicago bug wars, but most common would be from the second SURGE, which is how the Runner's Companion explains it. It is akin to radiation poisoning on the astral.

So, while you may be more identifiable, there's nothing that says "runner" or "bad guy". Obviously a mage haven would be prejudice to you.