Okay, I've got a bit of a problem. I've been running some friends through an SR campaign. Now, in order to create a sense of urgency, danger, and intrigue, I decided to use an Astral Rift. Now, I read the "Street Magic" explanation on Astral Rifts, Astral Gateway, and the Shedim. Now, here's where I might have dug myself into a bad hole. My PCs and two groups of NPCs raided three locations simultaneously to seize some nasty drug that's been put on the street. Now, when they got there they expected to fight several people. However, as it turns out the enemy, whom they're just figuring out, got to the drugs first and killed everyone with knowledge. The way they did this was to open up an astral rift, walk through it into the building, lay waste, and then head back through the rift and close it. Think dimension door for D&D. Now, my mage PC told me that sorcery can't essentially do that (though he doesn't say anything about science, or at least I hope not) except maybe certain spirits and the Shedim. Now, I want to create a decent explanation for how someone could manage to do this either through technology or sorcery or both, but I'm at a snag. My initial idea was just to hand wave it and not have the big bad guy reveal it or the PCs never finding out. However, I don't want to feel like a copout, so I had this idea that the main villain over the course of like two hundred years actually spends resources to actually find a way to subdue or defeat a Shedim and extract the knowledge of Astral Rift travel or inter dimensional travel from it. Or, also, just say the enemy managed to invest in tech that can actually create an inter dimensional rip using a combo of crazy researched tech and magic. I'm not sure, can anyone help me, or have I just tossed myself into a plot hole I can't dig myself out of?

Astral Gateway. SM P 98.

Any spirit can use a planar shortcut SM P94. Which I HATE, but it's allowed until you ban it.

A high force free spirit with mutable form, realistic form and Aura masking can do all sorts of crazy shit, as they can actually astrally travel and materialize, in addition to the other powers they might have. And the motives of a free spirit can be very odd.

I think time travel, dimensional gateways, teleportation and the like are not likely to be part of either SR magic or tech SOTA anytime soon.

You could have some of the bad guys to be free spirits or at least spirits of some kind and do as kzt posted above.

True, but here's the rub. And I apologize for not mentioning it in the original post. I had human mercenaries and mages use the rift to essentially fast travel to the locations and the return to their original location through it. It's kind of like traveling through the Spirit Realm in Werewolf or Mage, which apparently isn't how the astral plain works. So, that's why I'm really worried. I can't take the rifts back because they've already happened and are essentially a plot point. So, I need to either just keep it a secret in the end (villain never reveals his secrets), or actually create a convincing enough explanation that the PCs won't brutally question it's validity. I've got a few ideas, but I'm not sure if they'll work. I had this idea of using technology to harness the energy and power of a captured Shedim with a machine that creates rifts through space/time, using some sort of high-yield energy output. I mean it's not essentially impossible, it's just the knowledge and energy it'd take to actually achieve something like this and be able to send mundanes and other mortals through it is extremely fragile within the SR world. That's why I'm really kicking myself in the ass for this. I mean it's an interesting idea and definitely adds tension, but I feel like I've gone a bit too far. Any suggestions?

Fess up to your players about your screw up and ask for a ret-con?

Yep,huge plot hole, as astrals rifts don't physically transport anything, just the astral part of things. IE your soul goes, you stay.

Sorcery Cannot Alter the Fabric of the Space/ Time Continuum.
Spells cannot directly change distance or the passage of time. Teleportation and time travel are the holy grails of magical R&D departments the world over, but no one has been able to un-ravel the knotty problem of affecting space or time with magic. Spells can speed up or slow down processes, such as healing or chemical re-actions, and allow subjects to move quickly, but they cannot directly alter time or space

Sorcery Cannot Bridge the Gap between the Astral and Physical Planes
Spells only have an effect in the plane on which they are cast. Spells cast on the astral have no effect on the physical, and vice versa.
Likewise, spells cast in the astral or physical have no effect on the metaplanes, and vice versa.



yeah, the astral doesn't work like that at all...

Technology and magic tend not to get along in shadowrun. Only living things can manipulate mana, so the idea of a machine that's powered by a shedim doesn't work, at all, and if it did, then the guy that invented it would be the richest person in existence, not using it to transport mercenaries. Teleportation, in shadowrun, is a pipe dream, and essentially impossible.

You have 4 options at this point

1. Drop the plotline like a hot potato, and refuse to acknowledge it again
2. Fess up to the players and ask for a retconb
3. Vastly alter the metaphysics and balance of power in the shadowrun world
4. Replace all the mercenaries with spirits.

Couldn't have the killing of been an inside job/betrayal somehow and that's why it went down so fast? An angry underling staging a coup to take over the drug operation or rivals violently moving in or something? That and some dumb luck could be a li'l easier than rewriting the laws of physics and/or making a magical discovery that'd make Dunkelzahn shit himself. People who can do that sort of thing would have plenty of options beyond merc work.

Oh well, I'm guessing the cat must really be out of the bag on this one though or else you wouldn't asking here though.

Shit. Yeah, I guess my best bet is to ask for a ret-con. There's no other way out of it. Damn, and it was a cool concept too. Hmm, maybe in like SR 6th or 7th edition someone will figure it out and then I can use, but until then. I'll just have to use my GM reality altering powers to rewrite the world. I guess I miss read the whole Astral rift bit or something, confused it with something else. My PCs will understand, this is actually the longest RP game I've run, to be honest. So, I'm still learning the whole GM thing, and work's kept me from going into full SR research mode so I've only really skimmed and scanned. Uh, thanks for the advice guys, it's greatly appreciated.

You're the GM. If you say it happened, then it did.

"But nobody else has figured it out anywhere and all sorts of corporations are throwing money at it!"
Yeah, but in your game world, apparently your BBEG has figured it out, because you're the GM and you said he did.

Now, why isn't he using this new found power to go steal anything he wants, warp into peoples bedrooms and kill them, etc. I think your real problem isn't "how do I fix this with the rules" but rather "story-wise, why isn't this always an I-win for him?" Perhaps it requires a machine on both ends, an expensive complicated machine that costs a lot and takes a lot of time to put together -- a self destruct was set on the other machine in the lab?

Well, one thing you could do is follow it through but slowly make things start to revolve around HOW the magicians did it... and then end up having the technique ruined forever somehow in the course of how things go, or it turns out the consequences for using it are such that you'd have to be crazy or ignorant to even risk doing it and that the secret must be kept. Maybe it's fueled by some kinda crazy McGuffin or maybe a Horror is bestowing this "gift" because these mercs are small time enough that it may take a while before anyone notices that they can do this unusual trick, which is necessary because every time the power is used the door for this Big Nasty Something Or Other to come into our own world gets opened a li'l wider. And he doesn't want any of the world's big players tipped off about his potential arrival just yet.

Really, the strangest part of the whole deal is that it's just kind weird that something like that would be related to something as street level as drug running. Does this drug cause any sort of specific emotion? There's types of Free Spirits (and Horrors) that feed on particular types of vibes, and perhaps this drug could be part of some crazy ass plot to induce a veritable emotional buffet table for said Big Astral Nasty to feed upon. Basically, if you're going to have something like this in your game, you should go big and then have it end in a commensurately large bang. The sort of thing where the runners end up telling tales about the time they thought they were doing a routine snatch and grab and ended up needing to get some crazy ass houngan to help them shut the door on an astral gatecrasher before it starts spawning drop bears or something. I mean, it really is your game, after all. You just have to accept that according to SR fluff this is a big deal and highly unusual, which in retrospect, sounds kinda like what you were going for.

How about a spirit with the Endowment Power who uses it to grant its Astral Form power to the Bad Guy mundanes in question, just long enough for them to travel through the Astral to their destination?

The "astral rifts" were illusions covering the fact that they were inside jobs.

Mesh

Concealment + Movement means a bunch of guys showed up all of a sudden like Blammo. The Movement power can get dudes running up to Mach 2 on foot. Close enough to teleporting for most folk.

Like Mesh said, inside job. So they just walked in through the doors, the Conceal dropped as a majiker threw up some Trid Phantasm display to throw off the vics and cover the fact that they walked in right past the disabled security.

This, I like. Most other possible explanations, while perhaps clever, are just eye-rollingly labyrinthine or goofy.

If the "illusion" thing doesn't work for you, the (less preferable) way I'd play it might involve the BBEG being some sort of spirit like the one in charge of the Aleph Society that "loans" this corps of mercenaries the power to Materialize as part of an ultimately self-serving group pact, and have the mercs gain the ability to astrally project from some bio-awakened drug or magical compound (I'm away from my books at the moment, but I don't think there's one that fits the bill. Perhaps the knowledge of how to create it is granted to the higher-ups in the pact by the spirit itself, and the mercenary group could have a faint cultish undertone). If your BBEG isn't the free spirit himself, he could be the guy that made contact with it, and the leader of the group that made the pact.

Of course, I'd have something really bad start happening to the mercs after a while, so that the players didn't get any ideas. Perhaps the free spirit is sending his buddies to borrow or steal those unoccupied vessels, or perhaps the mercs' auras are getting seriously glitched up from being subjected to all this magical perversion.

This isn't a cohesive whole, here, just some thoughts to bat around. Honestly, I think that "illusory inside job" is your most elegant option, if you can find a way to pin down the details.

Or a spirit opening an Astral Gateway, using Endowment to grant them Materialization. They can't bring any gear in, but those with a Magic attribute get the added benefit of Immunity to Normal Weapons, if you strictly follow rules for Materialization (actually, everyone get it, but then the armor rating is equal to Magic).

Could go the route of having it being a time limited ability. For a period of time the BBEG can do this due to a focus or other magical artifact. Once a certain planetary / stellar alignment has passed, that ability ceases to work.

Think about the special enchantments. I recall an example indicating a focus of 'Turn the Spirit to Guacemole' and the text saying it's a great GM device for breaking the rules to tell a good story.

Actually, you'd use the Spirit's Magic rating for that I believe, not the magician's.

Given the way that works in SR4 and the likely power of a free spirit that can do this, would mean that the mercs would ignore anything smaller than anti-armor rockets.

Any Free spirit (or Greater Form Guidance Spirit) with the Astral Gateway power will work for this... even a Simple Force 1 will do, so I seriously doubt that the Mercs would be immune to anything smaller than anti-armor rockets...

Keep the Faith

Wouldn't it be a plus to have them immune to anything below anti-armor rockets?

Not if you hope to give the PCs an even shot at taking them down a peg.

Why would you want to give them an even shot?! If they can't handle uneven shots, showball's chances in hell and stacked decks against them why are they running?

Because it's fun to play table top RPGs?

against even shots?

Yes. Given the volume of rolls players may be faced with when running a campaign, even odds often means that they'll just get stumped badly when they inevitably miss a couple tests by a die or two. That's fine, for the most part, since failure and improvising is half the fun, but as a general rule I don't want to set the bar so high that they just constantly get road blocked into handling the session exactly as I figured they'd have to every time out.

For example, I have a 3 man team at my table right now, nice guys, but all newbs that have been spoon fed through 2 milk runs so far. No rigger, no magician. If I throw something that requires anti-armor rockets or high force spells to kill at them than they had better start talking fast, because with how they're currently set up combat is a TPK waiting to happen. Gotta tailor things at least a li'l bit. Powerful Free Spirits aren't necessarily a one-size-fits-all entity to throw at a team.

My group got take down a little dragon once. With 16 points of hardened armor. We won, but it was ugly. He soaked heavy sniper bullets, AP MMG fire, HE grenades, hell, he soaked some anti-tank rockets. We got him right before he'd have killed the adept who had the last anti-tank rockets. He's currently a very nice stain proof rug in her apartment.

Hey, if they have the skills to do it, they have the skills to do it. But like, my current group is a Face, a poorly built mundane martial artist and a guy that is basically MacGyver. I am not exaggerating. Uncybered jack-of-all-trades, light unarmed, mullet and Pacifist. Sadly, he'd probably be their last, best hope because he has high Edge and in theory at least he could use explosives if he could keep from getting all weepy long enough to go through with it. These guys make my inner power gamer cry a li'l every time I see their sheets. They've been fun though. They just have a different perspective on this game than I do, since I'm the sorta guy who once had his mage try capturing a gorgon via attacking it on the Astral rather than use the space station's ship board laser batteries to just carve it up quick. Don't ask.

Well, it SEEMED like a good idea at the time. When the Gorgon started summoning spirits I began to have my doubts.....

I figured with my seriously jacked astral defense pool (that mage was built all-in for astral threats but was actually a bit of a wuss meat side) I shouldn't die immediately. As it turns out, I had roughly a 50-50% chance of dying immediately and I think my best stun bolt gave him a case of mild eyestrain. Oops!

Oh well, it was true to character anyway. That Magician actually had the Artificer mentor, so unfortunately he was something of a curious kitty and I was determined to play him accordingly. Shame to kill a perfectly good dracoform, after all. Besides, what kind of coddled corp mage doesn't have a bit of an ego? It was probably a good life experience for him.


In a screwed up way, I'm also sorta proud that I actually managed to get kzt of all people to sign on with the "Let's attack the dragon looking thingy" plan, if only for a moment. If you're going to do something silly, it always pays to get someone to come with you. At one point the backup plan was looking like "Try to outrun the other guy's astral form."