Possibly, also it could possibly be much less than that too. Until actual statistics are published, we can't say for certain.

Traditionally, people with unique skillsets have gravitated towards larger metropolitan areas, where there are more niches to fill and a larger market for their skills. I think it would be fair to assume that cities boast a higher percentage of Awakened individuals than the worldwide average. In Seattle, there would probably be an even higher degree of concentration, considering the Wild West atmosphere being a draw both to emigrant wizkids that find the Tir or the SSC too chafing and to Awakened runners worldwide looking to make a name for themselves.

How common are mages? And by mages, I mean "Awakened". Can we agree on 1% awakened number? Then let's look at it this way. Let's assume for the sake of argument that we are living in 2072. And you are going out to see the latest summer blockbuster. That is usually a 600 seat theater (I apologize now to anyone living in a "population-challenged" locale). That meant there were 6 mages of whatever persuasion watching it with you. If you skipped the crowd to see last week's release, you were probably in a 300 seat theater. that meant there were 3 mages watching with you (and probably ruining your experiance with their illusion spells). If the old Key Arena has survived, and you head down to watch the Full Contact Basketball League Seattle Slashers play, there were 18,000 folks at the sold-out game, and 180 mages. Maybe you went shopping at the mall. You were one of the 20,000 people passing through that day, along with 200 mages. If you were able to hit up your fixer/Mr. Johnson up for tickets to see the Seahawks play, you were one of 67,000 fans, and there were 670 mages there, not including the staff.

Let's look at it another way. I currently live in a 415 unit apartment complex. Given the classic number of 2.54 people per household, there would be about 11 mages in my complex alone. Last DoT numbers i saw (yes, old data for 2072) put 1.41 people per car on the road. Next time you are stuck in traffic, take a look around. Every 70th car has a mage in it. The Evergreen Point Pontoon bridge crossing Lake Washington handles 115,000 vehicles a day, which comes out to about 815 mages a day.

I don't know about you, but that's a lot to me. Sure, most are "wage-mages". But there are still a lot running around. Hell, there are even entire gangs made up of mages, so-called "wiz-gangs" (Page 54 of the 4E book for those who need notation )

Now let us take a different look on Corporate Security. Judging from the constant "steal cars/run shadows" posts I see here, it only takes 10,000 nuyen to hire 4-6 overly-cybered psychopaths sporting about a half-millions nuyens worth of guns, gear, magic and pink mohawks to rob, steal, kidnap/eliminate employees, or just completely disrupt a business. (I guess they hope to break even on the cost of their ware in just 50 runs...). After paying for their Low Lifestyle for the month, these poor essence-starved bastards won't even be able to pay for the bullets they use, but they are still coming to wreck your bottom line. How much does your corporation need to make before you are willing to hire the proper back-up for your security guards? At the top end, a company that makes over 365 million a year could spend just 1% of their income to hire a runner team to protect their business each and every day. How big is that? Using last year's income numbers and this morning's exchange rate, Games Workshop made about $183 million. So a corp just twice the size of a company that makes toy soldiers could hire most runners groups indefinitely. And I have never seen a play group that didn't have at least 3 mages in it (a physad, a real mage and either a shaman/TM/ or something else).

So your corp doesn't outsell GW. How much does it need to pull in, before you hire some young kid straight out of college, full of magic and dreams. Fresh out of school, you give him nuyen, an apartment, and loads of valuable real-life experience before he heads back to academia. You tell him, "Spend a year protecting us, and you'll have a much easier time getting that grant and the seat at MIT&T. And chicks dig combat mages!" Now since you are not making anything real important, (given that you can't even outsell GW!) it is unlikely you'll actually be hit by corporate espionage. So you can get away with paying him about $60,000, big money for a college kid. Do this long enough, and you won't even have to go looking for his replacement a year later. The replacement will come looking for you! Colleges will be boasting of their career placement opportunities with you. And if worse comes to worse, the kid will keep your insurance rates low. If the poor bastard actually kaks it after messing with your average bunch of chargen wired-to-the-gills sociopaths (who will kill him just for his foci, because they are worth much more than your Mr Johnson is paying them), you will, in true evil corp style, cash in the 2 life insurance policies you had on him. One to his family with your condolences, and one to your accounts receivables...

So back to the original question posed. What is really happening is that one players character is cake-walking the adventure while his buddies loot the bodies. Why can the player do this? Not because the character is over-powered, but because he is not being properly challenged. An opposing mage/shaman/whatever is an excellent challenge. He can give the party a taste of their own medicine. He can also give the player mage a chance to shine, not by just tossing some dice and saying,"Viola!", but by forcing the player mage to work his ass off in his own wheel house. You know, going astral (gasp!), banishing a few spirits, that kind of thing. I would do the same thing to a troll with too much recoil comp and a pair of LMG's, or a Gun-Fu master, or a TM going hyper-velocick with his pool. I don't expect my up-gunned/enhanced goons to win the fight. But I do expect them to make the players sweat, and work hard for the win. And if the party has gotten rusty after weeks of cake walks, then maybe they will mess up and have to run. And now they have an unfinished job, an angry Mr Johnson/Fixer, and hopefully a new enemy. And maybe earn their Doc Wagon payments, and whine about how my villain perforated/flash-charred half the party. After all, the game is really about everyone having a good time, and whining about it afterwards. For years sometimes.

And if you still don't believe that most corps will have mages on standby, I have 2 words: Mana Barrier. Put the McGuffin and the Security team inside the mana barrier. It will add it's Force rating to their resistance rolls. And every company can afford to have a wage-mage come by once-twice a month to keep one up....

it's not 1% mages, it's 1% awakened.
Adepts count as Awakened.

It's more likely that in your apartment complex, there are 11 awakened, of which maybe 2 are mages. And it's not clear either of them has a magic rating over 3.

I hear this a lot. Does it actually say in any of the core books that adepts are more prevalent among the awakened population than magicians are?

*points to his previously posted list*

In addition, Street Magic, Page 8.



Awakened, in gameplay terms, means having a Magic score of 1 or above. The vast majority of Awakened Individuals have a magic score of exactly one, often due to having one of the minor Awakened Qualities. (Astral Sight, Spirit Knack, and Spell Knack.)

Drakes, Shapeshifters, Sapient Critters, and HMHVV Victims also all have Magic Scores of at least one.

Whether or not they increase these magic scores is up to the individual.


So yeah, the actual number of people capable of functioning as mages is much smaller than 1%

Of course. I was referring specifically to the perception people seem to have that adepts are more common than mages. I've never seen any single thing that would suggest that one is more common than the other.



Well, yes, again, I'm not disputing any points here. The thing is, one would still have to read a lot into that Street Magic quote to come to the conclusion that mages are automatically the rarest sort of awakened. I'd actually think of the Knacks and Astral Sight as far less common than "proper" awakened, minor oddities of the magical world, but officially speaking I don't think there's anything in the book that makes a call on that either way. Drakes are presumably negligible enough in numbers not to have too big an effect on the count, and it's arguable whether Infected should count at all. Sapient Critters and Shapeshifters are right out, as they're not members of the population (and in the case of the Sapients, are 100% awakened to begin with)-- I think it's safe to assume that the 1% figure given was for metahumans, not for every possible magical creature imaginable that can be recognized as sentient.

I know that the phrase "minor-league adepts" in the quote may lead to the assumption that they're on the low end of the totem pole, but I'm sure there are plenty of minor-league magicians, as well. I thank you for the citation, but I don't think it's too definitive, one way or the other.

Actually I was going by karma cost.

it's so much cheaper to become an Adept, compared to a Mage.

I always viewed that as a game balance thing. Mages are just more powerful, and if you want that power, you're not going to get as much wiggle room on your character sheet as an adept. I don't think it's got any correlation with the statistical realities of the game world, though. After all, Technomancers have got to be at least as rare as mages, and it only costs 5 BP to join that club.

But they could easily have a few counterspelling dice, since counterspelling can be raised independently of magic.

Hmmm I think that the content of the movie or event would have some effect upon the population of mages too.

If the performer is awakened, and there is an astral component to the show, I would expect that a high percentage of those visiting would be awakened with astral sight (or using drugs to allow it).

Asamando will skew those numbers a bit too. An entire country of ghouls who are awakened by definition.

As would all the awakened nations, if they and all the creatures they consider citizens were counted. But I really do think that that 1% figure is specifically in regards to the awakened percentage of metahumanity.

Getting back to original topic. Mind control seems worse than other effects because you don't have to overcast in order to get what you get from stunball 1net success= instant victory.(okay an additional CT for mind control). But the drain is worse so it balances a bit, but it is more useful, but it takes an additional CT so yeah it probably balances out. Though I think overcasting is too powerful so mind control also seems too powerful to me, but they are a similar level of overpowered IMO. If I were to redo mindcontrol I'd look to the hero system a bit where there are levels of control. 1 net hit you can get someone to do what they generally would do anyways, 2 net hits get them to do something they wouldn't do but aren't really opposed to, 3 net hits get them to do things they are opposed to, 4 net hits get them to do things they are fundamentally opposed to suicide, kill family etc. I'd also make the additional resistance test at every new command and also at the force combat turns.

Man ghouls are people to...okay no there not shoot em on sight I say.

While I can't remember where exactly I got this impression, I keep thinking that there was a suggestion somewhere that shaman are, ahem, unsuited for (unreliable in) the wagemage's environs. Something about being late for meetings because they thought communing with their totem was more important, or lost track of time or some such... don't quote me... as I said, I can't remember what game me that impression. But, if true, that would also cut down on the awakened that are available for corporate employment. Not an absolute of course, just a thought.

I think Mind Control and Mob Mind do have the possibility of getting out of hand. I also understand the OP's frustration with having most of the climaxes of his runs anticlimatically ended with one spell and a spat of suicides. I don't know about house ruling drain rules and resist rolls, but there should be some consequences to mind controlling people on a semiregular basis. Like another thread's totally OP TM, the primary penalty for this character, if his skills get well known, is that he is now walking around with a target on his back. A powerful enough virtuakinetic, or mind controlling mage, is a priority target for all kinds of people. The TM either because of racism or nuyen signs; a TM that strong would fetch a high price to the right people. A mindraping mage is the ultimate nightmare for magicphobic people, and plenty of people would pay to have him take a dirtnap.

The question of magical security for him to contest with is a fair one. The bandying about of statistics brings up the case Lies vs Damn Lies and Statistics, which has never been resolved satisfactorily. 1% of the metahuman population is indeed Awakened. The text states that's low level adepts to dragon-pwning mages. So no, I don't count people with Astral Sight or even ghouls. Shapeshifters, free spirits, sapient paracritters and the like are right out; they aren't metahuman and never were. Ghouls might be dual-natured, but they aren't Awakened like an elf or human is Awakened, they have become a metahuman paracritter, so no dice. We are only considering, based on Street Magic's text, anyone with adept, mystic adept, or magician qualities. We don't even know what percentage of that is full mages, rather than adepts. I don't know where its stated that adepts outnumber mages. Their power isn't lesser, its just different. They could be even, or even the minority. We don't know. We see more mages in the fiction and fluff than we do adepts is all I'm saying...

Population is, as Drats sensibly pointed out, is not evenly dispersed. Just because Awakened are 1% of the population, doesn't mean that, as THE BOOK STATES, every 100th person is reading your mind and communing with Satan. Awakened pop up all over the place, with no particular rhyme or reason, except apparantly a higher than normal number of Awakened elves (and perhaps some other rarer metatypes). So all these Awakened kids are hard sought after by corps and governments, and they try hard to recruit, offering sweetheart deals in exchange for indentured servitude. I need to reread Street Magic, but I think the primary fields for magicians are security and magical research (whether that be talismon development, spell formuale, archaeological research, etc). The primary demand economically for mages is for security...against mages and other Awakened. It doesn't cost that much for a security wage mage to drop by astrally once a month to secure sites, and it also doesn't cost that much for a couple of spirits. Spirits I think should get much cheaper when YOU'RE not the one paying for ingredients. It's a vital service, highly in demand. A wage mage probably sits in his comfy recliner all day just checking wards and summoning spirits, just WAITING for an alarm so he can go do something that isn't boring. A wage mage job must suck when you do boring crap all day. With all your power, your just an Awakened drone. So they probably respond promptly and eagerly to alarms; something to break the boredom. He'll fight your mage and dispel spells, and bug out when he starts losing. He isn't being paid to die, too valuable for that. But he does have a contract to fulfill, so he'll probably summon backup.

Magical security is vital, so serious people hire serious magical guns. Remember, you don't need just Awakened metahumans. Find some useful paracritters or sapient ones with helpful powers to protect you. I dunno if there are any paracritters in Running Wild that can do that, but if they can't, make some up. Great guard beast that. Throw the runners up against mage-phobic enemies, who do have crazy amounts of protection because they're afraid of mind control. It's a legitimate worry for them. Drones work too; they are the most common form of security behind poorly paid guys with shock batons.

But Rule Zero dominates; have fun. If your player feels like he got pummeled by the nerfhammer from some of the proposed house rules, he might have a point and it might spoil his fun. He bought the spells fairly based on RAW. It's his big gun, and it sounds like he uses it accordingly. Throw him a curveball once in awhile; make him blow his drain on something else so he can't do it safely at the big boss battle, provide a counterspelling mage, the year and a day bound spirit backup, or someone who refuses to be LOS. The avoiding having goons bunch up in 6m range to avoid mob mind is simple but vital; thats exactly what the military teaches, DON'T BUNCH UP. It makes you all easy targets for machine guns, explosions, and spells. Spread out, and find cover. That way, the character can use his spell but he doesn't get to upend the odds table with it every week.

PS How does he use the spells in game? Does he make every guy eat his gun? I'd drop in a restriction on the spell like many systems have, like Palladium's. All mind control stuff foreswears suicide, and you get a big bonus against trying to shoot your friends and family.

Do you have a book quote within Street Magic that states that unambiguously? Does Street Magic's text actually make a clear distinction between a metahuman Awakened and a non-metahuman Awakened? Even if so, you are missing the 2 new Awakened Qualities within Street Magic itself.

Since the first line of the spell says the mage directs EVERYTHING the target does, unless the mage directs the target to shoot at him, this really shouldn't be a problem.

I see where you're coming from, but I disagree with that interpretation. If you don't spend a simple action to give a command, you do not alter their action. If enemies just stood around and did nothing, the spell would have said so because that in itself is an instant-win in any fight. Any spell that instantly causes a complete loss of all actions to a group of people for at least (Force) rounds on one net hit would be a very powerful spell, even if you didn't get to issue commands. I'm currently running a mind mage in Dawn of the Artifacts, and if I ran the spell to that interpretation, I don't think I'd even bother to give commands, at least some of the time. Looking back on the situations I've used that spell in, if I had to choose between giving a command for a group of thugs to run away as fast as they can or keeping my next action and just letting them stand around for five rounds, I think I would have chosen the latter in that particular instance. Of course, there are other instances where I would have chosen to command, but there's no need to make the spell more versatile and awesome than it is, now is there?

Here's the exact text from SR4A:



The effects of the spell are simple in my mind: Give a command (simple action) = target performs that action. Further, I read that as: No command = no alteration in the target's action.

I know that the "directing everything the target does" part makes it seem like the mage has complete dominion the target, but on the other hand, the method of "directing everything the target does" is clearly stated. Since there is no description of what happens when you don't give a command, I am compelled to believe that the spell has no palpable effect unless/until a command is given. If you read it otherwise, you give the spell a lot more power than it deserves by RAW, possibly because of our pre-conceived sci-fi notions of mind control.

And even if my interpretation turns out to be wrong, I would continue to run it that way because otherwise, as many people already believe, the spell would be just too damn powerful. I think that the delayed effect, the "wasted" simple action, the overt nature of noticing high-level spells being cast and the high drain code offset the impressive effect of the spell.

Anyway, in my opinion, any interpretation of this spell aside from the one I'm using does make the spell overpowered. And if I were GM for a player with this power, I might disallow it out of frustration. But when run the way I run it, it's no worse than many of the options that mundane combat characters use (like 4 shots from a semi-auto air-burst grenade launcher which is available at char gen, for instance). If you are having trouble with the spell, try it my way and see if things don't even out.

Cube already pointed out the quote I am drawing from, on page 8, as I said. It is not completely unambiguous. But the quote talks about "the Awakened" who are judged as the lowliest of adepts to powerful, initiated mages. It doesn't mention those with the Astral Sight or Spell/Spirit Knack. They are possibly Awakened, since they have a magic score, but they don't exactly qualify as what the text is talking about. They might, but it doesn't seem to be the case. An adept and a mage are terms well understood by people of the Sixth World, and I don't think they would advance the title of Awakened to these people. Maybe to those with Astral Sight, since they are Awakened enough to see into the astral, and people might call someone with a Spell Knack a mage if they saw him cast a spell. Actual mages and adepts would probably disagree, and believe such people are flukes.

The way the population figures are described throughout the book line makes the counting of metahumans and other sapient beings (like AIs, free spirits, and sapient paracritters) something dependent on whose doing the counting. Most of the population figures are for metahumans because the governments and corps of the world for the most part do not count such beings as persons, and thus don't include them in census data that we see. Places like Amazonia probably do, so their Awakened population figures are probably higher. Neither of us can say for certain, but I think my position is the most commonly understood; that the "one percenter" number of Awakened refers to metahumans with the adept, mystic adept, or magician qualities (and aspected magician qualities...probably).

While I probably would not put a random ghoul on the list I'd put people with knacks. Basically my opinion is there are 2 requirements, do they have a magic attribute, can they use it in some way. If both are met then they are "awakened" for the 1% statistic. Ghouls have 1 magic and they are dual natured but I don't think of dual natured as using your magic.

Without any clarification it is hard to say what they meant. But given how they emphasize over and over how rare mages are the narrower interpretations don't fly for me. Because now that 1% means mages are actually fairly common.

That line only mentions "adepts" and "spellslingers". Someone with a Spell Knack can still sling a spell, as you have mentioned. They certainly qualify as a spellslinger. The only time "magicians" are used is in the first line "real magicians are rare". Further the first part of the sentence you are refering to mentions "everyone with a shred of magical talent". Thus my position is that the "1%" is the one most commonly understood, that one percent of anyone (metahuman, infected, sapient critter, etc) you come into contact with is likely to have some form of magical talent.

To the OP and BBEGs in Shadowrun:

I think you are kind of doing it wrong if you create a BBEG that the players want to kill and that can't offer them anything. If the PCs want to kill something they ARE going to kill it. All it takes is 1 drone firing from out of LOS with the Rigger burning an Edge to make sure that the BBEG goes down in 1 shot (or burst what have you). Plus there's snipers, street sams with smgs, mages with spells other than Control Thoughts. Basically it boils down to the BBEG having a number of damage boxes equal to Edge or 1 depending on wether the PCs are willing to burn Edge.

So you are left with two options for reuse: always leave the BBEG in a position where the PCs can't recover the body (falls off a building, DocWagon recovers him with HtR, etc) or always put him in a position to offer a deal that is too good to refuse.

Because honestly, if the PCs want him dead they will find another way to ruin your BBEG, and you'll have to keep nerfing relentlessly (especially with a magician in the party).

Re: Background count -- despite the common wisdom here on Dumpshock use these carefully. They drastically increase the likelihood of TPK as they usually weaken your mage while boosting the opposition mages.

Since the spell does not say 'targets continue to act normally until given a command to do otherwise' but does say the mage directs their actions, I don't think they get to act until the mage says so. That you read into the spell something which is not even implied by the text is interested, but it is in no way RAW.


does the text even hint the target is permitted to continue to act? The very title of the spell suggests they no longer control their own thoughts, and coordinated action without thought is exceedingly difficult.


No, just because of my pre-conceived notion of what 'everything the target does' means, and since shooting at me certainly wouldn't be high on that list, it isn't going to happen.




I don't see the spell as being problematic in the slightest. It has a high drain code, and is a spell most people would edge to resist, so if the NPC's have any left, it will be used then. If they don't have any magical support, they aren't the NPC's I'll cry over too loudly, and if they do, they'll have a good chance to resist the spell.

Only if that Backgrond count is actually aspected to the opposition Mages tradition... otherwise it hampers them as well...

Keep the Faith

Yup but it really strains suspension of disbelief when corporate mages aren't using aspected background counts. Can still work in the Barrens or when not on home turf.

Of course you cut the important part of my post which is that there is no way to "protect" your BBEG from ANY of the team not just the mage. You have to rethink the concept of BBEG in SR.

Initially, I was only replying to your Background Count argument... As for aspecting those background counts, it is difficult to do and requires a Metamagic ability to do so... How many of your Corporate Mages are both Initiated into the deeper mysteries and actually have the Proper Mertamagic to use it to its fullest extent (afterall, there are a lot of very useful Metamagics out there)... If they are common, then you are probably going to have Geomantic wars between the varying factions, screwing with the Aspect for a Domain... Not that that is a bad thing. I think that it adds a certain depth to the game, as you attempt to screw with the Mojo of the Corporation before actually moving in on the target itself.

Additionally, how many of your Corporate MAges actually have the same Tradition... aspecting a Domain to a single Tradition will certainly screw with your other Magical Assets if they do not follow that same tradition... good luck changing the Tradition outlook for a Magician once he has been hired after all. And then you also have the issue of having an Shadowrunner who shares the same tradition that the corporate is aspected to. Whole lot of issues are going to crop up from this in my opinion... which is why a good number of Corporations would probably not go to the effort of Aspecting a Domain to a Specific Tradition.

As for the BBEG, if the players goal is to kill it, they will probably find a way unless the BBEG is a Plot Hammer/Mary Sue/Deus Ex Machina... If it has stats, then characters will indeed attempt kill it, and may possibly succeed if they try hard enough. Of course, there are always alternatives to the "Kill it all and let God sort it out" approach.

Keep the Faith

Not all background counts are placed intentionally. There are a myriad of factors that can create a background count.

Also, consider that a background count can only be altered with the use of the Geomancy Metamagic. Not all wage mages will have this. Also, the domain becomes aspected towards the same tradition as the one who performed the ritual. What if not all your corporate mages are from the same tradition? It would suck for your regular wage mages in a facility if they hired out some Geomancer from a different site that aspected the place towards only half the mages on the facility.

Third, the ritual says that improper lore of the site can interfere with the ritual. To my understanding, what this means is that they might have to feng shui the landscaping and that could cause interference with day to day operations, security, etc, and it would cost a lot too.

Seems more expensive and bothersome to me then the managers telling the mages "Suck it up, we pay you to deal with exactly this sort of situation".

Well said Tagz... Could not have said it better (and in fact Didn't... Oh Well)

Keep the Faith

I'm with Tagz and TJ on the point of whether or not it will be aspected to a tradition in corp territory.

Where I may differ is I think people overuse background count by a large margin(or at least how people say they use it here on DS). It is not even introduced until street magic, if it is supposed to be as prevalent as people suggest it would be in the main book IMO. While I can see it as a curb for dice monsters I think even low levels of it almost break the setting if it is in too many locations. How many magic 1 people are out there and trying to do magic, the average corp mage has a 3 magic and 3 spellcasting if background count of 1-2 was all over the place they basically couldn't do anything magical. Yeah, I'm paying a lot for mr do nothing over there. Use background count to balance a player sure, but don't put it everywhere because that is how you assume the setting is. Even low levels turn the average mage off like a light switch if that is how you see the world where most mages can't do much of anything magical in most places hey go for it.

I tend to support (and have absolutely no problem with) localized, temporary Background Counts... many of these are created by the intensity of emotion that you might get from a Rave, or an Urban Brawl game at the stadium, a site of mass murder, traumatic Natural Disasters, etc. There are also some indications on how to use Background Count, and guidelines on how to set it up a bit (in Street Magic). I do not see LOTS of small, permanent Background Counts, as that would take a lot of sustained reinforcement that I do not see as very prevelant.

In addition, there are some areas of the world that would inherently have more Background Count than others... the Dragon lines of Hong Kong is one that immediuately comes to mind, as well as Tir na nOg... Background Count is a tool... it should not be over-used, but is often appropriate for specific jobs.

Keep the Faith

Something to keep in mind is that Mental Control/Manipulation is by no means long term....



So your Mind Bending Mage can Mob Mind the entire room and have control...for a while, so get them to shoot each other real quick!

And I bet they are going to be mighty pissed at the individual who had them under their thumb, should any be alive when it does wear off

hi hi

In many of the games I have played in, Corp research facilities commonly have at least some level of background count due to the horrible experiments going on inside/use of radioactive technology. For that matter, hospitals may need to keep the radiology department separate from the magical healing ward because of background count. I don't think they would be hiring mages aspected to toxic, even if they could. (usually)

I don't think there are any hard rules about radiation and background count, I do believe it is a relatively common theme in the literature.