Help - Search - Members - Calendar
Full Version: Background Counts
Dumpshock Forums > Discussion > Shadowrun
Stormdrake
I want to spice up the idea of background counts for my game. Currently the only thing it does according to cannon is make things hard for the magic users. The description on how background counts occur (pain, misery & massive atrocities) would seem to lend itself to all sorts of nasty creatures taking up resident or being created out of the warped mana. My first idea is ghosts of course which could be minor spirits. Has anyone added to the idea of background counts to make them more dangerous in their game? Ideas?
Neurosis
It's not uncommon to have appropriate spirit types just kind of coalesce out of background counts (like people used to think that spoiled meat just naturally generated maggots). This idea is touched on (I think) in published material, and I know I have done it, and it seems that you came up with this idea too.

However, Background Counts, particularly aspected ones, are already really really dangerous. I'm not sure I'd want to make them more dangerous. : )
Stormdrake
Mayhap I am missing somethinng then. It is my understanding that background counts act as a dice subtracter (to magic) but I have seen nothing else mentioned that would make them any more dangerous then walking to the corner store. Are there other effects I am missing?
Ascalaphus
You could be a bit more selective in how you apply them. Misery/pain/rage BC could amplify combat spells while hindering healing spells.
Neurosis
It is not just a dice subtractor. It is a MAGIC SUBTRACTOR which is a dice subtractor squared. Keep in mind that not only magic is going down, but also spell force, also the force of foci (probably deactivating them) and spirits (probably disrupting them)...
Mäx
And if its aspected toward the enemy mage it add its rating to his Magic attribute frown.gif
Game2BHappy
Thanks Stormdrake, sounds like a great idea for a run. A hostile free spirit causing havoc in an area affected by an aspected background count. Too powerful for the PCs to take on while the spirit is boosted by the background count (and while the PC mages are negatively impacted by it), they must figure out a way to remove whatever is generating the background count, or trick the spirit into leaving its favored domain.
Neraph
QUOTE (Neurosis @ Nov 9 2010, 10:54 AM) *
It is not just a dice subtractor. It is a MAGIC SUBTRACTOR which is a dice subtractor squared. Keep in mind that not only magic is going down, but also spell force, also the force of foci (probably deactivating them) and spirits (probably disrupting them)...

Only spells being cast into the area - ones cast inside that area suffer drain as if they were F + BC (Force 3 spell in BC 3 is treated as 6 for drain), and with the mage's modified Magic rating, that may very well easily turn simple spells into deadly overchanneling.

And in Street Magic, Magical Threats, it talks about toxic zones spawning free toxic spirits.

And ghosts are more formalized in Running Wild. I like the last two listed.
Stormdrake
Will have to take a look at "Running Wild". The ghosts of the dead in areas of high background (deathcamps, battle fields and lets not forget cities that have been nuked) could very easily get into the hundreds or higher if such areas made it easier for the restless dead to manifest. I think Shadowrun fluff has hit on this a couplee times concerning the "Shattergraves" in Chicago.
Jizmack
You could maybe try making the background count dynamic – it fluctuates with the seasons (winter brings more misery) or phases of the moon (full moon = crazies), it is only relevant at night (darkness = sorrow), the more people are suffering from mental or physical pain in the area the higher the background count (agony begets agony), the background count spikes every time some one is killed or otherwise molested, etc…

This can be used to sway the characters’ choices for when and how to act.

You could also make the fluctuations seemingly chaotic, which could make the background count area even more unapproachable.

Last, the background count could be moving or hopping between various areas (predictable or chaotically), which could make it more threatening and mysterious.

Neraph
And that would probably just cause all your players to be street sams/hackers/TMs. Too much BC is a very bad thing.
sabs
Most of Seattle should have a 0-1 background count.
With the occasional 2.
Apathy
QUOTE (Neraph @ Nov 9 2010, 03:42 PM) *
And that would probably just cause all your players to be street sams/hackers/TMs. Too much BC is a very bad thing.

GMs can use BC as a way to scale back the power of magic in their games if they have the opinion that mages are too versitile and powerful, as long as they set expectations appropriately before the campaign begins.

I see the BC distribution in Seattle as roughly:
    50% of the city BC 0
    45% of the city BC1 (primarily heavily industrial areas, polluted areas, hospitals, Redmond Barrens and Pullyup Barrens, can also sometimes include sources of strong positive emotions like churches.)
    4% of the city BC2 (toxic spills, worst areas of Barrens, ley lines)
    1% of the city BC3+ (the failed reactor at Glow City, sites engineered to deliberately induce high BC - usually corp sites)
KarmaInferno
What might be nasty is a custom toxic area that only increases the difficulty of doing Drain Tests.

smile.gif



-k
Yerameyahu
Too little BC can be just as bad. Everyone complains that magic is overpowered, but how many of them are regularly using a BC 1 to balance it?
Neraph
True Yerameyahu. It's really fun to have a team run in thinking they're gunna steam-roll the place just to find out it's Aspected BC of 4-6.
Jizmack
QUOTE (Neraph @ Nov 9 2010, 12:42 PM) *
And that would probably just cause all your players to be street sams/hackers/TMs. Too much BC is a very bad thing.


With some creativity, a GM can use the spiritual powers of a fluctuating background count to not just exclusively effect magic, but perhaps induce electromagnetic anomalies that hamper Matrix connections, active equipment, and cyberware.

Or for the more exotic taste, the fluctuating background count could warp space-time… effecting everyone regardless of magical prowess.
Example-1: You take shot at an NPC standing 12 meters away, but the target randomly teleports 1 meter to the side and you miss!
Example-2: You walk out of a room and get blind punched by a nasty Troll mugger, but before you roll your Initiative dice, your character is standing inside the room again one step before walking out... Temporalporting a few seconds back in time, with foresight to what's waiting for him just outside the door.

Yerameyahu
I think that's a mistake, unless the whole group understands that you're playing a very different house-ruled setting well in advance.
Neraph
QUOTE (Yerameyahu @ Nov 9 2010, 04:03 PM) *
I think that's a mistake, unless the whole group understands that you're playing a very different house-ruled setting well in advance.

/agree. It's well established that, at least as of yet, magic can't teleport.
Jizmack
I’m sorry, I though we were discussing how to “spice up the idea of background counts” smile.gif
Neraph
Well I thought you were still trying to keep it within the setting, otherwise you can have BC increasing people's level by the BC or adding spaceships and Jedi equal to the absolute value of the BC.

Keep it in the setting.
Jizmack
QUOTE (Neraph @ Nov 9 2010, 02:15 PM) *
Keep it in the setting.


It's in setting +/- 1 meter and +/- 3 seconds... yes, I'm being a smart ass smile.gif smile.gif smile.gif
The Jedies would be cool, though smile.gif
Yerameyahu
Honestly, if the BC *directly* affects mundane characters, it's taking away some the Awakened's specialness. You owe it to them to *selectively* screw them over, because they're special. ;D Now, crazy spirits (affecting everyone) are fine.
Neraph
GM - "You're in -12 BC.. so there's now 12 Star Destroyers and 12 Sith Lords."
Party - "Not agaaaaaaiin!"
Abschalten
Funny story: In my Caracas campaign, I had a character who was in a very upscale and well-known whorehouse, trying to figure out what happened to his sister. He was a magician, and right away I began playing up on the background count of the place, being that it was positively aspected towards rampant lust and hedonism, being as it's CONSTANTLY full of horny lechers trying to get their groove on, as well and what's going on at any time in many of the rooms. I think I gave him a +2 background count for being there, and adjusted his rolls and thresholds accordingly.

At one point he's trying to do something, I think possibly he was attempting to assense somebody, and he critically glitched. Long story short, I told him the positive emotional psychoactive charge got to him and that he had a... erm... little accident in his pants. It made for a briefly embarassing moment in front of one of the NPCs, and some chuckles from the group.

Anyway, the point of the story is to keep Background Counts interesting, and justify why they're there. Don't just say "Here's a +2 Background Count to screw with you and keep your Magic pools down." Try to make it make sense within the context of the game, and play up the IC ramifications and just how DIFFERENTLY the characters see and experience the world around them. It'll probably make them less upset at the fact you're "screwing" with them and more appreciative of the craft of a hardworking and imaginative gamemaster.
Ascalaphus
You could have the BC give some emotional spicing to anyone with Assensing; occasional Composure tests not to let it get to you. Based on the idea that magical people are sensitive and more at risk of picking up these vibes.

Mentor spirits and BC can also get funky. Like adjusting the threshold for the Cha+Will tests to avoid or manage to do things your Mentor feels strongly about.
Abschalten
Remember, it's not just "bad" vibes magicians pick up (violence, murder, etc.), it's any strong emotional imprint. You could even get a background count off of a sensation of mind-numbing boredom in a corporate cubicle farm, or a nauseatingly and smugly happy vibe from a bunch of drug-eating hippies living on a commune. All of these can create a positive background count from the psychoactive charge in the mana.
toturi
QUOTE (Abschalten @ Nov 10 2010, 10:06 AM) *
Remember, it's not just "bad" vibes magicians pick up (violence, murder, etc.), it's any strong emotional imprint. You could even get a background count off of a sensation of mind-numbing boredom in a corporate cubicle farm, or a nauseatingly and smugly happy vibe from a bunch of drug-eating hippies living on a commune. All of these can create a positive background count from the psychoactive charge in the mana.

Indeed. Background Count can stem from the good stuff as well as the bad. By itself, BC hurts anything based on magic.

Furthermore, what may cause BC could well just cause BC without aspecting it.
Seth
QUOTE
And if its aspected toward the enemy mage it add its rating to his Magic attribute

IIRC it doesn't add to magic, it adds die to magic skills (and the bonus is capped by your magic rating). Mind you there isn't much difference.

Hagga
Well, spice them up by tossing the pcs against someone who uses the background counts even more than Toxics. Say, someone who can toss off spells without drain and without the hits being limited by the force as long as they pass a willpower check with a high threshold, that's lowered by a high background count. Something lke that.
Neraph
QUOTE (Seth @ Nov 9 2010, 09:00 PM) *
IIRC it doesn't add to magic, it adds die to magic skills (and the bonus is capped by your magic rating). Mind you there isn't much difference.

Actually it's a huge difference - it's the difference between casting at F6 and Overchanneling to F12 and casting at F12 and Overchanneling to F24. It also adds dice to your Drain Resistance, making spells you cast even easier.
Stormdrake
It seems like a "which came first, the chicken or the egg" situation. Backgrounds are created by something occuring in the real world. Thats pretty much cannon however, does the background then have the ability to create manifestations other than the background count or are the manifestations the result of the orignal triggering event that created the background count?

An example would be Nagasaki. I believe cannon says that most of the city has a significant background count due to the massive number of dead and the nuclear blast. It then goes on to say that the city has toxic spirits, ghosts and other less identifiable things haunting its streets. Are the spirits and ghosts the result of the messed up mana field or did they come into being at the time of the blast? As the mana wave has only recently (last 100yrs) increased to a level where spirits and other magical manifestations can occur were they simply there but unable to apppear or where they created when the increased local mana reacted with the astral stain created by the deaths and blast?
Apathy
Remember that, depending on how you interpret the rules, BC at a level much greater than 1 or 2 can be crippling to mages.

Example: Mage with Magic 6 walks into a complex with [unaspected] BC4. His effective Magic is now 2, and even with overcasting he cannot cast spells with Force greater than 4. Force 4 spells cast in a BC (depending on interpretation) have their force decreased by the level of the BC. Force 4 - BC 4 = Force 0... spell fizzles.
Yerameyahu
Well, that *is* the point. Dirty mages. smile.gif
sabs
QUOTE (Apathy @ Nov 10 2010, 07:22 PM) *
Remember that, depending on how you interpret the rules, BC at a level much greater than 1 or 2 can be crippling to mages.

Example: Mage with Magic 6 walks into a complex with [unaspected] BC4. His effective Magic is now 2, and even with overcasting he cannot cast spells with Force greater than 4. Force 4 spells cast in a BC (depending on interpretation) have their force decreased by the level of the BC. Force 4 - BC 4 = Force 0... spell fizzles.


wait doesn't that cause a double dip?
Yerameyahu
That's his point.
Saint Sithney
NEVAR FORGET

QUOTE
The Cermak Blast Zone is perhaps the starkest
reminder of the traumatic struggle between metahumanity
and insect spirits waged within the
Chicago Containment Zone. It is here that a tactical
nuclear warhead was detonated in a desperate
attempt to stop thousands of insect spirits from
completing a powerful magical ritual to invest
their captive hosts. The blast site itself, however,
is smaller than it should be. The effects seem to
have been somehow contained, since the damage
and radiation was intensely focused at the site of
the explosion but drop off substantially after a radius
of just a few hundred meters.
Even more devastating than the physical site
of the explosion is the chaos left in the astral
plane. Twisted streamers of warped mana swirl
around the blast zone emanating feelings of nausea
and pain. Visitors to the Cermak Blast Zone
have claimed to be able to see insectoid faces or
screaming metahuman faces in the clouds of darkened
mana, but those stories cannot be confirmed.
Spirits and dual-natured paracritters react violently
to the Cermak Blast Zone and will typically avoid
getting closer than half a kilometer from the center.
Even the clouds of magic-draining FAB III bacteria
in Chicago are seemingly unable to feed from
the mana warp here and are instead destroyed by
it if they get too close.
Perhaps the most frightening truth about the
Cermak Blast Zone is that dozens, if not hundreds,
of insect spirits are trapped in torpor in the hive
below the blast zone. They were knocked into a
perpetual sleep by the nuclear blast but can be
awakened if magic is performed near the site. If
they are awakened, they must first pass through
the damaging mana warp to escape the hive,
which has made the few insect spirits to escape
maddened and even more violent than usual.
sabs
I think Mages are OP but.. that's seriously double dipping.
Of course, what the heck is an unaspected BC? Shouldn't they not exist by definition.

Even if the Aspect is "Death and Destruction" SOME Traditions should be able to work just fine in said surroundings.

Stormdrake
Wait a minute. Back ground counts are a dice modifier. I was unaware that it also decreased the force of the spell. I also saw above where someone said that BC also increases the drain. Are these cannon or house rules? If there cannon I need to go back and reread the section on back ground issues.
Saint Sithney
BC reduces the magic attribute of anyone not aspected towards it. This reduces the maximum force which a caster can use and the maximum PP an adept can have. That is all. Unless you are a spirit, in which case your magic attribute and Force attribute are linked, so you lose Force.

Casting at a target within a BC increases the drain DV of the spell by BC/2 rounded down.

I... use a lot of BC in my games..

Almost forgot astral visibility penalties. Those can put ghouls in a bad way.
Yerameyahu
QUOTE
Whether positive or negative, in game terms background count reduces a character’s Magic attribute by its absolute value.

QUOTE
A background count-modified Magic attribute counts for all uses of magic, including dice pools and limitations imposed on the Force of spells or spirits.

QUOTE
Additionally, the process of gathering and shaping mana is more difficult in areas with background count, so the absolute value of the background count is also added to the Force whenever a character resists magical Drain.
(Note that this is not quite the same as +BC/2 rounded down.)
QUOTE
Pre-existing wards, mana barriers, active foci, sustained spells, and quickened/anchored spells are similarly affected. Reduce their Force by the absolute value of the background count.
(AFAIK, this means that spells are cast at whatever Force the mage can *now* handle, and sustained spells *will* lose additional Force. It depends whether 'pre-existing' applies to just 'wards'; I think it does, because you can't have 'pre-existing active foci'.)
QUOTE
In areas of positive background count, the accumulated excess mana takes on a psychoactive charge, affecting how it is used for magical activities. This influence on the collected mana’s utility is referred to as its aspect.
(Note that negative BC is unaspected.)
Saint Sithney
QUOTE (Yerameyahu @ Nov 10 2010, 10:51 AM) *
"Additionally, the process of gathering and shaping mana is more difficult in areas with background count, so the absolute value of the background count is also added to the Force whenever a character resists magical Drain."


Ah yeah, that's how it's done properly. So, BC 3 and force 3 causes 3 DV, rather than force 3 causing 1DV and the BC causing 1 additional DV.

Not that it comes up too often, but remembering to sum then divide could be important.
Tyro
I have a "wild magic" houserule I'm rather fond of. It's a metamagic which allows you to cast with a DP and Magic bonus equal to the BC (yes, that means negative BC's still penalize you, but those aren't too common), but you have to use all your hits, and it invokes the optional +1 drain per hit rule. I also use the "Drain = F + mods when overcasting" rule in all situations; I like risk in my games.
HunterHerne
QUOTE (Yerameyahu @ Nov 10 2010, 02:51 PM) *
(AFAIK, this means that spells are cast at whatever Force the mage can *now* handle, and sustained spells *will* lose additional Force. It depends whether 'pre-existing' applies to just 'wards'; I think it does, because you can't have 'pre-existing active foci'.)



Well, I wouldn`t say it only applies to wards. As I recall, Astral Hazing turns a character into a walking background count of 4. If he/she walked up to a christmas tree of force 1-4 foci, I think that character might be in a bit of a bind. Especially if their prefered method of fighting involved sustained foci to hold health and manipulation spells to improve direct combat effectiveness.
Neraph
QUOTE (Yerameyahu @ Nov 10 2010, 12:51 PM) *
(Note that this is not quite the same as +BC/2 rounded down.)
(AFAIK, this means that spells are cast at whatever Force the mage can *now* handle, and sustained spells *will* lose additional Force. It depends whether 'pre-existing' applies to just 'wards'; I think it does, because you can't have 'pre-existing active foci'.)
(Note that negative BC is unaspected.)

I would have sworn that's what I said earlier...
Yerameyahu
People were still confused, so re-education was necessary. *bzzrt!* biggrin.gif
This is a "lo-fi" version of our main content. To view the full version with more information, formatting and images, please click here.
Dumpshock Forums © 2001-2012