I've noticed people complaining that 4th ed mages are getting too powerful and the gamre world might be changing to famor them too much. Hows this for a suggested fix- a growing anti-mage prejudice. Magically capable metahumans at all levels still is less than 1% of the population. We're more aware of them because we look at runners BUT what if the general populatino starts to have a real prejudice? Not just in back woods places but in Civilized lands like UCAS, CAS, UK, France and Germany?

Small things at first, "we don't serve your kind here" "I'm sorry we lost your reservation" "No we don't have it in your size" and of course "You got a licence for that spell?" down to maybe in the barrens mages and nacent spell slingers being killed.

This would force mages to be far more careful about what they do, far less open and a little paranoid OR go into the protection of corps. In the 2050's it was fashoonmable to wear faux mystic symobls (See Mercurial) by 2072 maybe it's just the opposite and it's driven underground and wearing mystic symbols openy is like wearing a pentagram in the 1980's.

Well, usually when you want to do something like that, you take them to a Veterinarian and...

AFAIK prejudice against the awakened has actually gone down over the years, simply because they have been around longer and nothing really bad has happened. Similar to all those weirdos that chop off their arms to get mechanical ones or even stranger modifications, the public simply gets used to it. Remember the Night of Rage? This have gotten better for Orks and Trolls as well.
Trid shows (like Kar Combat Mage) probably also have helped.

Right now the Big Scary Thing ™ is technomancers. They get a lot of prejudice.

If you want to create an alternate world where the prejudice did not diminish or even increase until 2070, just go ahead. You can make it as hard as you (and your players) like. Just make sure to tell them that your world will differ from the world they can read about in the rule books.

There are still Anti-Awakened groups, but they tend to be pretty quiet. Something about Tehran.

And still Anti-Goblinized Groups, Anti-Faerie Groups, Anti-Human Groups... Racism is still alive and well, and, in some places, doesn't even hide.

After all, there's some places in Seattle where you can be pulled over/arrested for "Driving While Meta".

A thing that people seem very willing to forget when it comes to demographics (and never, ever, EVER try and do Shadowrun / Battletech / Your Game Here math), is that even the 1% cross section is going to be further sliced sub-sections. The curve in this case, I'd think, would be distinctly slanted towards Magic 2 or 3, leaving magic 4+ awakened characters as a kind of outlier. Remember, attributes and skills represent a different kind of curve than what a normal demographic cross section gives you. The top 1% of the 1% are going to be Magic 6. Then, the top 1% of that top 1% is going to have a six in the associated skills for the magic use.

If you begin your thinking with that kind of a supposition in mind, magic is a lot less of a problem than it first appears. The majority of magic users are magic 1 or 2, capable of a few cantrips and minor spells - useful, certainly - but are not leagues distant from powerful arcanists.

USE Background Count. Seriously. Technically, Seattle should be under a BGC of at least 1 or 2 EVERYWHERE with some 3 to 4 in certain locations . .

Whyfor? I don't really know much about this whole thing, as I haven't fully read Street Magic. Can you give a summary as to why?

Great for Birthday Parties, however!

How does that increase prejudice? if more and more awakened don't even realize they are special since they are always in BC>MAG, Joe average will be even less likely to meet or witness an awakened doing his magic. Those that can still function will have their effectiveness reduced and would be considered less of a threat.

Mechanically there are many cheap ways to make mages less effective (glowMoss, FAB, Wards etc.), but I don't see how those increase the negative feelings of the mundanes.

I know that's why it's easy to target. Tehran would be less of an issue because it's not anti meta, it's antimagic. orks/trolls/dwarves etc could just as easily not like spell slingers either.

Background count happens by emotion. Seattle is an infested 'Ell'Ole. Hatred, fear, sadness, greed, ruthlessness . .
Also, there's the fact that seattle itself is mostly dead, due to being all beton and glass and steel and little nature . .
Those things figure into the background count too. And this is just the normal every day seattle, not hells kittchen . .
Not the barrens, not the prisons and things like this. Racism. Violence. Death. Murder. Rape. Killing. These are bad. .
And the good ones make up background count too. Love. Sex. Happyness. Every single emotion strong enough . .
As long as it is there for a long enough time, it is enough to create background count.
Live in New York City once . . But leave, before mit makes you hard . .
A Rock Concert with a good artist could very well make a Background Count of Level 5 or 6 for some hours too . .

I'd really appreciate it if the books would depend less on racism to balance the game. I'm aware some GM's pay close attention to this sort of thing, and bring it into their campaigns. However, I've never personally known a GM to roleplay racism in any important way, and new GM's typically won't either. If a balance isn't built into the rules instead of the fluff, many campaigns will tend to have very big problems with mages.

What makes you think that you even need racism to balance mages? Applying all the drawbacks from magic that are in the rules is enough IMHO.

"If you would choose war, see what you would war against!" Brilliant.



Wie sagt man das auf Deutsch, Stahlseele?

Not a large quibble with your statement but one figure I have heard tossed around is that the military in the US contains 1% or less of the population, on the other hand I personally know several people who are in the military today, and while this figure probably does not include veterans who are no longer in a service it does give some clue as to how often a person might run into a mage, especially if you consider SF/elite military on the same order as high level mages

The only other piece I don't agree with is the disassociation of high attribute and high skill characters, one would expect most of the people to which magic comes easily would train a fair amount in it as it is a very high paying job corpside, and a power multiplier in the shadows

Nicht! (You don't!)

Letztens DoW2 Retribution gespielt, Stahlseele?

Höllnloch würd ich meinen, aber ich weiss nicht, wie sie das übersetzt haben, weil ich das Spiel in englisch gespielt habe ^^

Och naja, ich hab 2 Wochen Urlaub gemacht, als das Spiel rauskam und alle Kampagnen durchgezockt ^^

I knew this would be a bad idea. *Defaults on German skill... fails.* Now where's that linguasoft chip?

"Something something, but I don't know, (how to say that?) because I have the game in English?

I don't know about that.

Magic frequently deals in absolutes: "cast spell, and immediately become aware of all beings with hostile intentions within radius X". These absolutes are countered by other magical absolutes, but sometimes bleed over into the realm of mundanes, who have no abilities of that kind (as with the above case).

Nonmagical abilities almost always require some sort of test/opposed test to affect others (perhaps always).

I haven't played it in German either, but what I remember form the German version of the language of the Orks it's pretty much intolerable. Replacing s with z simply does not work in German, and adding an s mostly is not a valid but grammatically incorrect plural. Replacing er with a isn't a usual way to write slang either.
Read the table for detection spells. 4+ net hits get you that on Detect enemies.

There is always some kind of test with magic as well, except for switching to Astral Perception/Projection, actually perceiving or doing something of course requires tests. Most if not all of the spells that effect the oppsition have opposed tests. I really don't see your problem

close enough ^^

It does not make much of a difference in terms of pronounciation at least ^^

You actually have Or'zet in the German books? O_O

German Stuff is superior *snickers*

Just cos you get all your stuff made by S-K. We don't get ANYTHING here in the UK. I don't even have FLGS. :'( :'( :'( :'(

Poor guy.

Yay, pity! My favourite!

Not that I know. We were talking about the Orks from Warhammer 40K and their peculiar type of English/German.
At least to me "Lootas & Burnaboyz" works but "Plünderaz & Brennaboyz" doesn't.

Even I can see that doesn't work. And I have German 1.

I'd argue that it doesn't work in English, either.

Using bad grammar and/or some dialect was a good idea from GW but simply using similar letter replacements in German wasn't. Now that I think of it, giving Orks Bavarian accents may be funny.

no, you're closer to 2.
and there are MANY people with german 0 even over here in germany <.<

O_O Kein scheiss?

Nope, kein scheiss.

Now it may even be German(colloquial/vulgar) 1(+2)

Ich bumse Blondinenwitze. Give a British teenager ANY foreign language phrasebook and they will find all the dirty words in five minutes AND use it with relatively proper grammar.

OK, that one was wrong.
Would be "i fuck blonde jokes"

Stupid dictionary. Meant to be 'I screw dumb blondes'.

Either way, derailing the thread suddenly became a lot more tasteful.

And practical.

Everything is better with/in german!

Everything is better NOT in English!

How about puns that only work in English?

Those work. But for actual communication, it frequently fails me.

Discworld?

'The Translation is pretty good actually.

...Naval Weapons (oops, that's a 3rd ed solution).

Honestly, increased anti-mage prejudice is a good idea if your notion is "I want a darker, grittier, more dystopian game." But it is a bad idea if you are using it to balance Magic. They still have the same supposedly overpowered abilities, but now they get in trouble every time they use them, or have random annoying or frustrating things happen to them. This doesn't balance the game - it makes the game less fun.

If you feel mages are too powerful, then there are lots of options in the game to make them less effective, or house rules if you want to go even further. Fluff solutions to a crunch problem are bad, though. It can come off as passive-agressive or spiteful, and it often is.

Wait, my Rush "2112" tee-shirt wasnt cool? You're only telling me now?

Personally, I'm still amazed it took decades for a video game to come out based on it.

Nope !
Nazi Movies or WW II Movies with English Actors trying to speak German....:Hillarious
"Ihr boesen Schweinenhunden"

With a derailing Dance
Medicineman