So if I remember correctly correctly when I was reading that heavily cybered individuals basically lose their humanity because apparently cybernetics eat your soul. Thats fine, but I was wondering what are the disadvantages of being a mage. Do mage's lose their humanity or anything or is the only disadvantages is the mentor spirits really. I don't see any real disadvantage with mage aside from possibly social stigma?

If it's just fluff, then one game I was in had a morbidly obese mage who laid around all day and used Magic Fingers to get whatever he needed around the place.

There is not. Mages are superhumans, end of line.

As a matter of fact, the "loosing your soul part" is only partly true. It is a suggestion, not really a must.

It's simple!

Streat sams lose their souls, while mages sell theirs in Faustian bargains ;).

Falconer kind of has it right actually, in my opinion. An Awakened person is automatically more interesting to spirits and other magical entities, and they're probably more often exposed to crazy stuff. Plus, an egotistical mage doesn't just feel like he's better than other people, he has visible proof of his own superiority, so there's a variety of mental disorders that could easily be associated with that. Then there's the stuff they're exposed to in their line of work, having to banish demons, assensing people's souls and peeking into the Metaplanes could all seem pretty jarring to me. I dunno, I guess it's not as bad as losing your soul, but I'd say that a mage could go nuts pretty easily.

@Hound
True, but thats not from beeing a mage thats from opening the wrong door or from beeing messed up to start with... (This are all things, which can happen to a sam too)
(Yes, not the metaplane thing true, but thats a choice of the mage anyway)
But getting attacked/your arm eaten by "demons", is also part of the sams job description.

Awakened characters are like the X-men; they are always subject to fear, envy, adulation, or paranoia from mundanes. They are different (and apart) from humanity in a profound way. Shadowrun is a game with transhumanist themes, but a bit of dystopian flavor is thrown in there, too. So both ways of transcending normal humanity have downsides to them.

With that said - Essence is mostly a metagame construction to limit how much stuff you can cram into your character. There are negative qualities if you want to play someone turning psychotic or suffering mental problems, or having problems with malfunctioning implants or a messed-up system because of those implants. Otherwise, how your character reacts to having implants is a very individual thing, depending on the character's beliefs and attitudes, and what type of implants he or she gets.

There's also the problem that power corrupts, always. Imagine being able to manipulate another human's emotions and alter their memories - there are so many ways to abuse these powers, it's just plain scary.
Let's say a Street Sam and a mage are in a foul mood, and both walk into a bar looking to blow off some steam. The Sam knows that he is so wired that he could take on the whole bar by himself, so he starts behaving like a dick, bumping into people, flirting up girls in front of their boyfriends and forcing other guys to pay his bill. The mage, meanwhile, leans back and makes other people want to buy him drinks - and maybe give him a little extra on the toilet. Which one is the greater monster?

In my campaing, registered mages have to display this status on their public profile, so everybody knows what risks they take. Those dangerous amoral SINless slum-mages however...well, can't be to careful these days, is all I'm saying.

Now, you might be inclined to measure a charcter's humanity by his Essence stat, but that is not the case. You can have a perfect Essence of 6 and still be completely messed up, just as 0.1 Essence characters can be decent human beings. It all comes down to "with great power comes great responsibility". Well, and humans generally suck at acting responsible...

@The_Vanguard

Yeah, it is always a bit of a problem with magic systems in games in general.
The good stuff (morally speaking) is much cheaper and easier to get and has much more benefits.

It is not that bad in shadowrun, however, like it is in other games. (There you get only in Problems if you start thinking about producing energy from magic. Aka: Who needs Fusion or Fission if you can have a wall of fire)

The whole thing about the date rape mage is, that (not having that kind of personality before) he probably won't develop it either. Why?
Generally speaking beeing a mage puts your life on auto pilot.
Yeah, fire me and find the other healing mage who will work for that salary? No? Well, thats what I have thought.

I once read a kind of moral quiz which was to find out if you should play a dark or a light character.
Like if you could do magic would you like to be able to:
1)Kill people
2)Controll people
3)Heal people.
With a touch?
Honestly? The question is, do I want an ability which is useless after 1 time, usless after 10 times (with the possibility of the people you once controlled beeing out for your blood)
or an ability which would give you a really great source of income and eternal health (depending on how you see aging life) for you and people you care about...

Well, shadowrun is not that bad, because there is no Leonisation spell and the rules for illnesses are a bit strange and normal healing is quite great but still...
Magic in most games is about having the benefits of extreamly high developed technology without any of the drawbacks.

It is like doing pushups to repair your car and full it up.
Like a wise person used to say: "With great power comes great bitches"

First of all, a mage has to follow a tradition. And this tradition isn't just "I went to [tradition] school". It shapes the way you see the world(s), it shapes your personality.

Secondly, the powers you have access to lead you to experience things differently from the rest of the world. Recently, I've met a girl who explained to me that she could feel other's people "personality" just by touching them, that she once remembered receiving a SMS from a friend who was sick, only to discover later that she hadn't received any SMS but that this friend was indeed sick, and so on. I'm not completely closed to admitting that such things are possible, but I still felt uneasy. I guess it's pretty similar for mages, who'll experience things that they can't share with their Mundanes friends or who'll appear weird to them. And so, the mage will tend to think of himself as not exactly metahuman, maybe superior, maybe just different, but not quite metahuman.

Third, magic is great, and you can do many things with it. But in order to make even better things you need more power. And this drive for power can be pretty dangerous too.

Yeah, just take a look at Anakin and Palpatine...
One became a nice human barbecue and the other one a nice human raisin.

It's also a cycle thing too..

When you are known as a spellslinger, how people treat you changes.

You have many that think you are a freak/monster who will control their minds. And treat you as such.
Others latch on for the allure of unknown power drawing them in.

In effect the way you are treated can wear down a person's morals to a point. If you are constantly hounded and treated as a monster or freak, it's not a far cry for someone to say "well if they want to treat me as such, why not enjoy being one since I got all the downsides might as well have the perks too"

My first Shadowrun4 character didn't had so much problems against magicians, until our second mission when a trap was activated when he entered a room, locking him up and soon after a Water spirit showed up nearly killing him. Since then, he became highly suspicious of magicians, shooting first and asking questions later to a bound, blinded, gagged constantly electrified magicians,

And you have to take into account, the street sammy usually goes out and intentionally gets wired up to do dangerous things, putting their life and sanity on the line. People don't choose to Awaken. They just do. So now your options are... register and most like become a wage mage who is going to be every runner's first target when things go south, become a science junkie and have to do experiments all day who is targeted by the runners because of his work or start running and be the guy every security guard shoots at first when things go south. Because as all good runners know...

Always geek the mage first.

Also, there's a lot more "Street Samurais" (Or wannabes at least) than there are Magicians of any type. The world average for Magicians is ~1%, whereas any schmuck willing to hock their lives can get cybernetics/bioware.

Molly Millions did it by becoming a willing Puppet in a Bunraku Parlor on contract, for example.

And for the really shadowrun-savy "STMF"

I don't think there are many more people with 200K nuyens of illegal ware, 0.01 essence and all the skills of a street samurai than there are mages.

Thus the wannabe statement. The people who do what they saw in the movies. "I'm gonna run away from home and be a 'runner!"

Also an overcasting addiction is a bitch- the higher your magic the worse it gets.

I think one of the biggest issues is that Mages are huge Karma sinks. They are either become better at being a mage, or they become better at not being a mage. I know this sounds weird, but hear me out.

Any runner worth their salt wants to improve, but for most razor-boys it is pretty cut and dried. Spend money on better ware, spend Karma on better skills, maybe boost an attribute.

Now lets see how a mage improves. Spend money on Lodge materials, fetishes, and foci, etc. But now, we need to spend Karma to bond foci. We need Karma to learn new spells. Also need it (and a lot of it really) for initiation. Still need it to increase skills too. So... blithely tossing some Karma at a firearms skill or actually learning to drive a car, or daring to learn something technical isn't something that mages can get away with like mundane characters.

Also mages have the penultimate ability to gank themselves should they decide to go hog wild and start playing with the heavy artillery. That's a worst case scenario, but they can still knock themselves unconscious should they get a bad roll of the die. Mages also have the ability to burn-out if using the Street Magic rules. Then of course there are run-away spirits, and of course people trying to gank the mage first.

This is one thing I've never figured out (why other players do it). Sustaining Foci are worth it - more or less every mage character I make starts with two Rating 6 Sustaining Foci in the form of orichalcum bracelets - for me, this is "standard issue gear."

But for other foci, for the life of me I cannot figure out why anyone would ever invest a single point of Karma in them. I mean, we're talking about a HUGE pile of Karma for any other foci, which are ultimately items that can be destroyed, lost, or stolen, taking your large investment of Karma with them. Just initiate - again and again, as often as you can. Innate abilities don't have the same liability, and you can't lose them with your luggage, either.

@Darquewing
Sorry, but this is not a real argument.
You could cut foci from the game or you could cut initiations from the game and make magic the same as any other attribute.
Would this make mages stronger? I doubt it.

On the other hand you could just increase the limits on attributes.
Lets say:
Not 1 to 6 but rather 1 to 8. And the same for skills. Not 1 to 7 but 1 to 10.
Would this make sams "worse" because now they need more Karma to invest in their skills and attributes?


@JanessaVR
There are only two foci (I have to check if there are some others worth considering) which are really good.
Thats the powerfocus. 8 Karma per Point for any test with magic. (Even getting magic from 7 to 8 would pay for a force 5 powerfocus. But I have to admit, an ally spirit is better here)
The sustaining focus as you pointed out is the other one...

But true, there are some problems with that. Mostly wards. Thats why I think free spirits can come out pritty strong, even if you give them only the Karma the rest gets.
They are the only playable race, which can bypass wards, without masking, while having sustained spells on them. With the edge rule, thats a hell of a deal

True.. a lot of foci aren't that great.

It's less a matter of of the scale of the attributes. It's more the fact that street sammies and other mundanes can improve in ways that don't involve Karma. Mages less so. Of course, that also depends on how much you stay to the setting. I just don't see a mage running to the delta clinic to load up on 'ware. Where as a street sammie has that option.

@Darquewing
Both have the option of the delta clinic. But unless your GM interprets the essence rules a mage friendly way, you should not take more than 2 points of essance loss...

His point is, spending money to buy ware for a mage might cripple the mage more than helping them.
While sams might use karma AND money to improve, it reaches a point where mages can only improve by spending karma. Spending karma to gain initations, spending karma to raise Magic, spending karma to attune to foci, etc.

Magician Way Of The Burn-Out!

Also, there's the old favorite optional rule of Cash-For-Karma, Karma-For-Cash! You just have to be willing to sell a bit of your soul.

"For a limited time only, you too can have this handsome epidermis for the eensy price of your soul and a buttload of pain"

You know, that sounded almost Tom Waits as well as Alice Cooper. Good job!

I just pointed out, that this is true if you use the not so friendly interpretation and go over 2 Points of essence loss. No question there.
But 2 Points mean for Joe mage around 1.4 Points of Bio and 1.2 Point of Cyber...
There you can spend a lot of cash, if you go delta...
But then there is so much stuff to buy out there, and be it the permanent high lifestyle. (Which, if it comes to usefullness, beats making all your Move by wire (beta) into a Move by wire (delta))

If your mage runs out of things to buy then you aren't watching enough Burn Notice.

Duct Tape, Cell Phones, Plastique.

See, I'm a man of simple tastes. I like dynamite and gunpowder and gasoline. Do you know what all these things have in common? They're cheap.

As well as phone books wedged into the door panels of your van.

If you get enough money to buy a permanent high lifestyle, then why do you keep running?
I mean, you should be retiring (or semi-retiring).

An argument that has come up in tons of threads. Perhaps the runner has developed an addiction to the rush and excitement. Maybe he/she has learned the horrible truth that people always want more (it wouldn't have been so bad if you hadn't done runs on Luxury++ places). Over the years a personal goal was born that is too important to leave in the hands of others. Or loves showing those punks that a lot of know-how and 50's tech can do more than young bones and SOTA gear.

Well, so why would the Sam take delta gear?

(Thats why you should not throw bags of money at your players....)

Man of my own tastes, but not nature.Mine retired storyline. Then a building dropped on him.

I think that's precisely the reason to take delta grade cyberware and why you should throw bags of money at your players.

I have another idea why to throw bags of money at the PCs.

What's the damage rating on bags of credsticks?

Oh, I got better bit of money to pound PCs with.

Normal or are we using SR4 A- non errata phys-ad rules?

Not necessarily. I have been playing/running for magic characters for MANY years. My last was a combat mystic adept (fire elementalist to be exact) that deliberately got bio/ware. Out of game it's numbers. 3 IP for 1 power point loss (Synaptic Booster) or 2.5 power points loss with Improved Reflexes adept power. From an in game perspective, he want's whatever edge he can get being a combat mage. The lovely surprise when you have a rep for being a flashy mage, but still can cap 6 shots off with a predator in a rating 5 background count....priceless.

That's also one other downside to being a magic character in Shadowrun. One I am surprised has not come up in this particular discussion. Background count. It's out there kiddies, and allot more prevalent than most think. Not very good for your Fire focused combat mage being used to set everything ablaze not being able to so much as light a cigarette in a high background count. Hell, he might as well not even use magic even in a moderate one.

Take Lagos(Feral Cities, Dusk) for example. IIRC, general area BC of 3. Combat mage archetype has a Magic of 5. 2 in Lagos. Major mojo issues.

So players may retire after the first run?
Honestly, if you do that, the sam is getting a bit better and the mage can play "playboy" from now on...

This is one area where I actually feel a bit bad for spellslinging players. Especially since most areas of background count tend to occur in places that are MORE dangerous than less. I'll play through it if I'm running a mage, but as a GM, I tend to go with flexible background count. Like having it affect Sorcery or Conjuring in a bad way, but the other in a good way. Or make it a purely elemental aspect, and let them figure out what works and what doesn't. In a climactic magic-centric scene, I could see making the count fluid, and randomly rolling it. As an example, have two major aspected powers that are clashing, and the mana in the area is roiling like a storm front. Roll a d6 for each side at the start of each combat turn. The difference one side has over the other is their positive count for the turn.

Unless the story calls for specifically limiting their magic, or the games power level is already high, I can't see giving a flat background count that is going gimp part of the group for no good reason.

If all it takes is one run and a bag of money to get there, the character is not all that well thought out, in my opinion. There is a difference between being ABLE to upgrade your gear and Retiring. Some gear upgrades come in at 1 Million Nuyen Plus. Spend that on the upgrade (Say Standard Wired 3/Reaction Enhancers 3 to Delta Wired 3/Reaction Enhancers 3), and you have spent a ton of money, and have not really increased your capabilities at all. Some things require a ton of money.

If background count exists, it has a reason for its existence. It is one of the drawbacks of playing a Magical Character (and one of the primary balancing mechanics in the game). It should be enforced where it occurs. It is one of the reasons that a Mage character should be More than just "I cast Spells, Herp Derp." A MAgician should be able to at least survive in the Shadows without the use of Magic.

@Tymeaus Jalynsfein
And what is stopping you from buying a permanent middle lifestye from that? 500k?
High would also only cost a million.

Thats why you should not throw bags of money at your players. If they really try to make up their mind in Character one million is best spend in this way.

Nothing is stopping me, except my other wants and needs.

I routinely play with a Middle to High Lifestyle (Usually high, but Occasionally even Luxury), and have yet to have issues with it. In fact, our Prime Runners are living the Permanent Luxury Lifestyle currently. So what? If you are only running for Lifestyle, then yes, maybe your argument would hold a bit of water, but since I imagine that most runners are not running for just the lifestyle (None of the ones in our games have that as their motivation), your argument breaks down.

Fact is, if you EVER want your runners to have access to things like Beta/Delta Grade Cyber/Bio, High Force Foci, and the various assortment of Drones, etc. in the game, they will have to have the money to acquire them. Minimal (or No) Money means absolutely no New Toys. Especially when those toys can run you into the Millions of Nuyen to acquire. As for the Cyber/Bio; If you are JUST UPGRADING, it is a zero gain strategy (except for the gain in your Essence Hole). You have spent scores of money for absolutely NO IMPROVEMENT whatsoever except a higher threshold for detection (of Cyber anyways), and more space to put New 'Ware. Why is Money such a Bad thing to you Irion?

And Why is the High or Luxury Lifestyle such a bad thing, anyways? I assume that no one in your games has these and still runs, right?

I think it all depends on the sort of campaign you are running.

In a gritty street campaign, there probably won't be a lot of beta/delta grade cyber around. On the other hand, you probably aren't facing off against insect hives/dragons/high-end military/etc. In this style of game, paying the bills plus a little extra, and coming out alive are laudable goals.

But if a campaign has the PCs as the newest incarnation of Assets, Inc., then money probably isn't the reason those characters do what they do. Living through things is laudable, but still a tad secondary to fulfilling your goals. All the deltaware/magic/resonance in the sixth world may not guarantee you will succeed.

Both styles can be equally easy, or equally gritty. It all boils down to what game you want to run and what kinds of things your players want to do.