That's not being a dick, that's living in the spirit of the rules you're emulating. The fact that the shaman can summon another spirit almost immediately makes it a lot less dickish than you seem to think.

You misunderstand. Someone else said it was dickish.

I'm not calling it dickish, I'm saying it's the point. That it's how balance is made between spirits and elementals.

Bigity... nothing in the rules says you can't take a spirit out of it's domain. The spirit is probably not going to be happy with you for doing it (remember the spirit IS a NPC and should be played by the GM, not the player). I'd expect it to become increasingly uncooperative.

Also you completely fail to realize the other advantages and penalties that accrue here.


A shaman can chain summon a pretty much unlimited number of spirits one at a time on short notice and no resource investment. But is limited in what he can do with them to non-bound spirit services.


A mage can only bind them. But this costs bigtime money!!! Seriously limiting how many he can have. But he pays for this because he can have multiple spirits out at the same time. Those spirits are far more powerful in what they can do (they can provide bound spirit services, which a shaman's spirits can't).


So I really don't see a problem at all in any of this... the costs for a mage to bind are steep, but so are the benefits. Though shamans do a lot better on the grounding out abuse... I summon a force 1 spirit... it materializes in the middle of them and I use my delayed action to ground out a fireball right in the middle of those mundanes... suck it! There's still a few standing? Summon up another one! (as opposed to the mage who now needs to wait a month for his spirit to come back from it's vacation on the metaplanes).

I'm pretty certain you can't.

I think I remember that novels described such a think (with a city spirit AFAI Remember).

Imago described some oddities with druids where spirits were out of their domain.


That might also have disappeared between editions....

pg 145 of 2050

"This means that it cannot directly affect targets outside of the domain, nor may it leave the domain. If you leave its domain while you still have services, the spirit is dismissed, and the remaining services are lost. This is true even if the spirit in the new domain would be of the same type as in the old domain (for example, moving from a swamp to a forest would lose you your spirit of beasts, even though the new domain could also be home to a beast spirit."

Its a dick move but its in the rules. Save or Die from D&D was also dickish. Just cus the rules have it doesn't mean it not dickish. I use the term dickish for anything that is GM vs Players.

I don't understand how it's dickish. It's simply the rules.

Dickish would be changing them in the middle of a pitched battle when a player is depending heavily on spirits.

Because it's arbitrary. There's nothing stopping an asshole GM from saying "Whoops, you left your spirit's domain." after walking only ten feet from where you summoned it.

Tete: thanks for pointing that out... won't make that mistake again.


All4Big... and what's stopping the shaman from assensing the area to find out where one domain stops and another begins... or if two domains have some transitional overlap area where it's a bit of both.

It's not dickish... it's the rules and the price you pay for being able to summon on the fly without major investments in prep time and summoning materials.

As for arbitrary, there are a lot of things in the game which are arbitrary. It's up to the GM to make things interesting for folks. (sometimes you get a milk run, sometimes someone ends up in a bodybag... just the ropes of the game). It's arbitrary if the HTR shows up in 10minutes or they just happened to be 2minutes away while returning from another call.... It doesn't make it dickish... I had a habit of rolling dice to figure out all kinds of things (2d6 response time for example).

Its Dickish because it creates a place where the GM (assuming hes going by RAW mind you) is limiting a players ability to be awesome. A GMs job is to make a game awesome, this is usually done by letting players BE awesome. In this case the player is allowed to be awesome while in the particular domain. To me that a Dickish rule YMMV.

I agree changing the rules in the middle of the battle is also Dickish.

Ultimately I believe the rules (for rpgs in general) are there to keep the players on an even (more or less) field while maintaining niche protection. While this rule is there to balance the Mage and Shaman (thus fitting what I expect out of a rule as previously stated) this particular case goes beyond what is needed IMHO and "punishes" the shaman player (see above about being awesome). 1-3e also had domain rules so its not like I should expect something else from 2050, I was just hoping.

[edit]
just to be clear, im not trying to convince anyone its Dickish, it just feels that way to me. So this is my last post on it unless someone asks me something specific about it

It feels "dickish" to me too
thats why I prefer the 4A Rules where the Crunch is the same for both Hermetic and Shaman (for ALL Treditions !)
so its up to the Player top make his Char ingame Awesome and not find a Way to Circumvent the Rules that try to PREVENT him from being Awesome.
GM :" I'm sorry,Shaman, but You can't use Your spirit of the Air here.You have to Summon a new one.Oh, now you're IN the Building, You have to Summon another one, a Hearth Spirit.
Oh,now You're now on the Rooftop, Your Spirit dissapears (again) Come on ,summon another one "Player:" Hey, I had an Awesome Air Spirit 1 Minute ago and I dsidn't use any service"
GM" Doesn't matter,Computer says no....errr Rules says no. ! "
If I sould ever Play SR2050 (and I would'nt mind) I'd play it with the SR4A Rules .Without Channeling, without Dickish Magic Separation Rules and without other Dickish Rules

with a Non-Dickish Dance
Medicineman

I don't need any rule to be "dickish" then.

"He parries your magical katana with his axe and your katana breaks in 2. Too bad."

I would quickly lose my players though.


Btw, the players can use the same system to defend themselves vs chamans.


Last but not least, I do explain things to my players. Last week, my chaman wanted to affect a ship in a harbor with a spirit of man. I told him clearly how it worked and that he couldn't. And it didn't felt arbitrary at all.

I don't need any rule to be "dickish" then.

"He parries your magical katana with his axe and your katana breaks in 2. Too bad."
Yes a "dickish "GM doesn't need any Rules but it helps him a great deal if they exist

If I ask the GM : Where are the Rules for that (breaking the Sword) and he has to reply :" I just made them up"
than he's a Dick
If he can point out these rules , than they (the Rules) are "the Dick"

HkaHey
Medicineman

IMO, remains a matter of perception. I love several gamestyles. I love some to be Epic (Heroquest for exemple) and some other to be gritty.

When I play SR, I want my Players to sweat, to be smart, to come out of situations that were truly difficult. If they play Shadowrun as if they were in Feng Shui, I wouldn't like it.

Let's say my PC is a samourai. he's alone, beeing attacked by spirit summoned by an opposing shaman. He can't really kill it, so he flees into a building. As a GM, I decided that the shaman astrally projects to find out where the samourai is. the shaman enters through another entry (not in LOS from samourai), summon another spirit. But my player decides to run upward, on the roof. He grins, now there's one entry. He traps that one. And he now also know that the shaman is trapped in the building. Will he go out, he'll shoot him. Now he just have to wait for the rest of the team. That's awesome from him.

I like my gamestyle to be adapted to the feeling I wanna give of the game.

I disagree with that particular point: If he can point out these rules , than they (the Rules) are "the Dick". No, he still is.

If, as GM, I have ANY NPC that fights the player have APDS bullets, I'm a dick.
If most of my ICE fries the players Deck, I'm a dick (3rd ed. but I'm certain I could find similar stuff in 4th).
If, every scenario, an opponent mage destroy the binds a character made to foci, I'm a dick.

Under your definition, most rules are dickish.


The better way to argument against this rule is to say that it just imbalance shaman in opposition to mage. (I do not agree but I wouldn't constest). What I contest is the idea that this rule is dickish. Just a GM using that unfairly is dickish.

Ok
can we agree that they both are ?!

If, as GM, I have ANY NPC that fights the player have APDS bullets, I'm a dick.
Not imO as they're legitimate Ammo
You migght be a Dick if Joe"Potbelly" nightguard (professionality 1) has them but certainly not if Knight Erand or Red Samurai use them

If, as GM, I have ANY NPC that fights the player have APDS bullets, I'm a dick.
If most of my ICE fries the players Deck, I'm a dick (3rd ed. but I'm certain I could find similar stuff in 4th).
If, every scenario, an opponent mage destroy the binds a character made to foci, I'm a dick.

Under your definition, most rules are dickish
Sorry ,because this is YOUR Definition and NO !
these is totally within the Rules and quite possible.


What I contest is the idea that this rule is dickish. Just a GM using that unfairly is dickish.
Some Rules (like Channeling) are "dickish" and some srve a "Dickish GM" better than others

HolaHow
Medicineman

well ok


You know, I'm just discussing here for the sake of having a discussion. We'll both play the game as we like



Exactly what I meant. Like if:

"What, your stupid gangers use APDS bullets. O_o' "




I found they were into your definition. A samourai always crippled because any NPC could cripple him all the time and that he should fear even the lowest gangers reduces his AWESOMENESS.

A Decker fearing any hack because he cannot sustain the repairings of his deck because the GM abuses that ICE Type reduces his Awesomeness.

The 3rd one is kinda harder to enter into your definition, but I find none of the 3 exemples to be valid because both 3 are exemples where the game is not anymore fair. (Beeing fair isn't equal to easy or hard btw)

You know what else sucks? That my rigger can't drive his van indoors. As it is, he needs one vehicle to drive in the streets with all of his buddies, another to drive around inside all discreet like, ANOTHER to drive inside and blow stuff up, and yet another if he wants to fly. That, IMO, is being dickish. I think it would be awesome if our party-van could fly, and if my GM says otherwise, he's being a dick by requiring me to buy and maintain all of these expensive vehicles.

I am curious as to why, exactly, you have this stance on the rule, since that was how it was in all Editions prior to 4th.

Why do you feel this way? I am especially curious as to the reference to Opponents having APDS ammunition or Black/Gray ICE. If it is viable for them to have it, then they have it. That is not being dickish at all, that is verisimilitude.

I disagree, strongly that my job as a GM is to make players awesome. I'm there to moderate a shared experience so everyone enjoys it. Sometimes that means they 'win', sometimes it means they 'lose'.

If you summon a spirit and have to move, that's the risk you take. And I'm not sure where all this BS of 'move 10 feet and make em summon a new spirit' is coming from, as that would very rarely be the case, unless you were already bordering a new domain (house, the sea, a city park, etc).

I never had one player whine about this rule really, so I kinda surprised at all the griping. I LIKE the domains. I LIKE elementals. I do not like them being the same.

APDS ammos are pretty rare (SR 3, it was Availability 14 if I remember correctly) so it's pretty unlikely that groups (like punks) with a short list of contacts could buy those. Second point, they are more expensive and designed to pierce armor. A group of gangers doesn't lay that much armor so they usually wouldn't need to pay the extra cash and go though the difficulty to get some.

If the gamemaster give APDS ammos to such a group, then it should be more a story driven and give hints about the plot. Like, the PC discovers the gangers use APDS ammos which means that somebody equipped them with it for a particular goal (like killing them). That's within rule, within story. Now if they had those but they were only a random troublemaking encounter, it makes no sense.


The grey ICE thing is specific. Hacking a big defended system has to have vicious ICE. And if (IMO) you go through a cheap system, it should be a piece of cake for the decker. Now if any system the decker hacks, the ICE is triggered pretty soon, and fries the deck, it's within rule but totally dickish.

It's not story based.
it's not realistic.
It's just the GM trying to ruin the decker's fun (black ICE could kill him, grey ICE just destroys his character if constantly used).

Just adding that losing can be awesome. If your phs adept slashes his way through opponents saving the girl jumping from building to building then tossing her into the helicopter and waiting till the last min to board so he can beat up goons but then when he jumps for the rope he glitches and falls to his death... That was pretty awesome (actual game I played in... no I wasnt the adept).

Exactly. Though I play alot of Legend of the 5 Rings RPG, so the whole 'losing' while keeping your honor, yada yada.