so had this thought a bit ago, got buried in a thread on the official craphole forums, thought i'd float it here:

so one difficulty with the current summoning system, besides the whole "summon cthulhu" problem with spirit drain, is that even an unbound spirit is effectively a slave. you can summon a healing earth spirit and command it thus: "dear sweet healing embodiment of our earth mother gaia, tear into these defenseless children with your might that i might make a delicious orphan pudding" and said spirit kind of just has to shrug and get to murdering. sure, word gets around the spirit world, you're a bad shaman, whateva. but in the moment said spirit is just a slave.

so, as an optional rule: what if issuing commands to unbound spirits requires a test? say, charisma + negotiation (or maybe willpower + intimidation if you're a dick/hermetic) vs. spirit's composure (typically 2x force). the reasoning behind this is that you've summoned the spirit, but since it's not bound it has enough free will to go tell you to fuck yourself and expend a service for nothing if it doesn't like what you tell it to do. this roll could of course be modified by things like spirit aspects (using a hermetic fire element for combat is probably right up its alley, so you might get a bonus, but telling it to conceal someone is probably super-boring to the living embodiment of immolation, so you might get a penalty), sacrifices of reagents (delicious mana!), environmental factors, general attitude of spirits towards character, stuff like that.

this rule helps mechanically differentiate charisma traditions from logic traditions, to some extent bringing back a bit more of the old shaman vs. hermetic flavor that's missing in 4th and 5th. it would also encourage good roleplaying of spirit-summoning characters, since there would actually be a mechanical reason to make sacrifices and avoid abusing your spectral buddies. also, the need for a character to convince the force 12 spirit he's summoned to do anything it doesn't explicitly want to do is going to make using said spirits a lot harder when the spirit has 24 dice to say no with. it also encourages binding of spirits, since they don't get to say no. that makes the obvious parallels with slavery a bit more... obvious. that's a feature not a bug.

thoughts?

It has potential and it would presume that you would call the appropriate spirit for the task you want done, though negotiating terms in a middle of a firefight could be hazardous.

Also traditions may come into play. If your tradition says combat magics are tied to Fire, does this mean a Water elemental might not wish to fight if called up for some reason (maybe the area is loaded with fuel/other volatile materials so fire would be a no no)? How would different traditions and world views juggle the concepts and how would the spirits apply?

Binding does not have to be full on slavery either, but a deeper bond. If I need that Aid Study, the only way to obtain it in the current RAW is by binding said spirit which always struck me as odd. Allow the option for the Binding to be more akin to a contract for extended services between the summoner and spirit. Same costs and time, just changing the fluff a bit and leaving both sides on better terms with the other.

Could even earn an altered form or Loyalty maybe, like with Burny the Force 6 Fire Spirit who you have worked with in the past and can summon fairly faithfully (level 2-3 Astral Contact?) for a bit of a fiery fisticuffs, but don't ask him to go spying or run messages!

Not much need to apply game mechanics into effects of RP. It's already stated that just the summoning of a spirit is usually seen as a deal between equals on the part of the spirit, where binding is subjugation (hence the Force to Force x 2 resistance between the two).

If a summoner is routinely nice to his/her spirits (actions based towards tradition dictates, etc.) then said summoner likely only needs to ask. No negotiation required.

Now if a summoner is abusive to his/her spirits, expect Edge to be used to resist the summoning & binding attempts every time.

Then there's the services that the spirits will have to do. The nice ones may not mind taking a little more time to follow the intent of the order given; the pissed off ones will look for the fastest way possible to get the job done. If you've been mean to your spirits in the past, a summoned fire spirit may not worry itself about innocents or friends if you tell it to kill your enemies in a fight. It will want to end the service as quickly as possible, and if torching someone who isn't explicitly protected to kill two of the summoner's enemies gets it done faster then so be it.

I wrote about one Free Spirit that really, really liked Coffee.

Maybe the Calling rules will get ported over to SR5. At that point, it is ALL about the negotiation.

Just make sure it's not the Collect Call of Cathulhu

I don't really like the slavery comparison, even if it is canon.

And it gives hermetic mages a really bad rap.

I don't think spirits need to be sent only on tasks related to the spell types associated with the spirit types.

If a GM needs to make conjuring really hard because the player is doing things with spirits that aggravate the GM, then the GM is within her rights to do so. But abusing the game system isn't the same as being abusive to the spirits themselves. To say that a "combat" spirit resented helping your teammates, so now you're blacklisted in the spirit world and spirits always use edge from now on... did I understand that correctly?

I'd be more worried about the Prank Call of Cthulu (Billy and Mandy, couldn't find a good link for it, sadly).

Spirits and tasks are not limited full on by tradition, so if you want to summon a water spirit or a fire elemental for a fight there is nothing to stop you.

We were just asking in what situations would a spirit following the ideas of the OP be more resistant to a command? And for this tradition and overall belief system of same could affect it.

In my personal view, the workings of the material plane are of little significance to spirits. It would have to be something rather horrendous, like exterminating the totem animal. Perhaps forcing a water spirit to extinguish a fire larger than it, or forcing a fire spirit to swim could be abusive too. Or forcing them to fight more powerful spirits, especially opposing elements (maybe even air and earth) would be abusive enough. I don't think spirits are going to get butthurt over mortal morality.

You could swing it either way as a GM, but yeah, there are beings with a morality and a worldview very different from our own. You could say they they don't want to disrupt the flow of mana, and wouldn't distinguish between murdering a horrible person or murdering a poor orphan. Or you could say, they don't care either way, they made a deal with the summoner and they will carry out that deal no matter what they are asked to do.

Speaking of mortal morality, I know one of the old sourcebooks went into depth about the legality of magic and its moral standing in the Sixth World. Stuff like, the Catholic church ruled that spirits do not have immortal souls, and the use of any kind of combat magic constitutes grounds for first degree murder. So I wonder what they would have to say about using a water elemental to drown schoolchildren. Does it count as the mage drowning the kids? Or could the spirit be summoned and bound and brought to trial too? They are sentient, after all.

If that is the case, there might be spirits in prison, or spirits that get executed for crimes, and so other members of the spirit world might not be so hip to strike a bargain where they murder innocents.

I am imaging the Academy Award winning drama, One Foot in the World, about a fire spirit who gets summoned by the wrong mage and is forced to do drugs and murder. The spirit takes the fall for the crimes, and gets a scrappy public defender, but alas public and legal opinion is against them. The fire spirit gives a last heartfelt confession on death row. "I only got one foot in the world," he says, "but I am trying real hard to have two." The morning of the execution, he is brought to the banishing circle. He give a remorseful speech, talking about how he has learned what real human feeling is like, and then, he is banished.

1d6 days later his spirit is back at full power, he has forgotten the whole thing, and someone else summons him to burn down an orphanage.

Fin!

Should look into UB & insect spirits...

I think making commanding spirits difficult could swiftly make them all but unusable. I think spirit abuse, for purposes of future summoning being more difficult and future spirits being less tractable, should be limited to the clear-cut areas delineated in the rules, such as making a bound spirit expend its Force to sustain a spell, as well as obvious abuse (such as sending a spirit out as expendable cannon fodder knowing it will be killed). I don't think summoners should have to need social skill tests just to get a spirit to follow orders - to me, that is what the summoning test is for, and there is already the inherent limit of net successes equating services owed by the spirit. Plus, it gives shamans an edge, when nature spirits are supposed to be less pliable than elementals.

That said, the tradition of the summoning mage should also determine spirit attitudes. I think it is a tradeoff. For traditions such as hermeticism, spirits are tractable but comparatively unimaginative. For a tradition that summons, for example, ancestor spirits, the spirits might be more inclined to be helpful, but will also be treated with more respect and not treated as minions. Some traditions see spirits as wily or tricky entities. They might need to spend more effort cajoling or even bribing them, but in return, they get spirits that are more capable of acting on the summoner's behalf on their own initiative.

From the start hermetics were binding their elementals and it was a slave until services fulfilled but Shaman were more negoiated. This may have blurred with later editions but it seems this is more fuzzy matter. The rules are role dice and x happens. It is up to the player and GM how they deal with it. Even being nice might not be seen the same way by the spirit. Martha Washington rarely used the word slave. She talked about 'our people' and thought she was being nice but I am sure the people she held in bondage were less than thrilled by it.

Pg. 200 of SR5 has a nice sideboard about this. As a result, in our game, we have taken to bartering with spirits with services in exchange for reagents, making it an even exchange (and forcing the caster to be stocked up on reagents).

think you mean pg 300, pg 200 is vehicular

i would intend to take the spell class guidelines as a rough guideline for what a spirit of a given type for a given tradition finds acceptable. that might mechanically translate as something like a +2 to your roll if the task is aspected (e.g, fire for combat for a hermetic), no bonus if it's not aspected (water for combat) and -4 if it's pretty much opposed (earth for combat for a shaman).

as far as this crippling summoners, i don't think that's a serious worry. this wouldn't turn "command spirit" into a complex action or something like that, it would just require a die roll. in my opinion, it's worth enforcing some roleplaying constraints mechanically, but i do come from the vampire the masquerade school to some extent there. right now the penalties for spirit misuse are so paltry (oh, a -1 i can make go away with a simple roll! get back to gelatinizing orphans, earth mother!) that absent GM dickery there's not much way to enforce things. i prefer there to be a set penalty for dumb bastardry if for no other reason than then at least a player who is a dumb bastard doesn't think i'm picking them out and screwing with them. also i rather like the 3rd ed like flavor in distinguishing bound from unbound.

So sending a non-detection spirit to have a look would get a penalty because the task isn't illusionary or manipulative enough? I don't like it.

Me neither. That said, Tradition should inform how you use your spirits.

not necessarily. that seems like a relatively neutral task, so i just wouldn't give it a bonus. i suppose what we would need is something like a wu xing of spell types to figure out exactly what "opposes" what, and in any case this is intended to be a rough guideline. i could see a detection spirit being opposed to a task that involved illusion and deception and vice versa, combat and healing are obviously opposed, and i guess manipulation is generally relatively neutral to everything that isn't manipulation.

one also would need to take into account the specific spirit in addition to the task; even if it's combat, i doubt a fire spirit would be happy going into a howling rainstorm to fight.

There is no reason that all spirits could not actually fight (or search, or deceive, or whatever), and I am not actually liking your idea on dice rolls with bonuses/penalties to convince a spirit to undertake a task. That is what the Summoning skill is all about, after all.

the problem with the current implementation to my mind is that you summon a spirit for x number of tasks of undefined nature right now, which precludes the ability to take the nature of these tasks into account when deciding how difficult a summoning should be. once i have a spirit on deck, it does as it's told till sunup or its services are up, and it doesn't matter if i intended to use a healing spirit as a kill machine or a fire spirit in a rainstorm. it just has to do it. wheras if the spirit knew what it was getting into one imagines it might put up more of a fight at the summoning stage.

again, i wouldn't penalize asking for combat tasks except for healing spirits. i just wouldn't give any bonus to someone asking a manipulation or illusion spirit to aid it in combat. whereas i would happily give a shaman the bonus for a task aligned with the spirit if the shaman asks the illusion spirit to use confusion on someone in a combat situation. that's exactly what an illusion spirit wants to do.

i would agree with you that the conjuring skill covers the "neogtiation" with the spirit if the summoning system worked on a per-task basis for unbound spirits; you say "i am summoning a spirit for combat" or "i am summoning a spirit for continuous use of movement" or "i am summoning this spirit so i can bind it" and you would then decide bonuses and penalties to the summoning role based on the spirit, task and any other mitigating factors. you could potentially barter for additional services after the initial summon is completed using a system like i've proposed in that case and it would make a lot of sense. conjuring seems to be mostly about getting them to show up and if anything to get them to show up unwillingly. the fact that it also determines the number of no-refusal tasks the spirit is compelled to perform suggests even further that the very act of summoning (let alone binding) is a kind of slavery if spirits really are intelligent beings. that's cool for hermetics, but doesn't seem to work very well with a shaman's view of the world.

really, i think the setting could do to clarify the nature of summoning: is it "i summon something and ask it for help" or is it "i summon something and force it to submit to my will?" this divide was nicely presented in 3rd ed by the difference between spirits and elementals, and i think it would make sense to bring it back in 5th even if any mage can do both things now. a summoned spirit is a temporary ally, while a bound spirit is compelled to obey. which you choose to use is a function of character and tradition. i would just prefer the mechanics enforce that better than they do.

By the rules, it is "I summon it and force it to do my bidding."

As always, Tradition should have an impact on the reputation of the Summoner and the tasks he asks of his spirits. If the summoner is playing to Tradition, he will not ask a Healing Spirit to Kill someone. If he does, he should get a bad reputation with the Spirits he commands. It really is that simple.

Sadly, many players ignore their character's Magical Tradition, and leave it in the gutter, sacrificed upon the altar of expediency.

Differentiating between the difficulty or distastefulness of tasks, to a spirit, rather than X number of services, is not a bad notion in theory, but I don't like the proposed implementation. It is too arbitrary - spirits are only associated with spell types for purposes of what kind of spells they can aid. Making combat or illusion their "purpose" is oversimplifying them even as you are adding an extra, cumbersome set of rules.

I think a better idea is to look at two things. Basically, is the spirit being summoned in an environment, and for a task, that it feels comfortable with? A beast spirit probably wouldn't mind being summoned to rip and tear some security guards, no matter what spell type it can give bonuses to, but wouldn't like being summoned in the middle of a sterile, hard concrete urban area. A water spirit might be okay with scouting the terrain ahead, but wouldn't like being summoned into a stream polluted with runoff from the factory just upstream, or in the middle of a desert. Conversely, a fire spirit from the black magic tradition might be fine with being summoned anywhere except underwater, but wouldn't like being commanded to do something "good".

So a nice, simple rule would be: if one of these conditions is negative, the spirit gets -1 dice to its actions, and if both are present, it will perform one less service as well. If one of these conditions is positive, the spirit gets +1 dice to its actions, and if both are present, it will perform an additional service as well. Most services and environments should be fairly neutral, but things like summoning a fire elemental into a downpour, or getting a trickster spirit to help with a practical joke will actually make a tangible difference now. And with a slight tangible reward/detriment involved, players might be slightly more likely to use spirits in ways that make more sense, rather than as throwaway Swiss army knives.

I never viewed a spirits associated spell category as making it a healing spirit. A spirit of earth can take many forms, a rock slide of doom, a country physician, a burial plot representing death etc and this could all be from the same tradition and same mage.

Yeah, Me neither, but apparently some do. Personally, I focus more on the Tradition of the caster and then style from there. And If I am not sure on the Tradition, well, I enjoy the research involved in learning more about it.

Isn't it cooler to think of spirits being bound by pact rather than being sucked into this world against their will?

SpiritRun™

Where the Players are various Spirits that can be summoned by the ever mysterious Mage Johnson and offered Pacts to perform various dubious activities in exchange for Karma and other worldly delights.

PC's have access to a variety of magicks and Cypherware (special runes etched into their very essence, granting them numverous enhancements).

Again, depends upon the Tradition. In some cases, I would agree with you.
Of course, the Pact idea works great in Werewolf, the Forsaken... I think that it could also work well in Shadowrun, but not for all Traditions.

In some cases it is may be more of an Offer You Can't Refuse.

I know that some people hate how "overpowered" awakened characters are, and I've read how some people think that bound spirits were the worst thing about Shadowrun that didn't get "fixed" in this edition. So at some tables this proposal could pan out as:

Shaman: How can you enslave your own ancestors or venerated spirits of river or sky? If you bind spirits, it's as bad as diablerie in WoD. You'll be hated from then on and forsaken by your totem.

Mage: You're already despised by spirits for the inherently abusive ways of your tradition. They will resist you with all of their strength, naturally spending edge to resist anything you try to do with them, and be as conniving as an evil genie granting a wish in D&D.

while i disagree with your assessment of the proposal as cumbersome, i think we're basically in agreement in terms of the spirit of the thing. i'd rather penalize summoning than the summoned spirit, but these ideas are quite good.

overall, i'm a little surprised that people find the idea of spirits for a particular tradition being aligned with specific tasks so undesirable. clearly, certain elements are aligned with particular spell classes for a particular tradition, so i don't see why it's such a huge leap to say that the spirits of that element for that particular tradition tend to be aligned with that task or mindset as well. if your tradition happens to see earth as its combat element, then the earth spirits that you in particular summon are combat oriented. if they see them as healing spirits, you get healing spirits. i agree that this is something that it would be nice to see handled by roleplaying, but i would rather have hard rules to manage this since it really should affect the difficulty of summoning and using spirits.

diablerie is actually a good analog to the situation. in vampire, the fluff is pretty clear that the act of eating another vampire's soul is badwrong and other vampires usually kind of want to kill you if you do it. however, there are also clear mechanical consequences in terms of loss of humanity, potential deragnements and a clear stain on your aura from the act. while (arguably) not acts of the same scale, it's instructive to compare these penalties to the consequences of spirit abuse in shadowrun as currently written. one is clearly bad from both a setting and mechanics perspective (if incredibly beneficial), while the other is almost entirely frowned upon in the fluff but this cost for your actions is not in any way meaningfully enforced by the rules. so much for 5e and everything costs and all.

Do you think that binding is abusive? Would it be in either hermeticism or shamanism?

It looks like this is leading toward a set of house rules to add dice penalties to most spirit tasks, spirits using edge against the conjurer being the norm, and an incredibly restrictive definition of spirit abuse that once met could be permanently catastrophic to the character.

For such a system to be of any use, it would need to work on the basis of if the spirit type is opposed to the task, not if it is simply not quite in line with the spell type. For example, a combat spirit would likely only be opposed to stuff that falls under Healing. This could tie in nicely to a spirit attitude system, but requiring a roll simply to give the instruction seems off.