See, this is why I disagree. Making the traditions purely a matter of fluff and player idiosyncrasy with no real hard rules to back up there being a difference just leads (as we've seen) to 90% of Awakened characters following the Tradition Of What Gets Me The Biggest Bonuses. There needs to be a reason, both in-world and in the rules that make up the laws of magic, for traditions to be different. Otherwise it's just a giant mess of theatrics on the part of the character rather than the player.

It's especially bad when the Toxic, Blood, and Insect traditions are still fundamentally and wildly different than the Magic A is Magic A standard without any real explanation beyond 'because they're antagonists'.

Easy Solution... Don't allow generic "Best bang for your Buck" Traditions. These should not be created in a vacuum by a Player, there should be cooperation between the Player and the GM, with the GM having final say. That will eliminate a good portion of that crap. The remainder is a player choosing NOT to use the accoutrement of a Tradition because they are too much in the way, and that should be adjudicated with generous applications of Crises of Faith penalties. Magic has Rules for a reason (even if they are delineated in Fluff only). It is a BELIEF system, more than anything else, and when Belief shapes Tradition, the accoutrements become a necessary tool of that belief. A Tradition of One is No Tradition. It is wishing, and Magic does not run on wishes.

And I would disagree that Blood, Toxic and Insect Traditions are Fundamentally different. They aren't. They just have some other requirements that must be fulfilled. PART OF THEIR TRADITION, as it were. Yes, they do get some interesting Metamagics, but that is okay, I have no issues with Metamagics being specific to Tradition, as long as they make sense to be so. Creating a Standalone Metamagic for the Tradition of One does not fly for me.

No worries, though. I do understand where you are coming from. Many believe that it is incumbent upon the system to provide the framework for such things. I am of the opinion that UMT is an adequate enough Framework for my purposes.

I guess the difference in perception there is what you individually perceive as part of the "game mechanics" and what you consider to be "conditions" under which these "game mechanics" must be applied. Strictly speaking at their core the mechanics for the various magic users in SR3 and before were identical. Everything else was just crunch that tried to reflect the fluff where actual magical abilities were limited by the individual's mindset. As a matter of fact it wasn't even SR4 that made the first suggestion that magic as a whole works without all these tradition related limitations and it's just the individual magic user who causes them to exist in the first place.



And that's where I'd disagree: The UMT on mechanical / rule level does indeed stop them from being different by setting the lowest common denominator. The most obvious case being spirit conjuring: In order to maintain the previously clear distinction between hermetics and shamans you'd have to enforce in some form that shamans always conjure unbound spirits but never bound spirits while hermetics do it the other way round. Now SR4 RAW doesn't do that on either crunch or on fluff level and thus a player will rightfully ask why he should limit himself in such a manner if the rules / the fluff don't demand him doing so.

And while I have seen players purposely limiting themselves by only using a subset of the allowed rules for their character you'd actually need the whole group and the GM with all of his NPCs abide to such limitations for all magic users of a specific tradition. All with the distinct lack of portability from one group to another. So while I certainly applaud you and your group ...



... for eventually going through the process of creating distinct fluff for traditions on your own you still have no actual distinction that a different group / GM could understand just by hearing the tradition's name. In SR3 (and before) that was different. And some - including myself - seem to have preferred that kind of distinction and instant recognition.

But you just said it... FLUFF. And if I implement Fluff that a certain Tradition does not BIND spirits, then they don't Bind Spirits. It is now part of the Tradition. Simple as that.



True. Traditions become non-portable, to a degree. At least from table to table. But again, I don't really see that as a problem. Different Tables will have different ideas about what a Tradition truly is. Some will be happy with the provided Traditions (Generic though they are), others will make their own Traditions. Some will even potentially share across tables. UMT gives us all a common baseline from which to grow, though, and that is a good thing, in my opinion. I really hated the "Traditions" in SR3 and prior because they were really, really bland, and lacked a lot of things. The fact that they all had completely separate/different mechanics irritated me. You can have differences without having to create different mechanics.

Which is completely lacking on the game system side now. So the game became more bland / generic there than back when you perceived as such.
And fluff - to some degree - actually needs crunch to go with it. Total freedom usually leads to players never giving up parts of their freedom. Another "flaw" in the overall system and the piece in it called "player".



And UMT along with the rules removed any such fluff => That's the perceived failure on design level.



Now here my personal experience with a currently ongoing SR3 campaign - where after many years of just GMing I finally get to play. Together with my GM I did pretty much what you suggested you do in your group: We came up with a completely new tradition for my character that has it's own trappings, procedures, etc. However that tradition still expands upon the given mechanics and some of the crunch additions that separated the various previously known traditions. And so far this particular tradition certainly neither was perceived as bland nor lacks anything within our gaming experience. And I'm pretty confident that I could transfer the character to a different SR3 group without many difficulties with an explanation that takes roughly 2 to 3 minutes tops (including questions and answers on details) because the GM and other players would instantly recognize the patterns (and subsequent limitations) without further detailed explanations. Doing the same for a copy of that tradition under the UMT design of SR4 would probably take way longer.



And I'm back to my previous comment there: I never perceived the crunch differences that supported the explicit fluff difference as "a completely separate / different set of mechanics". The mechanics as such were the same: Skill + modifiers vs. varying TNs and drain resistance to create a specific effect and some degree of (sometimes not strong enough) backlash for wielding that power. Everything else is just a list of conditions that reflect fluff conditions in crunch.

Couldn't agree more. When I was talking to my players for my upcoming 3rd campaign, one of them (an experienced Pathfinder GM in his own right) asked why I preferred third edition. When I got to the UMT, he had only one word to say: "Ew." Turns out he wanted to play a Shaman, and one of the driving motives behind that was because it was so different from the mage, both in flavor and in playstyle.

Which you can implement in SR4 due to UMT if you choose to do so.

I prefer to play the setting that does it right by default.

Well, You are welcome to that opinion, But personally, I think SR3 got it wrong. *shrug*

How?
It had BOTH Fluff AND Crunch be distinctive . .

By doing it WRONG.

The question there would be "what exactly was done 'WRONG'?"
Be more specific. You're currently just giving rather bland / generic statements - which is kind of ironic considering your voiced opinion concerning blandness and generic feeling of SR3 traditions.

I don't like the way that 3rd Edition was implemented as a whole (in comparison to 4th Edition), based upon the myriad examples of subsytems that are different for differences sake. Magic is but a small example of that. I have been pretty vocal about my dislikes of 3rd in the past, and am trying to avoid being called out for trying to flame the fires of Edition War. Suffice to say, I find UMT extremely refreshing in comparison to the system used previously. I far prefer providing the framework for a Tradition, rather than having someone else do so in a way that I do not agree with, but have to suck up because that someone happens to be a Developer. It is far harder to argue against something when it has been produced by a developer (people point to it and claim it as holy writ), than to have discussion on how to move forward from a basic framework into something more defined/refined...

I am also in the camp that a Spirit is a Spirit is a Spirit. What matters are the rituals used to interact with said Spirit. 3rd just irritated me on the split between the two (Spirit vs. Elemental).

That actually causes a bigger problem. That doesn't make it so "best bang for your buck" traditions are a matter of roleplay, that makes it a matter of "who can justify it to the GM better".

For example, intuition-based mages have an advantage, because their key stat also factors into initiative. So, the GM would be justified in looking closer at anyone who created a tradition that used intuition. Problem is, the player who says: "Uh... cause it feels right?" is less likely to get it accepted, while the one who can give a clever dissertation on it is more likely.

Now, that doesn't sound like a problem, at first. But a player clever enough to come up with that much backstory is also more likely to be clever enough to squeeze BP out of the system until it bleeds. On the flip side, the player who can't do that is likely to have less system mastery. So, he's punished twice: once for not being clever enough to min/max a character properly, and again for not being able to fast talk the GM.

Not exactly. Some things can be handled with roleplay, but others are better handled mechanically.

For example, the shamanic mask. It was a big deal in SR3, it was one of the mechanical ways that shamanism was different than hermeticism. It was also a fun roleplay tool, some of my players really got into the description of it. There were even variations-- one Nordic mage had glowing runes appear in the air around him.

Starting with SR4/4.5, the shamanic mask existed, but there was very little to it. There was a minor mechanical penalty, and no real flavor text. As a result, it started to go away, especially since there weren't any rules-based reasons to take it-- it wasn't an option in the Traditions-a-la-carte rules, it was just an extra limitation you could choose to take. But with no benefit, no one chose to take it. Finally, SR5 rolled around, and I'm not even sure if it still exists.

Well... okay, I'm not actually opposed to the idea of the UMT. I had been working on something similar for a while, ways to customize your own tradition. And these days, I play a lot of Savage Worlds, which makes heavy use of trappings-- they have a very small list of spells, but they differentiate it between the various power-users by the descriptions they use.

That said, there are also mechanical differences between the "traditions". They're not huge, but they do create a different feel in games. The psychic's powers aren't as visible as the mad scientist, but it can't be taken from him, and if he rolls badly, he suffers brain burn. The mad science guy's stuff is trailing wires and vacuum tubes all over the place, you can hear his equipment spin up from a mile away, and if he fumbles, there's an earth-shattering Kaboom. (That's why smart wild cards learn to stay clear of the scientist.) Most of this does have a mechanical representation; even though they're small, they make a huge difference in the feel.

As for 3e-- it actually didn't have as many subsystems as you might think. Except for vehicle combat (which I hated... the ^&%! maneuver score can go die in a fire) everything basically ran the same. Magic was an attack roll, followed by a damage resistance test. Matrix was a straightforward computer roll; the weird part was how the TNs were set, it was system rating -Program. Still, the mechanic was the same. The only real oddity was the open test, but that wasn't part of any particular subsystem, and it was frequently ignored anyway.

Which is why a Tradition should never be created by player alone, it should be collaborative.



Matter of Opinion, I think. But I can understand that particular point.

However... Even with no Mechanical Reinforcement, Shamanic Masks are a thing for Us. It is not DIFFICULT to implement if you want to, and is easily discarded if your idea of a Shamanic Mask is at odds with what came before. THAT, to me, is the beauty of UMT.

That *was* assuming it was collaborative. Things still boil down to justifying to the GM, which can make things even more inequal.


The mechanical reinforcement helps make it better, though. In SR3, it was part of being a shaman. From 4 onwards, it was an option, an additional penalty you didn't have to take. That discouraged players from taking it or playing it up.

Tymeus, did I get you right?

You prefer UMT because it's easier to build up from scratch you're own flavored tradition?

Doesn't that mean that you technically prefer good differenciated traditions rulewise and crunchwise?

And doesn't that mean too, that the problem wasn't the difference between mage and shamans but the way it was implemented?

Yeah, not buying it. The fact that you can houserule things in is not a strength of a system, but rather your table compensating for a weakness.

UMT provides a framework upon which to build Traditions, a Framework that is identical at its core. And I Like that.
I agree that I did not like the implementation of Mage vs. Shaman. Hard to articulate why....

I do prefer building traditions from scratch (built upon the framework provided by UMT), utilizing a lot of research and detail (Some things are easier to research than others, to be sure). Admittedly, it is often a level of detail that most won't be willing to accept or Implement. My GM's, however, do not mind me putting in the work for such things when I choose to play them. Been a while since I played a Magician. I had Traditions for Vajrayana Buddhism, Shinto, Necromancy, and Black Magic that were fun to implement over the years. IIRC, the Vajrayana Tradition Document went to about 30 pages or so (Pursued in response to the Awakened Buddhist we had in the party who tended to act more the Psychotic Supremacist than a Buddhist Monk). Sadly, the Crash ate most of those documents, and I have not played a Magician since.

See, I disagree... It is not a houserule if you are using provided rules to implement something like a Tradition. It is an expansion of the given rules based upon a perceived need in the game. Not a fight worth getting tangled about, but there it is. If you were to Mod a Vehicle, is your vehicle a Houseruled piece of equipment? Sounds like you would say that it is.

So your actual problem with SR3 and before - as far as I can tell - wasn't so much "different mechanics" but rather the distinct implementation patterns for hermetics and shamans. Additionally you disliked the lack of more detail (fluff and crunch related) for either tradition and subsequently the "blandness" of all other - less detailed - traditions that simply reused those patterns instead of having their own.

I can even agree to that to a certain extend. But if that truly was/is a design failure for earlier editions then the design failure for SR4 (and onward) is that UMT should have served as a strict design tool on metalevel with clear design patterns (like some of the construction or the spell design rules in previous editions) with predefined tradition examples that maintained the integrity of the known diversity for hermetic vs. shamanism. Instead we got even "blander" base traditions and no substantial amount of fluff on either (and more or less none at all for all others)

But the problem people were pointing out is that the way the rules present the Shamanic mask, it's something that very few people would actually take. It'd be like a painting the name of your runner team on the side of your car. It's pure style with no mechanical benefit and a few drawbacks, and because of that no one wants to take it because they don't have to.

I think that's why Binary brought up houserules: unless you houserule Shamanic Mask to actually grant some benefit or make it required for any shamanic tradition, no one will take it and shamanism becomes that much blander.

Or, you know, you take a Shamanic Mask because that is one of the ways Shamanism manifests itself. Why does it need a benefit? Who cares if there are Drawbacks? It is part of what makes Shamanism Shamanism. *sigh*

Gave up on this. It'd cost ~120k just to get his cyberhands in 5e, because Trolls get screwed and have to spend a ton of just to get replacement parts up to their natural strength, while bioware replacements with the same strength are cheap enough to be almost free.

The problem is, that leaves a lot of room for min/maxing. The trouble potential by itself isn't too bad, but when combined with the other abuses the SR4.5 system allowed, it could add up quickly.

Spirit selection could be a big deal. Certain spirits were a lot more dangerous in combat than others, so a tradition that focused on those types had an advantage in a fight. Admittedly, by itself, it wasn't a huge advantage; but when you combined it with the other combat summoning tricks, you could get really powerful spirits for very little risk.

Even more clever was selecting the right spirit for the right spell. Let's say you can summon guardian spirits. That can be scary, but alone, that's not a big problem. But then, you specialize your summoning in guardian spirits, your spellcasting in combat spells, and link guardian spirits to combat spells in your tradition. That combination could get out of hand, very quickly.


All that did is discourage players from taking traditional shamans. Instead, you saw a lot of almost-shamanism, custom traditions that looked close, but (according to the player) did not have the belief in the shamanic mask.

Which is why there is a GM and it is a collaborative effort. You will never stop the specialization/mentor focus effect, because that is what players tend to do. I actually like it when a player focuses their character so as to actually provide more of a story. But it is a fine line between characterization and seeking the biggest DP possible. It can be challenging to control, and many groups just say no to such things, because it is easier and avoids potential conflict.



Same as above. Someone to vet the Write-up is required to eliminate such shenanigans.
Sadly, you are probably correct in that most people avoid such circumstances entirely due to the work involved, or allow players to just create exactly what they want without any input or control. I am glad that I have a group that is open to such things, and that it has a lot of collaboration when it is done. It can easily go entirely off the rails.

The simple truth is that the UMS turned all the Traditions and Paths into "MagicUser" all the fluff and reasoning doesn't help if it doesn't influence the mechanics in some way. Mage the Ascension has a UMS but they put a lot of emphasis on Paradigm which ultimately dictates what a Mage in the game can or cannot do, but the system is very open. The Shadowrun UMS has actual spell lists and spirit lists and solid rules for the interactions of which and the UMS essentially eradicated Paradigm by declaring everything else Window Dressing.

Mages were unable to quick summon, now they can. Shaman don't need a Totem or rather they don't gain any benefits, penalties or requirements of any kind unless they buy mentor spirit. The difference are the Stats used and any RP that the player may choose to go through. That's it.

Now, I enjoy SR5 as well as 3 and I do impress the themed differences in the traditions but I do miss the way 3rd handled them.

But like I said earlier, that doesn't prevent power combos. If anything, it makes it worse, because power combos go to those who can justify it to the GM better, and not necessarily the more responsible player.

Vetting the writeup doesn't do anything. There's still no reason to take the shamanic mask.

Like Moirdryd said, there are other ways to do this, that actually preserve the flavor between traditions. Even though they used similar mechanics, the focus rules made it so every Mage had to have a different means of casting. It was still largely player defined, so it was on them to roleplay it, but the mechanical parts helped shape and guide that roleplay. SR4.5 only defined the mechanics, but did not guide roleplay at all-- it basically said "Eh, whatever" to the fluff. Which is sad, because that's what makes magic, well magical.

I hate to keep harping on this, but if you want a master class in what non-Native American shamanic traditions should look like, go play Shadowrun Returns : Dragonfall.

Both of your primary shamanistic contacts demonstrate vividly just how much a part of the worldview and thought process a Shaman's totem is, both positively and negatively.

Well, the point there is that a mechanical reason helps build roleplay reasons. When shamans had to take a totem, they built their character concepts around it. Even if they picked a non-mechanical totem, like Coyote, they got roleplay ideas from it.

Now that totems are optional, you see fewer shamans taking one. In fact, since you have to pay for the advantages and the limitations, many players decided it wasn't worth it and cut it out entirely. And despite what TJ is saying about GM approval, these variant shamans were done with GM input, and could be justified by clever players who were just looking for the benefits.

My group started playing Shadowrun with fourth edition,
and has kept playing fairly regularly for about seven or eight years.

I have never had one player play a Shaman,
and believe me: I have tried.
The fluff just did not seem cool enough to them.
Mostly it seemed too funky I think.

Hermetics were a lot more in line with the black trenchcoat-wearing professionals that we came to playing.
Shamans seemed silly in comparison.
Remember, it is the Edition that I started in,
so that is the way I perceived Shadowrun to be meant to be played in, just going by the book.

Reading the rulebook for third edition I perceive it to be much more colorful and filled with a lot more style, than fourth.

I really enjoy the idea of there being a mechanical difference between Shamans and Hermetics.

Though I have not read many Shadowrun novels, the way the differences in traditions were portraied in the Kellan Colt books always puzzled me.
This is because I did not know there was that much of a difference to begin with.
The thought, fluff-wise, that a Shaman knew things about the nature of magic, that a hermetic might never know, and vice versa, was a new one to me. And one I simply did not have when reading the way the Traditions were described in the 4th edition rulebook.

Also I never got what Totems were about, they always sounded like something a Shaman would have, but of course the Hermetics in my group had Totems.

In more fun 3e news, I have just found the new perfect background music source for my 3e campaigns : https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCD-4g5w1h8xQpLaNS_ghU4g

Specifically : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIsFlpECo2w

In my Shadowun3 games, Shamans were picked a bit more often than Hermetics. So I guess crunch does count.

Yeah, Hermetics were largely unseen in my group of SR3 Players as well.

Same Here - We mostly had Shaman Characters, I can only remember a single Hermetic.

My experience is of rather mixed nature. The various groups showed some tendencies however:

• The more "black suit and sunglasses" oriented the group was, the more hermetics could be seen.
• In reverse: the more "pink mohawk" the group was, the more shamans turned up.
• The more scientific the individual player was oriented, the more likely his/her character turned out to be of the hermetic flavor side, unless (see next point)
• The more of a min/maxing individual the player was, the more likely it got that a shaman was chosen, based on totem bonuses that supported the general theme that was desired

I saw a mix. Hermetics were easier to roleplay for many, since shamen were all about their relationship with their totem. They were a lot like clerics in that regard, the totem determined most everything about the character.

Oddly enough, most of the hermetics I saw were summoner-focused. Both traditions could make use of the Warcher Attack Pack, where a horde of Watchers jumped an astral enemy. They couldn't do much damage, but thanks to Friends in Melee, they could ruin your day. You could back this up by sending in a bigger spirit to put the smack down.

But the scary combination was when you has six watchers, six elementals, an ally spirit, and an astral mage, all ambush an astral target. It's amazing how scary "Sic 'em, guys!" Can be. And this tactic was only oen to Hermetics.

I saw a mix. Hermetics were easier to roleplay for many, since shamen were all about their relationship with their totem. They were a lot like clerics in that regard, the totem determined most everything about the character.

Oddly enough, most of the hermetics I saw were summoner-focused. Both traditions could make use of the Warcher Attack Pack, where a horde of Watchers jumped an astral enemy. They couldn't do much damage, but thanks to Friends in Melee, they could ruin your day. You could back this up by sending in a bigger spirit to put the smack down.

But the scary combination was when you has six watchers, six elementals, an ally spirit, and an astral mage, all ambush an astral target. It's amazing how scary "Sic 'em, guys!" Can be. And this tactic was only oen to Hermetics.

Pretty much, yes.

@"Sic 'em guys!"
A Shaman could have as many Watchers and ally spirits as a Hermetic.
And if he was smart about it, he could have several spirits in addition to that.
If you are on a high-rise, you are effectively in 3 domains. City, Hearth, Sky.
So you can call forth one for each of them, if i remember that correctly.

iirc, didn't shaman great form spirits work an awful lot like hermetic elementals as well? so, if you initiated, you could actually stockpile great form spirits? (granted, they probably wouldn't be quite as high force as you could manage normally, but still, i could've swore it even let you have the same number bound as a hermetic could have elementals... )

Not sure, i never liked playing a character with magic, so i never went too deep into the rules there . .

While great form spirits were technically allowed to cross domain borders and could be kept on their home plane until you summoned them for further services there still was the distinct problem that they - by RAW - could not use their spirit powers in other domains. You could even argue whether or not a great could materialize (which was one of his spirit powers) in other domains to at least provide physical service.



Yes, the number of greats used the same max number of bound spirits: [CHA] spirits

Well, sorta.

A shaman could only have one spirit summoned at a time. While it's true that you could stand in one place with overlapping domains, and summon whichever one you chose, once you switched you forfeited all remaining services. So, in the case you mentioned, you had to summon, give the order, switch domains and summon again, etc. You couldn't get a gang of nature spirits, you had to send them in one at a time. Since you also had to risk Drain every time, it wasn't an especially effective tactic.

Hermetics couldn't summon on the fly, and it cost them money to do so, but they stuck around longer and did more. They could also summon during down time, sleep off the Drain, and then summon again later.

Yeah, it's the old spirit now versus spirit later mechanic.

Well, I guess that's what you get for hanging with a lot of natural science students.

But Totems could be chosen by Hermetics and Shamans alike, am I right?

Well, I guess that's what you get for hanging with a lot of natural science students.

But Totems could be chosen by Hermetics and Shamans alike, am I right? In fourth Edition I mean.

In 4th Ed they pretty much weren't totems any longer but 'Mentor Spirits' and every magically active character could have one or go without.

In 3rd totems were restricted to the magic users that (mainly) used the shaman pattern for their tradition (shamans, druids, voodoo and even wuxing). The other side - traditions that (mainly) used the hermetic pattern - had no totem and the only thing that came somewhat near to the totem idea was a particular hermetic subgroup of Elementary (full) Mages (not to be confused with Elementarists) that got 2 bonus dice on one of the hermetic elements while losing 1 die on the opposed element.

In third edition, no. You had to choose a totem as part of being a shaman. It was equivalent to picking a deity for a cleric in D&D: your relationship to your totem was a central part of your character. Each totem came with advantages and penalties, which further colored your character. Also, while there were no specific rules for this (and I never saw it actually used)... like clerics, if you blatantly went against your totem's interests, you could be penalized by loss of Magic or other problems.

I mention this so you can see the comparison to 4/4.5. Totems were folded into Mentor Spirits, which in theory could be taken by anyone with Magic. However, it was now a positive edge, which you had to buy. So, if you were stretched for points, or if you didn't see an advantage that was worth it, it could be skipped entirely. To complicate this, they still had disadvantages, which meant people were even less likely to take them. If your concept didn't need the advantage badly enough to outweigh the disadvantage, it wasn't worth it.

During the entire 4.5 run, I don't recall encountering a single shaman with a totem/mentor spirit. If I remember right, I saw a social adept with one, and a Voudoun practicioner with one. That's all I can remember. So, we went from totems being a very integral part of the shaman's identity, to a largely ignored option. That's another reason why shamans and hermetics felt so similar, one of the biggest parts of being a shaman was missing.

What about 5th ed?