As much as I like Shadowrun’s magic system for delving into the how and why of what magic is and how it works, it has some problems. Mainly, it tries much too hard to be “one size fits all” at the expense of allowing the existence of traditions that are actually unique from one another, instead of near clones using the same, barely-varying template; it has a few other problems as well. This alternative approach to magic in the Sixth World is designed to change that. All of the Karma Points figures below are in SR4 costs as I’ve only purchased some of the SR5 books.


“Welcome to McMagics, Can I Take Your Order?”

Picking a tradition in Shadowrun reminds me a lot of ordering fast food. “Ok, for $9.99, you get one main dish, three sides dishes and a drink. Pick your items and pay the cashier. Next!” You get some limited choices, but each plate is much like any other. This has always struck me as not only an unimaginative cookie-cutter approach, but also not very…well, magical, either. The solution? Drop the “one size for everyone” mentality and build each tradition separately. Or, more accurately, let each player build how they interpret the paradigm of their tradition to be. How do we do this? Well, instead of bland, standardized packages (you’d think one of the megacorps designed this system – by committee), we go to strictly À la carte pricing; you pay for what you want. And if you want more, you pay more. It’s that simple.

To start, if you want to be a magician (we’ll just touch upon “Full Magicians” here – if you’re looking to build a Mystic Adept or the like, feel free to tweak costs accordingly), you pay 15 KP for the Magician quality. This just grants you the ability to cast spells, conjure spirits, perceive astral space, and project astrally. But, until you learn spells (by paying KP to learn each spell), you won’t be casting any.

As for spirits, until you learn how to conjure spirits (by paying KP to learn to conjure each type of spirit you want to be able to call upon), you won’t be conjuring them, either. So you start out just being able to perceive astral space and astrally project yourself; I’d start looking for a teacher, posthaste, and save up some leftover KP in your build.


Spells and Spirits

Learning spells is relatively straightforward, and requires no departure from the existing rules. You start out knowing no spells unless you pay 5 KP per spell to know its formula and thus be able to cast it.

The rules for spirits require some more substantial reworking, however. As per the SR4 Core Rules, pp. 169 – 170: “A tradition associates each of its spirit types with a category of magic. These associations serve to color how that tradition views a particular type of spirit. They also limit how a bound spirit of that type may serve a magician of that tradition.” I have to say, this seems like one heck of an artificial limitation. If one tradition associates, say, Earth spirits for Health magic but another tradition associates Earth spirits for Manipulation magic, they can each clearly see that Earth spirits have more uses than the one category they’re choosing to limit them to, and so the whole thing just makes no sense.

Even more restrictive is how spirits are conjured. Do you want to have your spirits interact with the material world via Materialization or Possession? Pick one, because you can’t have both! But why not? Because…um…reasons, that’s why! This is just yet another case of the cookie-cutter mentality behind the design of magical traditions.

Instead of this system of artificially-limited spirit usage, you pay 15 KP for each type of spirit (Earth, Air, Fire, Water, etc.) that you want to be able to conjure. When you do summon them, you can use them for whatever you want, though naturally some spirits are, by their natures, better at some things than others; I might very well ask a Fire spirit to toast some ghouls for me, but I’d think twice about asking it to “lay hands upon me” for a healing spell. Under this system, you pay more for access to spirits, but your use of them is unrestricted, and if you want to be able to conjure every type of spirit, instead of just 5 of them, you can – if you feel like paying the KP for it.

As for what form your summoned spirits will take, pay 15 KP for either Materialization or Possession or pay 30 KP and get both; in this case, when you summon a spirit you choose which method it will use to appear in the material world.


Just Keep Initiating Until You Finally Get it Right!

Another idea that has never made much sense to me is initiating multiple times. Allow me to consult a dictionary:

Initiate:
Verb (used with object), initiated, initiating.
1. to begin, set going, or originate.
2. to introduce into the knowledge of some art or subject.
3. to admit or accept with formal rites into an organization or group, secret knowledge, adult society, etc.

If you’ve already been “initiated into the deeper mysteries of magic”, then why the heck should you keep doing it again and again? Were you not paying attention the first time? Maybe magicians should take better notes in class. But again, the fix is simple. Pay 15 KP for initiation, and you gain access to the metaplanes and the ability to learn metamagic techniques; this is a one-time fee. Once you’ve been initiated, you don’t need to do it again.

This also fixes a blatantly “game mechanics feel” that has been a part of the society of the campaign setting, and which I’ve never liked. To wit, it would be completely in-character for magicians in the Sixth World to have the following conversation: “So, how many times have you initiated? Three so far? Ok, that means you know exactly three metamagic techniques – which three did you pick?” The phrase “life is like an RPG” is apparently very true in the Sixth World. A more “organic” look-and-feel would be to use something like the Optional Rules for Learning Metamagic in Street Magic (pp. 52, 133), and that is essentially what I’m advocating here. If you want to learn a metamagic technique, learn it from a teacher or buy access to the formula (and pay 15 KP for each technique).

This also gets rid of some clunky mechanics, and simplifies gameplay. Take the Flexible Signature metamagic technique – every runner magician ought to have this in order to leave behind no magical signatures, that is if they don’t want Lone Star on their trail after every job. As per the canon rules, you have to either constantly limit the Force rating of your spells to no more than your Initiate rating or this ability isn’t all that useful. But really, do you know how to do it or not? You do? Great! Then do it and stop worrying about this “matching the level” nonsense. If you have a metamagic ability, you can apply it to your spells. In any case where there’s a contested roll that would involve your combined Magic + Initiate ratings, just use your Magic rating. What’s that, you say? You like having a high combined Magic + Initiate rating to win spell duels? Well then, start buying a higher Magic rating – it’s (New Rating * 3 KP), just like any other attribute; the maximum Magic rating you can ultimately have is whatever your GM decides it can be.


A Unified Cost Structure

Again, in this revised approach, you only pay for what you want, and if you want more, you pay more. I recommend pricing everything in KP, to keep it simple; Shadowrun’s approach of having more than one “point buy” system in the game is needlessly confusing and just adds to unnecessary bookkeeping.

Qualities / Components to Purchase
• Magician Quality (grants the ability to cast spells, conjure spirits, perceive astral space, and astrally project) (15 KP)
• Summon Spirits via Materialization (15 KP)
• Summon Spirits via Possession (15 KP)
• Learn to Summon a Specific Type of Spirit (15 KP)
• Learn a Spell (5 KP)
• Initiation (15 KP)
• Learn a Metamagic Technique (15 KP)

I really like how you're thinking about this.

I'm doing a similar reinvention of my own in the context of my long languishing SRV concept. I got a bit more radical in some ways, less in others.

For example, I put a huge divide in style and ability between shamanic and hermetic magic. I also ditched the dualistic planes concept.

I like your ideas; I'm just not quite sure where you're taking the paradigmatically flexible approach.

JanessaVR, I agree with you about 'Runner mages NOT knowing flexible is very dumb.

About the various levels of initiation... there had to be a Karma point sink for mages otherwise they'd grow in power way too fast. My thought to fix this and put it in line with what you proposed is this. You can only increase your magic to 1.5 times your level of Essence. This way there is a very real cost in having a mage with cyber/bioware. It also gets rid of the "I'm a Mage, bow down before me!" feel of magic. I would also propose that each level of magic is (new rating * 7) because you need some way to slow down their growth in power otherwise you have MagicRun.

Well, to anyplace that isn't "Cookie-Cutter Magic-Ville"?

This was just the culmination of years of annoyance at what I see as needlessly restrictive rules, and I thought that players needed at least a bit more freedom in designing mages, if only so they didn't all come out looking more-or-less the same.

Well, that's a bit more restrictive than I'd personally like, but then again it's your table. I'd be more inclined to set a top limit like 12 or something for max Magic rating, at the least. And there's plenty to spend KP on, what with buying ever more spells, filling out your roster of spirits that you know how to conjure, and learning more metamagic techniques; that is not a cheap shopping list.

Personally, I don't have a problem with SR becoming "MagicRun," as it's not like I'll ever play anything but a mage, or, if I'm really slumming, an adept. My personal take is that if you're not Awakened, well, you're basically just another NPC. And do the muggles really count, in the grand scheme of things? Eh, not really.

I'd use the limit of 1.5 times Essence to put it in line with all the other Attributes.


Yeah, that's a good idea until one of those "muggles" shoots your mage in the head with a thunderstruck gauss rifle or laser cannon.

Well, personally, my preferred upper limit for Magic rating would be more like 24+...but, I'm upfront about being a power gamer.



If you actually get killed by a muggle, were you worthy of the gift of magic?

I've done something like this for my houserules: you build your tradition using some building blocks. I have given them prices, but I don't do much with them because that would mean having to spend a lot of time to balance things and I don't have enough resources to do this. So the prices are just here to be able to quickly check if something is far too unbalanced compared to something else, but GM discretion is very much needed.

Anyway, here are my "options":

Mentor spirit (1 or 0)
The practitioner can have a mentor spirit. Price is zero if respecting the mentor spirit is very restrictive.

Bits and bolts (-1)
Some traditions are too simple, too recent or too blurry to let the practitioner reach illumination. Practitioners of such traditions can't initiate nor get access to any metamagic.

Submissive spirits (+1)
Spirits from this tradition are completely submissive and will always follow the orders correctly.

Difficult spirits (-1)
Spirits from this tradition have a problem accepting the mage's authority. They can feel superior, or just be teasing a lot. They'll follow the orders, but will take any occasion to get free from them /negociate them, badly interpret what has been said, etc.

Binding only (-1)
Summoned spirits have to be bounded.

Territorial (-1)
The spirits from this tradition will only come in their natural environment and their power will be limited to the presence of their terrain. (For example for a water spirit: 1= a glass of water, 2 = a puddle, 3 = multiple puddles, 4 = a small water stream, 5 = a small river, a small water tower, 6 = a lake, a major river, a big water tower...)

Unique spirits (0)
The spirits summoned by the mage are always the same for each type. They can be ancestors, avatar of superior beings or just the same metaplanar entity. On the upside, the mage will often have a more complex relationship with that spirit who will understand him better and could grant him some favor if treated well. On the downside, the spirit will remember bad experiences and might try to resist summoning.

Limited spell (-1 to -3)
Some spells are either incompatible with the tradition or badly seen among its practitioners. In the latter case, it will only be accepted if the tradition is common enough in the game's environment.
-1 : One or two major spells (Invisibility, Healing or Levitate for example) are not available, or one category or type of spell (for example elementary spells) are badly seen.
-2 : One spell category or type is unavailable, or many spells (for example all harmful spells) are badly seen.
-3 : Only one category or type of spell is available, or only a handful of spells are actually accepted.

Conspicuous (-1)
The mage cannot hide his spell casting.

Close to commodities (+1)
The tradition is common in the game's setting or in the PC's circles, or it allows the practitioner to take stuff from other traditions. This makes it easy for the character to get access to gear, spells , magic groups and other stuff like this.

There will be only one (-1)
The tradition is very rare, dying or unique to the character. It will be harder to learn new spells, magic groups or just someone who agrees with him about magic.

Easy (+1)
The tradition isn't restrictive at all. The practitioner doesn't have to follow any kind of rules or lifestyle.

Distinctive style (-1)
Practitioners of this tradition can't really hide their nature.

Restrictive (-1)
This tradition is very restrictive. It can for example require things that are not accepted or illegal in the game's setting (such as sacrifices) or it can have many strict rules that must be followed to be able to use the magic.

VIP Pass (+1)
Being a member of this tradition is a great asset, even without the magic. It can allow the character to join a very secretive group, or to be well appreciated by powerful people. Please note that this only works if belonging to the tradition is the only requisite for getting the favors (for example if people can hate you but still be unable to refuse to help you just because you're a member of the tradition).

This can be better served as making them positive/negative qualities taken at Character Generation.

One thing that I would like to see removed from Shadowrun is the Mystic Adept. They're cheaper than full mages, can do almost anything that a full mage can do (except astrally project... boo fraking hoo), AND can get Adept abilities. They're too damn broken.

My thought is that there should be three different types of magic: Adept, Aspected Magician, and Full Magician. Adepts and Aspected Magician are as they are in the book, but Full Magicians can after Initiating can spend any future magic points on Adept abilities. They've learned how to internalize magic just like an Adept.

The downside of this is that for the purposes of casting spells they DO NOT count that point towards their spell casting dice pool. For example: Hopper the Elven mage want to how to make people's heads explode when he punches them (Killing Hands and Elemental Strike [Fire]). He can learn how to do this when he raises his magic from 4 to 5, but his magic will only count as 4 when casting spells*.

* == Overcasting, max hits, etc.

Don't forget now that SOTA 2064 offered those on the Magicians Way a Limited Astral Projection as a Metamagic.

Granted with a very short use rate, but projection none the less.

Splitting the Magic for Magician/Adept abilities could work and would seem more self-regulating, but was one of the complaints in 4th so some tweaking would still be needed.

Utterly broken bulldrek! Another reason I hate Mystic Adepts. Get everything, pay nothing.


Well the way to fix that is in my system the mage would use his full magic rating with regards to his adept abilities, but only the magic rating NOT assigned to adept abilities for spell casting, summoning, enchanting, etc. It would even use the same notation as other abilities.

Example Hopper would have "Magic: 4 (5)"

I remember in 2nd Ed where there were only 2 traditions. Talking about complex.

Hermetic Mages were limited to the 4 elements for summoning and had to bind them (cost Karma). There "lodge" aka spell-books were purchased and didn't cost Karma (could be hard copy or electronic copy; players choice); Drain based on at-the-time Intellect.

Shamans had a crap ton of spirits and was limited to the type they could summon depending on their current location; they were required to pick a mentor spirit. There spirits couldn't be bound and only lasted till sunset or sunrise (depending on when summoned) but didn't cost karma to summon. Their "Lodge" had to be purchased via and karma; Drain based on Charisma

Both cast spells the same.

Besides the items listed everything else was basically fluff.

In 4th ed it got fixed; Spirits were limited to 5 types and they could be summoned and bound with Karma or temporarily without Karma; Mentor spirit was made an option for both by making it a positive quality. "Lodges" now cost both Karma and for all. The differences are based on spirit types summoned and drain resist which has always been what sets the traditions apart (besides fluff).

Beyond that the traditions have mainly been "Fluff" since the beginning and it's how you role-play it that makes the difference. Now I don't have to memorize 2 different sets of rules for 2 different traditions. They cast; they Summon; They enchant; they resist drain. The traditions have been made equal and streamlined. It may seem like it's cookie-cutter "one-size-fits-all" and it partly is with the RAW for 4th but I can still make my Shaman from 2nd ed very similar to the way it originally was with the right qualities.


I can see partly why it was changed as I'm a weak magic type casting and a weak phys adept; Make the choice which do I want to suck at more.

Reads to me like they have to pick one of the skill groups they want use but they don't get all 3. That alone would limit their power in 5th ed enough to not worry about anything else. If they get all 3 w/o magic restriction then they are O.P.

I could also see another (bit more complex) solution; make them pick a side. So if they choose the mage side then they can get all skills for Magician (excluding the astral) but they only get to purchase Power Points (still requires Karma) equal up to 1/2 magic rating. If they choose Phys Adept side then they get to purchase Power Points (still costs Karma) up to Magic rating and Magician side is limited in power equal to 1/2 magic without overcasting. This bring back the limitations in their magic by making them choose almost like it originally was without making the whole concept stink.

4E got it better, but still not right, as far as I'm concerned. It still has all the issues I outlined above. And Blade's proposed some interesting Qualities to augment tradition builds as well. So, yes, 4E was a vast improvement, but it's still a work in progress (and 5E seems about the same from what I've seen of it).

As KCKitsune mentioned, these would be good as Qualities for something like +/- 10/20/30 KP each.

No, the sample mystic adept (when they walk you through character creation) has skills from 2 of those skill groups. If you want to limit them to one skill group, it will be a house rule.

Mystic adepts in SR5 start out powerful right out of the gate, but their main limit is that after that, they have to advance one side or the other, and don't automatically get a power point when they raise their magic. Pure adepts will advance twice as fast and won't have mage skills/expenditures to worry about, while pure mages can astrally project and will quickly pull ahead on metamagics (unless the mystic adept doesn't improve past his initial purchase of power points). They are still slightly OP, but I like how they have been simplified.