Hey guys.

I am thinking about some alternate rules for an advanced Shadowrun setting.
Basically I wanted to ask you guys if you have some ideas for how the power of magic and technology would progress over a hundred years.

I would assume that there would be dramatic progress in the effectiveness of Cyberware, and other technology,
but the question is how to express this rule-wise.
Simply increase that stat bonuses and reduce the Essence loss?

Similarly with Magic.
I am no expert on the lore about the magic cycles,
but I would assume that, since the Magic gradually flows back into the world,
a hundred years from now, Magicians would be more potent,
and Awakenings would be more common.
But again, how to express this rule-wise?
Make it less expensive to become Awakened on character creation?
Reduce Drain damage in general?

Do you guys have any ideas?

Eclipse Phase with metahumans and sapient critters instead of superwhales and superparrots. And more magic, maybe Warhammer style. Or at least Cthulhu-Tech-ish MagiTek.


Gradually. We're talking 900 years to Earthdawn-level (10% awakened).


Actually, SR5 already favors the Awakened, so just go with that. Alchemy would be more advanced, and maybe Cthulhutech-like magical generators around, as well as Magic Mecha built around bound spirits fitted with a CAST. A warhammer-like Techno-Cult built around Technomancers and a change from Matrix to Noosphere (and machine spirits, aka Sprites, everywhere) might also be feasible; build on the Ethnomalian guys from ChromeFlesh. Also, enchanted cyberware, awakened bioware and maybe a mage-gene gene treatment that makes mundanes temporary aspect mages for a limited amount of time and a painful price.

Another thing to take into consideration is that there is going to be a marked preference for the awakened to be staying on earth or in LEO. Why?

1) Shamanic magic is pretty inherently tied to nature and while ruster shamans are pretty badass, there is no naturally occurring biosphere (and therefore no naturally occurring manasphere) on any planet except earth. I don't doubt that terraforming technologies will advance significantly but I still have a hard time believing you could get all of those shamans to go away from earth for a terraformed planet which, and this is total headcannon, would probably feel fake and 1 dimensional as opposed to the manasphere of the earth.
2) Actually getting them there is hard. Making a trip to mars, even with near future tech is really hard. Not impossible, but hard. There's a reason people in eclipse phase would rather ego-cast to attend a meeting then take a interplanetary flight. Mages make this even more hard by not responding super well to the void which your gonna have to go through quite a bit in order to get to mars. I don't recall the exact fluff off of the top of my head but as I recall, any magically active creature who looks out into astral space from actual space goes insane. Like wise, I believe they would also be disconnected from their magic which is a big deal for the awakened.

Other things that I thought of in no particular order:
1) 'ware is going to get a lot less invasive and essence draining. Not completely gone but less so then before.
2) Laser weapons will likely be at least somewhat common place.
3) Technomancers are going to become significantly more accepted in the public's eye then they are now. People have had a while to get used to them and, with the exception of a few fringe hate groups, are going to be considered relatively benign (or at least on the same level as awakened).
4) Sub-Orbitals will be the default mode of transportation for inter-city commutes. Due to decreased cost and increased speed.
5) Aztlan will still be sacrificing people for their creepy weird blood magic
6) Corporate court will likely have an offshoot or a sub-division who operate solely on mars due to the communication delay preventing split second decision making.
7) Mars is likely to be a corporate paradise. By this point most nation states wouldn't be able to fund a major mission to mars, let alone a colonization and so expect a ton of almost literal slavery with virtually no public scrutiny.
8 ) Nano is gonna be big chummer. Expect every Tom, Dick and Jane to have nano machines for a variety of purposes and expect them to be available commercially for a, relatively, inexpensive cost.

The megas will still be around in some form, but do they have to still be in charge? I have always seen them as greedy, entropic, ultimately unsustainable entities - they work fine for a distopian world where first world countries resemble third world countries, but I don't see corporate feudalism having a century's worth of staying power. At the very least, there should be some rival powers or institutions that have cropped up.


For magic, maybe make it a bit cheaper and reduce drain across the board. On the flip side, security will have had over a century to deal with things like invisibility or mental manipulation spells. So it will be easier to chuck fireballs or summon storm spirits, but there will be a lot more mundane counters to magic. Heck, FAB might come in spray cans like mace.

For technology, I would probably raise damage values and armor values both by +2 for weapons/armor, and at least halve the prices for everything. For implants, have two grades, cheap (essence costs of betaware but nuyen costs of used 'ware), and normal (essence costs of deltaware but nuyen costs of regular 'ware). Reduce availability for everything, or even do away with that mechanic altogether.

The biggest change, for shadowrunners, will be that they won't be the outliers any longer. There will be a lot more awakened folks (and their abilities will seem a lot less scary and mysterious), and more extensive augmentations will be common.

The above assumes you want a quick, dirty conversion - fully statting out technology in the 2150's would be a very big job if you went into detail.