Teaching hermetic magic in Souix may not help that much. There appears to be a considerable bias against hermetics in most NAN countries. They've got the skills and ability to get employment whereever they want. So why not split for greener pastures ( so to speak ) when they have the chance?

In Kyle Teller's case, his own father considered him an embarassment. Combined with the fact that with his half-amerind hertitage he even looked like a "pinkskin".... He probably couldn't pack fast enough.

As for Anne Ravenheart, she probably got poached by Roger Soaring-Owl ( Kingth Errant CEO ). Last I read he was enticing all manner of top NAN military folks with the promise of high salaries. Being a hermetic ( at best a second-class magician in the view of many NAN awakened ) just made things easier.

Westphalia, Spain - Basically any country with a strong Catholic, anti-shaman tradition.

Switzerland - Any country with laws that heavily restrict magic use tends to drive away shamans.

Tir Na Nog - If you're not a Path elf or a Irish Druid. You are.... a) most likely unemployed b) on the Tir watch list c) Both

Yakut, West Africa, Australia Aborigine states - Shaman only clubs for much of the regions.

Islamic Jihad areas - Pretty much ALL magicians regardless of stripes are disliked, but I imagine they hate shamans most of all.

Carribean - Those hermetics ( bocor, I spit on thee ) are heretics compared to the true faith of the voudoun.

CAS - Those voudoun are in league with the shedim! Tell me where they are so we can round them up!

That's just off the top of my head.

The problem with that is that after some choice lines in MITS magic itself is NOT rare, it's common. 1 in 100 people are magically active with the vast majority of them full mages. That's what, 60 Million magically active people? If 1 in 10 is a hermetic that's still not remotely rare, magic in SR was made common, and not special, nor rare. With exceptions, traditions like hermetics are at best uncommon. Where I work even just by straight percentages there would be 50 or so magically active people at my organization. You can't hit [edit] swing [/edit] a dead cat without hitting someone magically active.

Incidentally, that line in MITS is one of the things that really, really annoyed me and seriously boned with the atmosphere of the canon world.

Sorry, I'm done now.

DUDE! I knew the shedim were invading cats too!... People say they're so cute... but I know better! Evil! Pure evil! Their hearts pump black crude! They're after me... I don't know how much longer I have... I think they're outside... OH DEAR GOD!

I'm not sure where that quote is from because all I have in MitS is:

No reference to the number of full mages let alone hermetics or even that hermeticism is the most common tradition (and by how much) anywhere but in North Am. I'm going to disregard the 60 million because that implies worldwide figures and the dominant magical traditions in the Eastern cultures (Wuxing, Shinto, Hindu, etc) are going to skew the way those figures could be read - not to mention the fact that the percentage is global and the incidence of magical talent is higher in certain regions (ie. TNO) than others.

Let's take a typical American sprawl like Seattle with a population of 3 million as a sample instead. So 1% of the population is magically active and the vast majority of those are full mages. For argument's sake, let's say that minus that fraction we're talking about something like 7 out of 10 (or 0.7%) with the remainder (0.3%) being adepts, Aspected magicians, etc. In Seattle and North Am the dominant tradition amongst those 7 would be Hermeticism (although proximity with the NAN might balance things out) - let's say 5 out of those 7 (0.5%). So, we're now talking about figures in the range of 15000 mages (including academics, wagemages, street mages, et al) in the sprawl or 1 in every 200 people (still rare by my maths). According to SSG (and other sources) the vast majority of those with any kind of official schooling are tagged and gobbled up by corps (as wagemages and secmages) and even governments and militaries - and are not the sort of people you'll be meeting on the streets everyday. Some others will probably end up in academia, yet others will go into the arcana and enchanting markets and finally some will try making it as independent magical service providers and (legal) street mages.

With the kind of money these "semi-rare" magicians can make staying strictly legal, there's not that much incentive to run the shadows. That's what I meant about being rare. Don't know about you, but if this was something only one in a every couple of hundred people I meet could do, I would consider it rare.

[edit] I must be ill, it's the second time today I find myself agreeing with Dr. Funk.

If you went to High School w/ 3600 people and knew each and every single one of them. If that's the case, consider your self fortunate to be such a popular fellow.

First of all, the quoted text clearly included aspected magicians (of which adepts are assumed to be). Second, the context of "a fraction of that percentage" is also indicating that it's a small fraction. If you just read it at face value it could be 9.99999/10, but then it would read "the vast majority of that percentage." But the context is pretty clear: It's referring to a small number of them.

The use -- both in-game and in the context of this thread -- of the word "mages" is a generic term refering to all traditions whereas "Hermetic mage" is a specific term speaking of a single tradition. And, again, aspected magicians were specifically covered in the small percentage of the MitS quote.

1 out of 100 is simultaneously rare (that's approximately how many people worldwide have schizophrenia, for example) while still being pretty common (outnumbering doctors or even lawyers both local and abroad -- and I'm sure most people have met at least one of those). It's a good number, and it's one that reflects the game world pretty nicely to boot. Also, despite your claims to the contrary, magicians are way more common in the shadows than in most other "professions." How many teams do you know of have no magicians whatsoever? Precious few. And considering most teams will be about 4-7 people, and even assuming it's only in in ten teams that has a magician, that's still a lot more common than 1 out of 100 runners.

As previously mentioned, it's closer to one in every hundred people rather than every couple of hundred.

1. I couldn't care less if you agree with me or not, especially considering I wasn't even talking to you.

2. Much like the MitS quote, the context of your statement is clear, and I'm getting sick and tired of people attacking me as a person. I've already talked to the administrator's about my handles and in the last few days I've been doing my best to ignore various troll baits and flames (which is very difficult for me since I obviously have a problem keeping my opinions in check). Yet here I find myself the target of a snide remark by someone who pretends to champion proper online etiquette and only a few hours ago was chastising someone else in another thread about proper behavior. In a response to someone else, no less.

If you like or don't like what I have to say, feel free to comment on that in whatever tone you like or ignore it completely. But if you could drop the hyprocritical attitude by bemoaning other's behavior one minute only to troll someone you don't particularly like the next, I'd appreciate it.

Me too.

Right. But it's not like all of those vast numbers of magicians can be found in any single profession. They're spread out through hundreds of different occupations, both legal and illegal. Some professions will have more then the normal percentage of awakened members (security, research, and educational fields) as opposed to others (most any blue collar fields). So while you're more likely to know a quite a few magicians if you run in the former circles, your average Joe Schmoe won't. And if he did it was probably in passing or at a concert or something like that.

So again, those numbers work out quite nicely with the way they're protrayed in the game world. Magicians are relatively common in the grand scheme of things, moreso in the shadows than many other fields, yet your average person isn't going to personally know more than maybe one or two in his entire life if even that many.

The reverse is true of other character aspects, like orks. For every human in Seattle, there's roughly 16 orks. Yet rich, professional urban types will know only a fraction of that number whereas blue collar types (where an ork's natural aptitudes excel) will probably know a multiple of that figure. Does that mean there's too many orks (from the blue collar perspective) or not enough (from the rich white playboy perspective)? It's about the same thing.

Not entirely correct. There maybe possible confusion in this thread but I chose my words carefully. "Magicians" is the generic term used in SR, while "mages" is a short form for those that follow the Hermetic path/hermetic mages.

We should agree to disagree. One things is what we see in people's games (which might even have fully magic type teams), another is what the figures should be. I have no problem with that

To clarify - I was talking specifically about hermetic "mages" (see above) rather than full magicians and the figures I suggested (admittedly skewed as they may be) point to 0.5% which if my math isn't failing me is 1 in 200. If this was unclear, or subject to misunderstandings I apologize.

If I had been referring to shamans, for instance, I would have noted the often-mentioned fact that shamans find it harder to fit into the wagemage/suit-and-tie formula and so their numbers in the shadows would probably balance out the dominance of the hermetic tradition in global terms.

I honestly had no intention of being provocative or trolling. In fact the comment signals agreement with you so I was initially at a loss why it might provoke this reaction. I can see where the lead in might be misconstrued as a jibe though, even though it was nothing but a simple statement of fact. I'm sure you'll agree that since we have been on opposite ends of discussions here on DSF enough times, it's reasonable -in my mind - to comment on the rare ocassion that we were in agreement. While you might not care, I obviously did, at least enough to comment on the strangeness of it. Take that as you will.

So that there is no confusion possible, I would like to say your points and arguments, here and elsewhere, are normally well-informed and well-grounded, and though I more often than not I don't agree your assumptions, I respect them over a lot of other stuff I see on the net and find it interesting to discuss them with you (otherwise I wouldn't bother). I fail to recall one instance where I have attacked you personally rather than your arguments (or anyone else for that matter) and I fail to see why you would take this time to be any different.

Why you would see this might as a purposeful attack though or why it would merit this sort of reaction is beyond me. The subject of the comment was myself not you, and it simply expressed my strangeness at finding myself in complete agreement with your views (whatever you chose to read into it is your call and was never my intention) and it came about after reading a couple of other posts you'd made in the last few hours and realizing I was yet again in agreement with your opinion.

If you have been subject to trolling or harassment, I do think you should bring it up with the moderators.

That's true, and I believe there's another point to take into consideration: With the exception of (relatively) rare elemental manipulation magic as well as entertainment magic, most spells do not create spectacular effects to be seen by mundane people (at most a faint shimmer in the air IIRC).
This means most uses of magic will not even be perceived by mundanes, and this should contribute to the aura of weirdness existing around magic.
OTOH I see magic a lot like weapons today: many people (especially in Europe I guess) see and touch them only occasionally, but the media, games, movies, news are full of them.
You don't really find weapons weird 'cause you know they're a full part of this world, even if you never had one in your hands. You have misconceptions about them and hear people babbling about them, posing as (or being) specialists, but contributing to the mythical aura they have. And when you find yourself with one in your hands, you realize all you heard about them is half-true.
The analogy with magic does not hold far, but I think there's something in it: People know this is an aspect of the daily life and talk about it much but don't face it directly because it's still rare and they're still unfamiliar with it when it falls on them.
Like weapons, what's known in magic is "pop", "media" magic, not the real thing (that's probably too serious and boring).

On a different note I agree that the percentages of magically active people must be very low and that you take the problem from the wrong end when you say "Each team as a magician so they're common". These are mechanics for game balance, and in my game the number of runners teams who boast an Awakened member is pretty low - but then my groups are always considered to be in the big leagues, and there are only a few capable teams in every sprawl.
Groups with a good rigger, good decker and full magician are very rare IMO and that's the reason why I always consider teams like this as elite.

I have no clue about the awakening curve. Miles Swiburne and Daniel Coleman were born before 2011 and become active magicians only with the Awakening. As far as we know, all the shamans involved in the Great Ghost Dance weren't 8 years old children born after the Awakening.

Humans now make up less than 7% of the population? Or did you mean for every 16 humans in Seattle there's roughly 1 ork?

Re: The lawyer analogy... I've never seen a rat in the wild where I live, however I don't say we need more rats : P I would definitely say we need more doctors, however.

In all fairness, the Doc has been the target of numerous snide personal attacks over the last week or so. The majority of Threads I've viewed have had at least one joker saying "I can't believe I'm agreeing w/ Doc Funk," or "At the risk of pulling a Doc Funk..." and similar crap.

So, he's more than justified in his comments here. If it were me on the recieving end of that shit, I would have lost my cool 6 threads back.

While you may not have meant any harm by your comment (which is strange considering the context and how you went out of your way to edit your post) it's easy to see how it could interpreted as such.

Heh, all these talks about lawyers.... Try and see how many are registered in Maryland, DC and Virginia. It's one of the highest concentrations around, I could swing a dead cat around on a given day and get sued by no less than 3 lawyers on the street....

actually I'm in law school....

That should have been "for every magician." Sorry.

True and in that event I apologize. The edit was simply because I only realised the fact after checking a couple other threads I was following and since I thought it was particularly noteworthy I posted in this one. Rest assured, I'll refrain from such comments in the future.

And now back to the topic at hand...

Which is like a warm summer breeze compared to some of the stuff he dishes out.

That he would chastise anyone for a personal attack is completely and utterly ridiculous, let alone these barely-needling remarks. I'm genuinely surprised to see anyone take it seriously.

hmmm watch out Doc! "THE MAN's" after you!