The driving force behind all of magic's permutations in Shadowrun seems obvious to me- it's whatever the magician believes it is.
The spirit types and totems exist because people think they exist- from the loa to the nature spirits. The totem of, for example, Dove isn’t really related to what doves are- white birds that kinda crap all over. It’s related to the meaning and symbolism metahumanity attatches to doves, that of a peaceful messenger/mediator. In the absence of metahuman belief, I seriously doubt any of those would be there.
Even the metaplanes seem shaped by belief, particularly the ancestor-spirit planes but also others.
Magic manifests as 'miracles' for those inclined to believe that.
Magic manifests as 'mental powers' for those inclined to believe that.
If a magically-active individual truly believed in the totem of Strong Bad, guess what Mexican-wrestling-masked boxing-gloved figure would greet them on their Astral quests?
This begs the question- why are the hermetics so intent on puzzling out magic's nature when it's staring them full in the face?

This also raises the question of what could be done to change the nature of magic, the metaplanes and reality itself if you manipulated belief. If you got a significant fraction of the population, particularly the magically-active population, to believe that such a thing is so, then it is so.
This raises the possibility of manipulating the information available to a sealed community of magically-active individuals to make changes in the nature of reality and of magic- the larger the change needed, the larger the community necessary to make it. Make them believe that teleporting magic is possible, and it’s possible. Make them believe that a certain man is a God on Earth…

Thoughts?

It's consistant with the theory, though- the reason thousands of years of trial and error beat psionics is that the thousands of years of many people confidant they're discovering new aspects of magic when they are, in fact, creating them have left a more lasting and stronger imprint on reality than the small numbers and recent duration of the psionic movement have had, in effect 'aspecting' magic to work better with other traditions than for Psionics.

Well, I'd go the other way and say that magic aspected society and ritual practices.

But where is the proof that those who think that they're 'discovering' aspects of magic are not in fact creating those aspects?

And vice versa? Come now, Bug Queens can summon other spirits, surely you can see that as evidence...

One can shape how magic works, just as magic shapes how the world works.

The more a magician does something, the more powerful it is; and the more powerful it is, the more a magician does it.

*casts Force 1 Heal to get rid of the headache*

Binds force 1 heal on self to a macro button, on the path to ultimate magical power...

I'm not really sure I follow. Belief is important, but it's only one ingerdient in the soup. One must still learn by trial and error or from a teacher regardless of it what will actually affect mana and force it to your will.

Or is it only that way because many people THINK you need to learn by trial-and-error or by teacher?

Shamans and the "belief shapes magic" crowd have kept magical theory back by decades. Please, let's waste no more time on this nonsense.

-Diarmuid

Then explain the phenomenon.

Now, everyone think about expanding Fix-it's bank account, and we'll see if this really works.

OK, point. Belief isn't the whole story- unless you consider the Sorcery skill your ability to 'disbelieve' in the regidity of currant way the world works. But it still shapes magic and thus reality to a phenomenal degree.
Could the expiriments described above work in the Shadowrun world?

People have believed in magic for quite some time. For that matter, belief was stronger thousands of years ago, back in the height of the downcycle. Why was that belief insufficient to make it the height of the upcycle, or for that matter anything at all?

~J

In the beginning there were a few drunken none to clean individuals who though to create a world. We know them today as the mighty [b]game designers[b] being well versed neither intricacies of human psychology, the rigors of mathematics, or the clear simplicity of the science of book editing they gave several nonsensical and contradictory commandments to their poor, benighted followers.

When asked what great secrets of the universe they knew that allowed them to make such commandments they replied, 'Well it looked like a good idea at the
time.'

toptomcat, the strongest evidence against your theory is that people can't change the way their magic works. a shaman of YHWH, for instance, can't suddenly have a revelation that God is dead and stop being a shaman of YHWH. to answer your question, no, these experiments would fail in SR.

Where in the rulebooks does it say that magical traditions cannot be changed? There's nothing I've seen that specifically disallows it. I'd make it difficult, as well as RP-and Karma-intensive, but possible.

well, the fact that you'd have to make up rules to do it pretty strongly implies that it's not, by the rules, allowed. also, SR3 page 158 says that the choice is for life, and cannot be changed.

And people wonder why Audun and I thought writing up the different paradigms of magic was so much fun...

And people wonder why Audun and I thought writing up the different paradigms of magic would be so much fun...

As long as it's more productive that imagining the expansion of your bank account...

I think the phrase you're groping after here, TTC, is "Faith Lends Substance". This is a major tenet of many current magical paradigms; that if you believe in something strongly enough, it will happen.

This is different from what we might refer to as the "True Magics" (or that I call the Source Code of the Universe ), which can in theory be operated by anybody (just ask those bloody idiot teenagers who fart around with ouija boards. Dicks). Real magic runs on a combination of the two, weighted towards the former.

Shadowrun adds to the equation the mana level of the world. Or in translation, that magic runs off of an energy source just as a light bulb runs off of electricity. When the power level is low, you get dim light. When the power level kicks up, Enter the Supertrooper. It assumes that your belief is like pulling on a lever; the lower the mana level, the shorter your lever, and the more effort it takes to do something. In downcycles, the effort required is largely beyond people.

In the Shadowrun universe, tribal cultures like the Amerinds, Aboriginals, African tribal states, etc, had maintained their belief systems and rituals down the long years, instead of abandoning them. When the mana levels started to rise, they had more oomph pushing down on the lever, and got better results faster. As the mana levels continue to rise, the rest of the world starts to catch up to them.

The difference between shamanism and hermeticism (to use the two most traditional paradigms in SR) is that shamanism accepts "Faith Lends Substance" without question and doesn't seek to explore magic outside of that, whereas hermeticism seeks more and better "True Magics" to unlock the secrets of the Universe. Neither is wrong, it's just different.

I think the issue here is that believing something does not make it true, and by extension just because someone believes something works that way doens't mean they are right.

Ultimately they are limited by their own perception fo the world. If they believe it, then it is.

People can believe with all their heart that there's no such thing as drain, but that won't stop them from taking it. In SR, magic follows a set of rules. All traditions follow the rules, regardless of their just justification thereof.

Well regardless of weather or not it would work based on the fluff and game mechanics there could be whackos in the game world that believe it will work and form a cult to try it (meeting with success or failure as the GM sees fit) so i think it makes an interesting plot hook.

Besides the players need not believe it will work, they just need to fear that it might....