Custom traditions- take em of leave em?? Should we do what the big black book says and allow freeform creation of traditions through negotiation with GMs, or should we stick to the plain vanilla hermetics and shamans until the magic book comes out?? I'm of two minds on the subject.

On the one hand, custom traditions are clearly an intended part of the game, and are not meant to be eclipsed/eliminated by the new traditions that the magic book will give us.? And, as things stand, there is no way to have a mage who resists drain with intuition or logic.? Though neither is a particularly necessary of a thing to have, there are benefits to getting extra milage out of those attributes should a player choose to, and as the rules say so one ought to be able to do so.

On the other hand, there is the problem of balancing the spirits summonable by a custom tradition.? I think they did a lot of work to make sure that mages and shamans have a balanced selection of spirits...? In creating a custom tradition, though, I imagine people would just want to take all the best spirits for their particular character concept rather than focusing on balance.? Onstensibly, the PHS would be responsible for making sure that the spirit selections were balanced, but that seems like a really tough job, and since nobody is exactly an expert on this game yet I imagine that quite a few mistakes would be made in what was allowed out of chargen, and then for fairness' sake anyone would have to be allowed to use that same tradition...? Also, approved traditions would probably need to be posted, since it makes no sense and would be unfair that only one PC could follow each path.? Posting the traditions allowed would ensure that everyone got equal treatment and nobody happened to get denied for a tradition similar to one already approved.? But then again, multiple people would probalby have multiple desired benefits for the same tradition- one might want to practice black magic, for instance, in a completely different way than another.? This doesn't present a problem system wise, it's fine if there are multiple kinds of black magic, but how to organize a board that posted these things?? Would the first person who used the name get exclusive rights, and eveyrone else need to come up with a new name for their tradition?? Would we just call it Black Magic I,II,III, or perhaps use a pokemon style nomenclature (red version, blue version, yellow pikachu surprise version, mega awesome crystal special limited sparkly shiny fabulous version)?? And what about when the magic book comes out and brings us traditions with the same name as ones already made?? And when people with custom traditions decide they want to use the ones from the book, do they get to switch...?

So, yeah, as I see it the above paragraph shows there are only two practical options, to either stick with the basic two traditions until the magic group comes out, or just freeform it and trust PHS not to screw up too badly, letting people who +whine about not being approved for somthing similar to a tradition which is already on the grid lick the game's proverbial ass.? I'm in favor of the latter, since the release of the magic book isn't going to make custom traditions illegal and thus we should allow them even after the book is in our grubby little hands.? +whiners will be allowed to tire themselves out, since there doesn't seem to be a better way to do things, and those who want to switch to one of the cool new trads when the magic book comes out will just need to make a new character.

While custom traditions are cool, I'm in favor of keeping them off the grid at least until Beta is done.  No one yet knows what the good/bad points of building a Regular mage or shaman are yet, so I'm in favor of sticking to the Regulars for now.  It would be a lot easier for everyone around, in my opinion.

A good point of a mage or shaman are that you can with time have your own personal gang of bound spirits.  The bad point to this is that with karma caps and limited cash it will take a very long time.

As for custom traditions I would have to look at what was proposed. There is a world of difference between Pigeon who flies though the high places of the city, and Nuclear sludge that drips under the reactor.

Pigeon would be an example of a mentor spirit rather than a tradition, which is an important distinction.  Custom totems are a whole different enchilada.

Toxic magic would be something like a tradition, except that it's also threat magic which no PC can ever attain, so I don't think that's a concern when it comes to custom traditions.  I'm not suggesting that a custom tradition would allow people to invent new types of spirits to summon (like toxic or insect or blood spirits), all they would do is give a chance to configure which of the standard spirit types are within your ability to summon and which are not.

Of course, since Dreamer seems unenthusiastic about custom traditions, they probably won't happen, which in the end is just simpler for all concerned 

Having actually played a SR4 Shaman, I can say that the magic system has been genericised (is that a word?) to the point where you can make a complete, game-balanced, tradition in under 30 minutes.? All you need to do is answer the following seven questions:

• What is the tradition? (Freeform answer, describing the kind of magic)
• Which of the six types of spirits (earth, air, fire, water, beast, and man) do you summon to help with Combat spells and why? (A Hermatic mage might say Fire, because it is the most dangerous element, A shaman might say Beasts, because they are the most aggressive.  A new tradition may chose Man because man is the most destructive force on the planet)
• Which of the five other types of spirits do you summon to help with Detection spells and why?
• Which of the four other types of spirits do you summon to help with Health spells and why? (A Mage might say Man, because what better to heal a man than a spirit of man.  A Shaman might say earth because all healing comes from the earth that formed man.  A new tradition may say Water because humans are primarily composed of fluids)
• Which of the three other types of spirits do you summon to help with Illusion spells and why?
• Which of the two other types of spirits do you summon to help with Manipulation spells and why?
• Which of the three other mental stats (Logic, Charisma, Intuition) do you use to resist drain, and why? (A mage performs his ritual exactly right, so takes less drain (Logic).  A Shaman's force of personality is stronger than the forces he commands, so takes less drain (Logic). A new tradition practicioner does exactly the right thing at exactly the right time, so takes less drain (Intuition))

Voila - a balanced new tradition.

I'm in favor of allowing new traditions. They'd be easy to create code-wise, easy to implement game wise (want a new tradition? write it up for our news files first), and no more unbalancing than the existing types of magic.  They'd need to be looked over by a staff member before being approved, of course, but there's no reason to disallow them.

Yeah I guess I ran my mouth off about game balance before I closely re-examined the options available to the traditions.  Essentially you only pick one type of spirit you can't summon, so it's not as if you can just pick all of the good ones and none of the bad ones... You take 5/6 of them regardless, you just have to pick one you won't be able to summon.  And then of course with drain resistance attributes there's really no way to be unbalanced, since you have limited choices which all come out to be about the same anyway...

I think in a previous post I said that hermetics resisted drain with willpower, but I don't know why... It would be nice if you *could* take a tradition that resisted drain with willpower + willpower 

Personally, I do not see a reason not to allow them, with the stipulations that a) The Tradition must be looked at for what its limits are, and for internal cohesiveness. and b) that the person who submitted the Tradition for approval cannot be the first person to play it.

I also agree with one thing: The fact is that Hermetics and Shamans are sample Traditions, and are just the most common organized traditions...but I think that the majority of 'street mages' have not had the benefit of getting a degree at MIT&T, and so do not have the formal schooling, and will have, in many cases, developed their 'tradition' on their own....unless they were fortunate enough to have had a mentor.

You know guys, all this mucking about with rules may prove to be unnecessary. The magic is very generic now.

If you have a custom tradition, just pick the right mentor/totem, call him George (or Superman or what have you) and make your spirits wear capes.

Seriously though, I've had a lot of fun playing a custom tradition person in third edition on the MUSH. For all intents and purposes he was a shaman. His lodge was boxes and piles and collector's editions of comics about Norse gods, Thor, etc. Sure, I had a couple nice custom spells, like Flight Lesson (touch-range knock back stun damage) and Lightning Bolt (outdoors only) and so on. It worked.

The tradition makes your magic look a certain way, have a theme to it. But under the hood, it's all the same mentors and spirits and spells.

In my opinion, for the Beta at the very least if you wish to have a custom tradition, just RP it. Otherwise pick shaman or mage based on how your character does magic and go from there. I don't see why we'd need to add in all these alterations or listing up of what traditions are allowed. The ability to be just a shaman, adept, or mage in SR3 didn't make awakened sorts any less unique. It shouldn't now. In fact since there is no caps on how many awakened types there can be on the grid through beta, I'd say just run with what the book has for now and see how it works out.

Not every shaman is the same even tho they may have the same 'totem spirit' as it were.

To try and put down hard rules on every new 'tradition' seems to be over complicating things imho.

There are only so many permuations of magic, and I think the big mess of traditions they added covers just about all of the rules-based alterations anyone would care to make.  There's no need whatsoever to alter the name of trads for individual people, but neither is there any need to prevent them from taking "Kaballah" and calling it "Cryptonumerology" when they RP.

There is always someone somewhere who will do something outside of the published lists.

Tear sips her drink.

Commiekeebler sips Tear's drink, mistaking it for his.

Absinthe could care less about who sips who's drink or who's sipping what, for, she never goes into bars anymore.

The point I was making is that your statement was not relevant to the discussion, since it didn't address any above comments directly.  I could have taken the initiative and argued with it, except it was such an overgenrelized statement as to not have much meaning in the context.  So I responded in kind.  Yeah, people are gonna do different stuff.  So?