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[F3.1]

I was talking with Forutne about my particular take on Chaos Magic, and he was asking me to describe it. He was making a character of that tradition, and looking for some ideas on it.

Now, my first instinct was to type upa  bit long thing about how I think Chaos magic should be handled. But then I thought a bit more about it, and decided that Chaos magic is essentially a magical buffet. Take what you like or what works best for you, and work with it. So what I'm looking for here is a few differeing points of view on how people view Chaos magic. So post your views, and help the old man out.  

So to start of, my take on it:

A lot of people talk aobut how the United Magical Thereom (UMT) "chaos magic grown up". I don't quite agree on that. I see it more as a difference of implementation. Chaos magic is more personal, more self centric, where UMT is a school of thought if you will. UMT is an idea, that is trying to be spread, to say that all traditions are equally valid, and that it's basically all the same thing differnet ways.

Chaos magic doesn't attempt to push forward any particular belief system, even it's self. It just takes what works best from each system/tradtion and uses it be good effect. It's not as restrictive and more personal to the caster.

My personal interpretation of Chaos magic casting is very Hermetic-centric. Using a lot of roots of Hermeticism, the Book of Thoth, and other Egyptian roots. But it doesn't restirct it's self to that. Why should it? Just because it's older doesn't mean it's better. Chaos mages uses digitalized spell libraries because quite frankly they work better and are easier to reference. Why get a scarab if say a devil rat skull will work just as well? And if a fire elemental is interpreting your orders too literally, try a salamander on instead. Feng Shui seems to balance places out well. Why not combine that with some good ol' mood crystals to help level out your lodge, then summon from a ritual pentagram or circle if that works better?

Essentially it build off of a base tradtion, discarding the pieces that seem to be handled better in other traditions, to find the best combination for spellcraft. It doesn't restrict it's self by forcing it's magic to work within any one paradigm.

My interpretaion. Yours?

[Fortune]

But I didn't learn anything from that!

Only because that is pretty much how I view Chaos Magic as well. I see no reason (other than indoctrination) why more mages do not follow this route. I have nothing further to add on their philosophy that would be useful.

That being said ...

The actual Rules for Chaos Mages in SR4 (and indeed earlier editions) do nothing to help illustrate this mindset. In fact they go to lengths to delineate the exact powers/Spirits/whatnot of every Chaos Mage in one or two paragraphs and a (single) stat block.

So, how do we resolve this?

The obvious answer is to just make the Chaos Mage according to the  'Build-Your-Own-Tradition' as per the Street Magic rules. But ... in most other cases where the BYOT rules are used, there is a basic underlying structure to the Tradition itself. With Chaos Magic, there is no basic underlying structure, so what is to stop a player from being what some people might call a 'Munchkin' by going through the rules and tweaking his character to get the very best he can from it? After all, that is exactly what his character is doing in the game.

[F3.1]

I disagree on one point. Chaose magic is based off of Hermeticism. Whether or not that's explained in the book, it is explained in detail in "RL". That's the foundation that they build on, and trade out from there. It's reflected slightly in using logic as the base attribute. If it was more  a hodge podge free for all, then you could base it in Intuition or even Charisma. But it isn't, it goes off of Logic , the logical ordering of a system.

 It isn't that they just pick and choose whatever they want, they go with what has proven to work the best. It ain't hedge wizardry, just throwing in a different herb in to the pot if the one you're looking for isn't there. They still use formulae and rituals.  They just don't confine what they use to the strictures of one tradition.

[Fortune]

I understand that.

My point is that the SR4 rules list exactly which Spirits each and every Chaos Mage can summon ... none of them can vary ... Mechanically they're just Hermetics with a small change in which Spell categories are covered by which Spirits.

[F3.1]

That's the thing though, chaos mages are way more than just their mechanics. Or should be at least. if you play it strictly by what it says in the book, then you miss the whole point. Chaos mages are anything but strict.

Look at it this way; instead of "summon fire spirit" you can :
1)Summon a Fire elemental
2)Summon a Spirit of Fire
3)Summon a Salamander

The whole point of Chaos magic is how you customize it and make it unique. If you just "summon a fire spirit", then you're absolutely correct, you might as well just be a hermetic. Their charm is in their tasty fluff.

[Fortune]

**I know you already clarified for me in private, but for the record...**

That's a given, but it isn't what I meant.

I was referring to the actual set list of Summonable Spirits ... Fire, Air, Water, Earth, and Man. Do you believe that a Chaos Mage should be allowed to swap out (or swap around) one Spirit for another?

For example, instead of having Air associated with Detection and Fire with Combat, could Bernie the CM change those two around?

Another example, Could Bernie swap out that Fire Spirit for a Guardian Spirit (assuming an adequate story accompanies the change)?

What limitations would you place on the Chaos Mage in this situation?

[F3.1]

Another example, Could Bernie swap out that Fire Spirit for a Guardian Spirit (assuming an adequate story accompanies the change)?

What limitations would you place on the Chaos Mage in this situation?

I would allow it, but that of course isn't off of anything out of the books. Rather it's my interpretation of how Chaos Magic could/should be.

I'd allow swapping out a spirit type. Still with the limit of 5 as we discussed. I think it would make the game more interesting.

Never ler the rules get in the way of a good game.

[Fortune]

So, there would be no limitations? Could Bernie swap out all five Spirits for a new batch if he wanted?

[F3.1]

No I was planning on setting the limit at one , perhaps two. I don't think it should be a complete, custom build. Otherwise it goes against the whole bit about Chaos magic building off of a base.

[Fortune]

So, could Bernie say swap a couple of Spirits out for others, and then juggle his others as to their respective Spell categories?

[F3.1]

I don't see him being able to mix quite that much. As I said, I can see learning some differnet spirit types. But mixing around which spirits do what seems to be changing to much of the basis of the pardigm.  Make sense?

[Fortune]

Keep in mind that Bernie doesn't Bind, so the actual Spell categories to which the Spirits are assigned is mostly immaterial.

[Ingo Monk]

My thoughts on chaos magic:

Chaos magic should not follow any sort of school of thought or history, as that would set guidelines, which is the opposite of what chaos magic should be.  I agree that chaos magic should be a very personal matter to a character, where a person manipulates mana in whatever way he or she sees fit.  This thought pattern (manipulation of mana) is very hermetic in view, but the similarity should stop there.  

I think a chaos magician would be way more powerful than any other magician in their own right.  The reason for this is that a chaos magician manipulates mana, takes whats there and does what they will with it.  They could say I want to target that guy and dump a bunch of mana into him, end result would be a mana bolt.  Or he could say I want to target that area and make  mana manifest and damage everything in the area, end result being a powerball.  So if you follow what I'm getting at, a chaos magician should not have spells as he could decide to do whatever he wanted with the mana that existed in he area around him.  The mana could also be misinterpreted so that instead of mana bolting someone he could powerbolt him, or even heal them with a critical glitch.

In order to summon or control spirits, there shouldn't be a determined type of spirit the character can summon.  The fun part of chaos is that you never know what to expect.  Say the magician wants to summon a fire-type spirit.  He rolls his dice to summon, but he should never know what he gets until the test is complete and the GM rolls to see what type of fire spirit shows up.  One day he could summon a fire-elemental and another day he could summon a salamander, he just doesn't know what's going to happen.  At the same time, say he wants to summon a fire-type spirit and the mana that swirls around the magician gets his thoughts mixed up and a water spirit shows up?

I believe if you try to do chaos magic in any other way you're putting restrictions onto the chaos and thus making it no longer chaotic in essence.

Since I view chaos magic this way, I would be very wary if one of my players wanted to play a chaos magician.  More than likely I'd say no and leave chaos magic up to the NPCs.

[F3.1]

Your view of Chaos magic sounds more like the Wild Magic system from D&D. Chaos magic is a less thoroughly described version of the UMT. Basically it states that magic is a power, and the power is accessed through different means, no one stronger than any other, because it's the same power.

Chaos mages access it their way rather than any one codified set of instructions. Magic in SR works off of how the practitioner believes that it works .There was an example in one of the older books, I thikn Awakenings of one of the posters knowing a mage who's magic only worked when he was wearing blue and red tights with a big S on it. He could fly. seems like an idiotic way for magic to work, but it works for that guy that way because that's what he belivies.

No system or belief can be any stronger than any other, because it is still the same source of power. It's access is still complete, excepting the case of adepts, liek the sorcerers adept who can only cast spell,s and not summon. But when he casts, he still does it just as effectively as any hermetic or shaman. That's also why the spirit's list remains set. To give one tradiation free reign, even if it was uncontrolled, over all types of spirits, that would automatically make it stronger than all the other belief systems.

[kv]

Just a thought, but would Chaos Mages be able to initiate, seeing as how they're following a non-codified set of rules, how do they follow those rules to gain more power- so would they be able to initiate?

  -kv