[Sir Ludwig]

Good evening everyone,

My son (14) has been observing our standard SR games or Nerd Herd as I call it.  He read the CRB, answered some basic questions.  So, I agreed to run a game for some of his friend's age 14-16.   

I suggest they play something that they could relate to but could play anything they wanted.  The group is interesting and has been challenging because they only pick the 2 sentences in the book that they want to when asking questions. 
However, 2 of the 6 players came back and talked over some things before we started.  They both impressed me.

So, the one kid said he wanted to play a teenager mage, that comes from a corp family and is “Shadowrunning” during his summer break.  Saying he used Improved Invisibility to sneak out of the house.  I laughed because of COVID and knowing his family, the kid is playing himself.  However, all the other players are playing older characters so his hook is that he wanted to keep Physical Mask up all the time to hide his identity.  Before you ask, he took forced concentration to do it.  I liked the amount of work and thought he put into it. 

For simplicity, I have all the players roll at the end of the game to see if they notice anything during the game.
The problem I keep coming up with is, assuming no one sees through the illusion,  Physical Mask doesn’t work in the astral. 

I have run 2 games for them and it looks like they are going to stay with it.  I think his character could have some interesting plot twist in the game. 

I am tempted to house rule that it works in the Astral.

My question to you all, is my interpretation of the rules correct?  If so, do you have any recommendations?
Best,
SL

[Beta]

Sounds like an interesting adventure for you!  I started a single player SR game for my son around the same age, I found it interesting to figure out how dark to let things get (I ended up with quite a bit of hooding to make at least some localized improvement).

As to your question,  maybe suggest to the player that their character initiate and take masking at the first opportunity?

But even without masking,  astral senses are not the same as mundane.  Your aura is consistent, and will be appropriate to who you are, but different writers have varied in how much appearance comes through.   Personally I have played it that aura is more a mix of emotion and vitality  and self-identity, than something that would let you pick someone out of a police line-up.  Of course if his physical mask is very different than his normal look, he still won't match up well.

And there is the fact that he is sustaining an illusion spell on himself.

I guess I wouldn't stop other characters from investigating him if they want, but I'd make most of the world not pay attention and just flag the occasional situation as more of a challenge.  That seems like the most fun, letting his shtick be possible,  but making him sweat for it occasionally.

[Michael Chandra]

Unless they assense the teen AND assense them in their normal habitat, and recognise the aura, don't see why this would be a problem. You don't see their face in the astral, so unless they're giving themself horns or something, nobody will recognise them as being underage.

[Xenon]

I agree.

From the astral plane the physical world have been described as to be experienced as a blurred and dim and shadow-like photo-negative copy of how you would experience the physical world from the physical plane. Depending on edition it is not clear if you can even sense the difference between two living subjects without actually observing them in detail. This is how this edition tries to explain just how blurred and shadow-like the physical world appear to an astral observer;

SR6 p. Astral Projection
Buildings, vehicles, and pretty much anything else manufactured by metahuman hands has nothing more than a vague grey presence on the astral...Getting the loose details of a building’s layout may be possible, but knowing the purpose of the rooms you see might depend on guessing as much as anything else.

Depending on your reading the only way to sense a difference between two subjects is to observe each of them in detail and get at least 3 hits on an Astral + Intuition test (to notice each subjects unique astral signature).



Sustained active spells are typically immediately obvious on the astral plane for an astral observer (and does not even require a test to be sensed - unless perhaps the responsible magician have some sort of masking metamagic). But while the astral form of active magic is typically immediately obvious on the astral plane it is not obvious that the specific spell is a physical mask. To even sense that the spell spell belong to the illusion spell group require that the observer spend the time and successfully take an astral perception test with a threshold of 2, but no matter how many hits you get it there does not seem to be a way for an astral observer to know that the specific spell is a physical mask spell.

[Shinobi Killfist]

Earlier editions you could see through illusions with astral perception. Later ones it became more indistinct. Its a huge buff for physical mask to not have that weakness. That being said it did make mask somewhat worthless if every security checkpoint with a mage would instantly see through it.

[Sir Ludwig]

Beta,

It has been interesting and enjoyable.  Also, having played since 1st, they are calling out some of my assumption from earlier editions.  It's making me a better GM and I'm spending time with my son.

Xenon and Michael Chandra :
Thank you for the clarification, as Shinobi pointed out, I think I was defaulting to earlier edition.  I am going to reread the CRB and FS and keep in mind only as written.  Like I was going over a contract for the company. However, may still need some assistance from you all. They all ask ALOT of "what if" questions.

Thanks again,
Sir Ludwig