u/TheEloquentApe

My group and I are learning Mage together with M20

One of my players wants to be a Virtual Adept who does some things I'm not exactly sure how to best mechanically represent

First, they want a familiar who was once their virtual pet / tamagotchi who is now a full virtual spirit. A being that hops in and out of computers and gadgets. While in the computer they could be able to speak with text. And they could potentially hop into other people's devices and screw with them. Like commanding the familiar to cut the signal of the security cameras.

The latter point I'm uncertain if a familiar would even be able to do. At the moment my solution has been for the familiar to have the Spirit Walker advantage at 6 points for coming in and out of the Digital Web. Not sure if there's a more legit way to do that.

Secondly, the player is interested in being able to interface / interact with tech magically. Or even detect where internet signals or radio waves are going / coming from. In this I'm uncertain. Sensing internet frequencies feels like Forces, but I suppose manipulating or hacking into a device with magic would be Matter? I could also see an argument for it being Spirit since the Digital Web is a Spiritual plane. Could use some guidance on these points.

For what its worth, the player is a big fan of Shadowrun, and would enjoy emulating that world's type of virtual magic.

EDIT: Just discovered the Spirit Charm Jack In, seems to be what I'm looking for as far as the familiar moving in and out of devices

Seen plenty of discourse of what may or may not change going forward now that Valentina intends to change the timeline, and how much she'll tell Eitenne in the first place.

But I actually think, considering this moment, that Valentina may not be able to even mention that she's got knowledge from the future.

There's precedent that taping into future knowledge has the consequence of a "quantum-collapsing effect", and at least Eitenne interpreted this as the loss of free will.

Now the circumstances aren't exactly the same, but I think this might give us a glimpse into how Etienne would react

Just something interesting that could pop back up. Wouldn't be the first time a small detail returns as a bigger plot point, like when it was mentioned off-handedly that Etienne turned off The Devil's powers, and then it turns out he had been doing this at a massive scale later.

M20 Questions about playing a magical hacker

(Spoilers Chap 16) Something I feel is overlooked about Etienne