The reason i sketched it out that way is just looking at demographics; given the billions of believers of these organized religions; that is orders of magnitudes larger base to draw from at the very least equal the Technocracy can and just crowd out the influence any other possible tradition realistically speaking.
Mage the Ascension Discussion, Homebrew, Worldbuilding, and Game finding.
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Yeah but I would say more people believe technology would work then truly believe those religions.
A lot of them are just lip service believers while nobody thinks planes are a lie
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Well for one, remember that this takes place in a world where those beliefs are real. Honestly, the number of True Believers should be far greater because you fucking CAN summon up an angel or etc, etc.
Which gets back to the, "It plays itself as urban fantasy but if it was real the world would basically be unrecognizable."
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Yeah but it self justifies in that it's like that because someone is making it like that. There used to be true believers and then the Trechnocracy changed things.
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But in a world with consensus, that is exactly what happens.
The Afgan wars drained the Technocracy of Tass to fend off Paradox from their tech because the Taftani changed reality locally to be hostile to technomagic.
I.e. sand kept gumming up engines and electronics.
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That's true, which is why the order of reason spent so much time changing things.
The world looks like ours because people spent a lot of effort making it that way.
I dont really argee by that logic all these religious sectarian conflicts are being fought by people who mostly dont believe like sunni shia conflicts? Thats a very western pov that religion is mostly cosemetic thing rather then something deeply important many peoples identities.
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That's why I didn't say most just a lot. Though I'm pretty sure buddhism actually outnumbers them
Thats oom bigger base then every other tradition draw on though hence the ridlouness of order of hermes being the most powerful tradition.
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That's true. The celestial chorus should be the biggest, though I prefer to just give them the largest number of hegde mages and have the hermetics have the most awakened because they have the knowledge to check
I could buy the hermetics being the most powerful by the dint being the most unified and organized; since they actively vet potential mages for compatibility with their magic, so their internal conflicts are mostly political rather then doctrinal and can thus can present unified "foreign policy".
vicky_molokh
Posthuman spidery thingy.
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Though keep in mind that 'more organized --> more powerful' is something of a 'Technocrat-leaning' paradigm itself. (Incidentally, 'rag-tag bunch of underdogs are tougher than they logically look, and can survive at million to one odds nine times out of ten' is probably part of the global consciousness at least in some regions . . . regions where the Technocracy is trying to concentrate all the power in its hands. There's more to winning the consensus than explaining how tools work.)
That sounds like a good focus for something like the daredevil merit for the VA cyberpunks. "One in a million" sort of thing.
Guide to the Technocracy and Guide to the Traditions are probably the best explanations of both the Technocracy and Traditions and how they're both noble, flawed organizations full of decent people who keep fucking up because Mage does not hold a high opinion of great men.
The Revised Tradition books are actually generally good, same with the Revised Conventionbooks. Honestly, you only really need the Core and those books, the rest of the books are often more or less cruft.
Oh yeah, and Technomancer's Toybox is the best book, as @ManusDomine can confirm, because it has Exomuscle in it, which automatically makes the book the best.
TBH; it seems the more I read it; the more Mage and Exalted share similar themes; though I've tend to like Mage more since it says ultimately its the sleepers/the masses are what matter compared to Exalted them just being anthills to be rolled over.
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ItX Friend computer is quite literally Otto Kython.
There's also hubris.
And the original game idea of you being on the run from the world superpower. Traditions/Solars running from Technocracy/Realm.
There is a good bit of overlap yes.
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What are you trying to say there?
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Fat fingered and hit send before I finished my post. I edited the original post to finish my point.
I think the main difference is how each game treats the inviolately of the PCs agency; Exalted treats as absolute inviolate that if you try to lock up or mind control the Exalted; there are inevitably going to find a way to break free no matter what you do; where Mage has ATLAS for the Technocracy to keep even the most hardcore traditionalists under its control once they get their hands on them.
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Perhaps there is a difference to be drawn regarding Exalted inviolability and PC inviolability.
One is built so even NPCs are immune to mind control, while the general assumption with the other is 'bad end, u ded. Makes new sheet plz'.
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Uh? Which one is which? Because I'm not sure if this describes either.
"Pay Willpower to resist Unnatural Mental Influence"
Although that's not immunity so much as ablative armor.
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Perhaps 'can be immune' i.e. 'can buy integrity charms' would be more precise.
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The percentage of people who can actually qualify for that is probably fractional?