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Mage the Ascension Discussion, Homebrew, Worldbuilding, and Game finding.

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Quantumboost said:
Not a fan of Vicissitude, eh?

HP Wizards... don't really work like that. They're hereditary, and cast entirely by rote, without even a semblance of a coherent paradigm.

In Mage, I'd view them as some sort of early experiment by either Hermetics or Verbena in attempting to make what are effectively Proximi from nMage, but had too many integral mental Paradox flaws and were abandoned to fend for themselves.
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I don't think so. We don't see the theory, but there are clearly magical theory books. Named books. It's also a children's book so for some bizarre reason she doesn't spend twenty pages lecturing on magical theory. (She'd get it wrong probably, but that's another story.)

I mean, Harry Potter is the series where alchemists discover special uses (twelve uses for dragon's blood!) for magical ingredients in order to make potions. If that's not a fucking paradigm, what is?
 
The theory clearly exists, yes, but unlike the Hermetics, Harry Potter wand-wizards don't need to know it or apparently even know it exists. They don't need a why beyond "I was born a wizard". Just the motions and words that make their inborn power do what the particular spell says.

That might be a paradigm, but it's not the Hermetic one.
 
Quantumboost said:
The theory clearly exists, yes, but unlike the Hermetics, Harry Potter wand-wizards don't need to know it or apparently even know it exists. They don't need a why beyond "I was born a wizard". Just the motions and words that make their inborn power do what the particular spell says.

That might be a paradigm, but it's not the Hermetic one.
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The Laurent said:
I don't think so. We don't see the theory, but there are clearly magical theory books. Named books. It's also a children's book so for some bizarre reason she doesn't spend twenty pages lecturing on magical theory. (She'd get it wrong probably, but that's another story.)

I mean, Harry Potter is the series where alchemists discover special uses (twelve uses for dragon's blood!) for magical ingredients in order to make potions. If that's not a fucking paradigm, what is?
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The Potter wizard paradigm is weird, in the mage sense. If anything, it seems if you couched it in oMage terms it'd be an experiment to create the Technocratic paradigm through a mystic lens-the idea that there is a coherent underlying theory but you don't need knowledge of the theory to make things happen because you can just repeat the rituals that the experts have discovered and are willing to teach. The problem here is that this really doesn't serve the Traditions' goals, where hedge mages are basically used as a stepping stone to proper magedom and personal Ascension. They want you to be thinking about your magic as you do it, so you gain in arete and eventually Ascend.
 
MJ12 Commando said:
The Potter wizard paradigm is weird, in the mage sense. If anything, it seems if you couched it in oMage terms it'd be an experiment to create the Technocratic paradigm through a mystic lens-the idea that there is a coherent underlying theory but you don't need knowledge of the theory to make things happen because you can just repeat the rituals that the experts have discovered and are willing to teach. The problem here is that this really doesn't serve the Traditions' goals, where hedge mages are basically used as a stepping stone to proper magedom and personal Ascension. They want you to be thinking about your magic as you do it, so you gain in arete and eventually Ascend.
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In a weird way, it could be a model for a shard where a different formulation of the Technocracy took over. Or rather, like. A group with Technocracy goals but a Fantasy Flare. Or etc, etc.
 
I would like to reccomend CoNTINUM: Roleplaying In The Yet as a source for timetravel games of Mage.

It is about a RPG where you play time travelers called spanners. It is pretty awesome. I mean Time Combat is a big headace waiting to happen but it is really interesting to think about all the things you can do with it. Especially since you need no time machine and can travel and teleport at will.

I think my favorite tactic is called slipshank which is where you pull an item from somewhere at hand during a confrontation. Then after the fight you go back in time and put that item where you pulled it. -because if you don't, you frag yourself which is essentially paradox from the Mage-

Altough going back in to the fight after it so there 2-3 of you in the same fight -called Gemini Flush- is a close second.

At the moment I am reading GM only part but hit this;
But more often, contradiction is just bad writing. A superhero detective who has long foresworn firearms, suddenly adds machine guns to his supervehicle -all with no explanation. The question the audience asks is the same- Why is that character like that?- only here they expect to be cheated; the author or director didn't care enough to keep their plot making sense.
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It is like they predicted the Batman in Dawn of Justice. Funny coincidence isn't it? For a game about time traveling, real funny.
 
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CoNTINUUM is the best game to talk about while staying far, far away from actually playing it. It's about what one might expect from a serious rpg that has time travel as a core mechanic i.e. a giant pain in the ass.
 
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Would the stuff like the cardboard box time machine that Calvin made (the kid from calvin and hobbes), be an example of something that would fit with the sons of ether.
 
Graypairofsocks said:
Would the stuff like the cardboard box time machine that Calvin made (the kid from calvin and hobbes), be an example of something that would fit with the sons of ether.
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Probably not? Etherites are more SCIENCE! than "I just wrote transmogrifier on this box so it transmogrifies." They've got something resembling science powering their inventions, not the power of childhood imagination.
 
Wasn't Palladium's Rifts Earth the game that lots of people read and nobody played? (because of that godawful system).
 
Bel said:
Wasn't Palladium's Rifts Earth the game that lots of people read and nobody played? (because of that godawful system).
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I think it was just everything related to Palladium.
Didn't help that they supposedly went through a phase of trying to sue( or at least sending Cease&Desist orders) everyone that so much as talked about their products online, let alone posted homebrew or conversions.
 
So I came up with some rotes for Technocrats.

Armed Response (NWO or Syndic rote)
Correspondence 2/Mind 2 in a major Western City, add Entropy or Time 2 in other areas.

The world is full of armed response teams against terrorist attacks and criminals. using this technique, the Technocrat can rapidly summon help from a large number of armed men. Each success on the enlightenment roll gives you two free points of temporary backup background representing an appropriate response by local security assets to your situation. What this response will consist of exactly depends on where you are. So, for instance, an agent of the NWO in Paris might gain immediate help from a number of French soldiers and armed police against the possible terrorist incident. A Syndic in LA would gain the assistance of a number of armed response Rentacops on patrol. Normal response times for the unit apply. So, for instance, if you sound an armed response protocol in the middle of a major London station you'll have help in moments, if you're in a rundown suburb it may take a while.

Counter Assault Team
Corespondence 2/life 4/matter 4, or corr 4/life 2/matter 2

Senior operatives may call for a more powerful procedure, ensuring they always have backup at hand without waiting for a response time. Counter Assault Team allows a senior technocratic operative to gain the backup of large numbers of armed operatives anywhere in the world at will, with only a momentary response time. Every success on enlightenment your roll gain 2 temporary background points would of backup with no lead time. Swarms of heavily armed security just pour in through the nearest door.
 
FBH said:
So I came up with some rotes for Technocrats.

Armed Response (NWO or Syndic rote)
Correspondence 2/Mind 2 in a major Western City, add Entropy or Time 2 in other areas.

The world is full of armed response teams against terrorist attacks and criminals. using this technique, the Technocrat can rapidly summon help from a large number of armed men. Each success on the enlightenment roll gives you two free points of temporary backup background representing an appropriate response by local security assets to your situation. What this response will consist of exactly depends on where you are. So, for instance, an agent of the NWO in Paris might gain immediate help from a number of French soldiers and armed police against the possible terrorist incident. A Syndic in LA would gain the assistance of a number of armed response Rentacops on patrol. Normal response times for the unit apply. So, for instance, if you sound an armed response protocol in the middle of a major London station you'll have help in moments, if you're in a rundown suburb it may take a while.

Counter Assault Team
Corespondence 2/life 4/matter 4, or corr 4/life 2/matter 2

Senior operatives may call for a more powerful procedure, ensuring they always have backup at hand without waiting for a response time. Counter Assault Team allows a senior technocratic operative to gain the backup of large numbers of armed operatives anywhere in the world at will, with only a momentary response time. Every success on enlightenment your roll gain 2 temporary background points would of backup with no lead time. Swarms of heavily armed security just pour in through the nearest door.
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How does the Paradigm justify the latter? Btw?
 
The Laurent said:
How does the Paradigm justify the latter? Btw?
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If you're NWO you've got the authority to call in a terrorist alert and designate suspects. Most European cities now at least have more or less a shoot to kill policy and procedures in place to pour armed men into a situation to deal with ISIS style attacks. American cities are the same. For instance New York City's Hercules Team.

If you're a syndic, these are your hired guards. Armed Security Response is still a thing in a lot of American cities. So basically, you use cash to summon rentacops. This maybe paradoxical in Europe, unless you can blatancy it by having mob connections or the like.
 
Also is it me or are RAID the archetype for Eurotechnocracy troops.



Just look at these guys. You just know under the ballistic visor and tactical balaclava they all have the same face
 
FBH said:
Also is it me or are RAID the archetype for Eurotechnocracy troops.



Just look at these guys. You just know under the ballistic visor and tactical balaclava they all have the same face
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Actually, and not surprisingly really, the more I think about it, the more it seems like oMage doesn't really represent the left in general very well?

I know this seems out of nowhere, but I was just imagining a "Tomorrow they're be More of Us" sort of equivilent in the counter-Technocracy, except that wouldn't fit in any of the paradigms that actually oppose it, or at least, not alone.
 
The Laurent said:
Actually, and not surprisingly really, the more I think about it, the more it seems like oMage doesn't really represent the left in general very well?

I know this seems out of nowhere, but I was just imagining a "Tomorrow they're be More of Us" sort of equivilent in the counter-Technocracy, except that wouldn't fit in any of the paradigms that actually oppose it, or at least, not alone.
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Mage is very much of its time, and that time was the 1990s, which was sort of apolitically right. It's pretty easy to add in left-wing themes into mage. Like, it's very much a setting where there's a systematic structure of global oppression based on the cooperation of the elite against everyone else. The main problem with Mage from a left-wing perspective is that it doesn't want a revolution, it wants you to free your mind, which is ultimately a rather selfish way to conduct yourself against a conspiracy for global oppression. This concentration is why I don't like revised as much.

I'm not 100% what you mean by "Tomorrow they're More of Us" (Like, from Hamilton?) but if you wanted to do such a faction you can really do it with whatever tradition you want, or the Technocracy. Like, you could make it a technocracy splinter that's fighting for true ascension, you could retro-engineer it to be the virtual adepts, or you could have some other faction that's trying to use magic for global liberation. I've played a Communist/Maoist Akashic before for instance.
 
FBH said:
Mage is very much of its time, and that time was the 1990s, which was sort of apolitically right. It's pretty easy to add in left-wing themes into mage. Like, it's very much a setting where there's a systematic structure of global oppression based on the cooperation of the elite against everyone else. The main problem with Mage from a left-wing perspective is that it doesn't want a revolution, it wants you to free your mind, which is ultimately a rather selfish way to conduct yourself against a conspiracy for global oppression. This concentration is why I don't like revised as much.

I'm not 100% what you mean by "Tomorrow they're More of Us" (Like, from Hamilton?) but if you wanted to do such a faction you can really do it with whatever tradition you want, or the Technocracy. Like, you could make it a technocracy splinter that's fighting for true ascension, you could retro-engineer it to be the virtual adepts, or you could have some other faction that's trying to use magic for global liberation. I've played a Communist/Maoist Akashic before for instance.
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I was just talking about the, "We're the masked Antifa, so of course the people (coming from around the corner masked like we are) rise up and join us." Like, the equivalent.

What I was talking about specifically is that the main conflict of canon oMage is one that's not really very relevant to people's lives. And thus "the Technocracy" seems like it'd be an awfully broad group IRL. *shrugs*

Like, they're The Man and yet... *waves hands*.
 
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