Remove ads

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

Reader mode
LSkullD said:
How did Paradox become a thing?

I'm currently discussing my idea for a Mage-like world, and the people there are pointing out that people would concentrate enough power that they would become god-kings that crushed any potential competition for their power, so the idea of a rebellion like the kind the Order of Reason instituted wouldn't work.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Lots of murder. There weren't a ton of mages even back then, so all you have to do is murder the local mage and spend a few generations Quietly ensuring no new ones pop up
 
Wouldn't Christianity play a role, at least in Europe. I mean the local Christian paradigm would help a member of the Messianic Voice, as long as the people thought he was a saint. The moment they doubt his morality in masse his powers are subject to paradox. Verbenae could be defined as witches and thus have their spells nullified, the Order too in a point.

What I mean is that even in the Dark Ages there were different Consensuses and they could be dangerous for a would be mage lord.

LSkullD said:
Alright, that's reasonable. Still, does my reason also make any goddamn sense?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Yes it makes sense, Awakening ignores pretty much any restriction. There are also very few Paradigms who restrict power according to classes. Verbenae: You are of the bloodline or worship, you're in. Celestial Chorus: You can be a saint regardless of background.

Seriously in Dark Ages groupes I see only the Order of Hermes as having a mostly classist paradigm.
 
Last edited:
ganonso said:
Wouldn't Christianity play a role, at least in Europe. I mean the local Christian paradigm would help a member of the Messianic Voice, as long as the people thought he was a saint. The moment they doubt his morality in masse his powers are subject to paradox. Verbenae could be defined as witches and thus have their spells nullified, the Order too in a point.

What I mean is that even in the Dark Ages there were different Consensuses and they could be dangerous for a would be mage lord.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Yes. Christanity would totally play a role, like it played in the enlightenment.
 
So an interesting thing I just noticed (or horribly misunderstood).

Among the Traditions, the Euthanatoï, the Akashic Brotherhood, the Cult of Ecstasy and the Celestial Chorus follow a moralistic paradigm. By that I'm saying they believe becoming a Mage means you are chosen, or more enlightened than others. Hell an exemple Chorister has "was found worthy of being joined to an angel as a paradigm"

The Virtual Adepts, the Order of Hermes and the Sons of Ether are operating on "scientific" paradigm. They think the universe work according to laws one can divine and then teach.

And I don't know about Verbenae and Dreamspeakers because I don't really get their paradigm. Are Verbenae that different from Hermetics using cruder correspondances?
 
ganonso said:
So an interesting thing I just noticed (or horribly misunderstood).

Among the Traditions, the Euthanatoï, the Akashic Brotherhood, the Cult of Ecstasy and the Celestial Chorus follow a moralistic paradigm. By that I'm saying they believe becoming a Mage means you are chosen, or more enlightened than others. Hell an exemple Chorister has "was found worthy of being joined to an angel as a paradigm"

The Virtual Adepts, the Order of Hermes and the Sons of Ether are operating on "scientific" paradigm. They think the universe work according to laws one can divine and then teach.

And I don't know about Verbenae and Dreamspeakers because I don't really get their paradigm. Are Verbenae that different from Hermetics using cruder correspondances?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I'd call the Verbena and Dreamspeakers mostly scientific, with a good dose of moralistic.
 
TheLastOne said:
The unyielding, unsympathetic weight of alien master disconnected from the world or it's day to day concerns is part of the Technocratic wheelhouse. They are the Illuminati, the decedents of the Freemasons, and they work is long in coming. You are just a piece on a board. If it is a part of the plan, maybe you'll one day rise high enough to vote and shape it, but only after the strings are so tightly wound that you'll make all the same moves and all the same choices as the ones who came before you.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
That sounds just like real life as it is now, somewhat to be honest.

WhatIf said:
Guide to the Technocracy actually talked about the Time Table in specific detail:


Guide to the Technocracy even had details for each Convention:


Of course it shouldn't be forgotten that this is all based on interpretations of the original Precepts of Damian:
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Interesting. So its not nebulous. In flux but not a whatever thing. Makes me question if others have actually read these books if they just say its a whatever and not a plan.

ManusDomine said:
The second level of Entropy lets you control probability.

You now hold complete control over their predictions.

Use it to make them see you hitting the nerd in the goddamn face.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Interesting. But wouldn't this require you knowing about them? How about if they were observing you and you didn't know about them? And what if they already observed you enough to come up with a model to predict your actions?


MJ12 Commando said:
Entropy 2, Time 2, Correspondence 2.

"I feed you deliberately false impressions from your predictions which not only mean that your attempts to defeat me fail, but you actually help me accomplish my goal," Semi-Automatic Leopard says, and then the Parahuman special agent Wolfram Worm ends up taking the PAL key and activating Brass Cog, the bipedal nuclear missile launcher, because his predictions are all completely compromised.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Very nice. But wouldn't this require you knowing about them? How about if they were observing you and you didn't know about them? And what if they already observed you enough to come up with a model to predict your actions?


Maugan Ra said:
Well, if we're going with Awakening I'm reasonably sure it's possible to use... mm, Forces and Fate to set up a spell that says "whenever you try to apply your precognitive modelling to me, you instead catch fire". Increase the levels of each Arcanum being applied to increase the intensity and precision of that trap.

You'd want to add Space to the spell in order to set it up without the target being in your immediate presence. If you're feeling particularly spiteful you can probably do something with Death to expand it to "you burn to death, then rise as a ghost and keep burning."
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Interesting. But would the spell trigger if they are just observing you and do the predictive modelling later as a precaution?


Another question, can a OMage and NMage do perfect defenses like an Exalted can? Exalted run on concepts so do Mages do conceptual shenanigans?
 
Concepts are actually more of a Mind thing.

It's just, y'know, actually concepts rather than needlessly confusing shorthand for absolute effects. Collective unconscious, Platonic ideals, notions and language, etc.
 
Space Penguin said:
So they are not conceptual and would be purely physics manipulators(matter, time and space) if not for the addition of spirits and death basically?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

No, you can absolutely play with magic that's playing with the concept of things, provided it makes sense for your paradigm. It's just that that effect isn't special.

Remember that a match is as magical as a light spell, in the end.
 
Quantumboost said:
Concepts are actually more of a Mind thing.

It's just, y'know, actually concepts rather than needlessly confusing shorthand for absolute effects. Collective unconscious, Platonic ideals, notions and language, etc.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
TheLastOne said:
No, you can absolutely play with magic that's playing with the concept of things, provided it makes sense for your paradigm. It's just that that effect isn't special.

Remember that a match is as magical as a light spell, in the end.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Ah yes, my mistake.

Ok. But what do you call it when fiction has it that a person removes the concept of color from the world and now color does not exist and never existed? Thats what conceptual usually means.

And if we go with absolute effects. Then does Mage have absolute effects?

Also, how about this guys?

A question thats been bugging me and i hope to get an answer here.

In Worm, they do predict the future by actually doing predictive modelling, basically model someone or something and then make predictions on what said person will do or what happens next. They may also take said model and put it through simulation after simulation with various variables introduced and see whats the result.

There has been mentions of even modelling powers and the benefits that comes with that like beating your oponent who uses said power.

So my question is, what are the various ways a OMage from Mage the Ascension whether it be Technocrat or Tradition or NMage from Mage the Awakening can do to no sell this type of precog?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

But adding this addition:
How about if they were observing you and you didn't know about them? And what if they already observed you enough to come up with a model to predict your actions?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
 
Space Penguin said:
But adding this addition
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
If you have an Entropy or Fate ward (as appropriate to O or N Mage) set up to block predictive scrying on yourself, it doesn't matter if you know its happening or where its being done from. If they can't overcome your ward they get nothing at best, and potentially get set on fire at worst.
 
WhatIf said:
edit: the Etherites are as much cultural scavengers as the Virtual Adepts, if not more so. Etherites freely take elements from other works and theories and repurpose them, out of context, for use in their own endeavors.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Moreso. Definitely moreso. The VAs have their own home 'culture' and ideological framework, which they recruit from and inspire and are inspired by in the same way that the Hermetics have western occultism and the Akashics have martial arts lineages and the Technocracy has the scientific, business, and governmental establishment. They don't "scavenge" from it, they are it. In the context of the setting, and not in the sense that they're the projection of a real-world living subculture into the setting (at least, as of the time of the gameline; I haven't tracked hacker culture as closely lately).

The sort of core-and-standard scavenging you seem to be talking about is pretty much unique to the Etherites and the Hollow Ones.
 
Quantumboost said:
Moreso. Definitely moreso. The VAs have their own home 'culture' and ideological framework, which they recruit from and inspire and are inspired by in the same way that the Hermetics have western occultism and the Akashics have martial arts lineages and the Technocracy has the scientific, business, and governmental establishment. They don't "scavenge" from it, they are it. In the context of the setting, and not in the sense that they're the projection of a real-world living subculture into the setting (at least, as of the time of the gameline; I haven't tracked hacker culture as closely lately).

The sort of core-and-standard scavenging you seem to be talking about is pretty much unique to the Etherites and the Hollow Ones.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
When I compared the VAs to cultural scavengers I meant in more of the Memetic sense:
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/10/what-an-academic-who-wrote-her-dissertation-on-trolls-thinks-of-violentacrez/263631/ said:
As I argue throughout my dissertation, trolls are cultural scavengers, and engage in a process I describe as cultural digestion: They take in, regurgitate, and subsequently weaponize existing tropes and cultural sensitivities. By examining the recurring targets of trolling, it is therefore possible to reverse-engineer the dominant landscape.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
 
WhatIf said:
When I compared the VAs to cultural scavengers I meant in more of the Memetic sense:
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
...I don't see how that applies at all. What do trolls or their practices have to do with the Virtual Adept Tradition? They're based on hackers and the culture thereof.

Poorly, sure, but that's a given since it's White Wolf writing the books.
 
Last edited:
Quantumboost said:
...I don't see how that applies at all. What do trolls or their practices have to do with the Virtual Adept Tradition? They're based on hackers and the culture thereof.

Poorly, sure, but that's a given since it's White Wolf writing the books.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Because the Virtual Adepts don't get to take the good side of being hackers and integral members of internet communities without being involved with the internet's vices. The internet provides both positive and negative disinhibition.
The Conscience of a Hacker said:
And then it happened... a door opened to a world... rushing through the phone line like heroin through an addict's veins, an electronic pulse is sent out, a refuge from the day-to-day incompetencies is sought... a board is found.
"This is it... this is where I belong..."
I know everyone here... even if I've never met them, never talked to them, may never hear from them again... I know you all...
Damn kid. Tying up the phone line again.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Anonymity allows people the privacy to share intimate information about themselves and feel safe. It also distances the user from the people on the other end, making it easier for the user to act with cruelty towards others in ways they wouldn't in real life. The lack of social repercussions found in the internet is the cause of both phenomenon, two heads of the same coin. If Virtual Adepts are to feel liberated by the anonymity of the internet, some will use that liberation for less than noble purposes. Trolls are the dirty underbelly of the Virtual Adept movement, it's just that the anonymity of the internet makes it easy to distance yourself from your misdeeds. The instinct to troll is simply a malevolent manifestation of the Hacker's instinct to play around with things. The Virtual Adepts epitomize the highest virtues and lowest vices of the internet being both its creators and preeminent denizens.
 
To do a superfast lunge/dash into melee attack like the Stinger from Devil May Cry or Gatotsu from Rurouni Kenshin, is it just Forces 3 or do you need other Spheres?

Is it any different in Awakening?
 
WarpObscura said:
To do a superfast lunge/dash into melee attack like the Stinger from Devil May Cry or Gatotsu from Rurouni Kenshin, is it just Forces 3 or do you need other Spheres?

Is it any different in Awakening?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Actually, more generally, how do you pull off Devil May Cry bullshit in Mage: The Ascension?
 
LSkullD said:
Actually, more generally, how do you pull off Devil May Cry bullshit in Mage: The Ascension?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I think it would be pretty difficult. Dante feels more like a Werewolf refugee. Technically he has that half-devil thing, but I don't know anything about Demon the Fallen so... Massive physical beast, heals good and gets even more healy in warform (Devil Trigger), more passion than wisdom, beats spirits (devils) into fetishes, gives no flips about Paradox from being over the top SSStylish all the time...

The main issue, I think, would be all the 'dox he'll rack up lightning fast, unless he's a Marauder.

Also, he doesn't easily cleave to any of the Trads. Too wild at heart for the disciplined physicality of the Akashics, probably too flippant for Dreamspeaker. No idea what his paradigm and focus would be.

Spheres:
Corr for the movement options in Trickster and colocation for Doppelganger.
Forces, lots of elemental attacks, or at least his charging abilities if you consider Devil Arms to be fetishes.
Life for his healing and physicals.
Matter for unlimited ammo.
Prime, Devil Trigger energy??
Spirit to get "spirits" to do his bidding??
Time for Bangle of Time/Quicksilver.

Don't see any way Entropy or Mind fit him.
 
Entrophy and Mind yeah are a bit out there. I guess you could make arguments about probability manipulation but it seems a bit of a stretch. Older Dante(from DMC4) might have some Mind, but young Dante from DMC1 and 3 probably not.

Dante kind of strikes me as a Orphan more than anything. He basically got attacked by Demons/Spirits and decided "Fuck these guys in particular" and picked up some more knowledge about what was going on as he kept surviving. To be fair to him, he only busts out the SSS style guage when demons are literally appearing everywhere in the streets and paradox is figuratively getting DDOSed. The rest of the time he's doing things that probably stretch coincidental but probably get a pass (stupid long and accurate shot when he shot Virgil from the street to the top of that huge tower. Carrying his huge sword and cutting through a pool table_.

I guess you could make the case that Dante would probably spend a lot of his time fighting spirits in the Umbra. If you include Werewolf, the second game (ugh) and the reboot both have him fighting big business which could put him up against Pentex or a stand in.
 
This was brought up in panopticon, and I was wondering if the rules every deal with this issue.

Per the rules, if I have countermagic (mind) in the form of a premium skull then in paradigm it blocks magik effects by stopping it from penetrating and causing changes to my actual brain. The world is physical after all.

But does it block stuff like union hyperpsych where the paradigm is that they are just that convincing? In my own paradigm it shouldn't so does that mean it doesn't work?
 
Reader mode
You must login or register to reply here.
Remove ads
Back
Top