Remove ads

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

Reader mode
EarthScorpion said:
And that's precisely why in the Bloodlines thread when this came up, it's pretty obvious that the main character needs to be locked to being an Orphan. If you join a Tradition, you need to do it over the course of the game by choosing to do so. Otherwise you can't do the kind of character specific plotlines that you need to for that proper CRPG experience. Else you just end up with a bland shell because you can't write around the character that exists without combinatorial explosion.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
So essentially just like how we'll be playing a Thinblood in Bloodlines 2 for the first portion of the game and then later joining a Clan?

I could see how that could work, and like Bloodlines 2 a hypothetical Mage The Ascension game could release more conventions/traditions as FLC or DLC.
 
Speaking of VTMB2 thread, after a bunch of posts regarding Mage the Ascension, I got pretty interested in the game, but I don't know how to start. Could I ask for a short crash course in what books get and other essential stuff, maybe some other advices or recommendation? Or a link to some good thread about it?
 
EarthScorpion said:
And that's precisely why in the Bloodlines thread when this came up, it's pretty obvious that the main character needs to be locked to being an Orphan. If you join a Tradition, you need to do it over the course of the game by choosing to do so. Otherwise you can't do the kind of character specific plotlines that you need to for that proper CRPG experience. Else you just end up with a bland shell because you can't write around the character that exists without combinatorial explosion.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

I mean that just makes sense, obviously. I'm no game designer, but that just looks like literally the most obvious option.
 
Hejtan said:
Speaking of VTMB2 thread, after a bunch of posts regarding Mage the Ascension, I got pretty interested in the game, but I don't know how to start. Could I ask for a short crash course in what books get and other essential stuff, maybe some other advices or recommendation? Or a link to some good thread about it?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Revised, probably. Main book Mage Revised, then maybe whatever Tradition/Convention books look interesting to you?

M20 is a hot mess and should not be started with.
 
The new villain from Hobbes and Shaw is the most technocratic thing I have ever seen. It even has control talking through a video screen which only shows their voice data
 
Hey, so I might finally get to run a game, and I was wondering what edition yall reconmend? It's with a newbie player so best fluff and crunch if possible
 
As the one asking that question earlier and being recommended Revised, I can say that I find it good, even if I can't really compare it with others.
 
rogthnor said:
Hey, so I might finally get to run a game, and I was wondering what edition yall reconmend? It's with a newbie player so best fluff and crunch if possible
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

And I'll say 2nd. It was where the game was heathest, and wasn't suffering from backlash so bad that sourcebooks had to litterally start including "please give revised a chance."

Mechanically, Revised has improvements, but setting wise 2nd is most playable.
 
TheLastOne said:
And I'll say 2nd. It was where the game was heathest, and wasn't suffering from backlash so bad that sourcebooks had to litterally start including "please give revised a chance."

Mechanically, Revised has improvements, but setting wise 2nd is most playable.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Mind going into what the differences are? Im always welcome to more info when asking for recs
 
rogthnor said:
Mind going into what the differences are? Im always welcome to more info when asking for recs
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...


Mechanically, revised mainly introduced a bunch of minor but functional fixes, but it also tried to advance the metaplot, and they did it by... well, it's an unpopular position on this board, but they did it by undermining the entire setting.

They 'ended' the Ascension War in a rather hamfisted way that left the Tradition aimless, and didn't make sense, because why did they suddenly decide they 'lost' after three hundred years of fighting?

Tried to devillainize the Technocracy, which basically means you you have no good setting villain. No, the Nephandi don't work, they're too inhuman.

Locked a bunch of interesting setting behind the Stormwall, which was a huge Deus Ex that... honestly I don't feel like explaining. The setting never had enough unity for cross splat events to feel natural and wholesome. Also, if you went from 2nd to revised, it would happen because of events your players had nothing to do with.

And just left you with a setting where you had few interesting plots built in anymore. It was suppose to be a lead up to the Endtime, but the Endtimes themselves were never the greatest hooks in mage. Like, all the factions got hit with existential aimlessness, cut off from their elders, unsure of where they're going next... and that was suppose to help lead into the endtimes. But if you weren't doing an endtimes story, it just left the setting feeling devoid of meaning. Like, check out The Bitter Road. It's one of the most pointless books you could ever waste your money on.

2nd edition is a gonzo crazy setting where spelljamming Hermatic can battle it out with UFO riding Void engineers, guarding covents of elightened monks who have migrated to the Deep Umbra to escape the Ascension War and persue personal enlightenment. It's fundamentally awesome.
 
To provide a measured reply to the above...

The Traditions deciding they lost was the result of, well, the Traditions, the faction that is 100% behind returning to the old ways and based around ancient ways of life, lost all their ancient mages in '99. So. Obviously morale is something of an all-time low.

The Technocracy are people, and Mage doesn't really want a setting villain in the first place. Everything is true, nothing is forbidden (to be real.) Making them more like people is only to the good. The entire point of Ascension, of Consensus, is that everyone has a point.

Including the Nephandi. For every cackling baby-murdering burn-the-world lunatic, there's one who's disgusted with humanity's cruelty, or tired of humanity's suffering, seeking to end the world out of misguided compassion. You want to see the Nephandi done right, look at Persona 3, look at Nyx and Erebos and the Fall.

Most importantly, it cut out a large section of the metaplot. It was never about endtimes coming; rather, the end times had come and gone, '99 had brought both sides to their knees, and it's up to you to take this new world and find something new, start a new millenium.

I loved PQ for that theme, and that carries over into Revised. I'll support it whole-heartedly.
 
Last edited:
I'm reading through revised now, and I have a few questions if anyone has time to answer.

A. Is it possible to "hold" an effect for later use. For example if I use matter to build a giant robot and increase my strength stat. Can I hold off on actually using the robot until later, so that the duration lasts from when I get into the device?
2. Similarly, there don't seem to be any rules for item creation? I know that my character could use a ray gun as a focus for a forces effect, and roll magic every time he attacks, but can he just make a raygun, or other item, which doesn't require magic to work? So that it just has a static "shoot" effect anyone cane use instead of rolling a forces attack everyrime?
 
To A, it's only possible to cast and then "hold" an effect from going off in conjunction with Time 4 magic. If you build a robot suit to serve as a focus for increasing your Strength stat, you're realistically looking at making that Arete roll every time you suit up, and maintaining the effect so long as you're fighting in it.

To 2, a quick look-over of Revised confirms that the rules for creating Devices or Wonders are not in the core book, but in the Revised Storyteller's Companion (p.53-65). For better or worse, you're still functionally rolling a 'forces attack' every time the ray gun (or power armor, or whatever) is fired, but there are ways to shuffle the burden off to others. Depending on who you want to be able to hand it off to, there are a couple of ways you could go about it. An Artifact/Invention would work for any mage whose paradigm is functionally compatible with your own; they have to still make Arete rolls using their own stat to use the effects, but don't have to have the Spheres in question, and the user suffers any relevant Paradox that comes up from its misuse (intentional or otherwise).

Charms/Gadgets are short-duration items -- the one-off battery pack and circuitry to power and calibrate your ray gun -- and when you turn them on, they work for the duration of the effect: instantly in the case of a single attack, or otherwise a scene or so before burning themselves out. They're useable in locations or by Sleepers whose paradigm is compatible with yours, though Paradox may apply if shenanigans start to occur.

Now, if you wanted a reuseable item that may just need recharging, you'd use the Talisman/Device category, possibly also simultaneously marking it as an Artifact. Mind, a Talisman/Device is still Doing Magic, and still has to make the magic casting roll for the effect in question (the raygun shooting rays, the seven-league boots taking seven-league steps), but in theory you could hand the device off to whoever you please and they'll get to use the 'fire rays' effect as they see fit (or so long as the object has stored Quintessence to burn on generating the effect). That said, because the object in question is still Doing Magic, it's subject to the normal rules regarding magic casting, so you want to keep this thing in locations or in the hands of Sleepers whose paradigm is friendly to yours to avoid the vulgar-magic-witnesses modifier to your object of power's casting rolls and subsequent fallout.
 
Last edited:
Cessali said:
To A, it's only possible to cast and then "hold" an effect from going off in conjunction with Time 4 magic. If you build a robot suit to serve as a focus for increasing your Strength stat, you're realistically looking at making that Arete roll every time you suit up, and maintaining the effect so long as you're fighting in it.

To 2, a quick look-over of Revised confirms that the rules for creating Devices or Wonders are not in the core book, but in the Revised Storyteller's Companion (p.53-65). For better or worse, you're still functionally rolling a 'forces attack' every time the ray gun (or power armor, or whatever) is fired, but there are ways to shuffle the burden off to others. Depending on who you want to be able to hand it off to, there are a couple of ways you could go about it. An Artifact/Invention would work for any mage whose paradigm is functionally compatible with your own; they have to still make Arete rolls using their own stat to use the effects, but don't have to have the Spheres in question, and the user suffers any relevant Paradox that comes up from its misuse (intentional or otherwise).

Charms/Gadgets are short-duration items -- the one-off battery pack and circuitry to power and calibrate your ray gun -- and when you turn them on, they work for the duration of the effect: instantly in the case of a single attack, or otherwise a scene or so before burning themselves out. They're useable in locations or by Sleepers whose paradigm is compatible with yours, though Paradox may apply if shenanigans start to occur.

Now, if you wanted a reuseable item that may just need recharging, you'd use the Talisman/Device category, possibly also simultaneously marking it as an Artifact. Mind, a Talisman/Device is still Doing Magic, and still has to make the magic casting roll for the effect in question (the raygun shooting rays, the seven-league boots taking seven-league steps), but in theory you could hand the device off to whoever you please and they'll get to use the 'fire rays' effect as they see fit (or so long as the object has stored Quintessence to burn on generating the effect). That said, because the object in question is still Doing Magic, it's subject to the normal rules regarding magic casting, so you want to keep this thing in locations or in the hands of Sleepers whose paradigm is friendly to yours to avoid the vulgar-magic-witnesses modifier to your object of power's casting rolls and subsequent fallout.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
You mention making a device an artifact. What's an artifact in this case
 
An Artifact (or Invention, in Technocrat-ese) is one of the three general types of created items. Artifacts give anyone with an Arete score the ability to cast a particular effect using their own Arete, without the need to have the relevant Sphere ratings of their own.

There are a couple of other categories of created items in the Storyteller's Companion, but they don't do what you're asking for so I didn't mention them.
 
So wonders use their own arete and spheres (and generally have one effect) and are powered by quintessence

Artifacts allow you to use your own arete and provide the spheres (for any effecr?)

And gadgets just perform a single use effect?

Also, the way the matter sphere is set up seems weird to me and I'm not sure I'm grokking it. Two things are confusing me:

First, why is change substance (lead to gold) 2 dots but change state (water to fog) three dots. Intuitively shouldn't it be the other way around? Why is it set up this way

Second, why does creating a gun require 4 spheres when a sleeper can do that so easily? Is it because you can make, like super guns at this point? Could you create a mech suit or gundam?
 
rogthnor said:
So wonders use their own arete and spheres (and generally have one effect) and are powered by quintessence

Artifacts allow you to use your own arete and provide the spheres (for any effecr?)

And gadgets just perform a single use effect?

Also, the way the matter sphere is set up seems weird to me and I'm not sure I'm grokking it. Two things are confusing me:

First, why is change substance (lead to gold) 2 dots but change state (water to fog) three dots. Intuitively shouldn't it be the other way around? Why is it set up this way

Second, why does creating a gun require 4 spheres when a sleeper can do that so easily? Is it because you can make, like super guns at this point? Could you create a mech suit or gundam?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Because Mage came out before game balance was invented.
 
rogthnor said:
So wonders use their own arete and spheres (and generally have one effect) and are powered by quintessence

Artifacts allow you to use your own arete and provide the spheres (for any effecr?)

And gadgets just perform a single use effect?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Yes, yes (yes), and yes.

First, why is change substance (lead to gold) 2 dots but change state (water to fog) three dots. Intuitively shouldn't it be the other way around? Why is it set up this way

Second, why does creating a gun require 4 spheres when a sleeper can do that so easily? Is it because you can make, like super guns at this point? Could you create a mech suit or gundam?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I definitely agree that object transmutation seems like it should be more complex than rearranging an object's structure. They may have put it that way because putting transmutation before transformation was not the feel that the designers wanted to go with this, or the original designers may not have been big chemistry buffs, but whatever the case, that's just how it happens to be.

That said, you don't need four Spheres to create a firearm ex nihilo -- just two. Depending on the complexity of what you're intending to work with, it could be either a few Matter 3 - Prime 2 transactions to create the necessary but conceptually-distinct parts (stock, barrel, trigger assembly, magazine, rounds, etc) that you then assemble, or a single Matter 4 - Prime 2 transaction to create a single complex object with all the necessary moving parts at once. Yes, a Sleeper can create a firearm without magic, but if you give it a moment's thought, any would-be Sleeper gunsmith need sizeable amount of modern infrastructure to do so: access to complex alloys, precise machining tools, a somewhat-sophisticated knowledge of ballistics and mechanical engineering, enough chemistry background and equipment necessary to produce propellant... and that's just what I can think of that a Storyteller might ask you to do off the cuff! "Easy" here is a very, very conditional easy.

Also, yes, Matter 4 Prime 2 is also the level which would let you perform the Create Power Armor rote.
 
Cessali said:
Yes, yes (yes), and yes.


I definitely agree that object transmutation seems like it should be more complex than rearranging an object's structure. They may have put it that way because putting transmutation before transformation was not the feel that the designers wanted to go with this, or the original designers may not have been big chemistry buffs, but whatever the case, that's just how it happens to be.

That said, you don't need four Spheres to create a firearm ex nihilo -- just two. Depending on the complexity of what you're intending to work with, it could be either a few Matter 3 - Prime 2 transactions to create the necessary but conceptually-distinct parts (stock, barrel, trigger assembly, magazine, rounds, etc) that you then assemble, or a single Matter 4 - Prime 2 transaction to create a single complex object with all the necessary moving parts at once. Yes, a Sleeper can create a firearm without magic, but if you give it a moment's thought, any would-be Sleeper gunsmith need sizeable amount of modern infrastructure to do so: access to complex alloys, precise machining tools, a somewhat-sophisticated knowledge of ballistics and mechanical engineering, enough chemistry background and equipment necessary to produce propellant... and that's just what I can think of that a Storyteller might ask you to do off the cuff! "Easy" here is a very, very conditional easy.

Also, yes, Matter 4 Prime 2 is also the level which would let you perform the Create Power Armor rote.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I could skip prime 2 if I have access to materials though right? Matter 2 let's me turn trees into whatever material I need, and matter 3 let's me reshape it right?
 
Reader mode
You must login or register to reply here.
Remove ads
Back
Top