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

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Space Penguin said:
Really? I thought the main engagement was over cause FBH is not here but that it was still continuing. And I'm simply putting my pov as an outsider here.


Please show where I ever said that. I advocate for everyone to have multiple sides.

Saying that Traditions possibly having flaws or Technocracy having some virtue and vice versa is calling the Technocracy "untainted heroes" now apparently :rolleyes:
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The context of your statements, frankly. They Technocracies sins are the sins one must commit to if one is in charge... if everyone in charge must commit those 'sins' as a floor, then that's setting the maximum level of purity one can be. Then you use Warhammer 40K as an example, which is farcical as that whole setting is built on being grim-dark. As parody. Like, that's the context the setting works in.

If everyone must commit those sins the moment their in charge, then they aren't sins. They're hard men making hard decisions, possibly while hard, because that's what's needed to be in charge.

But frankly your whole tone and approach to the argument, a basically dead argument because people were doing other things in this thread, has been pointlessly confrontational.

When it isn't being dismissive. Which you do repeatedly. Like, at this point you've dodge engaging in discussion several time, then turn around and lambast and insult your opponent, then state your conclusion without engaging their points.

Like, why should people debate you? At this point I'm inclined to think you're a troll. You're stirring shit not because it's relevant to a discussion, but because the fight ended with people shaking hands and saying 'we're mostly tired of this. Let's do something productive.' And you wanted your side to win... you know, even when your own side didn't care enough to keep fighting.

If it's even your side and you're not just trolling.
 
Space Penguin said:
I don't know about you but how does this for example make me want to support the Traditions?
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From an in-character or an out-of-character perspective? Also, from a moral or an aesthetic perspective? Which makes more sense to believe or which would you rather believe? These are all valid questions in Mage.

From an in-character perspective, you hear someone talk about how aliens are behind everything and then are inducted into a secret society about understanding alien influence so that we can take advantage of it. If aliens are truly behind everything then you'd probably want to understand their influence and use it to your own ends. Maybe you can find something in ancient ruins that can help to revolutionize technology and change people's lives. Maybe you think that if they were helpful in the past then they may be able to help in the future. If aliens created Bigfoot and the Minotaur, then maybe they have some insights into genetics and how we could cure cancer.

From an out-of-character perspective, you like the aesthetic of Ancient Aliens sort of Alien-punk. You want to be a character who interacts with things from beyond this world, using weird technology to accomplish amazing things. You want to investigate ancient mysteries to see how they really work. Maybe you want to play a character who wants to show the world the truth.

Space Penguin said:
Absolutely. Its just I have watched that show and the idea of it being made real is not appealing
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Frankly this view isn't even entirely wrong. The Void Engineers find things in space and other dimensions that resemble ancient human religions. Dimensional Science does say that the spirits of religions, such as angels, are really just extra-dimensional beings. The Progenitor book has biografts based on supernatural creatures. The show might be a little crazy, but the world of Mage actually has a group that goes around in black helicopters covering up aliens. People in the past actually did contact spirits in the Mage universe. If aliens are real, and they have advanced capabilities, there is probably something we could learn from them. Whether we do that by peacefully communicating with them or by fighting with them and stealing their tech is a different question. A Son of Ether Mage might believe that the aliens have a benevolent disposition and so be willing to work with them. Void Engineers might assume that the aliens are using us for their own purpose. You can argue over how much influence aliens have had over mankind, but as per cannon beings from beyond our world exist and attempt to affect it.

If you as a player prefer Zeus as a tempestuous god rather than some alien conquerer than that's the position of other Traditionalists. The Void Engineers use terms like Extra-Dimensional Entity (EDE for short) but frankly Extra Terrestrial just means not from earth. Alien comes from latin for "belonging to someone else" or "exotic, foreign" so it's not really wrong either.

Space Penguin said:
Being real do, link for explanation? Never heard of it
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Walter Fisher's Narrative Paradigm
Basically it states that people are more likely to be persuaded by a good story than a good argument. It applies to Mage in that the world is shaped by people's beliefs, so the way to convince people is through a good story. Some of the best parts of the Bill Nye vs Ken Ham debate were Bill Nye telling stories about how the largest wooden ship ever constructed was smaller then the Arc and bent and buckled under the force of waves. Another great part of that debate was Bill Nye talking about how for Ken Ham's view of Evolution you would have to have something like 12 new species appear every day. That is what probably won most of the audience over. Rather than citing statistics and talking down to people, the best way to convince someone (in general) is to tell them a story.

From an out-of-character perspective plenty of people choose which side to back based on their aesthetic preferences. Do you prefer Fantasy or Science Fiction? Not all Traditionalists want to tear the world down. Not all Technocrats support genocide. There is room in the Traditions for the Dreamspeaker who is learning the ways of Car spirits and iPhone spirits and covers it as self driving cars and Siri/Alexa. There is room for the libertarian leaning Syndicate business man who thinks that some of the NWO's methods are not ok. Regardless of which side is "right" both sides are made of people. Not all people even in one group agree on everything. There were members of ISIS who didn't think it was right to desecrate religious monuments. You can play as members of either side and not have to be evil.

Even if your side was evil that wouldn't necessarily mean that you couldn't change it.
 
TheLastOne said:
The context of your statements, frankly. They Technocracies sins are the sins one must commit to if one is in charge... if everyone in charge must commit those 'sins' as a floor, then that's setting the maximum level of purity one can be.
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Its what I see. Being in charge and staying in charge leads to one commiting tons of sins. Tons of examples in real world and they apply to the Technocracy too.

Then you use Warhammer 40K as an example, which is farcical as that whole setting is built on being grim-dark. As parody. Like, that's the context the setting works in.
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I was using 40k as an example that sometimes shit happens that are not cause mustache twirly evil. And yes an employee accidentally not paying attention and missing stuff and not giving a crap about his job is a parody and does not happen like at all :rolleyes:

If everyone must commit those sins the moment their in charge, then they aren't sins. They're hard men making hard decisions, possibly while hard, because that's what's needed to be in charge.
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Who said they aren't sins? Plenty of people to this day give the US shit or other nations shit for stuff done in the past for staying on top. And being honest, I don't give a shit about the bold. Useless buzzwords. I dismiss such words immediately.

But frankly your whole tone and approach to the argument, a basically dead argument because people were doing other things in this thread, has been pointlessly confrontational.

When it isn't being dismissive. Which you do repeatedly. Like, at this point you've dodge engaging in discussion several time, then turn around and lambast and insult your opponent, then state your conclusion without engaging their points.

Like, why should people debate you? At this point I'm inclined to think you're a troll. You're stirring shit not because it's relevant to a discussion, but because the fight ended with people shaking hands and saying 'we're mostly tired of this. Let's do something productive.' And you wanted your side to win... you know, even when your own side didn't care enough to keep fighting.

If it's even your side and you're not just trolling.
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Thats not it at all. I came in in late. And just wanted to give my opinion and it snowballed from there. I have no issue with just dropping it to but well you guys keep quoting me.

Nice projecting onto me though with conspiracies
 
Space Penguin said:
Can we apply that as a actual paradigm in OMage. What kind of magics can come from it?

Being real do, link for explanation? Never heard of it
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In his book, Human Communication as Narration: Toward a Philosophy of Reason, Value and Action Walter Fisher outlines his theory for how humans are essentially storytelling creatures. He argues that we are persuaded not by good arguments, but by good reasons; what constitutes a good reasons is essentially decided by our history, our biography, our culture and so on. These aspects all confluence to form our narrative, the term he uses to describe the collection of events that form our thoughts and experience.

To Fisher, the world as we experience it consists of a collection of stories; physics, catholicism, fascism and further on are all stories that we can choose to believe in, based on our narrative. In a story, people seek coherency, consistency and truthfulness to determine whether it appeals to their narrative; a story should be coherent and obey an understandable narrative, a story should be coherent and obey it's own rules, even if those rules are never stated and characters in a story should be truthful and act as we expect them to.

I feel that this is relevant to us all, for the purposes of the discourse surrounding Mage: The Ascension; we all have different expectations of these characters, these stories; some expect the Technocracy to act in specific ways, just like others expect the Traditions to act in other ways, and I feel that these expectations, these stories we have bought into say a lot about the ideas we hold ourselves. While @WhatIf's summary is quite apt, it misses, I think the most relevant aspects of the theory; specifically the focus on how our world-as-perceived consists of stories itself.

Indeed, one might even call such a story a paradigm.
 
Out of sheer curiosity, if I wanted to talk about Awakening would I do that here or in the White Wolf Thread?
 
Violation of rules three and four: sniping and spaghetti posting
WhatIf said:
From an in-character or an out-of-character perspective? Also, from a moral or an aesthetic perspective? Which makes more sense to believe or which would you rather believe? These are all valid questions in Mage.
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true.

From an in-character perspective, you hear someone talk about how aliens are behind everything and then are inducted into a secret society about understanding alien influence so that we can take advantage of it. If aliens are truly behind everything then you'd probably want to understand their influence and use it to your own ends. Maybe you can find something in ancient ruins that can help to revolutionize technology and change people's lives. Maybe you think that if they were helpful in the past then they may be able to help in the future. If aliens created Bigfoot and the Minotaur, then maybe they have some insights into genetics and how we could cure cancer.

From an out-of-character perspective, you like the aesthetic of Ancient Aliens sort of Alien-punk. You want to be a character who interacts with things from beyond this world, using weird technology to accomplish amazing things. You want to investigate ancient mysteries to see how they really work. Maybe you want to play a character who wants to show the world the truth.
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Makes sense.

Frankly this view isn't even entirely wrong. The Void Engineers find things in space and other dimensions that resemble ancient human religions. Dimensional Science does say that the spirits of religions, such as angels, are really just extra-dimensional beings. The Progenitor book has biografts based on supernatural creatures. The show might be a little crazy, but the world of Mage actually has a group that goes around in black helicopters covering up aliens. People in the past actually did contact spirits in the Mage universe. If aliens are real, and they have advanced capabilities, there is probably something we could learn from them. Whether we do that by peacefully communicating with them or by fighting with them and stealing their tech is a different question. A Son of Ether Mage might believe that the aliens have a benevolent disposition and so be willing to work with them. Void Engineers might assume that the aliens are using us for their own purpose. You can argue over how much influence aliens have had over mankind, but as per cannon beings from beyond our world exist and attempt to affect it.

If you as a player prefer Zeus as a tempestuous god rather than some alien conquerer than that's the position of other Traditionalists. The Void Engineers use terms like Extra-Dimensional Entity (EDE for short) but frankly Extra Terrestrial just means not from earth. Alien comes from latin for "belonging to someone else" or "exotic, foreign" so it's not really wrong either.
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I agree. Its just the show had aliens releasing plague to the world, hurling nukes, causing giants, manipulating wars, things like that. Its why the idea of it becoming real doesn't applea to me. But it does totally fit into OMage.

Walter Fisher's Narrative Paradigm
Basically it states that people are more likely to be persuaded by a good story than a good argument. It applies to Mage in that the world is shaped by people's beliefs, so the way to convince people is through a good story. Some of the best parts of the Bill Nye vs Ken Ham debate were Bill Nye telling stories about how the largest wooden ship ever constructed was smaller then the Arc and bent and buckled under the force of waves. Another great part of that debate was Bill Nye talking about how for Ken Ham's view of Evolution you would have to have something like 12 new species appear every day. That is what probably won most of the audience over. Rather than citing statistics and talking down to people, the best way to convince someone (in general) is to tell them a story.
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Interesting. Casting magic by telling a story and it or parts of it becoming real? Like for example, posting a story or something and you have like something in the story that is the focus and cause people believe or like it, it comes real?

From an out-of-character perspective plenty of people choose which side to back based on their aesthetic preferences. Do you prefer Fantasy or Science Fiction? Not all Traditionalists want to tear the world down. Not all Technocrats support genocide. There is room in the Traditions for the Dreamspeaker who is learning the ways of Car spirits and iPhone spirits and covers it as self driving cars and Siri/Alexa. There is room for the libertarian leaning Syndicate business man who thinks that some of the NWO's methods are not ok. Regardless of which side is "right" both sides are made of people. Not all people even in one group agree on everything. There were members of ISIS who didn't think it was right to desecrate religious monuments. You can play as members of either side and not have to be evil.

Even if your side was evil that wouldn't necessarily mean that you couldn't change it.
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I totally agree but lets not go there. lets just drop it. Until FBH comes back cause i have read the White Wolf, thread. He comes back, shitstorm and then leaves. Pattern repeat. :whistle:
 
TheLastOne said:
I prefer to say that Awakening does not invoke Passion.
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Space Penguin said:
I can agree. Awakening fluff is interesting but there is no real passion for me. Its these guys are good, these guys are mustache twirly evil.
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Awakening is a very different type of game than Ascension. Awakening is a game of Gnostic Horror iirc (not really my thing but that's more about aesthetics).
ManusDomine said:
White Wolf thread; we are locked in here for our sins, Awakening does not cause flame wars. :V
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notanautomaton said:
Really we're here because some people just can't keep their flamewars in their pants.
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In my opinion Ascension creates arguments for the same reason as talks about religion or politics. It touches upon people's deeply held beliefs. Mage is a game about how belief affects reality, so naturally when people think about it they think of it in terms of their own worldview, morality, and aesthetic sense. A person's worldview is based on their experiences. When you argue about Ascension it can fall into the old Freedom vs Security argument. Which is more important? Both are important. What are you willing to sacrifice to get what you want? Mage ends up touching on politics. Politics is generally based on what you believe to be right. People against abortion basically see it as essentially baby killing, people pro-abortion generally see it as a necessary part of a person's right to do what they want with their own body. Each argument stems from what the person's values are (there's also the whole question about when it should become considered a person, but that's an argument for another time and place).


ManusDomine said:
we are persuaded not by good arguments, but by good reasons; what constitutes a good reasons is essentially decided by our history, our biography, our culture and so on. These aspects all confluence to form our narrative, the term he uses to describe the collection of events that form our thoughts and experience.
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People who argue about Ascension have different beliefs about what Mage and the world should look like, aesthetically and morally. They disagree about what is acceptable and what is a valid interpretation of what the book says. They also often want different things out of the game.

Awakening is a more focused game than the messiness of Ascension. You either like the premise of Awakening or you don't, while with Ascension you can contort it to be different things based on what you want out of it. Ascension was designed to enable different kinds of stories.
 
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WhatIf said:
Awakening is a very different type of game than Ascension. Awakening is a game of Gnostic Horror iirc (not really my thing but that's more about aesthetics).


In my opinion Ascension creates arguments for the same reason as talks about religion or politics. It touches upon people's deeply held beliefs. Mage is a game about how belief affects reality, so naturally when people think about it they think of it in terms of their own worldview, morality, and aesthetic sense. A person's worldview is based on their experiences. When you argue about Ascension it can fall into the old Freedom vs Security argument. Which is more important? Both are important. What are you willing to sacrifice to get what you want? Mage ends up touching on politics. Politics is generally based on what you believe to be right. People against abortion basically see it as essentially baby killing, people pro-abortion generally see it as a necessary part of a person's right to do what they want with their own body. Each argument stems from what the person's values are (there's also the whole question about when it should become considered a person, but that's an argument for another time and place).


People who argue about Ascension have different beliefs about what Mage and the world should look like, aesthetically and morally. They disagree about what is acceptable and what is a valid interpretation of what the book says. They also often want different things out of the game.

Awakening is a more focused game than the messiness of Ascension. You either like the premise of Awakening or you don't, while with Ascension you can contort it to be different things based on what you want out of it. Ascension was designed to enable different kinds of stories.
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I would actually say Awakening is more obvious about it's Gnostic aspects, but I wouldn't call is more Gnostic. Less actually. The prison is more obvious, you understand the jail and the jailers. Even the path you must take is clearer, where Ascension has a thousandth traps to make you keep investing in the corrupt material world.

At which point to you go from Buddhavista staying behind to help others find the way, to Maya, lord of illusion, stay behind to trap people in your own lies? Lies so beautiful you've come to believe them yourself.

Ascension is Gnostic as fuck, and it does it without having to tell you that.
 
ManusDomine said:
I'll stab you guys if you shittalk my bae Awakening. :mad:
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Your waifu bae is shit :evil:

:p

WhatIf said:
In my opinion Ascension creates arguments for the same reason as talks about religion or politics. It touches upon people's deeply held beliefs. Mage is a game about how belief affects reality, so naturally when people think about it they think of it in terms of their own worldview, morality, and aesthetic sense. A person's worldview is based on their experiences. When you argue about Ascension it can fall into the old Freedom vs Security argument. Which is more important? Both are important. What are you willing to sacrifice to get what you want? Mage ends up touching on politics. Politics is generally based on what you believe to be right. People against abortion basically see it as essentially baby killing, people pro-abortion generally see it as a necessary part of a person's right to do what they want with their own body. Each argument stems from what the person's values are (there's also the whole question about when it should become considered a person, but that's an argument for another time and place).
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IIRC, global ascension is seen as an ideal. No actual plan for it. Helll, its quite likely that Global ascension is impossible other then in plot designated ways as per the Ending of OMage old and all the stuff in OMage of the world ending and globa ascension did not happen cause of Mage20th anyway. But yeah. I totally agree with you.

Hell if there is one thing I like about NMage is the ability to have sub-sould kind of like the Primordials of Exalted.

Does OMage have such a thing too?
 
WhatIf said:
People who argue about Ascension have different beliefs about what Mage and the world should look like, aesthetically and morally. They disagree about what is acceptable and what is a valid interpretation of what the book says. They also often want different things out of the game.

Awakening is a more focused game than the messiness of Ascension. You either like the premise of Awakening or you don't, while with Ascension you can contort it to be different things based on what you want out of it. Ascension was designed to enable different kinds of stories.
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It should be noted that these are the exact reasons I picked narrative paradigm theory of communication as relevant here; the thoughts of narrative and story should be oh-so-familiar for anyone who has played Ascension.
 
Space Penguin said:
But the Traditions lost power and got hunted by the Technocracy and changed. Thats canon. Whats the issue here? I mean are you having in your head the idea that the struggle between the traditions and Technocracy was preordained long ago where the Traditions would all be plucky underdogs fighting the good fight and they were all happy go lucky friend or something :confused:?
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The previous statement could be read differently. But if it's "The Technos are bad because they won, and Trads will become bad when they win", that takes out most of the meaning of the struggle.

Space Penguin said:
Does OMage have such a thing too?
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That's up to you and your paradigm.
 
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vicky_molokh said:
The previous statement could be read differently. But if it's "The Technos are bad because they won, and Trads will become bad when they win", that makes takes out most of the meaning of the struggle.
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Come on man. Do we have to do this?

*sigh* yes, that could happen. Just as what could happen is the Traditions don't do that. Its entirely possible. Hell, its entirely possible The Technocracy will reform or become worse. All kinds of things are possible. Hell one of the options are that the Technocracy are controlled by Nephandhi

I'm open to the possibilities.. Isn't that the point of campaigns? From my perspective, you just want everything to be utterly strict here with no nuance, no possibilities. This is compelling? Look, lets just drop this. If you want to continue, we can do pm's

That's up to you and your paradigm.
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True.
 
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beowolf said:
Consensus Reality means propaganda can change local reality to be more similar to what it claims if it's done well enough. Therefore, while the more extreme claims are still false, enough of what they say is true that the standard of living is close to what poor people in America would expect rather than what they actually have in real life.

Edit: Note that I'm going off the impression I got in Panopticon Quest, not any canon source.
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Which makes perfect sense, I mean the bold . The purpose of propaganda is to convince a population of something, to make them believe in something or what you want them to believe. Belief is reality.
 
Space Penguin said:
So um.. is there any consensus ( heh, a pun) in this thread about the Technocracy?

I mean FBH, in his opinion, has made it very clear that they are evil and need to fall or die and are collapsing or always a failure that never accomplished anything other then colonialism which makes no sense as per Mj12 and the Mage20th shows its not. I mean he never stops going about colonialism and technocracy which is what his beef is.

Also, why is there always a focus on the Technocracy falling. Why not the traditions? Infact, traditions and technocracy having issues, tons of issues from within. Thats compelling imo.
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Whatever you want to say about the technocracy, they're certainly evil. The only difference of opinion on them are whether or not they're the least worst option or not.

My beef with the technocracy is I think that they're not very interesting as good guys. Like, if you're going to play a game when the Technocracy are the good guys, you've basically chosen to leave your core beliefs about the world unchallenged, which is one of the things I think is interesting in a well run mage game.
 
I don't think that's very accurate @FBH. I for one don't believe that censorship is something governments should do, neither do I believe in black-ops assassinations or men in black making people the Government does not like disappear in the night.

Fundamentally, this comes back to the stories we buy into again, a Traditionalist story is only going to challenge your beliefs as long as you buy into it and for some people, the Union is just easier to buy into; it's a shady shadow government that will grind you up until you're spent because it's like a corporate machine, it'll make you march to it's tone or you'll break from straining the gears of a machine of an organization older than any modern civilization, it exults in the heroism of it's members, but those members will often find themselves questioning whether they really are a hero.

I think we can agree that we do not share many of our opinions on mage, but I don't think you can axiomatically state that a game where the Union are protagonists is one that doesn't challenge the beliefs of the players. Unless you of course happened to literally mean, "one where the Union are literally good guys and don't do wrong", in which case I entirely agree with you; the Union, and to some degree all other magical groups should make you question what you know, because Mage is a game of personal enlightenment, and in a game of personal enlightenment, the truths of the Traditions and the truths of the Technocracy are ultimately wrong, your own path is what you will have to seek.

On the subject of beliefs, this make me once again think that the Celestial Chorus are fucking stupid, because their magical not-actually-any-religion-monotheism makes them nigh-impossible to buy into as a story; their Sorcerer's Crusade equivalent, the Chæur Celeste were much more to my preference.
 
FBH said:
Whatever you want to say about the technocracy, they're certainly evil. The only difference of opinion on them are whether or not they're the least worst option or not.
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I never said they were pure good guys or good guys did I?. I don't know about you but Mages running guerilla campaigns against the Technocracy or anyone else they don't like or killing people cause they are bad people in this life and thus through death becomes better people in next life completely ignoring sanctity of life or law would also be described as evil to plenty of people.

Same can be said for what the Technocracy does.

My beef with the technocracy is I think that they're not very interesting as good guys. Like, if you're going to play a game when the Technocracy are the good guys, you've basically chosen to leave your core beliefs about the world unchallenged, which is one of the things I think is interesting in a well run mage game.
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Thats fine you are entitled to your opinion.

I disagree with the idea that they can't be interesting. You could have a technocracy game where other then defeating trads, you could focus on other monsters preying on humanity or making things so the Sleepers will stop causing the more heavy scifi tech is no longer paradox prone so things can start being pushed forward or etc.

Or one could play a traditions game trying to coral the Orphans and vice versa. All sorts of interesting things.

Like from my understanding is that Ascension does not depend on either traditions or technocracy. Whether one likes it or not, both groups do inculcate people into their beliefs cause thats their paradigm and how their organizations are run.
 
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