White Wolf's World of Darkness

[The Laurent]

Nah, this was actually outright presented as something you can do in "Dancers in the Dusk". it's in chapter two, under "unwitting pledges", which includes things like making someone work nonstop until they complete a task (no matter how hard it is, or long it takes, lest they suffer the consequence). it works by taking anything someone says they'll to do out loud (I swear I'll kill you!, I promise not to rest until this job is done., I would never lie to you.) and then turns it into an active pledge.

as to the murder pledge, it gets balanced by giving them boosted attributes/combat merits for the week. truthfully, the one written down just makes the target vulnerable against any contract used by the changeling after they fail, but it doesn't cost much more to make it kill or be killed.

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True, but it shouldn't be portrayed as trivial. You're also likely to quickly go insane if you're murdering mortals or making them kill for you.

Like, you're a horrible monster and the entire world will notice sooner or later and put you down, or you'll go insane and that solves that.

Also, kill or be killed would be expensive. You lose a willpower dot, and it's a -3 Sanction.

Clarity Loss:

3 Actively harming a mortal by ravaging their dreams. Going a month without human contact. Kidnapping. Developing a derangement.* (Roll two dice)
2 Killing a human. Casual/callous crime against other supernaturals (serial murder). (Roll two dice)

Holding someone hostage to murder based on a casual statement of theirs would fall in one of these two categories in terms of seriousness, because it's exactly what the Keepers do.

 

[Estro]

Sleeping doesn't count, you have to walk on a surface in the world. But, here's the thing. Did you know that barefoot running is the newest fad? It's good for you! It's healthy (no, not that healthy) and all the athletes do it (no they don't), so you can do a morning exercise routine...and also give yourself all-day pathlessness as long as you are willing to roll for it.*

Dice Pool: Intelligence + Wyrd

If you fail, it'd be some probably arbitrary time before you could try again. Not a whole scene, but at least, some time. But if you think you have good odds to succeed, and have the catch...all day.

*) No seriously, look up barefoot running.

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Does that mean sleeping wouldn't count for smoke 3 as well? If so . And int+wyrd is 4 dice for Issy, making it... lemme check... 24.01% chance of no sucesses. Or to put it another way, 75.99% chance of sucess. Which is not bad. And I know of barefoot running. The economist covered it about a year and a half ago for some reason.

 

[grommile]

However, I don't think that contacts is valid as equaling mirror. At that matter.

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"Compact" - i.e. a small mirror in a folding case that you use to put on makeup.

 

[The Laurent]

"Compact" - i.e. a small mirror in a folding case that you use to put on makeup.

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I did mention that in my post...was that what Estro said? If so, yeah, that totally works.

I thought she said contact, like take out a contact lens, smudge it, then that counts. Glasses don't either.

Edit: Also, as a Fairest, if Isobel tried to do so, she'd roll only a single dice each time for 'not losing clarity' which means odds are on that she'd lose a Clarity every time she did until she was down to Clarity 2-ish. Plus, what's to keep the guy from telling someone else before he suddenly and fearfully dies?

 

[cmwatford]

So what happens if you cut out the morality system in a WoD game? Has it been done before and was it a good idea?

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In a mortals game it kind of cuts back some of the tension that goes into things. Your actions aren't as weighty if you can kill someone with no risk to your sanity. But cutting it is a good idea if your group wants to play a more gritty game where slowly spiraling into insanity would get in the way of the fun.

For a supernatural game it's a terrible idea because the altered morality traits serve to emphasize the themes of the game. Vampire without Humanity is kind of missing the point of it all.

 

[Xyzarach]

Edit: Also, as a Fairest, if Isobel tried to do so, she'd roll only a single dice each time for 'not losing clarity' which means odds are on that she'd lose a Clarity every time she did until she was down to Clarity 2-ish. Plus, what's to keep the guy from telling someone else before he suddenly and fearfully dies?

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he doesn't know where the urge to kill, or the certainty that he'll die, is coming from. the whole point of an unwitting pledge is to trick someone into a deal without them knowing it, so you don't use flowery language to do it.

someone gets insulted by someone else, yells "I'll kill that guy", and all you need to do is say "good luck with that", and stand back.


if he kills him, he's now a wanted murderer, and no-one will take him seriously about "magic voices in my head telling me to kill". if he doesn't, then he's dead, and no-one knows how, so it turns into just another case of mysterious death that goes unsolved.

 

[The Laurent]

he doesn't know where the urge to kill, or the certainty that he'll die, is coming from. the whole point of an unwitting pledge is to trick someone into a deal without them knowing it, so you don't use flowery language to do it.

someone gets insulted by someone else, yells "I'll kill that guy", and all you need to do is say "good luck with that", and stand back.


if he kills him, he's now a wanted murderer, and no-one will take him seriously about "magic voices in my head telling me to kill". if he doesn't, then he's dead, and no-one knows how, so it turns into just another case of mysterious death that goes unsolved.

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I'm telling you that if someone tried to abuse that, both the ST and the world itself would take notice after the third time. Plus, you know, you'd go insane. It'd be nice if you actually thought through the consequences of blatant murder more.

Considering you're presuming to give good advice on how to game the system, and not, "Here's how the ST will fuck you, you'll go insane, murder a ton of people, and probably die."

I mean, Changelings don't have Paradox to literally find them in a dark alley and beat them up, but do you think behavior goes unnoticed? That people won't realize you're literally being a serial killing monster? I mean, if you're some lone wolf on the path to insanity, you could get away with it enough times to hurt a lot of people. But if you have a Motley? A Court?

Once? Maybe, and if you provide good excuses, maybe more? But literally all of the Courts have a, "We aren't the fucking Keepers, and our job is to not go insane" somewhere in there.

 

[Scia]

This is at least my own current interpretation. That said, on the matter of Smoke...a compact mirror works just as well.

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Mirrored Sunglasses!


And would say that Clarity , ie morality, is still important for Changeling because it is a symbol of what happens to you. Werwolf and Harmony is imho easier to remove even if the litany is only enforced IC.

 

[Aaron Peori]

I think people is arguing from fundamental different points here.

Ascension is good for the same reason having eyes is good. Is a core part of Humankind, nor some extrange, foreign power.

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Allow me to rewrite your argument to point out why many people think it is bullshit.

"Ascension is good for the same reason having cancer is good. Is a core part of Humankind, nor some extrange, foreign power."

"Ascension is good for the same reason having alzheimers is good. Is a core part of Humankind, nor some extrange, foreign power."

"Ascension is good for the same reason having death is good. Is a core part of Humankind, nor some extrange, foreign power."

Like, the naturalistic fallacy doesn't stop being a fallacy because you're talking about eyes and souls. Just because its a core part of humanity doesn't mean its good. If the Technocracy was able to eliminate death with the Technodigm you would claim it was bad because dying is part of being human. That is self evidently absurd.

 

[STLICTX]

"Being infinitely more capable" is at the exact opposite end of the spectrum of changes. Increase in freedom and capability is good. I rarely see anyone arguing that we should cut off everyones limbs because they might use those limbs to harm people...

 

[Aaron Peori]

"Being infinitely more capable" is at the exact opposite end of the spectrum of changes. Increase in freedom and capability is good. I rarely see anyone arguing that we should cut off everyones limbs because they might use those limbs to harm people...

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But they're not infinitely more capable. Like, you don't go from Sleeper to Arete 10, All Spheres 10 overnight.

 

[SinisterPorpoise]

"Ascension is good for the same reason having cancer is good. Is a core part of Humankind, nor some extrange, foreign power."
"Ascension is good for the same reason having alzheimers is good. Is a core part of Humankind, nor some extrange, foreign power."

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Cancer is literally the body's cells behaving incorrectly, mostly due to poisoning or cellular damage built up over time.
Alzheimers is a result of the body winding down, it is nothing less than a failure state of the human brain.

 

[The Laurent]

To be fair, there's probably an argument for, "If Magic didn't exist, everything would be better." In the same way that the real world is provably less shit than the new world of darkness, and, like, even MORE less shit about the oWoD.

 

[AshenFox]

Another question: Why Asia? Paradox is focusing on Asia for oWoD, and before we get to the obvious 'there are a lot of people in various Asian countries'...but why would they be interested in a decades old series of convoluted gamelines filled with orientalist assumptions and bad mechanics?

Like, I'm sure there's a big market, but what, are there no book-makers in China? In Japan? In South Korea? To make gamelines and the like that appeal more specifically and strongly to their markets? Because I'm pretty sure a South Korean tabletop game maker can sure as hell know what appeals more to his target audience than 'random Europeans in charge of trying to make the Kuen-jin less racist.'

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More then likely, they'll paint North America (and the United States in particular) as being a den of vipers and the root of all evils in some form or another. I'll admit I don't trust Paradox in the slightest when one of their opening statements is, "we're going to take a game made in the United States, with a focus on the United States, and rather then just moving the story to be more global and less hilariously racist, everyone who's not Europe, Africa, or Asia can go suck on glass."

I wouldn't support a US company taking a game made in Europe, focused on Europe, and going, "Fuck Europe. USA! USA! USA!" all over it. I'm not going to support it the other way around.

Did you know that the EVE RPG was basically fully written at the point where CCP canned it by refusing to, more or less, allow them to even have hints of future things which might happen in EVE?

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Not the LEAST bit surprised. CCP are massive control freaks, and at the same time are basically a case of, "one blind guy leading another blind guy, except the first guy refuses to admit he's blind."

"Brucato".

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*collapses on the ground blood pouring from eyes*
Oh god please no more! I'll be a good little technocrat and never invent teleportation boots again! I SWEAR!

So what happens if you cut out the morality system in a WoD game? Has it been done before and was it a good idea?

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That's, technically kinda, what they were shooting for a bit in God Machine Chronicle / 2.0.
However, I have completely cut out morality stats using similar systems to those presented in Mirrors (I think it was Mirrors anyway).
It... it either goes well or it explodes horrendously everywhere and ruins your shoes.

If you've got players willing to play, you know, actual people, it can be really good. It really gives you a sense of a more 'real' world.
On the other hand, all it really takes is one 'That Guy' who doesn't play like it's real, and instead treats it like, "World of Darkness: MMO Murder Fest" and tries to burn buses full of innocent people alive for the lulz.

It can also make some splats behave... really weirdly...

To be fair, there's probably an argument for, "If Magic didn't exist, everything would be better." In the same way that the real world is provably less shit than the new world of darkness, and, like, even MORE less shit about the oWoD.

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I don't know... for all my dislike of nDemon, the simple fact that we live on / around all of the God Machine's precious precious infrastructure does mean that it will keep us alive by proxy in the nWoD. On the other hand, in reality we've got to do the heavy lifting of not getting murdered by "rocks fall" ourselves. Of course... we also don't have rogue terminators trying to fuck up plans to save us by proxy either...

 

[NonSequtur]

Anyway, since the Technocracy argument is now walking the Black Spiral to descension, I'd rather talk about the other source for Mage flamewars.

How do Consensus and Paradox even work, anyway? I could pull a Shyft and dive through the books, trying to weave meaning into the text but then again that takes effort. So instead I will be super self-indulgent and talk about how I tend to visualize Consensus, Paradox, and Paradigms.

Namely, I tend to think of them as enforcing narrative in a context halfway between group improv and more normal story telling. Now that sounds a bit Raksha-y, but there's a few reasons for it. It makes Consensus easier to understand as both an exclusionary and enforcing effect, allows play at the edges without forcing things into strict formalism, and meshes with how humans think.

Under this model, the Consensus of the modern era is a collection of certain themes, setting rules and aesthetics. Not a physics engine, but a story. Consensual magical effects, like planes and antibiotics, are setting elements, but are backed up by broader themes - which is why simply introducing every paradigm at once is nearly impossible. You don't end up with Star Wars, you end up with Strike Legion, whose lack of internal coherency makes it, yes, very fun to review, but not an immersive play experience. And immersion is the important piece here, because under this model Paradox is, very literally, anything that breaks... suspension of disbelief.

[pause for groans]

But while that's a bad thing for Mages, it can be a good thing for Sleepers, because while Mages can force their way through the disbelief and take paradox, the unAwakened (which is literally anything that's not a Mage) can't. Things continue to work because them not working will break immersion, would be too strange to believe. Further, it provides a model for Sleepers to do stuff that hasn't explicitly been pushed into Consensus by Mages, so long as they are supported by the broader themes and setting elements that have already been accepted.

Mages who go vulgar are like bad crossover characters which don't mesh with the setting, while Marauders are Mary Sues who warp the setting around their themes. More coincidental Mages just enforce subgenres - technothriller, murder mystery, cyberpunk, magic realism, action movie, political drama - which are sort of accepted and form a part of the broader Consensus.

Edit: And Paradox effects are, metaphorically, the rest of the story tellers getting sick of your shit - first they mess with you in ways that fit their rules, then they try and arrange for 'hoist by your own petard' scenarios, then they escalate to 'fuck you, suddenly monsters' and finally they kick you out of the group and you go into Quiet or are booted into a Paradox Realm until they forgive you.

 

[The Laurent]

Um, big question I've always had. How much does the Consensus cover? I mean, if everyone in an area believes that women are inferior and weak and etc, by the will of god or whatever, are all of the women born in the area inferior?

I mean, it seems like if reality is really consensual, than not only do thoughtcrimes exist, but racists, sexists, etc, etc were once completely right.

Anyway, since the Technocracy argument is now walking the Black Spiral to descension, I'd rather talk about the other source for Mage flamewars.

How do Consensus and Paradox even work, anyway? I could pull a Shyft and dive through the books, trying to weave meaning into the text but then again that takes effort. So instead I will be super self-indulgent and talk about how I tend to visual Consensus, Paradox, and Paradigms.

Namely, I tend to think of them as enforcing narrative. Now that sounds a bit Raksha-y, but there's a few reasons for it. It makes Consensus easier to understand as both an exclusionary and enforcing effect, allows play at the edges without forcing things into strict formalism, and meshes with how humans think.

Under this model, the Consensus of the modern era is a collection certain themes, setting rules and aesthetics. Not a physics engine, but a story. Consensual magical effects, like planes and antibiotics, are setting elements, but are backed up by broader themes - which is why simply introducing every paradigm at once is nearly impossible. You don't end up with Star Wars, you end up with Strike Legion, whose lack of internal coherency makes it, yes, very fun to review, but not an immersive play experience. And immersion is the important piece here, because under this model Paradox is, very literally, anything that breaks... suspension of disbelief.

[pause for groans]

But while that's a bad thing for Mages, it can be a good thing for Sleepers, because while Mages can force their way through the disbelief and take paradox, the unAwakened can't. Things continue to work because them not working will break immersion, would be too strange to believe. Further, it provides a model for Sleepers to do stuff that hasn't explicitly been pushed into Consensus by Mages, so long as they are supported by the broader themes and setting elements that have already been accepted.

Mages who go vulgar are like bad crossover characters which don't mesh with the setting, while Marauders are Mary Sues who warp the setting around their themes. More coincidental Mages just enforce subgenres - technothriller, murder mystery, cyberpunk, magic realism, action movie, political drama - which are sort of accepted and form a part of the broader Consensus.

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That's certainly a fun way to put it, and weirdly enough I've done the latter with Changelings, sorta. High Wyrd, high power, smart and powerful Changelings have a way of, well. Making the story their story. Charles Steelhand exists in some sort of high-tech spy thriller by virtue of being who he is. I mean, he also exists in a 'let us discuss the nature of reality, Neo' sort of world, but hey.

A story that suddenly has Asha Ashblood in it is fundamentally a different one from the moment she starts pulling threads. And so on.

Partially Wyrd, and partially that skillful people do have a way of taking charge of situations.

 

[Scia]

Um, big question I've always had. How much does the Consensus cover? I mean, if everyone in an area believes that women are inferior and weak and etc, by the will of god or whatever, are all of the women born in the area inferior?

I mean, it seems like if reality is really consensual, than not only do thoughtcrimes exist, but racists, sexists, etc, etc were once completely right.



That's certainly a fun way to put it, and weirdly enough I've done the latter with Changelings, sorta. High Wyrd, high power, smart and powerful Changelings have a way of, well. Making the story their story. Charles Steelhand exists in some sort of high-tech spy thriller by virtue of being who he is. I mean, he also exists in a 'let us discuss the nature of reality, Neo' sort of world, but hey.

A story that suddenly has Asha Ashblood in it is fundamentally a different one from the moment she starts pulling threads. And so on.

Partially Wyrd, and partially that skillful people do have a way of taking charge of situations.

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Basically you need a big enough sample size, which starts at a hundred ardent belivers (cultists) or a few hundred regular believers in something. And no they are not making those born there weak, they are for example raising the difficult on all rolls for intelectual arts for women, costing them dices and so on. Considering how a single point of TN difference has a strong impact...


And well Changeling after all have narative influx on the story with there powers and gain power by following narative threads so that makes quite a bit of sense.



And as we are on the topic of dices. It is a Godsend that they finally addded powerstat to the resistance dices to make comparing things easier in the nWoD

Even if that does not help to save Uratha powers from being meh.

 

[tzar1990]

So, based on some stuff from Panopticon Quest, I've got to thinking: How are Primium's magic-blocking abilities justified in the NWO paradigm (or similar, "I'm just that good at X" paradigms). I mean, when you've got an Etherite with mind-controlling x-ray lasers, a primium braincase makes sense: "Ha ha! Your puny wavelengths bounce off my shiny metal skull!" Same thing goes for most of the other Traditions paradigms - Janice might see it as a blind spot the spirits she invokes cannot touch, a Chorister might view it as a sacred metal that will not be profaned easily by mortal will-working, etc.

But what about the person whose mind control is hyperpsych based on "I'm good at understanding people's motivations and how to make my goals seem to match theirs?" Do they assume that primium somehow screws up your brain and makes it less human-typical? Does the hyperstatistics user assume that primium has some kind of micro-scale random properties that make it mess up forecasting, even though on the macro-scale it just acts like metal?

 

[Hydroplatypus]

To be fair, there's probably an argument for, "If Magic didn't exist, everything would be better." In the same way that the real world is provably less shit than the new world of darkness, and, like, even MORE less shit about the oWoD.

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Indeed, the real world is better than nWoD. Which is actually kinda sad, because the world has the potential to be so much better if only the mages would stop fighting each other and help people, if only the hunters were less genocidal, if only the vampires... Well OK, they kinda screw things over no matter how things go, but you get my point. If people put aside their differences, the world could be a much better place than RL. But they can't and they won't because their nature prevents them from doing so. Which seems to me to be one of the major points of the setting. It shows how great things could be, and then shows people using it for little more than solving petty squabbles.

 

[NonSequtur]

Um, big question I've always had. How much does the Consensus cover? I mean, if everyone in an area believes that women are inferior and weak and etc, by the will of god or whatever, are all of the women born in the area inferior?

I mean, it seems like if reality is really consensual, than not only do thoughtcrimes exist, but racists, sexists, etc, etc were once completely right.

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I don't think the game ever gives a hard answer, but there's a number of things to consider.

First, the Consensus isn't the same everywhere, and there can be pockets, even very small ones, set up inside larger ones. So slaves getting together might make a literal safe space, where the oppressive weight of the slaveholding consensus doesn't press down on them.

Secondly, I'm fairly sure that Mind effects can be resisted with Willpower. Life effects less so, but this does segue into the next point.

Thirdly, it would likely be hard to tell if the differences are due to the Consensus or due to the practical effects of discrimination - or even if there's a real distinction between the two in Mage. And is the person overcoming it doing so because their Willpower is resisting a subtle push from reality itself, or simply giving them the determination to push through mundane obstacles?

Finally, Mages get to go 'fuck that' regardless, and what Paradox they might for doing so would probably be subtle and functionally indistinguishable from the pushback against a member of an oppressed group trying (and succeeding) at getting ahead.

 

[AkatsukiL13]

The government isn't actively suppressing people awakening. The technocracy is.

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Okay, that is a flawed notion you have there. The Technocracy is not suppressing people from Awakening. In fact that's as bad for them as it is for Tradition mages, Craft mages, Orphans, Nephandi and Marauders because fundamentally all of them are the same kind of being. They are all Willworkers.

It's not that they are suppressing people from Awakening but rather that they are trying to get people to Awaken within their belief system and not the systems of others. Which something they're all trying to do to some degree or another. The Technocracy just has a greater degree of influence over the Sleepers thanks to the efforts of generations of Technocrats and predecessors, dating back to the time of the Craftmasons.

And well it is worth noting that many of the MtAs books are from the PoV of the Traditions who are naturally biased against the Technocracy and uninformed about what the Union is really about. Just as the Technocrats are biased against the Traditions.

Also, the older MtAs material, especially from the First Edition, is rather... wonkey. I have the first adventure book published for MtAs, Loom of Fate and the things the Technocracy does in that adventure is just bizarre compared to later material on them. Nor were the original Convention Books much better.

This argument seems pretty unsatisfying because what you're basically saying is "the war is over now, smile about the fact that the genocidal totalitarians won, and hope that the bleak peace that they impose continues. Also, forget the fact they're still waging a genocidal war, that only counts if it's against humans."

Now no, I can't guarantee that the victory of the traditions won't end up with another mythic age. Or that the traditions won't immediately turn on one another once they win. What guarantee is there that the Technocracy won't cause some vast screw up themselves and create something worse, for instance by so aggressively suppressing people's avatars that their own consensus collapses on itself, or their cosmological efforts won't wrap the world fully into the embrace of the weaver and eternal stasis, or something as mundane as a nuclear war? What if the growing paradox backlash that is climate change kills the planet?

There's no guarantee that mass ascension will follow the defeat of the technocracy. There is however a guarantee that if the technocracy isn't defeated, there won't be mass ascension. Given that the technocratic world order as it exists seems to be built on most of the world gaining at best slight material benefits, and those mostly from virtual adept derived technology like mobile phones, I think that this is something worth doing.

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Again, another flawed notion. What do you think the Time Table is? It is the Union's long, long term plan to advance humanity along their path to Mass Ascension. An ever-changing and expanding plan they've had since the early days of the Order of Reason. The Mass Ascension of Humanity has been one of their oldest goals, they've just been doing it in a slow, methodical way to limit the dangers as best they can. Added to this, the Conventions have largely the same belief system, providing them with a great deal of unity toward the goal of Mass Ascension.

The Traditions on the other hand, have a serious hindrance in the plans of Mass Ascension, their diversity. They are nine different groups with nine different beliefs that don't exactly mesh together. How can you create a plan to bring about Mass Ascension when you have nine different ideas on the path and the goal?

It's quite difficult and its part of the reason the modern Traditions are in the state they are in. They became allies in the face of the Order of Reason's growing strength but struggled to actually become truly united.

As for the benefits they've brought to the Sleepers, first off don't look just at one facet of technology and only in the last couple of decades. Rather look at how science and technology has advanced in the span of centuries to see what they have brought to the Sleepers' world. And even if you wanted to just look at the pass fifty years, there's been a lot more scientific progress than just cell phones and the Internet, things that can't really be traced to the VA like medicine or Sleepers reaching space and the Moon.

For one thing, Control is no longer running things, which means that the Union is undergoing some pretty significant upheavals.

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Indeed, in the Revised era Control and all the ruling bodies of the Conventions are cut off from the Technocrats still on and near Earth, leaving them to go their own way. This has lead to things both good and bad.

Given that the Void Engineers are pretty clearly set up to be basically The Good Guys of the Technocracy Who Can Be Turned To The Side of Good, the whole "the Void Engineers are imperialist jerks who jackboot alien worlds and conquer them because they can" thing is implicitly fanon. Or rather, a Revised invention.

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Where did that come from? The Rev Ed VE book did have the VE admitting to the dark side of exploration that they were unintentionally responsible for, Imperialism and exploitation of the natives. And them admitting they have to do better.

I will also point out that while i think that the Union goals are fundamentally flawed*, i consider them basically impossibe to achieve. Static reality requires a world where everybody is perfectly rational, nobody believes in any kind of god and people is generally reasonable.

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It's Mage, where the word 'impossible' loses a lot of its meaning.

As for whether or not Union's goals are flaw, I'd argue the ultimate goals of every mage group is flawed because none of them truly see the entirety of what Reality, Magic and Everything is. They're all biased towards their beliefs which are ultimately just a sliver of a greater truth. The only ones that do are the mages that achieve personal Ascension but they aren't around after that so they can't really tell anyone that.

And it's even reflected in the rules. As a mage raises their Arete, they start discarding their foci because they are starting to realize more of that greater truth and that they don't need those foci to perform Magic.

 

[MJ12 Commando]

Where did that come from? The Rev Ed VE book did have the VE admitting to the dark side of exploration that they were unintentionally responsible for, Imperialism and exploitation of the natives. And them admitting they have to do better.

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That's exactly what I mean. The Void Engineers in Revised are significantly less "We Are The Designated Good Guys Of The Technocracy," but if you're rejecting Revised...

 

[Broken25]

As for whether or not Union's goals are flaw, I'd argue the ultimate goals of every mage group is flawed because none of them truly see the entirety of what Reality, Magic and Everything is. They're all biased towards their beliefs which are ultimately just a sliver of a greater truth. The only ones that do are the mages that achieve personal Ascension but they aren't around after that so they can't really tell anyone that.

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Correct.

In Mage, consensual reality is made as a composite of multiple, often contradictory Truths. The TU final objective is to the delete all Truths except it's own, using violence if necessary, which would make them factually and morally right, even retroactively.

That is terrifying.

That said, i already said why that i doubt Technocratic victory is really possible whithout using means that even them aren't ready to use.

 

[STLICTX]

I do have to point out in that regard that the Cult would be entirely willing to take a 'live and let live' attitude if it was extended towards them as well, and in fact would likely be entirely willing to see scientific exploration and the joy of creating technology as valid 'paths to ecstasy'. Not that I'm saying the Cult has a complete view or anything, but its paradigm does tend to allow for a laid back attitude towards people exploring different things in different ways...

 

[Lealope]

So this might be a difficult question but I'd like to ask it anyway. What do you think is the most cringe worthy White Wolf book?