White Wolf's World of Darkness

[storybookknight]

I would normally be interested, but I'm... well, looking to play Mage, using the default setting or reasonably close to it, since this would be my first actual game of it. Whereas you're recruiting for a game which features a significantly different setting and is played using the Mutants and Masterminds rules.

Click to shrink...

I'm strongly tempted to do this, just to see what you would be like as a player, but I know that I don't have time to do something like this. Also, I would probably want to run nWoD Mage, which doesn't appear to be to the general tastes of the board.

Which I get, I really do. Though the rules for nWoD are a little bit more stable than the rules for oWoD (exponential acceleration Force spells aside), the setting for New Mage is absolute garbage. They give you five covenants, none of which really have strong reasons to oppose each other, and a very poorly defined enemy in the Exarchs. Which is a shame, because there are some good ideas buried in the mix.

If I were to run a game of nWoD Mage the biggest thing that I would change would be the Covenants. The main draw of old mage is that (as a comment a few pages back said so succinctly) it is a 'philosophical knife-fight' where what you believe matters on not only a political but a metaphysical level. In comparison, nWoD Mage has the Guardians of the Veil, the Mysterium, the Silver Ladder, and the Adamantine Arrow all agreeing that 1) Atlantis existed 2) Magic comes from Atlantis and 3) the best way to become a better mage is to study relics of the past. The Free Council even more or less agrees with 1) and 2) but has the temerity to suggest that maybe looking at modern magical traditions or the scientific method might also be a good way to learn about magic. And then the enemy is the Exarchs, who... mostly believe 1,2, and 3 but think that rather than trying to revive the old order that people should become gods, or something.

And that is just garbage. On the other hand....

New Mage was onto something with dividing mages into five groups. It's a nice comfortable number for political struggles, works very well for Vampire, and it really isn't hard to divvy up the ideas of the old Traditions into rough spheres of influence. And the ideas of the Atlanteans and the Exarchs actually work as rough concepts, though less so in execution.

If I were going to run New Mage, I would edit the Covenants as so:

The Silver Ladder would become the Atlanteans. They believe that an ancient proto-civilization of magic existed, that all modern mages are descendants of said civilization, that there was a war against someone that caused that civilization's fall, and believe that the best way to study magic is to look for relics of said civilization, piece back together the universal language of magic, and reclaim the ancient glories of old. Conceptually, they'd encompass most of the New Mage covenants, along with the Order of Hermes from oWoD.

The Adamantine Arrow would become the Exarchs. They believe that magic exists because certain humans are the descendants and champions of gods and angels, that they may become deific themselves by performing great deeds and emulating ancient legends, and that their role is to serve as champions against the Demons and Titans of the Abyss. They seek mastery of magic through self-perfection and service to the gods. Conceptually, they'd be a less overtly evil nWoD Exarchs + the Akashic Brotherhood and the Celestial Chorus from oWoD.

The Guardians of the Veil would become the Illuminati. They believe that magic exists because it is secret, and that reality in general is shaped by belief. As such they attempt to take control of the beliefs of Sleepers, keep magic secret from any who do not discover it themselves, and bury occult symbolism in everyday objects to shape the collective unconscious. Mastery of magic, as far as the Illuminati is concerned, comes with mastery of others. Conceptually, they'd be a bit like the NWO + Syndicate + Ahl-i-Batin from oWoD, plus the Guardians of the Veil from nWoD.

The Free Council would become the Order Of Reason. They believe that magic is just another natural phenomenon, that it can be studied and understood with scientific methods, and that mages are those who have the necessary spark of genius to understand such contradictory and impossible theories. They are sometimes called mad scientists, other times called misguided by more traditional mages, but the power of their magics is difficult to deny. Conceptually, they'd be the sciency side of the oWoD Technocracy - no reason to link it to political control without the metaphysical concept of Stasis, after all, plus the Void Engineers, the Virtual Adepts, and the sciency bits of the Free Council from nWoD.

The Mysterium would become the Traditionalists. They believe that magic is a byproduct of the human soul, that it has existed since ancient times and could be present in anyone, and that ancient magical traditions hold the key to understanding the way that magic works. They believe in spreading magical knowledge to all, to studying everything from kabbalah to shamanism to ecstatic ritual, and that the potential to Awaken lies in everyone. Conceptually, they're the most like the more spiritual parts of the oWoD Traditionalists - Dreamspeakers, Verbena, the Cult of Ecstacy, the Order of Hermes, and so on.

But just that little change would solve a lot of the problems with New Mage. It gives each group sort of a default enemy - the Atlanteans are opposed to the rebels that made Atlantis fall and their followers, the Exarchs are opposed to demons & monsters out of myth (picture a Greek hydra in the sewers of New York City), the Illuminati are opposed to people who would breach the Veil and will inevitably run into problems with the Vampires and others who want to rule the world, the Order of Reason would argue with more 'superstitious' friends and inevitably run into problems with Prometheans, Cryptids, and other beings that they want to dissect, and the Traditionalists will take issue with anyone bulldozing sacred burial grounds, with anybody who doesn't want magic to be free, and probably run into Changelings due to a mutual tie to human myths and legends.

I've been trying to 'fix' new mage for a while, so I'd be interested to hear if anybody else has had ideas along these lines or is interested in hearing more.

 

[The Laurent]

...I don't think nMage is garbage, and I don't think they have to disagree on every fundamental issue to be interesting.

I also think that the philosophical knife-fights are boring, or at least overplayed.

Like, your proposal is, "I really like oMage, so I'm going to turn nMage into oMage." That's it.

The Orders aren't actually meant to be opposed, or at least, the fact that they agree on some stuff is sorta the fucking point, and there's enough that they disagree on anyways.

*****
That's pretty much where it's all coming from. You seem to think nMage should be oMage, and thus every aspect that *isn't* oMage (like dropping the stupid fucking consensual reality, which while amusing was a mess) is a flaw or bug in the system.

*****
...also don't really like any of the Covenant ideas.

 

[The Laurent]

Also, I just realized that somehow you managed to not even understand what the Exarchs are on such a level that I'm left wondering whether you've actually ever read oMage.

I thought I saw something fishy, but then I read it again and I was like, "Wait, what?"

If you told me you had never read anything of nMage except the translation (a very bad one from Russian of a translation (in Gaelic) of a short blurb on each of the factions, I would in fact believe you.

 

[EarthScorpion]

I've been trying to 'fix' new mage for a while, so I'd be interested to hear if anybody else has had ideas along these lines or is interested in hearing more.

Click to shrink...

Yes. I think you clearly don't get nMage - especially when you refer to the orders as covenants - when you're trying to set the Pentacle against itself. Complaining about the nMage corebook alone is rather tired when you're comparing not it to the oMage 1e core taken in isolation but instead to an entire line with far more books. nMage has a lot of books, too, but you're not taking any of them into account. And yes, nMage doesn't do a great job of explaining itself in the core, but come on. Guardians of the Veil came out early in the line, and it very clearly fleshed out the Guardians in a way which simply couldn't be done in the four pages including art that they got.

Now, yes, the Free Council is lame - and the Mage 2e solution of just turning them into the Anarchs is a clear product of legacy thinking. But the Diamond isn't made to be put against themselves. The Mage orders are not vampire covenants. Neither are the Seers' Ministries - though the Ministries are rather fonder of backstabbing.

In fact, through an oMage lens, the Diamond is really much more like the Technocracy's Conventions - and the Ministries have a rather Tradition-like tendency to be fractious.

So, no, I strongly disagree that you're fixing anything. I like oMage, but I don't want nMage to be oMage. oMage is my game for philosophical knife-fights and ironic 90s kitchiness. nMage is my gnostic occult horror baby. They are not trying to be the same thing, and for nMage you have to realise that it is a game of mages, not a game of postmodern reality warpers. In a lot of ways, nMage lives in a headspace a lot closer to Unknown Armies - and although oMage inspired the Matrix, nMage is really a better Matrix game (and the Seers? They're Cipher. Ochema, when they show up are the Agents. If you encounter an ochema? Run).

And as the trump card, nMage has motherfuckin' Intruders: Encounters with the Abyss and Left Hand Path. It is a horror game and it is best when it's being a horror game. My nMage is primarily made up of contents from Intruders, Summoners, Left Hand Path, Banishers, Guardians and Seers - and that's not something your ideas can support at all.

 

[storybookknight]

...I don't think nMage is garbage, and I don't think they have to disagree on every fundamental issue to be interesting.

I also think that the philosophical knife-fights are boring, or at least overplayed.

Click to shrink...

All right, garbage may be a bit strong - but coming at it from the perspective of an oMage player, one of the really interesting things about the old traditions was that they each had a distinct feel and paradigm that affected how you did magic. And a lot of people really liked that, and found it a major draw for why they played, because they really liked the creativity that it offered. So personally speaking, I find the choice to reduce all of that to window dressing without any real systems attached to it somewhat confusing, to say the least.

And yeah, the philosophical knife-fights could get to be a bit much in oMage, but at the same time having everybody basically agree on the nature and origins of magic seems equally unbelievable to me. The various covenants all feel like 'well, this is my job' rather than 'this is my belief, my tribe, my identity'. People don't fight nearly as much over jobs as they do identities.

Also, I just realized that somehow you managed to not even understand what the Exarchs are on such a level that I'm left wondering whether you've actually ever read oMage.

I thought I saw something fishy, but then I read it again and I was like, "Wait, what?"

If you told me you had never read anything of nMage except the translation (a very bad one from Russian of a translation (in Gaelic) of a short blurb on each of the factions, I would in fact believe you.

Click to shrink...

Well, that's not very nice. I may have done a quick job of explaining things, but no, I have in fact read the nWoD core book quite extensively, and was pretty disappointed with it. I was deliberately changing how the Exarchs worked to make them a player faction with a tie to Greek Mythology, but keeping kind of the 'working for immortal god-beings on the other side of the Abyss' angle.

Yes. I think you clearly don't get nMage - especially when you refer to the orders as covenants - when you're trying to set the Pentacle against itself. Complaining about the nMage corebook alone is rather tired when you're comparing not it to the oMage 1e core taken in isolation but instead to an entire line with far more books. nMage has a lot of books, too, but you're not taking any of them into account. And yes, nMage doesn't do a great job of explaining itself in the core, but come on. Guardians of the Veil came out early in the line, and it very clearly fleshed out the Guardians in a way which simply couldn't be done in the four pages including art that they got.

Now, yes, the Free Council is lame - and the Mage 2e solution of just turning them into the Anarchs is a clear product of legacy thinking. But the Diamond isn't made to be put against themselves. The Mage orders are not vampire covenants. Neither are the Seers' Ministries - though the Ministries are rather fonder of backstabbing.

In fact, through an oMage lens, the Diamond is really much more like the Technocracy's Conventions - and the Ministries have a rather Tradition-like tendency to be fractious.

So, no, I strongly disagree that you're fixing anything. I like oMage, but I don't want nMage to be oMage. oMage is my game for philosophical knife-fights and ironic 90s kitchiness. nMage is my gnostic occult horror baby. They are not trying to be the same thing, and for nMage you have to realise that it is a game of mages, not a game of postmodern reality warpers. In a lot of ways, nMage lives in a headspace a lot closer to Unknown Armies - and although oMage inspired the Matrix, nMage is really a better Matrix game (and the Seers? They're Cipher. Ochema, when they show up are the Agents. If you encounter an ochema? Run).

And as the trump card, nMage has motherfuckin' Intruders: Encounters with the Abyss and Left Hand Path. It is a horror game and it is best when it's being a horror game. My nMage is primarily made up of contents from Intruders, Summoners, Left Hand Path, Banishers, Guardians and Seers - and that's not something your ideas can support at all.

Click to shrink...

See, that's a legitimate criticism with some actual explanation behind it, and thank you for saying that because yeah, I've mostly only read the core book, and found it an unsatisfying translation of the ideas behind oMage to nMage. I haven't read Intruders, Summoners, Left Hand Path, Banishers, Guardians or Seers... so this actually makes a lot of sense. I agree that the new Mage is much more like the Technocracy than the old Traditions, and yeah, that was what I was trying to 'fix' - apparently, with all of the other sourcebooks, they instead made that so it didn't need fixing, which is awesome.

So, criticisms somewhat withdrawn, I guess?

 

[The Laurent]

You know, one thing that it'd be interesting to chart, from a thematic-design perspective, is the differences in the X and Y splats over the years, or rather between gamelines. Like, especially for the Orders/Covenants/Courts/(Insert Here), you have a wide variance.

Between how the Four Seasonal Courts/any Court combination are basically allies despite fighting amongst each other and etc often enough, the orders, the vampire covenants, and how each differs.

******
Also, apologies @storybookknight , I'd assumed you'd read/heard about the whole gameline, and were still objecting to it despite each of the five Orders (well, four of them, I never read the FC one) having a whole book that fleshes out what they mean and how, despite agreeing on some of the basics of the nature of magic, still had large disagreements about what should be done with magic, and how to live life as a Mage, and so on and so forth.

So I was assuming you were mostly saying, "And despite all THAT, they don't have enough difference because they don't fundamentally consider each other basically heretics."

 

[storybookknight]

You know, one thing that it'd be interesting to chart, from a thematic-design perspective, is the differences in the X and Y splats over the years, or rather between gamelines. Like, especially for the Orders/Covenants/Courts/(Insert Here), you have a wide variance.

Between how the Four Seasonal Courts/any Court combination are basically allies despite fighting amongst each other and etc often enough, the orders, the vampire covenants, and how each differs.

******
Also, apologies @storybookknight , I'd assumed you'd read/heard about the whole gameline, and were still objecting to it despite each of the five Orders (well, four of them, I never read the FC one) having a whole book that fleshes out what they mean and how, despite agreeing on some of the basics of the nature of magic, still had large disagreements about what should be done with magic, and how to live life as a Mage, and so on and so forth.

So I was assuming you were mostly saying, "And despite all THAT, they don't have enough difference because they don't fundamentally consider each other basically heretics."

Click to shrink...

Nope, I was coming at this from a 'I only picked up the core book, and was so unhappy with it that I never picked up the rest of the series' perspective. I hadn't even heard of most of the books that @EarthScorpion mentioned. So yeah, I willfully admit that I was being a bit ignorant there.

 

[The Laurent]

Nope, I was coming at this from a 'I only picked up the core book, and was so unhappy with it that I never picked up the rest of the series' perspective. I hadn't even heard of most of the books that @EarthScorpion mentioned. So yeah, I willfully admit that I was being a bit ignorant there.

Click to shrink...

It's okay. The Seers especially are a lot more interesting than the Corebook gets on about, because there wasn't enough time and room and...

Well, I really like the Exarch/Seers book, and some of the stuff with their Panopticon and other work. They managed to actually get a villain right, IMO. So yeah, Seers/Exarchs book is one you should check out, and 2e places that info front and center rather than burying it.

I mean, everything EarthScorpion suggested too, just also saying, Seers are sorta neat (though as antagonists, rather than as 'the secret good-guy protagonists of the gameline.')

 

[davebrookshaw]

It's a common problem.

Second ed core's gone off to White Wolf (nee Paradox) for final approval, which will update a lot of people, but I expect to be fielding "but mah paradigm!" complaints until the day I stop being Awakening dev. Probably longer.

Awakening isn't Ascension. With both games in print, we have no interest in making Awakening Ascension. Go play Ascension if you like it more.

 

[cmwatford]

If I were to run a game of nWoD Mage the biggest thing that I would change would be the Covenants. The main draw of old mage is that (as a comment a few pages back said so succinctly) it is a 'philosophical knife-fight' where what you believe matters on not only a political but a metaphysical level. In comparison, nWoD Mage has the Guardians of the Veil, the Mysterium, the Silver Ladder, and the Adamantine Arrow all agreeing that 1) Atlantis existed 2) Magic comes from Atlantis and 3) the best way to become a better mage is to study relics of the past. The Free Council even more or less agrees with 1) and 2) but has the temerity to suggest that maybe looking at modern magical traditions or the scientific method might also be a good way to learn about magic. And then the enemy is the Exarchs, who... mostly believe 1,2, and 3 but think that rather than trying to revive the old order that people should become gods, or something.

Click to shrink...

Sounds like you've completely misunderstood what NMage is about. Which is fair, as the corebook wasn't the best at laying this out and it took a few more books to expand on things before it made any sense fluff wise.

1. Mages in general don't believe in an actual Atlantis. 'Atlantis' is just a useful way to describe the Time Before, as in before the world broke, to new mages or as short hand when discussing things related to it with other mages.
2. Magic doesn't come from 'Atlantis'. 'Magic' in NMage is editing how the Supernal, source code of reality, is expressed in the world around them. They gain this ability by having a powerful moment of insight that briefly allows their souls to connect to one of the Watchtowers in the Supernal and lets them see the 'Truth'.
3. The best way to become a better mage is to explore all the weird shit that is inherent to the setting. Mages are literally obsessed with mysteries. The relics of the Time Before are just one of these mysteries. They do lend to some greater understanding of the Time Before but a lot of the info is contradictory at best.
4. The Exarches are gods that live in the Supernal and are literally the supernal symbols of human oppression. Their servants, called the Seers of the Throne, are in a cold war with the other 5 orders.

Something to keep in mind is that NMage is very Gnostic. Reality isn't run by consensus it's ruled by hard rules. The Supernal is what Plato would have called the Realm of the Forms. It's the place that contains the pure archetypes, called supernal symbols in game, that make up every concept that does or can exist. Every mage has the ability to see how these symbols manifest in the world around them and can pretty easily tell that something is wrong, that the world seems broken somehow.

Edit: I write really slowly.

 

[storybookknight]

Thanks everyone for straightening me out on this. It's hard for me to remember sometimes that it has been a full decade since 2006 or so when nWoD Mage came out and that things have changed in the meantime...

I do maintain however that the core book has a paucity of decent villains. Glad to hear that those have been fleshed out.

I may have to check out some of these extra books that were mentioned, maybe I should give nMage another chance..

 

[davebrookshaw]

Thanks everyone for straightening me out on this. It's hard for me to remember sometimes that it has been a full decade since 2006 or so when nWoD Mage came out and that things have changed in the meantime.

Click to shrink...

Ascension 1e came out in 1993, and "Ascension" in 2003. Awakening came out in 2005.

Awakening has actually been a running gameline for longer than Ascension was before it was cancelled in the Time of Judgement. Even if you add Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition on, it's got a few months over it.

 

[Deadly Snark]

I may have to check out some of these extra books that were mentioned, maybe I should give nMage another chance..

Click to shrink...

If you want to see some of the more philosophical aspects I would also suggest finding a copy of Imperial Mysteries. Sure, you will probably never actually use what's inside, but I've always found the ideological clashes between the different Archmage Ideologies to be more compelling than the Seer vs Pentacle clash.

Also, seeing God Wizards in action was pretty cool.

 

[AkatsukiL13]

It's a common problem.

Second ed core's gone off to White Wolf (nee Paradox) for final approval, which will update a lot of people, but I expect to be fielding "but mah paradigm!" complaints until the day I stop being Awakening dev. Probably longer.

Awakening isn't Ascension. With both games in print, we have no interest in making Awakening Ascension. Go play Ascension if you like it more.

Click to shrink...

Yeah that's something I've been excited for, mostly because how good the 2E VtR and WtF books were. When I first made the plunge into CoD, I found the 1E of the Big Three rather uninspiring and... lacking personality for a lack of a better word. It turned me off their lines and to an extent, the CoD as a whole. Though I did develop a fondness for some of the other lines and individual books that popped up over the years.

But then 2E VtR came out and a friend of mine was singing its praises to the point that I had to check it out. And he was right. 2E for VtR and WtF have been leagues above their early 1E counterparts and while I'm still a WoD fanboy, I've grown to like and appreciate the CoD more these last few years.

So I'm rather hopeful for MtAw 2E.

 

[Vito Scaletta]

I'm thinking of converting Vampire: The Masquerade to Big Eyes Small Mouth 1e. BESM is one of my favorite systems, and I own a hard copy of BESM 1e (and it's also the edition most compatible with the Sailor Moon Role-Playing Game and Resource Book, which is a bonus for me), so I've decided to convert one of my favorite RPG settings to that system.

I love Vampire's setting (pre-Revised Edition, as I do not like the metaplot or themes of Revised) and I want to do a coversion of a lot of the Vampire material from 1e and very early 2e to BESM. Mind if I post some of my conversion notes in this thread?

Also, has anyone here converted WoD material, whether Classic or New, to another RPG system? I know there was the official GURPS versions of Vampire: The Masquerade and Werewolf: The Apocalypse in 1993, which I liked.

 

[BlueBiscuit]

For a flip of perspective, I'm someone that was sold completely on nMage from it's corebook pitch, Atlantis and all, and merely enjoyed the new toys and options that each supplement brought (although I admit that while I liked them from the start, I had to read their book to better understand how to play the Guardians as an ST).
Don't get me wrong: it's a messily written book, were a lot of the important information is misplaced (Creative Thaumathurgy going after the spell examples) and easily missable, and it's beaten in dryness of tone pretty much only by Sanctum&Sigil, a book literally about law and customs for mages.

It still set fire to my imagination, sparking images of willworkers combing through the remnants of an era that has never been and the mysteries of the modern world of darkness, looking for answers and power; mages fighting against each other and the monstrous unreality that they tempt through their hubris, struggling against the chains of distant god-tyrants and their awakened servants, themselves a twisted reflection of the pillars of their society.

Ascension on the other hand was, to use a euphemism, a severe disappointment. All the problems that people say they have had with the premise of Atlantis as part of the setting buy in (and even as such, it's a rather flexible thing), I have tenfold with Consensual Reality. I found the Traditions' unbearable 90's-ness and sillyness everything but appealing or endearing, with some factions (VA, AB, Sons of Ether) being of course worse then others. The main antagonists were equally uninspiring.

Nowadays, I toned down my hatred (and yes, for a long while, it was hatred) of Ascension, and I can see some of it's good points, and I've stealed some stuff from it for other games (names mostly, I suck at naming stuff).
But anytime I read something along the lines of "man, Awakening's version of X sucks, Ascension did it so much better" I feel like wringing someone's neck

This stance is also why I'm mostly neutral to negative on the "fluff" changes presented on the various dev spoilers for 2e, but I'm really hyped by the mechanical ones. I foresee that once I get the book I'm not really going to bother with setting stuff and skip right to the rules, while admiring the pretty new art.

 

[TenfoldShields]

I may have to check out some of these extra books that were mentioned, maybe I should give nMage another chance..

Click to shrink...

Check out at least Intruders: Encounters with the Abyss if one of your main issues is a lack of decent villain/antagonist material (and no I'm not just shilling it because maybe EScorp will fondly tousle my hair if I do it enough times, it's actually legit good honest ).

But yeah it does a really good job of describing not just what the Abyss is but how it should be played in a game. And it gives really good pointers to writing horror in general without just being "more blood, more guts, and throw in .5 Werewolf the Apocalypses of rape". Like, the Abyss isn't really demons or Titans per se, it's not packed full of big tyrannical Elder Gods That Existed At the Dawn of Time™. The Abyss is basically like...a malevolence. A virus. This personal, corruptive, corrosive thing that oozes and seeps through the cracks of the world. Infecting and twisting what it touches into more of itself. And the damage it does is lasting and often directly relevant to the character.

And it's entirely the fault of ancient and modern Mages so that's fun too!

 

[Vito Scaletta]

If my BESM/Masquerade rules conversion works out, I might do the same for Werewolf: The Apocalypse (and possibly Mage: The Ascension, not sure if I should stay true to Vampire 1e's origins as Ars Magica's future setting and do magi in the Ars Magica fashion, or go the final product route and convert Mage: The Ascension instead).

Speaking of which, does anybody else like the early installment weirdness of 1e oWoD? I do. Especially the very early stuff from 1991-1992 and the earliest parts of 1993, before the setting fully defined itself and before Revised Edition's metaplot turned the World of Darkness into the World of Pitch Blackness.

I own Werewolf 1e on hard copy, I have a PDF of the 2e Vampire corebook (which fluff-wise is similar to 1e, although the rest of 2e departs from it), and I am seeking to acquire secondhand hard copies of Vampire 1e and Mage 1e in the near future. I might also get Ars Magica 1e or 2e later as well. The concept of Ars Magica is pretty cool from what I have read and the Classic World of Darkness was intended as the future of Ars Magica initially.

 

[MJ12 Commando]

But yeah it does a really good job of describing not just what the Abyss is but how it should be played in a game. And it gives really good pointers to writing horror in general without just being "more blood, more guts, and throw in .5 Werewolf the Apocalypses of rape".

Click to shrink...

Man, .5 WtAs of rape? That's like... Pickup Artists: The Nonconsenting.

 

[hyzmarca]

You've got the right of it. The Traditions have a goal, not a plan. The technocrats have a plan and have been implementing it for centuries. That this is a thing, however, is definitely poor writing on the part of some of the authors - making the faction you're supposed to agree with very difficult to relate to, meaning that you need to make the enemy cartoonishly evil to compensate unless you want people to prefer the villains - and is a problem throughout oWoD in general.

Once you get past that, the Technocracy vs Traditions debate becomes a matter of personal values. Are the sins of modernity worth the benefits of modern life, even after you account for those sins being genuinely monstrous at times? Does the good of the many absolutely outweigh the good of the few?

Click to shrink...

The Technocracy's plan is self-defeating. You can't have mass Ascension without a Consensus that permits it. The sleepers will not achieve enlightenment unless they believe that they can. And the technocracy's plan is stripping away the belief in the concept of enlightenment.

Really, the Technocracy's actual plan is the same as Syndrome's from the Incredibles. When everyone is super, no one will be. That is to say, they're systematically codifying all of their tricks into the Consensus, thus bluring the line between Sphere magic and Linear magic. The ultimate end to their plan will be that a sleeper can do anything and everything that a mage can do. But it won't produce enlightenment or ascension. It'll just be a huge suite of lovely toys baked into the Consensus.

However, it is by no means certain that Ascension was ever anything but a pipe dream made up by crazy people.

 

[Desus]

The Technocracy's plan is self-defeating. You can't have mass Ascension without a Consensus that permits it. The sleepers will not achieve enlightenment unless they believe that they can. And the technocracy's plan is stripping away the belief in the concept of enlightenment.

Really, the Technocracy's actual plan is the same as Syndrome's from the Incredibles. When everyone is super, no one will be. That is to say, they're systematically codifying all of their tricks into the Consensus, thus bluring the line between Sphere magic and Linear magic. The ultimate end to their plan will be that a sleeper can do anything and everything that a mage can do. But it won't produce enlightenment or ascension. It'll just be a huge suite of lovely toys baked into the Consensus.

However, it is by no means certain that Ascension was ever anything but a pipe dream made up by crazy people.

Click to shrink...

I never claimed their goal was mass Ascension, though I can understand where the misunderstanding came from.

Just meant that while the Traditions, to some extent at least, have a goal - though, by their nature not a single unified one or even a handful of unified goals beyond "Beat the technocrats" - the technocrats have a specific well implemented plan.

 

[EarthScorpion]

I never claimed their goal was mass Ascension, though I can understand where the misunderstanding came from.

Just meant that while the Traditions, to some extent at least, have a goal - though, by their nature not a single unified one or even a handful of unified goals beyond "Beat the technocrats" - the technocrats have a specific well implemented plan.

Click to shrink...

Well. I wouldn't go as far as to say it's a plan. Or indeed that it's very well-implemented.

But they certainly have at least five plans, with varying degrees of implementation skill.

 

[TheLastOne]

The Technocracy's plan is self-defeating. You can't have mass Ascension without a Consensus that permits it. The sleepers will not achieve enlightenment unless they believe that they can. And the technocracy's plan is stripping away the belief in the concept of enlightenment.

Really, the Technocracy's actual plan is the same as Syndrome's from the Incredibles. When everyone is super, no one will be. That is to say, they're systematically codifying all of their tricks into the Consensus, thus bluring the line between Sphere magic and Linear magic. The ultimate end to their plan will be that a sleeper can do anything and everything that a mage can do. But it won't produce enlightenment or ascension. It'll just be a huge suite of lovely toys baked into the Consensus.

However, it is by no means certain that Ascension was ever anything but a pipe dream made up by crazy people.

Click to shrink...

Not even that, as even as they build new tools they shrink the universe they will admit to, and then only share a small fragment of that with the Sleepers. The Order of Reason did have that as a goal, but the Order of Reason was a group of populists, the Technocracy is a... Technocracy, with power reserved for the technocrats, and they very much think knowledge is power. Which is sad, because they actively lie to themselves.

Take the syndicate - they define effort and work and value and how that can be extracted from a system, they they build a system that reduces mankind into interchangeable clogs, and you can know exactly how much each clog is valued because you know how much you extract from it, and how much you can skim off the top, and how much you need to spend on bribes to the other conventions so that they let you keep doing that. That's the opposite of working towards ascension - you've stopped raising people up, making them bigger and better and more knowledgeable and more capable of making decisions for themselves, and turning them coal that feeds the furnaces of your personal ambition. It makes you the ultimate vampire.

There's a reason everyone calls the matrix a Mage movie, every time you talk to Agent Smith you're talking to the face of the Technocracy



And while it's the hockiest moment in the film...

Well, no discussion of Mage and the Matrix is complete without it.

 

[Eukie]

The Technocracy's plan is self-defeating. You can't have mass Ascension without a Consensus that permits it. The sleepers will not achieve enlightenment unless they believe that they can. And the technocracy's plan is stripping away the belief in the concept of enlightenment.

Click to shrink...

You're making assertions about what Ascension is here, which immediately weakens your argument. The nature of Ascension is extremely poorly explained in Mage: the Ascension, despite that fact that it's the cause of the setting-spanning war that your character is supposed to be personally invested in. The Technocratic idea for how to achieve Ascension is also somewhat inconsistent across books, but I believe the core of it as explained in 2e or Revised is that they believe that Ascension will be achieved when the scientific paradigm stands uncontested. But, again, how this is supposed to work is a mystery.

Really, the Technocracy's actual plan is the same as Syndrome's from the Incredibles. When everyone is super, no one will be. That is to say, they're systematically codifying all of their tricks into the Consensus, thus bluring the line between Sphere magic and Linear magic. The ultimate end to their plan will be that a sleeper can do anything and everything that a mage can do. But it won't produce enlightenment or ascension. It'll just be a huge suite of lovely toys baked into the Consensus.

Click to shrink...

Syndrome plan is... well, not villainous except for the part where he murders people to make it happen. For all that Brucato rants against Ayn Rand, MTAs is built on an extremely elitist philosophy about singular Übermenschen not held back by society (the Technocracy), and a extremely classist idea that the benefits the elites (mages) is somehow cheapened if the plebians get access to it.

(Though, of course, MTAs is also about the exact opposite, in that the Traditions try to give magick to the masses in order to cause a mass Awakening, while the Technocracy keeps everyone down for whatever reason.)

 

[vicky_molokh]

I'm strongly tempted to do this, just to see what you would be like as a player, but I know that I don't have time to do something like this. Also, I would probably want to run nWoD Mage, which doesn't appear to be to the general tastes of the board.

Which I get, I really do. Though the rules for nWoD are a little bit more stable than the rules for oWoD (exponential acceleration Force spells aside), the setting for New Mage is absolute garbage. They give you five covenants, none of which really have strong reasons to oppose each other, and a very poorly defined enemy in the Exarchs. Which is a shame, because there are some good ideas buried in the mix.

If I were to run a game of nWoD Mage the biggest thing that I would change would be the Covenants. The main draw of old mage is that (as a comment a few pages back said so succinctly) it is a 'philosophical knife-fight' where what you believe matters on not only a political but a metaphysical level. In comparison, nWoD Mage has the Guardians of the Veil, the Mysterium, the Silver Ladder, and the Adamantine Arrow all agreeing that 1) Atlantis existed 2) Magic comes from Atlantis and 3) the best way to become a better mage is to study relics of the past. The Free Council even more or less agrees with 1) and 2) but has the temerity to suggest that maybe looking at modern magical traditions or the scientific method might also be a good way to learn about magic. And then the enemy is the Exarchs, who... mostly believe 1,2, and 3 but think that rather than trying to revive the old order that people should become gods, or something.

And that is just garbage. On the other hand....

New Mage was onto something with dividing mages into five groups. It's a nice comfortable number for political struggles, works very well for Vampire, and it really isn't hard to divvy up the ideas of the old Traditions into rough spheres of influence. And the ideas of the Atlanteans and the Exarchs actually work as rough concepts, though less so in execution.

If I were going to run New Mage, I would edit the Covenants as so:

The Silver Ladder would become the Atlanteans. They believe that an ancient proto-civilization of magic existed, that all modern mages are descendants of said civilization, that there was a war against someone that caused that civilization's fall, and believe that the best way to study magic is to look for relics of said civilization, piece back together the universal language of magic, and reclaim the ancient glories of old. Conceptually, they'd encompass most of the New Mage covenants, along with the Order of Hermes from oWoD.

The Adamantine Arrow would become the Exarchs. They believe that magic exists because certain humans are the descendants and champions of gods and angels, that they may become deific themselves by performing great deeds and emulating ancient legends, and that their role is to serve as champions against the Demons and Titans of the Abyss. They seek mastery of magic through self-perfection and service to the gods. Conceptually, they'd be a less overtly evil nWoD Exarchs + the Akashic Brotherhood and the Celestial Chorus from oWoD.

The Guardians of the Veil would become the Illuminati. They believe that magic exists because it is secret, and that reality in general is shaped by belief. As such they attempt to take control of the beliefs of Sleepers, keep magic secret from any who do not discover it themselves, and bury occult symbolism in everyday objects to shape the collective unconscious. Mastery of magic, as far as the Illuminati is concerned, comes with mastery of others. Conceptually, they'd be a bit like the NWO + Syndicate + Ahl-i-Batin from oWoD, plus the Guardians of the Veil from nWoD.

The Free Council would become the Order Of Reason. They believe that magic is just another natural phenomenon, that it can be studied and understood with scientific methods, and that mages are those who have the necessary spark of genius to understand such contradictory and impossible theories. They are sometimes called mad scientists, other times called misguided by more traditional mages, but the power of their magics is difficult to deny. Conceptually, they'd be the sciency side of the oWoD Technocracy - no reason to link it to political control without the metaphysical concept of Stasis, after all, plus the Void Engineers, the Virtual Adepts, and the sciency bits of the Free Council from nWoD.

The Mysterium would become the Traditionalists. They believe that magic is a byproduct of the human soul, that it has existed since ancient times and could be present in anyone, and that ancient magical traditions hold the key to understanding the way that magic works. They believe in spreading magical knowledge to all, to studying everything from kabbalah to shamanism to ecstatic ritual, and that the potential to Awaken lies in everyone. Conceptually, they're the most like the more spiritual parts of the oWoD Traditionalists - Dreamspeakers, Verbena, the Cult of Ecstacy, the Order of Hermes, and so on.

But just that little change would solve a lot of the problems with New Mage. It gives each group sort of a default enemy - the Atlanteans are opposed to the rebels that made Atlantis fall and their followers, the Exarchs are opposed to demons & monsters out of myth (picture a Greek hydra in the sewers of New York City), the Illuminati are opposed to people who would breach the Veil and will inevitably run into problems with the Vampires and others who want to rule the world, the Order of Reason would argue with more 'superstitious' friends and inevitably run into problems with Prometheans, Cryptids, and other beings that they want to dissect, and the Traditionalists will take issue with anyone bulldozing sacred burial grounds, with anybody who doesn't want magic to be free, and probably run into Changelings due to a mutual tie to human myths and legends.

I've been trying to 'fix' new mage for a while, so I'd be interested to hear if anybody else has had ideas along these lines or is interested in hearing more.

Click to shrink...

Sounds interesting overall, like some sort of blend between WoD and CoD mages. It reads as if you're trying to stay halfway between bringing back paradigms and not. Your short description of Covenants was good enough to immediately grab me with "this one is who I want to play", which the quick introduction to Awakening failed to do for me (right now, some of the things I hear about the Free Council sound cool, but somehow it didn't have the same effect on me back in the day with the quick introduction to Awakening factions).

The Technocracy's plan is self-defeating. You can't have mass Ascension without a Consensus that permits it. The sleepers will not achieve enlightenment unless they believe that they can. And the technocracy's plan is stripping away the belief in the concept of enlightenment.

Really, the Technocracy's actual plan is the same as Syndrome's from the Incredibles. When everyone is super, no one will be. That is to say, they're systematically codifying all of their tricks into the Consensus, thus bluring the line between Sphere magic and Linear magic. The ultimate end to their plan will be that a sleeper can do anything and everything that a mage can do. But it won't produce enlightenment or ascension. It'll just be a huge suite of lovely toys baked into the Consensus.

Click to shrink...

Reminds me of an old joke, originally told about the Commies:
"What are you doing?"
"A revolution!"
"And what are fighting for?"
"For a world where nobody is rich!"
"Weird, back when we had a revolution, we were fighting for a world where nobody is poor!"