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...Unless made with Master-level Spirit or DSci and designed to be 'sufficiently' human. Or arguably with Mind 5 by someone whose Paradigm doesn't acknowledge souls as being a thing.

Or taking a vatgrown human with only a brain, digitizing their nascent consciousness into a brainstate-emulating matrix once it's developed enough, and using that as the seed of your new AI.
 
EarthScorpion said:
Even more amusingly, remember - the spheres are artificial constructs. They're not a profound statement of the nature of reality - they're essentially a compromise formalisation devised after the Dark Age Pillar system.
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And this is why I prefer NMage. A structured and orderly cosmological foundation for why things work the way they do does wonders for my sanity both as a player and as a story teller.
 
AkatsukiL13 said:
Either way, no because it lacks a soul. It can't have an Avatar without a soul.
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Actually incorrect. Even look at 1E and 2E materials. MECHA is run by a supercomputer with the power of not just one, but two mages and the ability to cast two spells at once because it's mechanically two mages and 2 Arete rolls. Yes, you could say that these are just mind uploads. But that's kind of the point. They were uploaded there and now have perfectly valid existences, despite being AIs-and uploads are entirely legitimate methods of creating AI.

cmwatford said:
And this is why I prefer NMage. A structured and orderly cosmological foundation for why things work the way they do does wonders for my sanity both as a player and as a story teller.
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But it's not nearly as fun!

Disclaimer: This poster finds arguments fun.
 
MJ12 Commando said:
Actually incorrect. Even look at 1E and 2E materials. MECHA is run by a supercomputer with the power of not just one, but two mages and the ability to cast two spells at once because it's mechanically two mages and 2 Arete rolls. Yes, you could say that these are just mind uploads. But that's kind of the point. They were uploaded there and now have perfectly valid existences, despite being AIs-and uploads are entirely legitimate methods of creating AI.



But it's not nearly as fun!

Disclaimer: This poster finds arguments fun.
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I myself enjoy a good argument just not at the table. It slows everything to a crawl and annoys people who just want to get on with it.
 
MJ12 Commando said:
I do get the feeling that oMage basically needs a good social contract and group rapport otherwise everyone gets super mad in the end.
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Really all pen and paper games need a good social contract. No ruleset can handle all possible events and the dm/st is going to have to adjudicate things at some point. Some games are better at this than others but all require the players and st to be able to trust each other not to wreck the game. I just prefer that the game gives a solid baseline to make any rule decisions on instead of saying "It's magic, you figure it out."
 
MJ12 Commando said:
I do get the feeling that oMage basically needs a good social contract and group rapport otherwise everyone gets super mad in the end.
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The problem being that oMage is a game were bitching at each other about the nature of reality is in character.

Ultimately, I think oMage works much better as something you discuss on a forum or shoot the shit over at a coffee shop than actually sit down and play.
 
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Quantumboost said:
...Unless made with Master-level Spirit or DSci and designed to be 'sufficiently' human. Or arguably with Mind 5 by someone whose Paradigm doesn't acknowledge souls as being a thing.
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Once again, the Rev Ed Rulebook points out in the Create Mind rote that the Masters with that power and insight for create real, intelligent life like that are long gone.

And that notion that Mind 5 with a Paradigm that doesn't recognize the soul doesn't work because... well the Technocracy. They don't recognize the soul or even the Avatar as anything other than superstitious nonsense yet they can't make a truly sentient AI.

MJ12 Commando said:
Actually incorrect. Even look at 1E and 2E materials. MECHA is run by a supercomputer with the power of not just one, but two mages and the ability to cast two spells at once because it's mechanically two mages and 2 Arete rolls. Yes, you could say that these are just mind uploads. But that's kind of the point. They were uploaded there and now have perfectly valid existences, despite being AIs-and uploads are entirely legitimate methods of creating AI.
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The Matriarch isn't an AI, its extreme example of a cyborg and the old Transhumanism beliefs that were overrunning ItX, with two Technocrats linked together to vast computer mainframe, creating a gestalt cybernetic entity. There is a big difference between cyborgs and robots. Those sisters lived lives, became Technocrats before undergoing that process. The sisters are alive, just like with the Enlightened Shock Corps.

Plus its worth noting that 1E and early 2E MtAs could pretty damn wonky and gonzo, especially with regards to the Technocracy. A fair amount of it has been cleaned up or retcon'ed out over the years. Hell look at how they present the Technocracy in the first MtAs adventure book, Loom of Fate and compare to how they are presented in more recent books. They had a meeting between the major Technocrats of the city with an NWO member with no face, a VE wearing a flightsuit despite it being a boardroom meeting and an ItXer with a pair of HIT Marks. And they're deciding whether or not to go through with this procedure to turn a young Orphan mage into a powerful Weaver spirit to replace the dying one that controls the city's Umbral version.

Yeah, the Technocracy has come a long way. A lot of those crazier and excessive aspects have been dialed back in newer material.

Finally, mechanically HIT Marks and robots function like Mages but aren't actually Mages. HIT Marks are able to preform certain Enlightened Procedures because they've been equipped with Hypertechnology devices that perform those Procedures but as I said they are soulless and can't actually Awaken.
 
AkatsukiL13 said:
And that notion that Mind 5 with a Paradigm that doesn't recognize the soul doesn't work because... well the Technocracy. They don't recognize the soul or even the Avatar as anything other than superstitious nonsense yet they can't make a truly sentient AI.
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"The Technocracy can't make a truly sentient AI."
"Look at all these examples of obviously sentient, very arguably sapient AI that the Technocracy made."
"Those aren't sentient AI because there's no Sphere that can make a truly sentient AI."
"Look at all these Spheres that can make a sentient AI."
"Those Spheres can't make a truly sentient AI because the Technocracy can't make a truly sentient AI."
 
AkatsukiL13 said:
Once again, the Rev Ed Rulebook points out in the Create Mind rote that the Masters with that power and insight for create real, intelligent life like that are long gone.
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You've said this before, I've shot it down before. That there are no Masters of both Mind and Spirit in the Traditions in the time period a couple years after the Avatar Storm means... exactly nothing in the question of "can an AI be made that can Awaken".

Mind and Life are enough to make a being that can Awaken, as evidenced by the Progenitors' efforts. Why, exactly, would Mind and Spirit be fundamentally and metaphysically unable to create one that can Awaken?
And that notion that Mind 5 with a Paradigm that doesn't recognize the soul doesn't work because... well the Technocracy. They don't recognize the soul or even the Avatar as anything other than superstitious nonsense yet they can't make a truly sentient AI.
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Uhm. No, that's not a counterpoint, because Iteration X was restricted in AI research by, y'know, The Computer (Convention: Iteration X, the description of the AI researcher sample PC if not elsewhere).

The Progenitors have successfully made Awakenable AIs, and do so constantly; theirs are just meat-based, because it's the Progenitors. Yes, you've asserted that they're fundamentally different, but they're still using Mind and Life without the allegedly-necessary Archmastery of DSci or Spirit.

The other Conventions aren't actually Paradigmatically strict materialists/secularists, unlike the two above. Further, when they need intelligent things they mostly just use Progenitor- or Iterator-sourced technologies, apart from the Void Engineers' LERMU units (created with Life 5 and, surprise, DSci 5).
 
MJ12 Commando said:
Actually incorrect. Even look at 1E and 2E materials. MECHA is run by a supercomputer with the power of not just one, but two mages and the ability to cast two spells at once because it's mechanically two mages and 2 Arete rolls. Yes, you could say that these are just mind uploads. But that's kind of the point. They were uploaded there and now have perfectly valid existences, despite being AIs-and uploads are entirely legitimate methods of creating AI.



But it's not nearly as fun!

Disclaimer: This poster finds arguments fun.
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It gets better, because while the Soulless flaw does exist in guide to the Technocracy, there's a sidebar that explicitly says that some A.I. can and do awaken. It's simply that Hitmarks are explictly designed to be soulless interchangable throwaway systems. Mage is replete with awakened Frankenstein monsters, golems, robots, androids (if there's a difference), bioborgs (if there's a difference), A.I.s, and more, even weirder, things.

I'm pretty sure we actually had this exact conversation before, let me check.

No, that was a different poster. Same argument, though.
 
Isn't being soulless irrelevant to the discussion of whether something is sentient? I mean, maybe I'm missing something, but the rules of the flaw don't say anything about lacking sentience or personhood, just that you lack the fire of Genius and can't awaken/use magic.

Am I missing some oWoD lore about what a soul is or something?
 
tzar1990 said:
Isn't being soulless irrelevant to the discussion of whether something is sentient? I mean, maybe I'm missing something, but the rules of the flaw don't say anything about lacking sentience or personhood, just that you lack the fire of Genius and can't awaken/use magic.

Am I missing some oWoD lore about what a soul is or something?
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No. In fact, you can kill someones soul, and they go on, if lacking something perhaps of the spark of imagination.
 
TheLastOne said:
No. In fact, you can kill someones soul, and they go on, if lacking something perhaps of the spark of imagination.
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This is one of those quirky things about old and new wod that tends to throw people who are new to the game. The first time it came up in our group we were playing nwod and the storyteller was under the assumption that people with no souls just immediately went comatose. The current mystery we were working on involved a monster stealing peoples souls and the st was going to bring us in with rumors that people were going comatose in droves. He looked like he'd been kicked when he realized it takes weeks to months before someone gives out due to soul loss.
 
cmwatford said:
This is one of those quirky things about old and new wod that tends to throw people who are new to the game. The first time it came up in our group we were playing nwod and the storyteller was under the assumption that people with no souls just immediately went comatose. The current mystery we were working on involved a monster stealing peoples souls and the st was going to bring us in with rumors that people were going comatose in droves. He looked like he'd been kicked when he realized it takes weeks to months before someone gives out due to soul loss.
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And Soul loss is actually more dramatic in the nWoD then the old, if anything.
 
Chloe Sullivan said:
Voila!
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Oh, I've already become a point of reference! How delightful.

What EarthScorpion refers to as the "purple paradigm" is an approach to the game that operates by ignoring the in-universe nature of magic, and instead treating mechanical abstractions as actual entities or constructs that exist in the setting. "I can throw fire because I'm a descendant of Loki/calling on fire spirits/catalyzing an alchemical formula that agitates the local phlogiston/a magical girl/holding a flamethrower" is replaced by "I can throw fire because I've got enough dots in Forces, though I need to use this flamethrower/magic wand/alchemical circle on a pair of gloves/obsidian totem/Sowilo rune as a focus".

Under this paradigm, no-one seems to actually believe anything. The Technocracy know that magic exists and they're using it, but are trying to oppress wands and chanting because they cut into their arbitrary paradigm (which in game terms reduces their magical supremacy). The Traditionalists are totally aware of how magic works, in terms of the consensus reality, and know that their respective ancient mystical insights are nothing but a skin overlaying a cosmic popularity contest.

A witch and a priest and a mad scientist and a kung fu master are all practicing the same art, they've just chosen to wear different funny hats. This is true, but by god it's demoralizing to see it actually played out in the setting. In a game about the clash and reconciliation of view points and philosophies, there aren't any actual philosophies. They've all been suborned to the mechanics that are meant to represent them - the map has become the territory.

This isn't helped by the fact that, well, a huge amount of official writing treads the same line.

Examining Technocratic "magic" is a good place to start pointing this out to players who are used to seeing it as the actual state of the setting.

First, because it demonstrates pretty clearly that Spheres are ways of thinking about your capabilities rather than actual things that exist in the setting, and the only reason different Traditions share them is because (mechanical simplicity aside) they were frogmarched into place by Archmasters, those mages who've uncovered humanity's true nature.

A kung-fu master who channels his ki to leap tall buildings and see the auras of living beings does not really think he is doing the same thing as the pasty, twitching nerd with a modified vacuum cleaner that belches acid mist, and she doesn't think she's doing the same thing as the witch who brews magic potions or the priest who channels the will of God or the philosopher who abuses psychedelics to expand his mental landscape.

If any of them really, truly believed that, they'd be Arete 6, which is the point at which you can genuinely believe and understand that the cosmos operates according to Abrahamic metaphysics, while also being a VR simulation, while also being a branch on the world-tree, while also being an infinite void filled with orbiting detritus and vast nuclear embers, all at once. This is not a level of enlightenment that normally-sane human beings can develop - at most, they can pay it lip service and sound like a ridiculously pretentious self-help guru.

Second, because it forces you to think within certain boundaries, given you can't just go "magic" to explain everything you do. Just forcing yourself to adhere to vaguely realistic physical limitations eventually forces it through your skull that a gun is a "Forces" rote and "read their body language" is a perfectly solid application of "Mind". You start working out your capabilities and representing them through your Spheres, rather than just "using" your Spheres.

This then feeds back into a proper representation of Traditionalist magic, where rather than knowing the future because you have dots in Time, you know the future because you've learned how to call into yourself the oracle-spirit who was known in Delphi and Awka and Chilam Bilam, the brief contact offering a glimpse of its prophetic vision… which you mechanically represent as described in the Time Sphere.
 
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Revlid said:
Oh, I've already become a point of reference! How delightful.

What EarthScorpion refers to as the "purple paradigm" is an approach to the game that operates by ignoring the in-universe nature of magic, and instead treating mechanical abstractions as actual entities or constructs that exist in the setting. "I can throw fire because I'm a descendant of Loki/calling on fire spirits/catalyzing an alchemical formula that agitates the local phlogiston/a magical girl/holding a flamethrower" is replaced by "I can throw fire because I've got enough dots in Forces, though I need to use this flamethrower/magic wand/alchemical circle on a pair of gloves/obsidian totem/Sowilo rune as a focus".

Under this paradigm, no-one seems to actually believe anything. The Technocracy know that magic exists and they're using it, but are trying to oppress wands and chanting because they cut into their arbitrary paradigm (which in game terms reduces their magical supremacy). The Traditionalists are totally aware of how magic works, in terms of the consensus reality, and know that their respective ancient mystical insights are nothing but a skin overlaying a cosmic popularity contest.

A witch and a priest and a mad scientist and a kung fu master are all practicing the same art, they've just chosen to wear different funny hats. This is true, but by god it's demoralizing to see it actually played out in the setting. In a game about the clash and reconciliation of view points and philosophies, there aren't any actual philosophies. They've all been suborned to the mechanics that are meant to represent them - the map has become the territory.

This isn't helped by the fact that, well, a huge amount of official writing treads the same line.

Examining Technocratic "magic" is a good place to start pointing this out to players who are used to seeing it as the actual state of the setting.

First, because it demonstrates pretty clearly that Spheres are ways of thinking about your capabilities rather than actual things that exist in the setting, and the only reason different Traditions share them is because (mechanical simplicity aside) they were frogmarched into place by Archmasters, those mages who've uncovered humanity's true nature.

A kung-fu master who channels his ki to leap tall buildings and see the auras of living beings does not really think he is doing the same thing as the pasty, twitching nerd with a modified vacuum cleaner that belches acid mist, and she doesn't think she's doing the same thing as the witch who brews magic potions or the priest who channels the will of God or the philosopher who abuses psychedelics to expand his mental landscape.

If any of them really, truly believed that, they'd be Arete 6, which is the point at which you can genuinely believe and understand that the cosmos operates according to Abrahamic metaphysics, while also being a VR simulation, while also being a branch on the world-tree, while also being an infinite void filled with orbiting detritus and vast nuclear embers, all at once.

Second, because it forces you to think within certain boundaries, given you can't just go "magic" to explain everything you do. Just forcing yourself to adhere to vaguely realistic physical limitations eventually forces it through your skull that a gun is a "Forces" rote and "read their body language" is a perfectly solid application of "Mind". You start working out your capabilities and representing them through your Spheres, rather than just "using" your Spheres.

This then feeds back into a proper representation of Traditionalist magic, where rather than knowing the future because you have dots in Time, you know the future because you've learned how to call into yourself the oracle-spirit who was known in Delphi and Awka and Chilam Bilam, the brief contact offering a glimpse of its prophetic vision… which you mechanically represent as described in the Time Sphere.
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Incidentally, this is why I wanted to run a mage game using Mutants and Masterminds. Because it makes it a lot easier to force people to buy Foci, Philosophies and Methodologies rather then Spheres. Also, it's a more functional system, but making people buy Necromancy(Divinatory) rather then a bit of Time, Correspondence, and Entropy to achieve the same effect really appealed to me.
 
Importance of the soul with Awakenings is that the Avatar is connected to the soul and the Avatar is what allows a Willworker to do what they can do, whether they call it Magic, Enlightened Science or whatever.

Avatar is... well its one of those difficult things to define in MtAs. The important thing is that the Avatar survives the death of the mage and joins with another soul.

...Or the soul and Avatar stay together and merely reincarnate.

And at one point there were special spirits that specifically matched Avatars with the right souls, resulting in mages never actually being aware that they existed. But then the Consensus changed and they disappeared resulting in the uneven soul-Avatar matches of MtAs and Sorcerer's Crusade.

Like I said its not the most clear subject. But there is two things that best illustrate the Avatar and how it continues on beyond death. First the Nephandi's Avatars. Regardless of whether they're Traditionalist, Technocrat, Orphan or Craft mage their Avatars are all the same*. However the Avatars of the Nephandi are different, they are inverted, turning the upward Ascension of normal Avatars into a downward Descent. While some Nephandi were mages who willing joined them, submitting themselves to the ritual that inverts their Avatar, others have no choice they Awaken with already inverted Avatars, inherited from dead Nephandi.

The second is Gilgul, the most terrible punishment the Nine Traditions can deliver upon a Willworker, reserved only for Nephandi and the most heinous of criminals. It is the separation and destruction of the soul and the Avatar, preventing it passing to another. After all, if you kill a Nephandi normally their corrupt Avatar will simply go onto someone else and another Nephandi will rise in time.

So yeah, the soul is an important component in becoming a mage.

*Note: This is a basic generalization. I'm well aware that there are four Avatar types but these are common to every one of said groups so its irrelevant to this discussion.
 
Well Valentine's Day looks like its really picking up. I come back from seeing the Kingsmen with my girlfriend and check my email and what do I get a notice from Kickstarter that the DAV20 backer PDF has been released. A wonderful, unexpected surprise. M20 or Exalted 3E would have been better but this is still a really good prize.

Needless to say the two of us will spend the rest of night reading through it to see just how good it is. But having skimmed through it, I can say the book is beautiful and the new art, especially the various Clan and Bloodline character pics are some of the best I've ever since in a OPP/WW book.
 
So I've more or less read through DAV20 now and I have to say it is very, very good. Unfortunately it has major knock against it, the mechanics aren't as defined as they could be. For instance they have a brief section on Ghouls but none of the actual mechanics for making ghouls like they did in V20 save for a chart with the Discipline cap for ghouls based on the Generation of their Dominator. However they do admit that in the introduction, explaining that they did it so they could put more content in other areas and recommends having V20 on hand.

It is a bit annoying in that regard but it is still playable on its own.

As I said before the art, especially the new art, is absolutely beautiful. Combined with the fantastic color layout, makes this a great looking book.

The chapters are laid out in typical WoD Rulebook fashion. A bit of opening fiction and an introduction to set things up while the first chapter discusses basics of vampires in this time period. All and all pretty standard fare, especially if you've read the previous DAV Rulebooks or even a modern VtM rulebook.

Chapter Two is the Clans and Bloodlines of DAV. In a divergence from the previous edition, which sorted the thirteen Clans in to the High Clans and Low Clans (basically the 'Lordly' Clans and the 'Commoner' Clans) they have the thirteen in alphabetical order as previously seen in V20, pointing out in the beginning of the chapter that the High/Low Clan divide can actually vary depending on where you are. For instance in France, the Setites are clearly among the Low Clans but in Egypt they're clearly the dominant Clan. This feeds into the greater global sense they've given to DAV20 over more European-centric older editions.

Interestingly enough, the default Assamites in Clan page isn't the Warrior Caste as it usually is. Instead its the Viziers, with the Warriors and Sorcerers written up in the back of the book.

The section on Bloodlines following the Clans was by far the most interesting section of the chapter for me. Most of them I already knew about but the Bonsam, the Danava, the Impundulu and the Ramanga were all new to me and well worth the read and further emphasizes that there are Cainites beyond just Europe and the Middle East.

The next chapter is all about the Roads, the various vampiric philosophies they use to endure eternity and resist the Beast that would drive them into becoming mindless predators. They come in many forms with smaller, different but similar philosophies within. For instance the Road of Heaven is all about faith and how vampirism is part of a divine plan. The Paths of this Road in this book are all connected to the three Abrahamic religions, Christianity, Judaism and Islam.

There are too many Roads and Paths to go into here and largely they appear to be more or less reprints of previous material. Though there are some exceptions such as the previously mentioned Paths for the Road of Heaven. Suffice to say there is enough Roads here to cover pretty much every conceivable type, from the relatively human to undead knights and tyrants to wicked monsters to the utterly inhuman.

After that the Character Creation chapter. Yeah not a lot to say here. It's the WW/OPP standard. You've seen one, you've seen them all. Though I am annoyed that they didn't include a time period name chart. Admittedly they only had it in the DA Player's Guide but it would have been really nice to have on hand for players and storytellers when creating characters.

Similarly the next four chapters are Disciplines, Rules, Systems and Drama, and Storytelling. I skimmed over these chapters as they are pretty standard for CWoD rulebooks. Disciplines are the various vampiric powers and just like in V20 there are a lot of them. Hell some of the secondary sorceries weren't included in this book, rather they will be included in an upcoming supplement. And despite that there are a lot of them here already.

The Rules chapter is just that, explaining how the game is played while Systems and Drama covers the more complex parts of the mechanics such as combat. Chapter eight, Storytelling, is the advice chapter for Storytellers on running the game. Again, the same old stuff we've seen before.

The next chapter is all about Europe, or at least part of Europe, during this point in time. Namely the various states of Italy and Eastern Europe. I'm not sure why they only did those places over others but it is what it is. It is a good chapter for potential game settings though there are other supplements in the DA line that cover them in much more detail.

Finally there is the two Appendices. The first is just the various merits and flaws you can give your characters during creation while the second is much, much more interesting. It is Apocrypha of the Clans, containing added content to the Clans such as the Warrior and Sorcerer Castes for the Assamites, Clan-specific Roads like the Lasombra's Road of the Abyss, and interesting material for games such as as fragments of a document from Carthage, the Brujah's fallen city and series of back and forth letters between some vampire scholars. However what I found to be the most interesting is the Salubri section as it presents an alternate universe scenario that leads to serious changes to the modern setting, something I would love to see more of in these historical setting books.

Bottom line, despite lacking in some areas, DAV20 is a definite must buy for VtM fans. It is a good starting point for people new to DAV though I'd recommend looking into some of the supplements, especially some of the setting books, to get a better feel for the world of DA. Of course you could instead transplant it into a world of your own making or a pre-existing medieval fantasy world.

Still it will be worth the price tag when it goes on public sale.
 
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