So, idea with the Galateans, might do the others later.

At higher levels of Disquiet.

Thread on an unpopular political decision

TotallyHumanGuys: This totally blows [Cogent and well thought out argument follows.]
AngryAtYou: Dear god, can you keep your lewd innuendo to yourself, talking about blowing people! Reported, you disgusting pervert!
TotallyHumanGuys: Wait, wha...
[This User Has Been Banned for Sexually Explicity Content.]
 
Okay, okay, I have to ask. Do Prometheans use email? It mentions that by correspondance they don't do the Wasteland and Disquiet stuff, so it'd seem like, for them, the invention of Email and texting (though not Skype, I could imagine that'd cause problems) would be a heaven-sent gift in terms of them being able to interact with mortals.

Or forums like this one, where none of their supernatural effects bleed over. How'd you handle something like that as a ST, or as someone doing worldbuilding?

For a moment I read that as "Protheans" and wondered when I stumbled into a Mass Effect thread.

Thread on an unpopular political decision

TotallyHumanGuys: This totally blows [Cogent and well thought out argument follows.]
AngryAtYou: Dear god, can you keep your lewd innuendo to yourself, talking about blowing people! Reported, you disgusting pervert!
TotallyHumanGuys: Wait, wha...
JavikOverlordMod: Obnoxious and perverted primitive, I hereby throw you out the forum airlock.
[This User Has Been Banned for Sexually Explicity Content.]
 
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This might end up a little lame, but here's a shot at it.

Frankenstein's


Effects in RL: " People infected by the Disquiet that a Promethean of the Frankenstein Lineage gives off tend to find the Promethean frighteningly ugly the first time Disquiet touches them. This reaction might engender in them fear or pity, which makes them shallow and skittish around the Promethean. In time, they become even more petty, careless and small-minded. They leave their larger ambitions to lie fallow, seeking only the next temporary gain or the next chance to one-up an enemy, a rival or even a friend. They don't care who they hurt in pursuit of these petty goals, shattering friendships, families, alliances or even institutions for the next chance to stick it to someone they feel is standing in their way. And the "someone" in question, usually the Promethean radiating the Disquiet, need not necessarily be actually standing in the person's way.

Communities infected by this type of Disquiet tend to break down into savage cliques at first, each seeking some ridiculous perceived advantage over the others. That advantage might involve gaining membership into a certain country club, signing up for a committee to plan a popular activity with the local PTSA or even buying the best lawn-care equipment on the market as part of a "Keep the Neighborhood Beautiful" campaign. Conflict between cliques evolves from friendly rivalry to passive-aggressive sniping to cruel exclusivity to feckless sabotage and finally to heated confrontation between community members.

Inevitably, "cooler heads" attempt to prevail either just before or just after actual violence breaks out, and these would-be leaders convince their neighbors that everyone has gotten carried away with their foolish behavior. The community is too strong to just let itself go to pieces over such trivial disagreements, they say, so surely someone must be working to destroy the community from without. The act of tracking down the agent provocateur inevitably works its way back up the chain of Disquiet infection, whipping the growing mob into a greater state of careless agitation. It eventually sets its sights on the Promethean and lays the entire blame for the disintegration of the community at his feet."


Translations to Internet: Forum-users infected by the Disquiet of a Frankenstein Lineage Promethean tend to find the poster's views abhorent and disgusting, arousing fear and pity in them. In time, though, they begin to bring up old grudges at other posters in the forum, turning every discussion into petty, small-minded debate. The forum breaks down into savage cliques, mods taking sides, people accusing each other of things in clear violation of the rules of the forum and yet the Mods stand by or protect them if they're part of their cliques. It escalates from arguments to looking up and posting their information to locating where they live and sending angry emails, starting to engage in major sabotage.

Inevitably, if this keeps on going, the Mods intervene, casting blame on the Frankenstein as the worst sort of troll, or if it's an idealogical forum, as a plant, subversive, or otherwise an enemy. Depending on the personalities involved, Perma-Banning might be the least of their worries as the forum falls apart, with their accounts being hacked, their personal information being revealed, and possibly even direct attacks depending on the nature of the forum (more violent or criminally inclined forums, like those for neo-nazi groups or that cater to the shadier sorts.)

Galatead

IRL:
Those infected by a Galateid's Disquiet suffer in a different way. They immediately recognize the Galateid's great beauty and find it intimidating. The longer this feeling lasts, the more their courage and self-confidence withers inside them, leaving them feeling unworthy of affection or even attention. Their desires become shameful and dirty to them to such an extent that they cannot express or even articulate them. This shame makes them withdraw into themselves, which drives a wedge between themselves and their spouses, significant others or even close friends. Amorous advances and gestures of closeness come to feel alien to them, and they look on such behavior with suspicion and dread. A woman might start to consider herself underweight, especially compared to the voluptuous Muse who just arrived in town. She then starts wondering why her husband still pretends he wants to have sex with such a skinny bag of axe-handles as herself.

This behavior convinces the husband that maybe the fact that he's out of shape or losing his hair disgusts his wife, so he withdraws his advances entirely (convincing his wife that she was right all along). As this Disquiet spreads, more people pen up their desires, making themselves miserable with shame and unrequited passion. Those who must succumb to the pressures inside them, getting their rocks off lest they drive themselves completely mad, do so in only the most base and degrading ways they can think of, convinced they deserve no better. And all the while, a subtle sense builds in the people's minds that this is all the Galateid's fault. If only the wicked siren had never come along, none of these shameful thoughts or behaviors would have been enflamed or brought into the open.

The Promethean becomes a convenient scapegoat for the community's licentiousness, and it is deemed that what's best for the community is to have nothing further to do with her. No invitations arrive for society affairs, no one will open a door to the Promethean's charms, no shop owner will do business with the Promethean, and no one will so much as look the Promethean in the eyes. In the best cases, this sudden community-wide shunning drives a Galateid away in despair. In the worst, the community's most upright citizens either call the police to have the Galateid removed or take it upon themselves to see that the Promethean's perceived wickedness will corrupt the morals of the community no longer.



Internet: The Galatead is at first blush believed to be an interesting poster, one that is both provacative and, though it's not stated, assumed to be beautiful and interesting in real life. Forum-users and others who interact with them via public methods (things such as emails seem to contain far less risk, similar to how letters and other forms of communication aren't memetically tainted) find themselves less sure and confident of their own real-life goals and achievements, and start to find that they are unsure of their normality, as any and all sexual desires, fetishes, or interests start to seem twisted, even base. The Galatead seems more and more to be over the line sexually, and the words and actions on the web grow more explicit as time goes on.

Hate, loathing, feelings of despair or unloveability and gross sexual perversion as their expressions of their sexuality grow more twisted, self-loathing, and they start to target it at the Galatead. Eventually it's believed that the Galatead somehow did it, did something to deserve this or drove them towards their hidden desires, the things they kept locked away, and they are regarded as being lewd, perhaps even perverted. Expect by this point accusations of child porn, being reported to the cops, being locked out and thread-banned until they're driven away, nobody responding to their posts, slut-shaming or otherwise enforcing the feeling that they aren't welcome.

It can even end with the Galatead being framed for Child Porn to the police, since of course someone like them "would be into that sort of thing." Either way, it never ends well.

Osiris Lineage

IRL:
When a Promethean of the Osiris Lineage inflicts his Disquiet, chaos ensues. An afflicted individual loses his ability to think clearly and will almost certainly panic when he loses control of the Disquiet he feels. Whether he's afraid of the outsider, angry that such a one would dare masquerade as human, or blithely infatuated with the exotic stranger, no amount of calm, unemotional reasoning on the Promethean's part will change that fact. What's worse, the victim's total commitment to his emotional reaction can change for no reason at all, plunging him from fanatical lust for to blind hatred of the Promethean in the time it takes to draw a breath. The effect on a community is even worse, as first frustration grows with the sole afflicted party's unmanageability, then unreason spreads.

Finally, some crisis inevitably breaks out in the community (likely caused by someone's drastic irrational behavior), and the community members polarize around a spectrum of emotional responses. These poles shift and merge in constant flux, dissolving whatever stability might once have existed. Sometimes this madness is such that it turns against the Promethean (who is likely to do his doomed best to restore order) and sustains itself long enough to drive him out. Most of the time, however, it is those who are least affected by the Disquiet who manage to track the source of the madness back to the Promethean and do what they can to get rid of him.

Internet: These are the controversial posters that get as many likes as they get heated refutations of everything they stand for. Where they go, they inspire argument, disagreement and agreement, almost all of it founded on emotive issues rather than on anything like logic. These emotions are ever-shifting and cause chaos as the Promethean makes their way through the forum. Eventually it degenerates as people span the spectrums, and anything like a reasonable conversation breaks down, though not into factions but instead into a free for all of people talking past each other.

In these cases, the Promethean is often accused of using sock-puppets to flame controversy, and both him and his guiltless "puppets" tend to be banned at best, with of course far worse consequences also possible. These extremities of emotion know no particular logic, and a person driven by a Osiris's posts may contradict everything they ever believed in on a moment's notice, drawing confusion and chaos into the mix.

Tammuz


IRL:
The Tammuz inflict a strange, deceptively insidious sort of Disquiet. The unease they spread makes people afraid and restless, but it does not drive them straightaway into a mob mentality. They don't necessarily seek to destroy or drive out what they don't understand. Instead, they seek to capture it, study it and control it. This effect starts off as a sensation not unlike curiosity, bordering on fixation. A private investigator searching for a missing person, for instance, tracks that person down, only to find that he has been killed and resurrected as a Tammuz.

The investigator then stalks and spies on the Tammuz, learning everything he can about what the Promethean is capable of. When he has learned all he can, he tells the victim's family everything, which inspires the family to contact the Tammuz and try to bring him back home. His sudden reappearance and the strange things he can now do attracts the attention of the neighbors, however, who get the media involved. The media send reporters who hound the Tammuz day and night. Their prying catches the attention of local scientists and religious groups who want to either use the Tammuz to prove their respective pet theories or seal the Tammuz away somewhere so he can't inflict irreparable harm on the same.

Demand builds on demand, with more and more people trying to control the Promethean, until he is either locked away somewhere under harsh fluorescent lights or forced to flee.


Internet: Isn't there always fascination with a certain type of person. The greatest lie on the internet is anonymity, and the celebrity has none. The Tammuz posting online finds people growing interesting, positively and negatively, in them. Are they arguing this because they mean it, or are they secretly members of some hated organization, depending on the forum? Are they secretly a fat, 50 year old pedophile behind the seemingly normal teenage girl? What are they hiding! These are the thoughts that slowly drive people to fixate on the Tammuz, to seek them out in both real-life and online, to reveal their secrets no matter what, and maybe even attempt to expose their supernatural nature if it somehow comes out. Of all of the Disquiets communicated via forums and other mass-public media, this is the one most likely to shade into the 'Real life' version, as that committed religious poster that hounds them about their beliefs tracks them down at the first hint of the supernatural, turning an internet confrontation into a real one as they seek to discover the truth. Even when it's staying merely online, this fascination and subtle horror tends to end badly for everyone involved.

Riven

IRL:
In the short term, the Riven Disquiet makes the Promethean seem progressively uncanny, as if he doesn't fully belong in this world. Perhaps more frightening, however, is that this Disquiet can have two separate, diametrically opposed long-term effects. In an individual, it either opens his mind dangerously wide to the nightmarish possibilities that exist in the world of spirits (for which he blames the Promethean), or it closes his mind off from the basic instincts that make him human.

A person whose mind has been opened too wide sees flicker-flashes of the world beyond the material and catches unasked for glimpses of whatever Twilight beings might be lurking nearby. Yet, while these visions constantly impinge on his awareness, the things he sees remain unaware of him. Even if he tries to ritually call out to them or propitiate them, they ignore him and go on about their business.

Meanwhile, those who have had their minds closed too tightly, take on a perambulatory dissociation. They go through the motions of their normal routines, but the inherent meaning behind their actions evaporates. They get on the bus, they ride to the office, they sit down behind their desks, but they have no fundamental grasp of what they're doing there. They don't talk to anyone, they don't go out for lunch, they don't get up to use the restroom, and when they head downstairs and across the street to the bus stop, they don't look both ways before stepping into traffic.

And in counterintuitive contrast to those whose minds are open too wide, these people are prime targets to be victimized by spirits in Twilight. Such spirits find them easier to ride and possess (as the victims suffer a -2 penalty on the standard Resolve + Composure roll to resist possession), and the most crafty and malignant of them eventually lead the charge to oust from the community the Ulgan Promethean who's emanating the Disquiet. That's provided that the frustrated open-minded ones have not done so already.

Internet: Conspiracy theories crop up all the time on the internet. It's one of the inevitable functions. The Riven threaten to crack open the entire masquerade of the world with every post to a specific forum. Some are driven into conspiracy theories, their minds opened so far that they can become convinced of such silly things as the existence of "Vampires" or "Magic" and other such bizarre nonsense that everyone knows is not real. Their own fascination won't be the informed actions of an intelligent hunter, but rather the vague and confused underpinnings with which they try to piece the world together. They might wind up vampire-chow if they poke too far, but for the most part, online they spin off into the conspiracy-nut kooks, propogating their bizarre ideas.

Meanwhile others start to fall apart, saying things just to say them, losing all purpose and drive and becoming creatures of routine. They, on the other hand, online and otherwise, seem to lure predators in. A vampire trolling the dating sites finds themselves drawn to a particular profile of a boring human...perhaps it'd be fun to call them up, see if they bite...or rather, see if they get a bite on the mortal. The world of darkness and all of its tricks and traps seem to descend on these people, as conspiracies start sweeping them up, and corruption and horror...and at the center of it all is the Riven, watching, disgusted, and if they keep it up likely to be killed, by Vampires or spirits or the conspiracies that haunt the world of darkness, all using the victims of their Disquiet against them, both online and, increasingly, offline.
 
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Honestly, it's sort of fun to think about how the various splats would change and react to the internet, to the point I might eventually do a post with a few speculations about how I think it'd go down as a whole, in terms of internet-presence and such.
 
Honestly, it's sort of fun to think about how the various splats would change and react to the internet, to the point I might eventually do a post with a few speculations about how I think it'd go down as a whole, in terms of internet-presence and such.
Well, in Mage the Free Council has its own website, sort of a combination between eBay and Facebook, and the rote "Virtual Voyage":
Virtual Voyage
(Mind •••• + Forces ••)
The mage psychically projects into a virtualized realm of computer and communications networks. This techné is much as Psychic Projection (see Mage: The Awakening, p. 215) except rather then entering Twilight, the mage's consciousness travels into a representation of a computer network or networks in the Fallen World. The mage's virtual form has no Corpus, just a visualized virtual image that can be affected only by mind-affecting powers.
Practice: Patterning
Action: Instant
Duration: Prolonged (one scene)
Aspect: Vulgar
Cost: None
The mage appears to be in a deep sleep or trance while the consciousness is on the virtual voyage. If desired, the caster can apply an extra Targets factor to bring others along on the voyage.
Free Council Rote: Jacking In
Dice Pool: Intelligence + Computers or Science + Mind
Free Council "reality hackers" have long believed that this techné accesses a "machine consciousness" or a Twilight "shadow" of the Fallen World's computer networks, proof that the mundane works of humanity have a kind of magic to them, and that there are deeper connections and mysteries for the Awakened to explore and understand. The rapid spread and growth of computer technology in modern culture has only made
the techné more useful (and easier to conceal).
 
Well, in Mage the Free Council has its own website, sort of a combination between eBay and Facebook, and the rote "Virtual Voyage":

Hmm, interesting. I don't know much about new Mage, but I'd imagine in some ways, with a lot of their secret abilities and magic and such, it'd be the sort of thing where a lot of the open exchange of the Internet wouldn't be a good thing. After all, ultimately, you want that secret forbidden lore accessible ONLY to you so that you can use it for your own profit.

At least, the way I've seen Mages portrayed in general.
 
Hmm, interesting. I don't know much about new Mage, but I'd imagine in some ways, with a lot of their secret abilities and magic and such, it'd be the sort of thing where a lot of the open exchange of the Internet wouldn't be a good thing. After all, ultimately, you want that secret forbidden lore accessible ONLY to you so that you can use it for your own profit.

At least, the way I've seen Mages portrayed in general.
And the Diamond Orders (Adamantine Arrows, Mysterium, Silver Ladder, Guardians of the Veil) would agree with you. The Free Council wouldn't; they're the nMage equivalent of the Virtual Adepts. Their approach is that hoarding knowledge is good and all, but then that knowledge has to pay Rent. Basically, they're willing to sell magical secrets, within reason. And Rotes have some kind of uniqueness thing to them; their written form can only be in one place, so if you download a video instructing you on how to perform that Rote from the internet, it will disappear from the 'net and only exist in your hard drive. So, regardless, it's not exactly "free" sharing of information.
 
And the Diamond Orders (Adamantine Arrows, Mysterium, Silver Ladder, Guardians of the Veil) would agree with you. The Free Council wouldn't; they're the nMage equivalent of the Virtual Adepts. Their approach is that hoarding knowledge is good and all, but then that knowledge has to pay Rent. Basically, they're willing to sell magical secrets, within reason. And Rotes have some kind of uniqueness thing to them; their written form can only be in one place, so if you download a video instructing you on how to perform that Rote from the internet, it will disappear from the 'net and only exist in your hard drive. So, regardless, it's not exactly "free" sharing of information.

Hmm, interesting. I had some thoughts about Vampires, Changelings and Prometheans, but I might add those to what you've said about Mages whenever I write it up.

Vampires are parasites, glomming onto the edges of human life, locked outside the loop as it were, and the most powerful are inevitably the ones who are oldest, and thus might have difficulty being responsive to change. So I'd imagine a lot of what they were doing, except some younger Vampires who define the phrase "Up all night on the internet and/or playing video-games", is parasitic in nature. Vampires aren't supposed to have healthy interactions, and so a lot of what they would do is things like trawling dating websites for victims, looking at Craigslist, emailing other people...essentially non-generative acts, as opposed to creating some message board and having a web-designer and talking things out on a forum. It's just not the right aesthetic, and they have fewer reasons for that. I will say more if I ever write it up.

The key for all of them is to preserve the point of the splat while adding a new element. Just like how I added the Prometheans' Internet Disquiet to keep things from being *too* easy for them, though email is still a god-send, as I'll mention more of below. So having the Vampires able to come into the light and be regular people and have healthy social interactions with each other via the internet would sorta feel off, if that makes sense?

Promethans, on the other hand, I imagine they leave cryptic craigslist messages and emails to each other, and have a number of badly designed, geocities-era level web-forums that get closed down relatively often and pop up, full of 'looking for' ads, malware, insane rants and prophecies, lies, delusions, people who post twenty times a day for a month and then disappear for three years...a lot like the markings, and fitting in with the aesthetic of the lonely, uncertain journey. They don't go to college for web-design and create communities online that can do that sort of thing, instead they log in, and if a normal person discovers it the combined Disquiet ends badly for everyone.

Constantly on the move, but they'd sometimes use it for things like hook-ups or gathering a group of them or looking for hints on their own personal journey.

I've thought even more about Changelings because it's part of my Quest, but I'm going to have to say that I imagine them with the most robust internet-presence of any Splat, for several reasons. First off, the True Fae don't (yet, trust me, it'll happen eventually) know a huge amount about computers, per mechanics, and since the internet probably doesn't work in the Hedge, it'd be risky for them to use the internet as a tool, and thus it'd be a (comparatively) safe way for Changelings to keep in contact, and Changelings have a lot more social potential than shut-away-for-half-the-day-sleeping vampires or Everyone-Hates-Me Prometheans.
 
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It should be noted that the Free Council book was fucking terrible and one of the things I hate the most about the Free Council is that it insists on making the other Orders less distinctive to benefit itself. The Free Council demands that the other orders get made more reactionary to justify its own existence, when really - there's no good reason at all to demand that the Atlantean orders aren't just as willing to use the Ars Nova and techngnosticism. The fact that it looks like Mage 2e is literally just making it into the Anarchs... ha ha ha ha ha.

In my (notably hacked) setting, the Free Council is a Tier 2 group, fading from its glory days and largely centred around areas of the West - it certainly doesn't have a global presence. As a praxis, it doesn't actually provide much that can't be provided by more militant groups of the Silver Ladder, and as a political organisation it goes and makes everything harder to run because the Assembly system demands that the FC gets a disproportionate number of mages who refuse to then interact properly with the mainstream Consilium system.
 
It should be noted that the Free Council book was fucking terrible and one of the things I hate the most about the Free Council is that it insists on making the other Orders less distinctive to benefit itself. The Free Council demands that the other orders get made more reactionary to justify its own existence, when really - there's no good reason at all to demand that the Atlantean orders aren't just as willing to use the Ars Nova and techngnosticism. The fact that it looks like Mage 2e is literally just making it into the Anarchs... ha ha ha ha ha.

In my (notably hacked) setting, the Free Council is a Tier 2 group, fading from its glory days and largely centred around areas of the West - it certainly doesn't have a global presence. As a praxis, it doesn't actually provide much that can't be provided by more militant groups of the Silver Ladder, and as a political organisation it goes and makes everything harder to run because the Assembly system demands that the FC gets a disproportionate number of mages who refuse to then interact properly with the mainstream Consilium system.

Ah, Tier 3 are the global conspiracies and so on (that I tend to dislike, personally, for certain reasons I could explain if anyone wanted a rant, but don't have to)* right? And Tier 2 are the smaller-scale groups, ala how Hunter: The Vigil did it?

Just asking for clarification. And thanks for the information, since I might need to include Mages in my Quest anyways, so learning more about them's a good idea.

* It mostly has to do with me having a history degree and being unable to put aside that aspect of my understanding of history to have fun with global orders of MIB or ancient conspiracies or templars or whatnot.
 
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Ah, Tier 3 are the global conspiracies and so on (that I tend to dislike, personally, for certain reasons I could explain if anyone wanted a rant, but don't have to)* right? And Tier 2 are the smaller-scale groups, ala how Hunter: The Vigil did it?

Just asking for clarification. And thanks for the information, since I might need to include Mages in my Quest anyways, so learning more about them's a good idea.

* It mostly has to do with me having a history degree and being unable to put aside that aspect of my understanding of history to have fun with global orders of MIB or ancient conspiracies or templars or whatnot.

Well, if you're going to force them into the Hunter Scale, it's really that the Orders are Tier 4 groups made of coalitions of Tier 3 groups, while the Free Council is a Tier 3 group made of coalitions of Tier 2 groups - ie, the Free Council is about the scale of a Seer Ministry.
 
Well, if you're going to force them into the Hunter Scale, it's really that the Orders are Tier 4 groups made of coalitions of Tier 3 groups, while the Free Council is a Tier 3 group made of coalitions of Tier 2 groups - ie, the Free Council is about the scale of a Seer Ministry.

Eh, I was just asking because I've never heard Tier said outside of Hunter: The Vigil, mostly because I haven't read Mage 2e yet. Or 1e. Or old-mage. I did start reading Promethean the other day just to check a few things, hence the upswing in the thread while I talk about thoughts.

And yeah, that sort of makes sense.

Are there any resources ala Damnation city for what Mages do in a city, how they spread out their influence and how many of each order and all of that stuff?


(As an explanation, I'm still early in Prometheans, but thinking it's pretty interesting so far, though the layout and the weird, hand-written aesthetic, while fun, are hard to read.)
 
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Coming from a D&D background into NWoD it's always either tier 1 or tier 4 for my group. The second and third tier just don't see much use from us. We always either stick to one neighborhood/town or go on world/dimension traversing adventures. Anyone else play this way?
 
Coming from a D&D background into NWoD it's always either tier 1 or tier 4 for my group. The second and third tier just don't see much use from us. We always either stick to one neighborhood/town or go on world/dimension traversing adventures. Anyone else play this way?
'Twas pretty much my experience too, when I first migrated from D&D to nMage. Though my group at the time tended to prefer to play in the 13+ level range, so it was more Tier 4 than Tier 1.
 
Coming from a D&D background into NWoD it's always either tier 1 or tier 4 for my group. The second and third tier just don't see much use from us. We always either stick to one neighborhood/town or go on world/dimension traversing adventures. Anyone else play this way?

Hmm, well, I admit while I haven't done much gaming, I have something of a soft spot, if I'm guessing what 'Tier 2' is right, for stuff like that. High-level city-politics, dark secrets, that sort of thing. Or things that have larger implications. So, I suppose, more like Tier 1-2, shading into 3? With relatively little of Tier 4 drawing my interest, at least not unless it was expressed in a local way, like a powerful group making inroads into a city, or the like.

Edit: Ultimately, though, there's a lot you can do at most levels depending on the sort of story you're looking for.
 
So, after a damn long time, my group has finally decided to play Mage:tAw, yay!
I'm having trouble though. I don't know why, but preparing for this feels harder than when I do it for D&D or Mutants&Masterminds. Maybe it's because it's the first time I'm running a WoD that's not a SAS one-shot.

My chosen setting is New York city, where in my initial notes Mages are heavily involved in the organised crime, acting both for and against it, as well as in all the alternative religions and spiritual organisations based in the city. I have also this idea for the Shadow of the city where the old City father of New York was severely weakened after the terrorist attacks, and the spirits of the 5 districts are now all in a state of moderately hot war to take the old spirit's place. Another thing in particular I have in mind as for antagonist is a Seer pylon embedded in the police, heavily inspired by the H.R. crime syndicate from Person of Interest.

My main problems are detailing npcs and cabals, as well as, let's say, the politcs beyond the obvious. I'm usually a better improviser than planner, but I'm been warned that Mage is a game one STs better with a clear picture of you want.

Edit: I should also mention that I'm interested in incorporating Reign of the Exarchs in my Chronicle, having been sold on it by the Broken Diamond AP.
 
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So, after a damn long time, my group has finally decided to play Mage:tAw, yay!
I'm having trouble though. I don't know why, but preparing for this feels harder than when I do it for D&D or Mutants&Masterminds. Maybe it's because it's the first time I'm running a WoD that's not a SAS one-shot.

My chosen setting is New York city, where in my initial notes Mages are heavily involved in the organised crime, acting both for and against it, as well as in all the alternative religions and spiritual organisations based in the city. I have also this idea for the Shadow of the city where the old City father of New York was severely weakened after the terrorist attacks, and the spirits of the 5 districts are now all in a state of moderately hot war to take the old spirit's place. Another thing in particular I have in mind as for antagonist is a Seer pylon embedded in the police, heavily inspired by the H.R. crime syndicate from Person of Interest.

My main problems are detailing npcs and cabals, as well as, let's say, the politcs beyond the obvious. I'm usually a better improviser than planner, but I'm been warned that Mage is a game one STs better with a clear picture of you want.

Hmm, well I for my worldbuilding always ask 'What, and why' for politics. What do each of the major players want, and why? Or if you don't know that, what would *you* want if you were in their situation, and then find the reasons and ways to dress it up. How much you do is of course up to you, for my case, for instance, I often improvise a bit, but use my basic understanding of the politics I've made to figure out who and what. "If this faction exists and wants this, surely it will have a counter-faction wanting that, and so it'd have 'This guy' or so on."

But yeah, good job for getting your hand on a thread of political logic which you seem to have done so. Once you have that, at least in theory everything should spiral from that.

My advice, of course, is general worldbuilding advice rather than, say, specific advice for the setting, I admit, but I thought I'd offer.
 
Thanks. If have to articulate the reasons for my problems, I'd say it's because I intend to put the orders a bit on the backround of the story and setting, and focus instead on Cabals, Consilium and individuals, and involve the character's orders only as far as they are interested in interacting with them.


This is because while I've read the order books (again, thanks to EarthScorpion for steering me toward GotV, Seers and Silver Ladder), most of my players aren't confortable enough with the english language to use the material from those books. Which is admittedly a damn shame, but nothing I can do about that.
 
Thanks. If have to articulate the reasons for my problems, I'd say it's because I intend to put the orders a bit on the backround of the story and setting, and focus instead on Cabals, Consilium and individuals, and involve the character's orders only as far as they are interested in interacting with them.


This is because while I've read the order books (again, thanks to EarthScorpion for steering me toward GotV, Seers and Silver Ladder), most of my players aren't confortable enough with the english language to use the material from those books. Which is admittedly a damn shame, but nothing I can do about that.

Well, it's entirely reasonable to do it that way. Maybe...have the Orders themselves have this distant feeling. Their desires are inscrutable, and sometimes contradictory, and what's going on on-high can be one of two things.

Either,

A) As below, so above: it's all of the Cabal and individual stuff, only much bigger and with higher stakes. This has the benefit of largely being true.
B) Disconnect. While the Order is pursuing certain ideological or personal goals, these don't always filter down into the individual cabals and so the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing, which has the benefit of also being true.
 
Okay, okay, I have to ask. Do Prometheans use email? It mentions that by correspondance they don't do the Wasteland and Disquiet stuff, so it'd seem like, for them, the invention of Email and texting (though not Skype, I could imagine that'd cause problems) would be a heaven-sent gift in terms of them being able to interact with mortals.

Or forums like this one, where none of their supernatural effects bleed over. How'd you handle something like that as a ST, or as someone doing worldbuilding?
WoD thematic tend to break down when 2000's tech is introduced.
 
WoD thematic tend to break down when 2000's tech is introduced.

Eh, maybe, I've grown to think there are ways that it can be incorporated without breaking down the themes. Like the example I gave with internet and Prometheans. It's some fanon thing I threw together, but that's what ST's are for, sometimes.

I at least, though, can imagine Vampires trawling message-boards for victims, and using things like Facebook to learn details about someone they're going to victimize, for instance.
 
WoD thematic tend to break down when 2000's tech is introduced.

It must be noted that one of the most darkly hilarious bits of the nWoD is that City of the Damned: New Orleans had a "pessimistic" view of what would happen if New Orleans' levies broke which managed to be better than what actually happened IRL when they broke later.

Cue the vampire clanbooks hastily trying to sneakily update the state of the setting there.
 
It must be noted that one of the most darkly hilarious bits of the nWoD is that City of the Damned: New Orleans had a "pessimistic" view of what would happen if New Orleans' levies broke which managed to be better than what actually happened IRL when they broke later.

Cue the vampire clanbooks hastily trying to sneakily update the state of the setting there.

Must be the first time they were not pessimistic enough!
 
Also, quick and silly question. The Ventrue portray themselves as the Vampire Lords, better than everyone etc, etc, yada-yada. How often do they actually rise to become Princes, relatively speaking? I mean, how much are their claims of running the show founded on base reality, and how much of it is narcissism?
 
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