vicky_molokh
Posthuman spidery thingy.
- Location
- Kyïv, Ukraine
By that logic, Life shouldn't able to fix problems either, only gloss over them or prevent them. But that's not how magic works.
White Wolf's World of Darkness
- Location
- Denmark
- Pronouns
- She/Her
No, I do this due to thematic issues, a human mind is a hell of a lot more finnicky and complex than a human body. The human body also has an auto-fix button called "natural healing" while the best the mind can do is "cope with trauma". If you want to fix people's mental problems, talk to them instead of treating thm like receptables for your glorious magic. Life can unfuck people because lots of people see no issue with "magic spell fixes all bodily problems", but if you ask someone whether they believe a magic spell should be able to cure say PTSD or Chronophobia (hey look that's me), they'll probably think it could help them cope.
Which is why a magic psychologist is totally a thing when he uses Mind and Entropy to bolster his mundane "help coping" rolls.
Citation needed.
Because when we look at stories of magic users - or, indeed, of mythological heroes - insanity and mental problems seem to be very common. Indeed, "eccentricity" seems dirt-common among them. And that's before you get into the insanity prevalent among those who consort with darker powers.
So your "that's not how magic works" is in fact completely ungrounded looking at the source materials.
- Location
- Spain
Nah.
Using Mind and Spirit to summon their mental problems in demon form, and then punching said demons to death, is much more effective.
(Also, talking is magic).
Last edited:
- Location
- Denmark
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Now you're thinking like a Hermetic!
For a good example of why this is not a good idea, take a good look at @EarthScorpion's Taylor in An Imago of Rust and Crimson. Then curse him for not continuing it, just as we were reaching the Obrimos-alike.
UrsaTempest
Don't Panic!
....
So it is Mage cross, huh. While Awakening?
Anyway, commencing download now.
So it is Mage cross, huh. While Awakening?
Anyway, commencing download now.
vicky_molokh
Posthuman spidery thingy.
- Location
- Kyïv, Ukraine
But talking to people can totally be a focus for Mind magic; in there's already been a mention that Techno-therapists are a thing. But just because my focus is a Holy Book of Happyology, or a Mind-Soothing Incense, or Meditation, shouldn't disqualify me from doing these things. Mind 5 can make a new mind, like Life 5 can create a new life; Life 4 can tinker with another body; Mind 4 lets one tinker with another mind. It stands to reason that fixing problems should be either Mind 3 (by analogy to Life), or Mind 4 (because it already allows editing a person's mind, and fixing mental problems is a subset of that).
Finally, at least for the Consensus-with-magic-attached paradigm, the complexity of a body includes the complexity of a mind, since the mind runs on a body's brain. This of course isn't true in paradigms with mind-body dualism.
Not how Sphere magic works, that is. The stories that you are hinting at is just a series specific paradigms, and also of mages with different spheres. I mean look, the stuff that the Time Sphere can do isn't as common in myth as some other Spheres too.
- Location
- Denmark
- Pronouns
- She/Her
EarthScorpion is continuing a story.
EarthScorpion is continuing a story!
wat.
- Location
- Spain
Now seriously.
A Progenitor using targeted hormones to force cancer cells to apoptose is doing the same thing that a doctor giving you cisplatin, except, you know, better, an ivory tower hyperpsych is doing the same than a normal psychologist, except, again, better.
Negating the capacity of Mind to treat traumas because "a human mind is a hell of a lot more finnicky and complex than a human body" is basically the same than rejecting the capacity of psychologists to help their patients, which i find pretty insulting.
(Also, if nothing else, Mind can wipe memories, which is a damn good method of removing traumas, even if a bit heavy handed).
A Progenitor using targeted hormones to force cancer cells to apoptose is doing the same thing that a doctor giving you cisplatin, except, you know, better, an ivory tower hyperpsych is doing the same than a normal psychologist, except, again, better.
Negating the capacity of Mind to treat traumas because "a human mind is a hell of a lot more finnicky and complex than a human body" is basically the same than rejecting the capacity of psychologists to help their patients, which i find pretty insulting.
(Also, if nothing else, Mind can wipe memories, which is a damn good method of removing traumas, even if a bit heavy handed).
Last edited:
- Location
- Denmark
- Pronouns
- She/Her
It absolutely should. If all mages can do the same, it gets boring. Paradigms place restrictions on you, and prevent you from casting specific effects, an NWO Operative isn't going to do much time-travelling with his Time that he uses to see things in slow-motion. Likewise, a Hermetic isn't going to be much of a psychologist because he uses his Mind to bind Goetic beings.
But Time 5 can't make a new timeline, stop trying to establish a false equivalency between two unrelated Spheres. From a Doylist standpoint, fixing people by waving your hands in their direction is boring because mental issues create story (See: Jamelia, Serafina, Henriette, Rose...). From a Watsonian standpoint, the consensus isn't really in support of this being a thing, magic tends to create more problems than it solves when used on people's minds, while a professional psychologists however...
So you're telling me that all biologists are also psychologists even though one is attached to the Humanities while the other is not?
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
lol, "natural healing" of the body works in basically the same way as "natural healing" of the mind. Which is to say that if an injury is meaningless it will heal, anything minorly harmful will leave a permanent brand, stuff that actually hurts will always permanently damage you in some way (although often not in ways you care about or notice much), and at any point of the process you risk the "healing process" itself going awry and causing lasting damage of its own. And that's without the risk of an opportunistic foreign agent taking advantage of a minor wound and turning it into the cause of your death.
Witches have warts and clubbed feet, seers are blind, healers have arthritis, the incurable cough of death plagues magical mentor figures of all kind. Should we remove all healing from Life?
Last edited:
Sphere supremacy can go screw itself.
The spheres are a mechanical conceit for game balance and mechanical simplification. A Verbena witch is not using Forces to hit someone with lightning - she's calling upon Thor to smite her foe, and her capacity to do so is represented as her having Forces 3 on her sheet. I don't care what the mechanics say at the moment when we're discussing "how things should be done" - it's like insisting "the house is on fire right now!" when people are discussing how to put out the fire.
And so if most mages have paradigms that say "fixing mental problems is harder than curing a broken leg", then the spheres are not fit for purpose if they make curing mental problems as easy as fixing a broken leg. As a result, we can dismiss them.
Fortunately, by RAW "fixing someone's depression with Mind" is Mind 4. Which is, uh, exactly the same level of Mind as required to mind control them. Because that's what you're doing - you're going into their mind and changing it. And that's totally okay - but that's still the work of a Mind Adept, which is someone who's invested heavily in Mind and it's significantly harder than fixing bodily injuries. And that means there's plenty of reason for people to be wary of letting someone with Mind 4 into their brain, because they can do all kinds of things to you.
(That's why you instead give them antidepressants, which are a Mind 2 effect that counteracts the depression and so requires them to keep on using them)
- Location
- Denmark
- Pronouns
- She/Her
My mother is a psychologist that has spent over thirty years of her life helping people, so of all people, I have plenty of respects for psychologists but if you have "talking to people" as a Focus for your Mind, then I expect you to actually talk to them instead of waving your transcendental magyck in their direction.
vicky_molokh
Posthuman spidery thingy.
- Location
- Kyïv, Ukraine
Oh, totally agreed about the paranoia. But then again, the same sort of paranoia is reasonable around Life 4 people: tweaking someone's biology can go a long way, especially considering the fact that in addition to 'normal' physiological effects, Life 4 has Physiological Emotion Control, the inventive use of which can do interesting stuff. (Off the top of my head, I recall a story of when a vampire prince was assassinated by making his driver emotionally unstable at the correct moment, albeit that was done with Dementation and not Magick.)
Even a precisely applied harm spell in conjunction with/after a more broad healing spell can be used inventively, if in a less blatantly manipulative manner than mind-tweaking.
But I just listed three foci and paradigms which happen to be associated with fixing the mind. And you're saying that they should be useless, while scientist trained in talking should be able to fix minds.
Many things can create story; many spheres can skip over bits of a story. Finding whose drop of blood was left at the murder scene, or walking all the way to Mount Doom, can both create stories; Correspondence allows one to skip those bits of the story and focus on other ones.
Last edited:
- Location
- Denmark
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Nope, I'm saying that if they want to fix people, they either use @EarthScorpion's method or talk to them and use that as Focus.
But they don't skip over roleplay. Waving your transcendental magyck in their general direction to fix character flaws just flat out removes any interesting roleplay you could have had with them, while going through actual roleplay sessions where you talk to them and interact with them is way more interesting.
This is silly, and also incorrect. Psychology isn't fucking close to being applied biology, you'd be thinking of psychiatry which is whole other can of worms, though certainly related. Mathematics is literally just a language that we use to describe things, so arguing that it's more pure is completely nonsensical.
- Location
- Spain
Eh, i actually find the implications of using magic to directly fix mental flaws rather interesting. You are, after all, rewriting the personality of your patient to a certain extent, which is a terrible power to wield even when done with their permision.
Last edited:
vicky_molokh
Posthuman spidery thingy.
- Location
- Kyïv, Ukraine
But you seem to insist that one specific focus should monopolize that. I named alternative ways for fixing a mind from various paradigm/focus sets, but you seem to want to only talking be an acceptable one.
Not all stories are centered around things that are messed up in the protagonists' minds. You also seem to be missing the roleplaying opportunities connected to the outcomes of such fixing, even successful ones.
Of course it's silly, it's a humorous comic strip. But it does point out the way the world works: society is an interaction of multiple psyches; a psyche is an emergent phenomenon from the work of a brain; bodies and brains are complex systems that are based on interactions of molecules; molecules are made of atoms; the way atoms work is a consequence of physical laws. It's not meant to be taken literally, but rather as a pointer to the way some systems are made of other systems.
That being said, this branch seems to be veering quite far from the issue of the Mind Sphere.
Last edited:
I continue plenty of stories! Imago is past the half way mark and everything!
(It's just my quests that have a tendency to cot death. I'm a terrible quest parent.)
- Location
- Denmark
- Pronouns
- She/Her
If you would actually read my original post, you will find that I also specified that Mind can totally gloss them over or prevent them. But if you want to fix people without rewriting their mind, then you need to talk to them.
"only gloss over or prevent them."
I miss no roleplaying opportunities here.
Well, it's still incorrect. Psychiatrists and psychologists are completely different fields. Psychologists talk to people and attempt to fix their trauma, and they also get shit on by doctors since they have a Humanities subject and aren't seen as professional as a doctors. Psychiatrists are kinda psychologists and kinda doctors. They study how to prevent mental illnesses with medicine and often work in tandem with both doctors and psychologists which means that they get the dubious honors of playing diplomats between psychologists and doctors who hate each other vehemently.
My family has a long tradition of practicing medicine and psychology, so I am quite familiar with the hospital bureaucracy as well as the catty politics between the different branches. It is in fact the specific reason that I chose to be something else than a doctor, psychologist or psychiatrist.
I agree.
Agree to disagree and call it a day?
- Location
- Denmark
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Pah! Quests are basically stories with fancy buttons for readers! I see no difference here!
- Pronouns
- They/Them
More seriously, there are certain people who have a reputation for leaving a trail of broken and shattered Quests in their wake. I don't remember ES having quite that reputation, but it's close.
A lot of it is impression. I mean, a third of the Quests I've started have died, but because two of the others have lasted over a year, even if I ended another Quest prematurely, it wouldn't create a reputation, you know?
A lot of it is impression. I mean, a third of the Quests I've started have died, but because two of the others have lasted over a year, even if I ended another Quest prematurely, it wouldn't create a reputation, you know?
A lot of that is because my two longest-running quests exist within the Panopticon thread. Sera Super Special Sexy Spying Seductive Space Smashing Side Story was 30 updates and 100k words and is fully complete, and Janicequest is nearly at its conclusion.
(anyway, my more recent quests have been more substantial. None of them have died in chargen for ages
)
vicky_molokh
Posthuman spidery thingy.
- Location
- Kyïv, Ukraine
Given that anything a person experiences involves gradual rewrites of one's mind, including talking, I'm no longer sure what you're saying. (In fact, if talking IRL didn't rewrite the minds of the talkers even a bit, we wouldn't be able to teach or convince each other of anything.)
As I said, it's not supposed to be read as a literal comment on the skill specializations that reflect on professions and education standards, but rather as an insight into the matryoshka-like nature of complex systems, each one of them made of more low-level systems. (Atomic) Forces define how atoms behave, which is Matter; matter combines into complex structures that are eventually so special that this subset of matter has a sphere of its own, Life; life can become advanced, eventually being able to power a brain that produces a complex Mind, which too is split off into a separate sphere (and in the WoD, minds can eventually detach from the life entities they're produced by; or from Spirit entities too perhaps - not sure whether precedent exists for that one).
I suppose that this paragraph either pulled this branch back on-topic, or didn't and thus we can just let it die and call it a day.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
A lot of that is because my two longest-running quests exist within the Panopticon thread. Sera Super Special Sexy Spying Seductive Space Smashing Side Story was 30 updates and 100k words and is fully complete, and Janicequest is nearly at its conclusion.
(anyway, my more recent quests have been more substantial. None of them have died in chargen for ages
Well, I myself have never ended a Quest.
But, fingers crossed (or not).
I have a Quest which is approaching the final battle of the arc/part/whatnot, and there's a pretty good chance the main character will die, which is a type of ending, so we'll see!