White Wolf's World of Darkness

[MJ12 Commando]

Considerably worse. In nMage, you can get away with multiple vulgar spells in front of witnesses and Paradox will give you some bashing damage if you absorb it. In oMage, if you do multiple vulgar fireball spells in front of witnesses, that's 4 paradox per fireball, so you'll wind up with a large paradox backlash at the end of the scene if you don't let it incap you and delay it, and probably catch fire or something.

Click to shrink...

To be fair, if you use 2E or M20's paradox rules, that's "only" 1 paradox per fireball. Unless you botch. At which point you eat like, 5 paradox.

Vulgar spell slinging is heavily discouraged in oMage outside of places where you're allowed to cut loose. As someone who's played a fighty muscle wizard up to ~300 XP, the trick to being an effective combatant in oWoD is having the ability to murder the shit out of people without ever doing magic, so that you can use subtle, easy to cast sphere effects (1 dot spheres are great for this) to do it far more effectively.

The average mage combatant is not a D&D wizard. The average mage combatant, both in nWoD and oWoD, is Morpheus or Trinity from the Matrix. Or, for Technocrats, the average combatant is far more Jason Bourne than Tony Stark. If you play as a D&D wizard, what is likely to happen is that your enemy will drag you into a place where your magic is vulgar, and then you will become very sad when they strangle you with your own shoelaces. The most elite combat magi of both sides are elite combatants without magic for a reason.

 

[Carrnage]

Can you disguise crude magic? for example have something that looks like makeshift flamethrower when you're throwing fire around

 

[LastChronicler]

To be fair, if you use 2E or M20's paradox rules, that's "only" 1 paradox per fireball. Unless you botch. At which point you eat like, 5 paradox.

Vulgar spell slinging is heavily discouraged in oMage outside of places where you're allowed to cut loose. As someone who's played a fighty muscle wizard up to ~300 XP, the trick to being an effective combatant in oWoD is having the ability to murder the shit out of people without ever doing magic, so that you can use subtle, easy to cast sphere effects (1 dot spheres are great for this) to do it far more effectively.

The average mage combatant is not a D&D wizard. The average mage combatant, both in nWoD and oWoD, is Morpheus or Trinity from the Matrix. Or, for Technocrats, the average combatant is far more Jason Bourne than Tony Stark. If you play as a D&D wizard, what is likely to happen is that your enemy will drag you into a place where your magic is vulgar, and then you will become very sad when they strangle you with your own shoelaces. The most elite combat magi of both sides are elite combatants without magic for a reason.

Click to shrink...

Hence what I don't like about it.

I mean, I recognise that Paradox is meant to be an interesting challenge that forces you to be creative and work around the limitation while also helping to justify on a narrative level why there's a masquerade to begin with... but when I'm attracted to a game entirely about mages with an interesting magic system I'm not exactly thrilled on occasions when I can't use it combatively, and must turn to runny gunny punchy methods to solve the problem.

 

[MJ12 Commando]

Hence what I don't like about it.

I mean, I recognise that Paradox is meant to be an interesting challenge that forces you to be creative and work around the limitation while also helping to justify on a narrative level why there's a masquerade to begin with... but when I'm attracted to a game entirely about mages with an interesting magic system I'm not exactly thrilled on occasions when I can't use it combatively, and must turn to runny gunny punchy methods to solve the problem.

Click to shrink...

Why is it that mages have to do everything via immense and unpredictable cosmic power? That's my question for you. You wouldn't use an atomic bomb for everyday affairs, would you?

 

[tzar1990]

Hence what I don't like about it.

I mean, I recognise that Paradox is meant to be an interesting challenge that forces you to be creative and work around the limitation while also helping to justify on a narrative level why there's a masquerade to begin with... but when I'm attracted to a game entirely about mages with an interesting magic system I'm not exactly thrilled on occasions when I can't use it combatively, and must turn to runny gunny punchy methods to solve the problem.

Click to shrink...

Well, no one's going to stop you from just removing paradox - the White Wolf Canon Ninjas have been laid off, so its not like anyone will bust down your door if you hack things around. Most of the reason for Paradox is to make sure the World of Darkness actually look like ours on the surface, which is hard to do if people are throwing fireballs around all over the place.

The other reason you're encouraged to use mundane combat skills instead of just "fireballs 'errywhere" is a balance issue. If you can just go all magic, all the time, investing in magic becomes the best combat option - meaning that mundane combat skills are to some degree a trap option, rather than a good investment for being good at fight. This is seen as undesireable, since your mundane skills are supposed to be a core part of your character, not a decoration off to the side of your real abilities.

 

[EarthScorpion]

Correct. If you try to play either Mage like you're a Classic Fantasy Wizard throwing fireballs, you're doing it wrong because you're not in the genre you think you are in. Both Mages are urban fantasy conspiracy horror and the game does not support the free use of fireballs. Magic is dangerous to use (at least in theory), and the main advantage Mages have over anyone else is the way they are infowar gods.

Indeed, one of the major conflicts of both games is "Back in the old day, we used to be able to fireball whoever we liked. Now we can't. This sucks! Let's beat up the people who stop us freely fireballing dudes!".

 

[LastChronicler]

Why is it that mages have to do everything via immense and unpredictable cosmic power? That's my question for you. You wouldn't use an atomic bomb for everyday affairs, would you?

Click to shrink...

'When did I say they have to?', is I think the question I'd return to you.

There's all sorts of justifications you can offer to me as to why you can't walk down a busy street throwing fireballs until the government mobilises the military to kill you. Or one of the first cops on the scene just shoots you dead. Fine and dandy. I'm merely expressing the annoyance that a game entirely centered on the fact that you're a mage with all sorts of fantastic powers is 'doing it wrong' when they want to make frequent use of those powers for one area of play.

It's not, I think, an especially unfair complaint.

 

[MJ12 Commando]

'When did I say they have to?', is I think the question I'd return to you.

Click to shrink...

Either your hypothetical vain-with-no-consequences magic is no better at combat than a more subtle method, at which point the status quo is restored because only an idiot mage will throw fireballs around when guns do the job just as well, or it's better at combat than a more subtle method, at which point a mage is forced to use it to survive, making all mage fights random fireball throwing contests.

This is why vulgar magic in WoD is powerful but also risky-so you have a reason why you might use vulgar magic but also a reason to not use it.

There's all sorts of justifications you can offer to me as to why you can't walk down a busy street throwing fireballs until the government mobilises the military to kill you. Or one of the first cops on the scene just shoots you dead. Fine and dandy. I'm merely expressing the annoyance that a game entirely centered on the fact that you're a mage with all sorts of fantastic powers is 'doing it wrong' when they want to make frequent use of those powers for one area of play.

It's not, I think, an especially unfair complaint.

Click to shrink...

A combat mage in oWoD is going to be making frequent use of their powers in combat. I have made basically the most mundanely capable combat magi and almost always they throw around a lot of magic in a fight. More subtle magic, yes, but pretending it's less fantastic simply because there's no BIFF POW is kind of silly. Look at the Matrix Lobby Shootout through a Mage lens-Neo and Trinity are casting effects all the time. Forces 2, "I run across that wall to enhance my dodge." Time 1, "I time my movements perfectly so that the enemy with a clear line of fire is reloading and won't finish doing so before I reach him." Matter 2, Forces 2, "My gun shoots right through his armor vest." There's probably some coincidental Correspondence being thrown in as well. And you're telling me the lobby shootout isn't "fantastic" in any way?

No, a mage frequently using their powers is not "doing it wrong." A mage who foolishly uses his or her magic is doing it wrong. You're seeing the game with this dichotomy between the mystic and the mundane. The trick is-in oWoD, there very explicitly is not, and the most effective mage is one who also recognizes this and uses both in cooperation.

 

[EarthScorpion]

No, a mage frequently using their powers is not "doing it wrong." A mage who foolishly uses his or her magic is doing it wrong. You're seeing the game with this dichotomy between the mystic and the mundane. The trick is-in oWoD, there very explicitly is not, and the most effective mage is one who also recognizes this and uses both in cooperation.

Click to shrink...

Meanwhile, while we're bringing up the Matrix parallels, oMage might have inspired the aesthetics of the Matrix films, but nMage takes its themes and feel.

The system is your enemy. Every single Sleeper has a malevolent unreality living in their souls. It hates you. You, personally. Yes, you. Every single Sleeper has this thing, this taint, in them and it's watching. It's waiting. If it sees you, it'll go for you. You have to hide. Because the system is your enemy. Every Sleeper out there is watching for you to do things, even if they don't know it. You have to hide your magic, because you're just a candleflame and there's an ocean of malevolent unreality out there, just waiting to extinguish you if it finds you.

Don't let it find you.

(nMage is a horror game, and complaining that it is a horror game will get raised eyebrows from me.)

 

[Aaron Peori]

Can you disguise crude magic? for example have something that looks like makeshift flamethrower when you're throwing fire around

Click to shrink...

By definition any vulgar magic that is disguised ceases to be vulgar magic. That's the entire point. If you can convince people that nothing supernatural is happening, its coincidental.

So, like, the best place to pull of a really vulgar effect is on stage in Las Vegas.

(Unless an actual stage magician is in the audience, in which case he calls 'Bullshit' and everything goes straight to a paradox realm)

But yes, stuff like having a flamethrower on hand means your Forces effects can be coincidental ("Out of fuel? No, I had a half tank left.") and if you want to blow someone up you can never go wrong with the good old 'gas explosion'. (Just remember to set it up by dramatically pulling some hoses out of the wall a few rounds before you use the Rote.)

 

[LastChronicler]

Either your hypothetical vain-with-no-consequences magic is no better at combat than a more subtle method, at which point the status quo is restored because only an idiot mage will throw fireballs around when guns do the job just as well, or it's better at combat than a more subtle method, at which point a mage is forced to use it to survive, making all mage fights random fireball throwing contests.

Click to shrink...

This is ridiculous. If a game sells you on what you are, and proceeds to show you such an incredible wide range of the applications of your power, then tells you that when you engage in something that is a staple of almost every tabletop RPG there is, you can only make very limited covert use of your powers because reasons... that's kind of annoying. I don't relish it when a game that makes you capable of so much out of combat that it has to warn the Storyteller not to nerf character capabilities, suddenly restricts much more of your options when you engage in it.

Some people relish the system as it is; okay, fine, I'm pleased for them. To me, it's something that detracts from the most interesting part of the system.

No, a mage frequently using their powers is not "doing it wrong." A mage who foolishly uses his or her magic is doing it wrong. You're seeing the game with this dichotomy between the mystic and the mundane. The trick is-in oWoD, there very explicitly is not, and the most effective mage is one who also recognizes this and uses both in cooperation.

Click to shrink...

You're continually specifying oWoD when I've already made it clear that I'm only familiar with (and discussing) nMage. Is there any relevant reason for that?

(nMage is a horror game, and complaining that it is a horror game will get raised eyebrows from me.)

Click to shrink...

I don't believe that a truly excellent pen and paper RPG system which has mechanics that stretch such a range of abilities should say 'This is a horror game. Don't play it in any other way.' Especially when each corebook/splat the developers release have sections on playing the game in question other ways.

I mean, for all its faults, Exalted doesn't demand you only play Cosmic Horror, Grand Strategy or whatever.

 

[Imrix]

I mean, for all its faults, Exalted doesn't demand you only play Cosmic Horror, Grand Strategy or whatever.

Click to shrink...

Exalted is actually kind of crap at doing Cosmic Horror. It's really hard to sell that sense of helplessness in the face of grand and unknowable intellects when you've been uplifted by an ancient heroic soul whose legend, so many thousands of years ago, began with rolling those eldritch horrors for their lunch money. You can do it, but it's hard and requires some contortions of the system, or at least playing one of the more uncommon options on offer.

That's uh, kind of the point. Exalted doesn't do Cosmic Horror well because it's not meant to do that, because even games that look like they offer huge varieties of play options have things they aren't meant to cover. As I understand it, Mage doesn't really do the modern pop cultural idea of magic as fireballs and lightning bolts; insofar as it engages with that (comparatively young) brand of what magic is, it does so in order to reject it. That's not a flaw, that's just Mage defining what sort of game and setting it is.

By all means change that if you want to play Mage with fireballs and lightning at your table. Your game is your game, so do what you want with it and if you have fun with that, rock on. But if you're going to try and say that Mage, in the sense of the books that everybody cracks open, should cater to that playstyle... I think you're not going to meet much agreement.

 

[LastChronicler]

Exalted is actually kind of crap at doing Cosmic Horror.

Click to shrink...

That's not really what I meant. A game can be better or worse at certain genres, and I understand that that's a sacrifice that you have to make on the altar of practicality. My point was that EarthScorpion was saying that nMage is (or should only be?) a Horror game specifically, whereas I think that that approach sacrifices a lot of the potential appeal (whatever the genre in question may be).

 

[EarthScorpion]

I don't believe that a truly excellent pen and paper RPG system which has mechanics that stretch such a range of abilities should say 'This is a horror game. Don't play it in any other way.'

Click to shrink...

You may not believe it, but that doesn't change a thing. Mage is not a generic magic user system, and it is written and based around being Urban Fantasy Horror, not just Urban Fantasy. There are all sorts of things reinforcing genre and setting.

That's why you can sacrifice human beings for tasty, tasty Mana. That's why it's a worse Wisdom sin if you use magic to commit the sin than if you don't. That's why the Wisdom table exists at all. That's why there's the Abyss, waiting and watching for you to slip up. That's why Reality is a gnostic Lie, a cosmic prison which traps humanity made by ancient tyrants who had the hubris to reach out and overthrow the gods. That's why all the Orders are crazy to some level or another, and why the mages who reject the Orders just wind up different kinds of crazy. That's why mages are Arcane XP junkies who compulsively stick their noses into mysteries in return for hits of extra XP, driving them into conflict with everything just because they want extra XP [1].

And sure, you can cut out Paradox, and you can cut out Wisdom, and you can cut out all the mechanics which incentivise mages to be terrible and powerful godlings, treating humans as weak pawns as they go crazy from their unwise acts. But then you're not playing Mage, and you've hacked out swathes of the setting and the system to enable you to play the game you want to play. You can do that if you want! But don't pretend that Mage isn't a horror game that knows it's a horror game and is built around being a horror game.

[1] The Arcane XP mechanic is brilliant because it drives players to action and incentivises getting yourself in trouble because you get more XP from keeping the Abyssal text and studying it and whoops it ate the mind of your Sleepwalker girlfriend and now she's an insane wreck of a human possessed by a fragment of a dead universe, singing the praises of the Prince of Ten Thousand Leaves.

 

[Imrix]

That's not really what I meant. A game can be better or worse at certain genres, and I understand that that's a sacrifice that you have to make on the altar of practicality. My point was that EarthScorpion was saying that nMage is (or should only be?) a Horror game specifically, whereas I think that that approach sacrifices a lot of the potential appeal (whatever the genre in question may be).

Click to shrink...

Okay. I firmly disagree.

Most WoD games are trying to be something pretty specific, and they benefit from that because by narrowing their focus they can specialise to a much greater degree, digging deeper into their chosen theme than a broader game has the time or pagespace to achieve. Mage is not trying to be a general wizardry game; it sets out to be particularly good at telling a specific kind of story.

There are absolutely systems and settings that take a broader approach. That's a way of building an RPG; it's not necessarily a way to make a better RPG.

 

[EarthScorpion]

By definition any vulgar magic that is disguised ceases to be vulgar magic. That's the entire point. If you can convince people that nothing supernatural is happening, its coincidental.

Click to shrink...

That's not actually true, incidentally. Vulgar-without-witnesses is a thing. Areas have a passive Consensus as well as the active one enforced by watching Sleepers. Hence;

if you want to blow someone up you can never go wrong with the good old 'gas explosion'. (Just remember to set it up by dramatically pulling some hoses out of the wall a few rounds before you use the Rote.)

Click to shrink...

... that only applies if there actually is a gas main running through the wall. If there's not one, then you just made a vulgar explosion which you might be able to argue your GM into accepting that it's vulgar-without-witnesses if it looks like there could be a gas main in the wall and you shouted about "I smell gas" and "Watch out, I think it's going to blow" shortly before you invoked the spirits of flame to unleash their vengeance on this sadly-mostly-not-on-fire world.

 

[Eukie]

Considerably worse. In nMage, you can get away with multiple vulgar spells in front of witnesses and Paradox will give you some bashing damage if you absorb it. In oMage, if you do multiple vulgar fireball spells in front of witnesses, that's 4 paradox per fireball, so you'll wind up with a large paradox backlash at the end of the scene if you don't let it incap you and delay it, and probably catch fire or something.

Click to shrink...

To be picky, the exact amount of paradox in that situation depends on the edition:

oMage 1e, 2e, M20: 1 Paradox
oMage Revised: 4 Paradox

 

[Scia]

On the other hand, how often do you see a setting where the mage can basically cast the whole day without a problem as long as he is smart? Most are either plagued by the dreaded vancian spectre or consider magic something where you spent fuel until you are no longer able to cast as you run out of gas.
Basically the only ones where you can do it all day that I recall at the top of the head are Mage and the twins of Shadowrun&Earthdawn if one ignores Fate where magic is just a descriptor

 

[SinisterPorpoise]

On the other hand, how often do you see a setting where the mage can basically cast the whole day without a problem as long as he is smart? Most are either plagued by the dreaded vancian spectre or consider magic something where you spent fuel until you are no longer able to cast as you run out of gas.
Basically the only ones where you can do it all day that I recall at the top of the head are Mage and the twins of Shadowrun&Earthdawn if one ignores Fate where magic is just a descriptor

Click to shrink...

You can do it in World Tree if you are careful.
It's actually a specific skill in-universe called "Feather-casting"; Using magic without paying the cost.
They also have "Hammer-casting"; Paying a doubled cost for an effect that exceeds your current ability.

 

[VanusDraco]

Hence what I don't like about it.

I mean, I recognise that Paradox is meant to be an interesting challenge that forces you to be creative and work around the limitation while also helping to justify on a narrative level why there's a masquerade to begin with... but when I'm attracted to a game entirely about mages with an interesting magic system I'm not exactly thrilled on occasions when I can't use it combatively, and must turn to runny gunny punchy methods to solve the problem.

Click to shrink...

If you really really want to just go "Power Overwhelming" in MtA, you can do it. You just have to take the drawbacks that comes with it.

Cause Taftani are certainly a thing, and as a mage, cutting loose can be pretty amazing. Before the paradox spirit comes to spank you. I think it creates a pretty cool dynamic, where Mages always have the option to just cut loose if you push them too far. I remember reading the Hollowed One book, and the effect of a mage letting go is not so much throwing individual fireballs around, as rain of fire falling from the sky and wiping out a shit ton of vampires across the entire city.

edit: guess I either remembered wrong or it's in a different book. I couldn't actually find the little story with a Hollowed One going old testment on a city full of Vampires.

Nevertheless, if you don't like being subtle, play Taftani, and wear the paradox that you rack up like a badge of honor. It would be the perfectly in character thing to do, and will drive all your friends crazy.

 

[Aaron Peori]

That's not actually true, incidentally. Vulgar-without-witnesses is a thing. Areas have a passive Consensus as well as the active one enforced by watching Sleepers.

Click to shrink...

Vulgar without witness is if you cast a fireball with no one watching. If you use a flamethrower its coincidental.

The entire point is "If people saw this, would they be convinced its non magical?"

Like, by your definition if a Mage pulls a coin out of his pocket that wasn't there before that's Vulgar Without Witness because, hey, the Sleepers can't see if but he's still creating a coin from nothing. Or heck, just altering a coin.

Or, in fact, doing anything at all. Just because the people can't see you seeing the world in thermooptic vision doesn't mean a human doing so without goggles isn't culgar.

This is one of those places where the entire system falls apart if everyone is not on the same page. If your ST is an asshole who doesn't allow you to get away with coincidental magic because of constantly throwing vulgar-without-witnesses at you instead find another ST because the one you have is being a jerk.

 

[NonSequtur]

Do you really want a HAP/HOP war? This is how you get a HAP/HOP War.

 

[Scia]

Vulgar without witness is if you cast a fireball with no one watching. If you use a flamethrower its coincidental.

The entire point is "If people saw this, would they be convinced its non magical?"

Like, by your definition if a Mage pulls a coin out of his pocket that wasn't there before that's Vulgar Without Witness because, hey, the Sleepers can't see if but he's still creating a coin from nothing. Or heck, just altering a coin.

Or, in fact, doing anything at all. Just because the people can't see you seeing the world in thermooptic vision doesn't mean a human doing so without goggles isn't culgar.

This is one of those places where the entire system falls apart if everyone is not on the same page. If your ST is an asshole who doesn't allow you to get away with coincidental magic because of constantly throwing vulgar-without-witnesses at you instead find another ST because the one you have is being a jerk.

Click to shrink...

But you would acept that even without a witness, calling down a angel, making a golem, reattaching someone's head to raise them from the dead should not count as coincidental right?

 

[tzar1990]

Vulgar without witness is if you cast a fireball with no one watching. If you use a flamethrower its coincidental.

The entire point is "If people saw this, would they be convinced its non magical?"

Like, by your definition if a Mage pulls a coin out of his pocket that wasn't there before that's Vulgar Without Witness because, hey, the Sleepers can't see if but he's still creating a coin from nothing. Or heck, just altering a coin.

Click to shrink...

This actually varies - for oMage, the M20 version specifies that something the game assumes an average human bystander when determining if something is Vulgar or Coincidental, since otherwise nothing is truly coincidental.

nMage tends to be a bit more strict. If I recall correctly, casting a vulgar effect but using props to make it seem probable is still vulgar, but it negates the extra paradox gain from any nearby witnesses.

But you would acept that even without a witness, calling down a angel, making a golem, reattaching someone's head to raise them from the dead should not count as coincidental right?

Click to shrink...

These are almost certainly going to be Vulgar as fuck, unless you do them in the right location (that is, one with a different consensus), or you fluff them right. A golem is vulgar, but, say, a big dumb slow-moving robot could be consensual. Just attaching the head is vulgar, but if you had a top notch medical facility and put the head and body on ice IMMEDIATELY after decapitation, you might be able to swing it with a lenient ST.

 

[EarthScorpion]

Vulgar without witness is if you cast a fireball with no one watching. If you use a flamethrower its coincidental.

The entire point is "If people saw this, would they be convinced its non magical?"

Click to shrink...

And making "an explosion caused by a gas main" when there isn't actually a gas main present isn't believable. You're using the gas main as your excuse to cover up your paradigmic invocation of the angel Gabriel under whose auspices fire falls. If there's no actual gas main, you're just directly invoking an angel and making an explosion and the local Consensus goes "Bullshit, there wasn't a gas main there" and you get slapped by vulgar-without-witnesses, but the Sleepers don't count as witnesses if you've tricked them into thinking there could have been one there.

So, no, I wouldn't let you get away with pulling a coin out of your pocket coincidentally if someone had emptied out your pocket earlier in the scene. Because your spell is that you're calling an angel to carry the coin from where you had hidden it to your pocket, and your defence against the Consensus is "Well, I could have had it in my pocket all along" and if you couldn't have had it in your pocket all along, the Consensus goes "Like bullshit you did, we know your pocket was empty" and slaps you with vulgar without witnesses. Same mechanism by which things become Improbable - having a single pistol hidden under your jacket is viable, having three desert eagles and a grenade gets you slapped when you've exhausted the "things I could plausibly have hidden there" allowance.

That is why smart mages with a non-Reality Compliant paradigm don't teleport guns into their pockets. They make sure they had the weapon all along, you just didn't know they had it (and maybe even they'd forgotten it, because it's a really well-made covert holster).