Does this matter? So what if they've taken the red pill and seen the true nature of things? If they were an Atlantean god-king or an Archmage they might try to use this knowledge to reshape reality, but at the level of normal mages it just gives them a bunch of neat magic tricks, much like a demon's exploits. There's game balance considerations to think about, but unless the higher levels of the cosmology are going to come down and play a role in your game they don't really matter, and if they do you can probably fit the God-Machine into the Supernal Realms somehow. Perhaps it is a bound supernal deity of machinery and technology seeking to take the Throne, even more inimical to human life then the Exarchs, for the Exarchs need humans to oppress, while the God-Machine needs nothing but mindless tools.
White Wolf's World of Darkness
Callmesalticidae
probably not a spider
- Location
- Burlington, Vermont
- Pronouns
- It/Any
I think that's the problem being pointed to: Mage is this vast assimilating sub-setting that subordinates all the other sub-settings to itself and forces them to be understood and maybe even reinterpreted in its own context. Vampire and Werewolf can run into each other without either setting saying anything definitive about the other, but Mage sits above everything else.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
It seems like the easy way to do that is just not think about the Supernal Superstructural Reality, in the sense that actual on-earth Mages clearly have no idea what the fuck it is, and have competing ideas on how everything works. There's actually a sidebar [I think in the Mystagogue Book] proposing multiple different explanations that Mages have for what the fuck Vampires, Werewolves/etc are, and how they fit in the cosmology.
Like I said, you can just ignore the high-level cosmology unless you want to have an archmage show up and make it relevant. If you do then you have to fit them together somehow, but otherwise you can just have the God-Machine be one more weird thing in a setting full of weird things.
QafianSage
Ascending Ape
- Location
- United Kingdom
Meaning no offense, would it be possible to get some comments on actual holes in the paradigm I laid out?
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Queshire
Wants a pink flamingo for their lawn.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
I'm not as familiar with the setting as some, but I'd hope that the cross over is meant for Demon players? It seems to lean rather heavily towards everything Mages know being wrong and I can't imagine that being appealing to players.
QafianSage
Ascending Ape
- Location
- United Kingdom
It is Demon-focused, yes. There is a Mage player, but he's something of a veteran and has specifically asked me to shake it up a bit.
Wade Garrett
Just trying to do the right thing
- Pronouns
- He/His/Him
Isn't the Mages official position (insofar as huge sweeping generalizations like that hold true) "Once upon a time Everywhere and Everywhen exploded because men toyed with the powers of gods and now we're all bumbling around in the post apocalypse wreckage with vague and contradictory guidance from the Watchtowers or the Exarchs" ?
This is not exactly, I'm looking at this and I'm looking at "Mages understand the real true nature of reality" and they kinda don't?
This is not exactly, I'm looking at this and I'm looking at "Mages understand the real true nature of reality" and they kinda don't?
I agree with Leliel. Feels like you've kind of misunderstood how the Supernal relates to the Phenomenal. Other than than it seems fine I guess. As long as you and you players are happy with it.
QafianSage
Ascending Ape
- Location
- United Kingdom
I'm looking at Mage 2e and it seems to be making it pretty clear that the Supernal world is at the very least seen by mages as 'truer' than reality. I mean, for heaven's sake the whole gameline refers to reality as 'the Fallen World', in explicit contract to the Supernal. Quoting from Signs of Sorcery,
If I'm misunderstanding, please tell me how it's meant to be read, because I'm not getting it.
...I mean that honestly, by the way, not as a provocation or indignantly. Seriously, a clear explanation of what the Supernal is meant to be would greatly help if I'm laboring under a misapprehension.
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The Platonic symbolism of reality, made with a bit of satire of Plato to tie in with Mage's lampooning of ; it gives reality meaning, so in a sense it is "Truer" than reality, but that doesn't mean reality isn't real, it means that the Supernal Realms lack the Lie that makes everyone miserable (a really good story can be said to speak to Truth without being real). The Lie is not the Fallen World, the Lie is "Oppression is Necessary" and all the internal justifications for that. When you look into the Supernal, you see what's effectively your Realm's artistic take on what's happening; a Supernal Lion following your asshole boss around is the asshole boss himself, translated into Silver Ladder pseudo-Nietzschean mythology (the Lion is master morality, the belief that whatever you can get away with is morally justified - the thearchs, having the first clue about what and who Nietzsche was, do not like the Lion). Your boss is not there because the Lion already way and what you're seeing is a shadow of the real reality translated into a jerk middle manager, the Lion is there as a physical abstraction of the feeling of "oh crap, the office tyrant is here" the boss brings with him, in effect the meaning behind "this person is a predatory asshole." Because the Supernal is weird, a major screwup can result in the Lion noticing and menacing you, but at the Lion's core, it's a part of your boss, not the other way around. So it is for, say, the wounded but proud Wolf who follows a changeling around, it's the representation of her own hard-won freedom.
Or, in mundane terms I understand; the world is the story and the words. The Supernal is the ability to form opinions based on the story and the words, and so develop your own idea of what the book is about. (Continuing, the Lie is the overwhelming anger felt by people who could possibly disagree with their One True Reading of the text and gatekeeping, and the Abyss is the plot synopsis of people who have no idea what it's about, even in passing, but are sure it sucks because it's something liked by people who aren't them.)
Don't worry if this is confusing, mages find it confusing too. This is part of why they don't study Supernal Mysteries so much as those that are definitely products of the Fallen World, and why they get Arcane Experience for learning about something non-Supernal anyway.
- Location
- Spain
Uh, what.
Unless something has seriously changed in 2e, this is totally backwards. The Seers of the Throne are the guys that have given up in trying to reach the Truth. (And instead try to rule the fallen world with some help from the jailers)
The Pentacle opinions about how to transcend, or about if it's possible at all, are varied, but in principle they are still trying.
(On that note remember that the Silver Ladder wants to bring up all the sleepers with them, if only they find a way to break the lie badly enough to do that)
Something seriously changed.
Or rather, something was seriously refocused. The Seers want to find the Truth, but they want it drip-fed to them by the Exarchs and they want to have luxury in this world too. The Fallen World is worthless to the Seers; that's why they've sided with the Tyrants who embody why it's miserable, because there's no point in changing the status quo (especially because they benefit from it). In effect, they want palaces in Heaven that are better than the palaces on Earth, and they want palaces on Earth too. Seers want a lot of things, most of them very self-centered.
The Pentacle contains the true Gnostics, but as noted, they want Sleepers to come with them. And only the Mysterium and Silver Ladder make it a core tenant of their Orders; the Guardians want to protect the world from mage hubris and literally do not think they have the right to Ascend until the day the Hireomagus forgives their sins, the Adamantine Arrow faces a completely different direction, and the Free Council...well, the Free Council really doesn't have a core ethos, they're a lobby for a bunch of people who agree that "Humanity is Magical" and "We Need A Seat At The Negotiating Table."
TL;DR version: The Seers want to Ascend so they can be gods as an extension of being mortal kings. The Pentacle wants to Ascend to stop the gods there from being the Greek Pantheon.
- Location
- Pittsburgh, PA
So, to begin with, I need to ask: has anyone previously noticed any issues with the 2e Mage: the Awakening writeup for the Guardians of the Veil? Because I have, and I think it's pretty damn important that they be discussed, but if this is old news and I just missed that part of the thread, it's better not to dredge up old horse bones.
This is mostly me trying to be diplomatic here before unfurling the prewritten dissertation I put together on the many eyebrow-raising elements of the Guardians' stated 2e beliefs.
This is mostly me trying to be diplomatic here before unfurling the prewritten dissertation I put together on the many eyebrow-raising elements of the Guardians' stated 2e beliefs.
If you mean the part of them being a doomsday cult and the "secret hierarchy of souls" bit, it's supposed to be uncomfortable. The Guardians are not the good guys, they're very much ruthless spies who are self-aware about it and trying to do the dirty work the Pentacle doesn't want. Yes, hard men, hard decisions, but the writers know just how easily that goes from "doing the things I have to" to "something I want to do is something I have to"; there's a reason they're explicitly called out as unpopular among the rest of the Pentacle and the source of many a Left-Handed Legacy.
Thing is, there's also a reason one of the Esoteric Tenets is "All crowns are false"; as their 1E book overviews (and their 2E writeup is a summary of their 1E book), nobody is above the law, and nobody is better by nature. It doesn't matter how pure your soul is, if you're an oppressive tyrant, you deserve to be overthrown (which fails at least one of the Ur-Fascist criteria with flying colors; they're suspicious of any institutional power, including their own or the Pentacle's). Anyone who is Awakening, in their view, deserves at least a shot, because the Guardians beat it into their recruits that they aren't perfect judges at all, so they will judge based on what you do after you become a mage. A thing I wish they put in the core was that the Crimson Veil (proving you can kill or otherwise ruin a life for the Order) is the penultimate test of loyalty; the one you have to get past in order to be accepted as a full Guardian is the Black Veil, where you are tested on your ability to disobey when you sense your superior isn't working for the betterment of the Pentacle. They want independent operatives, not disciplined, loyal, jackbooted thugs.
It's a delicate balancing act though, which doesn't always succeed, and I'd love to hear your spin on it.
- Location
- Pittsburgh, PA
Unfortunately, my spin on it is that they're... evil. Like, evil to a degree equivalent to the US Republican Party, if not worse.
I will now present my argument precept by precept:
While at least well-intentioned, the demonization of Paradox as a moral failing, and not just the equivalent of a metalworker accidentally getting burned by a stray spark, is... something they kind of need to justify, instead of taking as read. What's their proof that Paradox "pushes the universe closer to final dissolution"? Considering that Paradox can happen from things like "trying not to get murdered by a weird monster and having to cast repeatedly while you try to escape", what bestows a moral value onto accumulating Paradox as an inherent element, regardless of context?2e Mage said:
This, on the other hand, is just a bad principle to have.2e Mage said:
While the idea of situational hierarchy (IE, computer programming should be entrusted to a person with programming knowledge over someone who's never seen a computer) is valid, meritocracy is downright toxic.
Not only does it promote an endless, horrible struggle between "the worthy" to decide who is currently the absolute apex of their given field, the simple fact that something like "being good at accounting" or "being good at football" is referred to as being "worthy" lays the groundwork of its second issue: it creates the unspoken assumption that those who lack talent, who are not sufficiently gifted or motivated to assert dominion over their peers, are not just insufficiently gifted or motivated, but morally inferior, that they're lazy, or leeches, or stupid, and thus deserve scorn and disregard.
However much it might attempt to avoid doing so, meritocracy is inherently friendlier and more receptive to elitism and hierarchical disdain than it is to egalitarianism and fair treatment.
...2e Mage said:
...
Okay, this is just flat-out insane.
This is a giant heap of completely unsupported, unproven twaddle being used to justify abandoning any sort of morality. "Purifying the Wheel"? "Filtering the Abyss"? The hell are they on about?
They're making an extraordinary claim with unimaginable implications - that morality is something that not only can be doffed like an overcoat under circumstances, but that doing so is a means of strengthening one's moral judgment. Their evidence for this is... nothing. They claim that ends don't justify the means, after literally saying that ends justify the means, and that in fact, vile means actually promote and enhance moral ends.
Earlier, they argued that morality can be completely divorced from context, that some acts (accumulating Paradox, possessing magic without meeting their standards of 'worthiness') are inherently wrong and bad. This is, at best, a further separation of moral value from one's actions and the context they take place in, to the point of making morality nigh on meaningless beyond an entirely personal context. It's tantamount to arguing that actions are irrelevant, and all that matters is the intentions and inner motives of the actors. Charitably, this is a naive and unhelpful stance to take. Uncharitably, it's a common tactic used by alt-right trolls as a smokescreen against people pointing out that Nazis are Nazis.
While the stated intention of this precept - forcing others to confront their flaws - is entirely valid, its combination with their other precepts makes this highly suspect. If the Guardians are permitted to perform acts that they would consider evidence of moral perfidy if anyone else did them, then that supposes an implicit double standard. Laws for thee, yet not for me.2e Mage said:
And based on some of their other precepts, the Guardians have no argument to present in defense of this beyond their own conviction that it's correct. Arguably, their precept that "sins for a just end grant wisdom" effectively immunizes any individual Guardian from possessing any flaw except those they are deemed to possess by senior members of their order. After all, flaws and failings are contended to be capable of generating greater overall good than a life of humanitarian endeavor and compassion, "under certain circumstances". Circumstances which, conveniently, are for the Guardians alone to define.
...2e Mage... Wait no said:
...
...
Oh dear. Oh dear, dear, dear, dear.
...
Okay, we now have to talk about a man called Julius Evola. I strongly advise reading through the Wikipedia article in that link, but for those who aren't willing, I'll throw down some quotes:
This is basically that "Sins for a just end grant wisdom" idea, but strained through a misogyny-soaked piece of occult fascist cheesecloth. Guardians are entitled to commit acts that "might" be seen as conventionally immoral, but for them is allegedly proof of their superior moral character.
Now, admittedly, he then defines "organic preformation" into a fairly neutral lump of beige nomenclature, but the Guardians' beliefs on souls practically mirror his. Some people are just inherently, metaphysically Better Than You, and the natural state of being is a pyramid with the most Better Than You people at the top, shaping the lesser masses below them in accordance with their axiomatically superior judgment and intellect. Combined with their disdain for informed consent in their master-student relationships, fixation on not explaining things, and general dogmatism, this is a recipe for a system vulnerable to abuse by those who happen to be sorted into the "worthy" category that it practically encourages corruption and favoritism, and can potentially crumble into fascism with startling ease.
And by the way, reincarnation was a pretty big feature of his ideology, particularly with regards to his postulation of an inherent, spiritual hierarchy of races. He claimed that superior souls choose to incarnate into
Now, the Guardians' take on this isn't explicitly racist, but it's still super shady and when considered alongside their other precepts, becomes entirely too concordant with the philosophy of a man who, no joke, told the people trying him for his part in Mussolini's fascist regime "I am not a fascist. I am a superfascist."
I got derailed by ^ THAT so thoroughly that I didn't actually get around to critiquing their final precept, so I'll tackle that now.
This is, for all intents and purposes, the Guardians writing their own version of the Book of Revelation. It's about a mysterious, perfect savior who will fix everything. More scummily, the Hieromagus also retroactively justifies their crab-bucket mentality, because if they succeed at destroying someone who was getting too uppity for their tastes, then clearly, he wasn't the Hieromagus and thus unworthy to save the world. Oh, and he'll judge them for their sins when he comes along, too, so they can safely ignore any attempt to criticize or oppose their ratfucking and backstabbery by anyone who can't prove they're Wizard Jesus on the spot!Oh thank God said:
It's an embarrassingly threadbare facade to cover up their systemic arrogance, self-righteousness, and overall shitty behaviors and beliefs. Just... just a nauseatingly overt bit of propaganda to top off a parade of protofascist, elitist bullshit.
My main solution to this, and issues I've heard about with the rest of the Diamond? Rewrite the game so that the Diamond are the Peter Pan to the Seers' Captain Hook - they're not a hero and a villain, they're two shitty people who just achieved their shittiness through contrasting means, and the players are meant to be Wendy, realize that neither of them have anything to offer worth having, and go home to actually be compassionate, considerate adults instead of involving themselves with the melodramatic posturing of two equally horrible groups.
Make the Diamond Orders into something you likely get swept up in while you're starting out as a Mage, and then gradually realize is full of shit and not worthy of your trust, much less your service. Make the normal progression of a campaign have the players walk away from Awakened Omelas around the end of Act 1, with the rest of the story being about their efforts to expand their understanding beyond the toxic, deformed paradigms that the Diamond tries to force on everyone (and survive the fallout of them backing out of a very old, very nasty cabal of deeply unpleasant Mages.)
Eukie
Powered by furious Canadian redheads
A metalworker harmed by a stray spark harms only themselves, while a Mage who causes paradox can risk terrible things happening to people around them from Anomalies of Manifestations of Gulmoths. It's not only dangerous to the Mage, but to everyone around them, and it's a fairly uncomplicated argument to claim that voluntarily exposing other people to danger is, in fact, morally bad.
If you put your own survival against a weird monster higher than the value of all the lives that may be lost or harmed through the Paradox you'll cause, it's not difficult to argue that that's a supremely selfish act and not morally neutral.
...Okay then. You...don't have a lot of context for this, do you?
Because in 2E, it kinda is: you deliberately chose to unleash Paradox onto the world because you don't want to deal with Backlash damage, and given how Reach works, you accumulate it by being reckless and pushing farther and farther even as the Paradox dicepool increases. If you leave behind a gulmoth or an anomaly, you chose to leave it there. Maybe not "dissolution is the end state", but "YOUR INABILITY TO CONTROL YOUR OWN MAGIC IS EATING US!" makes that assumption kinda understandable. Combine that with how the Abyss actively works to warp reality for the worse, and well...
I don't disagree with a lot of their creepier aspects, they're the designated evil friend. They wouldn't accept the Left-Handed if they were good. But this?
This misses something very important about Guardians, and it's my objection to the premise that they're evil to the degree of the Republicans.
Because the Hireomagus is their savior. Their core tenant is he will not be a Guardian, because they aren't the kind of people who become Wizard Jesus. They know they aren't the best people. They aren't really good people, either. They use that story as a way to tell themselves that somehow, someday, they will have had a point.
In fact, it's explicitly called out the moment someone starts calling themselves the Hireomagus, alarm bells go off in saner Guardian heads because that person is a megalomaniac. It's why the rest of the Orders know about the whole myth, because Guardians keep on going off the reservation and thinking they deserve the title.
Truth is, they also know they aren't that different from the Seers, and they hate the fact they look like Seers even when doing everything Wisely. The difference is that they give a damn about Sleepers - in fact, one might say they are the most pro-Sleeper order, because they do everything in their power to protect the world from other mages.
And, here's the thing, the bit you're missing here:
This is all called out in the corebook. The Pentacle dislikes the Guardians as their evil friend because they so easily end up thinking their inner darkness is their privilege. The way they stop is because they aren't the only Diamond Order, and the others hold them back from their worse tendencies.
The Guardians are cops. Like all cops, they can get real dirty, real fast, especially if they get self-righteous. That doesn't mean cops aren't providing a necessary service. And before you tell me they kill people and are sneaky: How else are you supposed to stop a person who's a living weapon but needs time to prepare?
On a related note: Your solution is dumping a fire truck on a lighter at best, whataboutism on behalf of the Seers at worst. To protest the Guardians at their worst, you seem to think that
1) Paladins (Adamantine Arrow)
2) Scholars (Mysterium)
3) The People Whose Entire Belief System Revolves Around Being Better Than The Seers (Silver Ladder)
Are all morally equivalent, because the Guardians can fall off the reservation easily, and the others watch the Guardians warily, because they know how wrong they can go.
This is not only a very, very broad solution, it's boring. You're effectively criticizing the game for which the whole idea is that "a human given godlike power is terrifying" for being a game where people who have godlike power can be creepy; it's way more effective if the core ideals are good, but the application is often bad, because that speaks to just how easily wrong humans in general can go, if they pave the road to hell with good intentions and have the power to do so. Worse, it's against canon; the reason the Pentacle outnumbers the Seers in raw numbers of Awakened by a fair margin is that they're syncretic. Even beyond the Free Council being allowed in, and the fact that the basic unit of a Consilium is effectively a claims court where all involved can dispute jurisdiction fairly and peacefully, the Diamond got its membership because they see a tradition that agrees with them and goes "Oh, you must echo these Yantras of the Supernal! Welcome aboard!" And then lets them in if asked. The Free Council formed because their component Nameless decided "uh, no, that's not what our teachings say at all", and the Diamond let them be until the Seers were like "you must be on our side! We insist." The Nameless went "oh crap, oh crap, we need an organization, oh crap", someone suggested democratic voting that let all the Orders have their chair as a group, then the Diamond was like "Um, since you hate the Seers, you want an alliance? We won't impinge on your new Sect at all, we just think we could share resources," and the Libertines went "Sure!" Hence, the Pentacle.
Peter Pan can be an immature prat, but that's the thing; he's immature. He can grow up, if he's convinced to. Captain Hook is a murderous monster whose livelihood depends on his ability to rob people at sea. They are not equivalent. And the players may find unseating the old and nasty mages to replace them to be a better story than just running away. To make them all evil is cutting away plot hooks.
Because in 2E, it kinda is: you deliberately chose to unleash Paradox onto the world because you don't want to deal with Backlash damage, and given how Reach works, you accumulate it by being reckless and pushing farther and farther even as the Paradox dicepool increases. If you leave behind a gulmoth or an anomaly, you chose to leave it there. Maybe not "dissolution is the end state", but "YOUR INABILITY TO CONTROL YOUR OWN MAGIC IS EATING US!" makes that assumption kinda understandable. Combine that with how the Abyss actively works to warp reality for the worse, and well...
I don't disagree with a lot of their creepier aspects, they're the designated evil friend. They wouldn't accept the Left-Handed if they were good. But this?
This misses something very important about Guardians, and it's my objection to the premise that they're evil to the degree of the Republicans.
Because the Hireomagus is their savior. Their core tenant is he will not be a Guardian, because they aren't the kind of people who become Wizard Jesus. They know they aren't the best people. They aren't really good people, either. They use that story as a way to tell themselves that somehow, someday, they will have had a point.
In fact, it's explicitly called out the moment someone starts calling themselves the Hireomagus, alarm bells go off in saner Guardian heads because that person is a megalomaniac. It's why the rest of the Orders know about the whole myth, because Guardians keep on going off the reservation and thinking they deserve the title.
Truth is, they also know they aren't that different from the Seers, and they hate the fact they look like Seers even when doing everything Wisely. The difference is that they give a damn about Sleepers - in fact, one might say they are the most pro-Sleeper order, because they do everything in their power to protect the world from other mages.
And, here's the thing, the bit you're missing here:
This is all called out in the corebook. The Pentacle dislikes the Guardians as their evil friend because they so easily end up thinking their inner darkness is their privilege. The way they stop is because they aren't the only Diamond Order, and the others hold them back from their worse tendencies.
The Guardians are cops. Like all cops, they can get real dirty, real fast, especially if they get self-righteous. That doesn't mean cops aren't providing a necessary service. And before you tell me they kill people and are sneaky: How else are you supposed to stop a person who's a living weapon but needs time to prepare?
On a related note: Your solution is dumping a fire truck on a lighter at best, whataboutism on behalf of the Seers at worst. To protest the Guardians at their worst, you seem to think that
1) Paladins (Adamantine Arrow)
2) Scholars (Mysterium)
3) The People Whose Entire Belief System Revolves Around Being Better Than The Seers (Silver Ladder)
Are all morally equivalent, because the Guardians can fall off the reservation easily, and the others watch the Guardians warily, because they know how wrong they can go.
This is not only a very, very broad solution, it's boring. You're effectively criticizing the game for which the whole idea is that "a human given godlike power is terrifying" for being a game where people who have godlike power can be creepy; it's way more effective if the core ideals are good, but the application is often bad, because that speaks to just how easily wrong humans in general can go, if they pave the road to hell with good intentions and have the power to do so. Worse, it's against canon; the reason the Pentacle outnumbers the Seers in raw numbers of Awakened by a fair margin is that they're syncretic. Even beyond the Free Council being allowed in, and the fact that the basic unit of a Consilium is effectively a claims court where all involved can dispute jurisdiction fairly and peacefully, the Diamond got its membership because they see a tradition that agrees with them and goes "Oh, you must echo these Yantras of the Supernal! Welcome aboard!" And then lets them in if asked. The Free Council formed because their component Nameless decided "uh, no, that's not what our teachings say at all", and the Diamond let them be until the Seers were like "you must be on our side! We insist." The Nameless went "oh crap, oh crap, we need an organization, oh crap", someone suggested democratic voting that let all the Orders have their chair as a group, then the Diamond was like "Um, since you hate the Seers, you want an alliance? We won't impinge on your new Sect at all, we just think we could share resources," and the Libertines went "Sure!" Hence, the Pentacle.
Peter Pan can be an immature prat, but that's the thing; he's immature. He can grow up, if he's convinced to. Captain Hook is a murderous monster whose livelihood depends on his ability to rob people at sea. They are not equivalent. And the players may find unseating the old and nasty mages to replace them to be a better story than just running away. To make them all evil is cutting away plot hooks.
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- Location
- Pittsburgh, PA
First, the Guardians are arguing from the position that it's bad regardless of context. Causing Paradox is inherently bad, screw whatever circumstances surrounded it. An enemy Mage abducted a Sleeper and had them looking at you through a one-way mirror you didn't know about while you were fighting for your life? Fuck you, you're evil for causing Paradox. You had to choose between suffering some nasty personal backlash and maybe discoloring some grass, and letting children get smeared all over the road by a speeding van? Fuck you, you caused Paradox, you're evil and need to be punished.
Speaking of, your argument presupposes that Paradox normally manifests as apocalyptic eruptions of fire and shoggoths, when the overwhelming majority are harmful primarily to the Mage, and either invisible or merely disconcerting for Sleeper witnesses. The kind of flagrant, borderline suicidal disregard necessary to produce the kind of Paradox backlash you're talking about is far from common, and likely to kill the Mage responsible if it's bad enough to also endanger the lives of bystanders.
As for your rather glib dismissal of self-defense as a motive for accumulating Paradox, that seems akin to arguing that cars are immoral because they can potentially result in death or property damage for people besides the driver. For it to be valid, you have presume that the driver (in this case, the Mage trying not to get killed) is actively incompetent or malicious, which completely changes the tone of the argument into something that's not really germane to this discussion, because the issue is the Guardians trying to slap down arbitrary ironclad moral value judgments with no regard for context, and "X person involved is incompetent/malicious" is context.
EDIT: I wasn't aware that in 2e, Paradox is something you choose to let happen. Apologies.
- Location
- London, England
Why not, I've got some time to burn and I'm always up for a metaphysical debate about theology and mage cosmology, so let's address these point by point in turn!
(Also man, seriously, the US republican party as your benchmark for evil?)
Ok, so, first point... yeah I'd say "Incurring Paradox is a moral failing" is a perfectly reasonable precept to hold. Because Paradox isn't some random, unaffiliated force that Mages naturally acquire - it's literally the Abyss leaking through the wounds caused when they use their magic to set the Truth and the Lie against one another. It is, in fact, a primal force of anti-reality that desires nothing more than to tear down everything we recognise as 'the world' until everything is formless chaos again.
And if you do something that brings the very stuff of anti-life into the world, then brother, you have fucked up.
And so the Guardians believe you need to account for that. Note that they will help to contain the paradox so it doesn't harm the innocent; their concern is helping the Magus in question figure out what exactly happened that lead them to fuck up in such a fashion, with an eye towards not being in that situation in the future.
Setting aside the general critique of meritocracy as an idea, I think the core part you're overlooking here is that the reasoning the Guardians give for this tenet is, in fact, objectively true (or as close to objective as anything can come).
The Supernal is the Truth, and those who know the truth are indeed by definition wiser than those who only know falsehoods and misapprehensions. The presence of sleepers does, in fact, smother the Supernal by reinforcing the Lie and causing paradox where the two interact. Therefore, you want to guide sleepers away from getting anywhere near Magic, unless you think they might be on the verge of Awakening, in which case you want to encourage and assist them in taking that final step.
It's a fact of the setting, essentially, and this tenet is just how the Guardians interact with that fact.
I'm going to zero in on the bolded part here, because that's where I think you're going wrong.
The ends require certain means, but that does not justify them.
It is entirely possible that a Guardian will be called upon to kill someone in the course of their work. They are expected to look for alternate solutions if at all possible, but if the cause requires that they take a life, then they must take a life... and that makes them murderers.
That makes them sinners.
This tenet is how the Guardians try to avoid sliding down the traditional slippery slope of "hard men making hard decisions" - they recognise that yeah, actually, murdering someone is bad. Sometimes you have to do it anyway, but that doesn't make it fine. It's still a sin, that you will have to account for one day. Thus, you have sinned, and in the process protected others and served the world at large through pursuit of the mission, taking the burden of that karmic debt onto yourself.
The Guardians are deeply suspicious of any kind of institutional legitimacy and power, even... no, especially their own.
One of the tests that every member of the Guardians has taken and passed to be welcomed into the order is to deliberately disobey a command from their superior. Seriously that's their final test - your mentor, who has guided you through the process thus far and who you have come to respect and trust, asks you to do something that you know would be wrong. They'll justify it, give you some compelling reasons why it should be allowed just this once... but you only get to be a Guardian if you disobey.
Because all thrones are flawed.
Yes, the Guardians have a weird, salvation-based belief in a messiah who will come and deliver them from the wretched fallen world they live in.
They also believe that the messiah will damn them all, because they have committed sins and no amount of 'greater good' lets you wash the blood from your hands. No Guardian can be the messiah, because no Guardian is sufficiently righteous.
Put simply, I don't believe any of this is a problem in need of a solution, and indeed that setting up the game to encourage rejection of the Pentacle would make for a poorer and less interesting experience overall.
- Location
- Pittsburgh, PA
The entire point of Peter Pan (in the original novel) is that he refuses to grow up. He chooses to remain in a state of childlike ignorance and borderline psychopathy, because it's more pleasant for him than being a responsible, empathetic adult. He's the asshole who misgenders people and throws around slurs, then freaks out when people call him on it because he didn't know it was offensive, stop trying to make him aware of systemic prejudice! He's every unpleasant creepazoid manchild who thinks "just a prank, bro!" is sterling justification for anything and that it's not fair to be mad if he steps on & breaks your shit crawling through your window at 3 AM because he lost the keys to the front door of the apartment (again), because he didn't mean to!
Captain Hook, by comparison, is the opposite extreme, someone who "grew up" by throwing away all the positive aspects of a child's mentality and then sharpening the rest into a shiv. He's the grownup who still tries to make everything fit into the selfish, callous paradigm he used as a schoolyard bully. He's the borderline nihilistic r/redpill poster who thinks hope is for cucks and is quite possibly going to shoot up a supermarket some day.
They don't represent out-of-control childishness and heartless giga-adult douchebaggery, they're different points on the Shitty Ignorant Jackass Who Never Grew Up spectrum.
SolipsistSerpent
Endlessly Devouring
Book Peter Pan would sometimes help the pirates if his side was winning too easily, by which I mean attack his own allies with a sword. I don't know if he's morally equivalent to Captain Hook, but I don't think he's the one you want to use in this metaphor, because he's basically Zaraki Kenpachi.
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Eukie
Powered by furious Canadian redheads
You could have just... not risked causing Paradox. Not used a vulgar spell, not gone past your limits, take the damage instead of deciding that your own safety is worth more than the safety of the world. Not used it in a situation where you couldn't be absolutely sure there wasn't a witness. Just because you miscalculated the risk doesn't mean you're not guilty.
Also it's not exactly an alien thought in moral philosophy that some actions are categorically evil and should be avoided.
No it doesn't.
I'd say it's less driving, more being careless with radioactive sources. Using vulgar magic in ways that cause Paradox is not like driving: there's not a safe way to do it, and it's far less necessary than driving. If you do decide to drive recklessly, to expose other people to unnecessary harm, then you are a bad person, and like a radioactive source, causing Paradox is always causing someone unnecessary exposure to harm. Even if there's a 99% chance nobody's affected, even if you can't draw a direct causal link between your exposure and the arm, there's a chance someone ends up with (magic) cancer and it'll be partly your fault.
Krazyfan1
Worrying for the future.
- Location
- Australia
Book Peter Pan also killed off the Lost Boys when they got too old.
Hm. Well, I can say I like the play it's based on better. He seems more like an actual thoughtless child there instead of an elf imitating a child.
EDIT: Having read up on it, I also notice Peter can't retain memories or long-term thought in the book. In which case, wow, now I feel slightly off on all the "dark spins" on him, because now it's leaning into the idea that Peter Pan is bad because he has brain damage.
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