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White Wolf's World of Darkness

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Aleph

Aleph

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Okay, the Exalted thread has been getting a bit clogged with Technocracy stuff lately, so I thought I'd provide an alternate place to argue about who's in the right (almost noone) and who's in the wrong (basically everyone), which can serve the old oWoD, the new oWoD, the old nWoD and the new nWoD. Though hopefully not all at the same time.

From the ashes of the world thread of the Exalted arises a new Age thread! A World thread of vampires! and werewolves! And mages! And Darkness!

Terrible katana-wielding 90's Captain Planet villains need not apply.
 
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Heh.

Funny thing is I was just about to suggest that they do this. Make a thread for WoD.

I find Mage kind of interesting, though the other parts slightly less so.
 
Imrix said:
To deal with this briefly - playing a hero among the Traditions means your goal (insofar as the Traditions as a whole can be said to have a unified goal) is "everybody becomes god."
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Everyone, huh?

Are we sure that the grand archmages of the Hermetic Order really want everyone in the world gaining the power to challenge them? And most every other Tradition would at least consider the consequences of the entire human race becoming mages without thorough grounding in self-discipline and the responsibilities of power.

But more to the point, is it really LIKELY that the entire human race can be led to Awaken? Even back when reality was loosest and magic flew around liberally (the golden age, as I think the Traditionalists would have it), very few people ever Awakened. Probably only about as many as the present.


while playing a hero among the Technocrats means running into the issue where your leadership holds the ironclad policy that individuals don't matter. Yes, it's about protecting all of humanity, but it's also about the belief that regular humans completely lack the right to make decisions for themselves.
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Again, I somehow feel that the Hermetic Order is not much different in that regard.

There are probably no few Verbena, Euthanatos, Chorousers, and Sons of Ether who rather enjoy their authority as archmages and don't really give a damn about the little people.
 
Sunder the Gold said:
Everyone, huh?

Are we sure that the grand archmages of the Hermetic Order really want everyone in the world gaining the power to challenge them? And most every other Tradition would at least consider the consequences of the entire human race becoming mages without thorough grounding in self-discipline and the responsibilities of power.
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Well, did say it was the 'stated' goal.
 
One of the problems with the Traditions' "make everyone gods" goal was that the plan went something like this:
1a: Defeat Technocracy
1b: Destroy the scientific consensus
2: ???
3: Ascension for everyone

This was totally in line for the subject-oriented there-is-no-truth nature of MtAs, that Global Ascension was unknowable and what you thought it was, but that also meant that there was no proof-of-concept for the "how". Maybe Global Ascension is possible, or maybe the Traditions are a millennial suicide cult whose delusions will descend the world into eternal chaos.

As a player, I find it hard to emphasize with the Traditions when they're trying to bring the world into the World of Darkness Dark Ages all because they have a fanatical belief in their apparently unverifiable pipe dream.
 
In regards to the age old talk of the technocrats that they brought weapons against diseases to the people the counterpoint that they also made the old methods that where able to heal aliments stop working is "curiously" all to often ignored. After all the technocratig consens removed likewise some healing methods even if it , as long as you where in Europe mostly improved your life.

Of course the counterpoint is that you no longer need a propper or hedge mage and that it is on average much easier to obtain cures now on average. But go back a hundred years or into a third world hellhole and the situation looks quite different.
 
Sunder the Gold said:
But more to the point, is it really LIKELY that the entire human race can be led to Awaken? Even back when reality was loosest and magic flew around liberally (the golden age, as I think the Traditionalists would have it), very few people ever Awakened. Probably only about as many as the present..
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Rather more to the point, do the Traditions actually have any plan on how to Awaken the Masses? Do they even have a reliable, repeatable way to Awaken a single Sleeper?

Because if not, this talk about how their goal is for everyone to become gods which is so much better than the stupid Technocracy wanting to put power in the hands of the Masses that doesn't depend on the whim of some random god or spirit and which they can use without needing to Awaken and so on is all very well and good, but it's also kind of completely fucking pointless, because they can't actually do it and don't even know where or how to start.

I mean, I speak as one without an in-depth knowledge of oMage, but the impression I've sort of picked up is that you can't induce people to Awaken any more than you can induce them to Exalt.

Edit: Bugger, ninja'd by @Eukie. A NWO plot, no doubt!
 
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Eukie said:
One of the problems with the Traditions' "make everyone gods" goal was that the plan went something like this:
1a: Defeat Technocracy
1b: Destroy the scientific consensus
2: ???
3: Ascension for everyone

This was totally in line for the subject-oriented there-is-no-truth nature of MtAs, that Global Ascension was unknowable and what you thought it was, but that also meant that there was no proof-of-concept for the "how". Maybe Global Ascension is possible, or maybe the Traditions are a millennial suicide cult whose delusions will descend the world into eternal chaos.

As a player, I find it hard to emphasize with the Traditions when they're trying to bring the world into the World of Darkness Dark Ages all because they have a fanatical belief in their apparently unverifiable pipe dream.
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TOTAL. GLOBAL. ASCENSION. [/Wesker]


Aleph said:
Rather more to the point, do the Traditions actually have any plan on how to Awaken the Masses? Do they even have a reliable, repeatable way to Awaken a single Sleeper?
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That's the heart of my position, though you were actually able to articulate it.
 
Sydonai said:
The Technocracy worked with Pentex, anyone that does that is automatically baby-eating levels of evil and/or stupid.
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To be fair everyone worked with pentex in one form or the other. Heck even some of the Glasswalkers did it with some subsidies without knowing the details. And the parts of the Technocrats that are most likely to work with Pentex tend to lack the dimensional science to detect the Banes and fomori.
 
Sunder the Gold said:
But more to the point, is it really LIKELY that the entire human race can be led to Awaken?
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Probably not. I'm not really well-versed in oMage, I just know a few things from osmosis and some old posts I found interesting reading.

I tend to prefer it as a goal compared to "crush everybody into neat little boxes so we can arrange the world to our liking" though, however pleasant the vision being arranged might be for some.
Sunder the Gold said:
Again, I somehow feel that the Hermetic Order is not much different in that regard.

There are probably no few Verbena, Euthanatos, Chorousers, and Sons of Ether who rather enjoy their authority as archmages and don't really give a damn about the little people.
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Without question, there certainly are.

Here's the key difference between the Traditions and the Technocracy: In the Traditions, those arseholes are barely-tolerated at best, and may well suffer censure or rebuke from their leaders if they try to act on those beliefs. In the Technocracy, they are the leaders.

In a perfect world, the Technocracy would be the good guys! The Traditions would be good guys too! Everybody would sing and dance and work out their differences amicably over tea and biscuits, and everything would be awesome!

It's not a perfect world. One side is demonstrably worse than the other, not because their paradigm is less valid, but because of bad luck and circumstance. Make no mistake, the Order of Reason as it existed in the past has accomplished an awful lot of good, but the Technocrats are obsessed with making the trains run on time.

These are the people who, with full knowledge, backed Nazi Germany because they thought One World Government was a fair exchange for the concentration camps! The Technocracy leadership believes that it's perfectly okay to supress opposing views and covertly shoot dissenters or just make them disappear. They have no problem with killing your daughter and replacing her with a clone if they feel they should keep a close eye on you.

This is not to say that every Technocrat is a jerk. Most of the Wehrmacht's soldiers were people I'd probably get along fine with if I met them in a public library. But those weren't the people running Nazi Germany, and the kind of Technocrat who walked out of this or that Symposium when ordered to back the Nazis aren't calling the shots either.
 
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On a side note, can I just say that the entire plot of NGE sounds like "the Council of Nine takes over Control in secret, and the resulting Technocratic Tradition mixup causes Instrumentality?"
 
Carrnage said:
Are there any WoD lines where players can make things better and actually have a good ending?
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Exalted!

Except that their bad ending fucking everything up is canon, which is why its the secret history. The ability to get a good ending was removed from the setting so hard that the Ebon Dragon did a heelface turn just to antagonize the shit out of all the grimdark.
 
On the Traditions vs the Technocracy, my views are probably colored by the fact I found the line after it ended, so I wound up look at whole bunch of different books from different time periods. But in general the two major Mage factions seem to be more two sides of the same coin. The main difference between the Technocracy and the Traditions is the Technocracy wound up in charge.

Both side have their evil old men weaving the world to their whims. Both engage in good works. Both commit atrocities and monstrous acts. Both have their very shady practices.

Their both very human, really.
Sucal said:
Exalted!

Except that their bad ending fucking everything up is canon, which is why its the secret history. The ability to get a good ending was removed from the setting so hard that the Ebon Dragon did a heelface turn just to antagonize the shit out of all the grimdark.
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Exalted's future is not WoD. It was at one point in Exalted 1e, then they turfed it so they could do more stuff without chaining themsevles in. Now a days, they just do shout outs in memory, and to provide possible plot hooks. But it is definitely not canon anymore.
 
Kylar said:
Exalted's future is not WoD. It was at one point in Exalted 1e, then they turfed it so they could do more stuff without chaining themsevles in. Now a days, they just do shout outs in memory, and to provide possible plot hooks. But it is definitely not canon anymore.
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Exalteds future is not WoD, but oWoD's past is Exalted, as a 'worst case scenario' type thing.
 
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