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t3h_z0r
Oct 13, 2012

"A cop in body armor is designed to look intimidating."
I AM A LIAR
Does anyone know who designs most of the splat symbols in WoD? I'm specifically thinking about the ones in DA: Mage, those were fantastic.




t3h_z0r fucked around with this message at 06:16 on Jan 24, 2013

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MalcolmSheppard
Jun 24, 2012
MATTHEW 7:20
I think Rich Thomas is responsible for a lot of them.

illrepute
Dec 30, 2009

by XyloJW

Etherwind posted:

Werewolf is great if you like being a gang-bangin' furry in the spirit police. Or you really like appropriation of Native American myth.

If you excuse me, I'll be in the corner working out how my imaginary protagonist could totally beat up your imaginary protagonist in a ten-by-ten room.

just because you stole credit for his xp system doesn't mean you get to steal his personality too

(USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)

MalcolmSheppard
Jun 24, 2012
MATTHEW 7:20
Inferno is intended to be a manifestation of ideas that are congruent with the Lower Depths, but it isn't an attraction in the Lower Depths Disneyland or something. These places are not literally mappable, but only diagrammed in a utilitarian sense. Mages know they can deal with a demon by using a certain model. That model points to the Lower Depths. Inferno might be a separate place when viewed from another context. Remember, for werewolves, the Inferno is some cursed fold in the Umbra that the Maeljin come from. (Also, for werewolves, the Anima Mundi is part of their normal dreamscape -- chew on that.) For a guy with an infernal testament trying his luck at summoning, it's Hell, not any of the other crap. This ambiguity is intentional.

It's not really a place filled with tortured souls and Coop illustrations. It's not Judeo-Christian in the popular sense, though it uses ideas from these traditions that usually get overlooked in the popular quasi-dualistic mythology (a bunch of it also comes from Vajrayana Buddhism.) If you look at Inferno it becomes pretty clear that demons in that book aren't fallen angels with their own cool stuff. Rather, they accept what they're given, because the premise of the book isn't the cliche that evil is a dark force brimming with bad stuff coming at you, but a lack.

One of the problems with communicating that is that honestly, popular Christian mythology with God and Satan and prehistoric special effects is so prevalent that it's tough to yell past it. In the case of Inferno, I had to ditch the book early due to the near-death of my mother so my stuff was thin, and in some cases, I think we all slipped into the generic White Wolf Playbook for writing about demons, which is that they are an Evil Team and no matter how clever you are they'll always gently caress you over. In any event, that idea of lack, rather than war in Heaven mythology, is what creates that association. In my view, the other alternative, which is a mysterian pseudo-Lovecraftian tone, is also a loser. I told Bill Bridges way back and still believe Lovecraftian homage is for suckers, because it'll ever be real Lovecraft and hey, Call of Cthulhu exists. (This is why the Abyss kind of spins that.) So the akathartoi are a way to chart something traditional, so we can have sorcerers who actually deal with demons, straight up, without falling into the Lovecraftian or Christian mythic traps. These demons don't need God, just people. They're nothing without them.

MalcolmSheppard fucked around with this message at 16:33 on Jan 24, 2013

Ferrinus
Jun 19, 2003

i'm finding this quite easy, i guess in part because i'm a fast type but also because i have a coherent mental model of the world
I thought Inferno was actually very smartly set up, since it turned "demon" into an inherent universal tendency rather than a specific species of being. It wasn't really that the Inferno was a home base from which the forces of evil launched invasions into the mortal world, but a kind of emergent behavior.

Dave Brookshaw
Jun 27, 2012

No Regrets

t3h_z0r posted:

Has the Underworld ever been given any detail in a book?

It's got a book all to itself: the Book of the Dead. And it has the same relationship to Geist the Shadow does to Werewolf: all WoD characters can go to the Underworld, but Sin-Eaters have it as their responsibility/playground.

Reene
Aug 26, 2005

:justpost:

Book of the Dead is pretty decent, incidentally. I enjoyed most of it. Though I felt not enough page-time was given to the Death Lord thing; they're mentioned in a couple of books but not much is ever said about them or what they are supposed to be. (If you say "why, they're Lords of Death! :downs:" I will pop you.)

<mage> The Underworld is also really the only place where Death comes close to matching the other arcana in power and utility. </mage>

Etherwind
Apr 22, 2008
Probation
Can't post for 34 days!
Soiled Meat

illrepute posted:

just because you stole credit for his xp system doesn't mean you get to steal his personality too

gently caress right off.

(USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)

Etherwind
Apr 22, 2008
Probation
Can't post for 34 days!
Soiled Meat

MalcolmSheppard posted:

These places are not literally mappable, but only diagrammed in a utilitarian sense. Mages know they can deal with a demon by using a certain model. That model points to the Lower Depths.

This is a much more interesting spin on things than what comes across in the books.

quote:

It's not really a place filled with tortured souls and Coop illustrations. It's not Judeo-Christian in the popular sense, though it uses ideas from thise traditions that usually get overlooked in the popular quasi-dualistic mythology (a bunch of it also comes from Vajrayana Buddhism.) If you look at Inferno it becomes pretty clear that demons in that book aren't fallen angels with their own cool stuff. Rather, they accept what they're given, because the premise of the book isn't the cliche that evil is a dark force brimming with bad stuff coming at you, but a lack.

One of the problems with communicating that is that honestly, popular Christian mythology with God and Satan and prehistoric special effects is so prevalent that it's tough to yell past it. In the case of Inferno, I had to ditch the book early due to the near-death of my mother so my stuff was thin, and in some cases, I think we all slipped into the generic White Wolf Playbook for writing about demons, which is that they are an Evil Team and no matter how clever you are they'll always gently caress you over. In any event, that idea of lack, rather than war in Heaven mythology, is what creates that association.

I feel like I should clarify that my complaint about monotheism as part of the nWoD cosmology was well and truly separate from the stuff about the Inferno. As written, the Inferno definitely comes across as being separate from the traditional fallen angel set up (excluding that one awful NPC in the back). I actually really like the idea that they're things from some strange and twisted realm that can only fit into ours where they're given purchase and definition, as that neatly explains the traditional hallmarks and tokens of demonology without making demons beholden to their conceptual baggage. It's why I use Inferno demons at all.

quote:

In my view, the other alternative, which is a mysterian pseudo-Lovecraftian tone, is also a loser. I told Bill Bridges way back and still believe Lovecraftian homage is for suckers, because it'll ever be real Lovecraft and hey, Call of Cthulhu exists. (This is why the Abyss kind of spins that.) So the akathartoi are a way to chart something traditional, so we can have sorcerers who actually deal with demons, straight up, without falling into the Lovecraftian or Christian mythic traps. These demons don't need God, just people. They're nothing without them.

See, I think you're selling everyone short, there, including yourself. Lovecraft wasn't so good that no one can hope to write in his style (or with his concepts) and do it well. He was a pretty lovely writer in a lot of ways, and many of his ideas were terrible, such that there have been plenty of others who've managed to take his ideas and source material and do better things with them. I also firmly believe it's possible to take Lovecraftian ideas and do it without just being another version of Call of Cthulhu, precisely because Call of Cthulhu sticks so closely to Lovecraft's source material (and that of his worst fanfiction writers).

I feel you can do Lovecraftian, and do it well, without just doing pseudo-Lovecraft. I'd go so far as to say that the stuff about the Lower Depths was managing that more than well enough for an RPG. But that's me! I guess your mileage may vary.

Etherwind fucked around with this message at 15:37 on Jan 24, 2013

Kylra
Dec 1, 2006

Not a cute boy, just a boring girl.

Ferrinus posted:

How come you keep speaking as though I, a forums poster, hold sincere and heartfelt vendettas against fictional characters?
You seem invested in the idea of having a discrete Pure Evil with some kind of human face to hate, regardless of fictionality.

quote:

Also, why would "Us vs Them" be a bullshit concern when the Them are the corrupt oligarchs who kill people for profit and political power? Why would you be like "Ummmm, are you forgetting global warming" when it is in fact the evil tyrants who are causing it in the first place?

This is an important point. You seem to think that villainous overlords who straightforwardly tyrannical are somehow trite or simplistic, whereas it is in fact the villainous overlords who have ~Deep Motivations~ that are both extremely cliched and pernicious, propagandistic lies.
Us vs Them thinking is one of the foundations of oppression. You turn a group into an Other, a Them, or more generally just a thing then you don't have to have any empathy for their problems, only how they affect you. Us Good USA Folk vs Them Evil Ayrabs, or Us Virtuous White Conservatives vs Them Reverse Racist Darkies Trying to Take What Is Ours, or Us Right Thinking Straight People vs Them Morality Corroding Gays. It's not a "bullshit" concern per se in that it doesn't exist, but it is a pattern of thought propping up suffering all over the world and deserves being worked against.

You can critically examine whether or not to overthrow a dictator even if they do some things that are good or have some good motivations by weighing things and seeing what is the best solution. That some person is not Pure Evil is not an insurmountable barrier to working against them. Us vs Them is inherently opposed to critical thought, since it is a death of thought on Them in exchange for some unchanging conclusion about Them.

Us vs Them is more or less the default mode of human thought.

quote:

A setting in which certain characters have been injected with an experimental superpower serum and others have not is not a good example of a racialist divide. It's not a setup which implicitly reinforces harmful commonly held beliefs about the status quo, such as a setting in which elves are born different from orcs, or a setting in which the evil masters of the world are really just trying to protect you and have very good reasons for keeping you impoverished.
I'm pretty much out of different ways to explain this now without referring to larger texts explaining lots of extra background, but it seems your heart is probably in the right place on racism stuff, so at least for the sake of that please try to read and understand that wikipedia article later in the context of what I have been saying.

Kylra fucked around with this message at 16:01 on Jan 24, 2013

Liesmith
Jan 29, 2006

by Y Kant Ozma Post

moths posted:

The hardest part for me was not having a Wyrm to rage against, but spiritcops was cool. There was a gluttony spirit inhabiting a fat kid in the park, and I forget how we dealt with that but it was pretty creepy.

did you deal with it by waking up one morning with your clothes torn, having dreamed about attacking a fat kid in the park under the light of a full moon? Because thats the best way to deal with everything in werewolf imo

Ferrinus
Jun 19, 2003

i'm finding this quite easy, i guess in part because i'm a fast type but also because i have a coherent mental model of the world

Kylra posted:

You seem invested in the idea of having a discrete Pure Evil with some kind of human face to hate, regardless of fictionality.

But... why would you say that, when both parts of that aren't true, and in many ways are the opposite of the point I'm making. What is this.

1. The Exarchs aren't "pure evil". It's pointless to describe them, themselves, in moral terms, because it's pointless to examine their intentions or morality. Rather, they're important because of the effects of their existence and supremacy.

2. The Exarchs don't have human faces. The dictator who deep down is conflicted and suffering over all the Hard Choices he's had to make, if only we could Understand him, then we'll see, is a mask designed to distract us from the actual problem.

quote:

Us vs Them thinking is one of the foundations of oppression. You turn a group into an Other, a Them, or more generally just a thing then you don't have to have any empathy for their problems, only how they affect you. Us Good USA Folk vs Them Evil Ayrabs, or Us Virtuous White Conservatives vs Them Reverse Racist Darkies Trying to Take What Is Ours, or Us Right Thinking Straight People vs Them Morality Corroding Gays. It's not a "bullshit" concern per se in that it doesn't exist, but it is a pattern of thought propping up suffering all over the world and deserves being worked against.

You can critically examine whether or not to overthrow a dictator even if they do some things that are good or have some good motivations by weighing things and seeing what is the best solution. Us vs Them is inherently opposed to critical thought, since it is a death of thought on Them in exchange for some unchanging conclusion about Them.

Us vs Them is more or less the default mode of human thought.

That's not really true. Us vs. The Wrong Them is the default mode of human propaganda. When people should be directing clear and unvarnished ire at the systems of social control that are destroying the world around them, they are instead persuaded by those systems of social control to blame everything on immigrants or something. A commitment to fight imperialism in all its forms is not an example of simplistic "Us vs. Them" logic.

quote:

I'm pretty much out of different ways to explain this now without referring to larger texts explaining lots of extra background, but it seems your heart is probably in the right place on racism stuff, so at least for the sake of that please try to read and understand that wikipedia article later in the context of what I have been saying.

I think it's more important that you read mine.

Kylra
Dec 1, 2006

Not a cute boy, just a boring girl.

Ferrinus posted:

1. The Exarchs aren't "pure evil". It's pointless to describe them, themselves, in moral terms, because it's pointless to examine their intentions or morality. Rather, they're important because of the effects of their existence and supremacy.
This seems incompatible with saying you "take a principled stand" against them.

quote:

2. The Exarchs don't have human faces. The dictator who deep down is conflicted and suffering over all the Hard Choices he's had to make, if only we could Understand him, then we'll see, is a mask designed to distract us from the actual problem.
Dictators and tyrants are human positions, so the Exarchs cannot be dictators or tyrants while being things. Calling them dictators and tyrants is humanizing them. Would you call gravity, conductivity or momentum a dictator? I'm guessing not.

quote:

I think it's more important that you read mine.
I actually don't think you're wrong in what you're meaning with regards to how race works aside from where you say that what I am saying is not also part of how it works. What I am saying is ultimately an addition to the concepts you're presenting, not a negation. I have no reason to nor interest in debating the merit of or negating the actual concepts in themselves you presented in this line of discussion because I agree that they have merit and are actual and correct concepts, even if by themselves they are an incomplete view of things.

From my point of view, this particular line of discussion has been like me explaining subtraction and you replying "but addition works like this" where I already even thought beforehand that addition exists and works as you say it does. Mathematics is more incomplete without subtraction though, no matter how useful addition is for various things.

E: Missed this one somehow

quote:

That's not really true. Us vs. The Wrong Them is the default mode of human propaganda. When people should be directing clear and unvarnished ire at the systems of social control that are destroying the world around them, they are instead persuaded by those systems of social control to blame everything on immigrants or something. A commitment to fight imperialism in all its forms is not an example of simplistic "Us vs. Them" logic.
When you're committing to fight a specific group of people (such as Seers or Orcs) it is definitely the same pattern of thought even if it may not be anywhere near as bad as when the Othering is against the weak in real life. There's also the tendency for people (such as dictators) to end up exploiting it to control people for eventual negative ends regardless of whether they are on the strong side or not, such as your previous reference to Al Qeada.

If you aren't going to commit to the point of facing the people that together create Imperialism, then what is it you're committing against when you commit against Imperialism in all its forms? Imperialism is made from people. We might even call Them the Imperialists.

Kylra fucked around with this message at 18:40 on Jan 24, 2013

Yithian
Jun 19, 2005

Dave Brookshaw posted:

It's got a book all to itself: the Book of the Dead. And it has the same relationship to Geist the Shadow does to Werewolf: all WoD characters can go to the Underworld, but Sin-Eaters have it as their responsibility/playground.

I actually ran a Werewolf/Underworld game for a while where a pack of Fire-Touched were trying to dredge up Father Wolf's "ghost" from the Underworld. The players had to deal with navigating the depths, hard-bargaining psychopomps and ghost-tainted spirits all while trying to maintain their criminal empire dealing with rival drug dealers encroaching on their city and some truly contentious Forsaken packs.

While stumbling through the Underworld, the group actually found the spirit-ghost-thing of the Firstborn who actually slew Father Wolf (and was, in turn, killed by his death howl). Dead Wolf was, uh, pretty messed up by its time in the Underworld, but hey! if it was able to kill Father Wolf before, then it should be able to again, right? Right...?

It was a pretty fun game, but the Man vs. Nature bits of exploring the Underworld (or even just tracking regular old spirits in the Shadow Realm) basically turned into extended dice rolls or long sections of narration, so it kind of petered out.

Even so, the Underworld was a lot of fun.

Kylra
Dec 1, 2006

Not a cute boy, just a boring girl.
Also interesting to mention is that the Silver Ladder is Imperialist in that they are unilaterally deciding what is good for Sleepers and attempting to force it (Awakening) on them allegedly for their own good but also for the Ladder's own ends.

Kylra fucked around with this message at 18:45 on Jan 24, 2013

Yithian
Jun 19, 2005

How dare the Silver Ladder give Sleepers what belongs to them! (Magic is humanity's birthright.)

Nicolae Carpathia
Nov 7, 2004
I no longer believe in the greater purpose.

Kylra posted:

Also interesting to mention is that the Silver Ladder is Imperialist in that they are unilaterally deciding what is good for Sleepers and attempting to force it (Awakening) on them allegedly for their own good but also for the Ladder's own ends.

The Ladder's own ends correspond to everybody's good, though, by transcending the Lie and the trials and travails of the Fallen World. They might fail or gently caress up that goal, but their goal is literally Everybody's Life Becomes Wonderful And Nobody Needs The Silver Ladder Anymore.

DOCTOR ZIMBARDO
May 8, 2006

Nicolae Carpathia posted:

The Ladder's own ends correspond to everybody's good, though, by transcending the Lie and the trials and travails of the Fallen World. They might fail or gently caress up that goal, but their goal is literally Everybody's Life Becomes Wonderful And Nobody Needs The Silver Ladder Anymore.

Check your thaumoprivilege, maybe some people would rather the potential of their minds, souls, and bodies remained something they weren't even aware of??

Kylra
Dec 1, 2006

Not a cute boy, just a boring girl.
Neither of those negates it being imperialistic though unless you're going to ignore the power and culture differential between the Ladder and Sleepers. I'm not trying to say they're necessarily evil for it, just that that is technically what it is, even if this time it does happen to actually be nothing but good for the Sleepers and not propaganda like real life (which given Banishers at least isn't technically the case the whole time).

Kylra fucked around with this message at 19:10 on Jan 24, 2013

DOCTOR ZIMBARDO
May 8, 2006

Kylra posted:

Neither of those negates it being imperialistic though unless you're going to ignore the power and culture differential between the Ladder and Sleepers. I'm not trying to say they're necessarily evil for it, just that that is technically what it is, even if this time it does happen to actually be good for them (which given Banishers at least isn't technically the case the whole time).

Is it imperialism when you teach children to read or am I being thaumonormative?

Kylra
Dec 1, 2006

Not a cute boy, just a boring girl.

DOCTOR ZIMBARDO posted:

Is it imperialism when you teach children to read or am I being thaumonormative?
Considering children are generally part of the same culture and such as their parents, no not really.

I know you're Just Asking Questions but someone might seriously wonder that after reading this.

Flavivirus
Dec 14, 2011

The next stage of evolution.
Are you arguing that mages aren't at least partly the same culture as Sleepers? I think when you've come from the same economic, cultural and spiritual background as someone else it's not imperialism to want to free them from the same cage you were trapped in until recently. That is, after all, the way the Silver Ladder sees the Awakened/Sleeper divide - not as Us/Them, or Rich/Poor, but Imprisoned/Free.

Ferrinus
Jun 19, 2003

i'm finding this quite easy, i guess in part because i'm a fast type but also because i have a coherent mental model of the world

Kylra posted:

This seems incompatible with saying you "take a principled stand" against them.

Dictators and tyrants are human positions, so the Exarchs cannot be dictators or tyrants while being things. Calling them dictators and tyrants is humanizing them. Would you call gravity, conductivity or momentum a dictator? I'm guessing not.

Let me break this down for you. There are basically two ways to express what I'm saying here:

1. The Exarchs are a bit like dictators, oligarchs, slaveholders, etc. etc. You don't need to worry yourself about the deep-down motivations of such people to oppose them.

2. The Exarchs are, more properly speaking, the abstract and omnipresent systems of economics, culture, and ideology that naturally give rise to dictators, oligarchs, and slaveholders. Once again, you don't have to worry yourself about whether capitalism, slavery, or whatever are inherently well-meaning or perpetuated by well-meaning people to be stridently anti-capitalist, anti-slavery, etc.

quote:

I actually don't think you're wrong in what you're meaning with regards to how race works aside from where you say that what I am saying is not also part of how it works. What I am saying is ultimately an addition to the concepts you're presenting, not a negation. I have no reason to nor interest in debating the merit of or negating the actual concepts in themselves you presented in this line of discussion because I agree that they have merit and are actual and correct concepts, even if by themselves they are an incomplete view of things.

From my point of view, this particular line of discussion has been like me explaining subtraction and you replying "but addition works like this" where I already even thought beforehand that addition exists and works as you say it does. Mathematics is more incomplete without subtraction though, no matter how useful addition is for various things.

Look, it's obvious that a setup in which you've got a society of werewolves and a society of vampires and the two sides are fundamentally different and potentially at war is one that echoes issues of race. The writer of Underworld actually went on record saying that he put the movie together as a meditation on interracial dating.

The reason I brought up the fact that some games are particularly racially (or patriarchally, or whatever) charged with the implication that Mage or the WoD as a whole wasn't was to bring up examples of narrative tropes that end up reinforcing the status quo in a negative way - since it's my argument that "your oppressor has really good reasons for oppressing you" is one such trope. Unless you're here to tell me that actually Mage is already rife with questionable politics and therefore it's no harm to throw some more into the mix, I don't understand why this is such a sticking point.

quote:

When you're committing to fight a specific group of people (such as Seers or Orcs) it is definitely the same pattern of thought even if it may not be anywhere near as bad as when the Othering is against the weak in real life. There's also the tendency for people (such as dictators) to end up exploiting it to control people for eventual negative ends regardless of whether they are on the strong side or not, such as your previous reference to Al Qeada.

If you aren't going to commit to the point of facing the people that together create Imperialism, then what is it you're committing against when you commit against Imperialism in all its forms? Imperialism is made from people. We might even call Them the Imperialists.

Yeah, obviously part of being a Pentacle hardliner is othering the Seers, and in extreme cases othering even the unwitting mortal servants of the Seers. The Profane Urim is a really excellent element of the setting in this regard, since it creates the Matrix situation where everyone is potentially an Agent, at any time and in any place, so you just have to be ready to loving smoke some random cashier or bus driver if they begin acting funny. It's not pretty, but that's just how it is. The Pentacle is a violent radical revolutionary force; if they're not putting people up against the wall, they're not doing their job.

quote:

Also interesting to mention is that the Silver Ladder is Imperialist in that they are unilaterally deciding what is good for Sleepers and attempting to force it (Awakening) on them allegedly for their own good but also for the Ladder's own ends.

Imperialism is more than unilaterally deciding what is good for people and trying to force it on them. I'll bring up the same example I used before; Al Qaeda thinks it'd be better for the world as a whole if the United States was destroyed. That makes them a lot of things, but, my god, they're not imperialists.

Ferrinus fucked around with this message at 19:18 on Jan 24, 2013

mila kunis
Jun 10, 2011

Ferrinus posted:

Imperialism is more than unilaterally deciding what is good for people and trying to force it on them. I'll bring up the same example I used before; Al Qaeda thinks it'd be better for the world as a whole if the United States was destroyed. That makes them a lot of things, but, my god, they're not imperialists.

They are though? The desire to impose your values (like Sharia law) on others, or erase them because they don't share them, seems pretty imperialistic.

Winson_Paine
Oct 27, 2000

Wait, something is wrong.

tekz posted:

They are though? The desire to impose your values (like Sharia law) on others, or erase them because they don't share them, seems pretty imperialistic.

The thing is they are not trying to build an Empire or convert the heathen, which is part and parcel of Imperialism.

Arivia
Mar 17, 2011

Winson_Paine posted:

The thing is they are not trying to build an Empire or convert the heathen, which is part and parcel of Imperialism.

The Lie is pretty much a hegemonic imperialism writ large, though. The Seers have an empire, the Pentacle wants one - their empires merely aren't mortally political.

Flavivirus
Dec 14, 2011

The next stage of evolution.

Arivia posted:

The Lie is pretty much a hegemonic imperialism writ large, though. The Seers have an empire, the Pentacle wants one - their empires merely aren't mortally political.

Again, not really; the Pentacle doesn't want a Lie of their own, they want no lie to exist at all.

DOCTOR ZIMBARDO
May 8, 2006

Arivia posted:

The Seers have an empire, the Pentacle wants one - their empires merely aren't mortally political.

That's not accurate though, except possibly in relation to whatever nonhuman entities inhabit the Realms Supernal, that according to Pentacle ideology must be shackled and made to kneel before humankind. The whole goal of the Pentacle is to destroy: 1. the means by which the Lie is established and maintained, allowing for the destruction of 2. the Lie itself - the blocks on human enlightenment established by the Exarchs.

For the Pentacle to be imperialists who want to create an empire analogous to that of the Lie, they would need to have in-hand a different Lie they would want to impose, maybe because they have some other Lie they prefer. Then it's not really about whether or not its a Lie, its just a question of what consensus determines the Lie.

But that's not what the Pentacle wants! They want to unmake the Lie and give all humankind their putative birthright, which is magic. That's fundamentally incompatible with everything having to do with the Seers and the Exarchs.

Certainly I agree with Ferrinus, that putting a human face on the Exarchs makes for a much worse story on a wide variety of levels, and that an honest reading of the setting certainly doesn't support giving the Exarchs complex or sympathetic motivations. They are, literally, malignant gods who want to undermine human agency and fulfillment.

DOCTOR ZIMBARDO fucked around with this message at 19:55 on Jan 24, 2013

Kylra
Dec 1, 2006

Not a cute boy, just a boring girl.

Flavivirus posted:

Are you arguing that mages aren't at least partly the same culture as Sleepers? I think when you've come from the same economic, cultural and spiritual background as someone else it's not imperialism to want to free them from the same cage you were trapped in until recently. That is, after all, the way the Silver Ladder sees the Awakened/Sleeper divide - not as Us/Them, or Rich/Poor, but Imprisoned/Free.
I think there's room for it working either way, especially depending on how you shuffle your interpretations of everything else. Like there's a kind of theme of mages gradually becoming something different than Sleepers. I can certainly see one interpretation going the way you say here though and that could be interesting to do, but I think it would work better with a more complete metaphor to the Exarchs being oppressors rather than concepts or natural laws of the universe. If they're just like laws of the universe it would be more like inventing an airplane than revolt against a social oppressor.

Ferrinus posted:

1. The Exarchs are a bit like dictators, oligarchs, slaveholders, etc. etc. You don't need to worry yourself about the deep-down motivations of such people to oppose them.
I'll agree you don't need to know the specifics of their motivations to oppose dictators and such, yeah. I still don't think it's really apt to say they're like dictators, etc, with the rest of your explanation, but at this point I going further on that is just getting into unnecessary semantics since I think I'm pretty close to knowing what you really mean now.

quote:

2. The Exarchs are, more properly speaking, the abstract and omnipresent systems of economics, culture, and ideology that naturally give rise to dictators, oligarchs, and slaveholders. Once again, you don't have to worry yourself about whether capitalism, slavery, or whatever are inherently well-meaning or perpetuated by well-meaning people to be stridently anti-capitalist, anti-slavery, etc.
So essentially you're saying that the Exarchs are a part of everyone's minds that causes them to do X, Y and Z, and if you were to kill/erase the Exarchs, everyone would all become different people? I think I can dig that explanation. It seems a little contrived that the bad parts all got put in charge and the good parts of what was presumably people once are mysteriously missing (unless maybe the oracles are just parts of the same now-missing people), but I can still dig it.

quote:

The reason I brought up the fact that some games are particularly racially (or patriarchally, or whatever) charged with the implication that Mage or the WoD as a whole wasn't was to bring up examples of narrative tropes that end up reinforcing the status quo in a negative way - since it's my argument that "your oppressor has really good reasons for oppressing you" is one such trope. Unless you're here to tell me that actually Mage is already rife with questionable politics and therefore it's no harm to throw some more into the mix, I don't understand why this is such a sticking point.
The original point was really going to go towards that I was changing out some questionable politics for other questionable politics. However, having questionable politics present means that they are there to defeat. The point with "the oppressor has or had some good motivations at one point" isn't that they don't deserve to be fought against but more that power corrupts or comes with a cost. It's more an analogy to people like megawealthy philanthropic CEOs than a Dictator. A CEO or other governing body of a corporation who tries to be "too good" is going to be undercut by one that isn't, and then they can't do the good things they were doing before. Capitalism is kind of lovely like that. You still have to revolt against them somehow though or nothing gets better.

quote:

It's not pretty, but that's just how it is. The Pentacle is a violent radical revolutionary force; if they're not putting people up against the wall, they're not doing their job.
Sounds about right, although you don't really have to Other people to put them up against a wall. It makes it easier, sure, but it's not strictly necessary.

quote:

Imperialism is more than unilaterally deciding what is good for people and trying to force it on them. I'll bring up the same example I used before; Al Qaeda thinks it'd be better for the world as a whole if the United States was destroyed. That makes them a lot of things, but, my god, they're not imperialists.
Al Qaeda also isn't the more powerful of the pair compared to the US which is what rules them out from truly being imperialists even if they wanted to be. Awakened are, in theory, more powerful than Sleepers.

Winson_Paine posted:

The thing is they are not trying to build an Empire or convert the heathen, which is part and parcel of Imperialism.
Technically they are trying to build an Empire of sorts to wipe out the Exarchs. There has also been benevolent imperialist thought in the past such as White Man's Burden where it was posited White People needed to preside over and rule lesser peoples until the White People can elevate the lesser people to their proper place in society.

Kylra fucked around with this message at 20:10 on Jan 24, 2013

DOCTOR ZIMBARDO
May 8, 2006

Kylra posted:

Technically they are trying to build an Empire of sorts to wipe out the Exarchs.

Organizing and even fighting isn't building an empire.

Ferrinus
Jun 19, 2003

i'm finding this quite easy, i guess in part because i'm a fast type but also because i have a coherent mental model of the world

Kylra posted:

I'll agree you don't need to know the specifics of their motivations to oppose dictators and such, yeah. I still don't think it's really apt to say they're like dictators, etc, with the rest of your explanation, but at this point I going further on that is just getting into unnecessary semantics since I think I'm pretty close to knowing what you really mean now.

So essentially you're saying that the Exarchs are a part of everyone's minds that causes them to do X, Y and Z, and if you were to kill/erase the Exarchs, everyone would all become different people? I think I can dig that explanation. It seems a little contrived that the bad parts all got put in charge and the good parts of what was presumably people once are mysteriously missing (unless maybe the oracles are just parts of the same now-missing people), but I can still dig it.

It's hard to pin down the concrete physical differences made in the world by the presence of the Exarchs rather than the absence, of course. Like, I couldn't tell you if the Exarchs manifest most clearly as "natural" human instincts or viral memes or the literal fact of resource scarcity or what. It's no doubt a topic of strident debate in the Pentacle and worshipful meditation in the Ministries.

Definitely, though, on top of any or all that, the Exarchs manifest as the majority of the human race's conspicuous and crippling lack of awesome magical powers, and definitely through at least their direction if not their raw ineffable will the Exarchs have constructed the deeply unequal and inhospitable social systems that human beings exist in to this day.

quote:

Al Qaeda also isn't the more powerful of the pair compared to the US which is what rules them out from truly being imperialists even if they wanted to be. Awakened are, in theory, more powerful than Sleepers.

The Pentacle isn't more powerful than the Exarchs... but it doesn't matter. It's not imperialism to seek the violent destruction and radical transformation of the existing social order.

Kylra
Dec 1, 2006

Not a cute boy, just a boring girl.

Ferrinus posted:

It's hard to pin down the concrete physical differences made in the world by the presence of the Exarchs rather than the absence, of course. Like, I couldn't tell you if the Exarchs manifest most clearly as "natural" human instincts or viral memes or the literal fact of resource scarcity or what. It's no doubt a topic of strident debate in the Pentacle and worshipful meditation in the Ministries.

Definitely, though, on top of any or all that, the Exarchs manifest as the majority of the human race's conspicuous and crippling lack of awesome magical powers, and definitely through at least their direction if not their raw ineffable will the Exarchs have constructed the deeply unequal and inhospitable social systems that human beings exist in to this day.
If the Exarchs have a will in more than just name, they have a motive, and it sounds like that motive is more or less Pure Evil just for the sake of Evil. Why not avoid that problem by just making them a force of nature instead of a will-bearing entity?

quote:

It's not imperialism to seek the violent destruction and radical transformation of the existing social order.
You're right, that in itself is not relevant to calling something Imperialism or not.

Ferrinus
Jun 19, 2003

i'm finding this quite easy, i guess in part because i'm a fast type but also because i have a coherent mental model of the world

Kylra posted:

If the Exarchs have a will in more than just name, they have a motive, and it sounds like that motive is more or less Pure Evil just for the sake of Evil. Why not avoid that problem by just making them a force of nature instead of a will-bearing entity?

Well, for example, slavery is neither a force of nature and nor is it pure evil for the sake of evil, capitalized or otherwise. It's an artificial thing that people have to work together to construct and maintain, because they desire its concrete, material results.

Xiahou Dun
Jul 16, 2009

We shall dive down through black abysses... and in that lair of the Deep Ones we shall dwell amidst wonder and glory forever.



Liesmith posted:

did you deal with it by waking up one morning with your clothes torn, having dreamed about attacking a fat kid in the park under the light of a full moon? Because thats the best way to deal with everything in werewolf imo

What is this bullshit.

Werewolves wake up with a funny taste in their mouth and half of their neighbor's dog's corpse or :getout:.

But yeah, otherwise, spot on.

Kylra
Dec 1, 2006

Not a cute boy, just a boring girl.

Ferrinus posted:

Well, for example, slavery is neither a force of nature and nor is it pure evil for the sake of evil, capitalized or otherwise. It's an artificial thing that people have to work together to construct and maintain, because they desire its concrete, material results.
I agree, but I just generally meant by that that things that aren't reasoning don't really have a will. People have wills. Arguably some animals too. Inanimate objects do not, and neither does something like Slavery or Democracy. If an Exarch is just a metaphysical object that is the "tangible metaphysical" substance of a concept it probably wouldn't have a will either. Maybe a decent analogy is how a copy of Atlas Shrugged may be a symbolic representation of Objectivism and cause readers to manifest Objectivist principles and consequently actions in line with that philosophy, but the book does not have a will of its own. Except in this case the book sort of reads itself directly into your mind whether you want it to or not all the time just because that's how it works rather than because that's what it wants/wills/decides. It just is.

Kylra fucked around with this message at 22:27 on Jan 24, 2013

Tollymain
Jul 9, 2010

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS
Maybe that's just what the Exarchs want everybody to think :tinfoil:

Pope Guilty
Nov 6, 2006

The human animal is a beautiful and terrible creature, capable of limitless compassion and unfathomable cruelty.
"Empire" and "large organization" are not synonyms.

Gasperkun
Oct 11, 2012
So I have seen both Book of the Dead and Mummy mentioned in this thread recently.

The Mummy kickstarter mentioned mummies being connected enough to items that the reliquary book would be useful. Any ideas on whether the underworld is going to play a role in this new game line? Old Mummy had some crossover in that regard. I know that at least one person here has actually worked on some of that material, but I don't know if he's allowed to talk about something like that. Speculation could be fun though.

t3h_z0r
Oct 13, 2012

"A cop in body armor is designed to look intimidating."
I AM A LIAR
The best story to really "get" the Seers of the Throne is in The Horror Recognition guide. I won't spoil which one, because I got about 2/3 of the way through it before I realized what was going on. It's also by far the best showing that I've read in either version that makes mages horror monsters.

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Error 404
Jul 17, 2009


MAGE CURES PLOT

t3h_z0r posted:

The best story to really "get" the Seers of the Throne is in The Horror Recognition guide. I won't spoil which one, because I got about 2/3 of the way through it before I realized what was going on. It's also by far the best showing that I've read in either version that makes mages horror monsters.

That one is one of my favorites in the book. Also, anyone who doesn't have the HRG should get it. It's labelled as a Hunter supplement, but I've used it as inspiration for all kinds of games.

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