Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
 
  • Post
  • Reply
JesterOfAmerica
Sep 11, 2015
Has there been an update on scion hero text?

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Mors Rattus
Oct 25, 2007

FATAL & Friends
Walls of Text
#1 Builder
2014-2018

Radio silence.

nofather
Aug 15, 2014
Is the idea of mages going around saving the world in the books and I've missed it or is it something some fans just like so much they put into it? Not in a vague 'awaken the masses, utopia is a process' saving the world, but 'whenever there's a natural disaster or Bad Thing using your magic to stop it' saving the world.

There seems to be a lot of these things going around and in some cases I don't know where it comes from, and mage is one where I haven't read nearly as many of the books as others. Like I can't tell if with vampire people don't 'get' the Beast or they just want to play regular people who happen to be dead and lets sort of gloss over the blood drinking thing. It comes up in werewolf a lot with spirits, but I can't tell if it's not getting the weird nature of spirits, or just wanting them to be more in the vein of Persona-like demons that are in awe of your strength and generally friendly and funny when you get to know them.

nofather fucked around with this message at 05:12 on Mar 13, 2018

Joe Slowboat
Nov 9, 2016

Higgledy-Piggledy Whale Statements



I feel like attempting to stop natural disasters with Awakened Magic is a case of, like, it could in theory work but you're more likely to implode in on yourself in a greasy ball of Paradox. I certainly don't think it's intended play!

Archonex
May 2, 2012

MY OPINION IS SEERS OF THE THRONE PROPAGANDA IGNORE MY GNOSIS-IMPAIRED RAMBLINGS

nofather posted:

Is the idea of mages going around saving the world in the books and I've missed it or is it something some fans just like so much they put into it? Not in a vague 'awaken the masses, utopia is a process' saving the world, but 'whenever there's a natural disaster or Bad Thing using your magic to stop it' saving the world.

Joe Slowboat posted:

I feel like attempting to stop natural disasters with Awakened Magic is a case of, like, it could in theory work but you're more likely to implode in on yourself in a greasy ball of Paradox. I certainly don't think it's intended play!

poo poo like this makes me imagine that somewhere, an activist Mage plots to preemptively fix global warming. He designs the rituals, obtains the necessary resources, and casts his spells...only to promptly gently caress it all up, unleashing Climatius, Abyssal super-entity of paradoxical climate change on the living world.

Enjoy your storms made out of firewater (as in, water made out of fire), nerds.



But yeah, no. The only two times that mages were involved in "save the world" stories I can recall they basically hosed everything up, and in the case of one situation might have actually been actively making things go from "Okay, this city is at risk." to "Oh hey, this poo poo is going to start the apocalypse!".

It's entirely a product of people assuming that mages theoretically having the ability to go full reality warper/that level of power somehow means that they're inclined to use it for productive and equally potentially high tier ends. Rather than, y'know, doing fairly inane and even counter-productive poo poo like squabbling with a Seer cabal over the disco club down the street for 20 or so odd years because it secretly is a locus of unimaginable funky power.

If you're looking for over the top world saving hijinks you'd i'd say you'd probably be better off looking at something like Changeling, Tier 3/4 Hunter (The Night Stalkers book even briefly posits a few save the world from vampirism scenarios.), or hell, even Vampire. The latter of which even somehow ended up with two novels where vampiric protagonists managed to bungle their way into outright heroism by saving entire cities/possibly the better portion of America from being leveled.

Archonex fucked around with this message at 06:22 on Mar 13, 2018

AnEdgelord
Dec 12, 2016
If your mage game hasnt descended into a dresden files style shitstorm involving two or three different warring factions, run-ins with the sleeper police, a hunter conspiracy, a ploy to reach godhood, a macguffin, and/or a doomsday cult then you are missing out on the best way to play Mage.

Kurieg
Jul 19, 2012

RIP Lutri: 5/19/20-4/2/20
:blizz::gamefreak:

Archonex posted:

Rather than, y'know, doing fairly inane and even counter-productive poo poo like squabbling with a Seer cabal over the disco club down the street for 20 or so odd years because it secretly is a locus of unimaginable funky power.

"For the last time we cannot take you to Funkytown, the supernal realm of funk would completely shatter your mind as you struggle to comprehend the funkiest version of yourself."

Soonmot
Dec 19, 2002

Entrapta fucking loves robots




Grimey Drawer

AnEdgelord posted:

If your mage game hasnt descended into a dresden files style shitstorm involving two or three different warring factions, run-ins with the sleeper police, a hunter conspiracy, a ploy to reach godhood, a macguffin, and/or a doomsday cult then you are missing out on the best way to play Mage.

poo poo my werewolf game is about to do that because one of the players wanted to go to a vampire casino in their downtime.

Captain_Person
Apr 7, 2013

WHAT CAN THE HARVEST HOPE FOR, IF NOT FOR THE CARE OF THE REAPER MAN?

Kurieg posted:

"For the last time we cannot take you to Funkytown, the supernal realm of funk would completely shatter your mind as you struggle to comprehend the funkiest version of yourself."

brb writing my next Mage campaign.

Nessus
Dec 22, 2003

After a Speaker vote, you may be entitled to a valuable coupon or voucher!



Joe Slowboat posted:

I feel like attempting to stop natural disasters with Awakened Magic is a case of, like, it could in theory work but you're more likely to implode in on yourself in a greasy ball of Paradox. I certainly don't think it's intended play!
You'd either do something "realistic" like "the hurricane weakens before landfall or veers left a little" or it'd be a massive cock-up. It would probably be fair doing to dispel or summon a twister if the general conditions were twister-friendly.

Hurricanes are kind of uniquely suited for magic targeting.

Perhaps the God-Machine instituted the hurricane naming system for some reason. (Perhaps you can summon the Unused Hurricanes, if you're brave enough.)

Joe Slowboat
Nov 9, 2016

Higgledy-Piggledy Whale Statements



Archonex posted:

But yeah, no. The only two times that mages were involved in "save the world" stories I can recall they basically hosed everything up, and in the case of one situation might have actually been actively making things go from "Okay, this city is at risk." to "Oh hey, this poo poo is going to start the apocalypse!".

It's entirely a product of people assuming that mages theoretically having the ability to go full reality warper/that level of power somehow means that they're inclined to use it for productive and equally potentially high tier ends. Rather than, y'know, doing fairly inane and even counter-productive poo poo like squabbling with a Seer cabal over the disco club down the street for 20 or so odd years because it secretly is a locus of unimaginable funky power.

If you're looking for over the top world saving hijinks you'd i'd say you'd probably be better off looking at something like Changeling, Tier 3/4 Hunter (The Night Stalkers book even briefly posits a few save the world from vampirism scenarios.), or hell, even Vampire. The latter of which even somehow ended up with two novels where vampiric protagonists somehow managed to bungle their way into outright heroism by saving entire cities/possibly the better portion of America from being leveled.

You're really overstating it.

Mages probably save the world all the time, in the sense that it's a dark urban fantasy setting with world-ending threats lying around. Mages (Seers and Pentacle alike) tend to want to keep those things from breaking everything. It's pretty clearly an intended mode of play for Mages to save the world from occult forces occasionally.

That's very different from fixing mundane disasters, though, which are entirely within the plan of the Exarchs and also a lot harder to deal with in secret using spells.

The fact that Mages who want to save the world generally understand the world to be threatened primarily by occult horrors and mystical tyranny is a feature, not a bug, because it makes the game more gnostic and more interesting than the alternative. The Pentacle is an alliance to save the world from the demiurges.
That's not to argue that Mages are 'the real heroes' because the real heroes are whichever game line your PCs are playing (and the real villains, too) (Except Beasts). But Mages aren't any more barred from heroism than Vampires are, and Mages don't even need to eat multiple people just to be able to throw powers around in that high pulp goodness.

AnEdgelord
Dec 12, 2016
Seriousl though, I recommend anyone interested in running a Mage campaign read The Dresden Files. Its a little less gnostic in its themes but in terms of exploring what a modern day wizard actually looks like and does all day it is perfect.

Joe Slowboat
Nov 9, 2016

Higgledy-Piggledy Whale Statements



Nessus posted:

You'd either do something "realistic" like "the hurricane weakens before landfall or veers left a little" or it'd be a massive cock-up. It would probably be fair doing to dispel or summon a twister if the general conditions were twister-friendly.

Hurricanes are kind of uniquely suited for magic targeting.

Perhaps the God-Machine instituted the hurricane naming system for some reason. (Perhaps you can summon the Unused Hurricanes, if you're brave enough.)

Hardcore Silver Ladder meteormancers spend weeks leading up to every major hurricane bleeding off its force in every way they can, up to and including falsifying meteorological data so that there's no indirect witnesses when they make drastic changes. At least one Seer ministry spends the same time trying to undo their hard work, more on principle than anything else. Climate change is in fact much worse than mundane science believes, and when Paradox finally tears its way out through the forehead of the Thearch in charge of the project, we're going to realize what that entails.

Alright I'm sold, weather disaster Mage campaign when? The players would be a plucky Free Council team of storm-chasers who have to pick up the slack when the Silver Ladder counterpart project falls apart/is murdered by Abyssal Intruders/is infiltrated by Seers/is attending Convocation and can't do their jobs.

Archonex
May 2, 2012

MY OPINION IS SEERS OF THE THRONE PROPAGANDA IGNORE MY GNOSIS-IMPAIRED RAMBLINGS

Joe Slowboat posted:

You're really overstating it.

Mages probably save the world all the time, in the sense that it's a dark urban fantasy setting with world-ending threats lying around. Mages (Seers and Pentacle alike) tend to want to keep those things from breaking everything. It's pretty clearly an intended mode of play for Mages to save the world from occult forces occasionally.

That's very different from fixing mundane disasters, though, which are entirely within the plan of the Exarchs and also a lot harder to deal with in secret using spells.

The fact that Mages who want to save the world generally understand the world to be threatened primarily by occult horrors and mystical tyranny is a feature, not a bug, because it makes the game more gnostic and more interesting than the alternative. The Pentacle is an alliance to save the world from the demiurges.
That's not to argue that Mages are 'the real heroes' because the real heroes are whichever game line your PCs are playing (and the real villains, too) (Except Beasts). But Mages aren't any more barred from heroism than Vampires are, and Mages don't even need to eat multiple people just to be able to throw powers around in that high pulp goodness.

While I was kind of joking, I really do gotta disagree about some parts of that. While the Seers are wholly bad news there's also lots of ambiguity on the Pentacle side of things. Though you can certainly play the PC's as heroes. It's pretty much canon though that power struggles in both of the factions are in some ways more venomous and collaterally destructive than Requiem's court politics.

And this is ignoring that no one else in the setting gives a poo poo about the magical equivalent of a class war until it spills over into their back yard. Ultimately, to anyone with their head screwed on straight the difference between a Seer ruining the neighborhood in order to create ~the perfect dystopia~ and a Pentacle mage doing it as part and parcel of their quest for ultimate truth is literally nothing. Both look like egotistically driven assholes when viewed from that lens. Hence why several of the Pentacle groups have at least some issues with seeing normal people as really being "people".


Ironically though, the Seers probably do more world saving in the modern era than the general mage populace does. Granted, it's entirely a selfish thing meant to preserve their own existence. It also doubles as a North Korea/Seoul-esque hostage taking sort of situation. Since if the Seers or Exarch's ever went away then the world would have a gently caress ton of potentially really powerful beings inevitably busting loose from their prisons and basically turning the setting into a post-apocalyptic version of Scion or Exalted. Doubly so since most of them were so powerful that mages at the height of their power literally could not kill them.

The entire Bound section of Imperial Mysteries goes into this. The Seers have a lot of outright really powerful/outright divine entities either locked up or going through life after life thinking they're humans. One example I sort of recall is a volcano goddess who may be linked to Yellowstone (Or another equally large volcano, again I forget which one.). The text all but states that if she ever got free of their control and realized what was done to her she might well want to express her feelings on an apocalyptic level.

A brief description from the wiki posted:

The Bound are a multitude of strange creatures that were sealed away by Atlantean mages, as they were unable to permanently slay them.

Modern mages believe that the monsters of myths are reflections of the Bound filtered through the lenses of the Quiescence. The Bound are not just magical; they must devour magic to survive. They can sense whenever Mana is near, driven by urges to destroy and consume. The Bound can detect the strength of a mage's soul instinctively, pausing only briefly to notice the magical energy flowing through the veins of other impossible creatures nearby. If one of the Bound can destroy a source of magic, it can then consume the Mana within. This is simply a matter of survival. Each dawn, one of the Bound weakens (losing one point of Mana). The beings are driven to hunt down magic and consume it. If they do not, they slowly fade away until their power (and their Mana) is gone, forcing them back into slumber.

The Exarchs have a particular interest in keeping the Bound dormant, as some of them are former Old Ones that the Exarchs banished from the Supernal Realms after their usurpation. Pylons of Seers guard the sites where these beings are chained and hinder them from awakening. Other Bound, according to legends, predate Atlantis itself and are rumored to have been sealed by the dragons.

Naturally, because it's Mage we're talking about there's an entire legacy/type of non-Seer arch-mage that specializes in freeing these beings and ascending either by acting as their right hand or an avatar of their will. The words "Restoring the world to it's former glory and ushering in the glorious apocalypse to come" is also a roughly paraphrased quote from the text when describing their ultimate aim.


AnEdgelord posted:

Seriousl though, I recommend anyone interested in running a Mage campaign read The Dresden Files. Its a little less gnostic in its themes but in terms of exploring what a modern day wizard actually looks like and does all day it is perfect.

Seconding this. It's a good enough series that it should be read even outside of mage related stuff. Though if you want to use it for inspiration you can get a lot out of it for a bunch of different game lines. It's also a good primer on how dickish Mage politics can be.

Archonex fucked around with this message at 07:03 on Mar 13, 2018

nofather
Aug 15, 2014
Okay it doesn't seem to be from the books. I think it's a valid playstyle but since I've started playing with random groups online I've found two things, one, a lot of STs don't really want to ST, and two a lot of people have vastly different ideas of what the games are about. Though it seems like finding like-minded people wouldn't be too hard if you wanted to play things like superhero-ish mage. I know the various Chronicles guides have advice for these types of things.

Nessus posted:

Perhaps the God-Machine instituted the hurricane naming system for some reason. (Perhaps you can summon the Unused Hurricanes, if you're brave enough.)

Mechanical question here. Even with the names, does the scale really encompass it? Hurricanes average 100 miles in diameter. Can you just bypass scale limitations by naming massive things, like states, nations, the planet Earth?

Rechecking the scale sheet it looks like you'd still have to be within Size of Largest Subject

nofather fucked around with this message at 06:51 on Mar 13, 2018

Archonex
May 2, 2012

MY OPINION IS SEERS OF THE THRONE PROPAGANDA IGNORE MY GNOSIS-IMPAIRED RAMBLINGS

Joe Slowboat posted:

Alright I'm sold, weather disaster Mage campaign when? The players would be a plucky Free Council team of storm-chasers who have to pick up the slack when the Silver Ladder counterpart project falls apart/is murdered by Abyssal Intruders/is infiltrated by Seers/is attending Convocation and can't do their jobs.

Funnily enough, if you throw in a mention of Changeling's secretly being the cause behind a tornado they're tracking (and actively chasing the storm-chaser mages with it) and you've basically got the plot of an unexplained one-off incident from the Dresden File books. Heck, wasn't an earlier book partially about trying to keep a Fae court from keeping the season's out of whack forever?

I bet trying to figure out the mechanics and plot of "Okay, go fight this storm. And climate change. Yes. All of it." would drive a less experienced ST right up the wall though.

Archonex fucked around with this message at 07:15 on Mar 13, 2018

Soonmot
Dec 19, 2002

Entrapta fucking loves robots




Grimey Drawer

AnEdgelord posted:

Seriousl though, I recommend anyone interested in running a Mage campaign read The Dresden Files. Its a little less gnostic in its themes but in terms of exploring what a modern day wizard actually looks like and does all day it is perfect.

I've been listening to the audiobooks thanks to this thread and yes. I'm about hallfway through Ghost Story right now, it's wonderful.

Nessus
Dec 22, 2003

After a Speaker vote, you may be entitled to a valuable coupon or voucher!



nofather posted:

Mechanical question here. Even with the names, does the scale really encompass it? Hurricanes average 100 miles in diameter. Can you just bypass scale limitations by naming massive things, like states, nations, the planet Earth?

Rechecking the scale sheet it looks like you'd still have to be within Size of Largest Subject
I dunno. If you're playing Storm Chasers Mage I imagine you might house rule it somehow to make it more feasible. Some trick that makes a short-lived, extremely large object easier to affect with magic would not have a lot of use for things OTHER than hurricanes.

This project suits Ars Magica's systems better I think

cptn_dr
Sep 7, 2011

Seven for beauty that blossoms and dies


I vaguely remember there being a weather controlling / storm chasing themed Legacy from 1st Ed. For Acanthus, I think? And since it was a Legacy, no need to worry about Paradox.

Edit: Though I know Legacies don't work like that anymore.

cptn_dr fucked around with this message at 07:53 on Mar 13, 2018

Xinder
Apr 27, 2013

i want to be a prince
I used Dresden Files as inspiration for a pack of NPC werewolves one of my parties interacted with. It's a good series.

Pope Guilty
Nov 6, 2006

The human animal is a beautiful and terrible creature, capable of limitless compassion and unfathomable cruelty.

Xinder posted:

I used Dresden Files as inspiration for a pack of NPC werewolves one of my parties interacted with. It's a good series.

I do kind of love of the logic of "What happens when a member of a group of gamer nerds gets lycanthropy? Of course they immediately start figuring out the rules, infecting their friends, and starting a crime-fighting team."

Kurieg
Jul 19, 2012

RIP Lutri: 5/19/20-4/2/20
:blizz::gamefreak:

Joe Slowboat posted:

Hardcore Silver Ladder meteormancers spend weeks leading up to every major hurricane bleeding off its force in every way they can, up to and including falsifying meteorological data so that there's no indirect witnesses when they make drastic changes. At least one Seer ministry spends the same time trying to undo their hard work, more on principle than anything else. Climate change is in fact much worse than mundane science believes, and when Paradox finally tears its way out through the forehead of the Thearch in charge of the project, we're going to realize what that entails.

Alright I'm sold, weather disaster Mage campaign when? The players would be a plucky Free Council team of storm-chasers who have to pick up the slack when the Silver Ladder counterpart project falls apart/is murdered by Abyssal Intruders/is infiltrated by Seers/is attending Convocation and can't do their jobs.

So what you're saying is that Geostorm was a documentary?

Yawgmoth
Sep 10, 2003

This post is cursed!

nofather posted:

Is the idea of mages going around saving the world in the books and I've missed it or is it something some fans just like so much they put into it? Not in a vague 'awaken the masses, utopia is a process' saving the world, but 'whenever there's a natural disaster or Bad Thing using your magic to stop it' saving the world.
Do not try to save the world; that's impossible. Instead only try to realize the truth: there is no world. Then you will see it is not the world that is saved, it is only yourself.

Joe Slowboat
Nov 9, 2016

Higgledy-Piggledy Whale Statements



I have to say, defining "having your head screwed on straight" as "thinking gnosticism is dumb and wrong" in an explicitly gnostic setting, well... honestly I'm seeing where you got that red text.

I never said the Pentacle was perfect; they have all the internal squabbles and questionable factions of any revolutionary movement. But ultimately their goals are to improve the world and the conditions in it so that humanity has a better chance of Awakening and unitin against tyrants who literally embody structural oppression. The only way you can argue that the Seers are no worse than the Pentacle with a straight face is if you think a society organized around racism, ignorance, and authoritarianism is no worse than one organized around humanism.

If you're playing Mage as written, the Sleeping Curse is a curse, and the Exarchs cruel demiurgic gods whose servants actively increase human suffering because it deadens the soul. The fact that the Pentacle can be a hot mess or the Seers don't actively want humanity extinct don't change that.

Seriously, why do so many people look at a 'game of gnostic horror' and go 'I guess that means all Mages are delusional and the ones who claim to want to uplift humanity to glory through knowledge are even more wrong for having that ambition'

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

Joe Slowboat posted:

I have to say, defining "having your head screwed on straight" as "thinking gnosticism is dumb and wrong" in an explicitly gnostic setting, well... honestly I'm seeing where you got that red text.

I never said the Pentacle was perfect; they have all the internal squabbles and questionable factions of any revolutionary movement. But ultimately their goals are to improve the world and the conditions in it so that humanity has a better chance of Awakening and unitin against tyrants who literally embody structural oppression. The only way you can argue that the Seers are no worse than the Pentacle with a straight face is if you think a society organized around racism, ignorance, and authoritarianism is no worse than one organized around humanism.

If you're playing Mage as written, the Sleeping Curse is a curse, and the Exarchs cruel demiurgic gods whose servants actively increase human suffering because it deadens the soul. The fact that the Pentacle can be a hot mess or the Seers don't actively want humanity extinct don't change that.

Seriously, why do so many people look at a 'game of gnostic horror' and go 'I guess that means all Mages are delusional and the ones who claim to want to uplift humanity to glory through knowledge are even more wrong for having that ambition'

This, I claim, is ideology.

Jhet
Jun 3, 2013

nofather posted:

Okay it doesn't seem to be from the books. I think it's a valid playstyle but since I've started playing with random groups online I've found two things, one, a lot of STs don't really want to ST, and two a lot of people have vastly different ideas of what the games are about. Though it seems like finding like-minded people wouldn't be too hard if you wanted to play things like superhero-ish mage. I know the various Chronicles guides have advice for these types of things.

I'd suggest that finding STs who can set up a story is a vastly different subset than STs who want to try running Mage. Setting up a world with socio-political conflict isn't necessarily the easiest thing, and there's not as much cultural capital for people to draw from like there is in setting up a decent D&D storyline. It comes from a different place than setting out a string of encounters, and I like a lot of new STs miss that part.

Not a single week passes in my mage game where I'm super happy that I don't set out a string of scenes, because these mages are hell bent on never being predictable. Ever. GD Acanthus. I guess, to be fair to them, their cabal theme is "Fight Evil?" as if they're not particularly certain. So I should know what I'm getting myself into. I think they consider themselves "hero adjacent" at this point.

So I just worry about thinking about all the other moving parts in the city, and who and how they're interacting to provide extra things/places to fill out the world. I still have our metaplot moving, and some weeks they spend the whole session moving it forward, and some weeks they're doing six other things. We also sprinkle in personal plot points and character development, so it's what works for us. It took me a decent amount of time and failing to ST well to figure out how to adjust and still keep things interesting. Mostly though, it comes from talking about what people enjoyed and didn't and then going directions that people enjoy in the future.

E: And if you can't find one, be one yourself.

Joe Slowboat
Nov 9, 2016

Higgledy-Piggledy Whale Statements



Ferrinus posted:

This, I claim, is ideology.

Zizek is a Free Councilor who has either blundered into Exarch worship or become an ironic scelestus, I can't tell which. The trash can is the Abyss.

Tuxedo Catfish
Mar 17, 2007

You've got guts! Come to my village, I'll buy you lunch.

cptn_dr posted:

I vaguely remember there being a weather controlling / storm chasing themed Legacy from 1st Ed. For Acanthus, I think? And since it was a Legacy, no need to worry about Paradox.

Edit: Though I know Legacies don't work like that anymore.

Storm Keepers. They're one of my personal favorites... mostly because it gives Acanthus Forces as a favored arcanum, but the flavor's neat too.

Tuxedo Catfish
Mar 17, 2007

You've got guts! Come to my village, I'll buy you lunch.
"So the paradox is, that it's much easier to imagine the end of all life on earth than a much more modest radical change in the Sleeping Curse."

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

Joe Slowboat posted:

Zizek is a Free Councilor who has either blundered into Exarch worship or become an ironic scelestus, I can't tell which. The trash can is the Abyss.

All we know for sure is that he awakened thyrsus.

Ironslave
Aug 8, 2006

Corpse runner

Joe Slowboat posted:

I have to say, defining "having your head screwed on straight" as "thinking gnosticism is dumb and wrong" in an explicitly gnostic setting, well... honestly I'm seeing where you got that red text.

I never said the Pentacle was perfect; they have all the internal squabbles and questionable factions of any revolutionary movement. But ultimately their goals are to improve the world and the conditions in it so that humanity has a better chance of Awakening and unitin against tyrants who literally embody structural oppression. The only way you can argue that the Seers are no worse than the Pentacle with a straight face is if you think a society organized around racism, ignorance, and authoritarianism is no worse than one organized around humanism.

If you're playing Mage as written, the Sleeping Curse is a curse, and the Exarchs cruel demiurgic gods whose servants actively increase human suffering because it deadens the soul. The fact that the Pentacle can be a hot mess or the Seers don't actively want humanity extinct don't change that.

Seriously, why do so many people look at a 'game of gnostic horror' and go 'I guess that means all Mages are delusional and the ones who claim to want to uplift humanity to glory through knowledge are even more wrong for having that ambition'

The game is a horror game, and that horror is as much about what the PCs do with their godly power as much as anything else. You're making the assumption that Truth is inherently good, and the association that what the more humanitarian Orders of the Pentacle want to do, is what the people want and would benefit from, and that the Orders assuming this isn't them being myopic and self-aggrandizing. Yeah, the Silver Ladder and the Free Council can do good, and try to do good by their ethos. But they do just as much harm, and if the idea that they're heroes as mages only comes across in contrast to these other mages it doesn't make a good case for their ultimate worth to the world.

The Pentacle aren't good guys. They're just the ones not trying to make the world worse. They accomplish it just as well through their ritual assassinations, their integrity-withering actions, their power-worshiping weirdness, and their secret sects that want to kill all humans. Humanity doesn't need magical superpowers or an engagement with Truth in order to live happy lives--hell, those things often seem more of a detriment to them. And in the meanwhile, their lives get played with by people who often insist that because something is True that it's more important.

Anyone who'd say you're playing mage wrong for not subscribing to that notion, or for playing a game where the characters don't engage as much with the weight of their hubris, or where your caucuses are composed primarily of good people working to do good things the right way (they do exist, and they're not rare as unicorns), is an rear end in a top hat. And, for clarity, I'm not weighing all three of those examples as the same thing. It's just that this is a horror game series about playing monsters, and it feels weird to try and exclude one line from that premise.

Joe Slowboat
Nov 9, 2016

Higgledy-Piggledy Whale Statements



I don't think anything I've said excludes mages from being monsters; I just think that much of the 'horror' in gnostic horror comes from the fact that the universe is set up in such a way that truth is both good and hidden; that the individual who has seen a true revelation of something beautiful is as likely to become a selfish tyrant as a savior; that magic, which is a transcendent thing, scars and warps the world.

None of this requires 'actually all Mages are useless and hubris is always doomed to failure, stop trying to improve the world and recognize that the Seers are actually better' and if anything that undercuts it.

The idea that the world in a gnostic setting is perfectly ok and 'people can just be happy without changing anything' strikes me as incredibly boring. That's much less a horror setting than 'we live in the Lie and we suffer for that reason, but trying to break free is also a source of suffering.'

An unjust universe and its hubris-prone would-be revolutionaries has a lot more going for it than the bland 'actually magic is an alien invader into a perfectly fine universe' setting some people want. The Pentacle being both broadly right that the world is a prison and totally unable to, at this time, do anything about it, that's also horror.

Edit: I think the main disagreement here is whether or not the driver of horror in a Mage game should be "Mages exist" or "the conditions that create Mages as they currently exist, exist" - I'm inclined to the idea that the Fallen World is a bigger monster than individual mages, even as the actual game I'm running is about uprooting Tremere infiltrators who have basically taken over a medium-sized Pentacle Consilium in secret due to the Pentacle being poorly organized and insular.

Joe Slowboat fucked around with this message at 16:53 on Mar 13, 2018

Ironslave
Aug 8, 2006

Corpse runner
Truth isn't inherently good, though. At least, not as it's been presented in the game so far, but nothing says it can't be the way it actually works in your game. Magic's been traditionally depicted as utterly amoral, ascension is itself uncaring how you accomplished it, and there's good reason to believe a lot of the Bound wouldn't make the world better for people if they were restored to the Supernal. The Exarchs themselves are supernal symbols, potentially just as True as anything else (the entire idea of them being atlantean archmages being true or false may or may not hold sway over someone's opinion on that). The Truth encompasses charity, mercy, and murder.

Edit: also everything you said in your edit is capable of being the case, depending on the individual perspective of the specific game being run. The idea of the Fallen World as the bigger monster, the idea of mages actively making the world worse, the holy recognition of the Truth, and the potentiality of that holy recognition being a bad thing for a person's moral and ethical compass are not all mutually-exclusive ways to view the setting. Ultimately games are taken by the chapter and the perspective thereof. It's just worth remembering that the Pentacle are not a group of "good guys" and that the Truth is not an objective good. Not that I think you're advocating that.

Ironslave fucked around with this message at 17:18 on Mar 13, 2018

WINNERSH TRIANGLE
Aug 17, 2011

Archonex posted:

While I was kind of joking, I really do gotta disagree about some parts of that. While the Seers are wholly bad news there's also lots of ambiguity on the Pentacle side of things. Though you can certainly play the PC's as heroes. It's pretty much canon though that power struggles in both of the factions are in some ways more venomous and collaterally destructive than Requiem's court politics.

And this is ignoring that no one else in the setting gives a poo poo about the magical equivalent of a class war until it spills over into their back yard. Ultimately, to anyone with their head screwed on straight the difference between a Seer ruining the neighborhood in order to create ~the perfect dystopia~ and a Pentacle mage doing it as part and parcel of their quest for ultimate truth is literally nothing. Both look like egotistically driven assholes when viewed from that lens. Hence why several of the Pentacle groups have at least some issues with seeing normal people as really being "people".


Ironically though, the Seers probably do more world saving in the modern era than the general mage populace does. Granted, it's entirely a selfish thing meant to preserve their own existence. It also doubles as a North Korea/Seoul-esque hostage taking sort of situation. Since if the Seers or Exarch's ever went away then the world would have a gently caress ton of potentially really powerful beings inevitably busting loose from their prisons and basically turning the setting into a post-apocalyptic version of Scion or Exalted. Doubly so since most of them were so powerful that mages at the height of their power literally could not kill them.

Axelgear
Oct 13, 2011

If I'm wrong, please don't hesitate to tell me. It happens pretty often and I will try to change my opinion if I'm presented with evidence.
A Thyrsus of mine Awoke in a spectacularly noisy fashion and, in the process, ended up putting someone in a compromising situation that cost him a romantic relationship, left family connections tense, and left him with a case of the Magical Brain Crazies (he hears hallucinatory music that tells him to do stuff; he might be in the process of Awakening, just very slowly). Said Thyrsus eventually discovered the damage she'd done to his life and wanted to try and help make it up to him, until she discovered that he was in the midst of a potential Awakening and that the pain and misery he's going through is helping suppress the placid instincts that drive most of humanity (from her perspective); bringing out the wild, feral drive that's necessary to bring about true understanding of the cosmos.

Being a good little thearch, and faced with the choice of helping someone deal with their crippling emotional problems or letting him suffer because it'll drag someone else into a world of impossible horror that's left her an emotional wreck as well, she chose the latter without hesitation. Because that's what she thinks is best for him.

This sort of sums up, for me, why Mage is a horror game. I run and play the Awakened as addicts; people who are addicted to something, be it chasing Mysteries, bringing about some utopian vision, or otherwise disappearing up their own rear end. Even when the Awakened want to be good people - see: Bringing about the utopian vision - they are so in a way that's usually destructive and painful to the lives of those around them. When I ST these games - and I've STed a lot of them - I don't usually even need to work to bring about the horror aspect of the game; I just run a game of magical mysteries and players keep shouting "HEY GUYS, LOOK AT THIS REALLY PRETTY ROPE I FOUND, DO YOU THINK IT'LL LOOK NICE AROUND MY NECK!?".

As Ironslave keeps saying, that's not everyone's cup of tea, and that's fine. I hate tea, myself.

Actual tea, I mean. I clearly like the metaphorical tea.

Der Waffle Mous
Nov 27, 2009

In the grim future, there is only commerce.
Iirc didn't a lot of the CofD more or less stop referring to themselves as horror games?

The Libearian
Nov 24, 2007
Return your books or face mauling
I mean obviously to anyone who has read witch finders we know that mages selfish worship of dragons is potentially dooming the world by attracting the faceless angels attention, luckily the knights of St George are there to be unambiguously good and try to save the world in a selfless manner

Tuxedo Catfish
Mar 17, 2007

You've got guts! Come to my village, I'll buy you lunch.

Der Waffle Mous posted:

Iirc didn't a lot of the CofD more or less stop referring to themselves as horror games?

"Horror game" is to Mage as "comedy forum" is to SA.

Ironslave
Aug 8, 2006

Corpse runner

Der Waffle Mous posted:

Iirc didn't a lot of the CofD more or less stop referring to themselves as horror games?

I can't speak for any other line, but mage was still being called a horror game through 2E's development.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Jade Mage
Jan 4, 2013

This is Canada. It snows nine months of the year, and hails the other three.

JesterOfAmerica posted:

Has there been an update on scion hero text?

:siren: Just got a backerkit email! Scion Hero text is out! :siren:

Jade Mage fucked around with this message at 18:45 on Mar 13, 2018

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • Post
  • Reply