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Elswyyr posted:EVERY MORNING I WAKE UP AND OPEN PALM SLAM A METAPHYSICAL CONCEPT INTO THE SLOT. ITS THE LIE AND RIGHT THEN AND THERE I START DOING THE MOVES ALONGSIDE WITH THE MAIN CHARACTERS, THE EXARCHS. I DO EVERY ROTE AND I DO EVERY ROTE HARD. MAKIN WHOOSHING SOUNDS WHEN I ENFORCE DISEMPOWERING IDEALS OR EVEN WHEN I MESS UP TECHNIQUE. NOT MANY CAN SAY THEY ESCAPED THE SUPERNAL REALM. I CAN. I SAY IT AND I SAY IT OUTLOUD EVERYDAY TO PEOPLE IN THE TEMENOS AND ALL THEY DO IS PROVE PEOPLE IN THE ASTRAL PLANE CAN STILL BE IMMATURE JEKRS. AND IVE LEARNED ALL THE ROTES AND IVE LEARNED HOW TO MAKE MYSELF AND MY ONEIROS LESS LONELY BY SHOUTING EM ALL. 2 HOURS INCLUDING WIND DOWN EVERY MORNIng Dear Exarchs: YOUR COCKSUCKING WORLD HAS REDUCED ME TO A GIBBERING MAN-APE WHOSE ONLY RESORT TO DEALING WITH THE ALMIGHTY loving GRIEF IT'S BESTOWED UPON ME IS TO SCREAM AND HURT MYSELF. Seriously, I am jumping up and down and throwing my poo poo in handfuls at my loving summoning circle in some impotent primal yantra to get the thing to work. I have been sitting here trying to enjoy your world - YOUR WORLD, YOUR LIE, YOUR CONTRACT BETWEEN SEER AND GOD THAT THE SEER WILL ENACT YOUR WILL - but instead the Abyss's been crawling out of the cracks in reality and taking warm shits in my gaping mouth. Swear to god, you should have just added a little door to the world through which a gulmoth pops out and flips me off, because I am insulted that your ochemata or tetrarchs or whatever brainless shitstove three genes short of a monkey FAGNUT divines your will thought that a person with more than a single loving digit IQ could effectively try to summon one of your servants. INSULTED.
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Mar 13, 2018 22:35
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Archonex posted:This is fantastic. Also, now i'm picturing some godling clutching his skull and bemoaning the terrible state of his religion as he discovers they've been writing Twilight level slashfics about him and his worshipers. Same but Supernatural level slashfic about him and his actual siblings
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Mar 13, 2018 22:36
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It is noted that deific usually does not use the actual names of the gods, Heroes and so on involved, changing them just enough to avoid Fatebinding/creating actual new legends. But like, it might well be the kind of changing where Dracula goes by A. Lucard.
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Mar 13, 2018 22:44
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Hey, while we're on magechat I'll ask this question even though it won't matter for at least another year. Mage is near the end of my gameline rotation since I want these players to be really accustomed to the way the system and setting work before we try something that deep. Is it a bad idea to run my first ever Mage game based on the Alexander the Great Dark Era? I'm still in love with Dark Eras, not the least because we get to build our own setting lore for later games to sometimes draw on and that's really cool. I know the Vinca one is a bad idea because it's so different, but I haven't heard much talk about To The Strongest one way or the other. I haven't read through it myself, admittedly, because there's not much point when it's so far away and I haven't even bothered to read the Mage core yet. Just curious at this point.
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Mar 13, 2018 22:46
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Mors Rattus posted:Hold up a sec. I'm arguing it's possible, and saying what evidence do you have to the contrary? I mean obviously it's a game and you can just say "They did the thing and the thing was good and they won", but as a flat exercise in logic they've had thousands of years to even define what the parameters of battle are....and failed. We can't at this point even say what fights the Exarchs. Like if an Exarch is War, what is "war"? Like how abstract do you have to get to not be war while still a form of conflict? Does it have to be nations and armies? We know tribe against tribe can ultimately be enough, is corporate warfare war enough for the General? Us versus them, spy versus spy, very real body counts....is that enough? How far would you have to go to eliminate war, and would your conflict itself be considered a war against War, and thus empower the symbol? Can you never actually win a battle against War, is that how the Supernal works? If you can't even say what you are doing in the first place, how do you move from there to doing it well enough to win? Forget the morality of the conflict, are the Pentacle even opposing the Exarchs in the first place? The entire basis of Mage society is a magic soul dream gave them funny powers and now they think they know what the gently caress they are talking about. Stripped of all ideology all they are is schizophrenics with the ability to throw fireballs until they actually start putting facts on the table. Which they've basically never had. There are probably Exarchs, and they probably have some degree of influence on the world. We can just about say that much. We can't even be certain because it's hard to say what the final step from Mage to Platonic Ideal involves. What is left afterwards isn't human, certainly. Maybe there are Exarchs, or maybe the Exarchs just destroyed themselves and empowered Ideals that were already there. What you think is Bob, that random rear end in a top hat that become the General after ascending to the Supernal, might just be the expression of War that got twigged by the conflict in the Supernal and killed Bob. Maybe this entire conflict ended a very, very long time ago and it's just human nature perpetuating a system of oppression it itself empowered in the first place. And all the Mages are doing is running around in circles, occasionally tilting at windmills while doing nothing to impact the overall state of things. Probably not, but you can't actually say it's not because you don't really know what's happening. Why should I meaningfully back a side that doesn't know what is happening and has had lifetimes to figure it out with some of the strongest tools it's conceivable to have?
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Mar 13, 2018 22:49
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Joe Slowboat posted:Mhm. Mhm. Ok, let's just consider this: What version of history are you aware of where nothing has changed in thousands of years, and also where the US government has 'objectively done more net good than a random group of humanists' ? In my personal take on Unknown Armies the Invisible Clergy hits the magic 333 number every time someone ascends to them -- and in that instant, the paradigm of the world is rewritten, the weakest archetype in the toybox gets excised, and the number goes back to 332. It is the "end of the world" each and every time it happens in the sense that the zeitgeist shifts and can never return to what it formerly was. It has been happening more and more regularly over time, but it keeps happening. For M:tAw purposes I'd be tempted to go a similar route: every time someone Ascends successfully to the Supernal and takes up a place in it, they become an Exarch - not because of some sort of heel turn, but because once you stop being one of the dorks stuck in the cave watching the shapes making their shadows on the wall and become one of the shapes, by your very nature you will cast a shadow. The nature of the Lie, the sheer oppressive thickness of it, the ease with which it can be penetrated, the particular ways it grinds people down - that's changed bit by bit over the years as Mages have slipped through the cracks. Bit by bit the shadow play becomes more and more complex as more and more Exarchs cast their shadows; eventually, perhaps, it will become so convoluted that it can no longer hold people's attention and the Lie will collapse. That will be great for everyone who has been able to prepare themselves for Supernal existence and pretty drat fatal for everyone else.
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Mar 13, 2018 22:49
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Man, you must be real fun to game with.
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Mar 13, 2018 22:49
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Joe Slowboat posted:I'm just holding the position that even if the truth isn't itself a moral framework, there's a moral value to making people aware of truth. Otherwise Sleepers are disempowered forever. I follow now. Thing is, holding moral value to Truth is the sort of thing that leads to mages and archmages looking at the Bound, and thinking "I should put this back, even if it'll bring back blood sacrifice in a big way and rewrite history in a silent apocalypse" because, hey, it'll mend a perceived crack in the firmament. Incidentally, the exact character development that's occurred in the game I play in. Sure, people will no longer exist and history will be unrecognizable and the blood-stained temples of Tenochtitlan may end up the global norm, the cosmological principle of Sacrifice will now be back in place and people will probably be able to Awaken easier if they put in the effort. It just, y'know, ignores that it's arguably the same thing as murdering everyone on the planet. Ironslave fucked around with this message at 22:57 on Mar 13, 2018 |
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Mar 13, 2018 22:53
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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. The problem is that the Exarchs entrenched themselves in the Supernal World pretty well, and toppling them - even if possible - could cause a lot of damage. I'm not even talking about the Abyss (currently held back by the Gate), or the Old Gods returning. I'm talking about the total collapse of the modern society. Can the concept of money even work without the Chancellor? Would countries continue to exist without divisions drawn by the Hegemon, implicit threat of violence of the General and fear of being observed by the Eye? No one really knows what happens when you defeat the concepts of tyranny, because they exist from the beginning of time and helped to shape every society we can imagine. The Pentacle claims to have better ideas of society from the Time Before and everything will work itself out as soon as the Exarchs are toppled. Can they really be believed? Even if what they say is true, they had their perfect society before and it tore itself apart. There is also the issue of most of the Pentacle not being that enthusiastic about Sleepers having any agency. The Mysterium disdains them; they are the unworthy they exist to keep knowledge from. The Silver Ladder is all about caste society with themselves on the top and the ones they deem unwise - on the bottom. The Guardians regularly sabotage those they consider unworthy of Awakening. The Arrows remain in splendid isolation since at least WWII. This leaves the Free Council with the idea that humanity is magical and, given time, will develop means to defeat the tyrants by itself. But given that the modern society was shaped by the Exarchs, this seems somewhat unlikely.
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Mar 13, 2018 22:59
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Mulva posted:I'm arguing it's possible, and saying what evidence do you have to the contrary? The fact that this is a game line at least partially about discovery and arcane truths, and boiling it all down to "no one really knows anything and improving things is impossible" is nihilistic in a way that goes against everything that makes Mage a playable game. (Also, regarding other posts on this weirdly-pro-Seer topic we're all stuck in, whether or not you can remove the exarchs without changing the basic makeup of existence into something unrecognizable is a significantly more gameable question than all of this, just because there's a lot of room to work in between "leaving the universe in it's current profoundly sin-cursed state ruled by a capitalist mystery cult" and "tearing the concept of greed out of reality with a crowbar", and it's one that still has the potential of leaving the world in a better state despite your hubris in thinking that even attempting this is a good idea.)
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Mar 13, 2018 23:08
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Mors Rattus posted:It is noted that deific usually does not use the actual names of the gods, Heroes and so on involved, changing them just enough to avoid Fatebinding/creating actual new legends. But like, it might well be the kind of changing where Dracula goes by A. Lucard. What happens when they don't? "Sorry but you failed your roll vs fatebinding and you just got anubis manpregnant."
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Mar 13, 2018 23:08
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Part of the problem seems to be the Supernal being a complete unknown, and a flaw present somewhere. The Exarchs are symbols, they're not dudes sitting on thrones like Orcus. They represent something like everything in the Supernal does. They're words. But they seem to be the only ones who really do anything about it. The symbol of fire doesn't seem to be out there telling people to burn things, and the symbol of lemon trees isn't out there making everyone plant and worship lemon trees and be sour and not at all sweet. So, why are the Exarchs so different? Is it because, as representations of tyranny, they insist upon it? Because surely there's other things that would fit too but seem to have no presence. Also, what are these other symbols doing? Why are they nonentities in comparison to the Iron Pyramid? Either way, it does look like a third party watching things could escape Earth and humankind and not have as much of a problem with the Exarchs.
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Mar 13, 2018 23:09
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Kurieg posted:What happens when they don't? Mechanically, nothing. Fictionally, probably nothing, unless a fic gets super popular and suddenly the universe is throwing obstacles and challenges at you that encourage you to reenact the general theme and goal of the story, in much the same way that a Scion of Thor will face challenges related to Thor's myths. This is uncommon but enough of a risk that most deific writers don't do it for fear of angry Scions.
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Mar 13, 2018 23:12
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Mors Rattus posted:Mechanically, nothing. Fictionally, probably nothing, unless a fic gets super popular and suddenly the universe is throwing obstacles and challenges at you that encourage you to reenact the general theme and goal of the story, in much the same way that a Scion of Thor will face challenges related to Thor's myths. e: Except Aquaman can, in this situation, go kick Seanbaby's rear end and tell him to cut that poo poo out or he's gonna feed him to a dolphin in one-ounce pieces.
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Mar 13, 2018 23:14
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Gantolandon posted:The problem is that the Exarchs entrenched themselves in the Supernal World pretty well, and toppling them - even if possible - could cause a lot of damage. I mean, the damages you outline are also implicit in any kind of transition from how things are to a utopian state of affairs. Ending oppression would involve a fundamental change in the world's order! A revelation, if you will. An apocalypse. To return to that repurposed quote, "It is easier to imagine the end of life on Earth than the end of the Lie." That's a real issue, but it's one that utopians and radicals face now, too. Ironslave posted:I follow now. I think that doesn't necessarily follow; for one thing, knowing that the Exarchs are currently 'true' doesn't mean you don't want to change that truth, it just means you acknowledge they exist and need to be dealt with. If I say 'racism is real' it doesn't mean 'racists are right' it means that racism exists and we should try to end it. As Marx said, "The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to change it." That doesn't mean 'don't interpret' it means 'interpretation is step one.' That being said your table sounds fantastic, I've got a soft spot for exiled gods of human sacrifice (I had one in an Exalted campaign, who got retired with honors to a local deity position in Creation after the War in Heaven, and was still annoyed that politics got her position cut after she served in the Divine Rebellion).
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Mar 13, 2018 23:16
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Mors Rattus posted:Mechanically, nothing. Fictionally, probably nothing, unless a fic gets super popular and suddenly the universe is throwing obstacles and challenges at you that encourage you to reenact the general theme and goal of the story, in much the same way that a Scion of Thor will face challenges related to Thor's myths. Chuck Tingle's Pounded in the Butt by Fate Over the Fanfic Pounded in the Butt by the Watchdogs of Anubis
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Mar 13, 2018 23:17
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Lurks With Wolves posted:The fact that this is a game line at least partially about discovery and arcane truths, and boiling it all down to "no one really knows anything and improving things is impossible" is nihilistic in a way that goes against everything that makes Mage a playable game. That's a fairly binary dichotomy you have there. Why is that because I say "The Pentacle are gently caress ups" you assume I said "Nobody knows anything and improving things is impossible"? There aren't two sides in this conflict. There aren't even three or four. I've already backed my horse, and it's pretty sure it knows something too. Which is that there is something fundamentally wrong with the world and that abusing Supernal magic makes it worse. And that ultimately that needs to stop. Granted it's a side that is a bit insane from the experience of discovery and needs some massaging, but I think it's a far more workable starting point than "Magic will eventually solve this and we can go back to being god-kings", which Free Council aside is somewhere in the neighborhood of what the Pentacle wants. 'Atlantis' wasn't perfect, and it's the best they can hope for under their system. And it had all the problems we have today. It warred and it had slaves and it had castes and oppression and hatred and blah blah blah, and that's all they really fight for. Individuals in that social group might not, they might want better, but that's true of any group. I don't think every Seer is the full sociopath that gets off on kicking puppies in the face, they are just weak and would rather have some power rather than none. The banality of evil rather than the totality of it.
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Mar 13, 2018 23:18
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Ironslave posted:Chuck Tingle's Pounded in the Butt by Fate Over the Fanfic Pounded in the Butt by the Watchdogs of Anubis
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Mar 13, 2018 23:18
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Nessus posted:Yeah, who's Dr. Tingle a Scion of? Obviously somebody. Chuck Tingle's Pounded in the Butt by the Giants of Jotunhem by the Publication of the Book Pounded in the Butt by the Giants of Jotunheim.
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Mar 13, 2018 23:23
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Haha, but seriously folks, destroy the servants of the Lie.
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Mar 13, 2018 23:26
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Pounded In The Butt By A Handsome Manifestation of the Supernal Turned Seer By A Living Word-Concept of Tyranny Gaygent Brontosaurus IN: Over-Cumming Despair And Finding Meaning In Life Pt 3: The Meaning Is In My rear end Attorney at Funk posted:Haha, but seriously folks, destroy the servants of the Lie. e: Well drat, this is hardly even a joke now. quote:Dispensed within this non-fiction volume is everything that you need to know about The Void, a terrifying place outside reality that is constantly overflowing with cosmic horror. Will you know what to do when The Void starts leaking into your timeline? Nessus fucked around with this message at 23:31 on Mar 13, 2018 |
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Mar 13, 2018 23:28
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Nessus posted:Yeah, who's Dr. Tingle a Scion of? Obviously somebody. Loki.
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Mar 13, 2018 23:32
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Joe Slowboat posted:I think that doesn't necessarily follow; for one thing, knowing that the Exarchs are currently 'true' doesn't mean you don't want to change that truth, it just means you acknowledge they exist and need to be dealt with. If I say 'racism is real' it doesn't mean 'racists are right' it means that racism exists and we should try to end it. As Marx said, "The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to change it." That doesn't mean 'don't interpret' it means 'interpretation is step one.' I don't think it does necessarily follow, but I think that's less to do with the mindset and more because I don't think Aponoia is common knowledge in-setting and most mages probably haven't sat down to consider what eliminating the Chancellor might actually mean to the universe in light of that understanding. Really, that's a horror in itself: how many would look at the idea and see it entirely in-line with their personal philosophies, and how many would take a step back and start assessing the axioms with which they approach the holistic view of the universe. Sacrifice entities are fun. The present one in the game I'm in manifests most commonly as a representation of the hanged man from the tarot bleeding tass from stigmatic wounds into an ocean in the sky, atop a perfected stone ziggurat. He might also be a pangaean. Still a lot of mysteries. My character's gone all-in on restoring it, because it resonates with his personal symbolism to an alarming degree.
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Mar 13, 2018 23:33
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Nessus posted:Yeah, who's Dr. Tingle a Scion of? Obviously somebody. If I had to choose off the top of my head, you could pick worse than Dionysus.
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Mar 13, 2018 23:35
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Attorney at Funk posted:Haha, but seriously folks, destroy the servants of the Lie. 
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Mar 13, 2018 23:35
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There's something weirdly depressing about the obsession with maintaining the status quo, in mage of all things.
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Mar 13, 2018 23:36
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Mulva posted:That's a fairly binary dichotomy you have there. Why is that because I say "The Pentacle are gently caress ups" you assume I said "Nobody knows anything and improving things is impossible"? I say that because this is a game about mages. "Mages are a bunch of assholes dominated by hubris, and if they move beyond themselves and act with Wisdom they might be able to make the world slightly better" is a game. "Mages are a bunch of assholes dominated by hubris, and we don't really know if they really know anything so we should just get rid of all the mages and let everything continue normally" is something you play for a session and then stop because the end goal is to unmake the game that you are playing. If I sound really annoyed at your position, that's why.
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Mar 13, 2018 23:37
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Lurks With Wolves posted:I say that because this is a game about mages. "Mages are a bunch of assholes dominated by hubris, and if they move beyond themselves and act with Wisdom they might be able to make the world slightly better" is a game. "Mages are a bunch of assholes dominated by hubris, and we don't really know if they really know anything so we should just get rid of all the mages and let everything continue normally" is something you play for a session and then stop because the end goal is to unmake the game that you are playing. If I sound really annoyed at your position, that's why. I don't believe that people actually play Mage, they just talk about it on the internet.
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Mar 13, 2018 23:47
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long-rear end nips Diane posted:I don't believe that people actually play Mage, they just talk about it on the internet.
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Mar 13, 2018 23:47
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Lurks With Wolves posted:I say that because this is a game about mages. "Mages are a bunch of assholes dominated by hubris, and if they move beyond themselves and act with Wisdom they might be able to make the world slightly better" is a game. "Mages are a bunch of assholes dominated by hubris, and we don't really know if they really know anything so we should just get rid of all the mages and let everything continue normally" is something you play for a session and then stop because the end goal is to unmake the game that you are playing. If I sound really annoyed at your position, that's why. Fundamentally *any* Mage game is about unmaking the game you are playing. It's just a question of what that end state looks like. That is literally the dynamic behind The Lie. That reality as you know it is a construct intended to keep you down, and that's a thing that potentially has mechanical impact on the dice if you start to change that. If Paradox and the Abyss are really a function of the Exarchs and that conflict, resolving that leads to a world of free magic that is mechanically entirely different than the game you started with. At which point if you didn't say "The end", you wouldn't be playing Mage anymore. And if you do say "The end", well, it doesn't matter what the world would be like. The game is what you did to get there, and that's true of what I said too. Unless you are a Seer, all Mage games exist to destroy Mage.
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Mar 13, 2018 23:51
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Have you ever actually played Mage?
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Mar 13, 2018 23:53
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Mors Rattus posted:Have you ever actually played Mage? At this point I refuse to believe anyone has ever.
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Mar 13, 2018 23:56
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Wtf I hate Mage now?
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Mar 13, 2018 23:57
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The only game I haven't actually been in a game of is Mummy. Well new Mummy. Why? I doubt most people here have run a game of Beast, can they not poo poo on that now?
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Mar 13, 2018 23:57
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long-rear end nips Diane posted:I don't believe that people actually play Mage, they just talk about it on the internet. Why do you think they call it The Lie?
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Mar 13, 2018 23:59
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I'm doing Mage wrong, my game's been running for almost two years. Perhaps it is I who am the Abyss??
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Mar 14, 2018 00:16
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Mulva posted:The only game I haven't actually been in a game of is Mummy. Well new Mummy. Why? I doubt most people here have run a game of Beast, can they not poo poo on that now? Because your description of the point of Mage does not match literally any of my experiences with Mage, either as player or GM.
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Mar 14, 2018 00:17
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Mage as a game, both of them really, have by far some of the broadest play experiences of any PnP game. Like, ever. You can do pretty much any possible thing with the powers handed to you, and people often do. The thing I hear the least of, even in this thread, is people playing a relatively straight laced approach to the setting as might come off from the core book. Everyone gets weird with Mage at some point, just a question of how quick it happens. Be it jettisoning the setting entirely to just do a magic caper game or something, or just blowing things up real quick and you have people punching an Exarch in the dick by like session 12.
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Mar 14, 2018 00:28
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The goal of Mage, per Mage the book, is basically...to solve magical mysteries and pursue obsessions. Ascension is a thing some Mages do but it is absolutely neither the stated goal nor the implied goal of the game. It's just...a thing. Hence why this is the one named Awakening, not Ascension. It's not about Ascension.
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Mar 14, 2018 00:30
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Even without Ascension, changing the world is the goal of the Silver Ladder.
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Mar 14, 2018 00:53
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