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nimby posted:So WoD technology runs on an equivalent of Warhammer 40k Orc's belief system. If an Ork thinks something should work, it just works. If a wizard thinks something should work, there's a 50/50 chance that they get vaporized on the spot unless the something in question has been pre-approved by the illuminati and gone though about 50 departments of red tape.
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Jun 9, 2018 17:54
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Also you have everyone's favorite faction, the Sons of Ether, who figured out that you can get away with a lot of magical nonsense in front of the normies as long as you fiddle with something really complicated looking while you do.
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Jun 9, 2018 17:57
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Yeah, since backlash from loving with consensus depends on the observer the most reliable protection is plausible deniability. That's why making a pipe fall to block a bullet will be just fine, but stopping the bullet in midair will cause some Issues. If you're in a particularly superstitious area, you could just straight up give someone a health potion with no issues.
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Jun 9, 2018 18:13
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I remember there was one sourcebook that mentioned there was a cabal of Tradition Mages that got away with using vulgar magick in public by carrying around film equipment and setting up "Please Keep Back - Filming In Progress" signs near the sites of their battles, which helped convince bystanders that anything they saw was just "special effects" for a movie that was being shot. 
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Jun 9, 2018 20:17
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Eox posted:Yeah, since backlash from loving with consensus depends on the observer the most reliable protection is plausible deniability. That's why making a pipe fall to block a bullet will be just fine, but stopping the bullet in midair will cause some Issues. Wonder if this is an inspiration for Thorsby's Plausible Deniability school of magic in Trixie Slaughteraxe for President.
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Jun 9, 2018 22:00
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W.T. Fits posted:I remember there was one sourcebook that mentioned there was a cabal of Tradition Mages that got away with using vulgar magick in public by carrying around film equipment and setting up "Please Keep Back - Filming In Progress" signs near the sites of their battles, which helped convince bystanders that anything they saw was just "special effects" for a movie that was being shot. And this is why consensual reality and M:tA owns. It takes the idea of modern day wizards, already cool, and turns it into an amazing game of philosophic Calvinball that pits your worldview and myths against a league of beleaguered super-scientists who have lost the plot and/or a world that is slouching ever further down the path of least resistance.
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Jun 9, 2018 22:20
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nimby posted:So WoD technology runs on an equivalent of Warhammer 40k Orc's belief system. Only when you're playing mage though. Other splats have their own, frequently contradictory, metaphysics.
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Jun 10, 2018 06:59
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 New One! #1124: Dominate Tricks!I suspect that it'll still be no fewer than two more strips before the big reveal of the memory. Also, is there a chance Roy could snap Elan out of the domination by talking, or is that just another case of Talky Man Talk Too Much? Stabbey_the_Clown fucked around with this message at 16:59 on Jun 13, 2018 |
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Jun 13, 2018 16:45
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i’m enjoying seeing elan put his low intelligence and high charisma to evil purposes
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Jun 13, 2018 17:03
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Venuz Patrol posted:i’m enjoying seeing elan put his low intelligence and high charisma to evil purposes haha yes
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Jun 13, 2018 17:43
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Whatever Durkon has - literally - in mind, the key will be the temple's back rooms, and that can only mean one thing. Roy's Architecture skill is about to win him another fight.
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Jun 13, 2018 17:45
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W.T. Fits posted:I remember there was one sourcebook that mentioned there was a cabal of Tradition Mages that got away with using vulgar magick in public by carrying around film equipment and setting up "Please Keep Back - Filming In Progress" signs near the sites of their battles, which helped convince bystanders that anything they saw was just "special effects" for a movie that was being shot. That probably means you could film a movie for real using magic to do the special effects, and it would work out fine without paradox getting in the way. new campaign idea: Mage but you're focused on making movies using magic
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Jun 13, 2018 17:46
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Slime posted:new campaign idea: Mage but you're focused on making movies using magic RE: The new strip: Maybe he's hoping Elan will get to make another Will save if he says just the right thing?
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Jun 13, 2018 18:43
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Slime posted:That probably means you could film a movie for real using magic to do the special effects, and it would work out fine without paradox getting in the way. What happens if some computer graphics animator watches your movie and thinks "that's just not possible with current technology" Does it matter how much time has passed since the filming? Could you be minding your own business in quiet retirement 60 years later and suddenly your head explodes because the wrong movie historian just watched your movie?
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Jun 13, 2018 18:43
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Suaimhneas posted:What happens if some computer graphics animator watches your movie and thinks "that's just not possible with current technology"l Might be relevant in a period piece, though.
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Jun 13, 2018 18:47
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PMush Perfect posted:If you set it in the present day, they're more likely to think that your budget was just way higher than you claimed and that you're doing something shady of the mundane variety. The mages have to juggle between duping the Masquerade Enforcers and duping the IRS. They turn out to be the same group
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Jun 13, 2018 23:06
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Man if you just need people to BELIEVE what you're doing is possible, could you just tell people you're a time traveler?
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Jun 14, 2018 00:23
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Only if you somehow convince the majority of the population pretty much instantly that it's possible and not just a hustle.
girl dick energy fucked around with this message at 00:36 on Jun 14, 2018 |
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Jun 14, 2018 00:34
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Things most people don't believe in are somewhat Paradoxical even if they aren't looking; having them there watching you just makes it worse.
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Jun 14, 2018 00:57
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See now I'm just thinking "Did the Matrix make some people become mages that think they are Neo" and I really hope the answer is yes.
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Jun 14, 2018 01:25
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Rand Brittain posted:Things most people don't believe in are somewhat Paradoxical even if they aren't looking; having them there watching you just makes it worse. That's what I like about the Sons of Ether scam. Done right, it isn't so much that it tricks people into not saying "hey, that's impossible", but that it tricks people into believing that it IS possible, and so you are actually protecting yourself from Paradox by having witnesses to the weird fuckery. It's defeating Paradox with showmanship.
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Jun 14, 2018 01:34
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God, honestly I'd just kill to find a Mage game.
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Jun 14, 2018 04:52
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xanthan posted:See now I'm just thinking "Did the Matrix make some people become mages that think they are Neo" and I really hope the answer is yes. The answer is almost assuredly yes. There's another group of techno-mages besides the Sons of Ether called the Virtual Adepts, who focus on information technology, and you better fuckin' believe that group was lousy with Neo knock-offs. If nothing else, I distinctly remember a scene from some book or another of Adepts teleporting long distances via landline connections by pulling the Matrix phone logout trick. Eox posted:God, honestly I'd just kill to find a Mage game. Extremely same.
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Jun 14, 2018 09:50
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Suaimhneas posted:What happens if some computer graphics animator watches your movie and thinks "that's just not possible with current technology" I was watching a documentary a few years ago. In it they were talking about the original King Kong film and how even now, there is a lot of arguments about how some of the climbing effects were done. And you had all these scholars presenting all manner of arguments. Given that film came out in the 30's, I would say the statute of magical limitations is at least 80 years.
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Jun 14, 2018 11:56
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There was an Italian horror movie where they had to demonstrate in court how some of the special effects were achieved to convince people that they didn't actually kill an actress.
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Jun 14, 2018 12:41
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Cannibal Holocaust! Today you'd call it a found footage film, and to strengthen that illusion, the producers took the actors under contract to lay low and not appear in anything for a year after the film was released. Didn't help the court's initial perception.
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Jun 14, 2018 12:48
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Isn't that film also known for literally killing animals onscreen to reinforce the illusion that they were literally killing humans?
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Jun 14, 2018 15:29
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xanthan posted:See now I'm just thinking "Did the Matrix make some people become mages that think they are Neo" and I really hope the answer is yes. Maybe? In general, though, I think you have to have a slightly more sophisticated paradigm to be an effective mage, because you have to explain how your whatever-it-is works. If you wanted to join the Virtual Adepts, you'd need a very advanced understanding of mathematics and physics (and they're known for being completely contemptuous of anybody who can't hack the concepts involved, one of their big organizational weaknesses). Note that the Sons of Ether, although they're associated with bullshit concepts like homeopathy and pyramid energy, can't just stick a pyramid on their car and have it no longer need fuel. They'd need to study pyramid power in just as much detail as a botanist studies flowers, in order to know exactly where to stick the pyramid on their car so it doesn't need fuel.
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Jun 14, 2018 15:30
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Magic is weird and arbitrary, news at 11.
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Jun 14, 2018 15:56
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Rand Brittain posted:Maybe? In general, though, I think you have to have a slightly more sophisticated paradigm to be an effective mage, because you have to explain how your whatever-it-is works. If you wanted to join the Virtual Adepts, you'd need a very advanced understanding of mathematics and physics (and they're known for being completely contemptuous of anybody who can't hack the concepts involved, one of their big organizational weaknesses). Well, that's true for those two factions in particular (as well as the Hermetic Order), but you can definitely have a more "intuitive" approach. Like the Cultists of Ecstasy definitely couldn't articulate whatever they're doing (partly because in a religious context, ecstastic experiences are somewhat ineffable by definition, but also because of the drugs) but their magic works just as well as anyone's.
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Jun 14, 2018 20:28
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The most important thing is that you believe that what you're doing works, and that you've constructed (or subscribe to) a largely cohesive paradigm around it-- even if part of that paradigm is, by nature, inexplicable. A Void Engineer space marine doesn't have to know why his phased plasma rifle works, he just has to believe that the boys in R&D know their poo poo. Cabbit fucked around with this message at 00:54 on Jun 15, 2018 |
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Jun 15, 2018 00:49
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Intuitive paradigms are definitely a thing, I just think they have to have a bit more depth than "do whatever I feel like right now -> magic!". If really shallow paradigms work, the game goes to a stupid place really quickly, which is not to say that official game material has not gone to some really stupid places.
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Jun 15, 2018 15:17
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The World of Darkness itself is a pretty stupid place, really. Fun sometimes, but stupid.
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Jun 15, 2018 16:03
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Rand Brittain posted:Intuitive paradigms are definitely a thing, I just think they have to have a bit more depth than "do whatever I feel like right now -> magic!". I think paradigms can start off shallow, but as a character advances they gain a deeper understanding of whatever they believe, which is reflected mechanically by arete, dots in the spheres, etc. Like someone could start doing magic and think "whoa, I'm Neo!" as the framework they immediately latch on to. And then Paradox spirits start showing up in the guise of agents. But if it doesn't go any deeper than that they won't be able to access too many spheres, or use what they have very well.
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Jun 15, 2018 20:09
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If the world of Mage works on this system of consensus and paradigm then why does anyone waste time subscribing to any one tradition or belief system since they're all arbitrary? In fact how is anyone maintaining enough belief in any tradition to keep their powers running in an environment where they're demonstrably, provably wrong? It'd be like being a monotheist in a world where your god hangs out with the other gods and frequently shows up with them to get into fights on your lawn. The only tradition that would make sense would be being a disciple of the meta-system of belief and paradigm directly and basing your teachings around exploiting the only actual fundamental laws of the universe, anything else is pure aesthetics. Forget throwing fireballs or phone teleporting or whatever pyramid energy is, just warp reality directly and without limitation based on the collective understanding that it is fundamentally perception-malleable, and do it with the minimum number of co-conspirators whatever law of consensus requires to be valid. The new OotS was also good, I am interested to see Durkon's reaction once Roy yells out about his exile.
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Jun 17, 2018 07:22
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All of the pomp and circumstance in Mage is to keep consensus reality off your back by making it think whatever you're doing could maybe work. edit: To get slightly deeper into it, the consensus is greater than the sum of its parts. Doing crazy poo poo with people watching is the most reliable way for it to instinctively lash out, but it sure as hell isn't the only one. Eox fucked around with this message at 07:32 on Jun 17, 2018 |
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Jun 17, 2018 07:27
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turns out reality can be owned by creative cinematography.
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Jun 17, 2018 07:28
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Dolash posted:If the world of Mage works on this system of consensus and paradigm then why does anyone waste time subscribing to any one tradition or belief system since they're all arbitrary? In fact how is anyone maintaining enough belief in any tradition to keep their powers running in an environment where they're demonstrably, provably wrong? It'd be like being a monotheist in a world where your god hangs out with the other gods and frequently shows up with them to get into fights on your lawn. It's probably self-reinforcing. If X people believe Y, Y becomes much easier to believe. Just because something can be proven false doesn't mean people will stop believing in it.
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Jun 17, 2018 10:01
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Dolash posted:If the world of Mage works on this system of consensus and paradigm then why does anyone waste time subscribing to any one tradition or belief system since they're all arbitrary? In fact how is anyone maintaining enough belief in any tradition to keep their powers running in an environment where they're demonstrably, provably wrong? It'd be like being a monotheist in a world where your god hangs out with the other gods and frequently shows up with them to get into fights on your lawn. Because the consensus is also clearly unambiguously wrong, as shown by the fact that you CAN do magic. Consensus defines The Way Things Work, but The Way Things Work isn't actually the way things work.
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Jun 17, 2018 10:09
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Neither the jar, the cookies or the counter are real, but you still need a stool to reach them.
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Jun 17, 2018 10:12
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