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Dave Brookshaw posted:EDIT: I completely misread that. Yeah - the weakest Order book. Still worth it, though. Aww, Magical Traditions is bad? I wanted to make an Avicebron-inspried Golem maker at some point.
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Aug 29, 2021 21:38
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2e didn't make the Guardians less morally hosed up did it? Like no longer willing to kill Sleepers en masse to protect the Sublime less hosed up? Because that was my major takeaway from the Guardians order book and I'd be really sad if it didn't last into 2e.
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Aug 29, 2021 21:46
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I think the Guardians are still pretty hosed up. The main change for them in 2e is that the rules make it clear that maintaining the Veil is the sensible, responsible, and moral thing to do (because Sleepers literally cannot handle seeing what is behind it and will be traumatized if you let them see it) and that they aren't just bogarting all the magic because they're grumpy oldsters.
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Aug 29, 2021 21:52
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Rand Brittain posted:they aren't just bogarting all the magic because they're grumpy oldsters. Yeah that's the Mysterium's job.
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Aug 29, 2021 21:54
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MonsieurChoc posted:Aww, Magical Traditions is bad? I wanted to make an Avicebron-inspried Golem maker at some point. Yes, it's the worst of the Awakening books. Okay idea for a toolbox, but not good execution at all. Always felt like too much of an Ascension compromise to me. Arivia posted:2e didn't make the Guardians less morally hosed up did it? Like no longer willing to kill Sleepers en masse to protect the Sublime less hosed up? Not all of them would be willing to do it that way, but they probably wouldn't entirely rule it out either. Better to die in the lie than to have their brains melted by magic. 2e makes even fewer blanket statements about groups than 1e (because individual actors still have some agency), and many fewer than Ascension did. Are they the most likely to eventually decide on that course of action though? Probably.
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Aug 30, 2021 01:15
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The Guardians still have the Crimson Veil tradition as far as I'm aware. Blood in, blood out.
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Aug 30, 2021 01:50
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'Mages are superior beings and we should make our own society free of the tainted normies' is more of a Mysterium position overall. I assume it's a thing that keeps being tried and then immediately doomed once they end up breaking the minds of their children.
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Aug 30, 2021 03:35
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bewilderment posted:'Mages are superior beings and we should make our own society free of the tainted normies' is more of a Mysterium position overall.
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Aug 30, 2021 08:19
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Starting my Fae in the Iron mask campaign tonight. A bit nervous! The players decided not to start as a Motley, so I hope to railroad them well into being teammates. XD My idea for a first story is a servant of the Cardinal went missing, kidnapped by Privateers. It's how the Cardinal's plans for the Iron mask gets leaked, so setting some hints of the bigger picture early on.
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Sep 1, 2021 17:55
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Looks like Deviant is out
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Sep 1, 2021 20:58
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Crasical posted:Looks like Deviant is out
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Sep 1, 2021 21:02
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It still seems like it's really not for me, but by all accounts it's a very cool game and you can do some absolutely wild and unique stuff with the system for designing your powers.
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Sep 1, 2021 22:28
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It went alright but I had to call the game early due to a sudden massive headache.
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Sep 2, 2021 05:16
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just remembered that they tried to do a whole contagion chronicle thing, pretty sure nu-WW is an abyssal entity masquerading as a ttrpg company
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Sep 2, 2021 05:23
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I really like the Ascension setting and never really got into Awakening, but I'll freely admit that you have to jettison most of the Traditions-as-coherent groups parts of the setting to make it interesting. Lumping wildly different magical practices under broad umbrellas is peak "everything needs a splatbook" oWoD excess. Do that, and run with the Technocracy as pretty much a metaphor for western industrial capitalism/colonialism who doesn't give a poo poo about Mages/Magic/The Supernatural until they get in the way, and you've got a bunch of interesting spaces to tell stories in. Heroic Technocrats with good intentions trapped within a horrible system (No Ethical Magic Under Capitalism), Mages trying to fight a guerrilla war against magical exploitation and cultural erasure, Weird poo poo Happens and there's an uneasy alliance between opposed factions, lots and lots of magical culture jamming, etc etc.
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Sep 2, 2021 12:41
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Gravitas Shortfall posted:I really like the Ascension setting and never really got into Awakening, but I'll freely admit that you have to jettison most of the Traditions-as-coherent groups parts of the setting to make it interesting. Lumping wildly different magical practices under broad umbrellas is peak "everything needs a splatbook" oWoD excess. I never understood how you'd get 13 or however many mystic traditions who, by and large, all honestly and truly believe that their form of magic is the only 'real' form of magic, and nothing else will work, working together. The game states that until you hit higher levels of arete and magic, you need your good old VSM components, and you don't understand that you're will-working, so to my mind, the Akashic watching a Verbena bleed herself to curse an opponent should generate just as much paradox as a sleeper would.
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Sep 2, 2021 18:40
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TheCenturion posted:I never understood how you'd get 13 or however many mystic traditions who, by and large, all honestly and truly believe that their form of magic is the only 'real' form of magic, and nothing else will work, working together. The game states that until you hit higher levels of arete and magic, you need your good old VSM components, and you don't understand that you're will-working, so to my mind, the Akashic watching a Verbena bleed herself to curse an opponent should generate just as much paradox as a sleeper would. The only version of the traditions that really believe that their magic is the only true magic is the covenants in Dark Ages Mage. By the time of the Sorcerers Crusade, they recognize that other magic is metaphysically possible, and they create the 9 spheres terminology as a way to communicate across cultures. Also, even an awakened technocrat can't force a verbena to generate paradox unless they're in a technocratic reality zone. For that matter, if a Verbena tries a blood-soaked healing spell in an Akashic sanctum (not chantry), it would be vulgar with witnesses.
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Sep 2, 2021 18:51
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Octavo posted:The only version of the traditions that really believe that their magic is the only true magic is the covenants in Dark Ages Mage. By the time of the Sorcerers Crusade, they recognize that other magic is metaphysically possible, and they create the 9 spheres terminology as a way to communicate across cultures. I know, and the whole idea is that the arete recognizes will working, even if the mage themselves don't. It still, I think, doesn't make sense, from an in-game perspective.
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Sep 2, 2021 20:35
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Gravitas Shortfall posted:I really like the Ascension setting and never really got into Awakening, but I'll freely admit that you have to jettison most of the Traditions-as-coherent groups parts of the setting to make it interesting. Lumping wildly different magical practices under broad umbrellas is peak "everything needs a splatbook" oWoD excess. But Mage: The Ascension isn't about Capitalism. The enemies of the Technocracy are called The Traditions for a reason, and the original form of the Technocracy is called the Order of Reason for....a reason. Notably it was founded long before industrial capitalism. The central conflict of Ascension is about the disenchanting of the world, about the desire to quantify and rationalize everything because that is a necessary prerequisite to mastering everything. Once the world has no meaning, you can do whatever you want with it. The Traditions embody an older view of the world, once where "every tree is a nymph and every planet a god." (CS Lewis) The world is alive and mysterious, animated by a diversity of views. I see Ascension as a pretty explicit Postmodern critique of the Western Enlightenment and what it has stolen from us. NikkolasKing fucked around with this message at 21:39 on Sep 2, 2021 |
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Sep 2, 2021 21:33
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Unfortunately, it’s a take on this written in the 90s and 00s by white guys from Georgia, which means it enshrines a version of postmodernism in which, for example, racism is equally valid to actual science and demon summoning. See also: phrenology being one of the key foci for Sons of Ether Mind. For me this is a fundamental dealbreaker - in no version of reality should it be possible for Sufficient Racism to declare that actually the shape of your skull determines your criminal nature.
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Sep 2, 2021 21:38
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NikkolasKing posted:But Mage: The Ascension isn't about Capitalism. The enemies of the Technocracy are called The Traditions for a reason, and the original form of the Technocracy is called the Order of Reason for....a reason. Notably it was founded long before industrial capitalism. The central conflict of Ascension is about the disenchanting of the world, about the desire to quantify and rationalize everything because that is a necessary prerequisite to mastering everything. Once the world has no meaning, you can do whatever you want with it. The Traditions embody an older view of the world, once where "every tree is a nymph and every planet a god." (CS Lewis) The world is alive and mysterious, animated by a diversity of views. Mage: the Ascension is extremely about capitalism, both for the general reason that any game set in the contemporary era with even a hint of political themes is (it has no choice; capitalism is hegemonic) and for the specific reason that its principal antagonists are personifications of modern western hegemony. The Order of Reason became the Technocracy for the same reason that power looms and steam engines aren't the same thing as capitalism but were integral parts of capitalism's development. Disenchantment per se is a bigger theme in Changeling: the Dreaming, but, hmm, where exactly do the pressures to grow up, stop being creative, conform, etc. come from? Oops it's our mode of production.
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Sep 2, 2021 21:54
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Mors Rattus posted:Unfortunately, it’s a take on this written in the 90s and 00s by white guys from Georgia, which means it enshrines a version of postmodernism in which, for example, racism is equally valid to actual science and demon summoning. See also: phrenology being one of the key foci for Sons of Ether Mind. I wonder when that was added. I don't see it in the 1st Edition core's splat pages. There, the Mind focus is Ether Goggles. Octavo fucked around with this message at 04:37 on Sep 3, 2021 |
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Sep 3, 2021 04:33
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new Hunter just dropped
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Sep 3, 2021 07:54
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What We Do In the Shadows demonstrating how you become an archon tonight
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Sep 3, 2021 11:03
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I'm still getting caught up on What We Do In the Shadows, but it has made me realize that the ultimate goal of the Ordo Dracul, the final end stage of one who masters every coil, is Colin Robinson.
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Sep 3, 2021 14:53
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I'm glad Safe Place in Hunter now has "any mechanical weight whatsoever" to its dot rating, which somehow got dropped from the manuscript, but it's wild that in 2021 we're still doing chargen vs in play buy disparities (you get a 2 XP bolt-on feature for your Safe Place for free if you buy the first dot in chargen, but not in play).
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Sep 3, 2021 15:18
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Mors Rattus posted:Unfortunately, it’s a take on this written in the 90s and 00s by white guys from Georgia, which means it enshrines a version of postmodernism in which, for example, racism is equally valid to actual science and demon summoning. See also: phrenology being one of the key foci for Sons of Ether Mind. It's only a key foci for certain old school Etherites, most of whom are getting their poo poo overturned by the Progressives. The sample characters with Mind use anthropharma techniques they picked up while actually listening to tribal elders and meeting machine elves while high as gently caress, electro shock, and being literally The Shadow.
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Sep 3, 2021 16:15
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See my issue is that if phrenology works for anyone it means that you can make racism true via Conensus. Which, uh..,hi, I’m part of a historically heavily maligned and oppressed ethnoreligious minority. I’d prefer if it was not possible for Blood Libel to be enforced by reality.
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Sep 3, 2021 16:24
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Racism is "equally valid" to science in the sense that either can shape society and dictate the goals and consequences of human activity. The Consensus doesn't invisibly make people smarter or stupider, it just changes which rituals produce which spell effect or, more broadly, what mind of results different kinds of behaviors will yield in the context of human society at large. That is to day there ISN'T a version of Mage in which skull shape actually and really does determine your criminal nature. Every version of Ascension contains people who think they can use your skull shape to predict when you're going to commit a "crime" (also a matter of consensus), but it only "works" for the same reason people can use your astrological sign to the same end, which is to say that the discipline they're making it up as they go along and are working in a discipline that's so open to interpretation that they can just massage the details to fit.
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Sep 3, 2021 17:23
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I'm taking exception to you going after the Etherites specifically, who while they have lots and lots of problems one of the things Revised brought to them was a whole group dedicated enough to fixing those problems that they literally destroyed the paradigms of multiple Masters. Each of the groups, Tradition, Union, and Dissidents each have repugnant poo poo built in to their paradigms with some being better hidden than others. The caste-system that some of the Traditions believe in is paralleled with the Syndicate's have/have-nots while the NWO can pull a "well they're from *this* sort of background so of course they're going to be X" that is just an insidiously hidden version of what you're upset about. At least with the Etherites you open yourself up to a Pratchett-esque possibility of reverse-phreneology where they can whack someone with a mallet and raise their IQ. Like i get where you're coming from i really do, but the entire gameline's also about you as a player being punk enough to lolnope at the status quo and throw a punch to undo it.
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Sep 3, 2021 17:36
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Ferrinus posted:Mage: the Ascension is extremely about capitalism, both for the general reason that any game set in the contemporary era with even a hint of political themes is (it has no choice; capitalism is hegemonic) and for the specific reason that its principal antagonists are personifications of modern western hegemony. The Order of Reason became the Technocracy for the same reason that power looms and steam engines aren't the same thing as capitalism but were integral parts of capitalism's development. They come from the Enlightenment's deification of Reason, concept of the child as nothing but an unreasonable proto-adult, and obsession with control of all the world. Not a historical materialist, sorry. But more importantly, I don't think the game is one either given its metaphysics are idealistic in the most blatant way. Reality is literally nothing but belief. quote:Who makes that ocean? That debate’s been going for ages. As best as we can figure, though, the mass of our Earth’s reality comes from those supposed Sleepers and the combined force of their belief. In the old days, things were more fluid because you didn’t have billions of people believing the same thing; the more expansive and connected humanity has become, however, the stronger the weight of mass belief has grown. Certain mages call this weight consensual reality, or the Consensus. Is capitalism a problem? Sure but it's a symptom of a much larger problem, namely the desire to have a single, hegemonic ideology of "Reason" or "Science" that expunges all wonder and meaning from the world. The battle of Mage is over ideas, literally.
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Sep 3, 2021 17:38
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I mean, if I wanted to go into it I would, indeed, have issues with quite a lot of the groups. The Etherites are just easiest to explain because "Victorian science" inherently includes a lot of blatant scientific racism. e: like my core issue is I'm Jewish and I don't want the blood libel to be able to have magical weight behind it, the entire metaphysical setup is one which I find impossible to swallow.
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Sep 3, 2021 17:38
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Mages make me want to be dead
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Sep 3, 2021 17:42
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No one should be asked to engage any material that they don't like, and I don't want to persuade anyone to accept any metaphor that is easily misused. That said, I think the point behind the Consensus is to get people to think about ideas and institutions as socially constructed rather than inherent and immutable. Capitalism, gender, and other totalitarian dogmas are all things that quite a few of us were raised to think were built into the fabric of the universe. Mage says that no they loving aren't and if you see someone socially constructing awful poo poo into reality, then you should organize with folks outside your own group and fireball/laserbolt/flying roundhouse those fascists in the face. But again, Ascension's a failed game and its most prolific writers ramble on about how the original protagonists are the "real fascists." Octavo fucked around with this message at 17:52 on Sep 3, 2021 |
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Sep 3, 2021 17:49
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Kavak posted:Mages make me want to be dead Wraith is a better game
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Sep 3, 2021 17:51
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Lord_Hambrose posted:Wraith is a better game It is a dark irony indeed that Wraithchat has never made me want to be dead.
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Sep 3, 2021 17:52
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It's okay to be like "I don't like this material it makes me feel bad" in and of itself. It doesn't always also need to mean "and that material is bad and the people who wrote it should feel bad." Feeling the first about scientific racism in Mage makes sense, the second is pretty unwarranted.
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Sep 3, 2021 17:53
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Arivia posted:It's okay to be like "I don't like this material it makes me feel bad" in and of itself. It doesn't always also need to mean "and that material is bad and the people who wrote it should feel bad." Feeling the first about scientific racism in Mage makes sense, the second is pretty unwarranted. This isn't helpful. Mage has had a lot of writers, some of whom have written some stuff I'm pretty sure they should feel bad about. Lot of cultural insensitivity in some of these splatbooks.
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Sep 3, 2021 18:04
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Mors Rattus posted:I mean, if I wanted to go into it I would, indeed, have issues with quite a lot of the groups. The Etherites are just easiest to explain because "Victorian science" inherently includes a lot of blatant scientific racism.
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Sep 3, 2021 18:09
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Octavo posted:This isn't helpful. Mage has had a lot of writers, some of whom have written some stuff I'm pretty sure they should feel bad about. Lot of cultural insensitivity in some of these splatbooks. You're right, I was being too vague. I should have specified that it's unwarranted for the mere idea of "Consensus Reality can lead to literally racism as a law of reality." We have plenty of RPGs that can lead to horrible, terrible things happening in the fiction as a result of evil or hubris or whatever other bad qualities you want to specify - having an evil outcome doesn't mean the book or the material in it is bad. Thank you for correcting me, I'm not thinking well these days.
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Sep 3, 2021 18:11
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