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Obligatum VII posted:so, a thought, or series of thoughts, invaded my head recently and the dread specter of magechat took grip of me, so here is my rambling bit of non-sense cosmological speculation for nMage:
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Oct 23, 2021 07:25
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Zereth posted:I mean, the last few decades, computers, the internet, and ubiquitous smartphones have massively changed the way humans communicate and consume media and stuff. How does that fit in with the "the nature of the 'fallen' world is stasis" thing? symbolic stasis, which is not quite the same thing as general stasis. It's not heat death, things can still happen, but they are 100% constrained by the symbols that are available.
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Oct 23, 2021 07:57
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Zereth posted:I mean, the last few decades, computers, the internet, and ubiquitous smartphones have massively changed the way humans communicate and consume media and stuff. How does that fit in with the "the nature of the 'fallen' world is stasis" thing? What comes after the whole world is connected? When every idea that can be shared has been? When every permutation of every thought has been explored? There are only so many ways for ideas to combine, and we are rapidly running out. Humanity approaches an inevitable asymptote, and the Exarchs’ thrones solidify beneath them.
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Oct 23, 2021 07:57
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All structures of knowledge are unstable and constantly shifting. Read your Derrida. edit: that one loving guy in your econ class has entered the chat
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Oct 23, 2021 14:47
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Zereth posted:I mean, the last few decades, computers, the internet, and ubiquitous smartphones have massively changed the way humans communicate and consume media and stuff. How does that fit in with the "the nature of the 'fallen' world is stasis" thing? It probably makes a lot more sense considering the whole End Of History attitude until rather recently.
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Oct 23, 2021 14:56
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A wizard did it.
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Oct 23, 2021 15:08
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Ghost Leviathan posted:It probably makes a lot more sense considering the whole End Of History attitude until rather recently. Yeah I mean if we're getting into like social philosophy it's fun to notice the divide between people who feel that everything is changing all the time vs people who feel like nothing is changing at all. I think they're both legitimate social feelings, like at least in America people tie their identities very strongly to their careers and a lot of careers have gone from something that sustains your life to a chaotic chain of gigs, and meanwhile our 24 hour news cycle feels very much like "man bites dog who bites man" rephrased a million different ways. I don't begrudge anybody who falls on either side, though I will mock people who talk about trivial incremental changes like "the new iphone has a 5% better camera" as technological revolutions on par with the invention of indoor plumbing or people who accept strong forms of The End of History (I mean come on Fukuyama even disavows it). e: And this ultimately matters I think to how you conceive of WOD as "like the world, but somewhat worse." I don't think too many goons are optimists on either end, and so if you feel like the world is very stagnant then it makes sense to have your WOD be one where tech developments penetrate even less, where activism is even less effective, and if you feel like it changes too much then your WOD could very readily emphasize the instability of the modern world and the paralyzing instability that people live in. Tulip fucked around with this message at 15:55 on Oct 23, 2021 |
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Oct 23, 2021 15:47
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Hey, what if mages were secretly wrong about everything in an abstruse and undetectable way? Well, first of all, they aren't, so jot that down.
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Oct 23, 2021 18:35
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I feel like people are conflating the notion of symbolic stasis that I was talking about with other forms of stasis. Also, I don't think it's absolute even in the symbolic sense; there's all sorts of little cracks running through nWoD showing that not everything lines up neatly with supernal symbolism or even lines up with it at all. Going back to the rulebook example, the state of the game can change a lot, but it still has to be within the constraints of the rules. The symbolic stasis is an immutability of those rules. Things like the exarchs enforcing their particular tyrannical symbols is actually a game state thing, but they do have an advantage because the way the rules as set give them a massive advantage to continue doing so.
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Oct 23, 2021 19:14
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Supernal symbols are reality's underlying source code. There's no "lines up". It's like claiming there's stuff which doesn't line up with chemistry. There's abyssal manifestations, I guess? Ferrinus fucked around with this message at 09:39 on Oct 24, 2021 |
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Oct 23, 2021 19:35
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I've been invited to join a Victorian Age vampire game set in the period leading up to the Revolution and I've gotta say that I am *irked* that the Path of the Devil doesn't have a modern equivalent. You have a good dozen takes on 'sadism is cool and good actually' but nothing devoted to 'no gods no princes no masters'.
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Oct 23, 2021 20:10
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Finally got an in-person game of Mage the Awakening up and running, and we've had three sessions so far. Overall plan is to incorporate Reign of the Exarchs and do some stuff with the Tremere and the Sixth Dragon / Dragon of Blood (spoiled in case any of my players are here), but I'm mostly starting off with a few short, stand-alone stories to ease them into the setting and the system, because none of the players have ever played any World/Chronicles of Darkness (in our city, the well was pretty badly poisoned in the early 2000s by a legendarily hosed up Vampire larp, and the nerd scene has never really recovered). Yesterday's antagonist was a beekeeper whose honey farm was bought out from under him, so he wandered into the bush and shot himself. His ghost stuck around and then possessed his own body after a bunch of bees started making honey in his open chest cavity, and he started killing whole hives on farms owned by the corp so he could eat their ghosts and gain more power then get revenge. Because if the real bad guy isn't capitalism, what's even the point of Mage?
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Oct 23, 2021 22:31
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cptn_dr posted:(in our city, the well was pretty badly poisoned in the early 2000s by a legendarily hosed up Vampire larp, and the nerd scene has never really recovered). Sounds like there's a story here, though I understand if you don't want to tell it.
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Oct 23, 2021 22:44
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It was a bit before my time, so I've never really heard the whole story. But if you mention [City] by Night to larpers of a certain age, they'll all get a thousand yard stare. From what I've picked up, it can be summed up with "Well, it's not cheating if you're in character when you gently caress", "Actually yes, the scenes I run for the people I live with ARE worth XP" and "Oh yeah, he's not at games any more because he went to jail for a few months after showing up at an ST's house with a baseball bat".
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Oct 23, 2021 23:02
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cptn_dr posted:It was a bit before my time, so I've never really heard the whole story. But if you mention [City] by Night to larpers of a certain age, they'll all get a thousand yard stare. From what I've picked up, it can be summed up with "Well, it's not cheating if you're in character when you gently caress", "Actually yes, the scenes I run for the people I live with ARE worth XP" and "Oh yeah, he's not at games any more because he went to jail for a few months after showing up at an ST's house with a baseball bat".  I was already convinced LARPs were a blight because of the drama I dealt with in them, but this is some poo poo.
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Oct 24, 2021 00:03
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I'm not convinced of the symbolic stasis thing, but that's ultimately up to the one running it at the table; as Ferrinus says, it's not really something the books establish or explicitly disestablish, so it could be true in your game. However, the question of connectivity, mass communication, mass transit, and the changing world is explicitly raised in Awakening 1e: The Astral Realms! Specifically, Dahaka, the twin-headed Syzygy of Pandemonium, waxes strong in an era where desire overcomes distance and Space bows to Mind. The truths encoded in the Realm of Pandemonium are more present within the structure of Phenomenal experience than before, and so the ambassador-god of the Space and Mind Arcana who lives in the world-soul considers this is his era and his time. He's kind of an rear end in a top hat, given that Pandemonium is the kind of tutelary divinity that mocks you for your weakness until you learn how to overcome the iron gauntlet, but the idea that Pandemonium is becoming more important in the Phenomenal World (while all five Realms and Watchtowers remain balanced in the Supernal World) means he can be given to somewhat condescending or unkind largesse. The way each of the Supernal Realms encodes an occult perspective on the world is a lot of fun; one element is that all of them are empowering, almost pantheistic occult truths that say 'you, human, are in fact important and powerful and humanity deserves something greater than this.' Which makes sense; the Watchtowers are truths that set one free and awaken the soul from slumber.
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Oct 24, 2021 00:19
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cptn_dr posted:Finally got an in-person game of Mage the Awakening up and running, and we've had three sessions so far. Overall plan is to incorporate Reign of the Exarchs and do some stuff with the Tremere and the Sixth Dragon / Dragon of Blood Oh, dude, hello.  Very happy to hear you have a nMage campaign up and running. And it sounds like you're mucking around with some especially cool aspects, too (re: spoiler). Haven't seen you since that new year's eve.cptn_dr posted:But if you mention [City] by Night to larpers of a certain age, they'll all get a thousand yard stare. From what I've picked up, it can be summed up with "Well, it's not cheating if you're in character when you gently caress", "Actually yes, the scenes I run for the people I live with ARE worth XP" and "Oh yeah, he's not at games any more because he went to jail for a few months after showing up at an ST's house with a baseball bat". Yeah that larp absolutely destroyed the nerd scene here. Hell, it spilled over into poisoning the scene in [other City] too, due out country's tiny scene interfuckery. The number of lifelong grudges from that crap that are still playing out today...
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Oct 24, 2021 01:16
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dingo with a joint posted:The number of lifelong grudges from that crap that are still playing out today... Sounds very appropriate for Vampire
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Oct 24, 2021 06:20
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I ran my first one player V5 game this past weekend with a friend who has never played Vampire before. It went really well, and she got way more into her character than I expected which was fantastic. We had a scene shortly after she had awoken on her first full night after embrace and she brought an amazing sense of anger and indignation to the scene. She straight up asked her sire who gave her the right to embrace her and as a storyteller I thought "God drat that's a great" and then had her sire hand wave the question away with some Toredor bullshit about potential. Because I'm a genius I completely forgot to prep a location for where the Toredor primogen of SF would hang out before the session, despite planning for the the player to meet said Primogen, so she runs a large flower shop in the city that has a large window display of roses. Sometimes my improv skills just fly out the window and the first thing to grab onto is cliche. My player didn't think anything of it, and if I'm being generous to myself, I can say it was a subtle nod to how the local kindred identify each other. I've already made a note of all of the local malkavians wearing something purple as their local identifier. I'm really excited to see where this game goes, my player was really enthusiastic about the session and during several scenes noted that while her character was being a good little neonate and listening to her elders speak, she was also taking careful note of how her sire and the primogen interacted, as well as her sire's reactions to being told that her childer would be working with an Anarch* (I'm running this game as Cam initially with the intention of letting the player choose to bug out for the Anarchs if she chooses) She's also taken the Scene Queen predator type and because her mortal life was working in tech, we decided that the scene she would feed on is Tech Bros. Eat the rich indeed  *Her sire is a true believer in the Camarilla and is contemptuous of the Anarchs and straight up hates the Sabbat.
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Oct 25, 2021 15:29
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It's a one on one campaign?
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Oct 25, 2021 15:40
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joylessdivision posted:*Her sire is a true believer in the Camarilla and is contemptuous of the Anarchs and straight up hates the Sabbat. That all sounds wonderful. You're doing good work.
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Oct 25, 2021 16:07
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Fuzz posted:It's a one on one campaign? Yes, this is the first time I've tried running a one on one game, although I have another planned with my best friend. It's definitely been an interesting change of pace from the usual 3 players and ST I'm used to running with D&D and my previous attempt to run V5 that fell apart due to trying to get schedules in 3 time zones to align. At some point, if schedules allow I want to run a cross over session with both of their games as their characters and games are taking place simultaneously in the same general locale of the SF bay area and they'll be interacting with a lot of similar NPCs. With the other one on one game I'm planning for my best friend, I've taken a lot of what I had previously worked out for the 3 player game and have shuffled and condensed bits and tightened the focus of the story so that it's more about the things we have discussed being major points of interest for him, mainly the weird occult/blood cults stuff and Noddist stuff. We're starting that game this weekend, and after how well the first session of the other game went, I'm feeling pretty confident about this second game.
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Oct 25, 2021 16:19
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a friend and I are planning a 1-on-1 campaign of Demon: The Descent, and in addition to being the first time in years I've had a chance to be a player instead of a GM i'm really looking forward to exploring the smaller, quieter moments of being a paranoid extradimensional horror pretending to be human in a way that would be awkward or selfish in a group 
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Oct 26, 2021 01:22
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After a long time and a lot of work, Exalted Versus World of Darkness Revised is finally out, with editing and layout by yours truly. I am so glad that I can finally stop banging at inDesign for at least a month.
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Oct 26, 2021 07:31
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In my experience, Vampire LARP is worse than any other kind, it's drama and small group politics all the way down, propped up by the worst possible people. At least nerds with foam swords are getting exercise.
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Oct 26, 2021 12:25
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The living dead don’t need exercise! Just Mountain Dew and interpersonal conflict.
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Oct 26, 2021 14:39
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Gravitas Shortfall posted:At least nerds with foam swords are getting exercise. Best argument for a medieval/fantasy LARP that I've ever heard. I will say that I've met completely reasonable people who also LARP vampire/etc. But every single one of them has a crazy vampire story.
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Oct 26, 2021 16:09
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Jhet posted:Best argument for a medieval/fantasy LARP that I've ever heard. I have had people really angry with me for betraying them in multiplayer video games in which the spelled out theme of the game is betraying others to win. I can't imagine the same people playing a VTM Larp, a game ostensibly about paranoia and being crunched by a political machine, and yet I imagine it's the same kind of people who'd play it.
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Oct 26, 2021 16:21
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https://www.worldofdarkness.com/news/first-look-at-the-new-edition-of-hunter-the-reckoning there's a Hunter V5 first look thing, basically just art and the top level intro stuff; if you like orange I think you're going to dig it
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Oct 26, 2021 18:15
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ElNarez posted:https://www.worldofdarkness.com/news/first-look-at-the-new-edition-of-hunter-the-reckoning If they make the Imbued playeable this might be the first V5 game I'm interested in.
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Oct 26, 2021 18:54
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MonsieurChoc posted:If they make the Imbued playeable this might be the first V5 game I'm interested in. The Imbued have been removed entirely, from what they’ve said.
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Oct 26, 2021 19:02
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Mors Rattus posted:The Imbued have been removed entirely, from what they’ve said. Interest lost then. I already got Vigil.
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Oct 26, 2021 19:05
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MonsieurChoc posted:Interest lost then. I already got Vigil. Depends on what they mean by 'edges.'
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Oct 26, 2021 20:18
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Rand Brittain posted:After a long time and a lot of work, Exalted Versus World of Darkness Revised is finally out, with editing and layout by yours truly. This rules, I've been reading it all afternoon.
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Oct 26, 2021 20:39
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MonsieurChoc posted:Interest lost then. I already got Vigil. This is extremely where I am at, unfortunately. The original Hunter was one of the games I actually got to play a bunch, and while normal people fighting monsters is fine I just though the Imbued were interesting. A cleaned up version of HtR would have been nice, but it isn't like I don't have a ton of other games I could play.
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Oct 26, 2021 21:52
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I did vampire larp once and it was pretty fun. Mostly I think because it was an explicitly PVP one shot made up 75% of people who would not be in on a campaign.
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Oct 26, 2021 23:46
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Rand Brittain posted:After a long time and a lot of work, Exalted Versus World of Darkness Revised is finally out, with editing and layout by yours truly. Oh very nice; ta. Must admit, the one I'm really hanging out for is Exalted Versus Chronicles of Darkness, but this is still great to get.
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Oct 27, 2021 00:06
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before I read this did holden ever stop sticking up for his good buddy the sexual harasser or what
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Oct 27, 2021 04:46
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I haven't heard anything about Morke from anyone in ages.
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Oct 27, 2021 05:03
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Rand Brittain posted:After a long time and a lot of work, Exalted Versus World of Darkness Revised is finally out, with editing and layout by yours truly. awesome I somehow missed the previous two versions, but "Movement: Oh, boy." made me smile
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Oct 27, 2021 13:28
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