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Rand Brittain posted:I mean, like I'm constantly saying, if you're going to do anything with the Traditions, you need to start with the assumption that they're the protagonists and figure out how to make them work. Ascension is constantly shooting itself in the foot because it gets nervous and won't commit and keeps coming up with reasons why its protagonists don't really deserve to fight a defensive war against total annihilation, instead of either accepting what it has or changing it to something it likes better. I agree, of course, but I think it's important for a few reasons to acknowledge the various Traditions' historical and modern errors even as you talk them up and position them as the center of the fight against the Technocracy. "Well, I'm going to sit at home until I find the revolutionary organization that agrees with me completely and has never made any mistakes ever" is a common and understandable impulse, and it's why the 2.0 extra-protagonist Traditions from M20 might legitimately deserve a place in the setting as a sort of goofy sideshow, but e.g. the Order of Hermes descending from a line of secretive elitists is cool for the same reason as the Guardians of the Veil just secretly assassinating allied mages who they've decided are going too far is.
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Apr 27, 2023 20:42
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Nessus posted:I mean, “we decline to be suppressed” is sufficient. The Traditions agendas rarely include mass death or service to horrific umbrood, so at that point choose your favorite magickal conspiracy and get to wizbiz. May the best wiz win (in game not on forum). I mean, it should be, but Ascension historically has a problem with both occasionally forgetting that the Traditions are fighting a defensive war, and with deciding that they need to earn their right to not be victims of the Pogrom. Ferrinus posted:I agree, of course, but I think it's important for a few reasons to acknowledge the various Traditions' historical and modern errors even as you talk them up and position them as the center of the fight against the Technocracy. "Well, I'm going to sit at home until I find the revolutionary organization that agrees with me completely and has never made any mistakes ever" is a common and understandable impulse, and it's why the 2.0 extra-protagonist Traditions from M20 might legitimately deserve a place in the setting as a sort of goofy sideshow, but e.g. the Order of Hermes descending from a line of secretive elitists is cool for the same reason as the Guardians of the Veil just secretly assassinating allied mages who they've decided are going too far is. That stuff definitely belongs in the game (I mean, if the Hermetics aren't elitist and annoying they no longer have a Doylist reason to exist) but at this point "the Traditions are reactionary maniacs who are just waiting for their chance to confiscate your flush toilets" has metastatized in discussion to the point that it's even shown up in the 20th Anniversary book. If you're ever going to do another edition of Ascension (which is honestly kind of doubtful at this point) I think you need to be prepared to go all-in on "Technocracy bad (because Nazis), Traditions good (because kill Nazis)" and leave the rest to "yes actually I can handle writing this subject with nuance" instead of "I have to remember to make it clear that the Traditions are annoying".
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Apr 27, 2023 21:08
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Choose one Tradition or Convention per book to be objectively correct. Vary between books, or chapters. That’ll learn em
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Apr 27, 2023 21:16
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Rand Brittain posted:That stuff definitely belongs in the game (I mean, if the Hermetics aren't elitist and annoying they no longer have a Doylist reason to exist) but at this point "the Traditions are reactionary maniacs who are just waiting for their chance to confiscate your flush toilets" has metastatized in discussion to the point that it's even shown up in the 20th Anniversary book. If you're ever going to do another edition of Ascension (which is honestly kind of doubtful at this point) I think you need to be prepared to go all-in on "Technocracy bad (because Nazis), Traditions good (because kill Nazis)" and leave the rest to "yes actually I can handle writing this subject with nuance" instead of "I have to remember to make it clear that the Traditions are annoying". Yeah it's not what you lead with or even what you use a significant amount of your wordcount on unless you're deep in supplement territory. However, I think it's useful to think and talk about for a couple reasons. First, while there are assuredly members of the Order of Hermes both young and old who joined because they just want to be an rear end in a top hat court wizard, and assume that once they "win" they'll basically get to return the world to Pentiment times such that the stupid peasants have no choice but to plead at the foot of the wizard's tower for favors and blessings, they're never, ever going to get their wish. It's not just that only a shithead would make that scenario their ideological horizon; it's that you simply cannot rewind or reset history and there is no possibility of a Traditionalist victory ever somehow returning to the pre-modern era. Like it or not, the Traditions are building something new, not resurrecting something old. Second, the Technocracy also has backwards-looking reactionaries of this kind. Here I include both starry-eyed idealists who wish they could just go back to being the Order of Reason giving everyone power looms and antibiotics again, and rear end in a top hat cultural conservatives who wish they could go back to being Don Draper or Henry Ford without having to print rainbow flags on sales products or give people of color high-paying jobs. The based trad (small t) guys also don't get to go back to their prelapsarian utopia, no matter how much they'd like to. They're stuck accelerating us into a nightmare dystopia, even by their own standards. The greatest favor we can do them is to defeat them utterly and destroy all their works. All this is to say that the only way to turn the wheel of history is to join the Traditions and smash the Technocracy to pieces. There's no other escape, no going back, and no sitting out. Ferrinus fucked around with this message at 21:43 on Apr 27, 2023 |
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Apr 27, 2023 21:34
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I like how there's a massive dump of new info on Werewolf, but as usual we're talking about Mage. Never change, WoD thread!  On the topic of woof, the Glass Walker Ban is actually pretty rad... I like Bans that are actually pretty pervasive and require adjusting gameplay style to account for them, now I'm really curious about the other Tribes.
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Apr 28, 2023 02:40
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Ferrinus posted:First, while there are assuredly members of the Order of Hermes both young and old who joined because they just want to be an rear end in a top hat court wizard, and assume that once they "win" they'll basically get to return the world to Pentiment times such that the stupid peasants have no choice but to plead at the foot of the wizard's tower for favors and blessings, they're never, ever going to get their wish. I mean, why would anyone under fifty (or really, anybody under 300) join up with this in mind? Who is signing up for the Order of Hermes thinking "yes... I've always hated electric light bulbs and flush toilets, and now, I see a path to a world without them!"
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Apr 28, 2023 03:33
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Rand Brittain posted:I mean, why would anyone under fifty (or really, anybody under 300) join up with this in mind? Who is signing up for the Order of Hermes thinking "yes... I've always hated electric light bulbs and flush toilets, and now, I see a path to a world without them!"
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Apr 28, 2023 03:39
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Rand Brittain posted:I mean, why would anyone under fifty (or really, anybody under 300) join up with this in mind? Who is signing up for the Order of Hermes thinking "yes... I've always hated electric light bulbs and flush toilets, and now, I see a path to a world without them!" I assume nearly no one, but mages tend to be freakish social and political outliers in general, so I'm not going to bet my life that it's literally no one. The point I want to make is that even if a significant number of Hermetics consciously and energetically intended to return to the middle ages as is sometimes claimed, they can't and won't. There is simply no call for anyone to start worrying about keeping their toothbrush.
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Apr 28, 2023 03:43
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There *is* an answer to the question, "What kind of person thinks that a world of magic is one where we no longer need or use indoor plumbing?". It's "JK Rowling".
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Apr 28, 2023 03:48
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Now I kind of want to add to my game setting a magic school specifically designed to annoy Rowling.
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Apr 28, 2023 03:57
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Rand Brittain posted:I mean, why would anyone under fifty (or really, anybody under 300) join up with this in mind? Who is signing up for the Order of Hermes thinking "yes... I've always hated electric light bulbs and flush toilets, and now, I see a path to a world without them!" crunchy granola/back-to-the-earth types are a huge subculture, wdym
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Apr 28, 2023 04:16
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Cottagecore Hermetic Wizard in his #aesthetic tower
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Apr 28, 2023 04:19
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tatankatonk posted:crunchy granola/back-to-the-earth types are a huge subculture, wdym
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Apr 28, 2023 04:30
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Fuzz posted:I like how there's a massive dump of new info on Werewolf, but as usual we're talking about Mage. It was literally first mentioned not 6 posts before yours, and renegade isn't helping by releasing the information in the actively worst way possible because they're trying to funnel eyes to their store page. Here i yanked out the page spread. 
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Apr 28, 2023 04:55
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Kurieg posted:It was literally first mentioned not 6 posts before yours, and renegade isn't helping by releasing the information in the actively worst way possible because they're trying to funnel eyes to their store page. Here i yanked out the page spread. ... I am aware, I was specifically discussing the content of said page and what I thought of it.
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Apr 28, 2023 05:26
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What's there to say? There's like two sentences of rules and someone already figured out the obvious loophole in the ban.
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Apr 28, 2023 05:57
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Ferrinus posted:Yeah it's not what you lead with or even what you use a significant amount of your wordcount on unless you're deep in supplement territory. However, I think it's useful to think and talk about for a couple reasons. Bro why are you posting in-character as a traditions mage.
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Apr 28, 2023 07:54
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Tolth posted:Bro why are you posting in-character as a traditions mage. Don't be stupid. I'm posting in-character as a diamond mage.
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Apr 28, 2023 08:18
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Ferrinus posted:Don't be stupid. I'm posting in-character as a diamond mage. Atlantis is NOT real.
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Apr 28, 2023 10:26
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Ferrinus posted:All this is to say that the only way to turn the wheel of history is to join the Traditions and smash the Technocracy to pieces. There's no other escape, no going back, and no sitting out. There's a third option and that's a Technocratic revolution/civil war that ends up with an organisation that resembles something approaching democratic socialism instead of imperialist capitalism. It'd still be bad in a number of ways but it'd be a big paradigm shift.
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Apr 28, 2023 11:54
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From Cockroach to Spider, huh? There was always the interesting scenario where the Walkers fell to the Weaver.
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Apr 28, 2023 12:22
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Kurieg posted:It was literally first mentioned not 6 posts before yours, and renegade isn't helping by releasing the information in the actively worst way possible because they're trying to funnel eyes to their store page. Here i yanked out the page spread. I wonder if Tāme Iti knows that they're using his likeness and his moko. edit: if he didn't before then he does now 
Gravitas Shortfall fucked around with this message at 12:47 on Apr 28, 2023 |
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Apr 28, 2023 12:42
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Well I guess it's better than Maori the cannibal Thyrsus from the banisher book, but god forbid White Wolf ever actually respect our people, gently caress.
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Apr 28, 2023 13:18
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Going from cockroach to spdier is a weird shift, I wonder why?
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Apr 28, 2023 13:46
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MonsieurChoc posted:Going from cockroach to spdier is a weird shift, I wonder why? From the chatter in discord with some of the writers who worked on it, when it was clear they were going full reboot vs just adapting old stuff they basically started chopping huge chunks of old BS out and rebuilding it from the ground up. I get the feeling a lot of the old WtA grognards are gonna be hilariously pissed about all the changes, but at this point it seems clear that Paradox has a very, "get on board or don't, we don't give a poo poo we just want to make a good and not offensive game," attitude toward all of it.
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Apr 28, 2023 13:57
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Fuzz posted:From the chatter in discord with some of the writers who worked on it, when it was clear they were going full reboot vs just adapting old stuff they basically started chopping huge chunks of old BS out and rebuilding it from the ground up. I get the feeling a lot of the old WtA grognards are gonna be hilariously pissed about all the changes, but at this point it seems clear that Paradox has a very, "get on board or don't, we don't give a poo poo we just want to make a good and not offensive game," attitude toward all of it. They should have done that from the start imho. But that doesn't mean I can't complain about some of the changes that feel weird. :P
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Apr 28, 2023 14:02
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Cockroach is all about being a survivor, Spider is about building a stable pattern. Makes a lot of sense to me.
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Apr 28, 2023 14:13
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Your friendly neighbourhood spider-wolves.
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Apr 28, 2023 14:24
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You could have Papa Roach as a common and well known member of Spider's brood if you want to reuse your Glass Walker PCs with their weirdly pro-cockroach imagery.
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Apr 28, 2023 14:44
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Gravitas Shortfall posted:I wonder if Tāme Iti knows that they're using his likeness and his moko. LOL. Why is it so loving hard for these people to not use images of real people without consent? They went through so much effort to make the 5e art look consistent in style and they still can't stop themselves from tracing real figures.
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Apr 28, 2023 15:00
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Remember when they traced Dante from the Devil May Cry series? And it wasn’t even for the Lucifuge lol.
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Apr 28, 2023 15:26
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I mean the old Clan Novels straight up traced celebrity photos. It's why Lucita looks like Julianna Marguiles.
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Apr 28, 2023 15:39
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MonsieurChoc posted:Remember when they traced Dante from the Devil May Cry series? And it wasn’t even for the Lucifuge lol. Lil Wayne was also in there but I can't for the life of me remember which hunter group it was.
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Apr 28, 2023 15:42
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Lil Wayne was an ascending one. TF:V also had the pulse rifles from Aliens
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Apr 28, 2023 16:21
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MonsieurChoc posted:Remember when they traced Dante from the Devil May Cry series? And it wasn’t even for the Lucifuge lol. Even as a giant fan of HtV, I am forced to admit the art for it (in both editions) is some absolute trash. The infamous Dante trace is just the cherry on top of that poo poo sundae. I have enough friends in the industry to know that the art is always the last thing the developer might get their hands on when making the book, but still, how hard is it to find artists that don't copy real people? Why does White Wolf/Paradox/Renegade have so many problems doing this?
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Apr 28, 2023 17:03
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I am sure they're are just cheaper
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Apr 28, 2023 17:09
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Cheapness and being able to meet deadlines, same reason Marvel last I checked still employs an artist that's blatantly tracing celebrity photos and porn.
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Apr 28, 2023 17:11
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PantsOptional posted:Cockroach is all about being a survivor, Spider is about building a stable pattern. Makes a lot of sense to me. Yeah cockroach makes more sense for the bonegnawers
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Apr 28, 2023 17:23
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Attorney at Funk posted:There *is* an answer to the question, "What kind of person thinks that a world of magic is one where we no longer need or use indoor plumbing?". It's "JK Rowling". Except not really because she wrote Myrtle the Toilet Girl Ghost for Book 2.
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Apr 28, 2023 18:17
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Everyone posted:Except not really because she wrote Myrtle the Toilet Girl Ghost for Book 2. A cautionary tale, about how sometimes plumbing will trap your soul so always check under the seat before use.
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Apr 28, 2023 18:20
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