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Can Mage get it's own thread already?
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Feb 23, 2018 19:53
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Joe Slowboat posted:Science is a set of cultural and social practices used to create knowledge through the application of empiricism and statistical analysis; it's really more organizational than ideal in practice, which is why the Free Council are perfect for it's magical champions. I don't disagree with you. There's nothing that says it isn't possible. I'd be skeptical of anyone claiming they'd done it, though, since the history of the Awakened is littered with people saying "I've got it!" only for them to not, likely owing to their inability to fully encompass the things they wish to describe owing to being limited to human minds. The way to absolutely know and understand something in the supernal is to become it. And unless you become yourself it's a bit hard to describe it after the fact.
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Feb 23, 2018 19:54
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moths posted:Can Mage get it's own thread already? The chat thread already exists as a home for bad posts by bad posters, tho
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Feb 23, 2018 19:54
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Mors Rattus posted:The Lie is explained by out of character text. The entire idea that the world is, in fact, Fallen, that Mage is about a Gnostic search for a greater truth, is not a wholly IC invention; it is the game. It has rules, even! The Lie asserting itself has rules. You are basically going 'but what if, actually, this entire book is lying to you and everything about the game is false? makes u think' "The Lie," "the Fall," "these other capitalized words" are inventions by Mages to describe the world as they see it. And, unsurprisingly, they tend to speak very ill of things and people which aren't magical.
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Feb 23, 2018 19:56
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Ironslave posted:But they do exist. There are a Zeus and an Indra and a Thor kicking around in the Temenos. And there might also be some spirits that held those titles. And those characters themselves might be representative of actual mages or other supernaturals that wandered around at the same time. And their symbology is reflected in those people who take on those shadow names and start beating people with hammers or who start impregnating people as swans. All right, but this is less to do with our perspectives on those symbols and more on a combination of those super-real symbols exerting force on the phenomenal world plus there being actual, verifiable mechanisms by which myths accrete into actual, specific living entities.
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Feb 23, 2018 19:56
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Rand Brittain posted:Kind of similar to Unknown Armies, where magic resists scientific explanation because the rules will change once they become widely known. I was gonna say probably closer to Glorantha -- there are actual, objective rules to how belief transforms into reality, if you know how to use them they will always work, it's just that there are established powers out there who get really mad if you do that and will gently caress your day up. Except even that's probably not a great metaphor because the Astral is broader than just "belief" or "perspective" and more just abstract concepts generally.
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Feb 23, 2018 19:58
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Ironslave posted:"The Lie," "the Fall," "these other capitalized words" are inventions by Mages to describe the world as they see it. And, unsurprisingly, they tend to speak very ill of things and people which aren't magical. So, if Mage is not actually about gnostic illumination and is not in fact truly gnostic at all and the greater truth of reality isn't actually a greater truth shielded from the eyes of mortals by a great lie, what is it about? I mean it's not like your power stat is literally named Gnosis or anything.
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Feb 23, 2018 19:59
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Soonmot posted:Sorry, you posted during mage chat, no one will answer. I've only played mage in owod, but there have been a bunch of posts about how fun wraith, especially Orpheus, is. Now if you were playing chronicles of darkness, I'd say demon. Playing as a biomechanical horror hiding inside a skin suit while conductinga cold war against the servants of the god machine using cartoon physics powers is amazing. If he mentioned two oWoD games first I would imagine he's asking about Demon: The Fallen, which... to be honest I don't think I've ever actually met a Demon: The Fallen fan, so I'd be interested in hearing a serious pitch for it. 
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Feb 23, 2018 19:59
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:All right, but this is less to do with our perspectives on those symbols and more on a combination of those super-real symbols exerting force on the phenomenal world plus there being actual, verifiable mechanisms by which myths accrete into actual, specific living entities. It has everything to do with those perspectives. You're going to have mages from these various culture backgrounds glimpsing the symbol of the thundergod and coming away seeing it as any of them, or as something else entirely. They're all right, just colored differently. The supernal is the sourcecode of reality. The Zeus in the Temenos, the Zeus in the Shadow, and the Zeus who was a Promethean (or whatever) all share in that symbology.
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Feb 23, 2018 20:00
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Mors Rattus posted:So, if Mage is not actually about gnostic illumination and is not in fact truly gnostic at all and the greater truth of reality isn't actually a greater truth shielded from the eyes of mortals by a great lie, what is it about? You're putting a lot of words in my mouth.
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Feb 23, 2018 20:01
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Ironslave posted:It has everything to do with those perspectives. You're going to have mages from these various culture backgrounds glimpsing the symbol of the thundergod and coming away seeing it as any of them, or as something else entirely. They're all right, just colored differently. The map is not the territory.
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Feb 23, 2018 20:01
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Ironslave posted:You're putting a lot of words in my mouth. Then maybe you're poo poo at explaining your position, given you've been arguing that there is no Lie, that mages do not actually have access to a higher truth, and that all that is just mages being derogatory towards non-mages. Like even the thing you posted from another guy to explain your position was dumb because it had nothing to do with what you've been arguing this entire time.
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Feb 23, 2018 20:02
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Or more simply, no it doesn't. Your perspective on the Zeus in the Shadow can and very likely will be objectively wrong, the Supernal concepts of thunder or authority or whatever may undergird and allow Shadow-Zeus to exist, but what he is and who is right about him will have overwhelmingly more to do with the Shadow's ecology and history than your perspective on him, if it involves the latter at all beyond the question of "what kind of Essence did he have for lunch today." e: plus even as a Mage it's not really your perspective on the Supernal symbols that matters, so much as your awareness of, access to, and ability to wield them as tools Tuxedo Catfish fucked around with this message at 20:13 on Feb 23, 2018 |
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Feb 23, 2018 20:03
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:Or more simply, no it doesn't. Your perspective on the Zeus in the Shadow can and very likely will be objectively wrong, and your impression on the Supernal concepts of thunder or authority or whatever may undergird and allow Shadow-Zeus to exist, but what he is and who is right about him will have overwhelmingly more to do with the Shadow's ecology and history than your perspective on him, if it involves the latter at all beyond the question of "what kind of Essence did he have for lunch today." I think I was confusing by addressing two separate things. Perspective matters because it's the form by which Mages (and the universe) both understands and knows supernal symbols--Zeus and Indra are that symbol, colored culturally. What I was saying about the different versions of Zeus--Shadow, Temenos, etc--is that these beings all share in that supernal symbol, because reality is literally built out of supernal symbols. They are everything. When mages use mage sight, they aren't flicking on a power that just imparts knowledge, they're outright seeing into the supernal in a way that is comprehensible to the mage (this is why they can see supernal familiars in mage sight, rather than them operating along another wavelength of Twilight). Mors Rattus posted:Then maybe you're poo poo at explaining your position, given you've been arguing that there is no Lie, that mages do not actually have access to a higher truth, and that all that is just mages being derogatory towards non-mages. Like even the thing you posted from another guy to explain your position was dumb because it had nothing to do with what you've been arguing this entire time. I'm sorry for whatever I said that upset you this much.
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Feb 23, 2018 20:11
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I wish Sad Frankenstein chat got people this fired up. Also, everyone should just play Wraith!
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Feb 23, 2018 20:24
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Lord_Hambrose posted:I wish Sad Frankenstein chat got people this fired up. i'm reading the v20 wraith book right now and learning all this new lore and mechanics is a lot omg
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Feb 23, 2018 20:25
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Lord_Hambrose posted:I wish Sad Frankenstein chat got people this fired up. Promethean is incredibly cool but it's both an intensely personal game, there isn't a lot of general, abstract stuff to argue about when the most important thing that's likely to happen to your character is, like, making a friend you don't drive away by being a spiritually incomplete accident or having an argument with your unsympathetic career counselor who is on fire, and made of fire, and wants to know why you aren't a person yet.
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Feb 23, 2018 20:29
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I would love to get into Sad Frankenstein chat but I don't have the RPG time to spare on reading the books for something I'm not running these days. Also neither Zeus nor Indra are the Supernal Symbol 'colored differently' - they are phenomena that it undergirds as a universal law, possibly, and some mages use them as a way of understanding that symbol. If one of them /was/ that symbol it would imply some weirdness about the Supernal, and that one would be more real than the other. The Forms existing doesn't mean the phenomena are all equally valid depictions of the Form, or even that they all partake solely of one Form.
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Feb 23, 2018 20:31
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I love that they eventually decided to give personalities to the Deathlords and they're all over the top. The Iron Lady is a celtic war-queen-goddess and the Skeletal Lord is insane and believes himself to be one of the Riders of the Apocalypse.
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Feb 23, 2018 20:34
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Promethean is a great game and I love it dearly, it just doesn't have much ambiguity to it. It says what it wants to say, and has the distinction of being a complete game. It has a goal and an ending for you to work towards, and the story itself is tied up in personal complications. All of that is why I love it, it just doesn't leave much to discuss in it. It's very clear in what things are and what you're supposed to do, and the mysteries of the gameline (the Principle, the divine fire, etc.) aren't at all the point and usually end up being discussed through the lens of another gameline (usually Mage, unfortunately) because of it.
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Feb 23, 2018 20:36
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boy I sure hope Scion Hero comes out next week before this thread eats itself alive I mean I don't think that'll stop it from happening, I just want the book
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Feb 23, 2018 20:42
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The only thing that's unfortunate about Mage detailing the nWoD's cosmology is that the other lines that deal with large chunks of the universe haven't gotten Imperial Mysteries-esque cosmology / endgame books yet.
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Feb 23, 2018 20:47
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Blockhouse posted:boy I sure hope Scion Hero comes out next week before this thread eats itself alive
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Feb 23, 2018 20:47
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Chernobyl Peace Prize posted:i need it to come out soon and distract me from getting any more psyched up about Geist2e Be honest: Is that a sentence that a year ago you'd -ever- have predicted yourself typing?
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Feb 23, 2018 20:53
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Scion doesn't even really go in this thread. Maybe there should be a separate thread for Onyx Path games that aren't either exalted or of darkness?
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Feb 23, 2018 20:57
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Joe Slowboat posted:I would love to get into Sad Frankenstein chat but I don't have the RPG time to spare on reading the books for something I'm not running these days. Zeus and Indra are aspects of the notion of a thundergod, interpreted and shaped by the cultures they sprang from. They exist, not just as spirits and goetia and whatever, but as concepts and symbols that spring from other symbols. Our disagreements are probably approaching semantic, but the symbol of the thundergod doesn't undergird them, it's part of who they are. They're the result of two cultures considering the idea of "thundergod" and drawing down different pictures, and writing different names, and ascribing different characters. And suddenly the mages from those cultures are invoking them to drop thunder--they're part of the Truth that is the thundergod. It's abstract, but it's a universe of sympathy, symbology, and resonance. Tuxedo Catfish posted:The only thing that's unfortunate about Mage detailing the nWoD's cosmology is that the other lines that deal with large chunks of the universe haven't gotten Imperial Mysteries-esque cosmology / endgame books yet. There are times I almost wish it hadn't come out. Other lines don't seem posed to get anything like it which keeps causing people to turn to it for interpreting the setting of the ChroD and, while it's a fun read, it includes very little of practical use to most Mage games. The Quintessence system did give us the yantra system indirectly, though, so I'm glad for that.
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Feb 23, 2018 20:58
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Rand Brittain posted:Scion doesn't even really go in this thread. Maybe there should be a separate thread for Onyx Path games that aren't either exalted or of darkness? Scion, Trinity, and the sea person game they haven't shown much of yet could get their own thread since they use the same system.
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Feb 23, 2018 20:59
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Make one and sure. Until then, this is effectively the Onyx Path megathread.
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Feb 23, 2018 21:22
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Mors Rattus posted:Geist post on Mementos, now hopefully less confusing and broken than 1e. Were Sin-Eaters that uber compared to the other splats? I never paid much attention but would sometimes hear something in that direction.
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Feb 23, 2018 21:46
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Dawgstar posted:Were Sin-Eaters that uber compared to the other splats? I never paid much attention but would sometimes hear something in that direction. They weren't stronger than mages because mages are on a whole different level, but there's three main reasons sin-eaters were stronger than basically everyone else in the previous edition. 1) Their entire shtick was never dying or getting sick, so they just kind of kept going through everything. 2) Most of their manifestations were big blunt instruments that could bash through most things and could just give them giant chunks of armor. 3) Mementos in Geist 1e mostly gave you a metric shitload of dice on a skill associated with the item. Add all of that to them not really having any specific weaknesses and you get a splat that can beat up basically anyone if they're built for it. Lurks With Wolves fucked around with this message at 22:01 on Feb 23, 2018 |
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Feb 23, 2018 21:59
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unseenlibrarian posted:Be honest: Is that a sentence that a year ago you'd -ever- have predicted yourself typing? Lurks With Wolves posted:They weren't stronger than mages because mages are on a whole different level, but there's three main reasons sin-eaters were stronger than basically everyone else in the previous edition. Which means that in a given group of 4-5 players, there's no good way of planning for a given combat to (1) take place or (2) not be immediately and brutally trivialized, or that investigations / adventuring in spooky unknown locales won't just turn into "I activate Boneyard, sup." Which makes it hard to run, or really want to run, or want to play, when half your toolkit is rockets you have to choose not to tag a challenge with. Also blah blah they have no motivation and their unique thing has no mechanical teeth to it blah blah
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Feb 23, 2018 22:25
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It did make them very good at killing ghosts, though.
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Feb 23, 2018 22:26
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nofather posted:It did make them very good at killing ghosts, though. But also kind of bad at peacefully interacting with ghosts, which is half the fun of Geist's concept and the bigger problem imo.
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Feb 23, 2018 23:06
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MonsieurChoc posted:I love that they eventually decided to give personalities to the Deathlords and they're all over the top. The Iron Lady is a celtic war-queen-goddess and the Skeletal Lord is insane and believes himself to be one of the Riders of the Apocalypse. He always was. Or at least since the Book of Legions.
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Feb 23, 2018 23:28
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GimpInBlack posted:My development notes on Mementos were basically a DVD rip of The Lost Room with some skulls drawn on. One of the cool things about mementos is it gives another good reason for mortals to get involved in your game, and to be actual players with agency in a campaign, which I really appreciate. In most of the various WoD game lines mortals only really matter if they are tools, friends, or hunters. I'm really looking forward to Geist being able to incorporate more of an unknown armies Tim Powers vibe. It also helps that way more people believe in ghosts than werewolves or vampires. Also while I'm not participating I appreciate the mage chat. Shine on you crazy bastards.
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Feb 24, 2018 00:25
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neaden posted:One of the cool things about mementos is it gives another good reason for mortals to get involved in your game, and to be actual players with agency in a campaign, which I really appreciate. In most of the various WoD game lines mortals only really matter if they are tools, friends, or hunters. I'm really looking forward to Geist being able to incorporate more of an unknown armies Tim Powers vibe. It also helps that way more people believe in ghosts than werewolves or vampires. Speaking of these topics - do people tend to use Sleepwalkers extensively in Mage games? Due to city-specific setting reasons in my Mage game there's a low number of Sleepwalkers involved, but I did try to float the idea of making alliances with Sleepwalkers to have them carry long-term spells and enchantments in exchange for help and support, and my players didn't particularly bite. They've really taken a shine to the sleepwalkers they've met, though, and they're trying really hard to help one Awaken, which has been sweet.
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Feb 24, 2018 00:53
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Joe Slowboat posted:Speaking of these topics - do people tend to use Sleepwalkers extensively in Mage games? Due to city-specific setting reasons in my Mage game there's a low number of Sleepwalkers involved, but I did try to float the idea of making alliances with Sleepwalkers to have them carry long-term spells and enchantments in exchange for help and support, and my players didn't particularly bite. They've really taken a shine to the sleepwalkers they've met, though, and they're trying really hard to help one Awaken, which has been sweet. I have one in my game that the players are using extensively. Turns out she was from a Proximi family all along. They could find more if they wanted, but mostly they've been dealing with magic and faeries and things, so lots of sleepwalkers isn't really high on the priority list. I'm not sure they'd find them particularly useful considering all the baggage that can come with them. In our in world Lex Magica, sleepwalkers are fine, but then you have to protect them and that leads to actually managing that protection. It's not currently a particularly toothy consilium situation because that's not been our focus, but if they were to go that way, the politics would likely get more complicated and I don't think the group would collectively enjoy that as much as chasing down supernal mysteries and just doing lots and lots of magic.
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Feb 24, 2018 02:12
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Has anything interesting happened in the last year?
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Feb 24, 2018 02:47
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Gantolandon posted:He always was. Or at least since the Book of Legions. Oh yeah, I know. I've been a Wraith fan for a long time. I just want to talk about Wraith. I do like how they adapted Orpheus, although to me it's an alternate version to the onriginal campaign instead of a replacement.
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Feb 24, 2018 03:00
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MonsieurChoc posted:Oh yeah, I know. I've been a Wraith fan for a long time. I just want to talk about Wraith. My favorite bit about the Skeletal Lord was that he insisted on every word he spoke to be written down as you never know when you might have a prohpecy in there somewhere. And given his purview was everybody in the West who died of disease (more or less) he was powerful enough that they had to be absolutely sure he wasn't paying attention when they made little 'cuckoo' noises behind his back.
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Feb 24, 2018 03:13
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