Mage the Ascension Question

[Hurtfultater]

While I will gleefully rip on WW for their political views, writing style, editing, indecis, binding, etc., Mage is a great game. The question remains if it's the right game for you and your group. If whomever is chosen to GM is unable to arbitrate well, Mage is not for you. The rules, while innovative and flavorful, are not unambiguous. If your GM is unable to seperate in game and out of game issues or is unable to see things from someone else's point of view, Mage is not for you. Every use of magic requires four points of view: the player's understanding of the rules, the player's idea of the PC's paradigm, the GM's understanding of the rules, and the GM's idea of the PC's paradigm. A bad GM will be vastly too permissive or restrictive, leading to a very bad play existance if the PCs are, well, mages.

That said, if you have a fair GM, a good group dynamic, and creative players, Mage can be a bucket of fun.

 

[Aristotle]

My primary issue with the game at the time (keeping in mind that I loved the game enough to have the CoX flower tattooed on my arm) was that what you did with magic always felt like it was limited to how well you understand the world around you. Maybe I just missed the boat entirely ... I was much younger when I played.

It just seemed that my gamers, mostly blue collar working-class types, had more difficulty understanding what they could do with certain spheres and so they used them less or used them to do very 'standard' things. Forces comes to mind as a sphere where, the better you understood how energy worked in the real world, the more you could get away with in the game. Others, like Mind, seemed easier to grasp for one reason or another.

I've stayed away from the new books, but when the new Mage comes out I might just find myself sucked into the World of Darkness once more. Of course the meaning of my tattoo will be all but lost as 'my' WoD is no more.

 

[PrinceofLowLight]

The Mage rulebook becomes less annoying if you just remember that the Neutral POV is pretty much non-extant in White Wolf books. When balanced against the Guide to The Technocracy, it makes for a fairly complete universe. There's much more potential for drama when you really understand where the damn Reality Deviants are coming from.

 

[eyebeams]

Not really. There are two groups that base their magic on science fiction tropes (cyberpunk and pulp/pseudo- science, for the Virtual Adepts and Sons of Ether respectively) rather than more traditional magic/fantasy sources, but that doesn't really impact on the casting of most fields of knowledge as evil propaganda.

Unlike the Technocracy, which based their magic on science fiction tropes, rather than traditional magic/fantasy sources.

The fact of the matter is that science and technology is morally neutral in Mage. The game is about the use of science to promote the values of modernism, not science itself. Before you respond, by the way, look up what "modernism" is in a cultural context.

White Wolf did try to tone down some of the luddite themes as their games became mainstream, but that just lead to some weird inconsistencies. Fortunately, it looks like the new editions aren't going the mainstream-is-EVIL route in their setting(s) this time around.

Your opinions are not consistent with my experience, which includes advice and consultation from two of the game's developers.

 

[eyebeams]

Except for the fact that the "bad" guys are moving away from that because they didn't think that having non-mages at the mercy of mages, horrible monsters and general pandemonium and chaos was a good thing.

That's not actually what the game's past setting was, though. Mages were representative of humanity as a whole. Mages did not bother running Sleeper affairs for any length of time (with the exception of China, at certain points in the game) until the 19th Century. The seige of Mistridge happened in the game because mages *didn't* act to help people, not because they interfered with them.

The conflict that existed had nothing whatsoever to do with overthrowing evil tyrannical wizards to bless peasants with sanitation. It had to do with taking steps to intervene in society instead of ignore it. The Order of Reason didn't even settle on science and technology as their favoured method until the 19th century.

 

[eyebeams]

The Mage rulebook becomes less annoying if you just remember that the Neutral POV is pretty much non-extant in White Wolf books. When balanced against the Guide to The Technocracy, it makes for a fairly complete universe. There's much more potential for drama when you really understand where the damn Reality Deviants are coming from.

The Guide to the Technocracy is a satire written from the point of view of people whose minds have been subtly compromised. The Mage Storyteller's Handbook is the preeminant "neutral" overview of the game.

 

[eyebeams]

It just seemed that my gamers, mostly blue collar working-class types, had more difficulty understanding what they could do with certain spheres and so they used them less or used them to do very 'standard' things. Forces comes to mind as a sphere where, the better you understood how energy worked in the real world, the more you could get away with in the game. Others, like Mind, seemed easier to grasp for one reason or another.

I think the problem is that folks made paradigm a lot more elaborate than it needed to be. A general idea is enough; your *character* can have a big alternative metaphysical system, but all you *need* are a few buzzwords. The game emphasized paradigm to keep folks from forgetting it, but I think it didn't go far enough to encourage people to relax about it, too.

Forces was a problem largely because of the 1e legacy, where it viewed it in quasi-scientific terms. 2nd and later clarified that darkness (and even wood in the Chinese mysticism sense) could be considered forces, no matter where they fell according to scientific nomenclature. As always, the best thing is to keep the game moving and reward surface suspension of disbelief instead of turning every spell into a GM/player Inquisition session.

 

[eyebeams]

Yikes! How much of a backlash did the ensuing Ball of Abysmal Flame cause?

Don't matter. The necessary level of Prime for BoAF also allows you to counter Paradox with Quintessence

 

[SWBaxter]

Your opinions are not consistent with my experience, which includes advice and consultation from two of the game's developers.

This may come as a shock to you, but I don't really care if my opinions mesh well with your experience, or even what the developers might have intended to say but sadly failed to communicate in the core releases. All I care about is whether my opinions reflect what was actually written and released, and for that purpose I'm comfortable standing by them. If you think of something other than your experiences or vaguely cited conversations that invalidates my opinions, perhaps I'll give what you say more weight. Until then, have fun.

 

[Hurtfultater]

I think the problem is that folks made paradigm a lot more elaborate than it needed to be. A general idea is enough; your *character* can have a big alternative metaphysical system, but all you *need* are a few buzzwords. The game emphasized paradigm to keep folks from forgetting it, but I think it didn't go far enough to encourage people to relax about it, too.

Forces was a problem largely because of the 1e legacy, where it viewed it in quasi-scientific terms. 2nd and later clarified that darkness (and even wood in the Chinese mysticism sense) could be considered forces, no matter where they fell according to scientific nomenclature. As always, the best thing is to keep the game moving and reward surface suspension of disbelief instead of turning every spell into a GM/player Inquisition session.

Mage may suffer from a malady I shall now name Borgstromitis, in which a gaming book succeeds well in conveying the themes and overall ideas of a setting but somehow frequently fails as an instruction manual for play.