Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
The urban fantasy market seems awfully stagnant
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="VelvetViolet" data-source="post: 7625482" data-attributes="member: 6686357"><p>Can we please not get into those stupid vitriolic edition wars for the umpteenth time? For Pete's sake, you are still operating on the fallacy of never reading past the 15 years old first edition rulebooks, if even that far. <em>Mage The Awakening</em> included DIY magical traditions, mad science and star gates in supplements published a decade ago.</p><p></p><p>I think <em>Mage The Ascension</em> and <em>Mage The Awakening</em> are equally insane. They are fundamentally about different flavors of egocentric jerks, who are clearly metaphors for political fringes, fighting to take over the world and oppress everyone else. While not a bad idea in isolation, the toxic community thinks these jerks are supposed to be the heroes. (The developers literally wrote a "storyteller handbook" of essays explaining their intent, and more, which went completely contrary to how most players played. I already mentioned the death threats aimed at 3e.) Any interest I might have had was long ago destroyed by that toxic community. A community that clearly hasn't improved since I left and is probably much worse if the horror stories I heard about the V5 edition war are anything to go by.</p><p></p><p>The "political parties" are about as sensible as the cliques in <em>Divergent</em>. Which would make sense when you notice that they seem to be based on high school cliques, ethnic stereotypes, Atlantean government agents and such. Wiccans, Aleister Crowley, Native American stereotypes, kungfu movie fans, stoners, <em>Matrix </em>fans, magic police, mad scientists, New Age groupies, serial killers, etc. Absolutely none of those make any sense as political affiliations. To add insult to injury, these are extremely Eurocentric. The entirety of Asia's occult history is relegated to kung fu fighters, serial killers and stoners? The entirety of every other continent is relegated to "shamans"? Really? (I know one of the <em>Awakening </em>books tried to pull in more global history by mentioning Kumari Kandam and other mythical civilizations, but too little too late.)</p><p></p><p>This has been pretty much the case for all <em>World of Darkness</em>, except <em>Changeling: The Lost</em>. <em>Lost</em> was probably the single best game ever produced because it channeled universal archetypes that were otherwise absent everywhere else and offered an unparalleled degree of customization as far as <em>World of Darkness</em> games go. I can only wish all the other games were like that.</p><p></p><p>Considering the vitriolic edition wars, I find it ironic that the plot of <em>Bloodlines 2</em> starts with the Camarilla being killed off and replaced with a set of factions like the "pioneers." Feels more like <em>Requiem</em>'s covenants, except maybe with better execution this time. (IIRC, V5 made a lot of changes in a loosely similar vein to <em>Requiem</em>. Which itself was trying to recapture the lost feel of <em>Masquerade</em>'s first edition. The more things change, the more they stay the same and all that jazz.)</p><p></p><p>But I digress. The point of this thread is to be constructive and creative, not to criticize everything I dislike about <em>World of Darkness</em>. Which is a lot. That said, I do give <em>Mage </em>in either iteration props for using a <a href="http://pseudoboo.blogspot.com/2016/02/mechanics-syntactic-magic.html" target="_blank">syntactic magic system</a> (copied and modified from <em>Ars Magica</em>) and including "magical traditions" mechanics for players to personalize how their character performs magic. IMO it is vastly overshadowed by <a href="http://spheresofpower.wikidot.com/casting-traditions" target="_blank"><em>Spheres of Power</em>,</a> though.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="VelvetViolet, post: 7625482, member: 6686357"] Can we please not get into those stupid vitriolic edition wars for the umpteenth time? For Pete's sake, you are still operating on the fallacy of never reading past the 15 years old first edition rulebooks, if even that far. [I]Mage The Awakening[/I] included DIY magical traditions, mad science and star gates in supplements published a decade ago. I think [I]Mage The Ascension[/I] and [I]Mage The Awakening[/I] are equally insane. They are fundamentally about different flavors of egocentric jerks, who are clearly metaphors for political fringes, fighting to take over the world and oppress everyone else. While not a bad idea in isolation, the toxic community thinks these jerks are supposed to be the heroes. (The developers literally wrote a "storyteller handbook" of essays explaining their intent, and more, which went completely contrary to how most players played. I already mentioned the death threats aimed at 3e.) Any interest I might have had was long ago destroyed by that toxic community. A community that clearly hasn't improved since I left and is probably much worse if the horror stories I heard about the V5 edition war are anything to go by. The "political parties" are about as sensible as the cliques in [I]Divergent[/I]. Which would make sense when you notice that they seem to be based on high school cliques, ethnic stereotypes, Atlantean government agents and such. Wiccans, Aleister Crowley, Native American stereotypes, kungfu movie fans, stoners, [I]Matrix [/I]fans, magic police, mad scientists, New Age groupies, serial killers, etc. Absolutely none of those make any sense as political affiliations. To add insult to injury, these are extremely Eurocentric. The entirety of Asia's occult history is relegated to kung fu fighters, serial killers and stoners? The entirety of every other continent is relegated to "shamans"? Really? (I know one of the [I]Awakening [/I]books tried to pull in more global history by mentioning Kumari Kandam and other mythical civilizations, but too little too late.) This has been pretty much the case for all [I]World of Darkness[/I], except [I]Changeling: The Lost[/I]. [I]Lost[/I] was probably the single best game ever produced because it channeled universal archetypes that were otherwise absent everywhere else and offered an unparalleled degree of customization as far as [I]World of Darkness[/I] games go. I can only wish all the other games were like that. Considering the vitriolic edition wars, I find it ironic that the plot of [I]Bloodlines 2[/I] starts with the Camarilla being killed off and replaced with a set of factions like the "pioneers." Feels more like [I]Requiem[/I]'s covenants, except maybe with better execution this time. (IIRC, V5 made a lot of changes in a loosely similar vein to [I]Requiem[/I]. Which itself was trying to recapture the lost feel of [I]Masquerade[/I]'s first edition. The more things change, the more they stay the same and all that jazz.) But I digress. The point of this thread is to be constructive and creative, not to criticize everything I dislike about [I]World of Darkness[/I]. Which is a lot. That said, I do give [I]Mage [/I]in either iteration props for using a [URL="http://pseudoboo.blogspot.com/2016/02/mechanics-syntactic-magic.html"]syntactic magic system[/URL] (copied and modified from [I]Ars Magica[/I]) and including "magical traditions" mechanics for players to personalize how their character performs magic. IMO it is vastly overshadowed by [URL="http://spheresofpower.wikidot.com/casting-traditions"][I]Spheres of Power[/I],[/URL] though. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
The urban fantasy market seems awfully stagnant
Top