It wouldn't be for awhile, unfortunately. Maybe in the next month or so I'll have things put together. I'll definitely let you guys know, though, once I'm set to go.
I'd like to run a game combining elements of Gaiman (Sandman, Neverwhere, American Gods), the Matthew Swift novels, and Persona. See how it goes, tho'.
Picked up Mage: The Awakening today. Fuck this game is cool, and dripping with style.
It's my favorite NWoD game by a mile.
What is Mage about? I have Mirrors and to me it seems to me Humans keeping some Other worldly things locked up and fighting people in general?
New Mage? There's a fallen realm and a supernal realm, and the abyss separates the two. Magic comes from the Supernal realm, and is used by those in the Fallen. Misusing magic(i.e. using vulgar magic in front of humans[sleepers]) draws the attention of nasty things from the Abyss and causes paradox.
There's five factions in Mage society, all with different ideas of running things. Silver Ladder are the politicians who keep to tradition, Adamantine Arrow are warrior types, Guardians of the Veil are strict on keeping magic and secrets under lock and key, Mysterium are intent on discovering more of it, and Free Council believe in making magic more accessible to humans.
That's the gist of it. The antagonists are mostly the Seers of the Throne(brainwashed/power-hungry Mages who serve the Supernal powers) and Banishers(Mage Hunters).
These two descriptions really sold me on it. Both from this link posted earlier.
”CharlieFoxtrot” posted:
Most representations of magic anywhere you see -- other games, books, movies -- are very, very narrow. And they have to be, because if you take things to their logical conclusions, you'd be experiencing stories about utterly frightening and incomprehensible alien entities. You can create energy from oblivion? Of course you're going to use it to sling fireballs and nothing else. Gravity is just a slider setting that you can bend to your will, and you're going to use it to play a loving sport? You and the others around you can step outside of time, render distance meaningless, and end life with the speaking of a single word, and somehow your psychology and society is organized no differently than the mundane world? Bullshit.
Mage lets you go beyond that. It has many interlocking themes, but one is the hope and potential for limitless growth. We all start life as babies, mewling and crying, barely sensate and driven by unformed instincts. Some of those babies grow into scientists who are on the bleeding edge of discerning the building blocks of the universe, into artists who can channel raw passion and longing and emotion into artefacts that make the souls of the masses ache and leap and laugh, into leaders who galvanize the multitudes into action in service of a higher and intangible ideal.
To Mages they are all still babies.
For a Mage, each new discovery is paradigm shift upon paradigm shift, changing the way she views the world utterly and irrevocably. And each step along that path of power draws her away from not only other Sleepers, but other Mages as well. (As an aside, I think that's one of the key advantages Awakening has over Ascension, in that progression leads to isolation and differentiation. Whereas in Ascension as you grow in power you learn that everything agglomerates together. So you're murdering and rending reality... over cosmetics?)
The House of Ariadne knows that the city, that glorious jumble of stone and electricity and flesh, has its own soul -- and it's singing to us. The Blank Badges know that identity is a function of others' perceptions, and seize control of it in service of a permanent revolution beyond mundane ken. The Imagineers have perceived that we are all made of thoughts, and try to isolate that to the point of transcendence.
But the world that would be the Mages' playground is governed by unknowable and insidious entities that shackle souls with an omnipresent Lie, and they are bound by a system that pushes back as they probe the frontiers of the mind and reality. They are constantly reminded that power and knowledge comes with limits and costs. And they perceive that they are trapped in a system that threatens to plunge everything they know into Abyss after Abyss.
For example, there exists a book, incomplete. It exists in snippets and fragments, in intrusive thoughts that appear ex nihilo in random people. If they were ever to be collected and completed, they would be an Abyssal entity that exists as an entire universe, erasing all of history and rewriting it into a demonic, tormented hellscape.
Confronted with this friction and with this forbidden knowledge, some Mages go mad. Some forsake all semblance of human morality. Some search for a way out. And some choose to fight.
Honestly, sometimes I think that Awakening leans so heavily on Atlantis because leading off with Gravity's Rainbow isn't the best way to move product.
Etherwind posted:
No. If your adventure can be broken like that, you aren't running a proper game of Mage. Consequentially, you can't just take an adventure for something like Vampire or Werewolf, increase the difficulty and then make it a Mage adventure.
Mage requires you to actually ask "What are the themes and ideas the party will be tackling?" and then set up a series of actors and influences that will be playing them out, with the right flexibility to respond to player improvisation. If it's a high powered game and your players are going for it, you should be prepared for them to venture into the Anima Mundi beyond the Collective Unconsciousness of mankind and wrestle with the concept of Electricty in order to convince it to cause a cost-length blackout, even if you just expected them to cut the power to an apartment block using a pair of pliers.
I would also very much be down for a mage game. Hell, I would be down for any nWod or oWod game as long as it can stay together for longer than 3 weeks.
My RL group is not as taken by WoD as I am and my forays into it with them so far have been generally disappointing. Sigh.
Same, Tunos. But I love the setting too much not to eventually attempt to run a game.
Hm..if you're not up to running a game, give me a week or two. Seeing how there's enough interest, don't want to let it disappear.
Shamus on
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cj iwakuraThe Rhythm RegentBears The Name FreedomRegistered Userregular
edited June 2011
I did try to run a Dark Ages-esque game, but I think the concept was too out there. I'd try again with something modern, but I'd probably steal too many ideas from the game I'm currently running.
So... I got done with my finals and have some free time. Would anyone be interested if I ran a game of Werewolf? I think it is a highly underrated game line.
So... I got done with my finals and have some free time. Would anyone be interested if I ran a game of Werewolf? I think it is a highly underrated game line.
So... I got done with my finals and have some free time. Would anyone be interested if I ran a game of Werewolf? I think it is a highly underrated game line.
nWoD or oWoD?
nWoD. I'm not really familiar with the old oWoD systems and such.
I'm glad to see people are interested though. It will probably be a while before the thread gets started or anything, as I think it will probably be for the best if I start it after I go camping.
Abysmal Lynx on
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
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cj iwakuraThe Rhythm RegentBears The Name FreedomRegistered Userregular
edited June 2011
Not sure anyone's ever run a Garou game here, old or new. What I read of Old in a graphic novel was REALLY good stuff, though. It was a three part comic with one about the Toreador, one about the Brujah(Theo Bell!), and one about a pack of female Garou fighting the Black Spiral Dancers.
Never would've thought I'd like the Garou one most.
cj iwakura on
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cj iwakuraThe Rhythm RegentBears The Name FreedomRegistered Userregular
edited June 2011
So Mage-ers: what's a good way to punish a player who likes to screw with the Umbra/spirit realm? Be creative.
Piss off the head of a court. City Fathers for example can be frighteningly powerful and potentially have the connections to make life difficult for a Cabal. Claimed mortals can be pretty scary if not much of a challenge, but if you start being subtle; like a greed spirit constantly making a Mage a target for muggers or something, things can get pretty freaky.
So Mage-ers: what's a good way to punish a player who likes to screw with the Umbra/spirit realm? Be creative.
The token answer is "sick the local Pure pack on him", but this assumes that both the game is crossover-friendly and that the Mage in question hasn't gotten enough XP in him to totally destroy anything that isn't a Mage.
My advice is to mine Werewolf or Book of Spirits for ideas. There's enough stuff in the Hisil (Idigam, Maeljin, Hosts, Ridden, Claimed) to make even experienced Mages think twice before monkeying too much with it.
Jack Hobbes on
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cj iwakuraThe Rhythm RegentBears The Name FreedomRegistered Userregular
edited June 2011
This isn't a crossover game; just Mage. Also not too familiar with the Spirit books, just what WoD and Mage have gone into.
I'm not really familiar with nWoD mage, but old school Werewolf used to do a lot of things with the Umbra and mirrors. They shifted planes via reflective surface, they scryed with mirrors, etc.
One kind of superficial thing would be having him see into some random part of the Umbra everytime he would normally be seeing a reflection. To step it up you could have the stuff on the other side be able to see him, too. Maybe have something big and scary track him in the real world from the umbra and be there whenever he tried to do anything with it like cross over or travel through it.
Crossing and seeing across into the Shadow in nWoD doesn't really work like that, but theoretically it is possible if a spirit has the right Influences and Numen.
Crossing and seeing across into the Shadow in nWoD doesn't really work like that, but theoretically it is possible if a spirit has the right Influences and Numen.
Moreover it's your campaign so you can do whatever you want 8-)
Oh! If you wanted to pull the old bait and switch, you could have a group of Claimed pretend to be a pack of werewolves or one be a vampire or something.
Oh! If you wanted to pull the old bait and switch, you could have a group of Claimed pretend to be a pack of werewolves or one be a vampire or something.
This is always a fun trick. In the Ghouls book there's a teenage Ghoul that thinks that she's a werewolf and that her sire is Satan.
There's nothing stopping some spirits of blood or wolves (or both) from Claiming some mortals so you can mess with you're players' heads.
Posts
It's my favorite NWoD game by a mile.
But yea, it would be pretty easy to run a Masquerade game with Requiem rules. Which is also something I would totally be down for. Hint hint.
Actually, your posts on how good it is prompted me to pick it up. Along with the descriptions from the SA forums. :^:
I definitely want to play or even run a game using it. Too many ideas.
I'd be interested if my 4e applications fall through.
Boy does it suck to be an Adamantine Arrow.
What is Mage about? I have Mirrors and to me it seems to me Humans keeping some Other worldly things locked up and fighting people in general?
I'd like to run a game combining elements of Gaiman (Sandman, Neverwhere, American Gods), the Matthew Swift novels, and Persona. See how it goes, tho'.
New Mage? There's a fallen realm and a supernal realm, and the abyss separates the two. Magic comes from the Supernal realm, and is used by those in the Fallen. Misusing magic(i.e. using vulgar magic in front of humans[sleepers]) draws the attention of nasty things from the Abyss and causes paradox.
There's five factions in Mage society, all with different ideas of running things. Silver Ladder are the politicians who keep to tradition, Adamantine Arrow are warrior types, Guardians of the Veil are strict on keeping magic and secrets under lock and key, Mysterium are intent on discovering more of it, and Free Council believe in making magic more accessible to humans.
That's the gist of it. The antagonists are mostly the Seers of the Throne(brainwashed/power-hungry Mages who serve the Supernal powers) and Banishers(Mage Hunters).
My RL group is not as taken by WoD as I am and my forays into it with them so far have been generally disappointing. Sigh.
Hm..if you're not up to running a game, give me a week or two. Seeing how there's enough interest, don't want to let it disappear.
Put me down as "interested".
nWoD or oWoD?
3DS FCode: 1993-7512-8991
nWoD. I'm not really familiar with the old oWoD systems and such.
I'm glad to see people are interested though. It will probably be a while before the thread gets started or anything, as I think it will probably be for the best if I start it after I go camping.
Never would've thought I'd like the Garou one most.
My advice is to mine Werewolf or Book of Spirits for ideas. There's enough stuff in the Hisil (Idigam, Maeljin, Hosts, Ridden, Claimed) to make even experienced Mages think twice before monkeying too much with it.
One kind of superficial thing would be having him see into some random part of the Umbra everytime he would normally be seeing a reflection. To step it up you could have the stuff on the other side be able to see him, too. Maybe have something big and scary track him in the real world from the umbra and be there whenever he tried to do anything with it like cross over or travel through it.
Assuming this is the same umbra, obviously.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
Moreover it's your campaign so you can do whatever you want 8-)
Oh! If you wanted to pull the old bait and switch, you could have a group of Claimed pretend to be a pack of werewolves or one be a vampire or something.
There's nothing stopping some spirits of blood or wolves (or both) from Claiming some mortals so you can mess with you're players' heads.