Helpful Spellcasting Flowchart
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@magee101 I enjoy mage just fine and I don't find this flowchart to be helpful. Each time to come back to "if this flowchart turns them off, mage isn't for them" is implying that it's required material to enjoy mage. I don't believe it is. I love mage, I don't like this flow chart.
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@cobaltasaurus no, what it implies if they get scared by something vastly complex and immediately want to turn away, they might not enjoy mage. It is not the flowchart itself it is the complexity of it I am comparing with their ability to enjoy a complex game. I apologize if I have been a terrible job at making that apparent.
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This flowchart and Mage's magick system are substantially less complicated than the strategies to victory in Magic: The Gathering.
Frankly, while I appreciate the complexity of the system, I think that folks who find it so very complicated are the ones trying to optimize their PCs. This is a noble pursuit, but not for me.
I don't play high Gnosis PCs for a reason. I don't care to debate the complexities of the magick system. I know how what I do works, and that's enough for me.
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@ganymede MtG is far from the most complex tcg to exist. [L5R] but I agree! However even looking at what you do have and trying to realize your full potential with what you have already bought can be quite the process even with low gnosis. My mage had gnosis 3 and I was reguarly finding new combos of things I could do that were convuluted and complex even for not being very strong. But it is also IC for a Mage to seek optimization, especially the older the Mage. Its part of what being a wizard is, knowing your ppwers, expanding your powers and finding the best ways and times to use those powers for your goals.
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@magee101 said in Helpful Spellcasting Flowchart:
MtG is far from the most complex tcg to exist. [L5R] but I agree!
Pff. You think L5R is complex? Try V:TES. That shit was super complex out of the box, when it was Jyhad.
“It is better to live doing the things that you like. It is foolish to live within this dream of a world seeing unpleasantness and doing only things that you do not like.” -- Yamamoto Tsunetomo.
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@ganymede yeah I guess L5R mostly got complex a few years in.
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@ganymede Man I was trying to teach Jyhad to a magic player just recently and just going through all the different card types made them give up
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Still I can see why this flowchart is intimidating. I've never really gotten into Mage myself. Speaking of the ccg comparison, it's like dropping the MtG comp rules on a new player interested in learning the game. It's a lot of info they just don't need.
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I'd love to see a similar flow chart showing every possible effect on combat resolution in D&D. It would help people to see that its a ton of possible factors, but not all exist every time. The chart doesn't change the complexity. Mage is one of the few games out there where you design something routinely in play. Most designing games like Super Hero of Mecha games, you design once, or maybe never, then perhaps when you improve something.
That said, I don't think it is more complex than Masterbooks FX system, Ars Magica, and it is less so than Champions or Mutants and Masterminds.
<facetious humor>
You could code a game to use a Traveller-like Universal Spell Profile where the first digits are what rank of Spheres, then you have codes for range, number of targets, what level of sympathy, and so on.So it would be something like the Instant or Extended, nine Speres, Rote traits (with attributes and skills referred to by helpful numbers and letters cuz thats Traveller), area, range, duration, and so on.
So you could easily type in cast E-001000000-R7K-05 would be an extended cast rote forces sensing spell, using a designated stat+ability).
Easy peasy.
/<facetious humor>
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The biggest issue with the flowchart is it gives suuuuuper little information. So people who do not have a certain level of knowledge going in are just blindsided.
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@jennkryst said in Helpful Spellcasting Flowchart:
The biggest issue with the flowchart is it gives suuuuuper little information. So people who do not have a certain level of knowledge going in are just blindsided.
I think that is why it doesn't feel 'right.' IMO it's more of a reference chart than a 'learn to Mage' chart.
I saw it once before I knew Mage and noped right out. But now that I do know Mage, it's something that could be a helpful tool.
Saying the quiet parts out loud since 1996.
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@auspice said in Helpful Spellcasting Flowchart:
@jennkryst said in Helpful Spellcasting Flowchart:
The biggest issue with the flowchart is it gives suuuuuper little information. So people who do not have a certain level of knowledge going in are just blindsided.
I think that is why it doesn't feel 'right.' IMO it's more of a reference chart than a 'learn to Mage' chart.
I saw it once before I knew Mage and noped right out. But now that I do know Mage, it's something that could be a helpful tool.
See, I see it and find it visually distracting and would rather just double check myself with the various tables in the book. But for the most part I use the spells that are already out in the books so I find the chart to be over-information (I don't need to deal with the weaving vs making aspects for the example, if I'm just using a stock matter spell from the book or what might happen with my spell if I have +1 over the needed arcana to cast, or even sometimes what happens when I have two arcana I wanna combo cast together-- that stuff is usually already written down in the example spells).
But I can understand how someone would find it useful as a reminder of rules they've already learned. Especially if they're in the happen of doing things less based off of their spells, and more freeform creative thaumaturgy.
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@livia said in Helpful Spellcasting Flowchart:
Man I was trying to teach Jyhad to a magic player just recently and just going through all the different card types made them give up
Right? And that's just the powers. That's not going through the myriad of strategies you can employ. Ventrue stealth-bleeding. Tremere combat-decking. Assamite thaumaturgy-tossing. And so on.
Yes, I am and was that Jyhad/V:TES nerd that made cards for her MUSH alts, shut up.
@cobaltasaurus said in Helpful Spellcasting Flowchart:
See, I see it and find it visually distracting and would rather just double check myself with the various tables in the book.
I feel the same. To re-word what I said above, the flowchart might be useful if you are familiar with the system and can use it as a reference, but to a newbie it may be mind-bogglingly and unnecessarily complex.
“It is better to live doing the things that you like. It is foolish to live within this dream of a world seeing unpleasantness and doing only things that you do not like.” -- Yamamoto Tsunetomo.
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Best thing you can do for Mage is print out all the tables and concise rules for the things you normally do, and make yourself a slim little notebook that you can use as a cheatpad for casting--and have it physically available, not on the computer. At least, that's what i wish I had done when I played Mage. That shit would've been a godsend.
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@ganymede said in Helpful Spellcasting Flowchart:
@cobaltasaurus said in Helpful Spellcasting Flowchart:
See, I see it and find it visually distracting and would rather just double check myself with the various tables in the book.
I feel the same. To re-word what I said above, the flowchart might be useful if you are familiar with the system and can use it as a reference, but to a newbie it may be mind-bogglingly and unnecessarily complex.
I wouldn't ever assume it would be a resource for a newbie. Like, most flowcharts like this do require you to know the details behind it; they're just references to remind you. If this is helpful as a visual reminder for people who know their way around the system, seems like it's doing its job. And it looked like there were some responses that found it helpful, while others found it unhelpful, so, like, if it's not helpful people can just not use it.
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@cobaltasaurus said in Helpful Spellcasting Flowchart:
I react with sarcasm to holier than thou people who aren't interested in having a conversation but rather ram their argument down other people's throats. I never said that mage wasn't complicated, it sure does get complicated. However this flow chart is a detriment.
Currently, the only person that I see espousing One True Right and Only Wayism in this thread is you. You're convinced that a tool meant as a reference to a complicated rules system should be somehow simpler and more streamlined, and that anything less is somehow a detriment.
It's not a detriment. It's a reference. And I agree with @Magee101, if this rather condensed version of spellcasting turns people off, then they probably aren't going to want to read the full and elaborate version of spellcasting that the book actually has, complete with its 40 or 50 exemptions and oh-but-ifs.
So, seriously. (S)he posted a thing that was intended to be a handy reference, and you're jumping all over him (or her) because it's not as simple as you think it should be. Come off it, already.
Racism isn't Tinkerbell. It doesn't need you to believe in it for it to exist.
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@derp said in Helpful Spellcasting Flowchart:
(S)he posted a thing that was intended to be a handy reference, and you're jumping all over him (or her) because it's not as simple as you think it should be.
Alzie did, actually.
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@derp said in Helpful Spellcasting Flowchart:
Currently, the only person that I see espousing One True Right and Only Wayism in this thread is you. You're convinced that a tool meant as a reference to a complicated rules system should be somehow simpler and more streamlined, and that anything less is somehow a detriment.
@cobaltasaurus said in Helpful Spellcasting Flowchart:
But I can understand how someone would find it useful as a reminder of rules they've already learned. Especially if they're in the happen of doing things less based off of their spells, and more freeform creative thaumaturgy.
Maybe finish reading the thread first, bb.
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@cobaltasaurus I believe they were saying it in the context of how you presented yourself before I called you on it. Because you did not say what you quoted before you jumped on me saying I was being holier than thou.
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@ganymede said in Helpful Spellcasting Flowchart:
@derp said in Helpful Spellcasting Flowchart:
(S)he posted a thing that was intended to be a handy reference, and you're jumping all over him (or her) because it's not as simple as you think it should be.
Alzie did, actually.
Yeah Alzie posted it, I just went all social warrior and defended its viability as a resource. I realize I have a problem. XD
