Shadow War - WoD Mage-Only (Revised)
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@Coin That's okay, you don't have to. Pick anyone... from The 100.
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@TNP said:
Is there a good site to read up on the Ascenscion War? I could google, of course, but it's the 'good' part I'm asking about.
Though having read the wikipedia entry for Dark City and Tomorrowland, I'm probably not the audience for this game as much as I loved oMage. But that's also why I'm curious about the setting. I never read revised.
I'm kind of confused here. You loved oMage but don't know what the Ascension War is? There's no sarcasm to my question, nor criticism, I'm just not entirely sure how to reconcile those statements, or answer without telling you a bunch of shit you already know (??).
The tl;dr of oMage is that belief shapes reality. Mages believe things more strongly than non-Mages, which is why their individual beliefs hold more sway than an individual Sleeper, or even a sizable group of them. Bob Sleeper says that's a rock, Joe Mage says it's a piece of bread, Joe's probably eating bread tonight regardless of what Bob thinks.
However, reality at large is more or less on Bob's side. A rock is a rock unless some enterprising mage says otherwise, after all. Once upon a time it was because there were seven billion Bob's who all believed that and kept the status quo. Whether there are still billions of people somewhere, or whether reality is just coasting on intertia, is something people will probably wonder about in game (I have no idea).
The Ascension War came about when a bunch of sciency-minded mages thought it was balls that Bob was stuck with rocks while Joe could have bread whenever he wanted it, and went about starting to codify their magic and science in such a way that it was such incremental improvements over what people already had, that those Sleepers began to buy into their bullshit magery. This went hand in hand with actual science shit advancing, something Sleepers were able to get in on as well, which only further snowballed shit in favor of the science-minded folks, who later became the Technocracy.
The Ascension War is just the phrase used to describe the conflict between the major Paradigms involved. In oMage up through Revised it was essentially The Traditions v The Technocracy v The Nephandi v Marauders (sort of). The Technocracy represent the status quo, the Traditions represent the remaining mysticism and shit in the world, the Nephandi want to just break and/or shit on everybody's toys because they love playing in shit and everybody else should too, and the Marauders nobody really knows (that's not true, we sort of know, but not everybody agrees with it).
At one point or another the War ranged from very cold to very hot, depending on which book you read and whose perspective it was written from, but presumably in the current setting open, armed conflict between factions is probably not the best idea since... you know. Floating space bubble city. Nobody wants to pop it. Except some contrary motherfuckers who are going to post how they'd love to make characters who would decide to pop it, but don't be that asshole.
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@HelloRaptor said:
I'm kind of confused here. You loved oMage but don't know what the Ascension War is? There's no sarcasm to my question, nor criticism, I'm just not entirely sure how to reconcile those statements, or answer without telling you a bunch of shit you already know (??).
My fault; I wasn't clear. I've never read Revised so I don't know what they did with it it, what changes/additions they made. In oMage - 1st ed, volume 1, whatever you want to call it, the Ascension War was in the process of happening between all the factions.
In the setting as described, it seems to have been resolved in some magical Armaggedon. What happened in Revised to lead to this?
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@TNP said:
@HelloRaptor said:
I'm kind of confused here. You loved oMage but don't know what the Ascension War is? There's no sarcasm to my question, nor criticism, I'm just not entirely sure how to reconcile those statements, or answer without telling you a bunch of shit you already know (??).
My fault; I wasn't clear. I've never read Revised so I don't know what they did with it it, what changes/additions they made. In oMage - 1st ed, volume 1, whatever you want to call it, the Ascension War was in the process of happening between all the factions.
In the setting as described, it seems to have been resolved in some magical Armaggedon. What happened in Revised to lead to this?
Well, the setting as described in this post is something @EmmahSue came up with. There are several scenarios in Mage: Ascension, their apocalyptic end-book, that you can choose from (if you don't want to make up your own). I think ES is making up her own, though.
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@EmmahSue said:
Q: How far away from earth is the city?
A: I haven't thought about that at all! Does it matter? Or is it just curiosity? If it matters, I'll think up a number. Heck, I might think one up anyway just so it's there.
It matters in-so-much as gravitional forces, spatial debris, climate, etc -- all of which you basically answered with "magitech" or "handwavium". (These are not bad or wrong answers, mind. Just make the answer to this question very like to be: "Second verse, same as the first."
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I don't mind coming up with a number, if it helps with play! The concept behind that number will be 'far enough away that getting up- and down-stairs is difficult but not absolutely impossible and is thus a matter of plot rather than simple spell'.
ES
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So here are some thoughts regarding Storytelling on this kind of game, with the disclaimer I'll obviously play it.
You'll be running some heavy metaplot there, way out of the generic-western-world city-sandbox. And since its themes are akin to those of Dark City/Lost, what usually works better for those is the maintenance of OOC as well as IC mystery; that is, I think a game like this will succeed on the merit of withholding but teasing both its players and characters with answers to secrets. Part of the fun on both ends then would be throwing theories of just what happened to other cities, what's going on on earth, what about the Shadow/Arcadia/etc and of course what's going to happen to them?
The problem will be how to manage storytelling while keeping your information cards close to the vest. Give out too much of it to STs and it's over, the cat's out of the bag. Give too little and you'll run into internal consistency problems where hapless STs run plot with OOC assumptions which don't match your plan (say, the reality is 'all the other cities are full of zombies' but Bob run a story in one and no one was eating brains). Requiring plot pre-approval is also a nasty thing one does to one's hated enemies, so let's not even discuss that - but this will probably prove important since this game is far more sensitive to internal contradictions than more generic versions, and will have to be protected from inconsistencies to some degree.
Proposal: Divide the game's assets into thematic domains. 'The Basement', 'Other Mages/Cities', 'The Nephandi', etc). Keep some of those as staff-only to dish out specific things as you see fit. Allow others far more freely with some documented guidelines and a range of things you expect to be possible (say, 'Earth is a post-apocalyptic landscape' so no one runs scenes where they land in Orlando and Disneyland still works juuuust fine). So you're revealing some cards but keeping others to yourself.
Conversely, you might want to introduce an appropriate character renewal engine to the game. How do new (but not new) Mages appear as they are rolled out of CGen, what's the IC mechanism?
That's all! Drop mic!
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Due to the nature of my promise of 2 years, the metaplot (which I assure will not be specifically Chthulhu-focused, though I reserve the right to use elements of alien-horror now and again!) will be doled out over time. Inasmuch as it's possible to keep to a timeframe on a MU-like game, I will try to do so. That means I'll be running things, but also asking for help. That's actively asking the people around me, mind-you, not just pleading into the void.
But that metaplot will also be a lighter touch than previous efforts. This is because I have layers of interactive-depth (oooh, that doesn't really mean anything, does it!) I want to handle. IE:
- Once a Mage has enough magickal power and political oomph to take on a higher role in whatever hierarchy is around, her attention shifts to the broader game, General rather than the Soldier. Plots about visiting dead cities are for soldiers. Plots and decisions about which hidden enclave to save due to limited wartime resources, are for generals.
- Seekings are going to eat up my time, but I don't really have a problem with that.
- Mages can Do Things. I want the players to Do Things! Sometimes wild and crazy Things. I want to show the consequences of that, both positive and negative as appropriate. If someone pops a hole in the dome, what happens?
To me, lighter touch means less focused secret-holding (Scout used to be a good'ish guy until she was corrupted by madness and her siblings) and more broad outline (this one city has zombies, let's plan together as STs why and you can play it out as you like). I'm creating the situation in the OP, and I'll set it into motion -- one can assume that eventually the Nephandi will find a way to get upstairs, for instance -- but it won't be a secret situation for the Mages. The story is about how they react and what they do to get Earth back (if that's even a goal at all), rather than a mad rush to stop something awful from coming.
ES
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Q: How do new (but not new) Mages appear as they are rolled out of CGen, what's the IC mechanism?
A: Options, we gottem!
- You're from San Diego and just been in the background for a while.
- Control pulls someone out of cold-sleep who ought not have gone in. Doh!
- You're from Earth and need to take the mostly-one-way-trip to San Diego because (your own reasons).
- Was that city empty after all? How come you can't remember?
- Mages be cray. Think of where else you were and why you came out. I'm up for it so long as it doesn't contradict existing story.
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I know absolutely zero about oWoD Mage. I barely have a grasp on nWoD mage (I've CGd into a few times, never played much), but I am looking forward to the GMC-ified mage rules, and since this will be one of the places using them I'll probably wind up poking around eventually. Any questions I might have had have come up already...So, good luck!
P.S. I did have to admit to finding it a little bit laugh worthy how there's been absolutely no balking at the idea of mages tearing a city out of the ground and floating it into space and maintaining everything needed to sustain it there, while also keeping the entire populations brainwashed. Very poignant glimpse into why so many people complain about the powerlevel of mage.
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In oMage - 1st ed, volume 1, whatever you want to call it, the Ascension War was in the process of happening between all the factions.
In Revised things had sort of gone poorly for everyone. The Technocracy abused their 'SCIENCE!' card when they used an orbital platform to essentially laser-nuke an Antidiluvian from the sky, and Bob-The-Generic-Sleeper kind of went "..buh?" The backlash hit the Technocracy hard and seriously wrecked their joint. There was some kind of detonation of another explosion in the Shadowlands or whatever they called where Wraith was set and the whole thing blew up more or less.
This resulted in the Avatar Storms, which were basically fragments of souls and avatars getting swept up and cutting through the Gauntlet like a sandstorm full of sharp glass, cutting off the world from most of the outer realms where all the mage factions had been keeping their Too-Old-And-Powerful-To-Live-On-Earth people, essentially snipping the head off a number of hydras and cauterizing the wounds. The Technocracy and Traditions both lost a lot of the more powerful and stubbornly set in their ways leadership and it had various ramificatins for both factions.
In particular the Computer-dominated Iteration-X was suddenly left without said domination, or the leadership who had been so indoctrinated, and underwent a pretty radical change of focus from replacing the human body with technology to augmenting it. Fewer robot-limbs-just-because-stronger-better, more power suits and enhanced tools, with an eye towards designs Sleepers could accept, etc.
P.S. I did have to admit to finding it a little bit laugh worthy how there's been absolutely no balking at the idea of mages tearing a city out of the ground and floating it into space and maintaining everything needed to sustain it there, while also keeping the entire populations brainwashed. Very poignant glimpse into why so many people complain about the powerlevel of mage.
I'm pretty sure if you were to take stock of shit NPCs have done in wod stories for the sake of creating/sustaining/whatever a particular plot device, that would hardly seem even the craziest thing to come out of oWoD.
As far as a lot of it goes, it's probably better to think about it less like giant overriding effects and more like tons and tons of little ones all being managed by the AI or whatever it is.
On a side note vaguely related to that last bit, there's two things I always balked at not getting more play on MU*:
- Werewolf essentially says that the Numina listed for spirits are just guidelines, and plenty more exist.
- Mage explicitely says that, and further goes on to elaborate that the best way to emulate this is assume that if a mage can cast an Instant version of a spell, somewhere there's probably a spirit with a Numen or Influence that does the same sort of thing.
Since MU* staff are basically paralyzed with fear at the idea of improvisation, it's not super surprising this never really comes up, but it is pretty sad. I got endless amounts of shit for having a Fetish that copied the effect of a Spell Cloak to hide my character's magic items from Unseen Senses, and that's not even strictly a spell, just a level 2 Prime ability.
It does make Spirits a lot more potentially dangerous and useful to werewolves. It also makes that stupid Spirit 5 spell that lets you just give a spirit any Numen you want it to have even stupider, but it was already broke as fuck even for Mage, so whatever.
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All I can say is damn this game might actualyl force me to bother with GMC rules .... Love the setting as presented.
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@Tempest Given that in oWoD, the Tzmisce clan progenitor was said to literally be the island of New York City... hardly the silliest thing that's come out of that particular line of books. Its what I miss most about oWoD, frankly. The ability to do completely insane shit and have it just be a Tuesday.
@HelloRaptor Does that mean we can make up Numina in this game?
Please please pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease! I've always hit a huge wall of panic from staff whenever I've attempted to suggest that a Numina could replicate a particular 'power' and I would LOVE to see that change. -
@Miss-Demeanor
No idea, that would not be up to me. Given that it's primarily a Mage game so there's no werewolf staff to freak out about anybody else making decisions about what spirits can do, and no werewolf PCs to cry about how unfair it is, it's at least more likely than elsewhere I'd imagine. -
Custom powers in general aren't traditionally well received in most nWoD games. I don't know why for sure, since as long as they're universally available they can't be a balance issue between PCs, and they can always be tweaked later on if they prove to be too much.
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i hope @EmmahSue is cool with custom stuyff. I am, I just need to catch up on a shitload of other stuff before I open floodgates on Eldritch that I can't easily close. >.<
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Q: What about Custom Stuff?
A: Custom Thaumaturgy will be up to the ST in charge of the scene (or the group playing in general if it's not guided). That is to say, pitch it and see if it flies. What one ST agrees to, another might say requires a different set of spheres. This is the downside of imagining your own spells on the fly instead of using the tried & true spells that everyone knows works.
If you want something to work all the time, pitch it to staff and we'll turn our hardest eye upon.
Q: What about Spirits & Numina?
A: HR is my mechanics and math assistance, not staff. Don't ask him for nothin', I'm just as likely to say no cuz he wants it.
That said, I'll discuss spirits and numina with @Glitch to see what he thinks of it! It hasn't come up yet, but that's exactly why we're asking for questions, natch. -
Q: About them spirits and numina again...
A: Treat spirits and the creation thereof like you would any Monster. That is to say, give them powers that fit their theme and strength. If that power happens to be similar to a spell, then you're lucky enough to have mechanics already in place for what you want done.
Q: What about all those other splats?
A: They may exist, but if they do, they're rather in hiding and they are NPCs, not for play. This is a Mage-game, yo. Many or most who survived the rip-tear 20-odd years ago, or who were left behind in the basement, are likely to be twisted into Monsters with the same policy as stated above. There will not be a Camarilla or Praxis. No wolf packs in the classic game-line sense, nor motleys under a bush.
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Can we use them as NPCs in our stories? More importantly, can we use their antagonists in stories?
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Q: Can we use them as NPCs in our stories? More importantly, can we use their antagonists in stories?
A: Using them as NPCs will be a work-in-progress. That is to say, I don't want everyone suddenly pulling a vampire out of their back pocket, natch? But if you need one, talk to me. Maybe there's one already designed or we can find a way to work around if it just won't fit.
I'm not sure what you mean by 'use their antagonists'. Wolves are all wolves, and it doesn't matter if they're BSD or classic Tribe or whatever. Honestly, just call them Monsters, because we're using the old setting, so trying to get people to know about old settings for splats nobody's playing is asking a bit much.
