Quote from: Kaiu Keiichi;594426Pundit, you're just coming in here to stir up shit.  That was more bleed over from Werewolf and Changeling.

Mage has always been a very leftist game, in that western capitalism is full of stinking shit on toast, but most of the Nine Traditions are archetypes that come from western classics, with the remainder made up of pastiches of mad scientists from literature and common cyberpunk tropes.  There was some bullshit to that degree, but that was ditched by the 2nd edition of the game. Mage at it's core is essentially Occupy Wall Street with magic powers.  The Invisibles is a good template for an Ascension game, but with human antagonists.

If you had played the game, you'd know that scientists are common PC options for members of most Traditions.  Mage was all Science=GOOD, Control and lust for power=BAD.  The Mage Revised Storyteller's guide makes that clear, specifically that the Technocracy is essentially anti-science, despite it's trappings, since it alters and falsifies the experimental data of sleeper scientists.

A PC in my Skype Mage game is a physicist who works at UC Berkely who's also a member of the Order of Hermes and a hardcore Thelemite.

The problem with Mage is that it posits a setting where the good guys are all inherently Special People who we're supposed to sympathize with because it would be so much better if we could go back to the time when the plebs would all die from common infections and lack of clean running water so that these Special People would be recognized as being Special.

That's a very particular kind of "leftist" thinking there...

RPGPundit

Quote from: Kaiu Keiichi;594426Mage at it's core is essentially Occupy Wall Street with magic powers.

I have no idea what OWS would have done with magical powers. Anyway Mage never struck me as Magepunk, there was always a strong sense of dissociation from the mundane world, so its not really justifiable to assign a place on the political spectrum to it, especially with reference to an event which occurred long after the major publications.

Quote from: RPGPundit;594708The problem with Mage is that it posits a setting where the good guys are all inherently Special People who we're supposed to sympathize with because it would be so much better if we could go back to the time when the plebs would all die from common infections and lack of clean running water so that these Special People would be recognized as being Special.

That's a very particular kind of "leftist" thinking there...

RPGPundit

The Ascension mentioned in the title of the game is about ascending all of humanity, the Technicracy want all mankind asleep because it will be "safer" while the Traditions want all of humanity to awaken and ascend.

Quote from: The Traveller;594714I have no idea what OWS would have done with magical powers.

That was the problem with Occupy Wall Street, neither did they.  

JG

Quote from: KrakaJak;594743The Ascension mentioned in the title of the game is about ascending all of humanity, the Technicracy want all mankind asleep because it will be "safer" while the Traditions want all of humanity to awaken and ascend.

Well, put more charitably, the Technocracy, from its days as the Order of Reason, had the eminently reasonable view that it's hard for individual humans to Ascend if (to quote Python) they've got shit all over 'em.  So they focused largely on improving material conditions.  Of course that required control of those conditions and that led to suppressing anything that could suppress that control, regardless of the consequences.

In some respect, the Technocratic viewpoint resembles both the Marxist materialist dialectic and the Leninist approach to enforcing that dialectic in politics.  Which is ironic given both Pundit and KK's comments, but no more so than the fact that the Traditions, if "leftist", represent the tree-hugging, shamanist, Wiccan, Scientific Utopian types who would never be allowed an audience in a Leninist-style socialism.

JG

Quote from: James Gillen;594494This.
Not to mention an admission that most people around the world are still more familiar with traditional religion (including what could be called 'witchcraft') than the workings of technology, so "it's vulgar because of the Consensus" is bogus.

JG

As is your point. There's sidebars about the local consensus and how it works.  The people in Manila who believe in traditional witchcraft also believe in the fact that TVs and cars work.

See, in order for Ascension to work, you have to be on board with the idea of subjective, consensus reality.  If you're not, then Ascension isn't for you.

I for one love it.  It's a much different direction and take on boring old list-based magic we find in other modern supernatural RPGs.

Quote from: James Gillen;594786Well, put more charitably, the Technocracy, from its days as the Order of Reason, had the eminently reasonable view that it's hard for individual humans to Ascend if (to quote Python) they've got shit all over 'em.  So they focused largely on improving material conditions.  Of course that required control of those conditions and that led to suppressing anything that could suppress that control, regardless of the consequences.

In some respect, the Technocratic viewpoint resembles both the Marxist materialist dialectic and the Leninist approach to enforcing that dialectic in politics.  Which is ironic given both Pundit and KK's comments, but no more so than the fact that the Traditions, if "leftist", represent the tree-hugging, shamanist, Wiccan, Scientific Utopian types who would never be allowed an audience in a Leninist-style socialism.

JG

Lenin lied - he was never a true socialist or Marxist, since he viciously spoke out against workers having direct control of the means of production, being a vanguard (aka, a fake) socialist.

Mage actually makes that clear, as one group that was behind the Reasoner rebellion were a magickal group called the Craftmasons, who were tied to labor guilds and proto-socialist groups like The Diggers.  But just as the Order of Reason was starting to see success after things like the Battle of Mistridge, they were purged by the High Guild, which later became The Syndicate.

The modern Technocracy enthusiastically backs modern capitalism.  There was also enthusiasm for soviet style command capitalism (which was socialism in name only) but a more ferocious and selfish form was embraced.  Beyond all else, the Technocracy loves elites, power and systems, and especially loves their being folks to oppress. The Traditions, as a diverse, messy group, resembles the world wide Left in it's often contradictory impulses and tendencies, and has no unified agenda.

So, essentially, what became the Technocracy was hijacked from within by merchantilists  and proto-capitalists.

Quote from: Kaiu Keiichi;594848Lenin lied - he was never a true socialist or Marxist, since he viciously spoke out against workers having direct control of the means of production, being a vanguard (aka, a fake) socialist.

Mage actually makes that clear, as one group that was behind the Reasoner rebellion were a magickal group called the Craftmasons, who were tied to labor guilds and proto-socialist groups like The Diggers.  But just as the Order of Reason was starting to see success after things like the Battle of Mistridge, they were purged by the High Guild, which later became The Syndicate.

The modern Technocracy enthusiastically backs modern capitalism.  There was also enthusiasm for soviet style command capitalism (which was socialism in name only) but a more ferocious and selfish form was embraced.  Beyond all else, the Technocracy loves elites, power and systems, and especially loves their being folks to oppress. The Traditions, as a diverse, messy group, resembles the world wide Left in it's often contradictory impulses and tendencies, and has no unified agenda.

So, essentially, what became the Technocracy was hijacked from within by merchantilists  and proto-capitalists.

Just fucking once can you idiots just play the fucking game and not try to shoehorn it into your own halfassed political factioneering. Its not that fucking hard, lots of people do it all the time. Give it a try, you might be pleasantly surprised at how life looks when you aren't peering out from beneath an imaginary soapbox mumbling imprecations. Fucking entryist prick.

Quote from: The Traveller;594855Just fucking once can you idiots just play the fucking game and not try to shoehorn it into your own halfassed political factioneering. Its not that fucking hard, lots of people do it all the time. Give it a try, you might be pleasantly surprised at how life looks when you aren't peering out from beneath an imaginary soapbox mumbling imprecations. Fucking entryist prick.

Overridden.  Mage is an inherently political game, and, unlike say a dungeon adventure game set in an imaginary world with orcs and hobbits, Mage touches on stuff which matters right now and isn't escapist.  Further, Mage doesn't hide what it is, and neither do I.  If you don't like it and it offends your know nothing attitude towards media, you're free to not sit down at my gaming table. I know that my gaming in a certain style offends your sensibilities, but you have no say in how I game or have fun.

Sorry, but you are not the fun police.  You don't get to say that people are having fun wrong.

We are fortunate I suppose to have this opportunity to glimpse into the mind of a thoroughly intellectually sock puppeted ideolot.

Quote from: Kaiu Keiichi;594873Overridden.  

What? What the hell does this even mean? You're mentally overriding the discussion, you're overruling it in your private and personal internal court? What?

Quote from: Kaiu Keiichi;594873Mage is an inherently political game, and, unlike say a dungeon adventure game set in an imaginary world with orcs and hobbits, Mage touches on stuff which matters right now and isn't escapist.

Okay, so a game about a hidden world of magicians under the facade of normality isn't escapist. I see.

Its all clear now.

Quote from: Kaiu Keiichi;594873Further, Mage doesn't hide what it is, and neither do I.  

Which is, by your strange and dim lights, a game where communists get to fight the evil capitalists.

GM: "This is a game where you get to play magicians and wizards in the modern day, but you can't talk about it, a bit like Buffy or the Dresden Files."

Players: "Epic! Lets get to it!"

Kaiu Keiichi: "This is a game about communism's struggle and inevitable rise and the downfall of the capitalist overlords!"

All: "Piss off you clammy palmed weasel."

Quote from: Kaiu Keiichi;594873If you don't like it and it offends your know nothing attitude towards media

What does the media have to do with what I just said? For fucks sake, pull a few more random words out of your arse, its entertaining, like something you'd see at a circus.

Quote from: Kaiu Keiichi;594873I know that my gaming in a certain style offends your sensibilities, but you have no say in how I game or have fun.

Sorry, but you are not the fun police.  You don't get to say that people are having fun wrong.

Play however the fuck you want to komrade, but don't claim that a game is set up to mimic your political preferences.

If that's not what you're claiming do clarify it for us.

*sigh* Just buy some Mage 20 already, I'm sick of waiting for Wraith 20 and Changeling 20...
:hand:

All WW games are essentially escapist to the max: they're always about Inherently Special people who are different from everyone else, and truly wonderful while everyone else sucks ass, and yet they are persecuted and reviled by the unwashed masses because of their specialness, instead of being recognized and allowed to run the world like they think they should.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;595007All WW games are essentially escapist to the max:

And what pray tell is this magical non-escapist RPG that you're playing? Grey Ranks? :rolleyes:

Quote from: RPGPundit;595007they're always about Inherently Special people who are different from everyone else, and truly wonderful while everyone else sucks ass, and yet they are persecuted and reviled by the unwashed masses because of their specialness, instead of being recognized and allowed to run the world like they think they should.

RPGPundit

There's not a single truthful word in the above quote. You are a shameless liar. Your hatred for White Wolf and depths you're willing to go to discredit it are nothing short of pathological.

Quote from: The Butcher;595031There's not a single truthful word in the above quote. You are a shameless liar. Your hatred for White Wolf and depths you're willing to go to discredit it are nothing short of pathological.

I like the older WW games, and I have to admit Pundit is mostly right about them. Look at Mage:

You're a powerful magic-user, but you can't actually cast any spells if normals are around, or you will suffer horrible backlash. Kind of kills the point of being a mage.

Quote from: Kaiu Keiichi;594846As is your point. There's sidebars about the local consensus and how it works.  The people in Manila who believe in traditional witchcraft also believe in the fact that TVs and cars work.

See, in order for Ascension to work, you have to be on board with the idea of subjective, consensus reality.  If you're not, then Ascension isn't for you.

I for one love it.  It's a much different direction and take on boring old list-based magic we find in other modern supernatural RPGs.

I liked it, but it made suspension of belief more than a little difficult, if you thought about it much.  As in, at all.  And in a game about philosophy and thinking, that's a bit of a flaw.

JG