Quote from: Marleycat;596171Hence the issue.  I am all in until the fucked bullshit of the Avatar Storm and "who cares idiotic bullshit" winning.  Stasis winning? Fuck that, fuck Jess, and fuck Revised. It's so nice to be home I missed this place.

You want Mage as a WoD game? It's done and it's called Mage the Awakening.  That sir, is a game that has mages playing fair given it erased the bullshit Entropy sphere, lowered the power level without ritual to level 4 MtAs except in specific cases. Gave you signature spells, rotes, personal rotes, improv magic that's completely flexible up to risk you want to take, legacies that give you knacks paradox free, the ability to use magic, actual full on magic anytime as long as you use strategies like a chess player. Without bullshit gas mains blowing up as you fireball some bastard.  Better yet. Mages are nasty assassination experts no paradox even.

And introduced the Wisdom mechanic. Don't like Wisdom? Cry me a river because fair is fair so deal with it. With ultimate power comes ultimate corruption, pretty simple. And rituals are free rein as is overchanneling and if the GM allows sympathetic Arcana. Oh yeah, human sacrifice rocks the house, magically that is.

Fun part is, archmastery isn't a lie you just have to search and study a bit.

And? I like the Avatar Storm, and I like the Weaver winning.

Quote from: Randaconda;596288And? I like the Avatar Storm, and I like the Weaver winning.

Quote from: Randaconda;596287But those kind of things are what I hate the most!

More power to you, but for me that's another reason for preferring the nWoD to the oWoD.

(even though I am a huge fan of the classsics)

Its true that in Mage, like in Vampire for that matter, the main antagonists aren't "regular humans"; they're other powerful beings that nevertheless in some way symbolically represent the Status Quo; they represent "conformity" to regular society, that the heroic bohemians that are the PCs feel so oppressed by.  It doesn't change the fact that metaphorically, the "enemy" of all the major WW games is meant to represent the teacher who didn't think your crappy adolescent poetry was profound, the girl who thought your emo-music mix-tape sucked, and the jock who made fun of your Hot Topic clothes.

RPGPundit

This analogy is about as accurate as the ever-popular D&D equivalent, "orcs are really racial minorities". Which is to say, fucking bullshit.

But thank you for offering us all a snapshot of your high school years.

Quote from: The Butcher;596311More power to you, but for me that's another reason for preferring the nWoD to the oWoD.

(even though I am a huge fan of the classsics)

Yessir Butcher! You and I are of similar mind about Mage it seems. But seriously don't be so hard on Pundit he almost has it seriously. Mage the Ascension is EXACTLY as he says hence why I don't like it. Mage the Awakening is about Magic in a world viewed through a mirror through a lens viewed darkly. As is the NWOD.

Quote from: RPGPundit;596650Its true that in Mage, like in Vampire for that matter, the main antagonists aren't "regular humans"; they're other powerful beings that nevertheless in some way symbolically represent the Status Quo; they represent "conformity" to regular society, that the heroic bohemians that are the PCs feel so oppressed by.  It doesn't change the fact that metaphorically, the "enemy" of all the major WW games is meant to represent the teacher who didn't think your crappy adolescent poetry was profound, the girl who thought your emo-music mix-tape sucked, and the jock who made fun of your Hot Topic clothes.

RPGPundit

More like "the enemy is US."

JG

Quote from: GrimGent;596222Well, since 2e is the definitive Mage for me, it really wouldn't be the same without dinosaurs in the Hollow Earth and spaceships around the moons of Jupiter. I seriously doubt I'm alone in that: the most probable course for WW is to rewind the metaplot back to the time before the Avatar Storm and include it as an option for the fans of Revised.

Correct.

Quote from: James Gillen;596782More like "the enemy is US."

JG

Again correct.  Ever notice in MtAw your real opponents are other mages? Be they Seer, Banisher, Path or Scelesti? Just pointing it out.

For example any Obrimos regardless of specialty could ash any supernatural or human where they stand with no problem for little to no paradox and worse yet Mastigos do it even easier with no paradox ever. Now given a decent magical tradition and legacy ....ouchie mama!  Imagine a Knight Templar magical tradition combined with an Obrimos path and an Adamanite Arrow specialty or worse yet an assassin via a Magistos?  I suppose if you prefer James.Bond I would suggest a Moros to do the SoE thing  or an Obrimos with Forces first and a tech/modern faction.

Quote from: Marleycat;596787Again correct.  Ever notice in MtAw your real opponents are other mages? Be they Seer, Banisher, Path or Scelesti? Just pointing it out.

For example any Obrimos regardless of specialty could ash any supernatural or human where they stand with no problem for little to no paradox and worse yet Mastigos do it even easier with no paradox ever. Now given a decent magical tradition and legacy ....ouchie mama!

And in VAMPIRE (both versions) it's even worse.  In MAGE and usually in WEREWOLF, the enemy is a hostile faction.  In VAMPIRE the main problem is trying to survive your own peers and superiors.

JG

Quote from: James Gillen;596790And in VAMPIRE (both versions) it's even worse.  In MAGE and usually in WEREWOLF, the enemy is a hostile faction.  In VAMPIRE the main problem is trying to survive your own peers and superiors.

JG

True but they do a great job of that in the OWoD except for Ascension given even the writers admit they fucked the pooch and GttT was COMPLETELY misunderstood even to this day!

What people never understood is that the Technocracy was like the gatekeepers in Kult or the Matrix.  Inhuman, selfish and parents gone wrong.  Thinking they knew best.  When the EXACT opposite was the truth. Like the computers, logic and technology they served they only thought in binary paths that's why they killed their originators because actual reason and original thought be it reason, religious, or scientific never fit their paradigm.

Thank God the NWoD erased that silliness.  And allowed mages to embrace technology like any normal human. And made clear as crystal it's all about control vs. freedom.

Quote from: Marleycat;596793True but they do a great job of that in the OWoD except for Ascension given even the writers admit they fucked the pooch and GttT was COMPLETELY misunderstood even to this day!

Everyone misunderstood?

What did they intend vs. what everyone took away from the book?

Quote from: CRKrueger;596798Everyone misunderstood?

What did they intend vs. what everyone took away from the book?

They intended to give evil humanity but the takeaway was they weren't evil, just misunderstood. Just ask Jess among others given I gave my MtAs books away in disgust after that book.  There is a line over stupidity and that book along with GttT crossed it for half the fanbase to be nice. Maybe they will get it right this time.  My suggustion? Sidebars, lots of them and greyboxing big time Just a hint.

Back on TBP I wasn't the only one that told Jess to fuck off right to his/her face though I always thought she/he was female but its been years since those flaewars, and I haven't changed my view an inch to this day. Mage Revised is in the same category as Dnd 4th for me. Kindling for a decent fire. Revised was a fucked up sop to whining Vampire players end of story.

Quote from: Marleycat;596781Yessir Butcher! You and I are of similar mind about Mage it seems. But seriously don't be so hard on Pundit he almost has it seriously. Mage the Ascension is EXACTLY as he says hence why I don't like it. Mage the Awakening is about Magic in a world viewed through a mirror through a lens viewed darkly. As is the NWOD.

Mage does indeed have the worse case of "fight the Man!" in the oWoD, which, combined with the solipsistic premise, made it pretentious as heck. I still had a good time with it, though.

Werewolf is a close second but it's so frankly caricatural that it feels more like an AD2000 comic, with gore and splatter and the over-the-top depraved villainy of Pentex and the Fomori and the Black Spiral Dancers, and we had an absolute blast with it.

Again, the 1e oWoD took the "Punk" in "Gothic-Punk" seriously. It took "Gothic" surprisingly seriously too, at least Vampire, Werewolf and Wraith.

Quote from: CRKrueger;596798Everyone misunderstood?

What did they intend vs. what everyone took away from the book?

That having indoor plumbing and electric lighting and (horrors) bourgeois capitalism wasn't inherently dehumanizing.

JG