Quote from: RPGPundit;598330First, if this is a surprise to you, you obviously haven't been reading my "real magic in RPGs" blog entries or its archived thread on the Pundit's forum.

I've read it and that's actually pretty good fodder for Unknown Armies or other modern-day occult stuff.

Quote from: RPGPundit;598330Second, would you find it sad if someone said they were a practicing Tantric Buddhist? A practicing Raja Yogi? Practicing Chi Gong? Practicing Sufi? A practicing Hebrew Qabalist?

I would if it was in an argument about RPGs. "As the sole practicing Norse Pagan in these boards, here's why Runequest Vikings sucks..."

Quote from: The Butcher;598374I've read it and that's actually pretty good fodder for Unknown Armies or other modern-day occult stuff.

I was going to mention something similar.  It reminds me of the Witchcraft and Kult rpgs and current thought concerning Chaos Magic also. Makes for great inspiration for those games also.

Quote from: The Butcher;598374I would if it was in an argument about RPGs. "As the sole practicing Norse Pagan in these boards, here's why Runequest Vikings sucks..."

Bit of a difference there, though.  Mage is a modern-setting game, and I'm saying it reflects some of the bullshit you hear from idiots in the actual occult scene. I would be really stunned if at least some of the people who actually worked on mage weren't a part of that scene at the time, in fact.   It is a classic neo-pagan utopian-bullshit trip about how the only thing holding back the glorious arcadia of back-to-nature idyll is the evil western christian capitalist oppressor, with this vision that if only the wiccans ran the world we'd all be living in a non-technological renfaire wonderland where healing crystals would be easily superior to western surgery or antibiotics, and an all-wise council of The People Who Are Best At Magic (Because They Say They Are) would end up shepherding all the unwashed masses into heaven on earth, just like the middle ages would have been if it wasn't for them burning all those millions of wiccans back then, dontcha know.

I hear this sort of shit on facebook on a daily basis in occult circles, from people who think they're playing M:tA in real life, and who've never even heard of the rpg.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;598420Bit of a difference there, though.  Mage is a modern-setting game, and I'm saying it reflects some of the bullshit you hear from idiots in the actual occult scene. I would be really stunned if at least some of the people who actually worked on mage weren't a part of that scene at the time, in fact.   It is a classic neo-pagan utopian-bullshit trip about how the only thing holding back the glorious arcadia of back-to-nature idyll is the evil western christian capitalist oppressor, with this vision that if only the wiccans ran the world we'd all be living in a non-technological renfaire wonderland where healing crystals would be easily superior to western surgery or antibiotics, and an all-wise council of The People Who Are Best At Magic (Because They Say They Are) would end up shepherding all the unwashed masses into heaven on earth, just like the middle ages would have been if it wasn't for them burning all those millions of wiccans back then, dontcha know.

I hear this sort of shit on facebook on a daily basis in occult circles, from people who think they're playing M:tA in real life, and who've never even heard of the rpg.

RPGPundit

I heard that kind of bullshit from rafts of WW fans back when it was still contemporary to be a fan of WW games.

It was definitely a founding attitude behind a lot of WW's writing in the 90s and early 00s.

Quote from: RPGPundit;598420Bit of a difference there, though.  Mage is a modern-setting game, and I'm saying it reflects some of the bullshit you hear from idiots in the actual occult scene. I would be really stunned if at least some of the people who actually worked on mage weren't a part of that scene at the time, in fact.   It is a classic neo-pagan utopian-bullshit trip about how the only thing holding back the glorious arcadia of back-to-nature idyll is the evil western christian capitalist oppressor, with this vision that if only the wiccans ran the world we'd all be living in a non-technological renfaire wonderland where healing crystals would be easily superior to western surgery or antibiotics, and an all-wise council of The People Who Are Best At Magic (Because They Say They Are) would end up shepherding all the unwashed masses into heaven on earth, just like the middle ages would have been if it wasn't for them burning all those millions of wiccans back then, dontcha know.

I hear this sort of shit on facebook on a daily basis in occult circles, from people who think they're playing M:tA in real life, and who've never even heard of the rpg.

RPGPundit

I agree if you're talking MtAc hence the reason I gave it away while giving Jess the middle finger and giving all my Dnd stuff away not 1/2nd edition.

Quote from: RPGPundit;598329I'm not exactly sure what you mean by "craft inclinations"?

RPGPundit

Implied occult practice. I take that you're a serious practitioner,apologies for misconceptions or clumsy use of language.

Quote from: RPGPundit;598420Bit of a difference there, though.  Mage is a modern-setting game, and I'm saying it reflects some of the bullshit you hear from idiots in the actual occult scene. I would be really stunned if at least some of the people who actually worked on mage weren't a part of that scene at the time, in fact.   It is a classic neo-pagan utopian-bullshit trip about how the only thing holding back the glorious arcadia of back-to-nature idyll is the evil western christian capitalist oppressor, with this vision that if only the wiccans ran the world we'd all be living in a non-technological renfaire wonderland where healing crystals would be easily superior to western surgery or antibiotics, and an all-wise council of The People Who Are Best At Magic (Because They Say They Are) would end up shepherding all the unwashed masses into heaven on earth, just like the middle ages would have been if it wasn't for them burning all those millions of wiccans back then, dontcha know.

I hear this sort of shit on facebook on a daily basis in occult circles, from people who think they're playing M:tA in real life, and who've never even heard of the rpg.

RPGPundit

I know that Phil Brucato is a practicing neo pagan.  Malcolm Sheppard is a pretty hard core Buddhist (don't know what school however.)  As for the rest of the people who worked on Ascension, I don't know.

And yeah, there is a good degree of new age stuff piled into Mage, but not nearly as much as I've seen in some other games.  It was a semi-serious attempt to create a game where real magicians did their stuff from a cultural basis, and used post-modernist theory well to enable players to play magicians from more or less any real life practice, more or less. It let you slot any rl lore into your character and have your PC believe all of it.

Quote from: Kaiu Keiichi;598614And yeah, there is a good degree of new age stuff piled into Mage, but not nearly as much as I've seen in some other games.  It was a semi-serious attempt to create a game where real magicians did their stuff from a cultural basis, and used post-modernist theory well to enable players to play magicians from more or less any real life practice, more or less. It let you slot any rl lore into your character and have your PC believe all of it.

This. It might be crap occultism (I couldn't tell), but it makes for good gaming. Ditto for Awakening, actually, which also riffs off RL occult stuff (albeit probably in a more openly fantastic manner).

Quote from: Kaiu Keiichi;598612Implied occult practice. I take that you're a serious practitioner,apologies for misconceptions or clumsy use of language.

Still not exactly sure what you want to know...

Left Hand path came out for Mage the Awakening. Very cool stuff!