Thoughts about Mage 5th

[Grumpy RPG Reviews]

So it has been announced that WtA will be getting a 5th edition. It should appear in 2021, or about 8 years after WtA 20th appeared on the market. The surprise here is not the appearance of WtA 5th - capitalism demands it. The (possibly small) surprise here is that the product will be developed by Hunters Entertainment. This arguably sets up an interesting trend; Modifius owns the IP, but contracts work on the lines to other companies. Onyx Path handles most of the VtM line. Now Hunters Entertainment will probably be handling most of the WtA line.

Say a MtA appears in 2023 (or 8 years after MtA 20th appeared on the market). But like VtM and WtA it is mostly handled by a company other than Modifius.

What company would you want to handle the line? Why?

[Konradleijon]

I kinda still like 'Sons of Ether'
Just sounds like a power metal band name. And As I see Etherites as like, the Tradition most likely to get their stuff on an album cover besides maybe all the other Traditions it fits well.

Etherite sounds cool
Society of Ether reminds me of 'the ivory tower'; Makes a good nickname, but you don't actually want to call yourself that.

I like it to.

[MyWifeIsScary]

I kinda still like 'Sons of Ether'
Just sounds like a power metal band name. And As I see Etherites as like, the Tradition most likely to get their stuff on an album cover besides maybe all the other Traditions it fits well.

Etherite sounds cool
Society of Ether reminds me of 'the ivory tower'; Makes a good nickname, but you don't actually want to call yourself that.

[Ambrosia]

I'd argue that the average 'Virtual Adept' isn't 18. The average 'Virtual Adept' is probably in their early 30's.

Amusing fact - Dante was 27 in the Horizon book. The narrative dispatch was from 1996 at the time.
(Page 9 in Horizon - The Stronghold Of Hope, for reference)

Dante is 50 years old now Time flies.

[Konradleijon]

I like it. Then again I’m a Autistic girl that doesn’t like shit changing.

I would like to keep the old names, but it is kind of hilarious that the N.W.O is useing gender Neutral language. A great satire of liberalism.

[MyWifeIsScary]

I'd argue that the average 'Virtual Adept' isn't 18. The average 'Virtual Adept' is probably in their early 30's. So 'Dated' isn't really a disqualifier. Besides, the rate that things online are cool and then not is very fast nowadays. We can't have the group change their name every three years. "LOL Mages" "reality memes" "Dank Hackers" "Tech Beys"

I'm very fond of "Computer Wizards" myself.

[Dataweaver]

Personally, “Virtual Adepts” doesn't feel dated to me. But then again, I have a niece who graduated from High School last year (she was born September 12, 2001); so a decent case could be made that I'm dated.

[Marko Markoko]

Wait why did they change the Virtual Adepts name?

Because it is soooooo dated. It sounded hip and cutting edge in the 20th century. Here in 2020 it sounds like something quaint grandpa would say.

From what I have read, Brucato (the writer) was given a bit of latitude with cannon. But he was still bound to certain trademarks. In the Virtual Adepts section, he writes how they like to refer to themselves as Mercurial Adepts. But the logo for that section is still emblazoned as Virtual Adepts with the same symbol. All the sects are like that.The company that owns/owned the game wanted to preserve trademarks.

Which leads me to a tangential question. Are these names under trademark anymore? The fine print for M20 lays no claim to Tremere of Order of Hermes, and does notmention any "used by permission of Atlas Games" for use of the words Certamen, Flambeau, etc.Back in the 90s they did. My copy of the first Order of Hermes tradition book has all of that. In the reverse, every single current Ars Magica book mentions "used by permission of White Wolf" for Order of Hermes (which is all that game is about), Tremere, and even Doisettep (even though WW destroyed it and Atlas renamed it).

With all the buying and selling of the former WW properties, does anyone even know anymore.

[Konradleijon]

The Dreamspeakers were the only ones changing their slave name. And to be fair, accusing the rest of the traditions as colonialists using the DS as a "tribal dump" was a part of their characterization since 2nd or revised. As for the rest... yeah, it's kinda dumb that everyone got caught in this renaming zeitgeist. The names themselves range from cringey(mercurial elite) to unnecesary(verbenae) to reasonable(chakravanti, the tradition's oldest roots) to actually cooler(Society of Aether, a name that sounds even more like a pompous gentleman's club than Sons of Ether). And they were mentioned once and then dropped entirely, like that pronoun sidebar. At least stick to your guns.

As for the disparates, again, explaining the name as sarcasm somehow makes it cringier. But the idea of a new alliance of crafts at least makes them more useful than them just being around or dead like before.

And just for the record 1) You can find meritocratic vampire societies in the Anarchs. Still full of conniving monsters. 2) I actually like the idea of new world Furies being trans-inclusive while the old Greek cairns are run by TERFs. Adds tension to the group.

Wait why did they change the Virtual Adepts name?

[El Barto]

I'd like to think the Traditions would be in Vogue among society's elite. I mean, if the flood of shitty chinese comics are anything to go by, knowing any kind of magic automatically lets you rub shoulders with power and influence. Now, sure, in the World of Darkness Asia is special, but I can't imagine it so much different considering masionic orders, fraternities, building societies... All that shit I don't know anything about because I'm broke.

Being trendy is meaningless if they can't foster actual belief. And with the Technocracy watching the tip of the pyramid to ensure traditionalists don't erode their powerbase and an entire nephandi group dedicated to Forbes 500, who capitalizes on that trendiness isn't a given. Is the new spiritual center offering yoga and meditation a front for choristers, euthanathoi and/or akashics trying to create a cult among the wealthy? A mammonite plot to do the same? An infernalist ploy to set up and expose a "satanic" group to taint public perception of traditionalist beliefs? Or a Syndicate plan to water down and trivialize traditionalist beliefs (and make a quick buck)? Or all of the above, with individuals from each group vying for control behind the scenes.

Also, Enlightened freemasons were founders of the Order of Reason. And as a side note, didn't know there was an upsurge in manhua popularity these days. Then again, I'm not a huge fan or anything.

[Trippy]

Personally, I'd like to see Steve Kenson (of Mutants & Masterminds, Icons, and TC:Aberrant fame) take a crack at M5's Magick system.

I think he’s a good designer, and made some good design choices when Green Ronin made the 2nd edition of Warhammer Fantasy Role-play. He does tend to strip down a lot of the junk in systems, making them simple to use while still maintaining the integrity of the design brief. I just don’t know if they’d be interested in investing in a WoD title though.

[Dataweaver]

Personally, I'd like to see Steve Kenson (of Mutants & Masterminds, Icons, and TC:Aberrant fame) take a crack at M5's Magick system.

[MyWifeIsScary]

I'd like to think the Traditions would be in Vogue among society's elite. I mean, if the flood of shitty chinese comics are anything to go by, knowing any kind of magic automatically lets you rub shoulders with power and influence. Now, sure, in the World of Darkness Asia is special, but I can't imagine it so much different considering masionic orders, fraternities, building societies... All that shit I don't know anything about because I'm broke. https://www.religionnewsblog.com/118...lts-in-the-usa seems to be in favour of para-religious organizations which would be ideal grounds for tradition mages. (I will point out that Europe seems to be a blank spot harmful religious groups, but one could point to pagan revivalism or the rise of right wing groups whom are usually rather quack give the Traditions and their nephandi some ground. With the Uber wealthy, one could always consider the absence of evidence as evidence.

"The absence of evidence being evidence" was a ludicrus justification for the satanic panic, but it works perfectly for the World of Darkness. But People with big money tend to fall into two extremes; Reserved old boys with traditions and aggressive new money gamblers; For different reasons Both are likely to attract the supernatural as they collect strange things and invest in or protect their supernatural help. If you can pay a man tens of thousands to avoid hundreds of thousands in taxes, you can play a man tens of thousands for a lucky charm to avoid hundreds of thousands in bad investments.

[Bluecho]

Also, "the Traditions lost the Ascension War - why would they have favorable zones Earth wise?" not only disregards how often mystical, religious, and pseudo-scientific thinking is present in our Real World, that sentiment is not helpful for the game as a game.

Like, Tradition mages are just supposed to stop pursuing their own visions of Reality, and consign themselves to boring day jobs? That's LAME. We get enough of banality and crappy circumstances beyond our control in Real Life. Why would be want to face that kind of situation in a game about wizards?

Setting aside that it's kind of a circle jerk Catch 22 to cite canon as the reason why canon can't be changed, having no mechanism by which Mages can change Reality runs fully counter to the premise of Mage: The Ascension. Forget about whether Reality Zones are changeable on Earth. They emphatically SHOULD be, because Mage: The Ascension isn't a game about the death of joy and the need for adults to put away childish things.

It's a game of philosophical knife fights. Where a martial artist, a mad scientist, a genius hacker, and a wizard with a magic wand cast spells at cyborgs and men in black, while floating in space.

[Aleph]

...If you told people that Derrida was a hack because you couldn't fully wrap your head around the ideas presented in Speech and Phenomena after a single reading, those people would think you're nuts...

XD.

While this is essentialy true, it must be said that a good chunk of the academic comunity does believe that Derrida, with most of the post-modern, could have been a lot clearer in his books. See Noam Chomsky opinion on post-moderns

I guess my question is this: Do you think it's hard to understand because it's poorly written; or is it hard to understand because the subject matter itself (teaching people a divergent and fictional ontology, epistemology, and phenomenology) is inherently going to be difficult.

When Mage started, it was a revolution. Alongside games like Ars Magica, it gave players the chance to create their own magic in a world where touching the rules so directly was frowned upon. This Paradigm shift necessitated new mechanics, and Mage was certainly breaking some conceptual ground by joining the effort.

I would agree that such mechanics (as long as they're not "do whatever you want" kind of rules) are going to be inherently more complex than just spoon feeding the players with "tried and true" spells from the factory. However, mage rules could be more clear and complete.

Mage it's contradictory about what players can do, it's freedom philosophy often clash with the rules being too crunchy (or too soft).

To caricaturize the issue: To rule a certain spell, you have the RAW Fundamentalists that will tell you that what you want to do it's a +/-3 to the difficulty (no matter what you actually want your spell to accomplish). The Artist that will look at the Spheres/Paradigm alone, and then tell you something that has no basis on the rules. The Lore Master that will tell you about that Rote from 1998 that has rules that can be adapted to what you want, but can't possibly be deduced from the core rules (not even the rules of 1998 core)...and they're all fundamentally "right". No wonder players don't know "how to do that".

And as a follow-up, do you think it would be possible to write with enough clarity and precision that the game would become accessible to everyone while keeping the "heady" aspects of the game?

Perhaps? I'm not saying it would be easy.

As an example, M20 taking a stance on the HAP/HOP may not be the liking of everyone, but does make somewhat clearer what's supposed to trigger Paradox and what doesn't. Years ago I saw people arguing that "reading minds" should be Vulgar because it is "impossible". We won't be seeing that with M20. Qualifying what the books means by Vulgar beyond "ask yourself if this would be impossible" it's a good thing