New Mage 2e Spoilers and Info from Dave!

[branford]

Dave has recently been active and generous on another forum and offered a few new Mage 2e tidbits that I thought people here would greatly enjoy, particularly as the release of the new core hopefully draws near and we ponder the repercussions of the Paradox acquisition of WW and fate of the nWOD.


First and foremost, Dave revealed the Fate 2 and Time 2 Arcana Attainements. Also, despite indicating in his earlier spoilers that Hung Spell would likely be an attainment, it appears to have been relegated to a spell.

DaveB Fri 06 Nov 2015 17:15:33
The Time 2 Attainment is actually Temporal Sympathy. The Fate 2 Attainment, though, is Conditional Duration, the ability to extend a spell's lifetime by specifying a condition that will cancel it immediately.

There's a Time spell called Hung Spell that allows a mage it's cast on to cast up to its Potency spells "into" it, capturing them the instant before they go off. When Hung Spell's duration ends, any spells in it immediately take place and run their durations as though they'd just been cast.

Because a mage can cancel any of their spells (as long as they're in spell control still) with a reflexive action, though, a Mage capable of casting Acceleration can, with pre-preparation, have it ready to go should they need it. And be aware that they need it.

A Mage who has both Time 3 *and* Fate 2 is capable of putting, say, Shifting Sands into a Hung Spell that has a Conditional Duration on it of "I get hurt", so the next time he's injured, even by surprise, he flashes back in time a few turns.

This is, of course, a flagrant waste of Mana and eats your spell control up.

In response to an inquiry about what happened to the old 1e Fate 2 "Targeted Exemption," Dave stated,

DaveB Sat 07 Nov 2015 08:03:18
Like Hung Spell in Time, it's a function of a spell - there's a Fate 2 spell that lets you tag people so your own area of effect spells miss them.

Dave commented on Arcane Beats,

DaveB Thu 05 Nov 2015 16:08:34
Arcane Beats work almost exactly like normal ones. We clearly lay out which dice rolls (hint: most things to do with spellcasting) give aBeats if you dramatic failure them, and which ones give Conditions that grant aBeats.

Where it gets interesting is what you spend Arcane Experiences on. It's not just Gnosis now - the difference between types of Arcana for your Path is how many dots you can spend regular experiences on before you have to start spending arcane, you have to buy Wisdom with arcane, that kind of thing.

I've got a lot of candidates for "this is Awakening's central thesis" but calling the Aspiration-equivalents for Arcane Beats "Obsessions" as a thing you get on your character sheet was pretty much the first thing we decided to do for Mage, back when we were writing God-Machine Chronicle.

Some additional clarifications about sympathetic and shadow names,

DaveB Thu 05 Nov 2015 16:35:39
("sympathetic name" in 2e changed from 1e's "real name" for inclusiveness but also just plain clarity reasons. A "True Name" has always been, and still is, a specific Archmage-only Space 7 spell. Many people get that wrong.)

Your Shadow Name cannot accrue sympathy, no. Nor do you get much of a say in what your sympathetic name is. It's the name the people with sympathetic links to a child think of it as during the period of child development until it has a sense of self (and therefore of separation - which in Mage turns, is when the Lie sets in.)

No matter how many times you change your name, even if you don't know what it is, your sympathetic name is scarred into your Space Pattern.

DaveB Thu 05 Nov 2015 16:48:56
>But what about if my parents first name for me is Elizabeth Ascher but even they don't actually *call* me that, they just call me Lizzy?

Then your sympathetic name is Lizzy.

>What about if I was adopted, and the people who have blood relation to me didn't give me a name but people with no blood relation gave me a name?

"people with sympathetic links to a child" does not necessarily automatically mean "birth parents"

Some general insight into most normal human's general interaction with supernatural events in the nWOD,

DaveB Sat 07 Nov 2015 05:28:14
People in the nWoD tend toward "ignore it and it'll go away" for *most* supernatural events, and outright "lose their memory of it altogether" for Supernal manifestations.

It's not a mistake, it's that mage magic gives you amnesia *on top* of everyone's generally-conditioned tendency to be in denial.

A mage-centric reader might suppose that the latter is a weak form of Quiescence that covers everything supernatural but not Supernal. I prefer to think of it as human nature.

DaveB Sat 07 Nov 2015 05:54:28
>the nWOD default setting position is that most people generally know "something" supernatural is out there and is bad, but they keep their mouths shut, heads down, and just hope they don't someday end up lunch for a creature of the night?

Yes

>Do most mortals in the nWOD actually experience or have contact with some supernatural event or creature during their lives

Also yes. The nWoD is a very, very weird place.

And lastly, some potentially positive news about Mage 2e's short-term future.

In response to an inquiry concerning whether the Paradox acquisition of WW will affect the Mage 2e release schedule, including putting Signs of Sorcery on hold or delaying the release of the new core, Dave replied,

DaveB Sat 07 Nov 2015 06:53:28
Signs of Sorcery is not on hold. It's long since contracted, and first drafts are due in just over a week.

[Ophidimancer]

All good stuff, except I don't know how I feel about this:

Like Hung Spell in Time, it's a function of a spell - there's a Fate 2 spell that lets you tag people so your own area of effect spells miss them.

I guess I'll have to wait and see.

[Mrmdubois]

What's your possible hang up about it Ophid?

Just thought of a couple weird applications of Hung Spell and the Fate exemption. Assuming you had enough of a headsup you could hang other Mage's spells or exempt yourself from their targets.

[Ophidimancer]

It's just a fiddly thing. In 1ed a mage can cast a Ban and use Target Exemption to say that this ban affects "anyone who has not been invited in by me" or rather it exempts a broad class of targets "those invited by me" instead of having to be specific, but now it sounds like you have to personally cast your exemption on someone. I really like the ability to use Fate to make my spells have smart exemptions.

[branford]

My issue with having Targeted Exemption as a spell, rather than an inherent ability or attainment, is that it renders it very impractical in anything but carefully planned situations. It's combat uses, such as ambushes or protecting stray innocents, have been mostly eliminated as it now requires the casting of two separate spells, liking needing more than two turns of essentially doing nothing if Yantras are employed, as well as requiring a valuable spell control slot, which unlike 1e is now limited to a maximum of Gnosis without spending additional Reach.

I was surprised that two inherent Arcana abilities from 1e that helped spark the idea for Arcana Attainements, Hung Spell and Target Exemption (with Dave even referencing HS as a likely attainment in his earlier spoilers), ended-up being "demoted" to spells in 2e.

Dave also didn't indicate whether exempting targets of a spell will also result in a spellcasting penalty, as was the case for the 1e Targeted Exemption.

These and other concerns were raised in the other forum, and Dave basically considered them a feature, not a bug.

Anonymous Sat 07 Nov 2015 14:31:07

Target Exemption is one of those things that you REALLY WANT to be able to use at a moment's notice, because whether you'll need it depends strongly on the situation. Conditional Duration, ironically enough, does not, and would mostly be used in less-urgent conditions, which makes it odd to make that one the Attainment.

DaveB Sat 07 Nov 2015 14:35:59

Yes, and that's why you can't, not without casting it as a combined spell.

[Leetsepeak]

I'm not seeing the issue. He mentions you can cast it as a combined spell. It introduces drama and makes that kind of sophisticated spellcasting a dramatic skill to have, not to mention making it less easy to completely avoid stuff like causing harm to bystanders seems consistent with thematics of power privilege, hubris and Paradox.

[Ophidimancer]

I'm not seeing the issue. He mentions you can cast it as a combined spell. It introduces drama and makes that kind of sophisticated spellcasting a dramatic skill to have, not to mention making it less easy to completely avoid stuff like causing harm to bystanders seems consistent with thematics of power privilege, hubris and Paradox.

The thing is, it doesn't make the kind of spellcasting I've been using Fate for more complicated or dramatic, it makes it downright impossible. As an example, I have a Fate mage that wanted to deter passersby and hinder enemies on his home turf, so he cast Winds of Chance as an indefinite area spell and exempted certain people so that only people who carried a certain symbol were safe, everyone else just had random bad luck attack them.

If Target Exemption is a spell, he would need to specifically cast it on everyone he wanted to exempt instead of allowing broad classes of targets through.

The way it is now allows cool uses like illusions that only mages can see through, barriers that allies can ignore, and other really cool and evocative "smart" enchantments. Making it into a spell makes it clunky and not as elegant.

[Michael]

>the nWOD default setting position is that most people generally know "something" supernatural is out there and is bad, but they keep their mouths shut, heads down, and just hope they don't someday end up lunch for a creature of the night?

Yes

This is the kind of thing I really wish the writers would leave off answering. I find it just rips out the mystery of the setting.

[Elfive]

I don't agree. The players know that this place is chock-a-block with monsters, so having the characters be vaguely in on it too just means that you get less "Oh, of course this has a completely mundane explanation and is not some sort of monster we are going to end up fighting *winks at GM*"

[Prometheus]

Hmm, I thought that you have to spend normal xp (+teacher) to rise above arcana limits of your path and legacy and can't spend arcane xp anymore, not vice versa.

[Elfive]

Nah, it makes sense. The path stuff comes naturally, so you can spend anything on it, but once you hit the barrier only arcane experience you got from doing magic will work.

At the end of the day, you're still being restricted to one sort of EXP when before you could use both. This is just more thematic. (and requires more work, probably)

[Isator Levi]

I think the thing with targeted exemption is that it contributes back to that whole thesis of magic as something you have to take responsibility for. Using an extreme example, you can't just throw around explosions and will them to not harm any innocent bystanders; you either don't use the spell because the collateral damage is unacceptable, you take a very calculated risk or try to measure up whether the benefits outweigh the costs (which might better preserve Wisdom, although may also damage relations with other mages), or you just don't care (and thus jeopardize Wisdom). On that note, the idea of Arcane Experience as the means to buy Wisdom has some very interesting implications.

[Leliel]

This is the kind of thing I really wish the writers would leave off answering. I find it just rips out the mystery of the setting.[/FONT][/COLOR]

Yes, because we all know how fanciful the idea that most people are complete idiots makes the setting. Truly, I am saddened by the fact that Sleepers aren't sheep that will go insane before admitting the real reason they feel anemic is they've lost a lot of blood and don't know why. Now we have actual reasons why supernatural beings have to keep on the quiet as opposed to just a hurried excuse for a setting conceit, The horror. The horror.

[Isator Levi]

Which forum is this, by the way?

[Enokh]

The formatting makes me think it's 4Chan.