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[Dataweaver]

I didn't forget it. I consider it to be of secondary importance: it's not something we can resolve until we're on the same page on the more fundamental issue. And frankly, that's not going to happen as long as you're unwilling to consider that there are other perfectly valid approaches to roleplaying besides yours.

[Dataweaver]

You've made that abundantly clear.

And that's the heart of the min/max mindset.

It's not “roleplay only”; it's “roleplay first”; and it's not crap. And for the record, I have run games without character sheets; but that's not what this is about.

I'll admit that it's never come up, because “how much can you lift?” has never really been all that important to anyone. But I mentioned it to illustrate the difference in our mindsets: if I were to find it important that my character be able to lift no more than 80kg, then I'd give her three dots of Strength...

[Dataweaver]

…and you've completely missed my point. But thanks for illustrating the min-max mindset so clearly.

[Dataweaver]

Yes, Heroes are defined by their relation to the Monomyth; and yes, they have a sixth sense for the Primordial Dream. But that doesn't necessarily mean that there's a Beast in a given Hero's Journey.

The reasonable, caring, “good” Heroes don't make much of an appearance in Beast, not because they don't exist, but because the role for the Hero in Beast is that of a violent, narcissistic antagonist.
Beast: the Primordial p.289.

The narcissistic Beast-slaying Heroes that are featured in the core book as antagonists are explicitly only some of the Heroes that exist. I would expect that when you...

[Dataweaver]

Of course they’re limits. But they’re the same limits for everyone. If you take the rules literally, then anyone who can lift 60 kg can also lift 100 kg; there’s no way in the rules to represent someone whose limit is 60 kg....

[Dataweaver]

Clones are more like Vampire's Revenants than a sub-splat. There's even a mechanism included for taking a Half-Formed and “upgrading” it to a full-blown Promethean. By contrast, other games' sub-splats are mostly regular humans who can partake in the metaphysical dynamics of the game (Geist is the exception to this: its sub-splat is playable ghosts).

[Dataweaver]

Someone should send a note to Gentleman Gamer about this; it's something that should be considered for inclusion in the Contagion Chronicle Companion (along with how Aether interacts with Pyros, what connection exists between Essence and Glamour, and so on). Basically, look at the various fuel stats and Compare & Contrast them.

[Dataweaver]

My main problem when adapting Heroes to be playable is that they need more to them than just anti-Beast abilities — because a playable Hero might never go up against a Beast. So either existing Gifts need to be given broader utility than just “mess with Beasts”, or new Gifts need to be introduced that have utility for a Hero who doesn't hunt Beasts.

The other thing that ought to be addressed is just what does a Hero do other than going after Beasts? Again, not important for Heroes as Antagonists; but very important if the Hero is to be a protagonist.

[Dataweaver]

Actually, the main point of contention is whether the game should be driven primarily by the rules. It's not that the mages in the game can't sense the rules in the Mage gamebook; it's that they shouldn't have to. To understand our point of view, you should think of the game as being an approximation of what's “really” there, which is why Rule 0 exists. It's why I bend the rules for Wonder Creation and allow six or more Effects in a Wonder is that's what makes sense in setting.

But more to the point, the converse of this is that the “five Effects in a Wonder” rule is an...

[Dataweaver]

As a stopgap measure, I've worked up something of a model for how to do playable alchemists.

[Dataweaver]

Short answer: No.

Long answer: to my mind, the Promethean sub-splat would be playable alchemists. Human demiurges are also a thing, but they're not a splat: they're defined not by what they are or even what they do, but by what they did. These are not things to be covered in an Antagonists book; they belong in a Player's Guide.

[Dataweaver]

The other issue with human creators is that they're usually not immune to Disquiet; so having them as traveling companions isn't good for their sanity....

[Dataweaver]

No problem at all. Just keep in mind that if your creator is a Promethean, he or she is still trying to find their way even as you try to find yours.

[Dataweaver]

This reminds me of the original meaning of the phrase “to honor in the breach”: it originally was talking about how we have rules that are based on general principles (in the specific case in Shakespeare, the principle was “honor”, and the rules were formalized expressions of honor); but rules are imperfect, and sometimes we can uphold the underlying principles better by breaking the rules. We've kind of inverted the meaning of that phrase since the Bard first introduced it....

[Dataweaver]

I've also considered moving Quiet away from the Triat. But rather than the Spheres (nine kinds of Quiet is rather unwieldy}, I shifted it to the Avatar Essences. The Dynamic Essence is prone to Madness; the Pattern Essence is prone to Denial; the Primordial Essence is prone to Obsession (with morbidity bring Obsession with Death), and the Questiing Essence is prone to Hubris.

All mages are susceptible to all forms of Quiet based on their actions; but actions are influenced by your Avatar: rather than saying that, say, a Dynamic Avatar is prone to Madness, it's more correct to say...

[Dataweaver]

Eh. I agree that Beast's default portrayal of Heroes is rather ham-fisted; while it does say that there are Heroes other than the ones who obsess over slaying monsters, it deliberately doesn't say anything more than that, save for one sample Hero who breaks the rules in many, many ways. In keeping with Cinder's talk about Beasts struggling with being defined by their legends, I think that that option other to be open to Heroes, too: imagine if Cinder woke up one day and found that he (she?) was now a Hero. First thing to do: subvert the narrative.

[Dataweaver]

I would add that “wishcraft” is very much a thing in M20; but it's explicitly not the normal way of doing things. Instead, it's facilitated by the Working Without Focus and Growing Beyond the Tools sections, pp.566–567. Working Without Focus involves a Willpower expenditure and a massive difficulty increase; Growing Beyond the Tools involves raising the mage's Arete, and involves letting go of the Instruments in reverse order of their significance to her: she gets to let go of the ones she uses the least first, and holds on to the one she uses the most until the very last. This is also very...

[Dataweaver]

I'm pretty sure they offer a free trial period, which you can use to binge the show. For what it's worth, I don't exactly have the most flexible finances; but Cobra Kai got me to sub, and I haven't regretted it.

[Dataweaver]

So, a bit of DL;DR here...

I still recall the first edition of Mage, and how the Atlantean mythology hung over the game despite the first few supplements offering a course correction; so I’m well aware that some problems really can’t be fixed by supplements, because the core book is a player’s first impression — and if you blow it there, it doesn’t matter what the supplements do, because the reader won’t get that far. I’m also very much aware that a game can have a lot of untapped potential that needs some... selective amnesia to bring out: my own view of Mage: the...

[Dataweaver]

My gateway into roleplaying was Champions. The second roleplaying system I ever got into was GURPS. At the time (the mid-80s), these games were innovative for their point-accounting systems. In particular, GURPS was built on the notion that you could make any character you wanted to, given a sufficient point budget.

There was only one small problem with that, and it took me a while to recognize it: when character creation is an exercise in point accounting, you tend to make your choices based on what's optimal in the point accounting scheme, not necessarily what suits your character...