Dissecting Transgression-Arcane Reviews Genius

[BigDamnHero]

I was briefly interested in Genius when I first heard about it back in, oh, 2010? It didn't grab me, but not a lot did at the time. We'll see what this review enkindles within me, however.

[ArcaneArts]

So, quick thing on backgrounds, as an additional "Where I'm coming from".

I grew up spending my teenager years working on fan-made games over on the now dead and gone MSN Groups-I actually did that for about a decade of my life. Commentary on development is written less from research on Genius(have you seen that thread?) and more from my own experience with those games. But I do have a background in more or less open source development for amateur projects.

Also, not that I'm gonna weigh this in much, but I have an Associates with a major in English Education and History Education, and a Bachelors with a major in Creative Writing English and a minor in Visual Communications. So, you know. I know a thing or two about this.

[Juhn]

As someone who's been running Genius for years, thinks it works perfectly well as a horror game, but who has heard the horror stories of people crowbarring Genius characters in (as pulp action heroes, no less) to other World of Darkness games to their severe detriment, this is going to be an interesting thread to watch.

The mechanics are clunky, and I can't relate to the whole "Awakening was shit, I'm going to make nWoD Ascension myself" angle at all, but it's still in my top three gamelines. Something about these poor mad men and women searching through the detritus of dead ideas, so blinded by their own abilities and the light burning behind their eyes that they can't see it will all amount to nothing in the end is interesting to me. The whole concept of Jabir, as well. You can't relate to normal people; you can't even communicate your ideas to normal people, half because what you're saying is nonsense that only makes sense to your own worldview and half because just trying to do so burns away their own unique perspective to replace it with your own cracked worldview.

I haven't heard of many others who play Genius for tragedy and horror, though, so hmm.

[Caitiff Primogen]

I'm in sort of an odd place in that I love the Sons of Ether and have generally been disappointed by the lack of a good analog for them in ChroD, but have simultaneously just never been turned on by Genius. I think it may just be that the Etherite concepts I enjoy don't fit well in Genius, despite their superficial similarities.

[Errol216]

I've read Genius, and found it to be very well-written, but the tone of the writing basically told me, "This is not a WoD game," despite its trying very hard to fit into it.

That said? De-contextualized from nWoD/CofD, Genius is the single most joyful RPG book I have ever read. It cavorts in its subject matter and revels in it to a degree that I had not seen before. Which made it special to me. It was excellent.

[ArcaneArts]

I've read Genius, and found it to be very well-written, but the tone of the writing basically told me, "This is not a WoD game," despite its trying very hard to fit into it.

That said? De-contextualized from nWoD/CofD, Genius is the single most joyful RPG book I have ever read. It cavorts in its subject matter and revels in it to a degree that I had not seen before. Which made it special to me. It was excellent.

This is funny to me, because I can unashamedly admit at this point I question if the point of the opening story was somehow to anti-sell the game. Verney wasn't that pessimistic.

[The Kings Raven]

In particular, it's that last part where the place for Genius finally came about. You had some fans who might be enjoying the differences Chronicles had, but missed out on how the things you well and truly valued no longer had a representation in the world, and that it was instead replaced by what they probably regarded as it's antithesis. As time went on, it became clear that wasn't a mistake worth fixing to White Wolf. There would be no Sons of Ether in Mage the Awakening. To them, it probably seemed like there would be no Sons of Ether in Chronicles of Darkness period.

So, an idea was sprung in the head of a guy names Kyle Marquis, TvTropes tells me. That person would make this slice of Mage the Ascension without it being Mage the Awakening, and fill the void that White Wolf had left in their fanbase.

One thing you should keep in mind is that while Kyle Marquis was a long time Ascension fan, Genius isn'tjust an attempt to bring back the Sons of Ether and Virtual Adepts into the nWoD.

In many ways it is a response to Ascension, a philosophical counter arguement if you will. The core premise is a rejection of core Ascension ideas like the secret world controlling masters, or "enlightened" people who can see secret truths that mortal men cannot. In fact Both the Traditions and the Technocracy's Genius counterparts are in Lemuria, the antagonist organisation.

I AM MAD SCIENTIST! IS SO COOL!-Biases, or "Didn't I beat up this guy for lunch money?"

The lunch money comment might be going overboard, but I feel like it accurately conveys what I think of when I think "mad scientist"-largely, that I'm unimpressed.

I just wanted to say while that you draw a distinction between the Mad Scientists who superman beat up and the sane but dangerous scientists who cloned dinosaurs for Jurassic Park and find the mad scientists wanting. Genius does not make a distinction.

Genius draws just as much, if not more, inspiration from Jurassic Park and similar works as it does from Superman (and when it does draw from Superman it's less goofy portrayals like the DCAU's Joker or Lex Luthor.

In Genius a mad scientist's insanity is a bi-directional metaphor with the dinosaurs in Jurassic park breaking out of control. The loss of control over a Genius' own mind reflects the loss of control over the cloned dinosaurs. The loss of control over the cloned dinosaurs reflects the loss of control over a Genius' own mind.

In regards to writer conflicts, this was, as far as I know, an open source production developed over on RPG.net, that wretched hive of scum and villainy that was also the place we got Dave Brookshaw from, so mixed results. My default assumption is that internal conflict was basically pervasive throughout the entire process. The PDF only cites Kyle Marquis as writer, developer, and *cough* layout artist though, so it might have been smoother than expected.

As for conflict with the rest of the texts in the ChroD canon....We'll talk about that when we get there.

There's only one writer. (I did contribute some updated Prostasia rules but that was long after it was published)

Genius' dev was basically an open dev. There was feedback and discussion, but in the end there was only one writer.

This is funny to me, because I can unashamedly admit at this point I question if the point of the opening story was somehow to anti-sell the game. Verney wasn't that pessimistic.

I found it beautiful, in a nihlistic way. The line about spaceships rotting haunted me for a long while in a good way, it's just a beautiful visual.

"There's no purpose to anything" sounds like a challenge to me, to create a purpose. It's that or lay down and wait to die.

(I feel the same about real life, so that's probably why. If I recall you're religious Arc? Mormon wasn't it? Faith in a higher power with a hand on the rudder of the universe might result in you reading it very differently to me, and I think I'm reading it as intended. A core theme element is that nobody is in charge and nobody has a plan or any idea where we're going).

[Michael]

In many ways it is a response to Ascension, a philosophical counter arguement if you will. The core premise is a rejection of core Ascension ideas like the secret world controlling masters, or "enlightened" people who can see secret truths that mortal men cannot.

Which misses that Ascension already did that, indeed it's kinda the point. I know Ascension was pretty bad at explaining itself, but if you read the last edition, a character literally explains it.

[MCN]

Is it bad that I'm interested in hearing about your take on Sword Art Online too? *cough*

[mp122984]

As one of those people who got into WoD because of Genius, I'm also interested in seeing this review.

There's only one writer. (I did contribute some updated Prostasia rules but that was long after it was published)

That was you? That's cool.

[Second Chances]

This will be interesting. For a long time, I used Geniuses instead of Mages in my game background. It seemed to me like you couldn't have both, and I did not *get* Mage. Then Dave came along with 2e open dev and I suddenly understood the Awakened, and never looked back. I'd agree that Genius loved itself. I'd also agree it wasn't nearly as good at horro as it was pulp. I also discovered it through TvTropes, so I had squat to do with the community that was apparently so toxic. In fact, this is the first I'm hearing about it.

EDIT: I'm also going to try and do a read through at the same time as Arc, chapter by chapter, so I can give better responses. I'd strongly suggest others do too.

[LostLight]

I'll also be following this thread- I've only gave Genius a brief look (I can barely convince my friends to play RPG at all. Convince them to play a fan game is almost impossible), and I've never exactly made my mind about it. The idea of playing a Mad Scientist did sounded as an interesting premise to me, but it have always felt to me like Mage with make up and a different dress, and I wonder how much of it is the case (and I'm too lazy to actually review it on myself :P )

besides, I always like reading reviews. It's kinda a hobby of mine.

[The Kings Raven]

Which misses that Ascension already did that, indeed it's kinda the point. I know Ascension was pretty bad at explaining itself, but if you read the last edition, a character literally explains it.

You'll have to go into more detail. I'm not an expert on Ascension but I understand that revised moved away from the Ascension War; I don't think it ever moved away from the idea that Mages saw secret truths that mortals did not.

Even then, it said that secret world controlling masters were a bad thing, but Ascension Revised didn't say that actually the Technoracy never had that much influence in the first place. Did it?

[Heavy Arms]

It's not that Ascension mages really "see secret truths beyond the ken of normal people." Ascension mages just have access to things normal people didn't by virtue of their supernatural powers. Other supernaturals in the WoD are capable of seeing every truth a mage is, and with a supernatural showing it to them so could any mortal. In fact others doing it might be easier because Paradox. What separates mages from everyone else is their ability to directly interact with those truths (keeping in mind that in Ascension, virtually all mortals indirectly interact with them to shape reality), not a special kind of insight that only mages possess. Actually showing such things to mortals would be supremely dick move in most circumstances though.

And Ascension has waffled a lot on how much influence the Technocracy was supposed to have. Though Revised cut their influence significantly (since their secret masters were stuck on the wrong side of the Avatar Storm as well), as well as having the Technocracy lose control of their biggest "secret masters controlling everything," leverage point by losing control over Consensus to apathy. Basically, the Technocracy's own internal issues dead-ended their efforts to control reality, leaving them with plenty of ways to secretly control people, but far less in terms of guiding humanity along the Time Table.

[The Kings Raven]

Thanks for that Heavy Arms. (and your reply on RPG.net)

So to make sure I understand you correctly:

1) Mages see truths that the average mortal does not see. But there's no reason why a mortal can't bring themselves up to a Mage's level.
2) It's unclear how influential the technocracy are; but Revised Edition / the Avatar Storm reduces their influence through an in setting event; rather than retconning them to always have had less influence.

That does seem like a contrast to Genius where

1) Geniuses are worse at understanding the truths of the world than the average mortal with a good grade in high school science, because they're crazy.
2) Lemuria's influence is also intentionally unclear but a lot of Geniuses speculate they were never particularly influential in the first place, and a close reading of the text leads me to assume those Geniuses were right.

My interpretation is that Lemuria resembles the late era technocracy, running around purging stuff but utterly failing to actually direct humanity. That is, Lemuria looked like late era technocracy from at least 425 BC (possibly earlier) without any historical point where they resemble the Order of Reason who actually did manage to make their Paradigm domiment and basically were competent enough to get things done.