Is it possible to play Mage: the Ascension in practice?

[Xathrodox86]

Fuck you. A black Tzimisce is fucking heresy.

Fuck you. Now I'm going to be Blacula in the next VtM game I play.

Are Tzimisce really that butthurt, when it comes to race?

 

[Havoc]

No. Actually almost no clan is racist, since after a hundred years you understand it's not about race, but about THAT FUCKING NOSFERATU THAT JUST TOLD THE PRINCE ABOUT YOUR COUP! MOTHERFUCKING BLOOD HUNT!

 

[Excidium II]

The clan might not be "racist" but the individuals carry their human prejudices. Balkanites don't mix with coloured people.

 

[Night Goat]

Aaaakshually, one of the Laibon legacies (African vampire clans) is blatantly Tzimisce. And if there's any clan that shouldn't carry its human prejudices, it's the Tzimisce. If one looks like a human at all, it's doing it wrong.

 

[Havoc]

And if there's any clan that shouldn't carry its human prejudices, it's the Tzimisce. If one looks like a human at all, it's doing it wrong.

Fuck you. A black Tzimisce is fucking heresy.

And that my friends, was the joke.

 

[Xathrodox86]

The clan might not be "racist" but the individuals carry their human prejudices. Balkanites don't mix with coloured people.

WtA had the Get of Fenris tribe who loved them some white supremacists. Generally WW used to touch a lot of racial issues and all kind of social prejudice stuff. They did not always succeeded (Gypsy splat book anyone), but generally they did their job exceptionally well.

 

[Xor]

I honestly like the nWoD (or is it CoD now? whatever) Mage better. Less metaplot and dumb 90's stuff.

Instead they give you a whole new brand of dumb stuff.

 

[lightbane]

Amusingly NMage was also quite racist, since it blatantly stated that only those people from European ancestry could be mages. And then there were the idiotic Banishers thing. Thankfully, the 2nd edition may fix several of these mistakes.

 

[Azalin]

Amusingly NMage was also quite racist, since it blatantly stated that only those people from European ancestry could be mages..

How did they put that in without creating a huge shitstorm in the internets ?

 

[Havoc]

Every WoD game is sexist/racist!

 

[lightbane]

Amusingly NMage was also quite racist, since it blatantly stated that only those people from European ancestry could be mages..

How did they put that in without creating a huge shitstorm in the internets ?

IIRC it was released in the early 2000s, when the internet SJWs weren't a thing yet. To compensate, eventually said SJWs infiltrated White Wolf and Onyx Path, a fact which is obvious when you notice transgender characters, made-up words like "zir" and the like and "alternate gender explanations" that suddenly appear without warning. For example, in Mortal Remains there's a Mummy who doesn't consider himself male, in spite of being a glorified zombie who lives with literal borrowed time, predates the existence of said things, suffers memory lapses and, lastly but not least, he does look like an average guy to boot.

 

[Havoc]

Because for these people gender and race is the most important and interesting thing in a character concept. They see "Transgender Mummy" and go "that's interesting!", while normal people go "a glorified zombie who lives with literal borrowed time, predates the existence of said things, suffers memory lapses? Well, that's interesting!"

 

[Caim]

Because for these people gender and race is the most important and interesting thing in a character concept. They see "Transgender Mummy" and go "that's interesting!", while normal people go "a glorified zombie who lives with literal borrowed time, predates the existence of said things, suffers memory lapses? Well, that's interesting!"

Don't forget that Mummy was the worst game in nWoD until Beast: the Otherkin came out.

 

[Havoc]

The new Mummy is bad? I heard good things about it. What gives?

 

[Caim]

The new Mummy is bad? I heard good things about it. What gives?

- Your memory's gone to shit, so you barely remember what you were like in the Nameless Empire, giving you too little to make yourself an ancient proto-Egyptian immortal and instead are a blank slate with voices in your head.
- You start at the height of your power and lose it as time passes, forcing you to level backwards.
- You have an extremely limited lifespan. Six to eight months tops.
- You're little more than a glorified seek and recovery system for the Judges, the bosses of the afterlife. You find them a trinket or do something they want and you die.

There's nothing but angsting about the fact you're going to die. At least Vampire has the politics thing going on. You angst, you do shit that does not help you at all and you die. That's just not fun.

 

[HatTrick]

IIRC it was released in the early 2000s, when the internet SJWs weren't a thing yet. To compensate, eventually said SJWs infiltrated White Wolf and Onyx Path, a fact which is obvious when you notice transgender characters, made-up words like "zir" and the like and "alternate gender explanations" that suddenly appear without warning. For example, in Mortal Remains there's a Mummy who doesn't consider himself male, in spite of being a glorified zombie who lives with literal borrowed time, predates the existence of said things, suffers memory lapses and, lastly but not least, he does look like an average guy to boot.

My god. The SJWs. They've really done it now. They've made a paragraph of text in a game saying you can use whatever pronouns you want and a character that you'll never have to use. White Wolf, with its outstanding products such as Gypsies, Changing Breeds, Kindred of the East, and more, has been utterly ruined by these SJW Illuminati NWO infiltrators, who now run Onyx Path and are using these dumb niche games for people who like to pretend to be elves and vampires to institute GLOBAL COMMUNISM.

But to be more serious and not a giant asshole, I agree that new Mummy is weak as all hell. Better than old Mummy, but that's a low bar to clear. New Demon, New Changeling (which is great), and one other that has completely left my mind, are probably my favorites out of the new line-up.

 

[Alex]

SJWs being the writers and designers would go a long way towards explaining why the new world of darkness is so bad.

 

[Excidium II]

My god. The SJWs. They've really done it now. They've made a paragraph of text in a game saying you can use whatever pronouns you want and a character that you'll never have to use. White Wolf, with its outstanding products such as Gypsies, Changing Breeds, Kindred of the East, and more, has been utterly ruined by these SJW Illuminati NWO infiltrators, who now run Onyx Path and are using these dumb niche games for people who like to pretend to be elves and vampires to institute GLOBAL COMMUNISM.

Bad games/fiction is still better than SJW pandering.

 

[Harpsichord]

If you're worried about people niggling over the spheres, good luck with paradigm. It's not supposed to be an optional part of the game...

EDIT:

...then again maybe I'm just echoing my own problems learning how to play. It took quite a bit of explaining, I'm talking maybe a week of talking about it in lengthy periods with somebody who understood the game for me to realize that just because you have Forces 4 on your character sheet doesn't mean that you can necessarily use all of the Forces 4 effects. It didn't make sense to me why a Hermetic mage could just conjure a fireball out of air by saying a few words and waving his hands while a member of the Cult of Ecstasy with the same spheres would find it impossible to do so. This might not have been so confusing if it weren't for the fact that one member of the Cult of Ecstasy very well might be capable of throwing a fireball because he just so happened to have a peculiar paradigm.

It definitely forces the players and the GM to completely reconsider their idea of what a 'Mage' is and what 'Magic' means. Particularly that given within the scope of the gameworld, most mages aren't even aware that they are all tapping into the same force.

Real world reading on occultism is somewhat necessary to play the game in the truly intended manner imo.

 

[Xor]

I really wish my current group could get their heads around mage, but when I tried to run it it was a disaster. They're all 5-8 years younger than me, just out of college in their early 20s, but I don't think it's a maturity issue; our games are usually rather serious. They just don't have the same mix of religious viewpoints my old group did. Our GM was a pagan and a self-described witch who had been a satanist for a few years before converting, we had an atheist who was fairly well read on various religions, another different flavor of pagan, a devout catholic, and myself, probably the least religiously interesting. It probably helped that I was the youngest or one of the youngest in that group as well, rather than the oldest.

 

[Caim]

But to be more serious and not a giant asshole, I agree that new Mummy is weak as all hell. Better than old Mummy, but that's a low bar to clear. New Demon, New Changeling (which is great), and one other that has completely left my mind, are probably my favorites out of the new line-up.

Likely Promethean, I've heard good stuff about that.

Or maybe the fangame Genius: the Transgression.

 

[HatTrick]

Promethean is pretty good, but good luck ever getting the chance to play it. I think I was thinking of Hunter the Vigil, which is a very good game that handles monster hunting from "5 friends with shotguns going to hunt the vampire that lives on their street" to "Agents of a shadowy US government conspiracy armed with fucking laser guns".

 

[Excidium II]

good luck ever getting the chance to play it

That goes for every WoD games besides Vampire.

 

[Eadee]

I actually have a round of Mage the Ascension going for a year or so. It works fine. You need mature players indeed and if players prepare a couple of rotes for their character in advance they can discuss the sphere stuff between game sessions with the storyteller AND they get -1 Diff for casting those rotes instead of making spells up on the fly.

 

[HatTrick]

good luck ever getting the chance to play it

That goes for every WoD games besides Vampire.

Well Hunter's easy enough to get players for too but otherwise shit you're right