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May. 25th, 2005 11:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alexmegamiHooray for more Mage spoilers!
I'm starting to consider whether I was wrong and Billy is the Mastigos with Easton is the Moros. (Not that they can't both be one or the other...)
Which just makes Acanthus!Melody and Moros!Easton that much more of an odd couple.
Amusement.
I'm starting to consider whether I was wrong and Billy is the Mastigos with Easton is the Moros. (Not that they can't both be one or the other...)
Which just makes Acanthus!Melody and Moros!Easton that much more of an odd couple.
Amusement.
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Date: 2005-05-25 05:39 pm (UTC)While I am saving judgement for the actual book, my initial reaction is: I don't like it.
I mean, the original Mage was over-burdened with setting and Traditions and stuff too - but this... seems worse somehow. All that stuff about Watchtowers and the Abyss, it's just fancy rewording of the original Triad of Reality. And it strikes me as being even *more* stifling than the original.
Bah.
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Date: 2005-05-25 07:07 pm (UTC)(I have no idea what the original Triad of Reality was, so no comment there.)
I'm curious why/how you think it's more stifling.
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Date: 2005-05-25 07:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-26 12:02 am (UTC)New M:tA makes them out to be robe-wearing, staff-carrying, Magic Missile-casting wizards in a modern setting. That's my first impression anyway.
If they published Hermetics having Star Destroyers, well that's WW's stupidity. I didn't have any problem with the Umbra just being that, like space is just Space. It's just the Umbra, the space between worlds.
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Date: 2005-05-26 12:13 am (UTC)Acanthus = crazywildkooky (enchanter)
Mastigos = ohwe'resoevilwedealwithdemons (illusionist)
Moros = i'msogoth (necromancer)
[remaining two (evoker and summoner)]
Hell, I had issues with the original Sphere/Tradition thing. This just makes it worse. It feels like some uber-goth's D20 Modern setting.
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Date: 2005-05-26 01:41 am (UTC)That's how I'm reading it, anyway...
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Date: 2005-05-26 01:52 am (UTC)Time/Entropy
"Mastigos mages work magic that affects the mind and the space all around us."
Mind/Correspondence
"[Moros] Mages who traverse the Abyss to Stygia perform the magic of death, affecting all forms of inert matter,"
Matter (and possibly Spirit, it wasn't too clear).
In old Mage, one's Essence did not determine one's particular magical strengths - which is what it seems like here to me.
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Date: 2005-05-26 02:30 am (UTC)No, that's true. It still doesn't determine what they do with their magic, just what they're naturally adept at. (The same way an Akashic with Mind and a Hermetic with mind aren't doing the same thing even though they have the same sphere.)
If the problem is that you're naturally adept at something rather than your order/Tradition determining it, I personally like this a lot more. After all, it's not like you're forever locked into only knowing those two Arcanum.
I guess I don't see why choosing a path is any different from choosing a Tradition, other than 'Orphan' isn't an option any more.
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Date: 2005-05-26 02:42 am (UTC)I guess my point is that WW could have taken the opportunity to do away with that aspect altogether, and instead they just dressed it up differently.
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Date: 2005-05-26 03:28 am (UTC)Acanthus don't learn fate and time because they're "fae-like" magicians, they learn them because the Mage feels an affinity for that Watchtower. Again, the paths don't determine how you do your magic, just what base components you get to start with.
You could have a Kabbalist or Wiccan be a Mage. You could also have a cop that has no magical upbringing or influence in his life anywhere that still has the fortitude to make his way through an Awakening in Pandemonium. His spells aren't going to be influenced by anything other than his teachers or what he figures out on his own. These aren't precluded by the paths.
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Date: 2005-05-26 03:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-26 02:27 pm (UTC)If you wanted to run it as 'no one has any affinities' or 'you choose two affinities by yourself', nothing's stopping you. *shrug* I like it the way it's presented, and the system makes way more sense than oWoD Mage.
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Date: 2005-05-26 04:33 pm (UTC)I don't like the setting.
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Date: 2005-05-26 04:58 pm (UTC)So don't play the game.
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Date: 2005-05-26 05:20 pm (UTC):P
I'd settle for a decent, well-balanced Generic System and just play my own settings.
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Date: 2005-05-26 05:49 pm (UTC)Yeah. Sadly, I have no idea how well GURPS would work for something like that.
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Date: 2005-05-26 03:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-26 02:34 pm (UTC)Paradigm doesn't show up in the paths. I have no idea if it'll come about later - rotes may be linked to paradigm.
I guess what it boils down to is, you still have your oWoD books, and no one's forcing you to upgrade (or downgrade) to nWoD. I also think you're jumping the gun on judgement calls, though - we've seen exactly 8 tidbits out of Mage thus far, most of them history. The book is supposedly going to be around 300+ pages.
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Date: 2005-05-26 04:38 pm (UTC)Exalted, it almost feels like. Big, fancy, "High Magic" setting.
No one is forcing anyone to to the nWoD. I guess I just don't like World of Darkness setting anymore.
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Date: 2005-05-26 04:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-26 05:02 pm (UTC)It's not a huge difference but it is there.
I don't really see why it's more high magic than old-world Mage. The spheres are 90% the same, I'm betting what you can do with them hasn't changed all that much, and the only difference thus far is that paradigm isn't a factor.
Old Mage was only street magic if that's what you did with it. Sons of Ether were mostly pulp fiction mages, as far as I could tell. Verbena and Hermetics weren't really "street mages" either.
I maintain that it's player choices that make a setting gritty or not.
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Date: 2005-05-26 05:22 pm (UTC)I can't explain it over the Internet. It's like being getting a book like Something From the Dark Side and finding out it's more like the Fionavar Tapestry.
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Date: 2005-05-26 05:53 pm (UTC)What I do see is a system where I could easily take Gate of Darkness, Circle of Light and turn it into a game.
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Date: 2005-05-25 09:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-26 02:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-26 08:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-26 08:50 pm (UTC)