All Things World of Darkness

We've filled now- it involves a single threat from outer space in all three timeliness.

The timeliness are 1197 England (Nottingham) during the reign of Richard I

1861 Virginia (at the start of the Civil war)

And 1989 Virginia

We've chatted about fav Vampire Clans, so how about dissecting Mage? (seeing as it is the most "popular" WoD game on GP, with 2 active games)

What's your favourite Traditions/Conventions? Which are the least favourite ones?

Bonus question #1 - any thoughts on the M20's Disparate Alliance? What you've been waiting for or really unnecessary?

Bonus question #2 - how do you feel about Arete as a mechanic? Ever tried fiddling with/replacing it?

Traditions: I used to really like the Verbena solely for being Life-centric, but even back then felt pigeonholed by the stereotypically oldschool Paradigm and Foci. Nowadays I'm more enticed by Virtual Adepts and Hollow Ones/Orphans. I know relatively little about Conventions, and my favours are spread out: the Progenitors are cool for being Life-centric and having psionic foci among other things; the NWO seem stylish and are Mind-centric, which is also fun, but seem even more authoritarian than the Technocracy overall; the Syndics' only selling point is that apparently the have some very unconventional ideas about just to what degree demand will result in supply (and that's fun in the context of the Technocracy), but I'm not sure if interesting/enjoyable-to-play philosophies can fit into that Convention; Void Engineers' space-exploration-meets-ghostbusters style is intriguing, but I have little interest in Dimensional Science as a Sphere.

Disparate Alliance did nothing to me, at least in terms of the Crafts that it consists of. They all feel like niche-of-a-niche and not even niches I am all that intrigued by, so they are meh. There are also contentious matters about how much characterisation drift has been required over the editions to get a 'bothsides' kind of faction in the Ascension War (and cough Nephandisation creep cough).

In the editions I played, maxing out Arete at character creation seemed like such a nobrainer option that I question why the system allows PCs to start with different levels thereof instead of defining the starting level on a per-campaign basis. It drastically affects the most important rolls, it affects the maximum accumulation of successes, it affects maximum Sphere level, and IIRC some other bits. I don't like it, but I don't remember fiddling with a workable solution. (I may have done some stuff based on misunderstanding of mages-as-non-main-splat-in-VtM waaay back in my very first campaign, but I don't remember the specifics. Could've been Arete+Sphere with a different amount of success requirements or something.)

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We (I) talked about this exact thing in the Mage game I'm running here, right now.

Arete has always played out like an "XP tax" during character creation to me.

If everyone is spending the same amount of XP on it... why is ANYONE spending XP on it? It should just be built in, so that ppl can spend the XP on more interesting things that make them different from one another.

But then reversia came along and blew my mind by creating a PC that didn't have a single Sphere ranked over 1, and so just bought 1 Arete.

In fact no one went over 2 in a given Sphere, which I had also never really seen anything like that from players, in any WoD game lol

Guess I've always gamed with power gamers lol

Anyway, it is also annoying to me that it is a departure from... most? ... or is it literally Every. Single. Other. WoD line mechanically where you roll the dots of the specific Discipline/Lore/Arcanoi etc plus attribute, or attribute+skill+dots, etc. where the analogue to those special/defining abilities in Mage are the specific Spheres.

Everyone can cast magick! So why does everyone need a "magick stat"?? Particularly when they're all (usually) the same!?

The mechanic should be Sphere+Stat imo

The problem being ofc then you have to rewrite the entire success mechanic (to also be more in line with every other splats mechanics) to where the Difference Difficulty is no longer just Sphere(+vulgar, etc) which would be too low with larger pools.

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I don't see it as necessarily a power gaming issue, but also an access-to-interesting-Effects issue. There's only so much creativity you can do when mostly limited to minor sensory effects (and now you can do that modest creativity with six topics, yay?).
Uh, not every single other line does it the same way? E.g. CtD uses Realm+Art, VtM overwhelmingly uses Attribute+Skill or rarely Willpower, Werewolf sometimes does Gnossis (technically a capped-at-10 trait, but good luck starting with more than 5 in it).
Rewriting success requirements is not that hard - effectively you need to make twice as many required for most stuff, and you're mostly done. The more interesting question is what gets paired with Sphere when, and depending on what the answers are this may end up great or annoying.

Yea, I acknowledged that not everything is the same, but they are mostly all much more similar to each other: something+something, mostly

And also Changeling is a major blind spot for me (never played it), and I haven't played any iteration of Werewolf for... coming up on 30 years? so yea...

I knew I was being a bit hyperbolic, but I don't think it's any exaggeration at all to say that Arete, as central as it is for Mages, is unlike any other core special ability mechanic.

I think it's mostly like Gnossis but even more so (i.e. nominally maxed-at-ten, but in practice a PC is unlikely to see it at a high level - and with harsher costs and starting limitations). (Which is a bit funny in light of Chronicles of Darkness naming the mages' similar trait Gnossis.)

Yea, again, I don't remember how Werewolf works

But you said Gnossis is "sometimes".

Arete is "every time without exception". Completely central. Arete is everything to a Mage.

And it shouldn't be that way.

That's boring.

Certain Gifts require and Certain Fetishes require a Gnosis roll, and a few others things (stepping sideways), but plenty of gifts do not and ofc a lot of werewolf is good Ole fashioned Dex + Brawl to hit Str+1 damage

Exactly.

You can't even buy up Spheres, much less use them, without equal or higher Arete.

It's so dumb.

It would be like if Vampire had a stat called "Vampirism". And you had to have buy dots in Vampirism to do Vampire Things, but... you're already a Vampire and already buying dots in Vampire Things...

The more I talk about it, the more I hate it.

Err, well that's Blood Pool and for most characters it's just 10 max, but thanks to the Generation background some go above that- and you do absolutely have to either accept vastly different power levels of characters in a group, or restrict the background to everyone taking the same amount.

An imperfect comparison could be to Thaumaturgy or Necromancy where a kindred can only raise a path as high as the main trait.

However, you don't roll Thaumaturgy of course, but instead Willpower. And you gain an increase in your main path when raising Thaum.

It's not at all.

You don't pay XP for blood.

Blood Pool is ofc much closer to Quintessence/Paradox. It's the currency, the in world limiter.

Both of those are just one Vampire Thing. The Vampire can do other Vampire Things in addition, which likely didn't require Willpower.

In Mage there is no other Mage Thing.

The separate special Mage Things are Spheres.

The comparison would be if Thaum/Necromancy AND Auspex AND Dominate AND Potence all required - not Willpower, cuz Mages have and need Willpower too - but if they had the Vampirism stat. That also has to be purchase to use Thaum/Necromancy AND Auspex AND Dominate AND Potence.

It's so dumb

It's probably an easy fix, the original problem about buying the same thing. Houserule their arete is equal to the highest sphere they have.

I'm about to declare exactly that in my current Mage game. Sure I'll still be awarding XP to spend, but I'm also having a milestone point when Arete goes up for everyone. It helps that my starting point was everyone at Arete 2, to simulate young newly Awakened/almost Awakening mages.

The topic of Arete going up also brings up near-erased memories of a frustrating experience of Seekings, which felt very 'pixel hunt' where the GM has some idea about what the right conclusion/solution is but it's very opaque on the player level.

What's your favourite Traditions/Conventions? Which are the least favourite ones?


Progenitors, Syndicate, Virtual Adepts, Cult Of Ecstasy, Solificati, Etherites.
Nephandi can be fun, granted it's one of those morally grey campaigns.

I dislike Dreamspeakers, Verbena.

And also Changeling is a major blind spot for me (never played it)
Changeling and especially Dark Ages: Fae can be quite rewarding. Especially when very few Mage games venture into Umbra and so, Changeling becomes the only "Exploration" game.

New World of Darkness Mage (Awakening) and Changeling (The Lost) and Demon (The Descent) are quite striking and fun to play as well.

The "pigeonhole" line in particular made me think of the way Mage is often mentioned. The false advertisements often pin it as a "freeform magic" game, which feel categorically untrue, for your form is very much determined by your paradigm. It doesn't really matter how high your Arete is or how many dots in various Spheres you have - if your character doesn't believe that something can be done, then she can't do it. And belief and the conflict of paradigms is (or at least used to be) one of the core concepts of the game, definitely taking precedence over trying to fudge some sort of effect with the Spheres that you have. On a similar note, that feels like the attitude some VtM players have towards the Tremere - enjoying the freedom and versatility that Thaumaturgy provides, but really disliking the Pyramid for cramping their style.
This is honestly just depressing. One of the reason I think all beginner Mage games should start with 1 Arete is because that way you can really build and flesh out your character's belief system, paradigm and personal attitude toward magic. Seekings seem like an incredible roleplaying opportunity, so why deprive yourself of it by starting with 2/3 dots in Arete? These STs, who, from what I can understand, treated Seekings as some dungeon crawler style puzzle, clearly misunderstood the assignment. Or at least didn't communicate their ideas clearly. I can see more crunch/battle heavy groups establishing more arbitrary rules for Seekings - for example setting clear numerical goals like: "n aggravated damage dealt with spells" or "10 successful spells of your primary Sphere cast", before allowing purchase of next dot of Arete. Were I to run a Seeking for a player, I'd probably discuss/brainstorm with the player to figure out how and why the character's understanding of magic as a whole improves/changes. It doesn't have to be a grand event, it just have to be meaningful.

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I don't see much problem in using the regular success chart, especially if people stick close to their paradigms, thus hopefully eliminating any fears ST might have about players running amok.

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I've been thinking about the Arete ever since we've started our Mage game, and had some loose ideas about how to change/improve it:

● Make it a Background. This would work well with the idea of roleplaying every Seeking, thus earning Arete in play instead of buying it, like other Backgrounds.

● Make it a pool, like Willpower. You'd have your permanent Arete and temporary, which you can spend to power your spells. After the temp pool is exhausted, then you gotta roll.

● Roll 2 of the highest Sphere involved in the spell. I'm not a big of fan of large Shadowrun-esque tables of situational roll modifiers, but I guess one could add stuff like "-1 die for every Sphere over n" or "+1 difficulty for each Sphere over n".

● Skip rolling for simple stuff, like activating extrasensory perceptions. So in this scenario, you can just reflexively activate "spirit sight" of Spirit 1, but would have to roll Perception+Awareness if you wanted to spot something specific, like hiding ghost or something. Other things that can be skipped are simple effects, like lighting a candle. Sort of follow the general WoD rule of rolling only where there is some point to it.

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Have you ever played as a Nephandi or been in a game where one of the other players did? I'd love to hear how that worked out, given the books insistence of how unequivocally evil Nephandi (almost like demons in og Charmed) are and that you absolutely shouldn't play one.

I always thought that what a character believes possible is unlikely to be a bottleneck. Mages are aware of all sort of effects being done by someone or other, especially once they start reading up on the historical events involving other traditions, so I expect any effect to very soon become treated 'okay, I know this is possible, so now the only question is how do I do it' (which those with sufficient Sphere sets would be able to try).

The pigeonhole is more about the trappings. The Traditions as described have very conservative-leaning trappings (which the name foreshadows, hehe). But people have always been experimental. Most famously, alchemists were very innovative and that is why we have chemistry. And I like my mages to be innovative and imaginative too, not rigid/Banal/unimaginative/uncreative.
Is it a misunderstanding of the assignment? Seeking are meant to be a mystical experience. Mysticism is notoriously resistant to reason-based approaches. It has a huge amount of 'there is no correct process to arrive from unenlightened state to enlightened state, you either achieve it or not' and 'this cannot be explained or reasoned about'. Mysticism is a frustrating thing to approach IRL, so roleplaying engaging with it in a game is a frustrating experience. To the point that I would rather have it happen through downtime like other unenjoyable things (like practicing 100 pushups each training for N trainings to increase Strength or whatever).

Though the suggested replacements like 'deal 10 Aggravated damage' feel like a swerve in the other direction, feeling like hunting for achievements and collectibles in some sort of computer game.

The closest thing to an enjoyable IC experience related to paradigms I have had is probably discussion of paradigms in a quasi-philosophical discussion when players/GMs try to justify paradigms to each other. At least that feels like an approachable, explainable, reasoning-OK process. But that also makes it very much not The Mysticism Experience.