Chronicle and Character Creation

Personally? I'm fine either way.

However... I will say that if we think it may get into some touchy subject matter we should probably make it private though, to be safe. But -- if we know we're keeping it PG-13, it's probably fine to leave it public.

Just my two cents.

Agreed on every point. I think public games benefit the community, but a game that crosses common boundaries should be private.

Also, I had forgotten to increase my Arete, so had to go and make an edit to my character sheet, if you had already looked at it JM?

I know some STs consider Arete an XP tax, and some don't... @JoshuaMabry do you have any "special" feelings or house rules around Arete?

@emsquared I’m still getting back into the rules set. It’s been a while since I’ve run Mage. Like… twenty five years or so. As of right now no house rules or specific thoughts on Arete.

Fair enough.

I'm also returning to Mage for the first time in about 7 or 8 years, and the last time I played it, it was actually the "Sorcerer's Crusade" version, which is essentially oWoD2E but... less Paradox :P

So also absorbing changes/new information (not that Arete is one of them).

I'm curious as to what you mean by that.

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As for private vs public, i say we leave it public and if something, mm, "nephandic" comes up, then we close it down.

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So in the end we seemingly ended up with 3 Traditions mages, 1 Orphan and 1 Technocrat. I think including HG would be simple, but how do we plan on incorporating Ma's syndi investor? Will it be like 2 parallel stories - one at the Chantry, the other at Construct, which will merge, putting all of our guys together? Or is the character a Syndicate turncoat?
Granted my knowledge of Mage's metaplot and lore is much worse than Vampire, from what i remember and know the Traditions and the Union are, at best, rivals, while most of the time outright enemies, what with all the "reality deviants", "pogroms" and "social conditioning". So i'm wondering how that will work. I'm struggling a bit to understand why would Technocrats send a liason to either a deviant's Chantry or to some group of rogue Traditionalists.

My main worry is that the 4 of us will be hanging out at the Chantry, getting lots of scenes and banter between us, while our future Syndicate comrade would be locked in his own story for the time being.

I think I can find a way to tie everyone together fairly quickly. If nothing else I’ll run separate threads until I can get all of you in the same location. It shouldn’t take too long.

Fair enough. I interested to see how it all plays out, maybe pick some ideas for later use myself.

Against my better judgement (I sense this is just one of those ways in which you and I differ, in our philosophy of the game, reversia), I'll bite.

By that, I mean: I've literally never once seen a starting Mage character that didn't have at least one Sphere at 2 dots.

And that makes sense right, because a "1 dot Mage" is... imo ... not going to be very fun or even feel Mage-like to play (you can't affect reality at 1 dot).

So anyway, that "fact" (I know, it's not a fact, and is just my personal POV) is reflected in my previous statement, which is true based on my personal Mage gaming experience - I've never seen someone create a starting Mage that didn't have at least 2 dots in one or more Spheres.

Did anyone here build their Mage with 6 Spheres w/ 1 dot in each? It'd be pretty funny if I was immediately shown to have an incorrect premise...

But anyway, given that you cannot begin with a Sphere ranked higher than your Arete?

Perhaps one can then see how it is silly to start the characters with just 1 Arete?

You know (as ST) that literally everyone will need at least 2 (because, again, "no one" - yes, I'm sure there's someone - builds a Mage with 1 dot in 6 Spheres).

So then, as ST, you know that every single character will have to pay 4 XP/Freebies, during character creation to purchase that Arete-which-everyone-needs.

So why have them do that, when they could have been using those XP/Freebies for something else which would make the characters more different from each other?

Why charge everyone XP/Freebies to be the same (for the most basic "privilege" of having 2 dots in a Sphere)?

Hence: XP tax.

It's something that everyone pays for, it's a pass-through mechanic that literally everyone has to pass through to be able to have their charger even do what the game promises you're supposed to be able to do - at character creation, for no good reason, particularly during character creation because it just decrease everyone's ability to do more interesting things at character creation.

The principle continues similarly into game play though.

In response to that pass-through/XP tax dynamic, I have seen STs:

1. start all PCs at Arete 2
2. start all PCs at Arete 3 (when it was realized that every single player built their character with a 3 door Sphere)
3. I've seen STs get rid of XP AND Seekings in play, completely, and just have everyone's Arete go up at "Milestones" in the narrative (essentially treating the cabal's "adventures" as Seekings)
4. I've seen STs increase the Arete it requires to forego elements of Focus because they raised starting Arete

Lots of ways to approach Arete, including "by the book" ofc, just depends on what the group wants out of the experience.

But Arete is definitely a weird XP tax built into character creation.

And in a 5 Mage cabal? Where we can "afford" to specialize a bit? I'd be curious if any of us didn't build our Mage with a 3 dot Sphere?

Are we all paying 8 Freebies to be the same? If so, that's just a little silly imo :)

Maybe one (or all) of you know @MaJunior's character outside of your life in the Chantry, and he's someone you can turn to when shit starts going down.

Posted some snippets to start off the preludes for John, Ezekial and Hurdy. I'm trying to leave as much of the plot of them up to you all. I'll roll with what you give me there.

Well.. You have now. :3 Enter my John the Hermetic Corporate guy, with Arete 1.

I do agree that our mindsets are pretty different. While i get the desire to start doing "real magic" from the start, it always felt less interesting to me. So i, for one, would almost never raise my starting Arete above 1. Why? Because then i will miss out on TWO whole Seekings! And those are one of the best, juiciest roleplaying opportunities for Mages!

I also feel like starting at Arete 1 is actually quite lore fitting - after your Awakening your perception changes, you see the world differently, for what it really is. You feel it. And having your mind "opened" across 6 different parallels/spheres feels much more true to the idea, than having only a couple. It also is good for beginning characters, as you learn your magic and solidify your beliefs, that fuel it, in play, thus making for an overall more solid character-concept in general and magic set/paradigm in particular.

And it's not like Arete 1 mage cannot affect change. He simply uses his enlightened perception and then affect the things he sees regularly. A surgeon would use Life 1 to check for the patient's health, than perform surgery better. A gambler would see probabilities of winning with Entropy 1 and then bet his money. Is that not magical? Is that not mystical? Feels pretty magey to me.

I don't if i'm in the minority on this, but i feel like starting from the very bottom offers much more advantages in general than getting a headstart.

I had a feeling... lol

Here we go!
That's actually fun to have different types of Mages in play. Guess we'll see how it works on both side. Who knows, maybe i'll convert you all to my heretical views by the time we're done. :3

Having personal connection might not be a bad idea. For my guy, college/Economics degree can be a potential link. Went to the same college or met at some corporate conference/get-along. Hell, maybe Syndicate own the corp i work (though i actually picked one from the list of Pentex's sub-divisions from wiki, just for fun) for and the guy was my boss or something.

Quick Q: Are we going to be able to raise backgrounds with XP?

Obviously not all Backgrounds would be available to raise after creation, but I decided I'd ask. It might help with some of my indecision. Lol

@MaJunior We can certainly negotiate that.

Interesting. Like what BGs?

I've certainly seen things like Status or Allies or Contacts, or even Resources, go up through roleplay and narrative developments in the story.

Raising then with XP in play is a new and intriguing option to me.

>raising Backgrounds with XP

But why? If you're willing to buy it with Xp, then you're clearly interested in it. Wouldn't it be more fun to roleplay for it? Certainly would feel more satisfying to earn them in play instead of through XP, no?

Sounds good!