General Discussion

Welcome, and thank you for joining this game!

Our sources are the M20 edition, and also Book of Secrets for the Virtues and Flaws. Don't need any other books I think!

with enough dots in Time you can certainly play Kyle Reese! :P

Putting my discord link here, Bedzone II, there's a Mage channel!

My first nudge is for everyone to have a look again at the Worldbuilding thread. I've written up some background for the school and its setting. See if that prompts some initial ideas, or for those who've fleshed out much more aleady (and thank you for doing so!), see if this matches what you're envisioning.

Give me your thoughts, remember I'm welcoming some co-construction. The setting should make your PC feel as if they've been in this school for years (unless they are a transfer student, also possible), and they know the city as well.

Next up, I'll describe the school itself in terms of buildings, programmes, faculties, etc. Hopefully that will further help you flesh out your PC. (No worries if I haven't approved any character sheets yet, I'll get there.)

Lemme generate another! Links expire. Try this one.

Thanks for your submissions so far! I'm now working my way through them, so there's still time to get a draft in, even if incomplete.

Thanks! Map still feels too boringly laid out. I shall fiddle some more!

I would count on it! Seniors leading the way in all sorts of shenanigans!

Some of us are in a decent place to start, even if not everyone has put together a full character yet. Thank you for your reasonably complete character sheets, some parts of which are still open-ended, because we're intending to tweak them a bit more as we play out session 0. Please be open to any small changes along the way.

For those who are still jiggling their character concept, I'm perfectly fine with you starting a little later; perhaps you need to see how the first parts of the story unfold. (And in-game, maybe it's because your PCs are late for the first day of school!)

Expect a bit more worldbuilding from my end to give us some more details. You'll all be from the same form class, even if your subject combinations might be different. So some of you might already be good friends, (or dislike each other), and you would certainly be familiar with some of the teachers, coaches, etc while others might be new to you.

One necessary conversation before we start. I need to hear if there are no-go areas, taboo topics, for anyone. Best to mention them here, but if they are private, drop me a message here or in discord. I will need a reply here, however brief, to acknowledge this.

Expect situations of physical and mental danger possibly affecting up to the youngest in the community (high school starts around 14), with harm, loss and death; emotional and psychological teen trauma arising from circumstances we might construe as manipulative or abusive; various permutations of relationships (parental, sibling, teacher-student, friendship, romantic) and their positive and negative consequences. I do not expect any of the conflicts arising to be motivated by race or religion, although gender-bias might still be portrayed in some small instances.

Thanks for everyone's replies! I will do check-ins along the way if anything more controversial creeps in.

Now I can mention the rolls I made are to draw from the Mage the Ascension Tarot deck, a classic product from way back when. That's the source of the images that preface your individual threads, and also you may see them at intervals in the main threads. Who knows, they may hint at some of the plot or character developments?

If anyone wants to know which cards they reference, happy to chat away here or discord!

Working through new posts, and I figured I shall also do some rules refreshing for the more rusty among us. (In fact, I had to catch myself juggling different rules editions in my head!)

The standard roll in the game is an Attribute + Ability roll, add the two stats, that's your dice pool, and roll that many d10s, so Stamina 3 + Athletics 2 = 5d10. You may assume the default difficulty is to beat a 6, so any roll of 7 and above counts as one success. If there are situations which are more challenging, I will state a higher difficulty level, or increase the threshhold (ie require more successes). Rolling a 1 cancels one success. If you roll more 1s than successes, you botch. Rolling 10 gives one success (Not two, I had to remind myself of this one vs other WoD games).

Sometimes I will specify what to roll, but other times I will leave the creative choice of which Ability roll up to you, multiple ways to succeed after all. So eg some of you chose Stamina + Athletics to run, others chose Dexterity + Athletics, both can work, just narrate it well. If somebody wanted to use Charisma + Streetwise to hitch a ride (it's a stretch), I probably would've permitted it too!

Next, since we're going to be testing some magick soon (if not already), here are the reminders. You roll the number of dice according to your Arete. The difficulty rating is determined by whether you are casting:
- coincidental magic (highest Sphere rating +3)
- vulgar magic without witnesses (highest Sphere rating +4)
- vulgar magic with witnesses (highest Sphere rating +5)
where coincidental means you make the effect seem as if it was an explicable occurrence (eg oh look the window is open and the wind blew the fire out), whereas vulgar means the effect is some unnatural phenomenon (eg a mass of water appears from nowhere above the fire to put it out).
Spheres affect different things, hopefully the fun is to combine Sphere use in different ways to achieve the effect you want. A handy cheat sheet is on p508-509.

Thanks for the catch! I'm gonna confess my quick paraphrases were badly written, but thanks for the benefit of doubt in thinking I was trying to homebrew some rules. We're indeed playing RAW, unless there are some bits we think are unwieldy or we don't really want to adhere to, if so it'll always be agreed upon, not arbitrarily decided.

To be clear:
- a successful roll equals or exceeds the difficulty number (whose default is 6 unless otherwise stated)
- botching is when there are 1s with no successes rolled
- 10s do give two successes in the case of Trait speciality (they normally count as one success)

Everyone, don't be afraid to clarify! I do not remotely claim to have perfect memory of this edition at 700 pages, and I certainly won't be rules lawyering through this game.

Two quick reminders on this, for everyone: If you're casting coincidental magick, it needs to 'coincide' with something, so remember to add a brief description of that. The second is, while I haven't prompted everyone on this yet, don't forget to describe your Focus as well when doing magick.

Absolutely runekyndig and eldarin, am sure you will. Just hinting at some early role-playing angles, as mages newly employing magic, even one's Focus is something they could be experimenting with, whether intentionally or inadvertently, after which it becomes a habit.

Will let KCC and Witchdoctor get a word in in the main thread first before I post.

Thanks for working on that! I'm pretty deficient in such things, so I appreciate the contribution!

In the same spirit, I realise some of us are way more visual gamers than others. Inviting us to make NPC portraits when the itch strikes. Where there are critical NPCs of note, or immediately relevant to a scene, I'll make them myself.

Quick mention that I trust everyone to be able to keep player knowledge and character knowledge separate. I'll only be sending private notes if it's pertaining to something secret only that PC ought to know and no other.

I appreciate the enthusiasm Rune! Unfortunately I recognise I haven't given yall enough plot to hazard a good guess. We should revisit this again in, hmm, maybe once we finish session zero. I've been slow with the momentum in these few early posts, so that we can all get into the rhythm of this game as it grows, but we'll be able to see more as we pick it up a bit more.

We can also use this as an opportunity to express what aspects or what direction we hope this game will take. As a GM, it's nice to go along with what the table wants to play or see more of. Although I've done so for some other games, I realise I haven't asked everyone what they hope to see or hope to get out of this game. Feel free to articulate some wishes!

Thanks for putting that idea down so succinctly! It's pretty much what this first arc will do, allow discovery of the world, the veil, and themselves in relation to magick.

I hope you've noted that the die rolls I've asked for thus far are related to character development. So bear with me that some requests at this point seem a bit unorthodox for WoD. In general, Ability+Attribute relates to mundane things, although it can be affected by some supernatural Backgrounds. Rolling the Spheres is where the magick happens, your character begins to understand better how they are affecting reality.

I will be moving on to demeanor and paradigm soon as the plot chugs along.

I made two posts in a row, hope it's not too confusing for everyone!

Quick summary:

Akashic Brotherhood: Mind (Focus: Inner discipline, meditation, martial arts, and enlightenment).
Celestial Chorus: Prime (Focus: The Divine, faith, unity, and the fundamental energy of creation).
Cult of Ecstasy: Time (Focus: Experiencing the divine through extreme sensation, drugs, dance, and breaking societal taboos to see beyond the present).
Dreamspeakers: Spirit (Focus: Shamanism, animism, communicating with spirits, and bridging the material world with the Umbra).
Euthanatos: Entropy (Focus: Death, fate, karma, and the necessary destruction of things to allow for new creation).
Order of Hermes: Forces (Focus: High ritual magic, Hermetic principles, and commanding the elemental energies of the universe).
Sons of Ether: Matter (Focus: "Mad science" and alternative physics, often focusing on manipulating physical objects and inventing gadgets).
Verbena: Life (Focus: Wiccan/Pagan traditions, blood magic, nature, healing, and transformation).
Virtual Adepts: Correspondence (Focus: Cybernetics, hacking reality, digital spaces, and the understanding of space and distance)

I think we managed to edit so it's clear now Jonathan and Joe are distinct. People might also start using Joe's nickname, Jove.

New post up for @eldarin and @phoenixscientist, so that I can have everyone at the same exact point in time. In case you haven't noticed the weirdness, this Emily girl is encountering all of you at the same time ...

The weird has begun!

Btw feel free to read things I tag to others, I trust player knowledge vs character knowledge. If something is private, I will correctly tag it so.

My take on this. It's quite common that students in schools share a chat with their classmates, using a chat app, like Whatsapp, or Snapchat, etc. Different classes would have their own chats. In-game, I've signaled this to be the case in two separate instances. On a side note, this could also be true of the sports teams or club you belong to, sharing a chat group together.

Not magic, just current phone apps. I opened the worldbuilding to say we're in 2025/6, (even though Mage background is set in the 90s).

@PhoenixScientist, are you feeling that this isn't realistic, since you're thinking that there's no way this is possible? Let me know your thoughts.
Real-life, I teach in a pre-college and I can confidently say that kids use their chats a lot, and big group chats exist, such as class chats with 20-30 students in them, and some of them babble incessantly. :)

Also, background-wise, I've also multiple times that you're all from the same class, and that, unless you're a new transfer, you would have known each other for four years, (or if you imagine a school system where classes change a bit every year, then at least one whole year). So you know each other for quite a while, some of you go back a long way, some of you are good friends, even very good friends, (Some are teen frenemies.) You also know other students in school, like your club friends, sports teammates, etc, and may have known them for years. This scenario is NOT a case of seven students who are meeting for the first time.

Ah I get it now. Like what are the odds that everyone happened to be checking their messages at that same moment, especially since I did describe the wifi as going off for a moment as well? Fair point, not everyone checks messages constantly, maybe that's my assumed stereotype of kids constantly whipping out their phones to take photos, check messages, playing with their phones rather than paying attention in class. I'm gonna assume only a few kids mute their notifications forever, some kids have their notifications on all the time. And when the wifi came back on, perhaps a flood of pings came in as result!

As we edit our character creation, can I invite us to think a bit on who their BFFs are, and mitigate that if you have backgrounds or flaws that suggest you are a loner with very few friends, or generally anti-social and outsider-ish.

I've written to suggest that while it's common for various student groups to have a shared chat, not every student uses it equally. It is certain though, that after an event like this, it's likely that phone notifications keep pinging throughout the hall. Students are reacting and talking, whether face to face next to each other, or instantly on text and chat, or wanting to post on social media.

Also, this scene is coming to an end once this showcase wraps up, and I will end this intro chapter. Your open-ended possible leads are:
- speak to a teacher or teachers (Marston, Corbin, Veritas, Strom, Chase, Mendes are on site or one of the teachers in your background whom you trust and confide in)
- spy on a teacher or teachers (what's Marston's staring at? why is Strom angrily texting? where is Veritas taking Daniela? where is Blackwood and why did he not make the announcement as principal? who are Necht and Nixon?)
- speak/spy with other students (Daniela? Cass? Zane? Emily's friends, Sabrina? Kirk? the absent Alex?)
- explore school premises (Minsoo has a lead, and possibly Kyle)
- somehow regroup for the first time? (you're all likely going home unless you intend to meet after school. or meet when you come to school tomorrow, have lessons as a class, or when you come back to the booths to pack up)

Excellent pre-empting KCC! You are indeed in a group together at the start of the next chapter, for reasons. Organically, plot-wise, the group chat was a chance for all of you to talk together regarding this matter for the first time (you meet at an inn! a digital one!)

So this last part of this chapter may involve people splitting up (Myra and Torrance have already gone off). I will be wrapping up by directing everyone back to their individual threads momentarily.

I see the PCs are branching off to do various things on their own, so when that happens, I'll be directing you to go back to your individual threads. If you're still in the scene, then you remain in the main thread. Hope that's not too confusing.

That's correct, we were holding a moment as things wrapped for this chapter, which closes with everyone being shooed out of school.

As a session zero, I hope this chapter gave everyone some sense of what this game will be like as we continue. As an introduction for newer players and a refresher for experienced ones, we managed to:
- get used to the central mechanic of attribute + ability die rolls
- begin to test how the magic system works (Arete number of dice, based on what Spheres you have), and more importantly, the idea of requiring or combining different Spheres for different effects

This chapter was meant to roleplay the awakening of your character, which can be momentous or subtle. For some, they are using magic even if they haven't understood it properly, for others, it's a realisation that they are doing something differently from the norm, for still others, it's a understanding that they are beginning to realise. Any one of these can be considered the process of awakening. You can also refer to the vision I offered as an indicator of awakening as well; only those who are no longer Sleepers received the vision.

Your characters are still a tad underpowered for the moment compared to regular starter PCs in Mage. That will be remedied by the end of the next chapter.

I will introduce the notion of Traditions in the next chapter, and also begin to require the need for a focus in order to use magic.

As to us speculating how much plot is dedicated to social interaction versus exploration versus combat, I can confidently say exploration will play a larger role coming up, and if there's 'combat', it'll be the chapter after.

Posting on the main thread first!

Individual counselling to follow. ;)

And I realise with so many individual stories and thread overlaps, there's a great chance some important information happens but not everyone gets to hear of it. (I'll assume the default, which is that PCs what to share the info that collectively impacts the story, unless it's private stuff). I'll try to post some summaries along the way, here, or possibly Discord because that's easy for quick summary updates.

I hear you PhoenixScientist, not to worry it wasn't a demand, more an offer to help everyone keep track.

Eg here's a bit of another clue, this one from when Wren eavesdropped on Veritas and heard something above Alex's girlfriend, and a mention of a sanatorium.

Mind+Time does make a mage think faster, or think back/forward in time, Life+Time would make a mage move faster (such as to search), Entropy+Time would make something probabilistic occur inevitably.

Maybe Torrance doesn't quite have the right combinations to do it :) But that's why there are seven of you... I did rule though that already having Time 2 gave Torrance the chance to find something in 2 minutes, especially with that good roll.

Thanks again for the patience, we're back on schedule with updates in your individual threads first.

Will now write up one for the common thread that advances things a little, even as some of your PCs finish getting grilled.

The next set piece is indeed an investigation of the Burned Wing, whenever you're ready for it, so it could very well be this very night!

Remember I'm compelled to run this partially sandboxy because all of you know the school, its people and its locations, so you're always free to talk to anyone and go anywhere. These things you do will add up to your greater knowledge of what's going on.

I will take Eldarin's suggestion to give everyone a chance to talk a bit first, before I start the next scene. Let's say you all agree to sit at the same table for lunch just to compare notes and make plans. Remember to repeat some of your findings, or if you find it easier that we assume everyone tells everyone everything, so that you don't have to keep retyping/reporting your conversations, we can handwave that in the interests of not letting PbP drag too much.

So remember, I posted some hinted threads, you can go and do those first, or do the exploration first. (Not everything needs to happen in the same day, this isn't a time-sensitive dungeon-crawl where you have to conserve spells and preserve hp. But yes, you've done some social conflict, are about to do some exploration, and there will be 'combat'.)

Already anticipating that Eldarin, when you play out your conversation over lunch, I was going to ask for one roll from each of you which represents your insight on how you might be canny about how to 'stay back' after school or to find your way around, or what the general security is like.

In addition, some of you have Chantry or Sanctuary, those might provide a place to stash yourself away in school while they lock up. Pitch me some idea of what such a place might be. This could give you a bonus on something.

Some of you have Ward. If you're staying back, you'll need a plausible explanation for them or find some way to deal with the responsibility of them. (I may need a roll depending on the number of dots in Ward.)

Quick check with @runekyndig before i continue to post, Myra is doing this in the canteen right, at the shared table among all seven of you? Or is this for later, when we get to the hall/gym, to track Emily?

Unlike V20 where you can't raise Backgrounds with xp, in M20 you can (refer the xp chart).

But if you, or anyone else, are thinking the starting ones you selected aren't really how you imagined your PC, let's talk about swapping if they haven't come to narrative play yet. I'm still open to that.

Quick on on this, if on campus, it can be one of the lesser used labs/workshops in the STEM building, maybe because it's not had the latest upgrades because it's too small or not worth upgrading. Even if it's on campus, it will still be a safe place as defined by the rules of Sanctum. Or if you don't imagine it needs to be a workshop-like place, it can be anywhere else in any of the buildings, but Kyle's managed to house things inside that allow him to tinker.

I think Torrance has Sanctum too. If the two of you want, you can metagame this if you want one to be in campus and one off campus. There might be useful in-town places for a sanctum.

Same goes for Myra and Joe with Library, The Library concept can be in school, not necessarily a home library. Think of it as having a 'Library power' worth x number of dots.

Just thinking aloud to make sure your Backgrounds are relevantly useable, rather than a number on your character sheet.

I can hint that there might've been some Gauntlet side stepping, but maybe it didn't happen in the hall/gym itself. ;)

We can treat each casting as separate. But it also seems inconvenient to roll once each for each of the Spheres you all have, that's potentially 4 to 6 rolls a player, multiplied by number of players, ie seems tedious and probably a bit draggy to keep rolling to sense something using different spheres until you hit upon something.

I think a more useful guiding principle is to ask what is it you want to find out, and then that'll determine which sphere will let you sense that, rather than to offer a bunch of rolls in the hope that one of them is relevant to see what stuff you can pick up.

Sounds like I really have to start the summary thread so that we don't lose the key details and clues spinning off from the main incidents.

But quick answer to the last question. You were thinking Torrance wanted to go back in because he wasn't done with searching through the archive room to see if there were other things to uncover. Also, Minsoo's perception of something dark and watching seems to be centred at the building. Finally, was it Myra who noted that the architecture of the building seemed off, like rooms and spaces have been shifted around.

But remember this game is part sandboxy, not a railroad, so you don't have to immediately explore the building, especially if there are more important or urgent threads to follow first.

Hmm, I could save some effort here. A general perception inside the hall amongst the students won't reveal much. Students are being efficient in packing up so they can all go home. The gossip is roughly the same as the canteen gossip, about the blackout. No one is behaving particularly suspiciously, apart from the incident that Minsoo is encountering now.

We came back to the hall/gym because some of you wanted to investigate further, and this did yield some insights for Myra, Joe, Wren, Kyle and Minsoo.

But it looks like most of you are done and beginning to split up, which is why I asked if anyone else wanted to do anything here.

Thanks for pointing in the right direction where the map is!

Next point, a revision primer on Willpower. Your starting Willpower is your permanent value. (It can be increased with xp later). Using Willpower deducts from that. There will be occasions to replenish your Willpower, such as when you live up to your Nature, and you always regain 1 Willpower each day after sleep. Some events cause you to gain, or lose, Willpower. (We had one of those already!)

Also a reminder on Quintessence, which can be used to reduce the difficulty of roles. Am reminding everyone of these two quantities because we're getting to the stage where you will need more successes to accomplish things; sometimes you can't succeed unless you use these two values judiciously. Many of the rolls thus far have only required 1 success because you've largely been using powers to affect oneself, such as using various hypersenses. To being to affect others, 2 or more successes might be required.

Just signaling ahead. :)

Looks like I can be wrapping up day two, once people are done with their after school activities. Not rushing anyone, because some of the things that are happening are pretty crucial for character development. Just letting you know I do have day 3 lined up. Day 3 and 4 are relatively quieter days, but I trust that some of you will make things happen!

I think coach is waiting on a reply from Minsoo though, sounds like he wants to know if Minsoo will open up to him or not.

Oh shoot, I had a bunch of posts I thought I had posted some days ago for the various threads, and was waiting for replies. Just realised they didn't go through for some reason, yikes, and here I was waiting on everyone else. Sorry, lemme reconstruct those posts!

Thanks for everyone's patience and understanding. Hope the break didn't lose us too much. I will add to the timeline and critical plot points thread in a moment so that we don't lose track of some necessary details, and just updated our threads so the story can proceed.

I like the fact that at this point, the PCs have chosen three distinct ways to discover who and why they are: one is by digging through the books, another by looking for a mentor, the third is to speak with family. All three will uncover certain truths linked to the character development part of the game which will explain the plot part of the game: how come a whole bunch of newly awakened teens are in the same school, what kind of school is it, why your parents are absent or ignorant about your abilities, and what dangerous circumstances this awakening brings to everyone.

We're still largely playing out individual goals and threads at this end of day two, so continue to pursue those in the various threads until you're satisfied with what you can conceivably cover. The 'plot' doesn't move until we start day three, so let me know when you're done.

Thanks for the solid thoughts on how character development happens in this game.

I guess in most games, it's pretty typical that players would start by picking a Tradition that appeals and build their concept around it. Interestingly, in earlier editions of Mage, each Tradition had one affinity Sphere attached to it, so the Akashics are all about the Mind, the Cult of Ecstasy gets Time, etc (look at the first Sphere on each of the listed Traditions in the other thread). It's all very WoD. And I did think it makes for a samey-sameyness.

My invitation this game was to try to see if we could organically arrive at which Tradition your character might end up learning from, as they generally wouldn't even know what Traditions are in the first place. To do that, I was hoping to see how your characters play out, like what do they think magic is, what magic do they resort to more, and those choices draw them to respective Traditions.

So using Wren as an example, if her focus is music-based, and she is very reliant on tapping into the energies of the world, and she is always able to tune into all the phenomena around her, that does sound like something the Celestial Chorus might do, as opposed to let's say something like Dreamspeakers. Whereas KCC might be seeing Minsoo as more of a physically-focussed type (discussion in the other thread), maybe Akashic? And Kyle's been constantly science-y to see digital patterns, so maybe Sons of Ether? (although he hasn't used Matter much, which is super useful for this).

I think what sometimes gets in the way is Mage's over-written lore of the 90s, down to their names, I mean Cult of Ecstasy or Celestial Chorus, really? :P Makes them sound like hippies and religious apostles respectively. I think we can try to divest some of that lore, while still picking them as a Tradition. (ThetaSigma's point is that we can strip out those bits.) The game has alternate names for traditions just to circumvent this problem, so the Dreamspeakers are Khavadi, the Euthanatos are Chakravanti, etc.

I wanted to invent a bunch of 20 Questions to help us find our Tradition. Eg
Do you prefer to use your body or your mind when solving a problem?
Do you focus on the origins of something or the outcomes of something?
Do you try to affect a thing or the situation surrounding that thing?
What is more relevant to you, time or space?

You get my drift.

You know, I've reached a stage where sometimes I forget whether I posted something, or think I did when I didn't, or think I was editing something but it became something else altogether!

Anyway, good suggestion. Day Two night was certainly meant to devolve into after school individual threads so that everyone could catch up on personal goals. But we definitely have some adventure together directions still to pursue:

Main plots that connect:
1. Still need to coordinate whether you want to go after Emily, now that you have her trail from the hall (Joe and Myra), through the field (Minsoo), and out of campus (Kyle).

2. The counselling centre still has the heebie-jeebies. Torrance peeked at some files, but we didn't raid the place after that.

3a. The school has one or two more critical locations to discover that's relevant, eg the black room Myra saw, and the unknown symbol.
3b. Uncover more of the critical tensions in the school. Who's on whose side!

4. Find and save Daniela! And/or Alex Vance! (And why does the Headmaster have the same surname as Blackwood Sanatorium)

Side plots that connect:
1. Your parents! (Thanks Wren for discovering that first)
2. Find your Tradition and/or a master to guide you. (Minsoo's closest at this point)

Btw, once you get the Tradition, you can level up to Arete 3, xp permitting.

I'd rewind a bit to take in the counter-magic rules from the start (still p545, left column).

Countermagic works on the principle that you know what Sphere is being used to produce the magic, becaus you possess the same Sphere and can therefore attempt to 'undo' the effect. Somewhat similar to the rules for opposed rolls, the successes in your roll could be used to offset the successes in your opponent's roll.

Anti-magic (which is an optional rule) takes this one step further. Instead of using the same Sphere, one could just use Prime to oppose the magic being cast, by making it more difficult to cast, at the cost of Quintessence. This is the rule you screenshotted.

A third option is Unweaving (the next section on the same page, also optional), which uses Prime + the relevant Sphere. Because you have the relevant Sphere, it doesn't have to cost Quintessence.

I like the explanatory rationale for these rules, the logic behind them makes sense. Mages should be able to counter or undo magic. Even noob mages like our PCs might intuitively try to 'push back' with the same sphere or with Prime when they see something happening, eg a blast of fire comes your way, you call up some water, makes total sense.

In practice as a Storyteller I've also found this incredibly boring narratively. Someone casts something, I roll to negate, ad infinitum. (Sorry for the D&D reference, but imagine unlimited Counterspells. There goes all magic actions. A party of PCs can keep taking turns to roll against magic. A party of NPCs can keep taking turns to roll against any magic the PCs create. Occasionally a spell gets through, but by and large not much happens.)

I think countermagic makes the most sense in the context of PC vs NPC magical duels, if and when they happen. Unweaving magic makes the most sense if PCs encounter some magic they need to 'solve'. Anti-magic makes the most sense if the context is about the reality of magic, ie magic is loose and you're trying to snuff it out. In these contexts let's use all the rules. But otherwise, if you want to respond to someone's magic with magic of your own, give it a narrative sense of what's happening, rather than 'I roll to counter'. Hope this makes sense.

Btw, Lockwood Manor isn't that well protected as a Chantry as yet, it's a 2 dot Chantry, so rules-wise it'll either have 2 dice or a +2 for something, depending on what we're doing. The presence of you mages inside can add to its defense, based on whatever is relevant from your own Backgrounds.

Winding down the threads in preparation for the next chapter. Loose ends at the Lockwood house is all. Minsoo's and Jonathan's personal quests are kinda done for now.

Will have a new chapter up over the weekend! And also a summary sheet to keep all the important details refreshed (no one needs to try join the dots across all the individual threads, that's too hard!)