I started on v5 and one thing that I missed when looking back at older editions was the flattening of all difficulty numbers to 6. I'm really not a fan of having two different difficulty scales, success thresholds AND difficulty numbers. But i don't want to fuck up the dice maths, is there a simple way to convert between +/- difficulty to +/- success threshold?
"Welcome to part 174 of Sphere Mixers! This where we randomly choose two Spheres and two Ranks and brainstorm ideas for...
•••• Complex Transmutation
Complex and radical transformations now become possible, especially with the addition of other Spheres. Pumpkins can be changed into carriages (Life 2), people into thrones (Life 5), cars into robots (combinations of Forces and Prime), or thin air into banquets, so long as the mage doesn’t mind racking up a little (or a lot…) of Paradox. Different principles can be combined in complicated ways, creating cybernetic machines or electrified gold. Complicated devices (guns, cars, computers) may be conjured out of empty space if the mage understands the principles behind such things (in game terms, possesses the proper Abilities). As usual, though, complicated creations demand extended rituals and many successes.
•••• Expel or Infuse Energy / Tap Wellspring / Craft Tass & Permanent Wonders
The terrible power of draining Quintessence from objects or forces (though not yet from living things) can disintegrate those targets, consume them in Primal flames, or decay them almost instantly. Reversing that flow, the mage can craft objects that cannot be broken, or bond organic and inorganic materials together to create cybernetic implants, nanotech, and other Wonders. At this stage, she is able to enchant items permanently and draw Quintessence from the energetic Wellsprings of exciting events. By infusing her personal Quintessence into a Periapt, the mage might use Matter 4 to craft a Soulgem: a portable vessel that’s filled with her own Resonance and energy.
Previous Mixers: Check out our wiki page for past Sphere Mixers; feel free to go back and add your new ideas."
I'm looking through Mage right now because I'm trying to figure out the dice math, and I want to benefit from the experience of those lucky enough to have played:
First, is casting high level (highest sphere 5 or so) vulgar with witnesses nearly impossible? 'Cause if the difficulty is 9 or 10, even max Arete will barely help you do more than augment your senses, which isn't really vulgar anyway.
If so, how do you do that? Just stack quintessence or work near a node? Just wondering if I'm getting this right and witnesses are thematically supposed to make magick SUPER hard.
Second, what level of Mage does the typical game assume? 5th edition, being street level, assumes and balances around neophyte characters (except maybe Hunter?). What about Mage 20th? Because if a starting mage at creation has 1-3 Arete, then they're rolling 3 dice and probably aren't doing anything more impressive than 2-success feats, which are...fairly tame once you incorporate range, targets, damage, and duration.
New to the lore and got to thinking this very question.
If MK Ultra isn’t stated in lore, what’s your interpretation of it inside the world of Mage?
Hey everyone!
I'm looking to join a Mage: The Ascension table and hopefully find a group I can stick with long-term.
A little about me: I'm 22 years old and relatively new to the World of Darkness universe. While I haven't had much direct experience playing WoD games, I've been an enthusiast of the setting and its lore for quite some time. Mage immediately caught my attention when I first discovered it, and I fell in love with the system's themes, philosophies, and the endless possibilities created by different paradigms and beliefs.
I enjoy roleplay-heavy games and love exploring a setting through my character's perspective. Learning about the world, interacting with its factions, and discovering its nuances are some of my favorite parts of tabletop RPGs.
For me, part of the fun comes from a character's flaws and mistakes. I'm the kind of player who enjoys leaning into those imperfections rather than trying to play the most optimal or successful character possible. I think failures, bad decisions, and personal struggles often create the most memorable stories and add a lot of depth to a character.
A few other things about me:
My availability is generally:
I'm somewhat flexible depending on the group's schedule.
Overall, I'm looking for a friendly group that doesn't mind having an enthusiastic newcomer to Mage around. I'm eager to learn, roleplay, explore the setting, and hopefully create some great stories together.
If you have an open spot or know a group that might be a good fit, feel free to reach out!
Hello everyone fellow mages and technocrats I was wondering if there’s any local games in the Austin Round Rock area. I have a bunch of the books as ebooks and I mind walking through character creation. Have a good day and week to everyone who reads this.
Disclaimer: I've never played Mage, I've never read a rulebook, I've never even seen a Mage: The Ascension rulebook in person, I've absorbed information on the game and setting through osmosis and Norfolk Wizard Game.
As I understand things technology is basically just magic that's been normalized and "explained" to sleepers to the degree that it no longer triggers paradox. The architects and enforcers of that normalcy, the Technocracy, will bend and even break their own rules but only do so in ways that "fit" the vibe of being hyper-advanced technology rather than magic (Hyper-science or something).
Couldn't a sufficiently canny player mage pull the same trick with a big enough bag of gadgets, quick wits and sleight of hand. Turning a wallet full of dud credit cards into all-access keycards, turning tazers into lightning guns, making medicine out of sugar water, poisons out of placebos, making bullet proof vests out of leather jackets, universal IDs out of a sufficiently official looking forgeries, glocks full of blanks turning into explosive armor piercing rounds, fire extinguishers into foamcrete sprayers, hacking devices out of corner store tablets and cables.
Like theoretically you could turn every conspiracy theory black site tech into reality with a sufficiently convincing looking doohickey you built out of scrap, thrift store leather and toilet rolls, surely?
"Welcome to part 173 of Sphere Mixers! This where we randomly choose two Spheres and two Ranks and brainstorm ideas for...
••• Transmute Minor Forces / Telekinetics / The Dragon’s Touch
Now the mage can alter and invoke the energies she could only touch before. By adding Prime 2, she may conjure winds, fire, electricity, gravitational wells, and so forth. Combining this Rank with Life or Matter, she can transform people into electricity (Life 5/ Forces 3); change water into air (Forces 3/ Matter 3), or attach elemental force to material forms – making them fly, pinning them to the ground, and having other, similar effects (generally with Life or Matter 3). And by adding an ephemeral Sphere to this Rank, she might erode or enhance energies (Entropy 3); manifest thoughts into energies (Mind 3); transmute spirit-stuff into physical energies (Spirit 3); or set triggers for energy fluctuations at some later interval (Time 4).
At this Rank, the scale of effect grows larger, now encompassing several dozen yards or a handful of characters.
••••• Forge Ephemera / Gilgul / Break the Dreamshell
The Spirit Master is now able to command ephemera itself, creating, challenging, and destroying spirit matter as he Wills. With such power, he may craft Realms, imbue or drain a spirit of Essence, instill a soul within an empty shell of Life or Matter, and bestow the awful sentence of Gilgul – the destruction of a mage’s Avatar. Such powers are always vulgar and feature devastating consequences even when the mage succeeds.
This power also allows the mage to break the Dreamshell and venture beyond the Horizons, wandering into the Deepest of Umbrae. Such tasks demand at least 10 successes, but a courageous Master can travel as far as his soul wants to go.
Previous Mixers: Check out our wiki page for past Sphere Mixers; feel free to go back and add your new ideas."
Seeking 4 to 6 players for an upcoming campaign for MAGE the Ascension . All you need is Dice, character sheets which i can provide. Gurps 3e Core the Gurps MAGE core books. we will be playing Via Microsoft teams with video/voice and games will be recorded. Comment or message if interested
Earlier I was looking for inspiration for an “MtA” feel to a setting and a couple of people mentioned watching films. One that struck me as odd at first but maybe isn’t that odd given the setting was The Matrix.
I found myself later on thinking of films that make me think “MtA.”
I immediately thought of the underrated film “Lord of Illusions” with Scott Bacula.
What other films, or any pieces of media, are good inspirations?
I am looking for some actual play podcasts to get a sense of what a MtA campaign actually looks like as I am pretty much brand new to most WoD games and most of my knowledge is of VtM
From my understanding of the mechanics and the general lore, reality is set in place by sleepers, this forms as consensus. Reality doesn't like being messed with, this forms as paradox which then whiplash on the mage.
If you were to convince a group of people that magic is real, or at the very least that you can cast magic, would that cause for less paradox to be generated while within their vicinity? If I were to convince ~20 people that I am a holy figure and started a cult, would it generate paradox if I began openly altering reality in front of them?
If I have understood the Mind 5 effects, a mage can rewrite a person's mind and memories. I understand that getting a 5th dot is difficult but why doesn't an archmage start altering minds en Masse to bring magic back? Or would that cause too much of a tear in reality if different people believed in different consensuses?
Maybe, this is an oversight on my part, but I'm not finding the timing in which players declare their combat actions in the book. All it says is that characters who rolled a higher Initiative go first. If I'm not mistaken, however, this only specifies when the action is resolved (when the dice is rolled), not when each action should be declared.
I thought maybe players declare their actions at the beginning of their turn in initiative order, but this doesn't make sense with the rule that states a character can change his action (if he hasn't performed an action yet) to a Defensive Maneuver by spending a Willpower point/succeeding a Willpower check. If declaration really happened just prior to execution, then this rule would be completely unnecessary.
So that leaves me with the idea that characters declare their actions right after initiative is rolled, in initiative order. I know that in other X20 games, the order of declaration is opposite of the initiative order, but I'm not sure if this applies to M20.
So my first question is 1) What exactly are the RAW? and 2) What rules do you personally prefer/recommend?
Another question of mine is about the 3 phases of combat (Attack, Defense and Damage). Does the Defense Phase start only after every attacked is rolled, or does each attack roll result in a different Defense Phase which then results in a Damage Phase (if the attack hits)?
In other words: 3) Are there multiple attack/defense/damage phases per turn, or only one instance of each phase per turn, in which all attacks, all defenses and all damages are calculated within a single phase?
Greetings, Awakened Ones. I’ve been in love with the Mage setting for years—whether as a player or a GM, I think it’s my favorite narrative game. However, I have a question for those of you who know the game best
I’m playing a Celestial Chorister with Arete 3, Cardinal 3, Life 3, and Forces 2. What effect do you recommend for recovering quintessence without using a node or tass? (My GM has been very strict about that so far.)
I look forward to your comments.
MtA is the one mainline game from WoD that I never really got into. I’ve collected the M20 books (and the quick start), then I decided to get the Truth Beyond Paradox collection of short stories, figuring that might help me grasp the world. I also went and got an older Las Vegas setting book to see how a city looks through the lens of MtA.
I’ve thumbed through the books and the Las Vegas book. I admittedly haven’t started the Truth Beyond Paradox stories yet. But I was wondering if people have any other recommendations to understand what the world of MtA is like?
For Vampire it’s incredibly easy because there are so many setting splats, then interactive novels and games and such, so a person starts putting together a mental picture of what the world “should” look like. Same with Werewolf.
I don’t know why MtA is different for me. I understand the “tools in the box” (I know what antagonists exist to pull from for sources of tension, I know about Ascension War tensions), but taking those tools and putting them together into a setting in which to run a Chronicle seems difficult to me. I would ask “is this what that stuff is supposed to come together like? Beats me.”
Now I get that at the end of the day “is it fun?” is the most important question. But I do want to understand it so if I play with other people they get a Chronicle that feels like the world they expect from MtA.
Other than reading the fiction, and basically the one setting book I could find (Las Vegas), any other ideas to resolve this sense of being unsure about it? Other than finding veterans and playing in one of their games of course, I wish I had more time 😅
"Welcome to part 172 of Sphere Mixers! This where we randomly choose two Spheres and two Ranks and brainstorm ideas for...
• Sense Life
Basic Life knowledge allows a person to read the presence and health of nearby life-forms. With such knowledge, the mage can discern a living being’s age, sex, and overall health. By combining those perceptions with other Spheres, he can also sense distant organisms (Correspondence 2), guess their potential for sickness or misfortune (Entropy 1), perceive them through past or future states (Time 2), or read the streams of Quintessence that bind them to the universe (Prime 1).
••••• Control Subconscious / Forge Psyche / Untether Consciousness
A true Mind Master commands not only his own conscious but other minds as well. He may alter someone’s mind forever, raising (or lowering) her Traits, rewriting her personality, changing her Nature Trait, or (with Life 4) switching her mind into another body. He can do the same things to his own mind as well, and he can untether that mind to explore the deeper reaches of astral space for hours or even days at a time. His greatest power, though, is the ability to fabricate entire consciousnesses, creating minds where no mind had been before.
Previous Mixers: Check out our wiki page for past Sphere Mixers; feel free to go back and add your new ideas."
The one series that comes the closest to MTA, as far as i know, is To Aru Majutsu no Index (A Certain Magical Index), since the main factions are essentially the Technocracy (Academy City) and the Traditions (The Catholic and Protestant Church).
What other series do you think that have a nice MTA vibe, and could serve as inspiration for characters and stories?
How are you all handling surpassing instruments in m20? I'm earlier additions when it was 1-1 for spheres it was a little easier to explain to players. But in m20, where you have several to choose from in line with your practice at any time, how do you represent moving beyond them.
Do you just leave it as if you use this instrument you don't need anymore You get -1. So, for example, my mage now has arete 3. He uses guttermagic as a practice and has just moved beyond needing to use playing cards as an instrument. They were his least used tool. Now, he is casting an effect targeting multiple people. He still uses mirrors and symbols but decides to represent each person as a royal card. The inclusion of the cards on top of his other instruments give him-1.
My idea is to instead house rule it as with each level of instrument it represents a level of effect you can cast without the need instea. E.g. at arete 3, you can cast sphere one sensory effect without instruments.. This would make instrument free casting by 8. Maybe start at arete 4 instead, which would bring the move beyond instruments to 9 like the traditional method.
Not that I have ever had a character get past 6.