Quote:
Originally Posted by sir_pudding
(c) If the Wyrm was sane, then its followers might have a clear message but it isn't. Is illness evil? They have decay, and destruction to offer, but as I said, that may be necessary. The WoD is doomed, and they are the maggots chewing on the wounds, hastening the inevitable.
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I think this probably sums up why I've been having trouble with it.
It seems to me that it might be said that I want to run a Mage campaign, but I actually don't want to run a World of Darkness campaign. In fact, the oWoD doesn't tempt me much as an imaginative construct. I love Mage; I find Wraith appealing and would really like to run it someday; I've played Changeling and had fun, but wouldn't run it; I'm not tempted by Werewolf; I really, really don't think I could stand to play Vampire, let alone run it. A world that's designed as a framework for all five has elements that I'd rather avoid.
What I like about Mage is, first, that it's a conceptual exploration of the idea that reality is subjective; second, that in many ways it's really a superhero game without the capes; third, that it has a brilliant system for improvisational magic, one of the best I've ever used (the one in Buffy the Vampire Slayer rivals it). And I have fond memories of Hong Kong Shadows, a campaign set in Hong Kong right after the Chinese took it back, with three Wu Lung, a Wu-keng, an Akashic Brother, and a Virtual Adept who kept running into each other. None of those things that I like seems to be helped by the gnostic idea of a world of illusion and imprisonment, nor by the metaphysics of Weaver/Wyrm/Wild; and my campaign didn't make any use of them, but built on ideas more specific to Mage—in fact, on mid-range ideas that grew more out of history than out of cosmology and metaphysics.
Now, I'm not criticizing anyone who wants to do the other thing. I'm just using M:tA in a way that strikes my fancy.