02-26-2014, 06:03 AM | #11 | |
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: West Virginia
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Re: GURPS M:tA
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The Ecstatics want to liberate everyone now. They just want to be careful about it. They believe that the path of joy and wonder is the road to the liberation of all souls in the universe. They get that they need to be careful, but they want to keep the path to spiritual freedom always availible for as many as possible.
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02-26-2014, 02:01 PM | #12 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Seattle, WA USA
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Re: GURPS M:tA
So, then, the only thing that really distinguishes the Euthanatos is that they have an unfailingly correct foreknowledge of the right time and circumstance for someone to die? That's actually a pretty good idea and gives me a couple of ways to approach them. They might seem better suited to NPCs, though.
Still trying to get a handle on the CoX, but the idea of sex, drugs, rock 'n' roll, wine, women, and song is a pretty good lead. |
02-26-2014, 03:20 PM | #13 | ||
Join Date: Aug 2004
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Re: GURPS M:tA
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• The Cyberpunks are hardware freaks, and are often riddled with cybernetic implants every bit as much as Iteration X Technocrats are. They deal primarily with Forces effects. • Cypherpunks are masters of mind magic: think “GURPS Horror: the Madness Dossier”, with a mastery of neuro-linguistics that allows them to use sensory impressions to rewire the brain. • Chaoticians are VAs who are masters of prediction: in mystical terms, they use digital phenomena as a means of divination — and sometimes they get proactive and set up “feedback loops” that let them alter said digital phenomena in a way that alters the prediction, altering the future and giving rise to what more traditional mages call blessings and curses. Which brings us to: • The Reality Coders are technomages who create digital simulations of reality, invoke the mystical Law of Similarity to link their simulations to the things being simulated, and then edit the simulation, causing the changes they make to be echoed in the thing being simulated. For instance, an expert in Life magic could use this technique to modify a creature’s genetic code to cause mutations; or an expert in Forces could model a weather system and then edit it to generate (or prevent) a thunderstorm. An expert in Matter could model a lump of coal and then restructure the model to one representing a diamond, or carbon nanotubes. And so on. • The Nexplorers are the “netrunner” VAs who operate in the Digital Web; they’re the ones who work their magic to manipulate computers. That’s one alt out of five… Note that these aren’t mutually exclusive categories; any VA could dabble in any of these areas. These are merely the areas that each alt is best known for. So yes, there are VAs for whom something like Machine Telepathy might be appropriate; but I wouldn’t want to reduce the whole Tradition to just that. Quote:
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BTW: for any Tradition that you’d consider modeling with GURPS Powers, I would strongly recommend allowing the player to make liberal use of the “Using Abilities at Default” optional rule: a hallmark of every variety of magic in Mage: the Ascension is the versatility of the mage. Likewise, I’d recommend the Ritual Magic variant on regular magic instead of the buy-every-spell-as-a-separate-skill approach, for much the same reason. And “cinematic skill” types should probably get the Wild Talent Advantage (limited to cinematic skills) to give them some ability to improvise. In short: every magic system that you consider, you should look for whatever rules exist for allowing the magician to improvise. |
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02-26-2014, 04:11 PM | #14 |
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Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Forest Grove, Beaverton, Oregon
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Re: GURPS M:tA
Ether science is TL^, as in that universe all TLs above present day, whatever that may be, is ^. The main difference being that technocratic TLs prefer to be TL 8+X^ rather than other unique variations.
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02-26-2014, 04:47 PM | #15 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
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Re: GURPS M:tA
There’s some truth to that — though Ether Science is even more “all over the map” than merely “all TLs above the present day”: for instance, there were Etherites into Steampunk before it was a thing. And there’s still the “Occult Mechanics” bit; though admittedly Fantasy-Tech 1 covers some of that.
But I contend that calling Ether Science “TL^” doesn’t buy you anything useful, as it gives you no practical guidelines as to what an Etherite can or can’t do. M:tA, at least, had the Spheres to provide some useful guidelines. The other issue with using Gadgeteering to represent the Sons of Ether is that it only deals with inventing gadgets; unless you go really lenient with the rules and allow a Gadgeteer to invent a process or a theory, there are still things that Etherites ought to be able to do that Gadgeteer doesn’t cover. |
02-26-2014, 05:08 PM | #16 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Seattle, WA USA
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Re: GURPS M:tA
Now we seem to be getting somewhere!
I think that you are underestimating the amount of work that can be dumped on the players. Specifically, here, if a player wanting to play an Etherite wants to have some wildly variant tech (and I had forgotten about Weird Science, which should definitely be added into their options), then give them the job and opportunity to write it up, subject to GM approval. Regarding the VAs, I can see that (remember that I haven't read the splatbooks, so most of that stuff is new to me), and if a player wanted to do that stuff, I'd work with them to figure out ways to cover it. In regard to the point that a VA could study beyond their little sub-"genre", as it were, that brings up the idea that any PC could, potentially, develop multiple "paradigms" and pick up advantages, powers, or skills from more than one Tradition, a potential advantage of using GURPS over the less flexible WW system. Plus, that cybernetics stuff really looks like the VAs aren't as removed from the Technocrats as they want everyone to believe (which, actually, is probably a thread I'd follow: there is an increasingly large set of former cyberpunks in the real world who, like Jaron Lanier, have come to believe that the computer revolution has been completely subverted to the purposes of Power, though I am oversimplifying the position they express, and they make some good points). |
02-26-2014, 06:40 PM | #17 | ||||
Join Date: Aug 2004
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Re: GURPS M:tA
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I think it’s also worth pointing out that in the oWoD, the magic of the Awakened isn’t the only game in town. There are other kinds of magic (collectively referred to as “Sorcery” or “Hedge Magic”) that aren’t rooted in the premise that magic is an extension of the mage. Instead, they depend on properties inherent to the world itself (commonly referred to as “mythic threads”); and the Sorcerers who practice these arts do so by binding themselves to these mythic threads and then learning how to go about manipulating them. If I was doing MtA in GURPS 4e, the sorts of things that you’re suggesting are exactly how I’d handle the various Sorceries. I’d also point out that the various Sorceries overlap in no small part with the various paradigms of the Awakened, to the point that it takes a discerning eye to tell the difference; some have even theorized that the Awakened paradigms created the mythic threads that are at the heart of the Sorceries (though there’s no proof of that, and it may merely be the infamous hubris of the Awakened to make that claim). This is part of what I was going for when I talked about each paradigm getting suitable rules modifications through Style Perks, and was also the reason behind my suggestion that every paradigm be given a “Power Limitation” that captures the shortcomings inherent in that paradigm. To illustrate what I have in mind: • The Order of Hermes doesn’t practice spell magic as defined in GURPS Magic; but there are sorcerers in the setting who do; and because the Hermetic paradigm uses the Magic Power Modifier, wizards of the Order deal with many of the same issues that “Hermetic sorcerers” have to deal with, such as fluctuating mana levels. So it can be tricky at times to distinguish a Hermetic mage from a Hermetic sorcerer. Matters are even messier in that members of the Order of Hermes aren’t prevented from learning and using the spells of Hermetic sorcerers; indeed, the same Magery that acts like a Power Talent for them also serves as an enabler for regular spell magic. It’s just that this option is rarely pursued because study of the Realms is so much more effective than learning spells one by one. Likewise, both types of Hermetics find it useful to study Thaumatology — though the Awakened ones arguably get more use out of the skill than the Sleeper ones do. • The Dreamspeakers’ Spirit-based paradigm means that they don’t have to worry about fluctuating mana levels the way that the Order of Hermes does; but they do have to worry about appeasing the spirits, and they depend on Ritual Magic. They coexist with “Sleeper shamans” who practice a type of Path Magic reminiscent of the magic system found in Voodoo: the Shadow War: Ritual Magic as the core skill; five or six Paths (including Spirit, Health, and Nature; probably also including two or three of Luck, Protection, Knowledge, and Dreams); the need for long rituals, sacred space, and ritual symbols; etc. And the Dreamspeakers’ own powers, while definitely a cut above those of the Sleeper shamans, resemble them in several ways. And so on. Quote:
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Heck, that’s true (albeit to a somewhat lesser extent) of every Tradition: the Ascension War isn’t about what form magic should take; it’s about what you should do with it. |
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02-27-2014, 12:05 PM | #18 | ||
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: West Virginia
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Re: GURPS M:tA
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Euthanatos tend to see serial killers, child molesters, serial rapists, and similar types as living dead people. They would desire to liberate them from a failed life in such a way as to clean their karma, that they might be born to better lives. This need not involve killing them, exposing their crimes and getting them tried and convicted might do just as well. Similarly, people who are brain dead and on life support are also seen as living dead. They also require liberation. Sometimes this is death, other times it's healing. Euthanatos are more likely to kill, but as servants of fate, they don't do so lightly nor would anyone who does so by preference be acceptable to the Euthanatos. For any Euthanatos, killing a sophant being is a terrible burden and a horrible thing to do. It is a burtal punishment to be requiered to kill. but they face the punishment that others may avoid worse horrors. Note: The Euthatos can't stand creeps who get off on martyrdom. Quote:
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Per Ardua Per Astra! Ancora Imparo Last edited by Astromancer; 02-27-2014 at 12:13 PM. |
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02-27-2014, 09:59 PM | #20 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Seattle, WA USA
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Re: GURPS M:tA
Well, now I feel like I have a better handle on their philosophies, but have lost any idea of their magic.
Perhaps I'll come back to this when I can present what I'm trying to do in a more coherent fashion. To me, it seems as though much of the discussion here has ended up moving the idea in a direction very different than I'd intended. I've been calling this other direction "simulating the WW game" when I describe it to myself, and that's not exactly what I was hoping to do. Since that's what more than one person seems to want to do, though, it is clear that I am failing at communicating my intention. Sadly, I think that any attempt to further elucidate my original intent will appear as being merely argumentative. Anyway, given what I had originally thought and some of the changes in that thinking that develop from the excellent conversation here, I think I have enough. I can just remove the CoX and Euthanatos from what I work up. Thank you for all of your help. |
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mage, mage the ascension, magic, powers, psionic powers, thaumatology |
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