Narrativist Mages

[Bailywolf]

OK, we did it for vampires... so how about mages?  

Ron has pretty much created the definitive 'what will you do for power' game... and his sorcerers have such a particular mojo, I think we can work something that doesn't poach on his property (besides, I'd hate to try and justify my presense there to Ron's grounds keeper...).

OK, my premise.

I tried to avoid the scheming politics thing with the vamps- it's been done- and keep it as personal as possible.

By the same token, I want to angle at the modern magic user from a different angle than has been done by the major publishers.

So my basic thoughts:

> No Unified Magical Theory:  I tend to dislike Big Answers.  I find them too pat; and like those of the madly complex mundane world, rarely acurate.  The question of "What is Magic?" must be answered for each character, and each answer is lliteraly true.  No competion between paradigmes; magic works as one understands it to work.  Why this is so falls under the heading of Things You Don't Know Which Should Disturb You.

> Magicians must live In The World:  before becoming magicians, these people were human first.  They had culture, belief, character flaws, hopes, dreams, fears, and misconceptions.  They have familiy, friends, pets, a job, and all the other normal touchstones with the world.  If a magician looses touch with these mundane anchors, he will simply fade away into the mythic otherworld.  Here you have the internal dynamic; a magician looses all of his anchors, and he simply can't focus on reality anymore.

> Magicians are Channels:  Through a magician's actions, his life, his perceptions and ideas, the human world is invigorated with the strange.  This vital chaos flows through a magician synchronosly enrich the mundane lives aroound them... they are magical people, almost more real and alive than anything else.  Elvis had the mojo.

> Magicians live intresting lives:  inherent in their nature, magicians become the center of bizare echos of coincodence, circumstance, and strangeness.  These ripples become more profound as a magician grows in power.  This is a built in event-generation mechanic.

> Magicians seek like company:  Why do we spend hours scribbling notes for new game systems that will only ever be seen by our fellow scribblers here on the Forge?  We have esoteric passions.  Magicians do likewise.  They will seek the companionship of the only people who can understand them.

> Other Things seek the service of magicians:  whether it's Cuthulu's ugly older borther, or the Metatron Voice of God; the esoteric mythical creatures inhabiting the hidden corners of reality know that Magicians are the only humans able to concieve of them in literal terms instead of moderating their understandings through culture or metaphore.  Magicians are also shamans by default; they must moderate between the mundane world and the Other world.


Basicly, magicans must serve as intermediaries between the mundane world and the magical world, living in both, but being of neither.


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OK, above are my operant concepts.  Now a good solid Premise.

This isn't a game about power.  The magical powers are incidental.  This is a game about Duty.  About Responsibility.  So the question might well be, "Can you live up to your responsibilities?".    Kinda hits home.

A natural fissure can erupt here between those shamans/magicians who sherk their responsibilities and go for self undulgence.  They use their magic powers for fun and profit, send their supernatural servents out to harass the tax man, and get chicks with mind control.  Bastards.

Another fissurure occurs when a magician's loyalties fall out of ballance.  Shamans who ignore the needs of their human charges to see to the every whim of their supernatural patron become cats paws and pawns, while those who ignore their patron's needs and indulge in humanity will anger the great Powers.  

Ballance is everything.

And the conflicts that can erupt between shamans who's patrons and charges have wildly different agendas... history is full of clashes of politics, ideology, and mysticism.  When the Spanish put the Americas to the sword, their mystical Christian shamans fought it out with the less-well united indiginous magicians.  


OK, so the premise evolves.  Not simply, can you hanle you responsibilities, but can you ballance your responsibilities against one another?



***********************

System.  Yall know how much I dig this stuff, but I'll keep it easy here and just hijack the basic stats and resolution mechancs I postulated for the narative vamp game:

Attributes

Vitality:  physical stuff
Awareness: mental stuff
Resolve: strength of will and connection to the mundane world.

Aspects

Creatures:  the supernatural beings in your service.  You have one being in your service for each point of Creatures you possess.  The power of such creatures will depend on this aspect's total rating, and each creature will have one or two signature supernatural abilities, as well as mundane attributes.  Each creature should recieve special attention when created, but need not be defined before play begins.  If you have undefined creatures, you may at any time during play define one.  Once described, assigned personality and abilities, creatures are thereafter fixed.  If slain, you loose a point from this Aspect, in some measure weakening all your creatures.  

Arcana: your magical powers.  Make up a magical power for each point of Arcana you possess.  It will usualy require an Attribute roll of some kind to use, and it's effects will depend on the description and on your total Arcana rating.  The power to move objects with mental force, to travel astraly, to read minds, to kill with a glance, to levitate, to transmute matter, to change shape, to bless or curse, to heal, to speak with the dead, to raise undead, to conjure flame, to shape darkness, to animate plants etc.  

Patron: the power of your patron entity/god/spirit.  You may Invoke your patron to aid you.  You may then take a bonus in dice equal to your Patron rank, you may request one miracle which is within the power of your patron to grant (such as instant transport from a god of spacetime, or resurection of a loved one from a god of life or death), or you may ask any one question which your patron will answer truthfuly (in whatever means it is able; generaly through visions and dreams... you can't expect Azothoth, the Great Gibberer At The Center of The Universe to just show up and say "hey, dude... I don't think she'll do out with you..."

Anchors

you have 1 anchor for every point of Resolve.  This is something that ties you especialy tightly to mundane reality.  It could be "I love Dogs" or "My Family is Everything" or "I hate republicans" or "Have to Pay the Rent" or whatever.   Discovery of an enemy mage's Anchors and the destruction there of plays a major roll in magical war.

Your Aspects also represent the temptation and dangers of power.

Creatures causes Hubris:  the more supernatural beings of power who obey your will, the easier it is to let your ego get the batter of you.  Resisted with Awareness.

Arcana creates Ripples:  When you use your powers, you risk creating Ripples.  These are events, circumstances, and situations which arise to complicate your life.  When describing a Power, also describe the kinds of Ripples it might cause.

Patron makes Demands:  Each time you Invoke the power of your Patron, you accumulate a Demand.  Demands are tasks laid out for a shaman which me must somehow satisfy.  He need not obey the commands of his Patron, but  must somehow find how to ballance them with his responsibilities.  A Shaman who's Patron is Hermes might recieve a Demand to delive a message to a major political figure... but exactly how the message is delivered, and whether this will satisfy the Demand depends on how clever things play out.  This is one reason shamans cooperate; so they can help each other with Demands.


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Ok... is this stuff fresh enough to be worth playing with?  Am I treading old ground here?  If it's worth it, what do you think?

[Laurel]

You've set up a theurgistic paradigm just fine; the power comes from the gods and belief, and that's a solid perspective.   Its not the way I'd personally do a narrative Mage game, because Mage is rooted in a different branch of magical theory than theurgy.....but I'm just going to crawl back in my corner and shut up like a good girl, because I think your ideas are valid for a mage little "m" game- just not the best way to approach Mage, narrative or otherwise.

Laurel

[mahoux]

Bailywolf wrote:
Elvis had the mojo.

So that's why the king is gone... he couldn't keep himself grounded in the mundane world and became a part of mythology.  Spooooky.

No seriously, that is a great example.  I am intrigued by this thought.  Having never played sorceror yet (yes Ron I am an unwashed heathen) I like this idea to keep magic from being the boring D&D walking arsenal theory.

[Mike Holmes]

Laurel, I don't think that Baileywolf was really trying to fix either Vampire with the last game, or Mage with this. Just starting with the idea of players as those sorts of characters, he's asking what can we do to make a Narrativist game. At least that's what I see.

IIRC, there have been some attempts at actual Mage and Vampire Narrativist fixes. Does anybody know what I'm talking about? Can I get a link?

Mike

[Mike Holmes]

When do you roll your hubris (creatures)? What is the result of a failure?

I'm assuming that when your last anchor is severed that you can die or fade away?

How do you propose to give the players an idea of how powerful a set of effects they are able to achieve with their arcana, or how powerful their creatures are, or what their patron can do?

Mike

[Laurel]

Mike- I know.  :)  I just need to sit in the corner and listen and not comment when it comes to applying Narrativist techniques to the WoD at this juncture.  Must...not...bite...hand...that...feeds... no matter how tempting.  

((watches self do it any way.  I'm hopeless.  Forgive me))

The Premise to Mage 3rd Ed is "What is human potential?"  Despite the system construction, they intended it to be a Narrative game, the more Narrative of the clump.  

I agree a whole lot with Bailey's ideas, but I think its essential to Mage to keep things centered on the human individual, and society.  Gods and spirits and whatnot in Mage are not the source of power.  The power is internal, not external, and its human belief that shapes the Other; the Other does not shape human belief, except as a reflection and backfeed.  The conflict between self & society, and factions & paradigms is the foundation for any real Narrative exploration in my opinion.  

Doing otherwise, however, is completely okay too.  LOL.  I'm not the Mage guru; I don't play Mage much but I've listened the gurus for a long, long time so I can say what I think the intended Premise is and what the game needs to still be Mage.

The important thing to note is that this Premise  isn't necessarily what the -characters- are supposed to understand, or believe.  The characters are supposed to have all the normal human precepts in all the rainbow incarnations.

[Laurel]

And I re-read the original post, and the comment about doing things "differently from the major publishers" and really will shut up now.

[Bailywolf]

I went for a bit of a mixed-mode design for power sources.

Creatures are lesser supernatural beings who owe you alegence and service.  They can be powerful, but generaly the more potent their abilities, the more narrow their focus.  Unlike the demon-sorcerer relationship in Ron's masterwork, these creatures arn't out to bone the magician, to use him for need, and arn't bound againt their will (unless the magician goes in for that kind of thing).  They serve, and are loyal.  

Think about Prospero from The Tempest.  He is served by Ariel, a spirit of the air, but the relationsip is respectful and cordial.  Ariel acts like an extension of Propsero's character.  How a magician acquires his Creatures is determined by his backstory, magical style, and personality.  They might literaly be demons summoned from some black hell, nature spirits drawn from his favorite places, the spirits of ancestors, magical constructs of whirring clockwork, or living heraldric beasts.  

The system for creatures I invinsioned was dead simple.  Each creature has a Potency equal to the magician's rating in this aspect. The creature also has a Capacity.  A Cpacity is one kind of thing it is good at.  Killing, invisibility, tracking, teleportation, shape changing, insubstantiality, life draining etc.  Each additional Capacity reduces the creature's Potency by 1.  Potency is rolled as a pool of dice whenever the creature needs to do something.  Anything the GM rules to be too far beyond the creature's Capacity, is either penalized or rulled impossible.

Example:

Joe McDavis has a creatures rating of 5, and one of his servents is a creepy animated scarecrow who acts as his bodyguard.  Scarecrow Jack is nigh invulnerable, and even if destroyed will reasemble himself from his twigs and straw in minutes or hours.  Only fire has a chance to permenatly take him out.  He's not good for much else, except killing, at which he excells.

Jack's stats looke like this:
Scarecrow Jack (Potency 5, Capacity: Indestructable; Kill)



Arcana are personal, inherent powers.  I haven't figured the 'range of power' benchmarks yet, but these are independent of external forces for the most part.  These can be shaped and defined to best suite the character involved.

example:

Joe is country soul, and his magical nature revolves mostly around the close connection he feels to the soil and to the things that grow in it.  He lives on a large rural farm, loves his animals (some of this Anchors) and takes care of things, living at he borderline where man most closely meets nature- agriculture.

He has an Arcana of 2, and defines his powers as follwos:

Beast Tongue:  Joe can talk to the animals.  This expalins why he has become a vegeterian- it's not easy to slaughter a hog when he asks you not to.  Odly enough, he finds wild animals don't understand why he's so squemish about the killing and eating, and even the prey creatures tend to take the prospect of becoming lunch with pretty good hummor.  Ripples from this power can cause bizare animal behavior for miles around, or cause people to act like animals or treat animals like other people.

Animate Plants:  By investing plants with dynamic energy, he can animate and control them.  Trees can thrash, viens entangle, grass snare.  With special efforts he can cause them to uproot and march.  Ripples cause crop circles, bizare plant growth, alterations in plant size or color, or blights.

Finaly, Patron is external power drawn from a much more potent being.  This is not the classic diety-cleric relationship (though it could turn into that).  Instead, magicians must ballance the favor they can draw from the patron with the need to stay connected to other people.  They must meet their patron's Demands, but do so in a way which satisfies the being and doesn't compromise their other responsibilities to shepeherd mundane humanity.  The degree of give-and-take is pure roleplaying gold, mixing motivation, conlict, and temptation into one thing.

The miracles a Patron can deliver are a magician most powerful resource, and they are generaly beyond the scope of the rules to describe.  They allow a player to make major narative declarations about the direction of the story... but at the same time subject himself the demands of his patron.  He may take control now, but must to a certain extent surrender it later.  The ballance is maintained.

example:

Joe's patron is The Grandfather Oak, and his connection to it is rated at 3.  The Oak is an ancient spirit of a tree, grown wise and powerful.  It grows on Joe's property, and hides itself from mundane eyes with it's magic.  It is huge, the size of a ten story building, and home to thousands.  Birds roost in it's branches, shakes hybernate amongst it's roots, and racoons hide in it's crooks.  The Oak is very very old, and knows just about everything that can be known by observing.  it watches everything through the eyes of the creatures who live in it or are descended from those who did.  It's strength is awesome, it is filled with vital, healing energy, and can survive any storm or lightning strike.  These are the capacities it can grant in miracles.

The tree's Demands range from the simple (preserve my descendants now being paved under for the new Wal Mart) to the decidely strange (take one of my acorns and plant it on the banks of the River Lethe in the land of the dead).  It comes to Joe in his dreams, with storm-thrashed branches if angry, with gente stirrings if at peace.  It speaks with the sound of leaves rustling and branches rubbing together.



The power mechanics are still a bit wonky.  I'm inclined for a result-oriented system.  Roll the dice equal to Arcana, compare result to difficulty roll.  Interpret.

[Mike Holmes]

So how does using your aspects risk your anchors. That is the dilemma, right?

Perhaps the player should risk one anchor each time he uses a power. Then count all the sixes rolled on both the difficulty and aspect dice rolled. If more than, I dunno, three dice come up with six, then that anchor is threatened somehow. If using a creature, hubris threatens to disconnect you from those things you hold dear. If Arcana is used, a ripple threatens to destroy that anchor. If the patron is used, then the act asked for may destroy, remove, or otherwise cause the loss of the anchor. Something like that. Keep the character thinking about what the power use might do to him.

So, Joe is trying to send his creature Scarecrow Jack to get the man who is responsible for paving over Grandfather Oak's decendants. The anchor that Joe's player decides to risk is his Farm, which has been in his family for ages. The GM rules that this is difficulty five dice as this guy is well protected by bodyguards and such. Regardless of the result of the attempt, out of the ten dice, four come up with sixes.

Joe is now tempted to leave his farm and head out into the wider world. After all, he has the help of these creatures, why does he need to stay on an old farm, anyhow? He'll need his Awareness save or some role-playing to save his connection to the farm.

Hm. Player or GM choice for threats?

Just an idea. But you want to keep the sides of your dilemma in conflict.

Mike

[Bailywolf]

Damn Mike!  When you license your personality, I'm going to download it and run it on top of mine.  

This mechanic is bleeding perfect.  Count the 6's, and this generates a base pool of dice.  If you take narative action to secure an anchor- an action which might not always be possible given the circumstances- you might get bouns dice to the resistance check, otherwise you roll Resolve vs Temptation.  Loose (perhaps using the extended contest you suggested, making one roll after each dramaticly relevent story event; counting until one side has a tripple), and the anchor becomes meaningless to you, and your Resolve sufferes too.  This makes further attempts to resist more difficult, and insures players will take special care to go all-out for those bonus dice.

Let's keep following Joe; I'm starting to like him.

Scarecrow Jack returns with a battered and terrified Jacob Terry Foltsome- a man Joe went to gradeschool with, even played in the woods behind the house with- and he is shocked that he used his supernatural powers on this man; not evil, just a successful developer with no college education and a family to feed.  Perhaps too much ambition, but it's just Little Jacob...

Joe has a resolve of 3, and the 6's from Jack's actions create a pool of 4 dice.  

Joe orders the scarecrow to put Jacob down, and tries to calm his childhood buddy (GM rules this is worth 1 bonus die because he orders Jack away and tries to deal with Joe man to man).  He rolls, getting a 16.  The temptation dice come up 15; not a victory, but it reduces the temptation dice by 1.

Joe's character continues to calm Jacob down, offers him a shot of scotch, and starts trying to connect with him again, "Remember when we pulled all the wash off the line, and dressed up like ghosts?  Momma almost killed us...".  (The GM lets him keep his bonus die).  He rolls, getting 18, and the temptatin comes up with only 9.  A double.  The temptation dice are reduced by 2.

Finaly, Joe takes his old friend out into the woods, and reveals to him The Grandfather Oak, pointing out how they played under it's branched even if they couldn't see it when they were childen.  Overcome with emotion, Jacob breaks down into tears.  (The GM lets him keep the bonus die).  He rolls 15, and the single temptation comes up 3; a quint.  Superlative success.  He has not just defended his Anchor, he has reinforced his connection to it, and reconected to a childhood friend.






Groovy baby, groovy.

[Mike Holmes]

Good follow through.

After the last anchor goes, a player might have one last temptation to leave "reality" behind and fade into the realm of magic.

Mike

[Bailey]

Creatures are lesser supernatural beings who owe you alegence and service.  They can be powerful, but generaly the more potent their abilities, the more narrow their focus.  Unlike the demon-sorcerer relationship in Ron's masterwork, these creatures arn't out to bone the magician, to use him for need, and arn't bound againt their will (unless the magician goes in for that kind of thing).  They serve, and are loyal.  

Think about Prospero from The Tempest.  He is served by Ariel, a spirit of the air, but the relationsip is respectful and cordial.  Ariel acts like an extension of Propsero's character.  How a magician acquires his Creatures is determined by his backstory, magical style, and personality.  They might literaly be demons summoned from some black hell, nature spirits drawn from his favorite places, the spirits of ancestors, magical constructs of whirring clockwork, or living heraldric beasts.  

These could also be insensate activities that occur without the active imposition of the magicker's will.  Sigils and servitors have remarkably little difference.  Sigiltors if you will.  For some reason I see no need to have any difference between aspects and creatures.  I'm also wondering how "hubris" can interpreted.  Is it like Humanity is in Sorceror?

I'm having a hard time with how connections are related to ability.  I'd imagine they get in the way, but I have that stupid LFR paradox infecting my mind when it comes to magicky stuff.

Because only one has an "e" in her name...
Bailey

[Valamir]

Bailey, given your premise you may wish to check out Continuum.  Its a game of time travel rather than strictly magic but the "good guys" are all about fulfilling their duty to maintain the proper flow of time.  The "bad guys" are those who seek to use time travel for personal gain.  Many of the so called villains are actually just independent minded looking out for individual freedom which sets up a nice contrast between them.

The "American Cowboy" / "Lone Wolf" mentality so overdone would actually most likely wind up being a bad guy.  

Also I think it would an interesting twist if Old European mage families branded as traitors hated to this day, members of their order who abandoned their duties and sought a better life in America as mid-20th century immigrants.

[Uncle Dark]

Hi.

Great stuff.  I like this...

Two things that occur to me:
Are there rival camps of theory?  If no one agrees on how magic works, do we have a conflict of paradigms going on?  Not the magicians vs. the sceintists, thought that might be one.  How 'bout the Fundamentalists vs. the New Agers, with the Native American Shamans attacking the New Agers for cultural theft, but not wanting to weaken them so much that the Fundies will gain strength...

Also, it doesn't seem to me that "patrons" need to be personified entities.  "Art" or "Music" or "Passion" would do just as well under the rules, though it might be harder to concieve of abstracts like this.

Lon

[Bailywolf]

A note on Creatures.

In the first 30 seconds of my first post, I'd intended a more liberal ideal for this aspect.  Creatures is what I ended up with... a classic example of my brain running ahead of itself.

I actualy ment it to be more of an 'assets' kind of aspect.  It could include a Sanctum Sanctorum; a peronsonal place of power.  A magical artafact (but the live between creature and device blurs when magic is involved).

If someone can suggest a good name which implies both servents, property or artafacts, I'll gladly adopt it as a new name and definition for Creatures.  

But even as written, the Potency and Capacity mechanic can just as easily describe a magical ring, a prophecy bowl, a haunted farmhouse, a sacred grove, a pocket universe, or an enchanted .44 magnum named Caliburn.

Help me rename this aspect, please!



one of the axis for magician conflict is ideology.  When the patrons of two magicians hate one another, they can duke it out or decide to cooperate, trading defeats for successes to meet their Patron's demands.  Just because a magician's patron is Yogsothoth the Ever Slimey doesn't mean he's a naf guy... he might team up with the magician who's patron is a lord of the Elder Gods, and they can play their patrons off against each other for their own benifit.



Sometimes differences in ideology/patron/paradigm work in a cabal's favor.


Actualy, I love Contimuum.  Its one of my all-time favorite GAME TOO COOL TO PLAY.  I don't think I could run that game and do it justice... and I don't know if this is a design flaw, or a personal failing.




Well folks, it's 2:30 AM local, I'm way too drunk to think anymore, and the bed is whispering to me in a thousand tongues, but only saying  one thing:  "go to sleep".

Night all.

And big Thanks.