Mage: The Awakeningstip001February 26 2006, 02:57:35 UTC
John,
Not at all. They rationalized everything by power level, and in so doing were forced to blur all of the paradigms together. Paradox happens if you cast too high of a level spell for the most part, regardless of how you envision it. Thus, paradigm no longer has a real effect like it was supposed to; magical systems are now just a gloss over the "real" system.
That and if I recall correctly (I didn't read all of the fiction, since I was more concerned with the rules) they took out the Technocracy. Which is a travesty, since at least half of the coolness of the original concept was the interplay between the Traditions and the Technocracy.
Re: Mage: The Awakeningfro_dudeFebruary 26 2006, 04:16:17 UTC
As I remember it (and this is the last inkling of an old memory) the deciding factor on the first rule was always perception. For example in your 20 dollar bill example the mage could tell everyone that he's creating the cash from nothingness, and as long as he did it in his pocket it wouldn't violate rule one, even if the pockets were shown to be empty before hand. All the "normals" would just figure that the mage used slight of hand or lied about the initial state of the pockets. If they don't actually percieve it somehow, no harm, no foul
( ... )
Re: Mage: The Awakeningfro_dudeFebruary 26 2006, 05:57:50 UTC
And just for clarification, you could be coincidental with respect to one rule and vulgar for respect to the other. Going back to my example of the block of ice, you could have the ice not melting and that would be coincidental, but if anyone saw it and realized what was happening it could be vulgar.
Paradox Rulesstip001February 27 2006, 03:38:23 UTC
Lee,
My thoughts have traveled down a similar road, but unfortunately you end up with a rules contradiction at the end. There are *three* categories of magic vis-a-vis Paradox: Coincidental, Vulgar, and Vulgar with Witnesses. The existence of unwitnessed Vulgar magic implies that the distinction between Coincidental and Vulgar must be determined by something other than the existence of an actual observer. That's why when I paraphrased Rule One I referred to a "hypothetical" observer.
Because of that, Rules One and Two don't play nicely together. And they kind of have to if you want to adjudicate Paradox in an internally consistent way. The only other option is to pick one. But each one implies throwing out big hunks of canon - to the point that the resulting game isn't Mage anymore.
Re: Paradox Rulesfro_dudeFebruary 27 2006, 15:53:26 UTC
I respectfully disagree. All magic is at least Coincidental by its very nature. The only question is whether a given bit of magic is Vulgar. That question is determined by the rules. If rule 1 is violated, it's vulgar. If rule 2 is violated it's vulgar. If rule 1 and rule 2 are violated, it's vulgar. The rules can work independently without conflict. Think of them as the two inputs into the binary OR gate of vulgarity. Or at least that's my take on it.
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Not at all. They rationalized everything by power level, and in so doing were forced to blur all of the paradigms together. Paradox happens if you cast too high of a level spell for the most part, regardless of how you envision it. Thus, paradigm no longer has a real effect like it was supposed to; magical systems are now just a gloss over the "real" system.
That and if I recall correctly (I didn't read all of the fiction, since I was more concerned with the rules) they took out the Technocracy. Which is a travesty, since at least half of the coolness of the original concept was the interplay between the Traditions and the Technocracy.
-Nick
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My thoughts have traveled down a similar road, but unfortunately you end up with a rules contradiction at the end. There are *three* categories of magic vis-a-vis Paradox: Coincidental, Vulgar, and Vulgar with Witnesses. The existence of unwitnessed Vulgar magic implies that the distinction between Coincidental and Vulgar must be determined by something other than the existence of an actual observer. That's why when I paraphrased Rule One I referred to a "hypothetical" observer.
Because of that, Rules One and Two don't play nicely together. And they kind of have to if you want to adjudicate Paradox in an internally consistent way. The only other option is to pick one. But each one implies throwing out big hunks of canon - to the point that the resulting game isn't Mage anymore.
-Nick
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