Quote from: BalbinusSo when the Wright brothers flew some mage was nearby making it work?

Heh. Haven't you already learned that everyone of any importance in oWoD was a supernatural of one sort or another? The Wright brothers were mages.

QuoteAlso, the vast majority of the world's population didn't know about the early flights, you're conflating the knowledge of the West with the knowledge of humanity, but I would be surprised if most Indians, Africans or Chinese had any clue what had happened for quite a while yet.

And that would be why it took such a good long while for flights to become even relatively safe. After the news spread, the idea began to catch on, but the Consensus had its doubts for years to come.

Quote from: SosthenesI'd like to apply for a job as sex toy mage, please.

Sorry but all positions are currently filled.*

*Pun very much intended

Quote from: RPGPunditNo, I'm mostly talking about the original conan stories, and the idea they seem to promote that a "survival of the fittest" brute force is always superior to "weak" civilization.

Its one of the things I've always despised about Conan.

RPGPundit

I see it a little differently. In the Conan stories, when civilization becomes utterly decadent, smug and self-absorbed (just like your swine), they become prey to those that they consider primitive, like Conan. If you think about it that way, it is awfully similar to your own ideas about RPG swine and their rejection of "stupid" adventure gaming, with you and your ilk - myself being included to some extent - being the barbarians that come in and reset everything. Remember, Conan eventually became King.

Hang on, I'll grab your broadsword:

"Know, O Prince, that between the years when the oceans drank TSR and the gleaming cities, and the years of the rise of the sons of TheRPGSite, there was an age undreamed of, when shining kingdoms lay spread across the world like blue mantles beneath the stars... Hither came RPGPUNDIT, the Canadian, black-haired, sullen-eyed, d20 in hand, a thief, a reaver, a slayer, with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth, to tread the jeweled thrones of the swine under his sandaled feet." - The Nemedian Chronicles

Quote from: GrimGentIn the real world, that's true, but then that has nothing to do with the imaginary state of reality in oWoD.

  Yes, but we're not talking about the imaginary state of reality in oWoD.  We're talking about this world and the WW writers that inhabit it.

Conan is teh R0xx0rz!
He is Sturm und Drang, not Romanticism.

Look here for an example:http://www.everypoet.com/archive/poetry/goethe/goethe_prometheus.htm

Quote from: Mr. AnalyticalYes, but we're not talking about the imaginary state of reality in oWoD.  We're talking about this world and the WW writers that inhabit it.

Balbinus: "Logically, if the world worked as posited it would not change."
GrimGent: "But mages break that pattern."
Mr. Analytical: "But mages don't exist."

Notice the little continuity error in logic there? What you were commenting on wasn't "the world as posited". That's not unlike...

A: "What if the sun was pushed around by a giant dung beetle?"
B: "There's no such thing as a giant dung beetle!"

...Or expecting modern chemistry to work in Creation of Exalted.

If there's a logical continuity error here it's on your side of the fence.

I was talking about the philosophical influences on Mage and how it's clear that Mage is part of the same intellectual tradition as the varieties of mystics and flakes who see science as a form of intellectual fascism.  You responded by talking about the Mage canon.  You did the same thing to Balbinus.

Quote from: Mr. AnalyticalI was talking about the philosophical influences on Mage and how it's clear that Mage is part of the same intellectual tradition as the varieties of mystics and flakes who see science as a form of intellectual fascism.

And I've already pointed out a number of times that while you can certainly argue that the Union in the game represents technophilia and totalitarian order run amuck, even in the pre-Rev editions of Mage science in itself was never something to be opposed. An oWoD scientist who witnesses someone conjure a phoenix out of thin air would most likely wish to investigate further in order to understand what exactly happened there, unlike a loyal Technocrat who would toe the party line and simply declare it an anomaly that mustn't be permitted. Note the difference? The notion of the consensual reality invalidates conventional science in many ways, as said, but that doesn't turn scientists into the enemy; instead, they are just as misguided as everyone else, most mages included.

QuoteYou responded by talking about the Mage canon.  You did the same thing to Balbinus.

And you responded to the discussion about the internal consistency of a fictional world by appealing to the prevailing conditions in the real universe.

Quote from: Dr Rotwang!I like Conan.  I like him because he's honest, and free; he doesn't lie to anyone, and he does what he wants.  Fantastic escapism, and sort of inspirational.  

Remember the passage about how a civlized man will lie to your face because he doesn't fear you chopping his head off, or some such?  An extreme example to be sure, but a good point.  

Me, I'm totally pro-civilization, pro-technology, pro-morals and pro-ethics.  I'm also pro-fishnets, -lace stockings, -robots, -flying cars, -Thompson Twins and -sushi.

Oh.  And The Human League.

Yeah.  I can enjoy a Conan story and still like the fact that my house has running water.

Not to mention that when Conan became king, he was surprisingly humane -- he let go all of the slave-girls in his seraglio, and the only ones left where the ones who wanted to stay, i.e. the ones who wanted him.  

It's been a while since I've read the stuff, but he was also the most popular king that Aquilonia had.

For what it's worth? I snicker a little when I see this argument about Mage come up. I'll tell ya why, from my own perspective.

a) It's a work of fiction. If I write a book about lab rats trying to sabotage the facility at night without the humans realizing they're now smart enough to get out of their cage, it doesn't mean I believe that scientific testing on animals is going to doom us all when they rise up and ruin our drinking water.

b) Not only is it fiction, it's a goddamn role-playing game. The views expressed in this product don't fucking matter unless they promise to make playing it un-fun for you. If they do, put it down and buy a different RPG. Why not rail about the fact that the world view in Call of Cthulhu makes our science foolish, our geometry absurd, and our claims of religious understanding laughable?

Oh right. Pundit LIKES CoC, whereas White Wolf to the best of my understanding stole his car and gaming supplies, then spent the rest of the 90's sleeping with his girlfriends.

c) It's an old edition of a roleplaying game. This attitude does not continue through to nMage - I don't like nMage, but that's because it's blander and weaker than wet cardboard - in my experience. Why not complain about TSR's absurd legal policies, or CP2020's curiously over-priced and -sized cellphones, or some other out-of-date complaint?


Anyhow. That's my take on it. Go science! Boo nonsensical arguments!

There`s one statement, that sums up all paradoxes of the USA for me. It was made by aquaintances of my US-Uncles family at a barbecue:
It was the closing remarkfor the rapport of a rather serious operation the persons wife had to undergo.

"Thank God for modern science."

Quote from: mattormegI see it a little differently. In the Conan stories, when civilization becomes utterly decadent, smug and self-absorbed (just like your swine), they become prey to those that they consider primitive, like Conan.

Don't you get it?  RPGPundit buys into the Conans of the world being primitive. He is the very type of person that the Conan persona rails against, and he simply cannot accept that his 'civilized mind' could be defeated by such brawn.

Quote from: Mr. AnalyticalIf there's a logical continuity error here it's on your side of the fence.

I was talking about the philosophical influences on Mage and how it's clear that Mage is part of the same intellectual tradition as the varieties of mystics and flakes who see science as a form of intellectual fascism.  You responded by talking about the Mage canon.  You did the same thing to Balbinus.

I think part of the problem is you are going about this backwards.  The what-if isn't "what if the scientific community was all an evil front", the basic what-if is "what if magic was real, and always has been real".  When you land magic in a modern contemporary setting it is going to bang up against that. See the reference to Shadowrun above. Now in Shadowrun they sort of used a device that is common in fantasy, only in reverse. In earth-historic fantasy that has magic the conflict between science and "magic" is typically addressed, if at all, by saying that somewhere between then and now "the magic went away".

In Shadowrun the magic did indeed go away at one point between Earthdawn and the end of the Mayan calander coming up.  Then it came back, with a vengance. And suddenly magic becomes blatantly manifest, although little bits of it has been with us all along. So the scientific community wasn't covering up, it just did look hard enough and the evidence was too slight to meet their standards.

But in Mage they decided to do something different. Because Shadowrun was already done? Possibly, you'd have to ask the original designers. Likely there were a number of reasons. Not the least of which Shadowrun doesn't really tie into the myths [set a century or two back. EDIT for clarity] But for that spooky vampires/gothic feel doing such is pretty desirable.

So instead lets put on our thinking caps and try to figure out a situation where magic could be so strong and obvious enough for a scientist to not notice it, and somewhat justify large communities of monster such as a werewolves and vampires being anywhere close to at least anti-heros.  Well lookie there, how handy. You can kill two birds with one stone.  Because to have an anti-hero you need something even worse for them to be fighting against.  A vast conspiracy is great for that, because you can win a lot of battles against it without it as a whole dieing.


Logic from outside the game? Checkeroo!

Quote from: Christmas Apeb) Not only is it fiction, it's a goddamn role-playing game. The views expressed in this product don't fucking matter unless they promise to make playing it un-fun for you. If they do, put it down and buy a different RPG. Why not rail about the fact that the world view in Call of Cthulhu makes our science foolish, our geometry absurd, and our claims of religious understanding laughable?

  I'm sorry but that's absolute bullshit.  If you watch a film, read a book, go to a play, listen to some music, watch an interpretive dance recital, subtext ALWAYS matters.  In fact, in some mediums the subtext is the point of the piece in the first place.

  You might be content with wandering aimlessly through life thinking that The Road Not Taken is about some bloke walking home or that Don't Look Now is about some guy being murdered by a dwarf but the rest of us aren't that shallow.