Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on December 27, 2022, 01:39:01 PM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on December 27, 2022, 01:10:48 PM
Paradox did force them to give it up.

Im not really happy for change brought on by the barrel of a gun, but whatever.
Anyway as for what I got out of mage: I am absolutely aware this was not intended. It was intended as a 'fuck da system, sheep keepin me down!' thing.

But to me, I found it as a thing about how we all share reality, and how we have to learn to deal with each other and opinions we dislike. As a person who really values free speech (in law and in spirit) I found it resonated with me.

Before the 100% modern technocracit splats that just have them parrot modern talking points, there was a release where they where given villanous but still like...realistic and sympathetic  motivations for their beliefs beyond 'CAPITALIST GO BOOM BOOM!'
Like the transhumanistic cybernetic faction was given a POV character of a guy who was born with weak legs, so the faction allowed him to walk normally.

I know it can be taken as a 'fuck vaccinations!', but from my POV it was a 'Well you can, but that may not have the consequences you want it too'.

Edit: The only unsympathetic faction was the NWO which explicitely is the one the most least tolerant of opinions, and sees shaping not just what people do or how they do it, but what they think.

Free speech is a timeless theme because there's always those trying to take it away. The games were firmly rooted in a 90s counterculture zeitgeist. Now that things have changed, they lack relevance and can't resonance with newer younger audiences. Paradox has been trying to update them, but it doesn't work. I've talked to some zoomer fans and they don't care about the politics at all; they even told me the anarchist movement is a lie (wtf?). They just like making OCs that fit into high school clique stereotypes and are all "queer" because nowadays everyone has to be.

The problem is that there really aren't any real counterculture movements anymore to inspire us. Just mouth pieces for politicians. There is tons of inequality, but none of the movements are actually interested in addressing that.

If I was writing an urban fantasy rpg, then I'd design it to be fun. Not to push propaganda or cater to snowflakes.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on December 26, 2022, 01:42:48 PM
Yeah, I didn't like the propaganda. The consensus reality premise has tons of ramifications that never occurred to the authors. Among other things, it means that homeopathy, antivaxxer, and flat-earther beliefs would become true if they murdered all the non-believers. The current crop of books walk back on that by making the technocrats parrot American left-wing talking points, even though this makes no sense with a consensus reality premise.

I like the idea of players flavoring their magic after different magical styles like Hermeticism, Wicca, Taoism, mad science, reality hackers, or whatever. I would give that to all splats, not just mortal magicians. However, I would avoid explaining it in terms of consensus reality to avoid inadvertently promoting beliefs that are dangerous in real life.

One of the things I did like in M20 is it admitted that the consensus as described in the original could not be truly uniform across Earth, at least not yet. Of course, they did it for "sensitivity" reasons (at least how I read it).

The mistake I think a lot of people make about the Technocracy, and something it took me over a decade to wrap my head around, is they aren't doing experiments the way we think of science in the real world. They are continually casting a series of rotes and showing them to sleepers to tip belief in that direction. Those rotes are built systematically to create the consensus reality. But anywhere their rote casting hasn't convinced sleepers, it doesn't become the consensus and thus preclude, via paradox, other forms of magic.

That is how the Ether can go from scientific certainty to hogwash in a few decades in a post modern magic system.

The Traditions lost to the Technocracy not due to worse ideas, but worse organization. I can see how that appealed to 90s leftists in a way it wouldn't to the corpo-left today (who would be Technorcrats.).

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on December 27, 2022, 03:11:20 PM
The games were firmly rooted in a 90s counterculture zeitgeist. Now that things have changed, they lack relevance and can't resonance with newer younger audiences.

This is really how M20 failed me, but M:tAw 2nd edition didn't.

M20 tried to update not just from 90s tech (which was needed) but from 90s mindset, like worrying about, in the text, the lack of inclusiveness in name. M30 will probably work on gender crap.

Had they focused on retaining that 90s zeitgeist they would have appealed to the old player base better. Yes, "kids today" might not get it, but it seems a significant fraction of the 13-20 crowd is developing into a throwback "GenX" in attitudes as a reaction against Woke and would have gotten enough to glom on and take the systems in a direction friendly to them.

Instead, they tried to appeal to the 20-35 millennial crowd, and the hardest left of that (as opposed to the "default" leftism of college educated 90s).

Updating World of Darkness for 2022 would be difficult. It'd be impossible for woke to do it properly, the core of the game is opposed to the ideology in to many ways.

It's similar to Star Trek. Star Trek was also highly progressive, but not woke. Star Trek also put a huge amount of thematic weight on people with very different worldviews still being able to communicate, respect each other, cooperate. And the new adaptions cannot grasp this. Because woke progressivism utterly rejects the notion of any worldview outside of its own.

The consensus reality explanation is full of holes, so I'm not surprised nobody understands it and the explanations change across editions.

The concept of paradox is nonsensical. If it's the consensus fighting back, then why is backlash so surreal and magical? Awakening fixes this by making it work by drawing things from the abyss, but still breaks itself by keeping the same name and trying to contrive an etymology.

Another critique comes from mythcreants: https://mythcreants.com/blog/five-common-masquerade-explanations-and-why-theyre-bad/

QuoteLike most explanations, this one comes in a variety of flavors. Usually, it's part of some belief mechanic in which magical things are hidden because people don't believe in them. An example of this is the consensual reality in the RPG Mage: The Ascension. In Mage, casting magic out in the open does damage to the caster because onlookers don't believe it's real. In other stories, the lack of belief has pushed magical things out of the world, or most people can't see magic just because they're too stubborn to believe in it. Everyone's into science these days, so there's no room for fairies and unicorns!
Yeah, no. First of all, are you really going to tell your fantasy audience that people won't believe in magic? Maybe you could've made that case back when people looked down on speculative fiction, but now that Amazon is spending a billion dollars on a fantasy TV show, that's not going to fly. Plenty of people are ready to believe in magic with even the slightest rumor, much less solid evidence.
Assuming you can overcome that obstacle, there's another issue. These worlds come with the assumption that people believed in magic long ago; that's why we've heard of it at all. But then why did people stop believing in it? It would be like everyone deciding they don't believe in electricity or raccoons anymore.
Speaking of which, why is only magic affected by belief? How did Nicolaus Copernicus prove that the earth rotates around the sun when everyone believed otherwise? If belief changed reality or even just our sensory perception of it, we would still think the Earth is the center of our solar system. If we all decided raccoons were a myth, would they disappear?
At best, this explanation doesn't stand up to scrutiny. At worst, it feels like an insult to fans who would like to see some magic, please.

Not to mention that the approach to "science" is completely counterintuitive. In the consensus reality, the scientific method doesn't and cannot work. "Science" is just another way of knowing, no more or less valid than another, but all methods of knowing are actually fake arbitrary symbol systems. This is postmodern hogwash.

I'm just not even going to bother to explain why magic exists but doesn't change the modern world in any IP I write. It's not actually relevant to anything and it will always be full of holes.

The metaphysics of Awakening were much stronger. That's what happens when you have a real theory underlying your worldview instead of post modernism, and a poor version of it at that. They cited Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and it shows.

As a general rule, Awakening is my preferred version, but that is true for most games that had an OWoD and NWoD/CoD version. Ascension, is, however, one of the cases where I am equally willing to play both versions. For all it's "don't look too close", M:tAs, especially in the wildest of the 2nd edition days, was just fun. You can do an adventure of airship voyages to the outer planets to celebrate the Sons of Ether joining the Traditions and it just works.

I'd also be open to C:tD or C:tL, but prefer Lost. Both Hunters are also on the table for me with maybe a slight preference for Reckoning.

The old WoD I'd prefer to its rough CoD analog (and very rough here) is Wraith.

I think 2nd edition Asc suffers from the same problem as the isekai genre. Any connection to Earth could be severed and lose nothing of value. You could just focus on the otherworld adventures that the fandom seems to only care about.

But whenever companies tried to make games just about that part, they don't get very successful. It's probably just first mover advantage, tho.

Quote from: rpgSeeker on December 27, 2022, 04:32:53 PM
Updating World of Darkness for 2022 would be difficult. It'd be impossible for woke to do it properly, the core of the game is opposed to the ideology in to many ways.

It's similar to Star Trek. Star Trek was also highly progressive, but not woke. Star Trek also put a huge amount of thematic weight on people with very different worldviews still being able to communicate, respect each other, cooperate. And the new adaptions cannot grasp this. Because woke progressivism utterly rejects the notion of any worldview outside of its own.

You'd have better luck rebooting it from scratch and not involving partisan politics at all. But that's not gonna happen anytime soon, so you're better off making your own game. And as the creator you'd be able to write articles explaining the right way to interpret the factions.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on December 27, 2022, 06:45:43 PM

Quote from: rpgSeeker on December 27, 2022, 04:32:53 PM
Updating World of Darkness for 2022 would be difficult. It'd be impossible for woke to do it properly, the core of the game is opposed to the ideology in to many ways.

It's similar to Star Trek. Star Trek was also highly progressive, but not woke. Star Trek also put a huge amount of thematic weight on people with very different worldviews still being able to communicate, respect each other, cooperate. And the new adaptions cannot grasp this. Because woke progressivism utterly rejects the notion of any worldview outside of its own.

You'd have better luck rebooting it from scratch and not involving partisan politics at all. But that's not gonna happen anytime soon, so you're better off making your own game. And as the creator you'd be able to write articles explaining the right way to interpret the factions.

The only really interesting part of the oWoD to me was the idea of Biblical Cain/first murderer as the first vampire just because it lended more epic weight for me personally than say, a 15th century nobleman who sold his soul to the Devil (it's not even Medieval old) or "spawn of [insert pagan god/demon here]."

The fact that the immortality (to have all the time in the world to repent) was the only part from God, everything else was a backlash from his attempt to harness infernal blood magic made it feel rather Christian morality play-like in nature.

Particularly joined with the "Last Daughter of Eve" element as the one who will end the line of vampires... it just had a sort of dualism (impossibly old murderous man vs. young innocent/heroic girl) that also appeals to me.

That said... it's very much being the ones who fight the monsters vs. playing the monster that I enjoy in relation to the WoD... I don't roll vampires, I do Dhampirs or priests with True Faith or the iron willed "last honest cop" or the mystic martial artist.

Which, if I were to do my own setting is probably what I'd focus on... the monsters are the predatory establishment and its minions (they aren't just trafficking for sex, they're also trafficking for blood... they gain power by ruining the lives of others). You are the line that protects innocents from the monsters (probably with "redemption-seeking monster" as one of the templates). I even have a title/rhyme for it....

Quote from: Chris24601 on December 27, 2022, 07:46:50 PMParticularly joined with the "Last Daughter of Eve" element as the one who will end the line of vampires... it just had a sort of dualism (impossibly old murderous man vs. young innocent/heroic girl) that also appeals to me.

Well considering it's the same tired Feminist trope (young woman takes down powerful man) used in practically every movie, TV show, book and video game of the past 6+ years, you must feel VERY appealed to.

Not to mention how it's the hackneyed "men destroy, women heal" propaganda.

Quote from: Chris24601 on December 27, 2022, 07:46:50 PM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on December 27, 2022, 06:45:43 PM

Quote from: rpgSeeker on December 27, 2022, 04:32:53 PM
Updating World of Darkness for 2022 would be difficult. It'd be impossible for woke to do it properly, the core of the game is opposed to the ideology in to many ways.

It's similar to Star Trek. Star Trek was also highly progressive, but not woke. Star Trek also put a huge amount of thematic weight on people with very different worldviews still being able to communicate, respect each other, cooperate. And the new adaptions cannot grasp this. Because woke progressivism utterly rejects the notion of any worldview outside of its own.

You'd have better luck rebooting it from scratch and not involving partisan politics at all. But that's not gonna happen anytime soon, so you're better off making your own game. And as the creator you'd be able to write articles explaining the right way to interpret the factions.

The only really interesting part of the oWoD to me was the idea of Biblical Cain/first murderer as the first vampire just because it lended more epic weight for me personally than say, a 15th century nobleman who sold his soul to the Devil (it's not even Medieval old) or "spawn of [insert pagan god/demon here]."

The fact that the immortality (to have all the time in the world to repent) was the only part from God, everything else was a backlash from his attempt to harness infernal blood magic made it feel rather Christian morality play-like in nature.

Particularly joined with the "Last Daughter of Eve" element as the one who will end the line of vampires... it just had a sort of dualism (impossibly old murderous man vs. young innocent/heroic girl) that also appeals to me.

That said... it's very much being the ones who fight the monsters vs. playing the monster that I enjoy in relation to the WoD... I don't roll vampires, I do Dhampirs or priests with True Faith or the iron willed "last honest cop" or the mystic martial artist.

Which, if I were to do my own setting is probably what I'd focus on... the monsters are the predatory establishment and its minions (they aren't just trafficking for sex, they're also trafficking for blood... they gain power by ruining the lives of others). You are the line that protects innocents from the monsters (probably with "redemption-seeking monster" as one of the templates). I even have a title/rhyme for it....

With stake and sword, cross and flame
We will roam this blighted land...
For now we are the hunters;
The Hunters of the Damned.

Go for it.

I've brainstormed similar ideas. My hunter pitch involves character options like dhampirs, antichrists raised by the Vatican to use their powers for good, reluctant monsters, and so on. Some of them also have magic too because I decided to make freeform magic available to everyone.

I also thought of using Cain for the mythology of some vampires, but in the default kitchen sink setting he's not the progenitor of all vampires but just one bloodline. I'm not gonna spoil it further.

As for my wizards... well, I made magic available to everyone so there's no special emphasis on the power of tru majiq to change the world nor any cosmic battle between fake scientists and counterculture guys. I've opted to treat magic as a dangerous and corrupting force, the epitome of power. A punk wizard might start out with the best intentions for social justice, but most of them ultimately either become callous corporate suits or run off to live in an isekai with a harem. In fact, most regardless of their beliefs eventually become bored with Earth and decide to become magical wireheads. So any wars for control of Earth never get off the ground due to the psychological flaws of human nature. Any wizard who isn't completely consumed by their own power must be extremely strong willed and dedicated.

Or something. I haven't committed yet

Quote from: Grognard GM on December 28, 2022, 01:53:37 AM

Quote from: Chris24601 on December 27, 2022, 07:46:50 PMParticularly joined with the "Last Daughter of Eve" element as the one who will end the line of vampires... it just had a sort of dualism (impossibly old murderous man vs. young innocent/heroic girl) that also appeals to me.

Well considering it's the same tired Feminist trope (young woman takes down powerful man) used in practically every movie, TV show, book and video game of the past 6+ years, you must feel VERY appealed to.

Not to mention how it's the hackneyed "men destroy, women heal" propaganda.

Actually, I don't, because those movies do it wrong. Opposing woke concepts doesn't require you to be a member of the He-Man Women Haters Club. You're allowed to like things like Buffy or Supergirl (the comic, the show after it left CBS turned to trash).

Also, "Men Hunt/Kill, Women Gather/Nurture" is hardly propaganda, it's human nature and the way functional societies have worked for ages upon ages. Women as symbolic bringers of new life is a concept older than writing. The corruption/propaganda is "Men Hunt/Kill, Women Hunt/Kill even better."*

Frankly, the way I incorporated it in my own campaign was, I feel, fairly anti-woke. The Last Daughter was born with blood toxic to vampires. By having children that trait would spread, eventually to the entire human population, and the vampires would starve to death. Thus, the vampires hunted for her to ensure this would never come to pass and the protagonists/PCs mission was to protect them from the vampires hunting them.

* Buffy and Supergirl are clearly supernatural and alien respectively. When Buffy is stripped of her powers she struggles against a single average vampire and defeats it only through guile and cleverness (tricking it into drinking holy water). Supergirl has only been depicted as stronger than Superman as a mistake... that she hadn't been holding back when she first arrived while Superman always did due to "world of cardboard."

Saying a woman with supernatural powers or is an alien can be stronger than a man isn't woke in my opinion. Indeed, you're actually pointing out that women require magical/alien powers to compete with men physically.

Quote from: Chris24601 on December 28, 2022, 09:30:08 AM
Actually, I don't, because those movies do it wrong. Opposing woke concepts doesn't require you to be a member of the He-Man Women Haters Club. You're allowed to like things like Buffy or Supergirl (the comic, the show after it left CBS turned to trash).

Actually this is you fighting shadows, because I mentioned media of the last 6+ years, and you bring up characters that are 30-80 years old.

Quote from: Chris24601 on December 28, 2022, 09:30:08 AM
Also, "Men Hunt/Kill, Women Gather/Nurture" is hardly propaganda, it's human nature and the way functional societies have worked for ages upon ages. Women as symbolic bringers of new life is a concept older than writing. The corruption/propaganda is "Men Hunt/Kill, Women Hunt/Kill even better."*

I'd say the problem is looking at the Ying/Yang in simplistic terms. Males are destructive, but destroying the old can allow innovation and new growth. Females are nurturing, but their need for peace can lead to stagnation and decay. We have trouble when the two become unbalanced.

Quote from: Chris24601 on December 28, 2022, 09:30:08 AM
Frankly, the way I incorporated it in my own campaign was, I feel, fairly anti-woke. The Last Daughter was born with blood toxic to vampires. By having children that trait would spread, eventually to the entire human population, and the vampires would starve to death. Thus, the vampires hunted for her to ensure this would never come to pass and the protagonists/PCs mission was to protect them from the vampires hunting them.

That's both un-woke, and an EXCELLENT reason that the chosen one needs to be female. Again though, when you say the chosen hero is a young girl that defeats Caine, and she's a character from the current generation, I'd be right thinking she kicks his ass more times than I'd be wrong.

Quote from: Chris24601 on December 28, 2022, 09:30:08 AM
* Buffy and Supergirl are clearly supernatural and alien respectively. When Buffy is stripped of her powers she struggles against a single average vampire and defeats it only through guile and cleverness (tricking it into drinking holy water). Supergirl has only been depicted as stronger than Superman as a mistake... that she hadn't been holding back when she first arrived while Superman always did due to "world of cardboard."

Saying a woman with supernatural powers or is an alien can be stronger than a man isn't woke in my opinion. Indeed, you're actually pointing out that women require magical/alien powers to compete with men physically.

No-one had a problem with such characters until they were ruined. A female super soldier/alien/demi god kicking male ass isn't woke. Her kicking the ass of all male super soldiers/aliens/demi gods IS woke.

In all things, all I want is verisimilitude.

Quote from: Grognard GM on December 28, 2022, 10:00:58 AM
Actually this is you fighting shadows, because I mentioned media of the last 6+ years, and you bring up characters that are 30-80 years old.

You stated that I must feel "VERY appealed to" by modern media. I was explaining why I wasn't feeling very appealed to... because woke "strong women" are doing it wrong and Buffy and Supergirl are two examples of how I think "strong women" are done right.

Most notably, both were still expressly feminine with feminine interests including finding a man to make a life/family with and their powers/responsibilities were a complication to what they'd prefer to be doing... their putting their responsibilities ahead of their desires is part of what makes them heroic. They also make mistakes and suffer setbacks based on their own choices and are allowed to learn and grow from them (and not always by making it right either).

By contrast, the modern strong woman (as exemplified by the likes of Rey and Captain Marvel) are unfeminine with unfeminine interests who face no conflicts between their desires and responsibilities (they desire to kick much ass) and do not desire anyone else in their lives and their only mistakes are listening to others (contrast Buffy, whose life goes off the rails when her mentor/father-figure departs).

I was thinking about including feminazi covens in my work, since they're no longer considered kosher by the legacy publishers.