Quote from: Coffee Zombie;920839It's got some gender neutral pronouns in there, which some objected to (who cares). It undid the events of Mage Revised, but kept them all as optional plug ins if you want to use that era (sensible). I don't have a physical copy, but from what I've read it looks fine to me. Not sure what the stink is about.

On the first point, because Onyx Path are essentially doing this (except for transsexual people instead): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCHRaVXrB7E

Quote from: Coffee Zombie;920839It's got some gender neutral pronouns in there, which some objected to (who cares). It undid the events of Mage Revised, but kept them all as optional plug ins if you want to use that era (sensible). I don't have a physical copy, but from what I've read it looks fine to me. Not sure what the stink is about.

The pronoun thing just makes them seem amateurish. It alone wouldn't have put me off the game. It was the altering of the Traditions. There's a point where changes stop being revisions and start being a new game/edition, and Mage leapt past that line, destroying any nostalgia value it might have had for me.

Quote from: Crüesader;920662Help me out here- people keep saying they screwed up Mage 20- I'm honestly thinking about buying this, so any feedback on this would be great.

I remember reading a metaplot section where it laid out the way the traditions changed to fit the contemporary period. The traditions either caved into the demands of social justice warriors (e.g. sons of ether changes their name to children or society or something) or became lunatic fringe subcultures (the verbena become anarcho-primitivists). Also, the Technocracy and the Virtual Adepts are butthurt that the internet didn't go the way they wanted. The technocracy can't control anything and the virtual web is drowning in hentai.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;920884I remember reading a metaplot section where it laid out the way the traditions changed to fit the contemporary period. The traditions either caved into the demands of social justice warriors (e.g. sons of ether changes their name to children or society or something) or became lunatic fringe subcultures (the verbena become anarcho-primitivists). Also, the Technocracy and the Virtual Adepts are butthurt that the internet didn't go the way they wanted. The technocracy can't control anything and the virtual web is drowning in hentai.

Ohhhh that stuff. Some of it was interesting. I like that the Euthanatos decided to try and pull a PR switch (Totally not [only] Death Mages! We swear!). I liked that neither side could really control the internet, because that's pretty much real life. I'm still on the fence about the Verbena. They really do need a better shtick than "Like the Order of Hermes, but not; because we're totally witches, not wizards! Like the Dreamspeakers, but not; because we're totally witches, not shaman!" They tried to straddle the line between rational magic and instinctual magic and largely failed (IMO). I don't know if anarcho-primitivism is the way to go, but at least it's an ethos.

The other name changes seem half stupid, and half the kinds of things I've seen in real life in groups that need to make a change but can't make a REAL change (in this case because they are losing the Ascension War/Are making a 20th Anniversary Edition Game and can't fuck with it too much [Do you see what I did there? I thought that you could.]). It makes it slightly more realistic to me, and at the same time roll my eyes because OF COURSE it's the authors inserting their own shit...but it's also so, so real.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;920884I remember reading a metaplot section where it laid out the way the traditions changed to fit the contemporary period. The traditions either caved into the demands of social justice warriors (e.g. sons of ether changes their name to children or society or something) or became lunatic fringe subcultures (the verbena become anarcho-primitivists). Also, the Technocracy and the Virtual Adepts are butthurt that the internet didn't go the way they wanted. The technocracy can't control anything and the virtual web is drowning in hentai.

Literally the only thing about that statement that doesn't make me want to vomit is the part about the Virtual Web drowning in hentai. And that is just sad.
V20 was awesome, why did they drop the ball so hard on M20? Oh well, guess I will be sticking to 2E for my Mage games from now on.

Quote from: Doc Sammy;920890Literally the only thing about that statement that doesn't make me want to vomit is the part about the Virtual Web drowning in hentai. And that is just sad.
V20 was awesome, why did they drop the ball so hard on M20? Oh well, guess I will be sticking to 2E for my Mage games from now on.

I wasn't impressed with Mage to begin with. It read like playing Westboro Baptist Church, the KKK, the Taliban and the tumblr feminists teaming up to fight the Commie Nazis. Of course, it's still loads better than that awful Magicians show on syfy. I hate the magic school students. They're all assholes. The villain is more sympathetic and he's a mass murdering psychopath.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;920918[...] it's still loads better than that awful Magicians show on syfy. I hate the magic school students. They're all assholes. The villain is more sympathetic and he's a mass murdering psychopath.

...you know that's the point, right?  That The Magicians is supposed to be a Watchmen-esque deconstruction of Narnia and Harry Potter?

Quote from: daniel_ream;920970...you know that's the point, right?  That The Magicians is supposed to be a Watchmen-esque deconstruction of Narnia and Harry Potter?

A deconstruction of Narnia and Harry Potter would be the Emperor Beyond the Sea revealed as Cthulhu and Voldemort turning the Voyager Golden Record into a horcrux. Everyone dies, the end.

The Magicians does everything it can to make you hate everyone except Julia. The students not only have no redeeming values, they are just as suicidally stupid as the victims in horror b-movies. What do they do when they literally have a week to live before a horrible monster eats them? They waste valuable time on soap opera melodrama and whining about their first world problems like angsty white entitled middle class teenagers.

If the audience reaction to a show is to root for the villain to eat the heroes and put them out of OUR misery, then the show sucks and fails as any kind of entertainment other than COMEDY.

Also, Lev Grossman left falsified positive reviews on his books and bribed his way onto the bestseller list. He is shit and everything he writes is shit. At least G.R.R. Martin, for all his writing flaws, is a nice mature person who doesn't pull stunts like that.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;921047A deconstruction of Narnia and Harry Potter would be the Emperor Beyond the Sea revealed as Cthulhu and Voldemort turning the Voyager Golden Record into a horcrux. Everyone dies, the end.

Whether you agree that the author succeeded in his intent has little to do with the actual intent.  Personally, I found the show immensely entertaining.  It's of a piece with unReal.  Although I suspect Marti Noxon didn't consciously intend unReal to be a deconstruction of her relationship with Joss Whedon and a horrifying condemnation-by-example of modern slacktivist feminism.

QuoteIf the audience reaction to a show is to root for the villain to eat the heroes and put them out of OUR misery

You keep using that word.  I do not think it means what you think it means.

Listening through my classic DnB/Jungle folder, I'm immediately hit with this embodiment of the stylistic side of NWOD: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQsj_5P16QM&hd=1&t=19m08s (on mp3 over here, so had to find YT link)

This is the kind of stuff I grew up with around me so of course I have a liking to it but it absolutely smacks of a certain era and it's not quite OWOD but it's not quite NWOD but it's like somewhere in-between and something I have played in one of my chronicles (first song heard while PCs were driving along in my modern-day NYC VTR chron). It's an embodiment, is what it is.

On that note, part of the Neo-Gothic vibe I like to push involves sophisti-goth/haute-goth and for a fashion event the PCs crashed towards the end of first story had this playing when the social characters entered the viewing antechamber/gallery overlooking the main catwalk and hall: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzzIuJNE218 (YT to the rescue again! Cool video, no idea they'd done a vid for it) . Some of the players really liked the idea of being all dressed in designer suits and gowns/dresses but a couple didn't (and I let them go ahead, the NPC ghoul bouncers just turfed them out afterwards, hah hah).

Here's another playing now as I write: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUPHNMmSPqg. Used this for the smutty-yet-upscale midtown bar some of local "high culture" vampires hung out at, kinda like how I had the VIP section of the downtown LA bar -- main hangout for Unaligned -- for my Mage chron playing this in the background: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMeVu-JCAwA

I'm very much a fan of the idea of "soundtracks" for your games and they have to be the right tracks, too. Thank God for Spotify and the remote control feature. It adds soul to your games and really helps set the right atmosphere. And PCs should be dressed for the occasion too, a savvy GM taking note and pulling their players up on that (my Silver Ladder/Invictus players love me for this, of course they do, hah hah!) One should be as comfortable in a stylish blazer and shirt combo as they are in a trenchcoat, after all. *wink*

Hah, and this was supposed to be a simple song link too to something that took me back!

Quote from: daniel_ream;921060Whether you agree that the author succeeded in his intent has little to do with the actual intent.  

How do you know that the actual intent was?

Quote from: yosemitemike;921081How do you know that the actual intent was?

Because the author said it was his intent?

Interviewer: "It’s like Nolan Narnia."

Grossman: "I’m the world’s only non-Nolan fan so I understand what you mean by that, but I think of it like the same way George RR Martin is rewriting Tolkien, I was going to re-write Harry Potter."

Interviewer: "But it seems like your books are so much more informed by Narnia!"

Grossman: "Well, Harry Potter is a little bit of a stalking horse to get to Narnia, because I read Harry Potter when I was 30 so I’m into it, but it’s not in my DNA. Narnia’s very much in my DNA, and I always knew they were going there."

Quote from: Michael Gray;921084Because the author said it was his intent?

Interviewer: "It’s like Nolan Narnia."

Grossman: "I’m the world’s only non-Nolan fan so I understand what you mean by that, but I think of it like the same way George RR Martin is rewriting Tolkien, I was going to re-write Harry Potter."

Interviewer: "But it seems like your books are so much more informed by Narnia!"

Grossman: "Well, Harry Potter is a little bit of a stalking horse to get to Narnia, because I read Harry Potter when I was 30 so I’m into it, but it’s not in my DNA. Narnia’s very much in my DNA, and I always knew they were going there."

Magicians is exactly like GoT! (except for the quality of writing, the acting, the directing, the production value...the key grip...the best boy...).:-)

Tangent: I like some dark stuff, but that whole Nolanesque view of things being expanded beyond bats is what has shot the DC movies right in the ass.

Quote from: Michael Gray;921084Because the author said it was his intent?

The internet has made me a bit skeptical of people talking about the intent or the subtext.  You know how it is.  People post all sorts of stuff saying that is the actual intention, subtext or whatever.  Sometimes this comes from something the author actually said as in this case.  Most it comes straight out of their asses.

Quote from: Doc Sammy;919959Maybe we do have different ideas on what themes are, but please stop telling me that I'm "playing the game wrong" just because I like to do things differently.

Good thing I haven't.

I am however very keen on avoiding theme-clash as it's a massive point of strife among gamers. Nobody wants to join a game expecting Attack on Titan and get Wallace and Gromit.

Quote from: Doc Sammy;919959I apologize for the Goth-bashing, I admit it's mainly projecting over assholes I have LARP'ed with and internet dickheads like Darren MacLerran and Martin Ericsson. I'll lay off on it.

Eh, I found it somewhat amusing, but apparently I don't take things to heart as deeply. Maybe I should.

Quote from: Doc Sammy;919970It's kind of interesting knowing what Goth started out at, especially considering how different things were by the time I was old enough to be actually aware of the subculture.

You should see what they look like now.

#Steampunk

Quote from: yosemitemike;919972Taking the whole game line into account, Vampire hardly seems to know what Vampire's themes are.

Yeah, they lost the plot almost immediately after the core book and Chicago by Night.

Quote from: tenbones;920458Although I can't see how *anyone* at WW could deny it was a direct lift from Ann Rice? I actually don't know anyone there that denied it. I know Mark Rein-Hagen never denied it. Hell, the "World of Darkness" is a direct line from her novels. Maybe this was a later thing? I know no one in my circle of friends that played ever thought that WoD wasn't just Anne Rice on roids.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;920475I was surprised to see fans of WoD say Anne Rice was either not an influence or not a big one. Personally, when I first saw Vampire, it looked like someone had read Interview with a Vampire and made a game based on the experience (which was cool and fine by me). People saying there isn't a connection, is only something I've encountered online and I really don't understand it when I've seen it.

Quote from: AaronBrown99;920568NO vampire before Rice had anything like the tormented angst she imposed on them. All the way back to 'Castle of Otranto', they were creatures of pure evil, symbols of power and forbidden sexuality (stoker's, anyway). Rice made tried to make Vampires sympathetic and added the 'lost humanity' angle, which V:tM uses as its central theme.

There could be no V:tM without Rice.

Supposedly MRH was even thrown out of one of Anne's parties because of it.

Some people just have fantastic powers of denial when it comes to their games and/or religion.

Quote from: TristramEvans;920165I backed the kickstarter for C20 initially, then dropped out once I found out what they had done to the Mage 20th Anniversary.

Yeah, Dreaming is likely to be chock full of gender politics and otherkin.

Thing is that could be fun, as long as they don't take a sanctimonious attitude with it.

Quote from: tenbones;920458Changeling the Lost? My players love it. I love it. But I keep looking at the Dreaming feeling I missed out on something. But I don't know what it is.

Like waking from a dream.

Maybe the intent was achieved better than anyone realized.

Quote from: Crüesader;920662Help me out here- people keep saying they screwed up Mage 20- I'm honestly thinking about buying this, so any feedback on this would be great.

Quote from: TristramEvans;920844The pronoun thing just makes them seem amateurish. It alone wouldn't have put me off the game. It was the altering of the Traditions.

You mean in that one sidebar?

Also they used the pronouns wrong and in a very clumsy fashion. The new edition of Awakening does it a hell of a lot better.

Quote from: Michael Gray;920888The other name changes seem half stupid, and half the kinds of things I've seen in real life in groups that need to make a change but can't make a REAL change

Some people believe a name defines a thing. Some people believe a thing defines itself and its name is merely a shadow. The first is magical thinking, but that ironically fits with the Mage setting, and in a world where every 'thing' is a 'name' the distinction can get right foggy.