Following on from yesterday’s post about Terry Robinson’s new Mage book Ascension’s Landscape, Terry asked a query on Twitter and the Mage Facebook group:
Whilst I’m not one that enjoys comparing the cWoD games, which one has more of X or Y; I think they all have lots. There are some great responses on the Mage Facebook group, which persuaded me to join the fun and I want a bit overboard because it was fun and I have a lot of old notes and semi completed projects; guess I should make an audio/video version next. So here are my ponderings and suspicions as to what the people claiming ‘Mage has more Lore’ might mean 🙂
Since some players, like me, connect all of the World of Darkness, any comparisons are redundant? Maybe the people making this Lore suggestion love Mage so much they consider it the glue that holds the WoD together? Then we have those players that have only played/read about a few game-lines, grandiose ignorant claims are common enough, so could this be their basis? A quick note that whilst Ars Magica can be claimed as a Mage prequel, the same is true for Vampire, if not more so?
If it is about words published, then Vampire wins that. The Jyhad is a grand and complex affair and there is plenty of mystery. So I guess these people cannot mean official word count, nor vast histories, or detailed relationship maps. Since Vampire got so much love, it was no surprise some disliked it purely on the popularity principle, so an old regular debate I used to encounter was someone claiming Vampire was lacking compared to other games. Consider the DC vs Marvel debates: DC, even with their high end events, they are typically about punching X really hard, whilst Marvel, not even just the high end, has a lot more Reality Warping. Back to Vampire, well yes for a neonate they have limited power, whilst a new Mage can alter reality. Many vampire books stated Antediluvians are so much more than the other Kindred; they can do more than punch a bit harder 😉 Methuselahs can have outrageous powers, Shaitan, Baba Yaga, Japheth, Menele, etc., certainly do more than punch things. My point being if we are looking at just Vampire, in the Lore we have near god like beings. So I guess these people don’t think that is enough.
We Werewolf fanatics know that the setting is rich with Lore and has many layers; we’re not mad at all the dismissive ignorance 😉 Given the heavy metaphysical nature and stakes of big plot I can understand someone positing that Werewolf has the most Lore. Of course everything in Werewolf can be done at the high power levels of Mage, this includes a Mage being one of Gaia’s chosen.
Changeling has the most Lore, just a shame we all forgot it 😉 All of the World of Darkness benefits/suffers from unreliable narrators. Mage and Changeling have that to a much greater level. I think the difference is that for Changeling the Mists pretty much guarantees we know a Changeling doesn’t know many(any?) ancient things. Whilst a Mage could believe that not only do they know things, but they think they have deep understanding and also can/should change things. Add to this the significant aspect of altering of consensus reality is a core part of Mage; a new player can read constant reference to changing reality in the core rules.
I would guess that through the lens of ‘Mage is everything’, which includes the non-realities, then everything is Lore, that automatically makes the Mage the winner for some? Of course Werewolves can go backstage to reality and Changeling deals with the ‘imaginary is real’ all the time. The difference is how easy it is for Mage to switch between these things, not as easy for the other games, and for some not even possible. Learning Vampire lore is more like learning history, yes there is depth, plenty of dates, and details. Maybe the difference is that Mage can easily span both the macro and micro of anything, plus in some cases at the same time. Thus it can easily accommodate the deepest dive into any subject; therefore it could be viewed as having ‘more’ of everything. Learning that humanity’s actions are influenced by the Weaver and the Wyrm does reframe things a bit, a cub learning there are big complex bads to fight, but that is easy to grasp. Likewise learning that Pompeii’s destruction was due to the Jyhad and the usage of a Thaumaturgy Rite, well this is a famous historical event, but now with new supernatural details, easy to grasp. Any time Mage intersects with history it could be viewed as typically being more complicated, usually involving different philosophical ideas; of course it doesn’t have to be. So I’m not sure this aspect is the key to these peoples’ hypothesis.
I suspect philosophy is not as well-known subject for the average gamer, plus a subject that is viewed negatively by some; Mage certainly helped motivate me to learn about philosophy, and to keep struggling to learn more. So, are these people proposing that Mage is therefore harder to learn? Yes and no is my useful answer, depends on transferable knowledge and what a group decides to focus on.
Back in the day it was kind of funny/exasperating how many chats of: you don’t have to play a stereotypical Toreador or Fianna, etc., were had. Maybe this was a common old issue due to playing so many class based games like D&D and Cyberpunk in the 80s, I certainly met players who quickly adapted to the freedom, or already played classless games. Waffling a bit in an attempt to ponder whether these people see Mage as being less stereotypical than Kindred, Garou, Kith, etc. I doubt it, but I have met a few people that have said this. Analysis Paralysis seems to be a common problem with Mage, but again I am sure lots of individuals don’t have this problem.
Ancient sacred mysteries and other hidden groups are typically a big part of Mage, so does Vampire. There is always the consideration that a Mage can easily go anywhere, so a Storyteller may feel they need to be constantly researching in response to PC actions. A typical party could have such diverse characters that it is hard to predict things, never mind how they use spheres and deal with dilemmas. The relevance to the query is whether one considers learning potentially vastly different paradigms to be Lore or not. I don’t think it is the right label, but I wonder whether this might be a modifier to someone’s reasoning about depth of Lore.
Disciplines and Gifts are straightforward, Sphere Magick is not. I’m not talking about mechanics either, but about the impact upon the game world, the implication of what can happen with Spheres and therefore this could be considered Lore? Every historical event could be part of a ritual!? A domino effect, paradox, etc. Meh, in Werewolf each Gift has an implied backstory, how Spirits were persuaded to teach it to be a particular group; plus those seeking to learn something outside of their Breed, Auspice, or Tribe. In Wraith Arcanoi are tied to Guilds, so again there is depth and Lore here. Less common Disciplines are all about specialist Lore, beyond the common Disciplines and Vampire tropes. Given the Jyhad or Triat, every historical event could be framed as being to do with Vampire or Werewolf; never mind the Wraiths, Fae, or whatever. So I think this is a weak line of reasoning, but I guess it could be another factor someone considers important?
An old debate I had at my FLGS, can Mage can be viewed as mash-up of the other game-lines? The imagination and uncertainty of Changeling, as well what it means to be oneself. Werewolf’s war over reality and visiting diverse other realms. The cosmic implication of what happens when we die and Oblivion. The grand schemes of ancient beings of Vampire, plus the constant manipulation of humanity. So, whilst the other game lines do certain things in more depth, Mage does everything? Meh, this is just another line of thinking about Mage being everything, but could it be part of these peoples’ reasoning?
I pondered character creation. Generally how a character learns about the Jyhad is uncovered in play. It can be an important aspect of character creation for some Vampires, but for most the gravitas is not there. A Mage character does not need to understand the Ascension War, but Awakening fundamentally is about the big questions and the Tellurian. How a player interprets this, what emphasis they gave to their character, is of course up to them. A character that Awakens might not prioritise much outside of themselves, so I’m sure this reasoning works. Whilst Ascension is a core idea for Mage it is not something that typically occurs. Technically a Kindred could diablerize their way to becoming an Antediluvian. A Garou could even defeat the Wyrm?! So I don’t think debates about grand goals or gravitas works.
Mage has time travel, well true, but Vampire has Temporis, whilst Werewolf and Changeling have time plots as well. Granted time manipulation is usually a rare aspect in these other games, plus very much under the Storyteller’s control. However, here I think there is a key difference. Maybe one could postulate that Mage, like Time, could be perceived as not just a stream, but a vast ocean of Lore; this is more than unreliable narrators, nor somehow removing the Mists from Changeling. Since the Time Sphere can be taken by a starting character, and thus there is all the complex implications to consider, as detailed in ‘How Do You DO That?’ (p.107), maybe this is the one area that makes some people think Mage has ‘more Lore’, because the Lore is dynamic? (Macro and Micro) If this is their reasoning, then I think they have a point, in part because I’ve met some Mage players that hate the Time Sphere because of its game destabilising potential. Thankfully I’ve not experienced this problem in my games; like many Storytellers, if the players have access to something then part of my prep is to acknowledge that. But I’ve also been lucky that none of my players have obsessed about the Time Sphere, nor set out to destabilise a game. So, I can also appreciate someone’s P.o.V that this makes Mage special, makes all of history dynamic.
Well, that was fun 🙂
Batjutsu 