From:	losthalo brucekitty@*****.com
Subject:	SR vs White Wolf's Mage
Date:	Fri, 16 Jun 2000 15:24:25 -0700 (PDT)

Subject: Re: SR vs White Wolf's Mage
Date: Thu, 15 Jun 00 19:33:28 -0500
From:
To: "Shadowrun List" <shadowrn@*********.com>
Reply-To: shadowrn@*********.com

Steve Collins <einan@*********.net> wrote:
>On 6/13/00 11:04 pm, Josh Harrison said:

>MAGIC IN M:tA is kind of wierd. On one hand it is obvious that someone

>involved in creating the system knew something about Quantum Physics
>because it is all based on the observer influencing reality. That is
>why
>it is easier (less paradox concerns) to do obvious magic effects when
>no
>one is looking, there is no other observers influence on reality to
>overcome. On the other hand it is obvious that they knew absolutely
>nothing about science.

I believe you are mistaken. One of the problems I had with
understanding the game was just this, thinking as if science rules
everything in the Mage setting. It does not. When a Verbena (for
instance) believes that Life is a principle and a type of things
entirely different from Matter, she is right (to her). Reality to
willworkers is very subjective, very open to interpretation, and thus
very malleable. That is how Sons of Ether can ignore "standard"
science and concentrate on the possibilities that ether and other
"edgy" science offer them (cold fusion, for example :). Playing or
running Mage requires the players to think of reality as up for grabs,
science is only one way of interpreting what we see, and at the same
time, think about particular characters' paradigms (way of seeing
reality. All of which is very interesting and a big mental
challenge...

>The fact is that at 5 circles the Matter and
>Energy spheres become interchangable and Entropy can duplicate
anything
>you can do in either of them plus a few extra things. The Life sphere
>should really not exist either as except for artificial game mechanic
>reasons Biology could very easily be controled at an electro-chemical
>level by any of the previous 3 spheres. Another problem with the
>Entropy
>sphere is that realistically it is nearly impossible for it to ever be

>obvious and therefore an Entropy adept really doesn't have to worry
>much
>about Paradox.

This is not true, except by a very literal reading of the rules (which
brings problems in any WOD product, since they're meant for gamers
who're interested more in story than rules...). The comments about
turning vampires into lawn furniture in the Book of Shadows are a good
example.

>There is no such thing as a "spell", you just describe what you want
>your
>character to do and if the GM decides if the power of the effect is
>appropriate for your level of skill in the appropriate sphere and
>wether
>it fits within your characters paradigm or not. If he approves he
>assigns
>a target number. You could as a player come up with a list of commonly

>used effects and think of it like a spell list if you wanted but
unless
>for some reason your player believed that they were limited to those
>effects (for example a character who believed that the source of his
>magic relied on a spell book) it would represent just a fraction of
>your
>characters power.

>This system has some advantages in a group with very good players and
a
>good GM, but 1 Munchkin or a GM (storyteller) who doesn't know as much

>about the system and to some extent science as the players can ruin
the
>game for everybody. It is especially dangerous for Munchkins because
it
>is actually very easy given the description of the spheres for any
>character with 5 dice in either Entropy, Energy, or Matter to simply
>walk
>around and cause large nuclear blasts and it could be possible at 4
>dice.

Actually, scale becomes a big issue in the second edition, not to
mention the number of successes needed to pull off a "nuclear blast" or
the equivalent.

Granted, Mage gives characters a lot of power, but it is up to the GM
and the players to mold the sort of game they want, the WOD rules don't
do a lot of the work for the GM. The theory is rules get in the way.
WOD assumes a mature GM and mature players who can do without rules,
much the same as SR (in my opinion).

To bring this remotely back on topic :), I think SR's continuing trend
of increasing the range of magical tradition types is a good idea, but
at the same time I don't enjoy the Mage-like "anything goes as a
paradigm" approach that it's moving toward. Characters modeled after
Jedi Knights and superhero comic book characters don't really charm me.

Further, I think that Magic's place in the SR world can get blown out
of proportion easily, especially given the supposed rarity of it.

One last note, on the subject of "variant" approaches to Magic, what
about variant approaches to, say, insect totems? Since variations on
the classical SR totems were mentioned somewhere (MitS I think), what
about non-horrific takes on Insect totems where the magician isn't a
pawn of the insect spirit hives?

Losthalo (and another thing...)

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