Subject: Re: Explaining Mage to New Players From: blake1001@technologist.com Date: 1998/03/04 Message-ID: <6dkn9e$6lb$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com> Newsgroups: alt.games.whitewolf.mage [Subscribe to alt.games.whitewolf.mage] [More Headers] In article <34fd93be.0@newsread1.dircon.co.uk>, "Ed Francis" <ed@wfrancis.dircon.co.uk> wrote: > > If there is a single thing that can ever be learnt as a storyteller, its > that there is always someone who is better than you. > Could any experienced (or new for that matter) Storyteller tell me the > secret of Mage in a nutshell. OK, I'm going to start off very concise, and then elaborate on things until I realize I'm rambling.... just cut it at some point... ;) Mage is summed up in the Metaphysic of Magic. Reality is Subjective. Any internally consistent set of beliefs - called a Paradigm - can be true. Everybody in the world has slightly different beliefs about reality. Where all those beliefs overlap, and are consistent with each other, we have Consensual Reality - what people everywhere think of as the real world. People who's personal Paradigms differ from Consensual Reality, will find their belief's overwhelmed by the combined belief of the rest of the world. They are labeled 'insane.' Very rarely, someone realizes - at a deep spiritual level - the true, Subjective, nature of reality. Such people are Mages, and they call the experience that made them Mages 'Awakening.' An Awakened Mage can construct his own, personal, internally consistent, Paradigm and, working within that Paradigm, accomplish almost anything, because his Awakened state allows him to override Consensual Reality. The practice of Magick, is dangerous, however, as Consensual Reality is very, very powerful. A mage can overcome it on a case-by-case basis, but, unless he is very careful, the changes he makes to reality will disturb the placid nature of Consensual Reality, with unpredictable, often terrible, results. When a mage works magick, he is doing the 'impossible,' creating a Paradox within the Paradigm of Consensual Reality. Remember, a Paradox is a logical impossibility. The internal consistency of Consensual reality is compromised by the mage's actions. Likewise, if the mage fails to overcome Consensual Reality, his own Paradigm is compromised. In that situation, Paradox is inescapable, and something has to 'give.' The results of such Paradoxes are unpredictable, even mages do not really understand the power or the reason behind them, but they are dangerous, so mages try to avoid them. The way to avoid Paradox, is to create magickal effects that are valid under both the mage's personal Paradigm, and that of Consensual Reality. This might seem terribly limiting at first, but the effect can be anything that is possible under Consensual Reality - no matter how improbable. For instance, a mage's paradigm might allow her to cast a 'wealth spell' that will make her rich - if it works by spontaneously creating a horde of gold, a Paradox is created, if, OTOH, she finishes her spell, and Ed McMahhon knocks on her door with a large check from Publisher's Clearing House, both Paradigms are left intact. OK, that's the core of it... from here, it's all detail... the structure of the Spheres, the Traditions, the Technocracy, the Umbra.... and of course, Ascension, which is, at once, the whole point of Mage, and totally irrelevant to actually playing the game. ;) -- Blake 1001, Virtual Adept, Disciple http://www.oocities.org/Area51/1317/
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