Talk:Mage: The Ascension

...I think I may have gone a little overboard in attributing the game's problems to White Wolf being full of neopagans and hippies. Sorry. --SpectralTime (talk) 23:59, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

its good, fuck hippies. does anyone have the End Times scenarios for mages? --SaltyMan (talk) 05:14, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

Yeah. Just wanted to finish the Werewolf ones first. --SpectralTime (talk) 06:03, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

Alright, the headers are awaiting content. - Biggus Berrus (talk) 12:43, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

I am a bit tired, just adding one and going to sleep, sorry. --SaltyMan (talk) 05:58, 22 December 2017 (UTC)

Too tired, I'd appreciate if people fill Ascension scenarios up.--SaltyMan (talk) 11:13, 25 December 2017 (UTC)

Did I do this right? I never played it:

To avoid this, mages (and Technocracy) develop methods to avoid it. Of course, a fireball in public would be Paradox rich as hell (unless humanity collectively believes humans can cast fireballs at will), but it would be far less dangerous if, say, the said mage had a can of explosive gas on hand, imitated igniting it and tossed it. The closer to consensus of physics it is, the less Paradox would be generated. Another example would be Enlightened Technology. Technocracy has terminator robots and spaceships. How? Most of it operate CLOSE to RL science (emphasis on close, with the gap closed by Quintessence or whatever the game's source of power is) so they are mundane enough to use by awakened people. Said technologies however, would NOT work in the hands of a non-Awakened, such as a nanobot-rich healing canister that would be used by a Progenitor easily. Non-awakened Technocracy personnel believe it's a fingerprint system so reality isn't threatened. So basically Awakened people stretch the limits of existence without making it too obvious.

--SaltyMan (talk) 18:18, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

Some parts of this read as if the writer hadn't ever actually sat down to a game of Mage before. MtA works fine. In fact, it only gets complicated when you try to incorporate other rulesets into it, like Wraith. I've played quite a few games, so I'll nip and tuck a few places, but try to keep it clear that the game can be complicated and hard to understand. Go ahead and butcher it if I went overboard. --Dickbois (talk) 12:01, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

...See, the problem with that whole "the only reason this alternative medicine stuff doesn't work is 'cause the Technocracy is deliberately sabotaging them!" is that, in real life that actually exists, all that alternative medicine stuff is snake oil at best and poison at worst, and the idea that the Progenitors, representing all of modern medicine, are banning and persecuting some perfectly-functional treatments but not others, like asprin or digitalis, that do come from the natural world, is really, really stupid, running completely counter to their themes as an organization. --SpectralTime (talk) 21:59, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

SpectralTime, uncensored opinionated humor is what makes this wiki great; removing "Mage Sucks" or "Mage Sucks For Retards" diminishes the characteristic humor of this wiki and makes it more like the other wikis, bland and humorless. In a community which prides itself on its uncensored opinionated humor, a 1d4chan.org editor needs a thick skin as it is only a matter of time before he encounters something which offends him; in honoring and maintaining the characteristic humor of this wiki the thick-skinned editor then either simply ignores the the offensive statements by letting them "roll off his [thick-skinned] back" so to speak, or he finds a way to add to the humor. If an editor finds himself unable to get past being offended, then 1d4chan.org is probably not the wiki for him.
-- Thanateros (talk) 10:16, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

But all you’re doing is replacing actual uncensored opinionated humor with whining and bitching about how stupid everyone who doesn’t like your favorite game is, resulting in a net comedy deficit. Besides, doing that replaces the majority consensus opinion formed over decades with just your own opinion, which is bad policy to boot. —SpectralTime (talk) 17:03, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

SpectralTime, you see an illusion of consensus due to isolation within your peer group. Mage: The Ascension is a popular enough game that over two decades after it was first published it is still being updated, published, purchased, played, and discussed, so obviously not everyone finds Mage as difficult to understand as you do; your content ignores this reality in favor of whining and bitching about how Mage is supposedly "extremely complex and difficult to understand" ...for you [and your peer group]. All of your whining and bitching about how "Mage Sucks" just begged for that "...For Retards" joke; the humor of which is understandably difficult for you to see/admit since you were the butt of that joke. You could have maintained the 4chan-style humor by simply adding whatever nerd jokes you have to describe fans of Mage, but instead you decided to just be butthurt and delete a joke of which you were the butt, which is piss-poor sportsmanship on your part. -- Thanateros (talk) 14:14, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

In your haste to smear me, you have made a grevious tactical error, because I don't have a single isolated and stagnant peer group. I've gamed regularly in three different cities up and down the Eastern seaboard, and had regular contact with two video groups, one international, one from across America, where the deficiencies of M:tA as a mechanical system was a running gag every time the system came up. Furthermore, I didn't write much of what you're complaining about. Oh, I added to it once upon a time, but the version you are editing is actually much reduced from the original hilarious put-downs and vitriol I once read and chuckled at and instead become mild and accurate, if less funny, criticism. That you cannot tolerate even this says a great deal more about you than I.

And as for your dubious claims of "humor" and "joking" as a shield... well, there's an extremely simple formula that anyone can use at home to determine whether or not such claims have merit! Simply look at them and ask yourself "If this were not 'humor' or 'a joke,' or 'a parody' or 'trolling;' if this were, in fact, merely a completely straight example of, for instance, an angry person complaining on the internet that other people don't like something he loves and hurling insults at them... what would have to be changed? What would have to be removed?" The closer the answer is to "Nothing," the less meritorious the claims and the less funny the "joke," and if the answer is nothing, then one can quite reasonably say it isn't actually a joke at all.

But, we could be here all year slinging insults at one another. I feel we would be better served with a third, or fourth and fifth if possible, set of eyes on the product to judge for themselves. You've expressed yourself, I've expressed myself, we clearly both feel very strongly on the subject. Now comes the time to bring in fresh faces and determine what the actual consensus is. --SpectralTime (talk) 16:21, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

SpectralTime, all of the sources you list are within your isolated peer group. We all exhibit behavioral patterns which select our peer group; your behavioral patterns etc. repeatedly brought you into interaction with people who find Mage too complex, whereas in my time in multiple countries on two continents my behavioral patterns etc. repeatedly brought me into interaction with people who have no difficulty with Mage. (This article is my first significant interaction with a gamer who has difficulty understanding Mage as published.) Neither of us is "right" regarding Mage's complexity, because such is subjective relative to the individual, and that subjective complexity is one thing that this article fails to address. You made a salient point when you touched upon how the loss of some humor was the price of increased accuracy; initially I had opted to maintain the 4chan put-down style of humor but you are obviously not comfortable with such humor being pointed at you; perhaps the solution to this article's inaccuracies is a dash of good ole encyclopedic neutrality (while still attempting to maintain as much humor as possible). The most glaring error in this article is the parts which misleadingly indicate that one needs a prior knowledge of metaphysics in order to play; all of the metaphysical concepts which one needs to play are just core game concepts which are explained in the core rulebook: the necessary metaphysical concepts are Spheres, Consensual Reality, and the prior's immune system which is Paradox; conditionally useful metaphysical concepts [depending on game focus etc.] are Quintessence, Avatar, Metaphysic Trinity, and Umbra. The formula for a well-written article is to have it be written by people who have a firm grasp of the article's concepts. -- Thanateros (talk) 09:33, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

I'm deeply unhappy with these bland, dull, humorless cuts from a butthurt party who sure has a lot of nerve to accuse me of being unable to take criticism, and I'd really like to have another person here to arbitrate between us. --SpectralTime (talk) 22:41, 15 February 2020 (UTC)

SpectralTime, go back and reread above where I had requested that you criticize me with nerd jokes. I think that retard and nerd jokes would increase the humor of this article, but you only tolerate jokes that make fun of people other than yourself. Thanateros (talk) 07:27, 17 February 2020 (UTC)