Apropos of nothing: When thinking of the Spheres and what they can accomplish, keep in mind is that they aren't strict scientific disciplines, they're mystical principles which encompass concepts. Electricity is a Force, a biological organ is Life, a thought is Mind. So while you might be able to generate the same effect with different spheres, one is usually much easier to use. Finally, whatever you're trying to do has to fit within your paradigm - what your character thinks it is they're actually doing.
On top of all that, your magical theory would have to encompass the belief that such a thing would even work - that electrical stimuli and nerves are what make the mind function, instead of a balance of humours, or the influence of astrological alignments at one's birth, or it being a tiny portal to the universal consciousness. And then you'd have to produce the effect via your paradigm and foci. If you're a member of the Technocracy from the published setting, then this isn't really a problem. You'd map out the target's neural pathways with a medical diagnostic device, then use your mind control machine to input the desired actions, aka "techno" magic.
But if you're Doctor Strange, who would in fact have Medicine [neuroscience] 5, do you have a scroll with the Forces 3 Life 4 incantation 'Conscious Manipulation of Neural Activity and Response in the Frontal and Anterior Lobes of Mammals', or do you have a Mind 4 scroll with the 'Will of Agamotto?' Probably the latter. (Disclaimer: This example independent of current MCU movies, where Dr. Strange's main schticks are Correspondence and Time.)
Now why don't you need any extra skills or knowledge to control someone's mind with Mind 4? Because the ability is inherent to the mystic understanding of Mind that 4 dots represent. The same reason that an Aborigine mage with Matter 1 can tell what steel is, even if they have no knowledge of the periodic elements or alloys; they'd know what it's made of as expressed in their own paradigm, but no less accurately than the Western scientist mage.
I've got no problem with questions! I think the more we discuss this sort of thing the more all three of us can get a better sense of what aspects of the game we want to bring into play / focus on.
Awesome. Thanks again. I'm glad to be learning all of this from you in the Prelude.
I feel pretty good that Entropy 1, Time 2 for this Effect is consistent with her Paradigm. I'll probably spent a Quintessence to guarantee a success on the Entropy; in that case, would I roll 4d10 or 3d10? or does the 1 Qu get me a bonus success on top of whatever I can manage with my four dice?
For future reference, even though she is an Entropy-4 mage, if I'm only after an Entropy-1 Effect like Sense Fate and Fortune (and didn't fold in any Time) then I'd have a base difficulty of 1+3=4?
I'll start reading up on Yellow's Spheres soon so that this shake-out is a two-way street!
I'll probably spent a Quintessence to guarantee a success on the Entropy.
This is a mistake. I meant Willpower, not Quintessence. But my question remains.
Namely, assuming that this Effect has a difficulty of 5, I could
1) Spend 1 Willpower to get an automatic success. Do I then roll only 3d10 (thus having a maximum of 4 successes) or I roll all 4d10 as per my Arete (and possibly get 5 successes from the dice plus the Willpower)?
2) If I spend 1 Quintessence also, does the threshold for success on all of the dice drop from 5 to 4?
I'm close to figuring this out! I had a breakthrough reading it for the zillionth time just now. By the end of this cab ride, I'll be able to work magic...
1) Each point of quintessence you spend lowers the difficulty by 1. You have to spend it before you roll.
1a) You can spend a point of Willpower to gain an automatic success, but again, must spend it before you roll. This means you could possibly score 1 success over your total Arete if you spend the Willpower then roll your entire Arete score and gain all successes.2) You can draw 1 point of quintessence per week from your node for each dot you have in the Node background.
3) Base difficulty of a magic effect is equal to the highest sphere USED + 3. So your Entropy 1 Time 2 effect would have a base difficulty of 5 (Time 2 + 3).
4) You generally know when you fail - the "magic" doesn't happen. Botching generates paradox, the consequences of which may or may not occur immediately per GM fiat. You have some control over this; if paradox "backlash" is going to immediately occur you can spend a point of Willpower to delay it until the end of the scene.
5) Without Time you would only get a sense of the location's current fortune, with no guarantee as to how long it'll last. Maybe it's caused by a temporary stellar alignment, or the date is lucky, or a unicorn is sleeping in the basement, or it's haunted by the ghost of its former tenant, or whatever.
It's possible that with more successes spent on the actual Entropy 1 effect Mark might give you a more precise sense of the nature of the good/bad fortune (lucky in love, unlucky for gambling, stable for employment) though you might need additional spheres to pinpoint the source (Forces or Matter for stellar alignment, Time for date, Life for unicorn, Spirit for ghost, etc.)
I've got no problem with questions! I think the more we discuss this sort of thing the more all three of us can get a better sense of what aspects of the game we want to bring into play / focus on.
For instance, we're not using the Avatar background, or even the concept; usually Avatar interacts with quintessence. I believe that Mark said that generally if something is...
You are correct all things governed by Avatar in rules will be instead resolved using Arete.
1) Spend 1 Willpower to get an automatic success. Do I then roll only 3d10 (thus having a maximum of 4 successes) or I roll all 4d10 as per my Arete (and possibly get 5 successes from the dice plus the Willpower)?
You would roll up to 4d10 and possibly get 5 successes. Note that you don't have to roll your entire Arete, you can choose to roll any number of dice up to your Arete.
2) If I spend 1 Quintessence also, does the threshold for success on all of the dice drop from 5 to 4?
Yes, the threshold for the whole roll/dice pool drops by 1. If you were doing extended magic (making multiple Arete rolls over time to build successes towards an effect) the quintessence would only apply to the specific roll/dice pool you spent it on, not on every roll throughout your extended casting.
Finally, whatever you're trying to do has to fit within your paradigm - what your character thinks it is they're actually doing.
Agree. I often read the section Belief...and Paradigm for direction. I'm getting pretty comfortable with what she thinks she is doing. That is, I want to be true to the Mage authors' balance between Time and Entropy without cheating their system.
The authors of Mage cite a few source texts and one of them is A Brief History of Time, so I think I can see where they are trying to go with Time and Entropy. Luckily, I have decades of experience setting my training aside in order to enjoy sci-fi! Or, put less immodestly, I have found a way for their work to reach me as a reader.
Although “time running backward” might be a totally legitimate description of her self-repair by an observer, I do not think that Ceridwyn’s Entropy Effects could be counteracted by a Time mage owing to that different viewpoint. That is, I think that the authors have drawn a fairly bright line between the direction of time (Entropy) and the dilation of time (Time) such that the best a Time mage might do to Ceridwyn is to make time run so slowly that her Entropy efforts become onerous and difficult to complete, but she nevertheless would move herself in the right “direction”—toward more- rather than less-favorable ordered states—but not as far toward that goal than without the Time interference.
In contrast to the physical description upon which the authors drew, Ceridwyn has a more mystical notion of “outcomes” and “possibilities.” This is mostly because her Entropic worldview is still tied to her childish notions of possibility. All children learn the limits of society and the physical world through experience. Unlike normal children, Ceridwyn’s experiences (after fully joining our timeline; i.e. her second and proximate youth) were largely limited only by her ability to conceptualize an outcome, not by the likelihood of the outcome. Thus, she does not feel particularly obliged to supply a physical amount of constraint/energy to a system in order to bring about one of its possible outcomes. For her, other people’s use of the Second Law is like an astronomer listening to an astrologer correctly predict the location of Jupiter.
In terms of toys, she certainly feels the tug of consensus reality that a solved Rubik’s Cube should be considered more ordered than a scrambled one. Without dedicated mental effort, she will default to the consensus worldview (mostly as a means for reflexive sanity in her walk through life). However, she is particularly capable at seeing every state of a puzzle as a possibility independent of how that possibility might be classed as “unlikely” with respect to others. Similarly, she is not surprised by her ability to bring about unlikely possible states of systems, even though an analysis of the situation using the Second Law would result in a conclusion that time is flowing backward. I don’t think that the authors of Mage meant for any violation of the Second Law to be Vulgar. Rather, onlookers would only find unlikely events to be Vulgar if the preponderance of their experiences would prohibit other explanations, such as luck. (A trained physicist would have a much lower threshold for tolerating these Effects, as would a Technocratic/Science mage.)
IRL, there are two knobs that one might turn in order to influence the entropy of a system: k and W. Ceridwyn is firmly in the wahrscheinlich camp.
Nevertheless, the scaling constant k informs her notion of Time. Rather than believe that a Time Effect requires the rather large amount of energy needed to create a black hole the size of the Effect, Ceridwyn instead believes that the energies necessary are closer to the Landauer scale and are therefore readily accessible from personal reserves. All that she attempts in the Time Sphere is a dilation of the scale via relativity. Thus, for her Effect at the Old Waterfront, she thinks that she is contracting time to within her purview—five years to a few minutes. Even if she advances her knowledge and control of Time, she will still only transcend it on these terms—perhaps maxing out at recognizing time as an emergent quantity.
If the preceding explanation holds water—or once we are done iterating on it—I can add it to Ceridwyn’s profile for our reference going forward.
Mark, what do you expect the difficulty to be for the Effect at the Old Waterfront? I need to decide in advance how many dice to roll. Again, no hurry! I appreciate you taking care of the cab ride; and, I'm getting a lot of good thinking done.
Ian, awesome that you have worked out how magic works for you.
Guys,
I am looking at this format for magic rolls:
You explain desired effect and what you are using to achieve it in this forum. I assign the spheres needed and DC. You roll in this forum. I give you the results in layman's terms. You post the result with your fluff.
This is where rotes may come in handy. More on those in a few....
Let me know if this works for you two.
This sounds good to me. In addition to assigning the Spheres and DC, perhaps you could also provide (in advance) any requirements for successes.
For my upcoming example at the Old Waterfront, must I have 1 for Entropy and 1 for Time to get any Effect? And, can I simply roll lots of dice in the hopes that I get a nice, long time sight because I find myself with lots of successes to spend on the Time Effect? or do you want me to announce in advance that I want a, say, five-year outlook and additional successes mean nothing?
In terms of her Paradigm, there is nothing particularly "five years" about her prep. She would simply do her best to contract the future to within grasp and could easily succeed in a longer-than-planned sight. However, I don't want to cheat the system. Let me know.
This sounds good to me. In addition to assigning the Spheres and DC, perhaps you could also provide (in advance) any requirements for successes.
For my upcoming example at the Old Waterfront, must I have 1 for Entropy and 1 for Time to get any Effect? And, can I simply roll lots of dice in the hopes that I get a nice, long time sight because I find myself with lots of successes to spend on the Time Effect? or do you want me to announce in advance that I want a, say, five-year outlook and additional successes mean nothing?
In terms of her Paradigm, there is nothing particularly "five years" about her prep. She would simply do her best to contract the future to within grasp and could easily succeed in a longer-than-planned sight. However, I don't want to cheat the system. Let me know.
You got it. Here is the breakdown:
Lets talk a moment about rotes.
Rotes are a tried and true specific effect that you can generate.
They give you a -1 DC.
I am going to say you can have 1 rote for each rank you have in a sphere.
So Ian would have 4 rotes involving entropy, and 2 involving time.
For a total of 6. They can involve both spheres. They will take a rote slot in whatever the highest sphere is.
So, if Ian would like his prognostication effect to be a rote that would be 1 of his available rotes in the time sphere.
I would like the both of you to work on rotes you would like to do and post them here. This will help us hash out the magic system for everyone.
I would like the following info on the rotes:
The name: (ex. Ceridwyn's prognostication algorithm)
The specific effect: (ex. Determine the fortune of a decision over a time period)
Spheres used: (ex. Entropy 1, Time 2)
Additional Successes:How you see additional successes affect the scope of the effect.
Foci:What foci you use and how you generate the effect.
Type:Coincidental, or Vulgar.
And if there's one thing I really, really love, Jeff Lynne and the Electric Light Orchestra. Because you can't beat a bit of ELO.
I would like the both of you to work on rotes you would like to do and post them here. This will help us hash out the magic system for everyone.
Nice. I'll start reading up on rotes.
For some of the Time rotes, she will likely actually have theme music. I'll do my best to come up with something other than Primus...but I'm not promising anything.
** spoiler omitted **
3 hours it is then. Roll that magic check and we can hash out its effects.
Sphers: Entropy 1, Time 2
DC 3: Coincidental (Highest sphere +3), (-1 DC researched area) (-1 used Foci)
She'd certainly have a rote for this sort of Effect because it is her business jam. I haven't written up the rote yet, but if I can use it right away in the Prelude here, then that would be another -1 on the DC, correct? If so, then I'm looking for
2+3-1-1-1=2 for a success. In that case, I won't use any Willpower. I'll roll 4 for Arete.
3 Successes and 1 Botch.
Uh oh.
The minimum DC for a magic effect is 3, the maximum modifier is +/- 3. The maximum DC is 9.
You did not botch. A botch occurs when you have a -1 success. For example:
4d10 ⇒ (8, 1, 9, 4) = 22:
Is actually 2 successes. (3 rolls over or equal to the DC 3, and -1 success for the roll of 1.)
A botch would be 4d10 ⇒ (8,2,1,1)
Botch. (1 success, -2 successes, for a total of -1 success)
So with two successes you will get the general fortune of the building of the course of the next year. I will post that up in a few....
Also check out page 150 for extended casting rules.
If you set out for a five year prognostication you haven't achieved the required successes. You can either take what you get or continue casting at a -1 to your rolls next turn.
Hey there Ed. If you want to roll with the rats please give an Arcane roll and an Acrobatics + Stamina roll to avoid being trampled.
Sorry for the wait.
Also check out page 150 for extended casting rules.
If you set out for a five year prognostication you haven't achieved the required successes. You can either take what you get or continue casting at a -1 to your rolls next turn.
Good news on no Botch!
I'll read up on extended casting and probably roll once more. I'll post here when I've got it.
One more round of rolls. I'll let you tell me how long this takes. I haven't come up with the rote yet, so I don't know myself. (I don't expect this "business" Effect of hers to be too involved.)
I guess this is DC4 now. I'll roll 4 for Arete again and use a Willpower after the fact, if needed. ("If the roll botches..." in the third bullet on p 150.)
That'll do. Unless this client is going to come up again in the story or if she knows more about this client/job, I'm happy to have her provide a general Sense Fortune with a five-year outlook.
Yellow's post up. Ceridwyn's hopefully soon to follow.
Ceridwyn's post up.
Feel free to post up fluff/ reactions, and any actions you would like to take.
I'll try to get a gameplay post up tonight.
I'll get a post up in the next day or two. Two questions:
1) She can discern her own failures from blocked successes, correct? That is, learning about the time lock is an objective fact (as much as there are objective facts), not her misinterpreting my failed rolls? Should I make a roll for this sort of answer?
2) How often would stuff like the spider occur for a typical mage? Does she need a fright check or anything? can I make some sort of knowledge roll so that she can consider whether this is some sort of reaction to her magic?
Let's (you or me) make any of these needed rolls here in Discussion, then I'll start working on a Gameplay post.
I'll get a post up in the next day or two. Two questions:
1) She can discern her own failures from blocked successes, correct? That is, learning about the time lock is an objective fact (as much as there are objective facts), not her misinterpreting my failed rolls? Should I make a roll for this sort of answer?
2) How often would stuff like the spider occur for a typical mage? Does she need a fright check or anything? can I make some sort of knowledge roll so that she can consider whether this is some sort of reaction to her magic?
Let's (you or me) make any of these needed rolls here in Discussion, then I'll start working on a Gameplay post.
1. The fact that s time locked is a fact. You know your magic is being actively blocked. You can discern failure versus opposition.
2. This seems to be an active effect from your point of view. Either the spider or someone else created an effect. Your mage has no knowledge of the correct sphere or prime so she doesn't know how the effect works. This is not a paradox backlash either as you have none. It is going to be speculation on your part if the the effect was triggered by you or if it was coincidence.
You did note through your Awareness+Perception check that some magic was going down in this area, but it is not as accurate as a prime effect.
Nice. Thanks.
Sorry, was down with a fever all weekend. Fever broke last night, home from work today, will post by tonight.
Ed: glad you are feeling better.
One more question to anyone about the time lock. In reading up on it, it seems like it could be one of two general things.
1) a large spell cast in the past or future that is fixed to this location, for which the spider is some response to her magic
2) a local block on me personally by someone who has line of sight to me right now, for which the spider is some effect of their magic
although each of those ideas has a little room around their edges for dithering.
Could she tell the difference? More to the point, should she be spooked right now that another mage is on to her in the here and now?
Or, is Dunwall so teeming with mages that this sort of interference is commonplace?
This is the 1st time you have encountered it. Short answer you dont know.
Apologies again; I fell asleep on the couch last night. I'll post when I get home from work.
Hey, all. I'm still here. Teaching was intense this month and this is my nuts week of work to close it out before intersession, then I've got time to dedicate to Yellow. I'm looking forward to playing this. Thanks for your patience.
No problem. We will advance after your next post.
RL is a b!@$% right now. I'll get on this soon. Thanks again for your patience. ---simply checking in
I welcome feedback on my post.
Ed gave me a good talking-to at the beginning of Helorus, which helped a lot.
I'm still trying to get a feel for the magic system, so if I am baking-in my misconceptions to my posts, please let me know now so we can right the ship in the Prelude.
Or, if the feel of this campaign should be different than where I am heading, I'm happy to have an example set by whipping me publicly.
Again, feedback is welcome.
Let's try an get this thing going again even if it is one to two posts a week.
Ceridwyn you feel compelled to follow the spider.
Alright! I'll post soon.
Spoke with Yellow. 1-2 posts a week is doable for him. I will try and get a post up this weekend. Probably Sunday.
I'll try and post up this weekend as well. Next week is rough for me due to finals, but after that I should be good for at least 1/week.
Finals?! Are you back in school?
Post is up. Both of you feel free to post.
Nice!
I've got to spend a little time re-reading the Mage manual in order to get my gameplay bearings---my Mage has atrophied a bit. Yellow can post whenever it is ready. My feeling is that Yellow should post first, and I am in no hurry.
Is Ceridwyn completely (or about to be) overtaken by the rat wave? Or is she on her feet and able to simply watch? I'm guessing that she is far enough away that she is merely watching the rats/spiders/etc., but if she is right up in it and getting knocked over, let me know.
She is on her feet at the end of the alley. The rats are swarming the spiders. There is currently no chance of being overtaken.
Finals?! Are you back in school?
Yeah, working on an associates in accounting. I'll have a post up this weekend at the latest.
Finals?! Are you back in school?Yeah, working on an associates in accounting. I'll have a post up this weekend at the latest.
Nice.
I'll probably wait to read your post before I write any more: no hurry. Maybe I'll have some Mage questions in the interim.
I'll be another day or two before posting. I'm glad that we're back at it!
I check the page daily. I will prompt what I am looking for in this forum. One good post a week works for me.