Why did Mage The Awakening never get the same cultural relevance as Ascension?
>>98908328>Mage The Awakening Who?>AscensionWho? X2
Even purely worldbuilding- and atmosphere-wise, Mage: The Awakening captured my imagination more than Ascension ever did. There is just something about Awakening's cosmology that piques my interest.I am especially a fan of the Seers of the Throne as an antagonist group, and all of their Ministries. (DaveB has given blurbs for a total of 20 Ministries, from big dogs like Panopticon and Praetorian to smaller players like Rhadamantian and Yapian.)The actual mechanics are a different story, as I have shared from time to time:https://archive.4plebs.org/tg/thread/98089088/Still, I continue to run Awakening as a setting, even if I am not using its mechanics. I finished drafting up no less than 22 NPC profiles across the past week, even.
>>98908328WoD had cool art, CofD didn't.
>>98908328Awakening was made by the retards of Ascension, it being of inferior quality was destined from its inception
>>98908328The autists are the most loyal and so remain in any community the longest and thus are allowed to shape to long term cultural view of said work. And autistics are drawn towards tomes of deep lore which one had years worth of material for compared to the other.This goes for WoD v CoD in general, WoD is king and will remain king because it has 15 years worth of loosely interconnected lore for autists to revel in and proliferate out.
>>98908351Knowing what you are like, 2hou, that's because Awakening has a looser setting which you can more easily impose your preferred aesthetics and preferences on, while Ascension has a much stronger personality that you either really find appealing or you bounce off of. None of those Ministries are remotely as characterful or clearly defined as the Technocratic conventions, making it much easier for you to mould them into whatever shape suits you.
>>98908328they were trying to go from a setting with too much baggage to a more open system and succeeded in doing the opposite
>>98908333Average DnDogshit eater.
>>98908410This.Extremely deep and detailed lore = remembered for the decades to come by the scholars (autists)No lore = forgotten the second the next new thing hit the shelves as tourists only care about clout
>>98908328Dude... just... dude.... You missed the main one.
>>98908460>>98908410So a non mechanic picture book would be the best way to maintain interest without routinely breaking mechanics?
>>98908328It replaced the cool lore inspired by real world occult traditions with some gay shit about dragons and Atlantis.
>>98908351>Edna liking the worst NWOD setting, and the less thematically coherentFigures.
>>98908328Honestly I think a lot of the Nwod version of the game line suffers from the lack of pop culture power inherently because they came second and wanted to be more 'open ended' for what a GM (oh, I'm sorry, let me say the pretentious term 'Storyteller') wanted to do with it. This is a double edged sword because in the right hand in theory NWOD is better when a good GM flesh things out in interesting ways and isn't stuck having to incorporate truly insane, pants on head retarded lore as factual. The downside is this open ended stuff isn't as inherently catchy as a big shared setting with a very strong (if stupid) identity that people inherently know the moment you even brush up on WOD.
>>98908328The Technocracy. But neither were really relevant. Just WW burning money in gamelines.
>>98908328Being the age I am, Ascension is immediately comprehensible. I get what it's about. I know it's a late cultural reference, but I discovered WoD around the same time as I saw the matrix, so it clicked. This was the matrix, but with magic. There was plenty of fiction like that during the 90s. "You are punk rock revolutionary wizards fighting against the man, who are basically the bad FBI from x-files," is a solid elevator pitch.Ive never really "gotten" the awakening lore the same way. Doesn't click, there isn't a culturally relevant reference I'm aware of. Doesn't mean it's bad, just means I don't really get what it's deal is the same way. Unknown Armies is the far better "modern day wizards and magic" game/setting anyway.
>>98913472Changeling and Hunter were probably rhe biggest wins of NWoD. I like VtR, but i understand that's a minority opinion.
>>98913502>"You are punk rock revolutionary wizards fighting against the man, who are basically the bad FBI from x-files," is a solid elevator pitch.These days 'fighting the man' in meaningful ways is seen as harmful, especially because everyone loves heccin sciencerino and how dare you opposed 'the experts'. Let the technocracy inject you with all your boosters.
>>98908328Ascension actually has support for playing more than just hermetics or DnD wizards and that obviously makes it stand out more. also it covers a seemingly very rare niche which is the superscience fantasy which you think would be move common in games primarily played by nerds.
>>98913513Anon what the fuck are you talking about?
>>98913503Requiem is definitely better than Masquerade.
>>98908451Calm down, nogames, it's just a board for traditional games which you don't play.
>>98908465>Ignoring the thread and responding to the picturePeace through power
>>98908328Chronicles Mages were designed by retards who thought "Let's make a whole splat where you play Ninja Cartman."
Requiem vs Masquerade is a weird toss up imo because a lot of the more streamlined and open ended setting and clans is better than the clans of Masquerade being one notes but then you invariably lose the few clans and niche that are super whacky and who inevitably attract players and not always the good kind. But it sucks to tell people you brought down 13+ clans to just 5.
>>98914731I always thought that the lack of clans was more than made up for by the factions that were more varied and not basically at war with one another.
>>98908328They couldn't get dubs
>>98913503True, CtL is pretty awesome
>>98914758I actually like CtD, but I understand why most people prefer CtL
>>98913382I do not particularly think in terms of themes and motifs.I like Mage: The Awakening's cosmology, Orders, antagonists, and Legacies. That last part is important, because Legacies are a fascinating method of presenting a wide variety of subfactions that span and often cross between the wider Orders.
>>98914740Correct but them being less obviously on the nose 'the man' vs 'the punks' and a lot more morally muddy made them less appealing. Carthians are SORT OF the Anarchs except not really, for example. They are mostly vamps seeking answers and solutions to vampire politics in modern human ideas meaning you could legit have some who are like vampire skinheads and shit as much as you could have your WOD style communist punk. And then a third guy is a stuffy intellectual vamp who is actually fucking batshit in his schizo theories of social engineering because he's a MalkOvian who are the New Vamp MalkAvians.
>>98913609He's talking about nuMage lore, where you're basically a sekrit janny in charge of enforcing the consensus against evil antivax MAGA chuds. I'm probably going to get zapped for this, but WW games have always been intrinsically tied to the culture and politics they were written in and always had a leftist slant to them. And 15 years of the Libtard Reich kinda broke their brains because they could never get over the cognitive dissonance of trying to play punk while also being the dominant cultural power. A lot of the new lore reflects this dissonance, where it's about stamping out fringe weirdos whose views don't align with yours instead of fighting "The Man", who has become a nebulous non-entity and sometimes ally in the face of evil alt-righter radicals
>>98915273>I'm probably going to get zapped for this, but WW games have always been intrinsically tied to the culture and politics they were written in and always had a leftist slant to themNaw this is what I was hinting at because...>15 years of the Libtard Reich kinda broke their brains because they could never get over the cognitive dissonance of trying to play punk while also being the dominant cultural power. A lot of the new lore reflects this dissonance, where it's about stamping out fringe weirdos whose views don't align with yours instead of fighting "The Man", who has become a nebulous non-entity and sometimes ally in the face of evil alt-righter radicalsThis bit. Because what was edgy and punk and counter cultural and leftie in the '90s is in many aspects considered right wing and 'chuddy' today. WW is inherently a product of the '90s. Taking it out of the '90s breaks it.
>>98915288>Naw this is what I was hinting atI know, I just mean I expect jannies to get mad since I'm dancing dangerously close to "off-topic" politics posting despite my post directly addressing WW lore and why the new stuff is so spastic, ill-fitting, and poorly received.
>>98915312It is basically impossible to discuss WOD apolitically as it was one of the most political of the big name RPGs, possibly even more so than Cyberpunk (both the game and genre). That said what is funny about WOD is that in the heyday people played it as edgelord power fantasy.
>>98915251Yeah, I agree. A lot of what makes oWoD stupid is also what makes it relatively gamable (as long as you ignore the bullshit metaplot). nWoD seems like a more interesting setting, but because it's a lot less obvious it's a lot less immediately gamable.
>>98915349That is a good way to put it: new WOD has more overall potential to expand in new directions but it comes at the cost of immediately obvious, punchy, memorable onboarding point in splats.
>>98908357it absolutely had cool art, right up until One World of Darkness happened, and then the crowdfunding was the only thing keeping the lights on
>>98913513White Wolf was changing its course and depicting the Technocracy as the good guys and the Traditions as arguably worse than them even before the 21st century.You'd have to go back to 1993 for a black and white "techies are evil" version of Mage.
>>98915378>>98915349Reckoning being the exception.That shit OOZES flavour.
>>98908328It was killed by the corporation.
>>98908328I tried to google an image of the PAX symbol and search engines are so fucking cucked now I can't get one clear image of it.
>>98915378>Muh potentialThis is how you know is dogshit.
>>98916912As opposed to what, pure hardline metaplot where everything is fucked and doomed and stuck in premade insanity?
>>98917614This but unironically.WOD is kino.
>>98918113No, metaplot sucks
>>98908328Timing. Ascension was first, and they ended the world with the metaplot then relaunched everything. Being second will always draw negative comparisons to the first. Ascension was released in 93, while Awakening in 05. America had a different cultural outlook, and attempting to do a game about modern magic using the same mindset as a decade prior wouldn't work. Awakening is fine for what it is, and it's what I prefer to play between the two. There's more room conceptually to work with and less player buy-in.
>>98915248>I do not particularly think in terms of themes and motifs.That's exactling what makes a cosmology good or bad.
>>98918609You will never have as good lore as the Technocracy.
