NaGaDeMon / RoleVember 2019 - Getting Specific
One of the things about setting a game in the modern world is that there needs to be a point of difference.
This could be for a number of reasons...
I guess there's a lot of overlap here, and I'm sure there are plenty of other great resons why there are points of difference in modern RPGs, but at the time of writing, these are the only things that come to mind.
White Wolf's World of Darkness imagined a variety of Vampire Clans, Werewolf Tribes, Magical Traditions, and other groups to populate their world. Many were drawn from the world's mythlore, many were riffs on blatant ethnic stereotypes... many are looked upon as seriously problematic now that we have the benefit of hindsight.
This magical game isn't about playing on stereotypes, nor is it about making things problematic for the sake of it. If a story is going to be problematic, then these are the themes that need to be dealt with at the table, not written in black and white, or spashed across a glossy page in full colour. Moral and ethical decisions are not for the game to make, they are for the players to uncover through their characters in the world and to decide for themselves. In a world where anythig is possible, what are rules anyway?
I guess the whole point of my rant here is that I'm starting to consider a range of magical traditions and practices that reflect the ideas put forward in Mage: the Ascension over 25 years ago. It has come to the point where they need names and conceptual frameworks associated with them. These groups aren't going to be overarching bodies of arcane lore, they aren't going to have the resources of nations at their disposal, and they probably won't be fighting one another over the metaphysical concepts of personal or global ascension. They are just going to be ideas of groups who can be adapted to the stories told by different groups. Ideas to be stripped apart, modified and rebuilt as needed. They are going to be new ideas (or new versions of old ideas, stripped from other games and intellectual properties with serial numbers carefully filed off). One of the main differences here is that in this game, each of those traditions will derive their structure from the books at their disposal, and the cultures with whom they associate.
This means I'll be generating two dozen starting books of magic (where a "book" might be an oral tradition in some cases, or a specific training regime), then maybe a dozen groups that draw their power from these books. A weak organisation might have one or two books to draw their arcana from, a typical organisation might have three or four, and a powerful group might have five or six. Individual members may derive their methodologies from a single group, or may share allegiance to multiple groups.
Example Books:
The Way of the Underhand
A German textbook from the mid 17th century, with two distinct sections describing swordplay, and the forging of weaponry. Only six copies are known to have survived through the ages, three of which are in university libraries in Germany, while the remaining three are in the hands of private collectors and rarely exchange hands for less than a million Euro. To most readers, the books describe a series of unconventional approaches to combat and metallurgy, but to those who have mystic insight and an understanding of both psychology and intuition, it becomes apparent that the book is heavily allegorical and is actually about control the mind of an opponent through cunning, misdirection, and manipulation of the enviroment.
The Lock of Solomon
Any occultist worthy of the name knows about The Key of Solomon, a grimoire of spells claim to go back as far as the legendarily wise King Solomon, but probably dates back to occultists in the 14th century. Few know that there was a companion book called The Lock of Solomon, which relates to travelling to the realms of the spirits rather than summoning spirits to the physical world. Among those few who know of the book, it is said to be so dangerous that a complete manuscript must never be assembled. There are twenty-two fragments of the text, with a hundred scattered copies around the world, each of which contains no more than three or four fragments. Those who learn the myteries of the book, need to memorise fragments from various copies to piece together the truth in their mind.
The Kālá Mantra
Twenty thousand syllables make up the chant referred to in certain circles as The Kālá Mantra. Those who have memorised certain stanzas of the mantra have reported an ability to see forwards and backwards through time, grasping the variable strands of fate that coalesce from raw potential to physical reality, but only as long as they continue chanting to syllables from which the mantra is constructed. Those who have memorised larger sections of the mantra are said to have the ability to not only sense the strands of time and fate, but also weave them into reality according to their own desires, and those who have memorised the entire mantra are said to be able to traverse time as easily as they might walk down the street.
Example Faction (I still haven't decided what I'll call the factions in this game)
The Dionysians
There are many drugs with physiological effects that manipulate the neurochemistry of the brain, among these is one that the Ancient Greeks referred to as the food of the gods, Ambrosia. It is said that when humans take Ambrosia, the power of the gods flows through their essence and they awaken. This is partly true, and the Dionysians know this. Ambrosia is just the start of the journey to enlightenment for Dionysians, and the three books of lore for their order are chemical cookbooks for making a range of drugs that awaken different neuro-receptors. Without access to ambrosia, these drugs are functionally identical to street drugs like MDMA, ecstasy, or LSD, when taken by someone with ambrosia in their bloodstream they provide insight into a range of magical artforms.
Although members of the Dionysians come from all cultures, and all walks of life, they share a common trait due to the Ambrosia flowing through their veins. The stronger their mystic potential gets, the deeper violet their eyes become. This becomes harder to conceal through any means (whether natural or supernatural), and many members of the Dionysians withdraw from society or retreat to spirit realms when they gain a certain level of mystic insight. Once a Dionysian has reached this state, they often act as a guardian of the order's recipes, interacting with the mortal world through their younger apprentices and dealers.
(I'm adapting this group from a game I ran in the late 90s called Ukiyo Zoshi, so it's going to require a bit more work to adapt those nine factions across... and not all of them are a good fit for a modern world game, so some will take a bit more work than others. We'll see how it goes.)
This could be for a number of reasons...
- A point of difference helps to set a liminal boundary between the world of game-play and the world outside the game, and that allows the escapism to start working. (When someone starts talking about the black founrain in the middle of town, and there isno black fountain in the real world, you'll know they're referring to "in-game" events)
- A point of difference can be the focal element of the setting to ensure that people outside the game don't necessarily think that you're talking about a specific real-world group when discussing the events of play. (If your game involves a bunch of murders against the KKK, or some other extremist group, and it gets overheard in conversation that might lead us down the path of religious nuts tying t shut down the hobby again...)
- I guess in a lot of ways, ensuring a point of difference can help eliminate "bleed", which is kind of reflected in the points above. We've understood this concept in Australian freeform LARPing for a while, but the Nordic groups have named it.
- A point of difference can be a touchstone for stories that might be too complicated or politically charged to tell stories about otherwise. They might also serve as points of departure to connect specific concepts to in the millieu (especially when those concets might be potentially problematic). (In a specific game, the yellow hooded riders who prey on citizens of non-white ethnicity are cultists of a tainted king who rests etenal on a golden throne in the forgotten dreamscape of a hellish abandoned metropolis)
I guess there's a lot of overlap here, and I'm sure there are plenty of other great resons why there are points of difference in modern RPGs, but at the time of writing, these are the only things that come to mind.
White Wolf's World of Darkness imagined a variety of Vampire Clans, Werewolf Tribes, Magical Traditions, and other groups to populate their world. Many were drawn from the world's mythlore, many were riffs on blatant ethnic stereotypes... many are looked upon as seriously problematic now that we have the benefit of hindsight.
This magical game isn't about playing on stereotypes, nor is it about making things problematic for the sake of it. If a story is going to be problematic, then these are the themes that need to be dealt with at the table, not written in black and white, or spashed across a glossy page in full colour. Moral and ethical decisions are not for the game to make, they are for the players to uncover through their characters in the world and to decide for themselves. In a world where anythig is possible, what are rules anyway?
I guess the whole point of my rant here is that I'm starting to consider a range of magical traditions and practices that reflect the ideas put forward in Mage: the Ascension over 25 years ago. It has come to the point where they need names and conceptual frameworks associated with them. These groups aren't going to be overarching bodies of arcane lore, they aren't going to have the resources of nations at their disposal, and they probably won't be fighting one another over the metaphysical concepts of personal or global ascension. They are just going to be ideas of groups who can be adapted to the stories told by different groups. Ideas to be stripped apart, modified and rebuilt as needed. They are going to be new ideas (or new versions of old ideas, stripped from other games and intellectual properties with serial numbers carefully filed off). One of the main differences here is that in this game, each of those traditions will derive their structure from the books at their disposal, and the cultures with whom they associate.
This means I'll be generating two dozen starting books of magic (where a "book" might be an oral tradition in some cases, or a specific training regime), then maybe a dozen groups that draw their power from these books. A weak organisation might have one or two books to draw their arcana from, a typical organisation might have three or four, and a powerful group might have five or six. Individual members may derive their methodologies from a single group, or may share allegiance to multiple groups.
Example Books:
The Way of the Underhand
A German textbook from the mid 17th century, with two distinct sections describing swordplay, and the forging of weaponry. Only six copies are known to have survived through the ages, three of which are in university libraries in Germany, while the remaining three are in the hands of private collectors and rarely exchange hands for less than a million Euro. To most readers, the books describe a series of unconventional approaches to combat and metallurgy, but to those who have mystic insight and an understanding of both psychology and intuition, it becomes apparent that the book is heavily allegorical and is actually about control the mind of an opponent through cunning, misdirection, and manipulation of the enviroment.
The Lock of Solomon
Any occultist worthy of the name knows about The Key of Solomon, a grimoire of spells claim to go back as far as the legendarily wise King Solomon, but probably dates back to occultists in the 14th century. Few know that there was a companion book called The Lock of Solomon, which relates to travelling to the realms of the spirits rather than summoning spirits to the physical world. Among those few who know of the book, it is said to be so dangerous that a complete manuscript must never be assembled. There are twenty-two fragments of the text, with a hundred scattered copies around the world, each of which contains no more than three or four fragments. Those who learn the myteries of the book, need to memorise fragments from various copies to piece together the truth in their mind.
The Kālá Mantra
Twenty thousand syllables make up the chant referred to in certain circles as The Kālá Mantra. Those who have memorised certain stanzas of the mantra have reported an ability to see forwards and backwards through time, grasping the variable strands of fate that coalesce from raw potential to physical reality, but only as long as they continue chanting to syllables from which the mantra is constructed. Those who have memorised larger sections of the mantra are said to have the ability to not only sense the strands of time and fate, but also weave them into reality according to their own desires, and those who have memorised the entire mantra are said to be able to traverse time as easily as they might walk down the street.
Example Faction (I still haven't decided what I'll call the factions in this game)
The Dionysians
There are many drugs with physiological effects that manipulate the neurochemistry of the brain, among these is one that the Ancient Greeks referred to as the food of the gods, Ambrosia. It is said that when humans take Ambrosia, the power of the gods flows through their essence and they awaken. This is partly true, and the Dionysians know this. Ambrosia is just the start of the journey to enlightenment for Dionysians, and the three books of lore for their order are chemical cookbooks for making a range of drugs that awaken different neuro-receptors. Without access to ambrosia, these drugs are functionally identical to street drugs like MDMA, ecstasy, or LSD, when taken by someone with ambrosia in their bloodstream they provide insight into a range of magical artforms.
Although members of the Dionysians come from all cultures, and all walks of life, they share a common trait due to the Ambrosia flowing through their veins. The stronger their mystic potential gets, the deeper violet their eyes become. This becomes harder to conceal through any means (whether natural or supernatural), and many members of the Dionysians withdraw from society or retreat to spirit realms when they gain a certain level of mystic insight. Once a Dionysian has reached this state, they often act as a guardian of the order's recipes, interacting with the mortal world through their younger apprentices and dealers.
(I'm adapting this group from a game I ran in the late 90s called Ukiyo Zoshi, so it's going to require a bit more work to adapt those nine factions across... and not all of them are a good fit for a modern world game, so some will take a bit more work than others. We'll see how it goes.)
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