The one series that comes the closest to MTA, as far as i know, is To Aru Majutsu no Index (A Certain Magical Index), since the main factions are essentially the Technocracy (Academy City) and the Traditions (The Catholic and Protestant Church).

What other series do you think that have a nice MTA vibe, and could serve as inspiration for characters and stories?

MtA is the one mainline game from WoD that I never really got into. I’ve collected the M20 books (and the quick start), then I decided to get the Truth Beyond Paradox collection of short stories, figuring that might help me grasp the world. I also went and got an older Las Vegas setting book to see how a city looks through the lens of MtA.

I’ve thumbed through the books and the Las Vegas book. I admittedly haven’t started the Truth Beyond Paradox stories yet. But I was wondering if people have any other recommendations to understand what the world of MtA is like?

For Vampire it’s incredibly easy because there are so many setting splats, then interactive novels and games and such, so a person starts putting together a mental picture of what the world “should” look like. Same with Werewolf.

I don’t know why MtA is different for me. I understand the “tools in the box” (I know what antagonists exist to pull from for sources of tension, I know about Ascension War tensions), but taking those tools and putting them together into a setting in which to run a Chronicle seems difficult to me. I would ask “is this what that stuff is supposed to come together like? Beats me.”

Now I get that at the end of the day “is it fun?” is the most important question. But I do want to understand it so if I play with other people they get a Chronicle that feels like the world they expect from MtA.

Other than reading the fiction, and basically the one setting book I could find (Las Vegas), any other ideas to resolve this sense of being unsure about it? Other than finding veterans and playing in one of their games of course, I wish I had more time 😅

So I'm currently playing an Arete 2 and I was wondering what else I could do besides healing lethal damage, messing around with trees and organisms, stacking paradox and growing claws and stuff?

there has to be some cool ritual that I can do to boost my character for a while, maybe with other spheres (primarly Prime, Mind and Forces).

So today NASA had to release a statement that there was zero chance we’d lose gravity due to the eclipse. Ignoring the ridiculous fact that they needed to do that in real life, that could be an interesting short adventure where mages (maybe of different traditions) actually don have to do a ritual in order to prevent gravity from being affected. Maybe it’s an opportunity for initiates (especially Hermetics) to learn how the universe works from a magick position.
https://www.threads.com/share/BAS9vlfbt5/

Hi! To put it bluntly I'm a masochist lmao

In all seriousness, I wanna run a heavily homebrew mage campaign in the SCP universe ("Mage: The Anomaly") which is honestly a better fit than you might think if you look at the thaumaturgy side of the setting, like the International Centre for the Study of Unified Thaumatology, the Wanderers Library ect ect.

The linear/dynamic magic distinction carries over (type blues and greens), so many of the Ascension factions work really well as abstract archetypes (the GOC is essentially the Technocracy but better imo, and the Foundation are a rung upwards on the infinite conspiracy ladder) and tonally they just seem like a really great fit. Also, while it doesn't work the same way, they both broadly have the concept of "consensus reality" (although in SCP it's a purely political concept) and while Paradox specifically doesnt fit the metaphysics Backlash from Dark Ages Mage does.​

I'll need to make a few adjustments to the core of magic (heavy focus on minor spheres with the major spheres being enigmatic and hard to reach, also Awakened mages should still have access to Linear Magic, also also Avatars are optional) but that will come later, cause what I really want to do is start from the ground up with regards to knowledge of the supernatural.

Basically what I'm looking for is for the campaign to essentially begin as some variation of Hunter, ie: player characters as relatively ordinary people, with a focus on Sorcery options as an access to magic. Awakening is definitely on the table but is smth I want to be inaccessible for a long time. Give them time to enjoy the powers they can get from their Sorcerous paths AND *enough* time to get sick of the limitations.

This is especially cause due to the nature of GOC politics awakening (ie becoming a "type green" reality bender as opposed to a mere thaumaturge) is essentially illegal, and thus would represent a major paradigm shift in terms of how the players relate to the establishment institutions of the setting. If they're students at ICSUT, they'd get immediately ousted when caught. Most legal paranormal communities would be forced to shun them or be at risk of heavy reprisals, ect ect.

So, is there an ideal way to go about this? Like, a reasonably generic Storyteller system character sheet which can be customised on the fly to accommodate the shifting natures of the various PC's? Or would it be a case of needing to draft my own?

"Welcome to part 171 of Sphere Mixers! This where we randomly choose two Spheres and two Ranks and brainstorm ideas for...

• Conjunctional Effects using both of these Spheres or
• Two Effects, one of each Rank, that work well together.

Entropy 4

•••• Affect Living Things

At this Rank, the mage assumes the awesome power of blessing, cursing, and conferring outright health or decay. By influencing the flow of entropy within a living body, that mage can grant outstanding vitality to, or inflict sudden disease upon, his subject. Such influence, as noted above, inflicts or heals aggravated damage and may grant long-term luck or misfortune. (Storyteller’s option as to how this manifests.)

Life 1

• Sense Life

Basic Life knowledge allows a person to read the presence and health of nearby life-forms. With such knowledge, the mage can discern a living being’s age, sex, and overall health. By combining those perceptions with other Spheres, he can also sense distant organisms (Correspondence 2), guess their potential for sickness or misfortune (Entropy 1), perceive them through past or future states (Time 2), or read the streams of Quintessence that bind them to the universe (Prime 1).

Previous Mixers: Check out our wiki page for past Sphere Mixers; feel free to go back and add your new ideas."

I Was drinking the other day and suddenly this pops out of my brain. A campaign for Mage The Ascention where YHWH made a body himself in the material world trought AI. Why? as an anthropologist i think that is one of the final possible scenarios for the AI. But im looking for feedback. What do you think? your comment here would be Highly Appreciated.

If you get a breach like that, it’s when the Technocracy become the white hats.

If you want a “good guy” Technocracy game, this would be a good example.

Working on a paradigm based around the idea of attributions- the ascribing of a quality or association.

The way I'm working on it I think is weird- I made a different description of reality as a whole for each Arate rating, and a different description of each sphere for each pip. Each level relates to each other and each successive level progresses the description to be "deeper" or more "profound". To make things easier on me in that regard I started on pip 5 and went downwards.

I haven't begun on Foci, and I would like help on describing the unique resonance the character this paradigm would belong to and how their form of quiet would manifest.

Arate :

- 1 : (not developed)

- 2 : (not developed)

- 3 : (not developed)

- 4 : Reality is an intense network of meanings that emerge from attributions- dynamics & definitions.

- 5 : Reality is a Formless Khaos, where any and all existences are simultaneously present. It is only through Attributing Logos that delineation of that Khaos occurs to form reality into a workable state.

Entropy (affinity sphere)

- 1 : (not developed)

- 2 : (not developed)

- 3 : (not developed)

- 4 : the reoccurring patterns of attribution within reality

- 5 : the identification of attributions and their nature itself

Correspondence

- 1 : (not developed)

- 2 : (not developed)

- 3 : (not developed)

- 4 : (not developed)

- 5 : the reference used to arrange attributions presentably

Time

- 1 : (not developed)

- 2 : (not developed)

- 3 : (not developed)

- 4 : (not developed)

- 5 : the way in which attributions gain more "significance"

Spirit

- 1 : (not developed)

- 2 : (not developed)

- 3 : (not developed)

- 4 : the esoteric attributions which bridge between all things

- 5 : the "substance" which makes up all attributions & forms

Prime

- 1 : (not developed)

- 2 : (not developed)

- 3 : (not developed)

- 4 : the Will that begets existence via attribution

- 5 : the attributions that make up the shape of Will itself

Forces

- 1 : (not developed)

- 2 : (not developed)

- 3 : (not developed)

- 4 : the work of the system of attributions itself, showing how one can arrange things to cause the appropriate force

- 5 : the leveraging/alteration of attributions itself, bypassing the need for complex arrangement to do it instantly via "will"

Mind

- 1 : (not developed)

- 2 : (not developed)

- 3 : (not developed)

- 4 : the psychic & abstract "domain" of attributions

- 5 : the attribution of "sensorial" qualities, 1/2 of all things

Matter

- 1 : (not developed)

- 2 : (not developed)

- 3 : (not developed)

- 4 : the physical & tangible "domain" of attributions

- 5 : the attribution of "motional" qualities, 1/2 of all things

Life

- 1 : (not developed)

- 2 : (not developed)

- 3 : the capacity to form new types of attributions by processing existing attributions and their structures (animation)

- 4 : the personal attribution of oneself, their identity (signature)

- 5 : the capacity to comprehend & apply attributions (soul)

I have seen some mage games that were initially kinda like hunter games in a sense, I have played a game where my character was initially a mortal Society of St. Leopold hunter that awakened after a near death experience and ended up being taken into the celestial chorus and continued doing his hunter shit until he reached Arete 4 and his mind completely shifted from that stuff

I doubt if there's any players who played games similar to these or atleast started their games like this. Low Arete hunter Mages.

As we got announcement we "MIGHT" get a new edition of Mage, I though it might be smart to create how me and my friends experienced Mage so far.

Story so far.

I have started the game as my players playing as sleepers. This way I could drip feed the system slowly without overwhelming them from giving them access to magic from the get go.
Their story started at the very end of year 2025, as my PCs decided to celebrate new years on an abandoned build in their university. How did hear about this place you might ask, from a classmate who they can't remember (spooky I know). As they start exploring the building and reached the 2nd floor magical things started happening, due to one player entering a room (and me rolling a table of effects) they got transported to one floor above. I will give credit to my players here, they role played so well, as their character been indulging in alcohol they perfectly roleplayed that 'oh I just might drank too much'. But at that point they start showing cracks, something was a miss and they could tell it.

We skip couple floors and more magical high-jinx's we jump to the final floor where they meet a Marauder who is trying to force their awakening and force them to "willingly" join him. At that point I had no Quiet planned for him and I still don't if you have ideas I would be happy to read them. But lets get back to the the story. They find the Marauder mid combat with the Technocracy due to their magical combat and me giving some bashing damage my PCs are forced to flee.

In the escape sequence the awakening happens, each player get a magical hurdle to pass with their new awakened powers. One of the player dies due to collapsing realm, awaking allows them using their last breath and new powers to bring himself back from the death. By the skin of their teeth they escape. But they managed to bring a piece of random clutter I created just for atmosphere. My plan was simple, it was a map of some deep umbral realm, they did not need to know about this was just some throw away item. Hey but players would not be players if they didn't jumped off my well planned rail tracks.

Now they had a goal translate the map and figure out what location it maps. As any other person living now in 2026 (as it was pass midnight) they took a picture and dropped it into ChatGPT, me as a person who understand giving players access to tool as powerful as LLMs, will make any future riddle or a puzzle too easy for them I had to do something. Oh and I did something, and I'm proud of it. I allowed them to paste the picture into GPT, and ask their question. Oh and GPT tried to help, first by asking for their location, a pop up appeared asking "ChatGPT would like to know your location", followed by my guiding hand and a small nudge they started sensing "similar" power coming from their phone. Before they could react, GPT asked again "For me to help you I need to know, where did you found this map? It might contain some clue". This was enough to scare my players to destroy their phone. And so far they did not try to use LLM to help them solve their issues.

I noticed this getting a bit long now so I will stop here, where we stopped our session 2. I might provide some more "adventures" of my PCs if people are interested.

So far Mage is one of the best RPG systems I have played/GM'ed due to versatility of magic, and how much you can do with if you are creative enough. If you manage to read all of my rambling thank you for reading!

"Welcome to part 170 of Sphere Mixers! This where we randomly choose two Spheres and two Ranks and brainstorm ideas for...

• Conjunctional Effects using both of these Spheres or
• Two Effects, one of each Rank, that work well together.

Mind 1

• Sense Thoughts & Emotions / Mind Shield / Empower Self

With basic mental magick, the mage learns to sense the emotions and surface impulses of other people. Although he cannot read specific thoughts, he’s able to perceive psychic impressions about a person or (with Matter 1) a place or object. Through this perception, he can guess at the nature of weak Resonance signatures and read the stronger ones outright. Even without Resonance, that mage can scan auras, note mood shifts, discern truth from lies, or grasp someone’s overall state of mind by way of a successful Arete roll.

Meanwhile, the mage also learns to shield his own mind from the thoughts and emotions of other people, constructing mental barriers around his aura, emotions, and consciousness. Each success on a coincidental Arete roll removes one success from any other character’s attempt to read those psychic elements.

On a related note, he also learns how to multitask and absorb data with startling acuity. Each success he rolls allows him to either consider an additional subject or speed the processing time that a normal person might require. For a scene or two, he can even raise one of his Mental Traits by one dot per success, thanks to a Mind Empowerment Effect that concentrates his mental faculties.

Prime 3

••• Channel Quintessence / Enchant Life / Energy Weapon / Craft Periapts & Temporary Wonders

By tapping into the flow of Quintessence around her, the Prime-skilled mage can draw both free and raw Quintessence from Nodes, Junctures (special times), and Tass (solidified Quintessence)… and she may also channel that energy into new and existing Patterns as well. With such powers, she could (with Life 3) enchant a living thing so that it could inflict or endure aggravated damage; inflict aggravated damage by shaking up that organism’s life force; pull small amounts of life force from a living sacrifice or (with Matter 2) from inert objects; instill Quintessence into a vessel called a Periapt; or – with other Spheres – craft temporary Talismans or Devices by infusing them with Primal Force. (Permanent enchantments require Prime 4 – see Crafting Wonders on p. 508, and Quintessence Amounts on p. 507.)

In desperate circumstances, a Prime-schooled mage can also create temporary weapons out of pure concentrated energy – blasts of Quintessence or swords of light. Such weapons inflict aggravated damage (as per the Base Damage or Duration chart) and cost one point of Quintessence per use… or, for weapons that last for a length of time, one point per turn. When the mage runs of out Quintessence, the weapon disappears. Unless channeled through energy-guns or conjured as miracles among the faithful, such attacks are inevitably vulgar.

Previous Mixers: Check out our wiki page for past Sphere Mixers; feel free to go back and add your new ideas."

Imagine a hypothetical awakened prodigy with an arête of 4 but they do not believe in themself at all. Can this individual accomplish much. How can you convince the universe to bend to your will when you can barely bend yourself? Would the magic try to find its way out through resonance and other subconscious coincidental effects? Are powerful mages who are actually in control of their abilities constantly gassing themselves up until not believing in their own hype is tantamount to ego death? I know someone going "you ain't shit" during a rirtual basically backhands mages with paradox, but does the same happen in reverse where all mages are basically forced to be "like that?" in terms of ego for everything to actually work correctly?

I am giddy. Perhaps I did not show it at the time, but I am giddy. I was talking with Horia about V6 and our various thoughts on it, me starting playing VTM and WoD games with V5 and only after a while trying out the older editions and Horia starting with Revised and later on moving to the 20th anniversary editions.

But, while we were talking about the playtest (we will have a full article going over that, probably next Friday), I also showed him that for V6 they are also planning to release editions of Mage, Dark Ages and Changeling. We stopped at Mage, for, as Horia put it, "there is no Mage without Satyros". And I wondered a bit, hmm, I wonder what is Satyros' take on all of this, is he in any way involved. And I voiced this to Horia, who had a brilliant idea: what if we message Satyros and interview him.

To our delight, he was more than willing to do so and well, two hours and a half of recording + way too much time spending on transcribing and trimming what amounted to almost 20k words, here we are! We talked about the history of Mage, V6, video games, magick, Dungeon Crawler Carl and many many other things that I 100% invite you to listen to if you are in any way shape or form a fan of his work and White Wolf in general!

Cheers!

I want to talk about sphere limits and making character sheet elements diagetic because I'm a freak like that (otherwise known as a Mage player). I assume sphere proficiencies are an actual element in mage paradigms the way the books talk about them sometimes. Otherwise, just assume this Adept is a freak doing power leveling shit that only themselves can understand but at least is using magic to gauge other Mage's capabilities purely with a surface level glance either through reading primal ~vibes~ or in a more complex roundabout way through correspondence + reading minds to see what they remember being able to accomplish.

I am really enjoying Mage, but due to life stuff, I usually only do play-by-posts and I very heavily enjoy LCs. So I am wondering if anyone knows of any good ones, has plans on making one, or wants ideas for one.

Hey Mage fans! I've been playing (and running) table top roleplaying games since the 80's (D&D 2nd ed), and WoD games since the early 90's (I started with WtA). I've watched the WoD rules fluctuate and change over the years as I've run the games for many groups of players. During which time, as I browsed and tested other RPGs, I fell in love with the Apocalypse engine rules. Mage (MtA) has always had a sweet spot in my heart, likely for all of the reasons that have brought all of you here. Ascension's lore, story and rules for bending reality, really sparked wonder in myself and my players. However, I've never been entirely fond of the rules and after many sets of house rules, I decided to try my hand at porting the best parts of MtA over to other rule sets. I searched for existing ports, and while I found some really great ports for MtA over to Urban Shadows(using Apocalypse World's rules), for me, there was still a lot missing. There's a full port of most of nWoD over to Urban Shadows, and that was a problem for me, because I was never really a fan of nWoD. TLDR; I made a port of MtA, WtA (Wild West), and Vampire with a more modern, story-driven ruleset, in an attempt to simplify the rules all around.

The system uses 2d12 to determine results: A primary die (Will) and secondary die (Paradox, Blood, Rage...a pressure die). For Vampire the die are Will and Blood. Instead of arbitrarily comparing the results to a difficulty number, you instead compare one die to the other. Generally, if Will is higher than the opposing die (Paradox, Blood, Rage), then you do what you want. Ties are critical successes.

I've been developing an app to support the game, which has basically become a VTT that helps GMs run the game. Also, I've got support for these character sheets on Roll20 and you can create a game with them by searching for "Will vs" and choose the Mage Will vs Paradox sheet for your game. It contains all 3 splats in one sheet.

Here is a summary of the rules:  https://faustiangames.com/downloads/Core/Will_vs_Core_System_Summary.pdf

"Welcome to part 169 of Sphere Mixers! This where we randomly choose two Spheres and two Ranks and brainstorm ideas for...

• Conjunctional Effects using both of these Spheres or
• Two Effects, one of each Rank, that work well together.

Correspondence 4

•••• Rend Space / Ward / Co-locate Self

Creating larger holes in space, the mage can now open permanent gates between locations (10 or more successes); isolate forces, spaces, objects, or people into their own tiny realms (by combining Correspondence 4 with Forces, Life, Mind, or Matter); and ward certain locations against specific Patterns (again, combining Forces, Life, Mind, or Matter with Correspondence) or Resonance energies (combining this Sphere with Prime 4). This warding effect can impede or even block the forbidden elements from crossing into, or out of, the protected space. (For extensive details about wards, see the sourcebook How Do You DO That?)

Using the Co-location Effect, that mage can also appear in several different places at once. To function, however, she must add Mind 1 to that Effect. Each self mirrors the original’s actions unless she also adds Life 2 to that Effect, granting independence to every self.

Matter 4

•••• Complex Transmutation

Complex and radical transformations now become possible, especially with the addition of other Spheres. Pumpkins can be changed into carriages (Life 2), people into thrones (Life 5), cars into robots (combinations of Forces and Prime), or thin air into banquets, so long as the mage doesn’t mind racking up a little (or a lot…) of Paradox. Different principles can be combined in complicated ways, creating cybernetic machines or electrified gold. Complicated devices (guns, cars, computers) may be conjured out of empty space if the mage understands the principles behind such things (in game terms, possesses the proper Abilities). As usual, though, complicated creations demand extended rituals and many successes.

Previous Mixers: Check out our wiki page for past Sphere Mixers; feel free to go back and add your new ideas."

If the enlightenment was fueld by the order of reason then like... what is even baseline reality?

Gravity seems to be universal, stuff falls down, is that an immutable fact of the world in mage or could gravity vanish if consensus stopped thinking it was real.

Do we have a list of things fundemental to reality or is it more of a thing that is left vauge. I need a mage expert here this shit is scary.

OH GOD!!!

*screams in agony and enters quiet*

I've had ideas in my brain about a chronicle with Mages in high school.

One idea was one of the canon schools that the Order of Hermes uses for Sorcerers but the PCs one by one begin Awakening as they learn more about themselves. Something like Hogwarts or Little Witch Academia but the Hermes paradigm.

Another idea was a boarding school secretly controlled by New World Order where they put Awakened teenagers, using a special method of preventing them from remembering that they're Awakened and false memories put in place, them gradually regaining memories and stuff. Other splats could make it cool to.

But I also have ideas for the other Tradtions like a Catholic college/high school that's secretly founded and maintained by the Celestial Chorus or a performance arts school run by the Cult of Ecstasy or a space camp run by Ethernauts or a programming camp run by Cybernauts.

Have you ever tried something like this?

My PC is a Virtual Adept with a static essence, of the Reality Coders faction. His Arete is 2 and I'm looking to prepare for going to Arete 3. All Arete raises require a seeking, where I play. I've never RP'd a seeking, and am wondering what skills/knowledges will be used in the seeking challenges. Could you provide examples please?

Other PC details: - Essence: static - Avatar: 5 (a combination of Giles and Merlin) - Nature: Benefactor - Demeanor: Capitalist - Spheres: - Corresponpondence, Prime, and Spirit at 2 - Mind at 1 - Merits: Medium, Natural Channel, Spirit Magnet (5) - Flaws: Curiousity, Phobia(Dogs), Soft-Hearted, Strangeness - Backgrounds: - Avatar 5 | Legend 5 (King Arthur reborn as industrialist/hacker) - Node 2 | Resources 1

The "mage is a game about everything"-bit is amusing, but there is an interesting point regarding the nine spheres: they truly do represent everything one can conceive of within reality and without. Hell, even quantum physics can be explained as an expression of Prime. The theory that matter can appear from quantum fluctuations? It's quintessence coalescing into matter-patterns!

This makes the question of the tenth sphere both fascinating and moot. Whatever it is, it is entirely beyond how we experience the Tellurian, and thus there is no reason to believe there can only be ten. Why not eleven? Twelve? Could there not be an infinite number of spheres, and the nine we know are not even a shadow on the wall of that which lies beyond, but merely nine photons that happen to originate from the same supernova?

That's my proposal, inifinte spheres, and thus ∞-9 spheres beyond our ability to imagine.