Tuesday 29 October 2019

The age of unreason - a role playing game I won't run

Inappropriate Illustration


I was reading an article about the EU and it kept referring to it as a technocratic project. 

For people who have played the game Mage the Ascension that sets off a particular resonance, the Technocracy, for most players, are an antagonist. The players in the game have characters who do magic(k), known as Traditional Mages, the Technocracy are trying to eliminate magic from the world. Although members of the Technocratic Union have the ability to do magic themselves they have been trained not to see their abilities in that way.

The Technocracy in Retreat
The idea for the game is that despite almost wiping out the Traditional mages, and probably all sorts of other areas of the supernatural, since the start of the 21st century all around the world the Technocracy is in retreat. The player characters are young members of the Technocratic Union trying to keep the world from, perhaps literally crashing and burning to the ground.

Two possible antagonists

A- The antagonists in the game are unreasonable humans. Some of them may be extremely wealthy, some of them may be politicians, some might run corporations, but they are human. The only supernatural bit is the player characters, magicians who do not believe in magic.

B - The antagonists are the Syndicate.



The threats
The climate crisis. For some time now the scientific consensus has been there is a problem with human created climate change. While there had been some progress at a world level perhaps twenty years ago that seems to be over now as many governments care more about protecting their home based fossil fuel industries than planning for the challenges ahead. Amongst the public some people have just given up. Can the young technocrats help the current grass roots movements make a positive impact, or can they find another way to ameliorate the effects.
The wellness industry. From popular presentations of mindfulness, positive psychology, useless ‘supplements’, goop, to new age crystal healing, homeopathy all the way through to the anti vaccination movement. How can the young technocrats help get people to follow stop indulging in modern quackery.
 Ghost hunters and other popular presentations of the supernatural. In the fictional universe the Technocratic Union have taken care of all the genuine supernatural threats that there were. Yet people seem to profess belief in ghosts, or astronomy or whatever floats your boat as ST.
Popular politicians. Some of them are already in power, and are not beyond using the mechanisms of their state to combat anyone who would interfere. Others have backing from rich individuals, that they can use to hire security consultants, or are only a few steps away from street thugs. This is the most physically dangerous threat (especially if the players are facing a state actor happy to send assassins to poison the player’s characters.

Why I will never run this game

I quite like mage, and have run a couple of campaigns, one set in the modern world and one set in the Renaissance, but is down on the list of games I probably don’t want to run (a list headed by Art Magica because of the preparation time needed).
So what is wrong with mage.

The paradigm problem. When someone plays a mage who belongs to one of the magical traditions there is some guidance about how magic works for them, but it is up to the player to add details to this, their paradigm of magic. When this works well it a joy to play in the game. However it can be hard work to do that, and takes some head space outside of the session. For players who are playing member of the Technocratic Union there is a further twist. Officially they do not do magic, they use advanced science. In game mechanic terms they roll the same dice pool as Traditional Mages to do special effects, but need a none magical explanation. This gets even more difficult if Agent Q has a ray gun, but because no one else has that type of magic it is a inert rod for any other member of the group.






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