I'm finnally going to be in a Mage game. I love the setting. I think i'll love the system. But i want advice. I know there was some in a thread ages ago, but i want more. What spheres are good? What should i do? i was thinking of playing either a snake handler (Celestial Chorus) or an old bluesman (Chorus, again), but i'm not sure. there's so much freedom. its scary

the Aspect Book: Earth for Exalted: The Dragonblooded starts by talking about how Dream of the Endless is a perfect example for an Earth Aspect, being devoted to duty and all. its neat

the RPG.net forums are a fun read when i'm bored at work

In one system I used to play in, everything was resolved by rolling percentile dice. We just had d10s of many different colours all in a pile at the centre of the table, and would pick them up when we needed them. In time, the dice pairings took on additional meaning. "Blood and bones," a dark red die and an ivory die, became the preferred dice for fighters making an attack, "thunder and lightning," a thundercloud-gray die and a fluorescent blue die became the standard for attack spells.

Don't think we ever had "horror and evil," though.

If you're playing UA, everything is resolved by percentiles (except for weapon damage) and there are checks for Fear, Helplessness, Isolation, and Violence... so you could have 'horror and evil' dice.

Neat idea.

We did have the Death die. Mottled black with a skull in place of the zero. I once rolled Death and Destruction for a fireball and got double zeros twice followed by something in the high 80s. With all the modifiers to the roll, the fireball ended up burrowing through the earth's mantle to the lava underneath, carrying everyone in the rather large area with it.

Regrettably, that area included the rest of the adventuring party and most of the ruling nobility in the area.

Sig of a fellow DM:

"It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion, it is by the beans of Java that thoughts acquire speed,
the hands acquire shaking, the shaking becomes a warning, it is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion."

Last week I joined a new game. The host provided dinner and set out a donation jar for tsunami victims. We collected $178 for charity.

The host mentioned that one of the side benefits that a couple of the players were able to tell their SOs that they were going to a "charity fundraiser", not a game.

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Originally posted by The Lord of Nothings:
I'm finnally going to be in a Mage game. I love the setting. I think i'll love the system. But i want advice. I know there was some in a thread ages ago, but i want more. What spheres are good?

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I have fond memories of a character who used Mind and Forces to record mental images directly to videotape. He'd use it to record things he'd seen by using Mind for total recall, the Mind + Forces to transfer the thoughts to electrical signals that he could record.

Cooooooooool.... i had the idea of storing thoughts (mine or other peoples on an iPod like thing

i also, while seeing the new MacWorld Keynote Address, considered making an SoE who learned magic from Apple. That's his background. Thats his concept. "How come you're a mage?" "I worked for Apple." "Ah, okay" It'd explain alot

Damn, I envy you LoN. In fact, I envy thee twice-fold:

Firstly for getting to play a Mage game with people, and secondly, for getting to play a live role-playing game at all.

Dammit ...

and grrrr, etc.

Life + Prime + Mind = Specialized Prostitution Services.

Oh, sure, might not be "ethical", blah blah blah . . . .

Don't envy me too much-- i work on my Wedensdays, so i might not play much. And somehow this is taking the place of the Shadowrun game i was supposed to be playing in... i'm still confused as to why. There are two good games with some of the same people in them on the same day-- a day i work sometimes.
it'll all work out

Bland: i'm sure someone will try it. the ST talked about how, when he was a PC, him and another guy made remote control monkies that did everything. Remote control monkies. Woohoo.

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Originally posted by The Lord of Nothings:
I'm finnally going to be in a Mage game. I love the setting. I think i'll love the system. But i want advice. I know there was some in a thread ages ago, but i want more. What spheres are good?

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Lord, (or should it be Mr. Nothings), I don't think you could've started a thread that I'd be more likely to post in. I've been playing Mage for the last five years, off and on, and GMing a series of linked campaigns for the last three semesters of college... so you could say I'm a fan.

Spheres are definately cool and wacky. Not sure what you had in mind for the Jazzman, but there are a few useful combos you could use for the Snakehandler. Fer instance:
Life oooo Prime ooo to create snakes out of thin air (or slither out of the shadows, etc).
Mind ooo to control snakey minds.
Mind oo to make people more afraid, or inspired, or calm in an area (and using snakes could make it coincidental!)
Life ooo for resisting/using/creating poisons.
Life oo to alter snake's appearance
Forces oo Life oo to make their eyes glow

That's all I can think of at the moment. But yeah, the system and setting is quite a bit of fun. The freedom you mention can be tricky to manage, but it sounds like you already have some solid concepts in mind. I'd definately suggest writing out some rotes the character uses regularly, just to get a feel for their magical paradigm.

Have fun, and as Anders Sandberg always used to say, Towards Ascension!

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Originally posted by The Lord of Nothings:
Bland: i'm sure someone will try it. the ST talked about how, when he was a PC, him and another guy made remote control monkies that did everything. Remote control monkies. Woohoo.

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*Cough* In our game, I had a remote-control pigeon doing porn hip-thrusts at another character through a window. He was not appreciative of my "suggestions" on how to get information from the female NPC.

Mind + Entropy = Fun with other people's sanity!

i'm still confused on how this magic works. i think of something i want to happen, then figure out what combination of spheres can let me do it, right?
so say i want the gravity gun from Half-Life 2. i declare it a Forces 2 effect and spend the points?
i dunno... i'm still deciding between concepts. i'm so indecisive

Well, you have to talk to the Storyteller and figure out what spheres and combinations of spheres you need to accomplish a given task. I don't know the power of the gravity gun, but if it has a significant effect, but over a fairly small space, Force 2 might be appropriate. If it has a wide area of effect, and if it affects solid objects, you might need something higher.

I haven't played Mage in a while, but I'm pretty sure that if you want to create a permanent object, you have to buy that separately, probably as a background or something.

Yea, thats definatly a background.

the Gravity Gun is basically telekinesis. you can pick up small objects and hurl them forward with extreme force. its the same thing Syndrome has in The Incredibles

I'm thinking that'd be a straightforward force effect, then, with the level dependent on how great a mass you can lift and move with it, and how the attack roll works.

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Originally posted by The Lord of Nothings:
i'm still confused on how this magic works. i think of something i want to happen, then figure out what combination of spheres can let me do it, right?
so say i want the gravity gun from Half-Life 2. i declare it a Forces 2 effect and spend the points?
i dunno... i'm still deciding between concepts. i'm so indecisive

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Umm, yeah, that's basically it. Your rating in the spheres govern how much control you have over that area. Like you need a two in life to heal yourself, three to heal others. A big part of it is the idea of coincidental magic and paradox and that pretty much depends on how your gamemaster interprets "coincidental."

Entropy is fun combined with any pattern sphere. People forget things, hearts skip beats, guns have to jam sometime and the more complex something is, the more likely it is to break down.

I was watching a documentary on convicted hacker Kevin Mitnick and there were people-- serious, gov'ment people-- who thought he could do stuff like hack missle launch codes from a pay phone. Would a Virtual Adept doing stuff like that then count as coincidental? My GM already agreeed you could get away with talking to the dead as long as you didn't make it look too convincing

(continuing the White Wolf love from the other thread)
I'm reading the Guide to the Technocracy now and its AWESOME how it overturns the fundemental assumptions of Mage. I mean, hey, it is the World of Darkness, and i guess consensus reality would be pretty scary...
(i'm still kinda in favor of it)
(and yea, i know, the Technocracy still work with consensus reality, but they don't know it)