Mage the Ascension: Guide to the Technocracy
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 1 ต.ค. 2024
- A look at the White Wolf book, The Guide to the Technocracy, in the word of darkness.
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When I saw the thumbnail I thought it was Donald Trup getting his ass kicked by the iPhone Dog thing
The eyes see what the heart wants.
@@TheHermeticHipster That it does...
@Francis Andrijašević um ok
@Dantes230 um ok. I just think it'd be hilarious for a niche object of memorabilia to attack a popular politician and rich person. Never stated any political leaning
Haveing storytlled/played many Technocracy games, most of them as a Void Engineer. My tips for deep space exploration, first I would watch the Movie Event Horizon is the perfect example in my view. Second, know that the world of darkness is tied in with everything else and Void Engineer exploration is no different. The void Engineers go into the deep Umbra, it even mentions the Void Engineers fighting Oblvian from wraith. They can even go beyond that into other dimentions and that should be played with in any game where the're Void Engineers.
I agree with the author that VE are more interesting desperately scrabbling to plug all the leaks as they get derided as irrelevant by the rest of the Union. Especially with the emergence of the new threat which leaves them unable to trust their own greater organization and wondering if they can even trust themselves.
Event Horizon, where a Void Engineer becomes a Nephandi…
@@____________838 "NOW LET ME SHOW YOU..."
Hell yeah, gotta love the $yndicate!
And by "love" I mean "a complex mix of affection, hate, intrigue, fascination, and revulsion."
Haha.
Well, vampires may have a lot of influence, but do they use their influence in ways that matter? I would argue the answer is no. Vampires control herds and domains, but they in general have little interest in controling humankinds destiny. If vampires are fed, safe and comfortable they rarely show real ambitions, besides fighting other vampires or naval gazing spirituality. Nothing a mage needs to be really concerned about, imho.
The Sabbat is the polar opposite there, the Camarilla is more interested in staying incognito, due to the Technocratic and Hunter 'packs' among the 'herds'. Jyhadi vamps want to overtly rule Humanity, how they go about it can also be alarming.
My Project Twilight /[CIA / MiB] Agent's origins [First Gulf War] involve being night-morning assaulted as a Marines officer, discovering the ambush - push assault was vampires as they were shrugging off bullets. Morning sunlight reflected off a sniper's scope and burned one, leading him to realize what they were.
From there he issued _effective_ weaponry and they won out.
In the end of the story there was a vampire oriented twist as well.
18:18 "A more detailed look at the conventions."
18:25 Iteration X
19:38 The New World Order
20:54 The Progenitors
21:38 The Syndicate
23:04 The Void Engineers
After learning of the God-machine in Demon: The Descent I feel there's a golden mix between that game's lore and the technocratic Union lore, even tough they're different universes.
I have long since wanted them to add the Technocratic Union to the New World/Chronicles of Darkness as their own Chronicle series, with the God Machine being their primary adversary, with the goal of preventing it from subverting Mankinds potential for its Alien designs. I would call it Technocracy: The Enlightened.
Not necessarily
Werewolf and Hunter 5 are good blueprints for how to mix two games from across the old and new world.
It would be cool if you made a video about each of the unions unique paradigms, as well as videos on each of the conventions individual books as well. Also you should read Panopticon Quest if you haven’t seen it.
I think no coverage of the history of the technocracy in the games is complete without acknowledging that it was on player insistence that this rework happened. WW themselves believed they had created the perfectly hateable and perfectly evil villain faction, and only LOUD pushback made them realize that probably maybe Mages have kind of a big habit of making a mess of things unheedingly and needing someone to clean it up.
I think it was even WW that kinda felt weird that the technocracy was fully evil; they settled on a pretty nice middle ground of "the upper management is evil, but the people underneath it are just as varied as you might expect", which is so much better and offers more variety!
@@FarremShamist Sure but that applies even to the bad guys in Werewolf.
@@unintentionallydramatic I mean that just gives more power to interesting play and utilization, no real issue in that in my eyes.
@UTubeFekUrself True, true. Though I'd say those are a special case on account of being supernatural attack dogs rather than just card carrying organization members.
The problem with the original Technocracy was that they were portraying Science, Technology and Authority as inherently evil. Their evil acts were very cartoonish a lot of the time, like vivisecting live babies. Humanity, in real life, resonates more with the idea of Science and Technology being used for good, and being the ideal representative of Mankinds potential, rather than mysticism, which in Humanities actual real world past, has been the tool of control, oppression and conquest. I wouldn't want to live in a world were everyone can shoot lasers from their eyes, put curses on each other and literally brainwash people with a wave of their hand. To that end, the Technocracy were ill-concieved to be the bad guys, for that they should have leaned specifically towards the Nephandi. Modern, Good-Guys Technocracy is much more endearing, and they introduced Threat Null to fill the role that the old Cartoon Evil Technocracy used to fill.
Hi there. Could you make a video about character creation in Mage 20? I can't wrap my mind around it.
Hi Tebaun! I could, sure. I agree its a little hard to get right at first compared to other games, but i could try to go through it. Thanks for your comment! :)
@@TheHermeticHipster yeah it's very hard for me to creat a paradigm, and to understand, how to evolve your magic or even cast a spell.
My Dude, how hard is it to get Void Engineers' purpose is to push forward into the unknown, let there be a new expanse for them to push into while selling the Technocratic line. The ghost busters are definitely interesting, but the Technocracy can't push forward without a new frontier to entice the sleepers. I've heard both of my Baby Boomer parents explain their emotions on seeing the moon landing and it was a revelatory experience for both of them. The Union can't actually push anything forwards until Void Engineers capture their imagination. Even before the Avatar Storm the Void Engineers were low key greatest things drawing the hopeful into the Technocracy's continued domination.
So, my friends and I tried to play Mage for the first time, about a year and a half ago. We loved the concept, but we bounced off the game really hard due to its complexity. I never let it go, though. So we’re going to be starting a new mini campaign in the new year. I started looking for videos, for inspiration and instruction, to help me prepare to run the damn thing, And that’s how I found your channel. I’m really glad I did! Please keep making more awesome content! This video was wonderful. I can’t wait to binge the rest of your stuff!
One idea is instead of going full, blown mage, have a game more like a slice of life anime. Small, intimate, relatable. Maybe something like the flying, witch, or Kikis delivery service.
I don't know I think that space could be a good place to explore HP Lovecraft type Cosmic horror monsters which are sort of Supernatural and would fit into the weird semi-supernatural semi-scientific Paradigm of the technocracy I think
One small thing: The Qin Dynasty is pronounced more like "The Chin Dynasty", being the reason we call China China
I really wish they would redo this book but without all of the tradition bull crap
They probably will.
You are an incredibly gifted storyteller and your passion for the game really shows in all your videos. Thank you for doing these and I hope to see more in the future. If you ever feel like doing one on Void Engineers I would be eternally grateful. I'd be happy to provide any edition of the Convention Book as well as the new Guide to the Technocracy M20 if that helps. Would you be interested in doing an M20 Technocracy video? Keep up the fantastic work!!!
Ah yes. The real good guys of MtAs.
What is the background music you are using? Perfect to play as I ST my discord chronicle
th-cam.com/video/8nCLVPe3brU/w-d-xo.html Heya. That's the track. Enjoy.
Since there's overlap, maybe a talk about the Umbra and its various parts?
On the section about their origins, I suspect that may be the regional focal points, overlap. Between Demon and Vampire the Cradle of Civilization empires one could imply their half of that hefty pie (Sciences) arenn't of the Union's origins which are Mage centric.
The Umbra is also fascinatingly complex with all of WoD.
Starting at around 2015, I ran a game until Covid stuck where the Technocracy had to either collapse or I had to advance their tech to near Star Trek/Star Wars levels. I find that a successful mixed WoD game has to pick and choose what antagonists the PC's are facing. Additionally, a near-omnipotent, united Technocracy simply didn't make for good threats as they could steam roll over the PC's. "Guide to the Technocracy" helped me pick and choose, where I made NPC personalities rather than faceless adversaries the key. Good fun all around.
P.s. I played in a technocrat game about....er.....20 years ago, where the PC's were members of the Technocracy, but no Traditions and only Vamps otherwise existed - the PC's enemies. We were the secret gov vanguard against the evil vamps and it was very fun, very gritty with mostly just SOTA modern tech rather than magical-level tech.
Regards. I'm watching your content. The movies are really high quality. I'm just getting ready to run the campaign Mage The Ascension online, for my players. Thank you on behalf of myself and my players. Greetings from Poland.
I wish you health for you and your whole family!!!
Do you have an videos for "Digital Web"? Also specifcally looking for that with more elaboration on Vampire crosspver with that early genre of cyberpunk.
Hmmm. I do have a video for the Virtual Adepts planned that will touch on the virtual web a bit. What do you mean by crossover? Vamps in the virtual web?! :0
Keep up the good work! It'd be good to do a video explaining why vampires can't use true magic.
Hmmm. I've thought about doing crossover videos. I'll keep it in mind.
Great video.
One point must be made, though: the moment you feel like the protectors of normality, banality and a generally sterile life are the heroes, that’s when you’ve entirely missed the point of Mage, the Ascension. It’s not that the arrow was far from the bullseye, it missed the target altogether.
If you wanna play that, sure, have fun. But that’s the exact opposite of what the core book presents.
I think Mage is a game of ideas, and i dont really belive there i a "right way to play". M20 presents both technocrats and disperates as just as viable for players to play.
That may have been the point of Mage: The Asscension - as penned from the Council of Nine's perspective - but the point of Guide to the Technocracy is that the Traditions are wrong; humankind has shown themselves to be thoughtless, superstitious, self-destructive and more a danger to themselves than to anything else, and that people will merrily obliterate themselves like a toddler with an open bottle of bleach, unless the Technocratic Union is there to shepherd them and protect them from themselves...and, simultaneously, protecting humankind from all manners of enemies from without. Remember when the Garou went nuts and exterminated as many people as they could find? The Technocracy remembers.
So in that regard, the Technocrats *_are_* the heroes. If it were up to the Traditionist mages, people would still be chasing each other around trees with pointy sticks until they dropped dead from the common cold (and living in fear of mysterious old wizards living up in the mountains and whatnot); the Order of Reason which preceded the Technocratic Union did away with all of that. And they're still protecting Earth from the scum of the universe while continuing to share their inventions with the human race to improve their lives and guide them steadily towards the Ascension. And so, on behalf of the Technocrats who keep us safe and coach us into being the best citizens that we can be, you're welcome. 8)
Maybe it wasn't the point of the first edition of Mage the Ascension. But a lot of time has passed since then and the game has evolved. The "point" is no longer to play only by the Tradition views but to open to the other factions of the games.
Also, I strongly disagree that science and progress are linked to "normality, banality, and a generally sterile life". Science can be wonder and discovery.
Finally, I don't think it's in the Mage spirit to tell other people that their way of seeing and appreciating the game is wrong, especially when the said way is supported in many official sourcebooks. Defend a unique viewpoint in the name of combatting the "normality, banality and a generally sterile life" is a contradiction in itself.