Paradoxical

Mage: The Awakening, Open Development



Paradox

Aaand we’re back! GenCon was a blast as always, and it was great to meet so many of you. Lots of insightful questions about the draft, too, all of which I got down in red pen to look at when we redline.

Before we start, two points.

First, as you’ve by no doubt heard by now, the book formerly known as Mystery Play: The Fallen World Chronicle is now officially Mage: The Awakening, Second Edition. Which is, you know, neat.

Second, thanks to the release schedule until August 2015 getting published at GenCon, I can stop dancing around questions like “are you going to cover the magical materials” (which, seriously, I get asked about once a week.) Our first book for Mage after the new corebook is going by the working title of Shards of Power. It’s about Mysteries of Supernal origin – everything from a chapter on Yantras, expanded magical item crafting, to Artifacts, Supernal Verges and (if we can get them in) ghost mages and other liches.

With a three-vote margin, Paradox has finally won the day.

When we started to put the new edition together, we had a few goals in mind. We knew that Paradox’s function in the game is to give mages enough rope to hang themselves, that it’s the risk they take for overextending themselves. We also knew that the current magic system doesn’t neccessarily get that across – Paradoxes are relatively easy to absorb, and spells are set as either covert or vulgar in their mechanics, for reasons that often had more to do with balance considerations than any in-world logic. It was a progression from Ascension‘s “coincidental” and “vulgar” magick, which depended on how believable a spell was to the consensus. After nine years, knowing what Paradox is in Mage, we can go further.

The new Paradox system – in fact, the new edition – doesn’t contain the words “covert” or “vulgar.” No spell automatically risks Paradox. Instead, the spellcasting system defines whether a character can comfortably achieve a given effect, or if it’s difficult enough to risk the Abyss corrupting the spell’s imago. Mages have a defined gap between what they can achieve and what they can achieve safely. Going beyond those limits tests a mage’s ability to build a spell imago, and risks the Abyss corrupting the spell.

We call this concept Reach. As in “exceeds grasp.”

Reach and Paradox Risk

In the current system, when a mage has more dots in an Arcanum than she needs to cast a spell, she can employ advanced spell factors, use sympathetic range, or access any special mechanics in the spell’s description. For the second edition, we’ve wrapped all of these up together, slightly reduced the effectiveness of spells without using them, and decoupled it from requiring more dots.

By default, spells are cast in ritual time (as defined by Gnosis), on the caster or something the caster is touching, using the basic versions of all spell factors. Casting in combat time (Turns), on something the caster can sense, or using an advanced spell factor all cost Reach. Many spells have additional effects for more Reach.

You get one Reach for free with every dot in the primary Arcanum you meet or exceed the spell’s Practice by. Every additional Reach risks Paradox dice according to Gnosis. You can also risk Paradox in other ways – casting an obviously magical effect in front of Sleepers adds a die, or using a spell that you’ve burned your Wisdom over previously. If you have a Paradox dice pool, you also bag an extra die for each previous paradox roll your character has prompted in a scene. Multiple Sleeper witnesses apply a dice trick to the Paradox roll – a single witness doesn’t, but a handful of people will give it 9-again, light traffic 8-again and a crowd gives it the rote quality.

Witnessing magic like this, provoking Paradox, also makes Sleepers suffer an Integrity breaking point. Which unless you’re particularly hubristic will probably make the mage suffer a Wisdom breaking point. It’s bad all round.

Paradox Risk is reduced by two dice in the Shadow and Underworld. In the Astral Realms, Supernal Verges, and Demesnes, it’s removed entirely – no spells suffer Paradox at all, allowing mages to let loose with the strongest forms of their spells. In Abyssal Verges, however, it’s automatic – every die of Paradox Risk becomes a success with no need to roll.

Once a spell has a Paradox dice pool, you can’t get rid of it entirely. Spending Mana reduces the Paradox pool one-for-one, using your dedicated magical tool as a yantra knocks two dice off. The most you can do is reduce the Paradox pool to a chance die, though – once you’re risking Paradox, the Storyteller is going to roll it.

At this point, you the player haven’t rolled any dice. You can see the size of your spellcasting pool, you can see the size of the Paradox pool that’s coming for you. At this point, you have a decision to make.

Mages can sense the Abyss when it starts to take hold of a spell, as a clammy, icy feeling in their soul accompanying the rush of using magic. They can clamp down on that influx of Paradox, trying to contain it within themselves, or they can let it go, allowing the Abyss to warp the spell.

Containment

If a mage tries to contain a Paradox within herself, the Paradox roll is contested by the character’s Wisdom score. Any Paradox successes cancelled out become resistant bashing damage. If the Paradox roll still succeeds, however, the mage feels the hurt – she gains a Paradox Condition as the Abyss can’t corrupt the spell but gets grounded into her instead. The game has one sample Paradox condition per Arcanum, but we encourage you to think up your own. Here’s one that may seem familiar:

Bedlam

The mage is driven insane by her proximity to the Abyss. If the Paradox roll nets three or less successes, she gains a mild derangement. If it nets four or more successes, she gains a severe derangement (See p. XX).

Paradox Conditions grant Arcane Beats when they cause you problems, but are technically persistant. When a period of time determined by your Wisdom elapses, a Paradox Condition becomes “settled” – it’s fully entered your character’s pattern and will increase any Paradox rolls by a die until you remove it – and finally free yourself from it – by Pattern Scouring it out of yourself: effectively completing the attempt to turn the Paradox into resistant damage.

Whether the Paradox happens or not, the spell roll itself is unchanged.

Release

If a mage chooses not to take the personal risk of containment himself, the Paradox pool’s successes penalize the mage’s casting dice pool. More than that, though, successes on a released Paradox become Reach – Reach that the Storyteller can spend. Paradox successes cancel Reaches that the player wanted, add additional ones he didn’t (your spell to affect one target now affects everyone in sensory range, for example), or even (when the Paradox gets multiple successes) leave an Environmental Tilt behind or summon an Abyssal Entity. No matter what happens, though, the resulting Paradox won’t come after the mage by default — unless you happen to be targeting yourself with your spell, releasing a Paradox is the safer option. For you. Not so much for any bystanders.

Example

That’s a lot of explanation. Let’s look at an example.

Mark is playing Wolsey, a paranoid Silver Ladder Mastigos who is concerned that he’s building up too many sympathetic connections that the Seers of the Throne (or his political enemies in Caucus) could exploit. Wolsey is Gnosis 3 and has Space 3.

He doesn’t need to engage in creative thaumaturgy, as the spell he’s after is described in the rules.

Veil Sympathy (Space ••)

Practice: Veiling

Primary Factor: Duration

Suggested Rote Skills: Politics, Subterfuge, Survival

A magician’s sympathetic connections allow her to reach out beyond herself, but they are also an avenue by which her enemies can attack her. This spell conceals one of the target’s sympathetic links, chosen by the mage from those she is aware of. Any attempt to uncover the link, or to use the target as a Sympathetic Yantra, provokes a Clash of Wills.

+1 Reach: Rather than suppressing a sympathetic connection, the mage may instead make the target appear to have a sympathetic link to someone or something else instead. Attempts to detect the link provoke a Clash of Wills to see through the deception, but attempts to use the target as a Sympathetic Yantra automatically fail.

+2 Reach: The mage may suppress all the target’s sympathetic links. This effect applies in both directions; that is, if the mage casts it on herself, she cannot be used as a Sympathetic Yantra, nor can any Sympathetic Yantra target her, without a Clash of Wills.

Now then. Wolsey has Space 3, so he can manage 2 Reach without risking Paradox. By default, the spell will affect himself or anything he’s touching (that’s fine – he’s aiming at himself), and require a ritual which at his level of Gnosis will take an hour (regrettable, but doable). The real pain as far as he’s concerned, though, is that it will only last for three turns (duration is the primary spell factor, so it moves up the duration chart by his Space dots. That’s still only nine seconds, though).

In order to get the spell to last an appreciable amount of time, he’ll have to Reach. Using one of his two Reach switches it to the advanced duration spell factor, where his Arcanum mastery nets him a week. He doesn’t fancy recasting this spell every week, though, so takes a 2-dice penalty to his casting roll to make it last a month. Using High Speech and destroying a photo of himself in the ritual will give him three bonus dice from Yantras, anyway, putting him on a mighty seven-dice casting pool. He’s feeling confident.

Unfortunately, he doesn’t know which angle the Seers will attack him from. Or even if they exist at all. Suppressing all of his sympathetic connections costs 2 Reach as per the spell’s description – combined with making the effect last, that’s beyond his abilities. If he were an Adept of Space, he wouldn’t have a problem, but now he’s sitting on two (thanks to his Gnosis) Paradox dice.

We’ll take the example through both of Mark’s options here, so you can see them play out.

Wolsey contains the Paradox: Dave (the Storyteller) rolls the two Paradox dice and gets a success. Mark rolls Wolsey’s Wisdom (5) and gets two successes. Wolsey suffers a level of resistant Bashing damage and the spell goes on unaffected – Mark’s seven dice easily get a success, and for the next month any attempts to use a sympathetic connection on Wolsey provoke a Clash of Wills.

Wolsey does not contain the Paradox: Dave rolls the Paradox pool and gets a success. Mark’s pool is penalized by one, reducing it to six. Dave is also feeling mean, so uses the Paradox’s success to add a Reach Mark didn’t ask for (if Dave were feeling particularly vindictive, he’d just undo the Reach for duration and let the spell elapse in a matter of Turns, but that’s boring). He uses it to activate the other function of the spell, to create false sympathies. Mark rolls his reduced dice pool, still succeeds, and instead of being off the grid Wolsey now has a collection of nonsensical sympathies – some of which are noted down in Dave’s chapter notes to come haunt him later…

Next week!

Lots for you to pick over there, I think. Next time, let’s look at something we haven’t had up for vote before. Antagonists or Legacies?