The Intrinsic Horror of Mage

Now, I want to begin by saying that I enjoy both New Mage and Old Mage, in very different ways. They're both great games, and I don't want this to devolve into a argument on that front.

That said, there has been something bugging me about New Mage. It's a question really. Is it a horror game, in the same way that the other WoD games are horror? Hell, is it a horror game at all? Particularly, I feel, there's nothing intrinsically horrific about being a Mage. In Vampire you have an unholy hunger, in Werewolf you're a hair's breadth away from flipping out and killing everything around you, Changelings are, to a man, woman or indefinable other, victims of the greatest supernatural trauma, seemingly, in the universe, and as a Promethean the world warps and decays around you and everyone naurally hates you.

Why do Mages get such an easy time of it?

I suppose one could argue that Paradox is their intrinsic horror, but it's not the same, particularly as it only comes about what you actually start fucking about with the very fabric of reality in an overt way, not just from existing, and the Abyss can have some nice, horrific 'things that man was not meant to know' going for it, but that's external, really.

To be perfectly frank, I'm not sure where I'm going with this, but does anyone else feel this way about Awakening?

I see the Horror of Mage as that of the jews living in Nazi territory. The paranoia of "they are out there trying to get me and maybe I wont even see them coming". Pentacle mages and their Oracle masters lost the war, they live in a world that is a jail ruled by the Exarchs and their SSeers of Throne. Plus the Abyss, of course that adds some more impotence because it could be worse to use the weapons at your dispossal than not. So, how are you going to defend yourself?

Another Horror point is internal, you Know "Power Corrupts, Absolute Power..." You get the point. Thing is, you think, you really think Vampires and Werewolves had a hard time dealing whith thair Beast and Rage? At least if they do something horrific they can always blame those things. A mage is cappable of doing such terrible things that will put any debauched elder or wolfy to shame, and they have no one to blame for that but their own shelfishness.

I think there's something to Apocrypha's post. Although the books occasionally do put horror into it, mostly it doesn't, and even then rarely on the same level as vampire or changeling. You can still add that kind of horror very easily.

Thorbes:

I see the Horror of Mage as that of the jews living in Nazi territory. The paranoia of "they are out there trying to get me and maybe I wont even see them coming". Pentacle mages and their Oracle masters lost the war, they live in a world that is a jail ruled by the Exarchs and their SSeers of Throne. Plus the Abyss, of course that adds some more impotence because it could be worse to use the weapons at your dispossal than not. So, how are you going to defend yourself?

I can see that... but, to be honest, Changeling has that and it, to my mind, does it better, because you have experienced what the BBEG can do, and the grasp of the Seers is not as all-encompassing as the Technocracy in Ascension.

Thorbes:

Another Horror point is internal, you Know "Power Corrupts, Absolute Power..." You get the point. Thing is, you think, you really think Vampires and Werewolves had a hard time dealing whith thair Beast and Rage? At least if they do something horrific they can always blame those things. A mage is cappable of doing such terrible things that will put any debauched elder or wolfy to shame, and they have no one to blame for that but their own shelfishness.

At the same time, the point with both the Beast and Rage is that you're losing control of you're own body, which you're not doing if you make the conscious choice. Elders and Wolfys can do some truly horrific things, as well, perhaps not at the same level, but they have that slippery slope in addition to the Thing inside them that takes control and forces them into actions they do not necessarily wish to take.

They're good points, all the same

Michael:

I think there's something to Apocrypha's post. Although the books occasionally do put horror into it, mostly it doesn't, and even then rarely on the same level as vampire or changeling. You can still add that kind of horror very easily.

I;m curious, how do you add the intrinsic horror to your Mage game?

Apocrypha:

At the same time, the point with both the Beast and Rage is that you're losing control of you're own body, which you're not doing if you make the conscious choice. Elders and Wolfys can do some truly horrific things, as well, perhaps not at the same level, but they have that slippery slope in addition to the Thing inside them that takes control and forces them into actions they do not necessarily wish to take.

True. But the fact of the matter is that any mage will almost always be able to do far more things than another supernatural, and there can be little negative consequences for doing something bad. Give a mage time, knowledge, and the right arcana, and they can accomplish virtually anything without anyone ever knowing that they were behind it.

Hell, I once wrote down every way I could think of for a mage to kill someone without sleepers being able to figure it out. A lot of them were covert, and with the right precautions even another mage would have a hard time connecting it to you.

So the personal horror is entirely about the fact that mages can do so many things without being limited by others. So where do they draw the line? What makes a mage stop and think "I'm beginning to go too far"? The fact that the further they go, the harder it is to stop, and the less inclined they will be to limit themselves is a major factor. That horror can be expressed in the player characters slowly losing their grip on Wisdom, or from seeing another who fell, as well as the consequences of their actions (this is best if the NPC is someone who started out like the mage and/or originally had only the best of intentions with their magic; hell, almost every Left-Handed Legacy, not to mention the Banishers, have perfectly good intentions, yet are still capable of terrible things).

Mage also comes with the cosmic horror of the Abyss. The idea of something vast and ineffably horrible, a place of nihilistic insanity, omnipresent, waiting within the soul of every sleeper to twist their magic, or to spawn forth impossible abominations, or even to simply offer you more power for what might seem to be a small price in the beginning.

Michael:

I think there's something to Apocrypha's post. Although the books occasionally do put horror into it, mostly it doesn't, and even then rarely on the same level as vampire or changeling.

The way I see it about Mage's horror is that it has a greater tendency to be subtext, rather than being simply the text that is present in (and fully appropriate to) the other supernaturals. That way, it kind of sneaks up on you (much as it does the mages).

Just look at the "How far is too far?" thread. Those are all powers that the books give you and say nothing about the ethics of, but when you start to really consider the applications and implications, it can become unnerving.

Apocrypha:

Why do Mages get such an easy time of it?

As they say, you start on the proverbial slippery slope, but then you get handed a bucket of oil too.

Apocrypha:

he point with both the Beast and Rage is that you're losing control of you're own body, which you're not doing if you make the conscious choice.

Choosing to become the monster you turn into is, to many, far worse than being dragged down into the mud by some spooky force. It's like living out the Milgram Experiment. Or the Stanford Prison Experiment. Except the experiment doesn't stop, because that's your entire life.

Apocrypha:

the grasp of the Seers is not as all-encompassing as the Technocracy in Ascension.

It's not supposed to be. The Technocracy is the controlling force of Ascension, but the Seers are just servants to the true controlling force of Awakening. There are no limits on where an Exarch can reach. There's not even any way to tell when an Exarch is or isn't twisting Fate against you. A mage can see for a fact that they can manipulate mortals perfectly without the mortal ever realizing, and then they're reminded that a higher tier of power exists above them. So have they ever made their own decisions?

Isator Levi:

True. But the fact of the matter is that any mage will almost always be able to do far more things than another supernatural, and there can be little negative consequences for doing something bad. Give a mage time, knowledge, and the right arcana, and they can accomplish virtually anything without anyone ever knowing that they were behind it.

This is very true, but it is not only an internal horror. As a Mage learns that the can do nearly anything to anyone and not get caught, they figure out that other Mages can do the same to them. Thus comes the way of paranoia. You never truly know if you are doing what you are doing because you want to do it or if it is because someone else is making you want to do it. In this there is almost no one you can actually trust. You have great power to do whatever you want, but are surrounded by people who have equal or greater power than you do to do the exact same thing. That sounds like horror to me.

Mage doesn't have quite the basic level of horror as Vampire or Werewolf or Promethean or even Changeling, but it's very versatile in terms of what sort of horror to explore.

The basic one is hubris: give your players enough rope and I absolutely guarantee they will hang themselves. "Why don't you..?" "You could always just..." If your players are dead set on playing the saint, then a bit of 'there but for the grace of god' is good too: bring in an NPC, get them real close then slowly open him up (think along the lines of herbet west: reanimator).

The next most obvious one is responsibility. OK, you can put away your magic and live your normal life... but shouldn't you be doing something with that power? Shouldn't you be, you know, saving lives, dowsing for water, that sort of thing? And if you are using magic, why the fuck are you using it to build yourself a magic fortress instead of, oh, I don't know, a hospital? Affordable housing? Repairing the bus stop?

Part and parcel with these is mortal life and magical being. Are you just going to abandon the mehums and live in your magical ivory tower forever? Are you going to set yourself up as some kind of petty tyrant, do you think you're above the law? Family? Friends? And if you don't, you can't exactly talk to your mum about your magical experiments. How do you balance the mage and the man? What happens if you don't?

But other than that you can have otherworldly horror, oh boy can you ever. Intruders is a great book, so is Summoners. You can have all sorts of strange and terrible monsters which want strange and terrible things... and half the time it's even worse because a mage invited them in in the first place. (For bonus points, you did. So you have to disarm a chimpanzee...)

You can also, broadly speaking, nick broad swathes of material from other lines. Bestial horror? Sure. A cabal of Thrysoi and Adamantines, and they get invited to a hunt... and shown a legacy their mentors didn't tell them about. Abduction and transformation? No problem. Strange things from beyond mortal ken, powerful spirits, Abyssal bargains (the Legion is made of win, by the way) and hell, why not toss them in the hedge too for shits and giggles. A few dots of life and plenty of rope and you have some body horror to boot.

[edit] oh man, I completely forgot the paranoia and bargaining. You have a group of people who can do all kinds of shit, who could save your life a hundred different ways and half of them wouldn't lift a finger to save their own granny from being eaten by the ravenous bugblatter beast of Traal  if it meant risking their precious hallow for five minutes.

I know. I know the true name of fire, and the 1001 names of the demons King Solomon bound and how to compel their service. I know of a hidden grotto where all of you secret desires can come true for one night of ecstasy. I know that corrupt gods hold all of humanity in a prison, and my knowledge makes me their target. I know where the bodies of thirteen infants rest and the name of the entity who they were sacrificed to keep asleep. I know the face of the creature from who's wrist the mayor drank before he ordered the social services budget cuts. I know what the face of a possessed woman looks like, and what it looks like when freed from the demon to realize she has eaten her own child and husband. I know how fast a man who is sometimes a wolf can snap and kill a bus load of innocents. I know who began killing those prostitutes, and what madness overtook him. I know what he looked like as he died, and where he's buried, he was my best friend. I know that the world is a thin veneer of normalcy spread over madness and nightmares come to life, and how to look past the veneer to see the reality. I know I don't have to look. I know every time I do, no matter what I see it costs me a little bit another pinch of what makes me human. I know I am fooling myself, I have to know, I have to look, god help me.

Yep. That gave me chills.

I tip my hat to you sir.

(I like the new avatar, by the way).

It would have been better if it was spaced out instead of being a Wall of Text (which arguably is scary in itself).  Otherwise, good job on the writing.

Thank you! That's where all the horror of mage comes from for me, all the other supers don't really have a choice, they all have something compelling them to act in inhumane ways, wether it be anger issues, dietary requirements, or even just to hold onto their sanity. Mages might not have a choice about awakening but afterwards they certainly can choose to just live a normal life, there is no way to tell a mage from a normal guy until he uses magic so, don't use magic. But there is the rub, how could you not? Your spidey sense tingles so you know something odd is happening could you decide to just walk away without taking a peek? Then it becomes a slippery slope, you look and you see what was suppose to be hidden, and it is pants browning horrifying, so maybe you'll just bone up on your defensive spells so you are prepared, not going to use em mind you just going to do a little research just in case. As you research you find more and more things to worry about so you look for ways to defend against those, pretty soon you are hip deep in the magical community and unsure how you got there. Then there is the flip side, 9 times out of 10 you are going to look and wish you didn't, and you will get the derangements and night terrors to prove it, but that tenth time you look you see a miracle. You see something so sublime and beautiful that it takes your breath away, so you keep pushing that button hoping this time it will be a treat instead of electroshock you get. At the end of the day a vampire can curse cruel fate, a werewolf can blame his parents, but mages know they did this to themselves.

i think video pretty much sums up the horror of Mage: http://www.i-am-bored.com/bored_link.cfm?link_id=44596

Consider a few other examples:

-Mages live every day knowing that the next spell, if they don't choose right or cast it at the right moment, may cause some type of Paradox, including making the surrounding environment a dark reflection of one's Supernal Path, or bringing a monster from the Abyss directly.  While they theoretically can't cast a spell against their will or accidentally, if they aren't careful with when they DO will their magic into being, they run the risks of sacrificing more of the world to the Abyss.
-Mages are confronted by their own dark reflection everytime they run into a Banisher, Seer or other Left-Handed Mage.  That fear must weigh as heavily on their minds and souls.  That's if such mages aren't scary enough themselves - Banishers do nothing BUT hate and hunt mages, and often lack full awareness of their powers.  Imagine knowing that such a being could be around the corner.  And perhaps worst of all, a careless or unlucky mage could be branded such a foe, even if they aren't.  Even if their judgment is escaped at first, they are cut off from their former companions and likely totally alone in the world.
-Even the "ordinary" challenges mages face can be terrifying - the Shadow is not a friendly place, nor are its inhabitants inherently on the mage's side.  Ghosts can be crippling to a mage not skilled enough to deal with them.  And every new artifact discovery brings the unknown - perhaps it's an Atlantean nuclear device?

That's easy to answer, if a bit hard to roleplay all the time.