The Intrinsic Horror of Mage

Yeah, is the discomfort of knowing you are, or became, a Monster in Deed without the possibility to blame the fact you are a Monster in Nature (as Vamps and Wolfys are).

The way I see it about Mage's horror is that it has a greater tendency to be subtext,

That's kinda what I was trying to say. The horror isn't nessecarily obvious until you actually look into it. The big example I can think of is the awakening itself, mages assume it's a good thing (unless they're banishers) and generally the books seem to agree, however mages themselves don't really know what they're tapping into.

Temptation is a good theme too. Raising arcana is hard, but striking a bargain with an Acamoth is so easy...

So a lot of these have hit the right notes about the horror present in Mage, but a few continue to posit that there's more horror in other game lines. I'm not sure this is true. It's really a matter of types of horror. Sub-genres, if you will. Vampire, with its internal, difficult-to-control force pushing you towards evil is a clear example of Gothic horror. Werewolf has aspects of Gothic horror, but a lot of its focus is on a horror of religion - whether it be the other Uratha who crusade against you or the gods small and large that make your life hell. Changeling's horror is that of the victim. Much of the horror behind Changeling is the struggle not to be victimized (by the Gentry or otherwise) again.

Mage presents a game of Gnostic horror. In Mage, you cannot be paranoid enough. When your master tells you that the whole world is against you, he means that reality itself is against you. The Exarchs are the closest things the world has to gods, and they hate you. The Seers and Banishers want you dead just for seeing the truth. The Abyss bitch-slaps you with Paradox if you try to push too hard against the bars of the Lie. Even humanity, who you may want to help or protect or uplift, works against you, increasing the risk of Paradox and ruining your spells. And you know how screwed you are. That's what Awakening is, essentially: realizing how utterly screwed you are and taking back a little knowledge and a little control for yourself. From there on out its a Herculean struggle to find knowledge and power, anything to haul your way out of this morass. But there are so many distractions along the way. There are horrors within the Lie, there are the horrors of the abyss, there are the horrors of your own kind. When you become capable of greater power, what else do you become capable of? And even when you can transform into a being of blazing flame or create a castle built of dreams and hidden deep in the soul of humanity, even then you're still a prisoner, still at the whim of the Exarchs. The ultimate goal still seems as far away as it did the night you Awakened.

So how does one use this when running a Mage game? There are many ways, and they depend a lot on the tone and themes of the personal chronicle. A game that really takes the theme of Power Corrupts to heart may include in-fighting, backstabbing mages in positions of power, their rivalries utterly overwhelming their concerns for higher power or knowledge, all while the local government bows to every whim of its corrupt Seer overlords and druglords rule the streets with tyrannical force. A game interested primarily in the gnostic mysticism of Mage may include signs at every juncture, messages hidden in innocuous places (street signs, graffiti, the stock ticker on the nightly news, the clouds, the cracks in the sidewalk, the twisted rainbow of oil in a parking lot puddle); each setback seems the result of some higher power or some conspiracy set against the characters. They never know exactly who their enemies are, and if they do manage to uncover them, they seem like pawns in some larger game. A game focused on sorcerous and otherworldly horror is perhaps easiest. The characters are beset with invaders from the Shadow, intruders form the Abyss, Left-Handed mages and hidden Atlantean temples with altars prepared for human sacrifice and automated guardians consecrated in blood.

There are people out there who can turn your body into jelly with a thought.

They can read your mind and know your darkest secrets and make you their slave and force you to do anything they want.

And they don't just have these powers, they use them.

Because they feel like it, and because it's fun. For the same reason playing with ants is fun.

The horror of Mage is the horror represented by people given power without any real limitation. They get to be as rich as they want. They get to have any sort of partner they want. They get to force anyone to do anything they want. They have their kingdoms in the modern world, playing their games with people, and there's noone around to stop them.

And that's crazy scary.

Think about what the process of awakening is-there is your horror. One day everything seems to be going normal, and then BAM!
    Talk about a bad trip! And I'm not even talking about what ever the tramatic experiance was that broght your very soul to the edge in the first place. You see and do strange things that defy logic, you are a mark, a target to beings you can't even comprehend yet, and there is no going back.
    Welcome to Wonderland Alice! It's only going to get worse.

One thing that doesn't seem to get played up for its horror very often is a mage's Path.

Every single Mage has signed their soul away in a Faustian Deal to a horrible otherworldly realm. Read the descriptions of the realms, they aren't nice places. Personally I enforce roleplaying in tune to ones Path the higher ones Gnosis is. A mage's viewpoint becomes less and less human. Does the Moros care if he killed someone? What does it matter (oh!)? I think back the Watchmen "A living body and a dead body have the same number of particles. Structurally theres no difference." That's the kind of detachment and hubris that begins to affect mages the further they walk along the sorcerers path.

Does an Acanthus master care that by changing the probabilities of traffic to let himself get to his destination 10 minutes quicker 12 accidents were causes including 2 deaths? Does he examine a Sleepers natural destiny and change it on a whim? Why wouldn't he though? In the "true" supernal realms fate is mutable, and so shall it be below.

Greymarch:

Every single Mage has signed their soul away in a Faustian Deal to a horrible otherworldly realm. Read the descriptions of the realms, they aren't nice places. Personally I enforce roleplaying in tune to ones Path the higher ones Gnosis is. A mage's viewpoint becomes less and less human. Does the Moros care if he killed someone? What does it matter (oh!)? I think back the Watchmen "A living body and a dead body have the same number ofparticles. Structurally theres no difference." That's the kind of detachment and hubris that begins to affect mages the further they walk along the sorcerers path.

Does an Acanthus master care that by changing the probabilities of traffic to let himself get to his destination 10 minutes quicker 12 accidents were causes including 2 deaths? Does he examine a Sleepers natural destiny and change it on a whim? Why wouldn't he though? In the "true" supernal realms fate is mutable, and so shall it be below.

This is an interesting idea. My only problem with it is that it forces players into committing more and more Wisdom sins as they get higher Gnosis, which I view as a large detractor from the idea.

You could continue that line of reasoning along a bit. Wisdom is fairly arbitrary afterall, maybe it's the Exarchs doing? Maybe Mages morality itself is just a contruction to trap them.

kurasu:

This is an interesting idea. My only problem with it is that it forces players into committing more and more Wisdom sins as they get higher Gnosis, which I view as a large detractor from the idea.

I don't think that's necessarily out of line.  Changelings with higher Wyrd are almost as fickle and cruel as the Fae.  Their Clarity goes down the drain if they get Wyrd enough to be extremely Fae in nature.  Likewise, Sin-Eaters that have a higher Psyche tend to shake up their relationship with their Geist--Why should you care if your dead companion likes you, if you can get what you want?  Why should HE be the Death God, when you feel you could do a better job? 

I'm not sure if Werewolves, Vamps, or Prometheans have to deal with that.. but at least two of the game lines seem to make you choose between power and morality.  It takes a very delicate balancing act to keep both intact.

Cleverest of Things:

I'm not sure if Werewolves, Vamps, or Prometheans have to deal with that.. but at least two of the game lines seem to make you choose between power and morality.  It takes a very delicate balancing act to keep both intact.

High PU doesn't have any real effects on Harmony, in fact there is a character described in Tribes of the Moon with PU 8 and Harmony 9. High BP only causes a shrinking of the possible pool of creatures that a Vampire can drink from, and as such does not effect Humanity. A Promethean's Humanity is not effected by his Azoth, though his high Azoth will cause greater Disquiet, thus leading to possible sins against their Humanity. A Promethean's Humanity needs to be high though for gaining their Mortality, so the system is designed not the needlessly lose it. 

It seems, then, that they split the games in half in terms of Morality/Power duality.  I played Changeling almost exclusively, but Geist has been tickling my fancy lately.  In Changeling, Clarity is much harder to keep strong as your Wyrd spikes.  AN Ogre with a high Wyrd is more likely to snap and break someone's neck, or perhaps have the overwhelming urge to eat someone alive--both are very hard to deal with in terms of Clarity.  Mage seems somewhere in between--while Gnosis doesn't guarantee acts of Hubris, it may give a mage more confidence in how strong his magic is (As well as higher Paradox).  It certainly isn't as bad as the Clarity problem that Changelings face, but it doesn't seem as "Scot free" as other systems.

Of course, granted, most of these bad side effects are purely roleplaying.  None of them are all that supported by mechanics.  Having High Wyrd rarely FORCES you to do mad, inhuman things.  However, if you want to accurately portray a creature whose Power Stat is rising, it may support that kind of behavior.  While a Vampire with higher BP doesn't have rolls to force him to go on wanton killing sprees (At least, as far as I know--I don't know vampire very well).  However, it stands to reason that a creature that becomes MORE Vampire tends to do things that make him less human, too.  It isn't forced, but it's a tendency.  The Blood inside of him becomes very strong, and becomes harder to resist.  Similarly, the deathly energy of a Sineater and the untamed selfish Faerie nature that grows over time begins to compete with their morality--It's hard to balance the call of Death and Life when you feel so much more like a ghost, and its almost impossible to resist the urges of Faerie as you become more and more of a monster.

I dunno, I'd expect that high Psyche is conducive to high Synergy. As you grow closer to death, it's easier to understand your Geist. Remember that Synergy isn't like Clarity or Wisdom (or Obligation <3) - it's like Harmony. It doesn't matter if you balance life and death as long as you work well with your Geist (although if you completely abandon yourself to your Geist's whim or completely ignore the proper status of death that's different).

Crabbadon:

I dunno, I'd expect that high Psyche is conducive to high Synergy. As you grow closer to death, it's easier to understand your Geist. Remember that Synergy isn't like Clarity or Wisdom (or Obligation <3) - it's like Harmony. It doesn't matter if you balance life and death as long as you work well with your Geist (although if you completely abandon yourself to your Geist's whim or completely ignore the proper status of death that's different).

I meant the balancing of life and death as sort of implying your motives and actives, rather than the generalized forces.  Synergy is about keeping your "partner" happy.  A lot of the acts of Discord line up more with life and death--For example, Killing yourself, or commiting acts of Unclean Death are both acts of Discord.  To a certain degree, every Geist is a death spirit, and has generalized, archetypal desires.  Similarly, as a living creature, you have urges, and must learn to only act on the living urges that won't piss of your Geist.  For example, as much as Eric Draven would've loved to torture his victims, even as a Reaper, it wouldn't have pleased his Geist.  Unclean death would anger the Crow, and so he must curb his mortal feelings to please his immortal passenger. 

Of course, none of that applies to Wisdom directly, but it does indirectly.  Even though a Mage knows that Fate is mutable, it doesn't mean he should go around and change it as much as he wants.  Even though he can throw a lightningbolt (Which really isn't that different than shooting a gun), it doesn't necessarily mean he SHOULD, even when he wants to.  Despite their SUpernal Soul, they know that the Supernal can't come down onto the world at all times without breaking the whole thing apart by Paradox and send it screaming into the Abyss.  Gnosis represents how connected they are to the Supernal, while Wisdom is the way they balance their human desires with supernal purity. 

But was stated, Mages are less driven by the knowledge inside of them to evil as are werewolves and vampires by their rage and blood.  Wisdom and Gnosis are very personal, and more determined by their own actions than some consequence of their condition.  Casting spells foolishly or boastfully can be dangerous to a mage, as his mind unravells and he becomes less and less human--even though the acts that drag him there are human pettiness and human whims.  The Mages cannot blame the Supernal for their evil, as Vampires do their Curse (Well, at least not unless they are Banishers).  Mages have no one to blame but themselves.

Personally, I have always played up High Powerstat and Low Morality both as horror elements.  A Potent Vampire would be some alien thing, with the only vestiges of humanity left inside of him keeping him from being no different than an ultimate animal.  The same can be said of Werewolves.  A Promethean with high Azoth that hasn't converted it into a soul is like an extremely radioactive chunk of uranium--Stronger, yes, but still bad for their environment.  THey are walking plagues, Wastelands forming from them turning the world into a nightmare.  Changelings.. well, it's pretty clear just how bad for the world a creature is that thinks he is the center of the universe and should have no consequences for fulfillings his desires.  With Mages, they know everything, and can do anything.  The Exarchs are a good example of what that kind of power is like without being restrained by Wisdom.

Cleverest of Things:

Of course, none of that applies to Wisdom directly, but it does indirectly.  Even though a Mage knows that Fate is mutable, it doesn't mean he should go around and change it as much as he wants.  Even though he can throw a lightningbolt (Which really isn't that different than shooting a gun), it doesn't necessarily mean he SHOULD, even when he wants to.  Despite their SUpernal Soul, they know that the Supernal can't come down onto the world at all times without breaking the whole thing apart by Paradox and send it screaming into the Abyss.  Gnosis represents how connected they are to the Supernal, while Wisdom is the way they balance their human desires with supernal purity. 

See the thing I think of is that is an Obrimos has a high gnosis, the reality of Aether starts to seem more real to him than the Fallen World. In which case, why shouldn't he shoot lightning? It's more natural than embedding a hunk of lead into someones squirming life pattern. And even then, using a gun requires forces to propel the bullet so why bother when the lightning is more "pure"?

Paradox is the big equalizer and really it's only self-preservation that stops mages from going crazy with the magic. But that's why Legacies are so popular. You meld your soul with your Realm even closer and now you can enact is laws in the Fallen World as much as you like. And you know that mages in a Legacy are going to go out of their way to use that sweet paradox free power as much as possible.

It would be hard to quantify as game mechanics but that's part of the tragedy of mage to me. As a mage gains more Gnosis he merges more and more with his realm and can do more and more things, channel more mana, perform ritual spells quickly etc... because to him that becomes the natural and proper way to do things. The only problem is, being more likely to resort to supernal resources makes him more likely to draw paradox, and his higher Gnosis grants a much worse result. So eventually a mage's hubris can quite literally spell his end.