Mage the Ascension campaign backstory

So, I think it's high time I take a step away from the video games and talk about one of the tabletop roleplaying games that I'm playing in.

Today I'm talking about a Mage: The Ascension. For anyone that doesn't know, Mage is a tabletop game from White Wolf Games. In mage, you play da da daaaaaa: Mages. I'd suggest that you look into it, but White Wolf scrapped their entire Old World of Darkness line including Vampire, Werewolf, Mage, Changeling, Wraith, and many more. You may still be able to find some of these games used though. The World of Darkness system was never the best in the world. It's clunky most of the time, arbitrary some of the time, and the combat mechanics are almost nonexistent. But the world that was created had a lot of vibrant story and evoking texture. It wasn't always great, but the majority of the backstory for the world was a really deep world.

For length concerns I'm only going to post the premise for the campaign and a bit of background on the characters. I'll post at least part of the story so far later in the week.

So here's the campaign background. First off, Victor is running. Victor is a rather brilliant GM, he always has deep, involved, interesting stories to tell through the games that he runs. He is also great at rolling with whatever the players throw at him. He's not so attached to his story that he gets upset if the players want to go a different direction, and he has no problems giving the characters exactly what they deserve for their actions. The players in this game are Bob, James, Jodi, Maria, and myself. For a while we also had Allen, but his work schedule got changed so that he is now working during the game session, so he had to drop out. His character was scheduled to die anyway, so he wasn't too broken up about it.

The game is set in Japan largely, I think, because Victor wanted to use a lot of the Kindred of the East and Hengeyokai rules. Bob is playing a Japanese martial artist who is a member of the Akashic Brotherhood. One source of trouble with his character is that he has both the Overconfident flaw and the Common Sense merit. In most cases the Overconfident flaw overpowers the Common Sense merit and gets him into a lot of trouble. I really don't think that they should be allowed to be taken together. Jodi is playing an American surgeon who is a member of the Euthanatos. She's very headstrong and that causes a lot of headbutting with Bob and his "traditional" (trust me, those quotes are freaking HUGE) Japanese outlook. Bob and Jodi are also playing a married couple who have a merit called Twin Souls. That merit, taken with certain magical abilities, allows the two of them to always know exactly where the other is and to talk mentally over any distance. It also allows them to share their spheres (magical powers) when they touch and still be able to take independent actions. Usually, two mages can touch and share spheres, but they are only allowed one collective action.

Maria is playing an American librarian who worships Lilith. If you're familiar with Vampire: The Masquerade, you know how big a player Lilith is. She is also pregnant with Lilith's child/Lilith herself, Lilith being who she is, there is of course no father. James is playing a Japanese member of the Cult of Ecstasy. So far there's not been a whole lot of depth to that character, but I think he's enjoying himself anyway.

I'm playing an American doctor who was a member of the Sons of Ether, but who was later recruited by the Asian equivalent of the Technocracy known as the Zaibatsu. My character is really wacky and a lot of fun to play. The problem is that I'm the only one in the group that really wants to save the world. But more on that later.

That's all I'm going to cram into this post. I'll post at least part of the story so far later on in the week. So until then, Good Gaming.