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  • Oct 25, 2026, 12:30 PM

    I mean, I do not want to remake that literal game. Mage is burdened, among other things, by being set in the World of Darkness setting. Try as they might, the creators kind of wrote a Vampire: Masquerade spinoff.

    I want more like a spiritual successor. Hence my fascination with TSL. I think you could create a game, and a world, where in broad strokes the premise is exactly the same as Mage: Ascensions, but where details and how the themes are actually laid out differ considerably.

    One thing the old game doesn't really pay enough attention to is how the different Traditions themselves have a very narrow view of both reality and enlightenment. Their mutual tensions are alluded to, but not given much attention.

    I definitely have a game in mind where that is a core component of the game and a big part of each Playbook (because I am almost certainly base the game on PBtA games).

    Like, the hubris of believing oneself to have all the answers, the indifference of someone invested in their own view of the world are interesting things to explore. Like, I can easily imagine, in the old Mage game, a character who is basically an Objectivist. That is not an enlightened view of the world and if you disagree (to quote John Oliver), congratulations on your white penis xD

    Like, the only way to write a game about being awakened to a higher reality and seeing the consensus reality as an illusion if you engage with criticism of the world by people who were actually marginalized and oppressed and silenced and killed for a multitude of reasons.

    To write a game about waking up, you have to - appropriately enough - make it woke.

    Am I up to the task? No xD fuck no. But I am not going to let that stop me from trying.

    #rpg #ttRPG #PBtA

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Replies

  • Oct 25, 2026, 12:34 PM

    I am open to suggestions as to what the game should be titled.

    I really really want to title it "The Wokening", but for some reason I think it might not be the best name for a game I do want to treat somewhat seriously xD

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  • Oct 25, 2026, 12:41 PM

    If I want this game to be any good even as a side personal project...

    ...I am going to have to read a shitload of books on feminism, gender, queerness, race, capitalism, activism, climate change, political action, as well as on various countercultures and how they succeeded or failed to stand for certain values they professed, aren't I.

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  • Oct 25, 2026, 12:42 PM

    (feel free to suggest some must-reads to me! I am not going to become a scholar on any of these topics just for the purpose of writing a game about rolling dice with some friends, but I do want to get some of the basic concepts and schools of thought into my brain, even the broad strokes.

    No, I mean it, suggest some books to me that cover the basics. Feel free to Boost this post, or the original post in the thread, as well <3 )

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  • Oct 25, 2026, 1:25 PM

    Ooooooh, I've got it!

    I am naming the game "Just Reality".

    Well, until and unless I find a better title. But I like this one.

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  • Oct 25, 2026, 1:35 PM

    I literally wrote the working title (The Wokening xD ) at the top of the document I'm writing, and in the tradition of White Wolf games, I added a subtitle describing the game in a few words, like Mage: Ascension is "An Epic Game of Reality on the Brink".

    I didn't want to describe the game as being about changing reality, because I don't like the implication that marginalized people's reality is a departure from "real" reality.

    So I went with "A supernatural game of restoring just reality".

    And I was like... wait a second. "just reality" is the perfect double entendre. I'm just gonna make this the title!

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  • Oct 25, 2026, 1:38 PM

    I like that this phrase invokes and subverts, at least to me, the phrase "Just the facts", which is basically the catchphrase of the protagonist of "Dragnet", a very conservative-minded TV show that was one of the first and most influential pieces of copaganda.

    Accidental or not, my game idea is definitely going to move in the exact opposite direction to that show's worldview (or so I hear. I don't watch old musty shows about authoritarian cops).

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