After my initial discussion of paradigms in this column, a few readers wrote to me, asking for something more substantial. While pointing out the importance of paradigm was well received by these readers, some pointed out to me that many people simply do not understand how to create a paradigm for their characters. This is understandable; most role-playing games either have self-contained paradigms or simply do not require players to question their beliefs in reality as much as Mage does, and suddenly being thrust into such a situation can be daunting.
However, paradigms should not be so difficult, since they are simply extensions of the already existing Mage mechanics. In the most abstract sense, a paradigm is what a Mage believes about reality, magic, and existence. However, boil away all the high-flung metaphysics and the self-analyzing philosophy and psychology, and the players is left with a simple way to explain game mechanics and characters statistics from the point of view of the character.
General Issues
Paradigms are best made simultaneously with character creation. Very rarely is there any good time to make the whole paradigm in one sitting. Rather, bits and pieces of it should be created as various aspects of the character come together. When you choose your spheres, for example, ask how this person is going to explain this sphere to others; no character is going to say, "Hi, I’m Brianna, and I have Life 3!"
For those playing members of an established mystic group, the job of creating a paradigm is half done. Each Tradition, Convention, and Craft has its own ideals and views that it will teach its younger members to follow. Most mages will follow Tradition paradigm fairly closely, if for no other reason than the fact that it’s the only way they know to explain what they do. If Brianna’s mentor is a Verbena, and she teaches the young mage that blood and sacred oaks allow her to heal and harm, then Brianna is going to use blood and wood, and her paradigm will reflect those beliefs.
Of course, mystic groups only provide the skeleton of the individual paradigm, and it is up to the player to build on this and make the character’s magic as personal as possible. Does the character prefer some aspects of the paradigm to others? Is she rebellious, or is she a rules stickler? Maybe the character tries to mix paradigms a bit, such as a Virtual Adept trying to justify hermetic circles or a Chorister who still follows tribal ways.
The challenge of making a personal paradigm comes when playing an Orphan. These people have Awakened on their own and do not have the "controlled" Awakenings of most Tradition mages. Whereas a trained mage enters her Awakening with the Tradition’s preconceived notions about magic, an Orphan comes to power in a random environment, with only her own beliefs to explain what is going on. For these characters, the moment of Awakening is probably the biggest influence on paradigm. If Brianna Awakens during a drug high, for example, she may truly believe that what happened was a drug trip and can only be duplicated while high. This may, of course, eventually lead her to the Cult of Ecstasy, but it’s a start.
The final thing to keep in mind is that, no matter how a character Awakens, he or she will have some notion about how the universe works and why she can do the stunts she suddenly can. Awakening, to some degree, is all about insight and enlightenment; a mage simply cannot, by definition, function as a willworker unless she acknowledges some form of metaphysic, even if it’s something as simple as fairy tales or as everyday as common science.
Creation
The actual process of paradigm creation has three steps: Basic Metaphysic, Sphere Metaphysic, and Background Metaphysic. While creating your character, answer as many paradigm questions as you can. Imagine how this character will explain her mystic abilities to another mage, and avoid actually using MAGE’s terminology as much as possible.
The Basic Metaphysic coincides with character concept, and should resolve the character’s essential worldview. Ask yourself what this character thinks the nature of reality is and why she thinks she can use magic. These answers do not have to be deep by any stretch of the imagination; paradigms can be as simple as wishcraft or as complex as witchcraft. If the character doesn’t have a deep universal metaphysic, you should at least resolve the issue of how and why her abilities work; everyone’s going to come up with an answer for that.
The Sphere Metaphysic is fairly easy, especially if the character’s worldview has been developed. At this point, you should explain how the character explains each individual Sphere. These explanations should fit with the metaphysic; a Dreamspeaker explaining Forces as "the power of Satan" probably won’t cut it. The explanations should sound plausible to the character, and should cover as much of each Sphere as possible. It helps to define the character’s starting spheres at first, then explaining the others.
The Background Metaphysic defines the mage’s views on the Avatar, Arete, Quintessence, Paradox, and the mystic backgrounds like Arcane and Sanctum. These are important to clarify just how the mage sees her everyday life, as well as the things that affect her the most. A mage may not necessarily see that the avatar is what allows her to work magic; some may see it as "creative genius", while others revere it as a guardian angel or animal spirit. Arete is a measure of enlightenment, and everyone follows a different inner path, whether it is devotion to the One, inner balance, or acceptance of an idea. People will explain Paradox differently, based on their own experiences with it and the experiences they have shared with others.
Once these issues have been resolved, the player is left with a simple role-playing tool that allows her to get into the character’s head and mindset far easier than without.
Genesis: An Example Paradigm
Ok, let’s try this step by step. First, let’s grab a concept and a basic background. Our character will be a Virtual Adept… let’s call him Bob for now… and he was Awakened by another Virtual Adept during a Quake death-match. (Don’t giggle, just work with me here…) He was trained by the Adepts, and follows much of their paradigm, but the whole death-match Awakening has skewed his outlook somewhat.
For the Basic Metaphysic, we can pretty much use the standard Adept paradigm that has been drilled into his head: the universe is a vast network of information that can be hacked, altered, and uploaded. However, Bob is partial to the idea that the information for the physical world is written in Quake code, allowing for "spectacular, real-life 3D effects". Bob can take part of this code, play with it a bit, and modify the universal program in small ways. He’s even developed his own set of "cheat codes" (rotes); all he has to do is "hit the tilde", input his code, and the cheat takes effect.
For his Spheres, Bob has spent most of his time working with simple environmental changes. He has 1 level of Correspondence, 2 of Matter, 2 of Forces, and 1 of Mind. We’ll stick to just explaining those for now. Since Bob’s paradigm is code-based, his explanations for those Spheres should also be code-based. After a bit of thinking, we may come up with something like the following:
- Correspondence – LAN: Code can be accessed from just about anywhere, as long as you have access to the right pipelines. Everything is linked, so everything can be accessed from one place.
- Forces – Power: the easiest way to relay code is by pulse. Universal code requires plenty of power pulses, and the right hardware or software can divert these pulses as easily as the codes they contain.
- Matter – Hexagonal Bitmap: the things we touch and see every day are coded, just like anything else, and these codes are fairly easy to hack and change.
- Mind – CPU: my mind is a center of code processing, a place where the universal code is translated into something I can understand. If I can’t deal with the code properly, I can always overclock. :)
Moving onto Background Metaphysic, we can already see the general tendencies of this character, so Bob’s explanations for other things should be simple, yet potentially geeky. Bob will certainly not, for example, be using any flowery phrases to explain what his avatar is any time soon; he’ll just call it his "inspiration". His Arete can be explained as his ability to hack, his "eliteness", if I may steal a phrase. Paradox is just "bugs in the system" or "anti-hacking defenses", while quintessence is little more than a system backdoor or a code crack. His other backgrounds will take on similarly technical definitions.
And there you have it: Bob, the Quake hacker.
Paradigms really flesh out the character and make the role-playing experience far easier. There is no really deep philosophy required to do this, just a little creativity and a little thought. What you come up with may surprise you.
NEXT MONTH: Barring natural disaster or a burning need to write something else, I’ll delve into the Storyteller’s nightmare that is running a Seeking. We’ll look at the role of the Avatar, using Nature, and how to set this bad boy up.