I love Mage: The Ascension. Out of all the games White Wolf puts out, it is my favorite, the one I will choose above all others. There is deepness to the game that, at least for me, the other games do not exhibit. To play a mere mortal, a frail human being, who is suddenly given powers over the universe itself, is to explore the very foundations of who we are, what we believe, and how we hold those truths to the light of reality. The game holds an infinite potential for philosophical and personal exploration, as well as raw power and universal melodrama.
That being said, I have to wonder why, for a game where belief is so important,paradigm is not stressed more in Mage. With each new supplement, I hope beyond hope that the ideas of belief will be revisited and brought to the fore; with each new supplement, I sigh heavily as paradigm is ignored or, even worse, downplayed horribly. The last straw for me was when The Orphan’s Survival Guide came out. There was a nice section on how belief can save your sanity and give you a framework to work your arts around… and then proceeded to throw a bunch of silly new-age religion at you to compensate.
If any book should have addressed the importance of paradigm, it was that one. Whereas the Traditions have strong beliefs they are taught from Awakening,orphans are on their own, often without a leg to stand on, making their arts haphazard and their potential unrealized. Only those who adopt a framework for their magick ever truly learn to use it.
Let’s face it, a mage Awakens to some pretty heavy-duty truths. To suddenly realize that the fabric of reality can be twisted and reworked is a big moment,probably bigger than the average human can handle. In that moment, a magus learns that the scientific paradigm is no more correct than, say, a religious doctrine, and that belief is what decides what is true and what is false. If a mage doesn’t have beliefs of her own, she can get lost in the possibilities, or,worse yet, become overwhelmed by the meaningless of it all.
The basis of the magick system is a pretty simple premise: reality is subjective, bound by only a few "laws of nature" and the belief of the many.
OK, so it only seems simple on the outside, so sue me for my philosophy minor. This simple statement is possibly the most misunderstood thing about Mage, and one’s interpretation of it affects almost every facet of game play, especially judging on the vulgarity or effectiveness of a magickal effect.
In essence, a subjective reality is free form, a place where all possibilities exist simultaneously, where anything can happen. Leaping into physics for a moment, and tapping into my "inner Son of Ether", the example of Schrodinger’s Cat is a wonderful way of explaining this subjective state. Putting aside the quantum mathematics (and that God-awful isotope device), we are presented with a simple, yet elegant, difficulty: if you seal a cat in a soundproof box, and comeback an hour later, how can you tell if the cat is alive or dead? You can make theories based on present conditions, but you can’t know for sure until you open the box. In essence, the cat is both alive and dead at the same time, or, to put it more simply, both possibilities have an equal chance of being true at the same time. Only when observation and judgement whittles down the possibilities do we attain the "truth" of the matter. The Mage metaphysic places reality in the same quantum state. All possibilities exist, from the sublime to the ridiculous, until they are seen and judged. Only then does something become"true" or "false."
Of course, not everything is fully subjective in this universe. As it says above, there are "laws of nature" that form a backbone upon which the swirling maelstrom can center. One should not confuse these basic patterns in reality with scientific laws; they are far more basic than that. There are issues, such as the existence of certain things and forces and the basic ways those things act, that cannot be argued otherwise; they exist, plain and simple. Gravity isn’t subjective, but it’s malleable.
The universe also finds some measure of stability in the form of the Consensus,the belief of the Masses. In essence, if enough people believe in one of the myriad possibilities the universe offers, then that possibility becomes more likely to happen. As certain possibilities become more "acceptable" to the Consensus, the old possibilities do not vanish, but they become less likely to happen.
Think of this metaphysic as a large hole dug into the earth, then covered by a blanket. It has a few basic boundaries (the walls and the bottom) but is empty,devoid of anything truly solid. The blanket covers this hole, just as the Consensus covers reality; the hole still exists, but all you can now see is a blanket on the ground.
Now throw an Awakened avatar into this mess…
At the first stages of enlightenment, the mage recognizes that possibilities exist in the universe that most people wouldn’t even consider. However, the mage still cannot truly comprehend the sheer volume of that possibility, and seeks a way of explaining what she can do. This explanation is called a paradigm.
Paradigms are inherent to all the Traditions and to the Technocracy because a mage wouldn’t be able to cope otherwise. The Awakening bares the pure force of existence to the mage’s sight, and there she sees… nothing. Everything she believed about the universe, about the meaning of life, and about herself, means nothing. Only through the power of belief is any of it given form or meaning,and her belief now transcends the Masses, giving meaning to the raw potential before her.
It’s enough to give you a headache… or drive you mad. Faced with meaninglessness, many Awakened succumb to Quiet and possibly go Marauder, or,worse still, submit to having that void filled by Nephandic masters. Only a mage with some kind of belief in the way things are, or the way things should be, can get past this.
Paradigms fill this void, and provide a starting mage the foundation for their particular brand of magick. Foci, rotes, and even the general appearance of magick are all determined by the way that a mage thinks things should happen. While technomancers will explain gravity in long terms involving mass and rotation, attractions and equations, a Celestial Chorister would talk about the"way of the One", and a Dreamspeaker would discuss being "held to the bosom of Gaia". Moreover, paradigm gives the character a structured starting point toward Ascension. It allows her to sort through the mess in front of her and carve a path toward greater wisdom.
Each Tradition and Convention adheres to its own group paradigm, giving its initiates a ready-built foundation. Of course, individual mages may vary on this "group paradigm" in various ways, but each mage tends to stick with the heart of her mentor’s teachings. Magi of House Thig may use technological devices, but they still scrawl the names of God on each listening device. Each Celestial Chorister may pray to a different form of deity, but they all agree that their prayers do reach the One.
Orphans, on the other hand, don’t have a guiding hand through Awakening. A new mage, alone and without an explanation for what is happening, can quickly succumb to pain, avarice, and hopelessness. By the same token, however, this person is still Awakened; having seen the truth about reality, she is bound to develop some kind of rough paradigm. Maybe she reads a little too much La Vey and chooses the path of indulgence; maybe she practices some variant of Wicca;maybe she latches on to the teachings of a great philosopher, or bases herself on some mythical being. In any case, the arts of an orphan are still based on some form of belief, because without belief, there can be no Art.
What does this all mean for your gaming? Paradigm is a facet of character creation that is often overlooked, leaving a two-dimensional character with no beliefs, no goals, and no real power. For Mage, more than any other game, what a character believes is possibly the most important facet of its creation.
When I ran my most recent Mage game, I required each player to come up with a full paradigm as well as a history. While this was a seeming pain in the ass for them, it made role-playing their characters far easier than they expected. With paradigm in hand, they could easily pick their foci, basic rotes, and the very style of their magick. It also made relations between characters far spicier; the Euthanatos player spent half the game trying to justify his paradigm and his Tradition’s beliefs to the other players.
Paradigms are a good tool for Storytellers as well. Is one of your players ready for a Seeking? Grab their paradigm, compare it to their Nature, and find a weakness you think can be strengthened. Paradigms can help determine the vulgarity of a specific effect or the way that effect appears in game. NPC paradigms can be tailored to clash with the players’, making relations with such a person difficult.
In the end, paradigm is a tool to enhance role-playing and make each character unique. In Mage, belief is everything, and only true believers ever get anywhere.
NEXT MONTH: I hope to continue writing about the metaphysics of Mage and its implications for game play. More specifically, I hope to open Pandora’s Box a bit and pull out the ever-popular topic of adjudicating magickal effects within this air of subjectivity. Fun for the whole family…