Idea for a player-made campaign (future of Mage: the Ascension)

[Zolace]

Let me preface this by saying that I'm a fan of the White Wolf (now Onxy Path Publishing) role play universe, the World of Darkness (WoD). More specifically the old WoD. That's in addition to being a fan of the Shadowrun RPG. That said if you don't know what I'm talking about you'll get pretty lost here. If you're interested in the modern day gothic horror genre of role play games, and you haven't heard of Mage: the Ascension, Werewolf: the Apocalypse, Vampire: the Masquerade, Changeling: the Dreaming, or other such venues, then you've got a lot of required reading to do. If you do know about and have played these games, jump into the discussion, please.

A friend of mine and I used to muse, "What if the Shadowrun universe was a future version of the WoD?" Well, I'd like to ask you, the community, what if someone hit the workshop and made a mod based on that idea? How would you answer that question?

I'd like to start some sizzle, if I may. There are elements of Mage, Vampire, and Changeling that fit well into the Shadowrun game we have here. It'd be nice to include Werewolf, but so far these Shadowrun games haven't introduced a mechanic for their shapeshifting ability (that I know of) or chrinos form were-beast sprites. The Shadowrun pen and paper game does have werewolves and other werebeasts, but I don't see how they'd fit into the computer game in its current build.

Anyway, between Mage and Shadowrun (SR) there are a few one to one analogues, and a few things in Mage that don't fit in SR. Some of the Mage traditions translate as follows:

Dreamspeakers=Shaman
Order of Hermes=Street Mage
Akashic Brotherhood=Adepts
Virtual Adepts=Deckers
Sons of Aether=Riggers and cybered-up Street Samurai

There are no one to one analogues for Verbena, Euthanatos, Celestial Chorus, or the Cult of Ecstacy, however, I'm sure there can be custom player-made spells for mages, shaman, and cusom in game drugs that can fill these gaps somewhat.

The biggest contribution from Mage, though, would be the Technocracy. More specifically the technocratic convention known as the Syndicate. They are the ones that are ALL about money and economy. As far as the cultural significance of the Syndicate goes in a "SR as the future of WoD" goes it's pretty obvious that the Syndicate has taken over and is running the show. Think about it. In the SR universe gaint multinational corporations pretty much run and control everything. With the exception of vulgar magic being accepted as a part of conventional reality, it's the world according to the Syndicate. It's how they would run the world. Question I'd like answered is "How did they take over the world, so they could then run it?"

The fact that magic is now (in future WoD SR) publicly accepted by sleepers/banal people as a part of consentual reality is because of a major victory by a conspiracy between the Traditions and Changeling courts. How did this mass Awakening get affected, and without an Avatar Storm or massive paradox backlash?

Speaking of Changelings, there are a few things about Changeling that translate well into SR. Take for example the following Kith analogues:

Elves=Shide
Dwarves=Boggin (maybe Nockers?)
Orcs=Redcapps
Trolls=....Trolls

Now there are dozens of Kith that straight up aren't represented in SR like the Eshu, Satyrs, Pooka, Sluagh, and others. Why not? What happened to them?

Culturally, for this setting, it seems obvious that at the same time vulgar magic became obvious to the sleepers that the Changeling seemings of Changelings all over the world merged with their banal human seeming during the event known as Goblinization. In other words they stopped being people with a foot in the Dreaming and a foot in the Banal world and became whatever kith they are full time. How what this affected in parallell, or concert, with the Mage's mass awakening, and does it have anything to do with why so many other Kith are absent?

Obviously the Changeling cantrips and other powers are absent in SR. This could be addressed, perhaps in a workshop mod with player-made spells and augmentations that are specific to each race, or have a metahuman type as a prerequisite.

Vampires. Vampires are represented in game as having every augmentation slot filled with and HMHVV "augmentation". Different vampire clans/bloodlines in Vampire the Masquerade have different clan-specific powers. This could be represented in game as different HMHVV augmentations that give the players powers reminicent of different bloodlines. For example there could be a "Tremere" or a "Ventru" or a "Brujah" set of augmentations, along with a universal "bite" ability among vampires. For example an arm augmentation that lets you activate "Potency (enhanced melee damage)" for 3 rounds, and a leg HMHVV augmentation that lets you activate "Celerity" (run farther per action) for 3 rounds, and a head augmentation that lets you "Dominate" an enemy making them fight for you as well as opening up unique dialogue options if you know what I mean.

Culturally speaking, the 2012 event where "magic came back" was not kind to the vampires. The later release of HMHVV strains only made things worse for them. Even if humans were unaware that ancient vampire clans had been manipulating them from the shadows for centuries, the idea that vampires are out there had become public knowledge. The Masquerade had been broken against their will. That much of the human population now had access to awakened magic and enlightened science, and many had apparently become goblinized, made it harder (though not impossible) to hunt and feed. Now actively and openly hunted by mega corporations, and faced with an empowered public that knows they exist and hates them, vampires have never faced such persecution and scrutiny since the days of the Inquisition.

Dragons. Dragons play big roles in Changeling, Mage, and Werewolf, and are in SR in a big way. They run countries and mega corporations. If anything they've managed to integrate themselves into this new world and its ruling heirarchy almost seemlessly. Almost. How did this alliance between Dragons and the Syndicate, who would have had them killed as reality deviants before the mass awakening, happen?

As far as in game representation goes, the Dragonfall edition of SR has a real nice dragon model to use in game. Maybe you could work a personal appearance of a dragon into your game?

If I were to include werewolves, almost all of them would all have access to Shamanism. Almost exclusively. SR's Shamanism fits in perfectly with Werewolf Gifts and their connections with a totem and their dealings with spirits. Unfortunately the current versions of SR don't include human-animal hybrid models that would be necessary for a full representation of any of the shape shifter breeds.

Culturally, the biggest contribution of Werewolf to a version of SR where SR is the future of the WoD would not be the Werewolves themselves. It would be one of their greatest enemies: Pentex. The megacorporation Pentex would absolutely taken over the world in collusion with the Syndicate. The dystopian nature of the SR socio-political culture is absolutely something that they would have crafted. The way the megacorps run the world of SR is just as much "the world according to Pentex" as it is "the world according to the Syndicate".

What do you think? Anyone interested? What ideas does this give you? What stories do you think you can craft with these elements?

[Etagloc]

Not to shoot you down, but ideas are a dime a dozen.
Its sounds cool enough.
BUT if you want something done with it YOU are the one who has to do something about it.

[Zolace]

True. I was hoping to bounce ideas off of someone so that I can flesh out plot details. I've got the bare bones outline, but the meat eludes me. All this is just the backdrop, the setting. What would the campaign be about though? What's a good idea for a campagin in this setting? What conspiracy would it center around? What would be a good end game?

[Zarkrash]

That depends on what you want to do. At the moment, it sounds mostly like you've got a backdrop down, but you don't have an idea for a main character down.

Certainly, you have the Black Lodge from Dragonfall which serves as a main element for mages (rumors have it that they could cast magic before the awakening...) Which serves as a type of thing for at least the mages.

But unless you want a truly massive campaign that gets redundant (character advancement can only go so far with the systems that hong kong have in place...), it would likely be best to focus on a particular group.

So for campaign ideas; Let's say you're a vampire hunter because that's a thing in shadowrun lore.

You're hunting a vampire... and then it turns out this wasn't a vampire as a result of the virus, but either a kuei-jin or a cainite, and they use powers far beyond your ken to get away.

It then becomes your characters obsession to figure out exactly what these vampires are, and... well, you take the story from there?

The only thing is, however that implementing things like disciplines or other supernatural powers would be... wonky at best with the how Hong Kong is built at the moment.

The reliable end game would then be hunting the equivalent of an ancilla I think, or roughly any super natural power level of what would be about 150 ish xp, *maybe* an elder if you're really inclined, but elders would have so much armor and do so much damage that it's a bad idea in my opinion.

[Zolace]

Interesting. Or, what if, I put in an element of choice that could radically affect the outcome of the game including the levels you play and the enemies you get to face? Like a fork in the road situation where your character learns the truth and has the option of either going after a vampire clan, the heads of Pentex, or the heads of the Syndicate?

Of course I might be biting off more than I can chew with that. That would be massive. Fun, but massive.

You're right though, I shouldn't just throw a 3rd gen antedeluvian vampire in there as a final boss. Not if I want to do them justice. That would be insanely difficult. Or, ♥♥♥♥ me, Cain himself. That guy can just sleep. Or, hell, maybe throw Cain in if only as a cameo with a purely optional dialoge option to fight him (a no-win fight with a hardcore secret boss), just to make players in the know piss their pants. Maybe just breaking their power on earth so that the more powerful ones would have to wait out the 6th world before vampires could begin to reassert themselves.

I like the idea of working for/through the Black Lodge. It was hinted at that they are the Knights Templar, which in Mage is sort of affiliated with the Celestial Chorus, if only by faith. Unlike the Choristers they have access to true Faith and almost never produce an archmage, are an all-male organization, and they have access to primium swords (which could be an interesting custom in game item). With their ethics and clandestine nature the Black Lodge could also be the Order of Hermes proper.

A Pentex boss could be a greater Wyrm spirit/corruptor. Maybe the one that first corrupted the CEO of Premium Oil...

A Syndicate final fight could be against HitMark 7 guarding some of the higher ups. There was only one HM7 in the old WoD. It got infested by a mother Weaver spirit near the end of days and went on a rampage. I was there for the fight back when I was a member of the Camarilla playing LARP. It was INSANE!