dragonoflife | (no subject)

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The live-action Mage game I play in just isn't fun any more. Ever since the new cadre of storytellers got in place, it's been nothing but a giant character-fuck. The PCs face huge and unopposable opposition, every single thing they do is wrong and comes back to haunt them, and there's no opportunity for anything but running and hiding. The actions of the NPC organizations are entirely arbitrary, there's no rhyme or reason to what happens...

I wouldn't mind all of this so much if so much energy wasn't being devoted to a colossal ass-raping of my character. They've hated him ever since they took power -- in all seriousness, he was a specific complaint of many of them during the elections period. I don't even know why I continue to play.

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I agree with you - the plots have been overpowering, to say the least. In a way, they have been for about a year now, though in more subtle ways. Even running and hiding isn't a viable strategy anymore. There's no way to keep the characters organised because something always breaks them up, no matter what. There's even no way to get information about NPCs' actions to plan a viable strategy (unless the other players I've been talking to IC on the mailing lists have the membership class of god and started off with characters with mastery of at least two spheres). How is it that so many other domains can just, for example, 'hack into the local Technocracy construct and find out what's happening', when around here there's no way in hell any character has enough traits/attributes/hardware to make it happen.

And I want an answer -- I really, really want an answer, and have not gotten one single satisfactory statement -- on how the Techoncracy could bring out RAIL GUNS in FULL SIGHT OF SLEEPERS which do 5 AGG PLUS A TEST FOR A SIXTH and not have TOUCHED a MARAUDER RAID on their HOME BASE.

And this is *exactly* why I feel as if I'm being targeted.

Umm.. it wasn't a base of five levels of aggrivated damage.

If what I was told was accurate, it was fifteen levels of aggrivated damage. Take that with a grain of salt, though.

It's not just you that feels targeted... events are horribly stacked against everyone right now. It might be time to talk to some of the other players to get a sense of what they think of things. Personally, I feel like this is going to turn into a splatterfest.

I was there for that scene which offed Marcus, and *that* weapon was definitely "five with a test for a sixth". I wouldn't be surprised if there were a ton of super-weapons out there that did more.

As for me being targeted specifically, I'd just like to point out one important thing: the Wing. They wanted that thing *out* from the very beginning, and when it became obvious that they didn't have the OOC mechanics to do so, they took it IC. Why did the Wing get stolen without a fight? Because they *ordered* our characters out to a restaurant. The exact description of it was, "The premise for tonight's game is that you all decided to go out to dinner somewhere." And while we were out, boom, the place gets raided.

I've never, ever gotten to the point where I considered quitting the two games I like -- Mage and Garou -- and I lasted through *Strauss* as Garou ST. But now, I don't know. I have absolutely no desire to play Mage any more.

Okay - I got that garbled, then. Mea culpa.

I truely hope that there aren't - that'd be a PC bloodbath.

Do you think it's personal, or that the Wing was too unbalancing to the game? I haven't heard anything, so I don't feel comfortable speculating on this.

I hadn't realised that before... something doesn't add up.

My own desire to play Mage is beginning to wane, also.

In the latter part of this year, when did we even USE the Wing? How could it be unbalancing if we never used it? And pretty much every single thing we ever encountered could not only nullify every one of its special capabilities, but seize control of it and bitchslap it and us like a red-headed step-child despite every single thing we did?

Now consider that the Wing has been approved for... oh, since Gillian was CST, and I had just started running the game. Well over a year. The first thing they did when taking office was say, "Oh, we don't think you can have the Wing, it's..." And they proceeded to provide about six different reasons. Such as "you can't have a Forces 5 Effect on an Artifact because your MC doesn't allow it" (patent bullshit) or something about NST approval (the hell?!). Finally they just said, "Okay, you have to rewrite these Effects, and post them on the database so we can approve it." And then the Wing got stolen. And they made promises like, "Oh, well, you'll have a chance to get it back" (which is *bullshit* because of the strength of the Technocracy). So I'm permanently out ten experience points on Vertigo -- and that's a freakin' Adept level Sphere, I could have Life 4 if I didn't have 10 dots of Wonder on my sheet which are permanently useless.

You know, I just read up to current post in the tribunal thread.

And I seem to see that my character's going to be fucked without even being kissed first since she's stuck in Quiet.

Does anyone else see this, or is it just me?

Maybe I should post this in my LJ too, but you guys talked about it first.

We haven't. If I remember correctly, there wasn't much of a reason to. The resistance to it was rather well scaled to its capabilities, though completely losing control of it did seem a bit heavy-handed. I would have preferred strategy to deus ex machina when it came to getting smacked around.

I missed a lot of this... I had no idea that was going on.

I remember your having to rewrite the Wing's effects a while back.

Who can you talk to about this in the Cam power structure? This isn't adding up at all..

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