Adam Simpson discusses themes in Mage: The Ascension and how to use them in your games; Stewart Wieck‘s theme of Mage’s bringing change to society; Woodstock; Pi-hole; the Digital Web; Satyros Brucato’s theme of empowerment in Mage; HIT Marks; four themes in Mage: magic isn’t something you do but something you’re part of, needing to work with others who are different from yourself, transcending your limitations, and overcoming pride and self-centeredness to reach something greater than yourself; introdcuitng mystric weirdness into a Mage’s life after they have Awakened; giving players information they must keep secret from fellow Cabal members; riddles posed by AIs; aiding a security guard; let us know what’s stopping you from running a Mage Chronicle.
On today’s show we launch a new segment, Mage Chronicles, in which we talk to Storytellers and players about what made their Chronicle unique. We’re joined by Mage co-creator Satyros Brucato and Walking Away from Arcadia podcast co-host Victor Joseph Kinzer to discuss his Chronicle set in Mage: The Sorcerers Crusade. We chat about how Victor got into role playing games and how that lead to playing Changeling and Mage; why splat books are called splat books; what The Sorcerer’s Crusade is and why so many people love it but rarely play it; what it’s like playing a game in a less explored historical territory; playing a game set outside of Europe; how Victor would have run his Chronicle differently; the Chronicle I’m running on Twitter.
Join us again next week: Myth in Mage with Josh Heath, host of Werewolf: The Podcast.
Join us again next Sunday for the first installment of our segment, Mage Chronicles. Panos V Skordas will talk about his Mage chronicle, Ahriman Chronicles: The Vile nature of an Ascension War.
On today’s Mage: The Podcast we talk with author Antonios Galatis about his short story, “Life,” which appreared in the Truth Beyond Paradox anthology which you can purchase on Amazon or DriveThruRPG. You can also listen to “Life” here. We discuss how Antonios discovered role playing games and how he discovered Mage: The Ascension; whether Antonios is a storyteller or a player; nerds in Greece; how role playing games due to World of Darkness; the world of his protagnoist; Helenna; what “Life” is about; the upcoming supplment for Mage: The Ascension, “Gods and Monsters;” the importance of his editor, Atalanti Evripidou; te experience of recording “Life” for the podcast with his friend, Panos Skezos; the importance of describing things in stories and role playing games; Joseph Campbell and C.G. Jung and masculine and femine aspects of human nature; the timelesness of “Life;” Podcastle; the upcoming Mage: The Ascension shortfilm that will be fimed in Greece.
Join us again next Satruday when Lee Webb joins us to talk about the perils Paradox. Every modern-day fantasy story has to confront a fundamental question—if magic is real where has it been hiding all this time. The anwer to that question in Mage is Paradox.
On today's show Mage: The Ascension co-creator Satyros Brucato and Darker Days Radio co-founder Mark Hope join us to to discuss metaplot in Mage. We talk about how Mark got into RPGs and Mage; what is metaplot and how does it relate to Mage; the House of Helekar and the beginning of the metaplot; the cautionary tale of Vormaas; if Amanda will return to Mage; should you check in with your players regarding the metaplot; The Year of the Reckoning; the Avatar Storm; the Horizon War trilogy; Porthos Fitz-Empress; the Whiteout; how Ron Perelman wiped out 30% of the comic book and gaming industry in the 90s and how it effected the metaplot for Wraith and Changeling; will there be future Sorcerer's Crusade-related releases; how to use Threat Null as antagonists but still keep the Umbra open for player exploration; what elements didn’t make it into the Mage metaplot; what happend to the Jade Demon; Big Trouble in Little China; what the main difference in game mechanics between Victorian Age: Mage and Mage 20 is.
Join us next week when Antonios Galatis reads his short story, “Life," from the Truth Beyond Paradox anthology.
On today’s show co-host Adam Simpson shares how he discovered role playing games and Mage: the Ascension; we discuss the lexicon of Mage and cover arete, seeking, avatar, arcane, ascension and the Ascension War.
Next week Mage co-creator Satyros Brucato returns to the podcast and we are joined by Darker Days co-founder Mark Hope will talk about the metaplot of Mage: the Ascension.
Welcome to the first episode of Mage: The Podcast! On today’s show we’re joined by Mage: The Ascension’s co-creator, Satyros Brucato. We discuss what the Mage role playing game is; how the game has changed in nearly 25 years; how Mage has been updated for the 21st centry; if Gods and Monsters and Book of the Fallen will be released by Onyx Path Publishing this year; how have the themes in White Wolf have changed in the last 20 years; will the rest of the World of Darkenss related games be updated; what was the experience was like taking over Mage; how Mage has changed some people’s lives; a look back at the Traditions in Mage and how they have been updated; Erik Davis’ book, TechGnosis: Myth, Magic, and Mysticism in the Age of Information; are there any plans to make Mind’s Eye Theatre available for Mage; how to prepare a three-act structure for Mage; if the Traditions have been balanced.
Today on Pop Culture Intelligentsia we’ll talk with producer, engineer and mixer, Mark Pistel about protest music. Is it relevant? Does it change anything? Mark was a founding member of the band Consolidated, who had radical activist leanings. We’ll also talk with Eric Drass, who is an artist who paints, creates digital installation, and generative experiments that live on the net. In particular, we’re going to talk about his latest foray, The Glitch News Network, a bot that scrapes various online news sources for images of the latest stories and glitches and mashes them into a 2 second video. In our third and last segment we’ll discuss Storium, an online storytelling game. Storium is based around creative writing. As you play, the game helps you figure out what to write next and how to keep your story interesting. We’ll be joined by Storium’s CEO and co-founder, Stephen Hood.
Consolidated‘s Friendly Fa$cism LP Friendly Fa$cism is the second full-length album by industrial/hip hop artists Consolidated which was released in 1991. The name comes from the title of a 1980 book by political scientist Bertram Gross, Friendly Fascism: The New Face of Power in America, which laid out the form of “creeping fascism” that Gross feared might come to pass in the United States.
Michael Franti Michael Franti is an American rapper, musician, poet, spoken word artist and singer-songwriter.
Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy was an American industrial hip-hop band, active during the early 1990s.
The Beatnigs The Beatnigs was a San Francisco band, which combined hard-core punk, industrial and hip hop influences, described as “a kind of avant-garde industrial jazz poets collective”.
Spearhead In 1994, Franti formed a new band called Spearhead with a few studio musicians, including mainstay Carl Young, and announced the dissolution of Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy.
Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American businessman, politician, television personality, and candidate for the Republican nomination for President of the United States in the 2016 election.
Vegetarianism
Holly Herndon Holly Herndon is an American composer, musician, and sound artist based in San Francisco, California.
Honey Soundsystem San Francisco’s coveted queer dj collective and production group.
Dark Entries Dark Entries takes great care in preserving sound quality and respecting the aesthetics of its artists.
Bézier Robert started DJing in 2003 and joined SF’s DJ collective Honey Soundsystem in 2007. He produces music under the moniker Bézier.
Rykarda Parasol Rykarda Parasol is a composer, lyricist, vocalist, musician, and performer.
Blipvert A blipvert is a very brief television advertisement, that lasts just one or several seconds.
tl;drbot This bot takes works of literature and algorithmically summarizes them, a chapter at a time, to 1% of their original length.
bffbot If you follow her, she’ll follow you back and send you a cheery greeting. She’ll favourite your tweets (she especially likes your ‘plain text’ tweets, rather than recycled links or retweets). Every now and then she’ll reply.
Machinima news
trippingbot MARTA (Meta. Aphoric. Recurrent. Tripping. Algopoet) starts taking drugs at 6pm each day, and then reports on its mental state intermittently over the next 6 hours. As the evening progresses, the bot takes more drugs and becomes more intoxicated, which is reflected in the (in)choherence of the reports it delivers. This reaches a peak at midnight, when the reports cease until it begins again at 6pm the next day.
Conspiracybot
Robin Rimbaud A.K.A. Scanner Robin Rimbaud is an electronic musician who works under the name Scanner due to his use of cell phone and police scanners in live performance.
Private Sector Multimedia band that Eric Drass is involved in.
Matthew Plummer-Fernandez Matthew Plummer-Fernandez is a Colombian-British artist based in London known for playfully and critically exploring socio-cultural entanglements with technology, through 3D printed sculpture, autonomous bots, software, and his ongoing research blog Algopop.
sekuMoi Mecy Ongoing exploration of derivatives of a 3D scan of Mickey Mouse, titled sekuMoi Mecy (a simple computer generated anagram). Each derivative demonstrates the progression of scanning and remixing processes Matthew Plummer-Fernandez is developing. The choice of character also raises issues of potential clashes with big copyright holders that could potentially choose to lobby for legislation against 3D scanning.
Julian Oliver‘s cell phone jamming battle tank With the flick of a switch No Network implements a blanket ban of mobile telephony in its presence. All access to the cellular (mobile) network within a 6-15m diameter aura around the object is jammed, including calls, SMS and data connectivity.
Culture jamming Culture jamming (sometimes guerrilla communication) is a tactic used by many anti-consumerist social movements to disrupt or subvert media culture and its mainstream cultural institutions, including corporate advertising. It attempts to “expose the methods of domination” of a mass society to foster progressive change.
Democracy Now! Democracy Now! is a daily progressive, nonprofit, independently syndicated news hour that airs on more than 1,250 radio, television, satellite and cable TV networks around the globe.
Role-playing game (RPG) A role-playing game (RPG and sometimes roleplaying game is a game in which players assume the roles of characters in a fictional setting. Players take responsibility for acting out these roles within a narrative, either through literal acting or through a process of structured decision-making or character development. Actions taken within many games succeed or fail according to a formal system of rules and guidelines.
J.C. Hutchins J.C. Hutchins is the pseudonym for American podcast novelist and journalist Chris Hutchins. Hutchins is best known for his 7th Son series.
Play-by-post role-playing game A play-by-post role-playing game game (or sim) is an online text-based role-playing game in which players interact with each other and a predefined environment via text.
Dungeons & Dragons Dungeons & Dragons (abbreviated as D&D or DnD) is a fantasy tabletop role-playing game (RPG) originally designed by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, and first published in 1974 by Tactical Studies Rules, Inc. (TSR).
Champions Champions is a role-playing game published by Hero Games designed to simulate and function in a four-color superhero comic book world.
