Consensus

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Consensus
« on: January 05, 2014, 10:06:20 PM »
I'm finally starting a thread here for Consensus, a game that a good friend and I have been working on for the better part of a year. The roots of the inspiration are in Mage: the Ascension, Powered by the Apocalypse engine. It has since grown into its own thing, a game of dark themes, urban mages, and what being a Mage means to us. The preliminary Agenda, Principles, and GM Moves have been written down, some of them shamelessly stolen from Apocalypse World. The Moves are, in their current iteration, the most fluid I've seen them. There are currently 6 playbooks complete or nearly complete, 2-3 more "base" playbooks are planned, and one "extra" playbook as well. I've been playing it as often as I can with the closest I have to a "home group," and things are coming along swimmingly.

So, with the forum's very fair warnings about not getting your hearts set on things, what interests you? What would you like to know? Anything you think we'd be amiss not to include or think about?

Re: Consensus
« Reply #1 on: January 16, 2014, 09:34:01 AM »
Here we go, the (incomplete) files for Consensus. Playbooks, GM sheet, Moves sheet, and a very basic rules primer. So far this completely assumes that you're familiar with Apocalypse World and with Mage. Most of the actual text has not been written yet.

https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B4_PEYNb_KhOaC1ieFUyckdYSmc&usp=sharing

Re: Consensus
« Reply #2 on: April 18, 2014, 12:55:33 AM »
Hi Tokala,

Has this progressed any further? It sounds great

Re: Consensus
« Reply #3 on: April 18, 2014, 10:07:38 AM »
Another playbook is on the verge of completion. I'll hopefully be running a playtest tomorrow. And then it'll be time to buckle down and do some real writing on this. So in short, yes it has progressed, keep an eye here for more!

Re: Consensus
« Reply #4 on: April 19, 2014, 10:02:16 AM »
Well, when you are ready for some outside input, I am volunteering my old mage group

Re: Consensus
« Reply #5 on: April 22, 2014, 11:58:22 AM »
Thanks Weaverchilde! I made some big steps forward this morning, despite not being able to playtest this past weekend. My body chooses the most inconvenient times to get sick. Anyway, at the same time as redesigning some of the subsystems, and finishing up the playbooks, I've started work on the outline of the actual text. If you might be interested in trying things out before the text is complete, shoot me a PM or something, otherwise I'll keep people updated here as I keep working.

Re: Consensus
« Reply #6 on: May 20, 2014, 07:00:35 PM »
Well darn, I've been busy, and unfortunately not with the game! I have made some tweaks, and figured out one of the systems I need to rewrite, but not much else. Weaverchilde, I tried to send a reply to your PM, but I'm not sure it went through (and then I completely forgot about it...) Have you gotten anything from me since then?

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As If

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Re: Consensus
« Reply #7 on: September 18, 2014, 05:34:11 PM »
Tokala - I'm including a link to "Consensus" in my directory at http://fictioneers.net/games and I'd like to know what name you prefer to be credited under?  (I tried PMing you but it wasn't working for me.)

Re: Consensus
« Reply #8 on: October 03, 2014, 10:15:36 AM »
Ooh, this looks interesting!

Been skimming over it a bit - but there's one thing I can't figure out: how do you use the Rotes under this system? There seems to be no Arete rating and no "cast a spell" basic move as it were.
So, what do you roll for? Or is there no roll at all involved, just the tags and perhaps the Backlash / Vulgar Magic / Demonstrate Superiority moves?

Re: Consensus
« Reply #9 on: October 03, 2014, 10:22:29 AM »
As If - Jacob B and Eric W are the creators of this game, though it's not yet ready to be hosted alongside completed games.

Aburney - After this latest round of design changes, Rotes are out! They made about as much sense as you described (often no roll involved, just tags, and sometimes they would trigger a move on their own, so they didn't really have much place.) There have been a number of major design changes since I last updated, and once we finish writing the preliminary GM section, we're going to put it out for testing.

On that note, Weaverchilde, if you're still interested, we should have a game for you to test in the next couple weeks, so be on the lookout.

I'll be taking down the public share soon, to allow us to upload the latest version. Thanks for your patience and your interest!

Re: Consensus
« Reply #10 on: October 03, 2014, 11:21:57 AM »
I'm looking forward to that!

I tried my hands at a Mage (Ascension) hack myself, and found it really hard to include all of the important elements, but without all the rules bloat they tend to come with. My hack ended up having Arete, Spheres, Paradox, Avatar etc... but all modified to fit the much simpler (and more satisfying imho) systems that PbtA games use.
One thing that both our hacks seem to have in common is that they throw out the Traditions, and instead focus more on "archetypes". 

Never actually got around to test mine, though - but I may test this one once you update it! I got a couple of players again interested in Mage these days...

Re: Consensus
« Reply #11 on: October 03, 2014, 11:48:50 AM »
Yeah, that's why we're not making a straight M:tA hack. It would be way too hard to "stick to the source" and still have the game we wanted to write.

Arete: Gone
Spheres: Not relevant
Paradox: Oh yeah it's in there
Avatar: Mentioned in one playbook move, not core to play
Paradigm: That's one of the systems we overhauled. It works much better now
Rotes: Pretty much what playbook moves give you anyway.
Traditions: You can easily make any of the traditions with the playbooks we're writing, but there aren't "tradition playbooks." We might include some "Tradition moves" in the hacking section.

Re: Consensus
« Reply #12 on: October 04, 2014, 08:38:36 AM »
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Arete: Gone
Spheres: Not relevant
ballsy decisions, both... but perhaps just what this hack needs for simplicity :)

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Avatar: Mentioned in one playbook move, not core to play
Sure enough, the Avatar never really needed any hard 'n fast rules anyways. I kept it around for a "gazing inwards" basic move, which replaces "open your brain" in my hack. Useful for mystical introspection, and seekings mainly. But I see how one could just ditch the idea wholesale, too.

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Paradigm: That's one of the systems we overhauled. It works much better now
I'll be interested to see that! :)

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Rotes: Pretty much what playbook moves give you anyway.
true, I was thinking the same thing. Plus, you can always come up with new "spellcasting moves" if needed. If they're written in a relatively flexible / open-ended way, they can emulate general Sphere effects, if they are more specific, Rotes.

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Traditions: You can easily make any of the traditions with the playbooks we're writing, but there aren't "tradition playbooks." We might include some "Tradition moves" in the hacking section.
That's a neat idea, putting them in the hacking section. They're certainly not required for the core game to work.

(Added merely for comparison of approaches: I ended up modeling the playbooks on various roles in Mage society, e.g. the Node Keeper, the Chantry Leader, the Fury (Battlemage), the Loremaster, the Seer, the Mercy (healer/preserver type), etc. Some of them map more closely to certain Traditions, but none of them are restricted to any of them.
But then, the Traditions were always the most wonky aspect of M:tA, imho added mainly to provide that "character class" feel the other WoD games so neatly had with their Clans and Tribes and all that. Except in Mage, that somehow never made so much sense to begin with... ;) )

Re: Consensus
« Reply #13 on: October 06, 2014, 10:38:52 AM »

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Paradigm: That's one of the systems we overhauled. It works much better now
I'll be interested to see that! :)


It's modeled pretty heavily after the Spell Foci from Jacob Randolph's alternate "Mage" playbook for Dungeon World. We've taken that and made it applicable to paradigms in the world we're working in.

Re: Consensus
« Reply #14 on: October 09, 2014, 03:10:39 PM »
looks awesome, i'll come around to see if you post the work anytime soon