A New Penguin, CCNA2, Ars Magica, Socialising, Dunedin

[tcpip]

So I finally ditched Mandrake and played around with a couple of distros for server-level fun. OpenSolaris was even installed at one stage, albeit briefly. FreeBSD, the preferred option, didn't want to install and I'm not man enough to fight it. Finally settled on Fedora. Then began the tiresome process of getting Python, Zope and Plone up and going. They don't talk to each other very well at all. If PHPWebsite was fully standards compliant I wouldn't bother with this nonsense.

Last week I passed the CCNA semester 2 theory exam. It was held out-of-sync because myself and the other student (yes, the class has had a 80%+ drop-out rate) were having problems with the prac test, so the instructor put that off until this week and sprung the exam on us instead. I rather suspect that if I actually had the opportunity to study for it I would have done better than the 77% that I received. It's good enough for now.

Gaming this past week has only consisted of Ars Magica. The Storyguide has placed us on the Calf of Man, a desolate windswept place far from civilization. My character, as a Greek scholar, is already beginning to feel exiled. I am increasingly of the opinion that the setting - minus the inter-House politics - is magnificant and the system is both flawed and incomplete.

In a fairly social week, I started with hasimir's gathering at the Gin Palace. There was fine conversation and some amusement at the fact that everyone present had an el-jay account. Later, an end-of-year gathering for the Henry George Foundation, with an excellent speech by Bob Knowles. Finally, went to caseopaya's end of year work function and had a very enjoyable time.

Have been reading books on network games and decided that would be a great profession; I would get to combine all my interests into one. Planning to go to the Dunedin Linux Conf in January. I have a mad dream of a dozen people taking over a disused warehouse in Dunedin and turning it into an IT centre of great repute. But who would join me in such a venture at the end of the earth?

Comments

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Yes, I understand they are more like schools of philosophy, but that's just colour albeit good colour.

What I was referring to was something more akin to the cultural ties between House Bjornaer and Nordic/Germanic cultures, the Celtic House Diedne etc. Now if that was expanded to include Slavic Magi, Magyar Magi, Berber Magi, Turkic Magi etc that would be really cool - and very RuneQuest-y

[strangedave.livejournal.com]

Yes, I understand they are more like schools of philosophy, but that's just colour albeit good colour.

Actually, one of the subtler reconfigurations of the background in recent years is that while all the houses might appear like that on the surface, only some of them is that really the truth. Those houses that are mystery cults are actually cults (but allow for significant philosophical variation given the shared beliefs and obsessions), and those houses that are lineage based actually allow for large differences in philosophy (eg the Bonisagus/Trianoma split) yet are bound together by custom.

And for those houses that are mystery based, there is more than just colour to it.

What I was referring to was something more akin to the cultural ties between House Bjornaer and Nordic/Germanic cultures, the Celtic House Diedne etc. Now if that was expanded to include Slavic Magi, Magyar Magi, Berber Magi, Turkic Magi etc that would be really cool - and very RuneQuest-y

Multiple answers to this one

1) the various culturally specific magic traditions are addressed quite well in the various area supplements for ArsM4, many of which introduce cultural hedge magic traditions (they have done pictish gruagach, slavic pagan magicians, arabic magicians, norse magicians and shamans, finnish weather workers, etc). That they are by default hedge magicians under the rules of the Order means they are usually harder to fit into the game as magi PCs though natural antagonists. But ruleswise, the games effort to cover cultural magic traditions is very strong, more than any other I can think of. You need to buy a lot of supplements for this, though.

2) I think the conception of hermetic magic as something greater than a single cultures conception of magic, something that crosses cultural boundaries, actually adds to the game. It lifts the conception of what magi do above mundane politics, and makes the game accessible to those who don't want to steep themselves in specific medieval cultures. Ars magica is already at too much risk of becoming a game for history buffs (standard ars magica joke:"In order to play this game you will need a 10 sided dice and a degree in medieval history."

3) Thinking in game, associating the houses too much with mundane groupings would have been a mistake early order figures like Bonisagus and Trianoma would have fought hard to prevent, foreseeing an order that splintered along mundane political lines. In doing so they would be fighting for an unrealistic ideal, as culturally specific schools of magic would arise, but the conflicts between the ideal and the reality have been handled in background with the creation of Ex Miscellanea (as a dumping ground for those odd traditions, conceived as a conscious reaction to the orders somewhat exclusionary nature).

4) I like mystery cults and lineages as fundamental mechanisms of the order more than cultural schools (which can be seen as mystery cults and lineages done with less subtly and detail, if your lineages are differentiated enough - which for the reasons in answers 2 & 3 they *mostly* aren't, but the mechanism is there). They allow for much more variation (is their one single magical school that should arise from, say, Greece or Rome? Both had several magical traditions), and also make it clearer that magicians are always individuals, and always exceptional within their culture.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

1) Fair enough. I suspected this was the case.

2) Yes, that's quite OK. I don't mind the idea of Hermetic Magic and indeed competing schools within it existing across the Greco-Roman world.

As for the medieval history bit, I actually don't mind this.. 'Cept of course, I'd prefer players to end up being a medieval history buff through playing the game.

3) I notice that there is a lot of Ex Misc. people in Scotland, Wales and Ireland and probably a few in Brittany as well.. Closet House Diedne members? ;-)

4) More than one lineage per culture is fine.

[strangedave.livejournal.com]

1) Most of them are well recommended too. The viking stuff potentially useful for the campaign you are in, also Scotland I guess (the Britain supplement is almost alone in NOT containing any new hedge magic traditions). The russia and kabbalah supplements are probably the best treatments of those traditions I have seen in RPGs.

2) well, yes, I like the history aspect too, but I am conscious it can alienate some players if its too heavy handed, especially if its presented in such a way that works against high fantasy concept.

3) actually, the Ex Misc connection with the British isles comes mostly because it was founded there, as an after effect of a war between the order and a scottish magician, during which many scottish (pictish) hedge magi were recruited to the orders side by the founder of Ex Misc (Pralix). So the scottish ones at least definitely aren't Diedne, but gruagach, whose magic is very different. That said, I wouldn't be surprised that if there are surviving Diedne, in Ex Misc in Wales or Ireland might be where you would find them.

4) and you also get cross cultural mystery cults, some of which are associated with particular magical traditions. Eg alchemy, astrology, theurgy are not restricted to single cultures, but are not part of the hermetic 'mainstream' either.