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I cut my gaming teeth on the D&D Red boxed set. Gosh, its been so long. Id forgotten that ELF and DWARF were actualy charicter classes. I recall that I liked them better than the AD&D that was also out at about the same time. My most sucessfull and long run campaign has been a World Of Darkenss game. Vampire the Maskerade. I actualy wanted to get into Mage, but after I read some of the metta plot of the Mage world, I could not reconcile adding mages to my carefully developed Vampire world. Hanrahan, you seem to be a bit of a WOD fan. How do you do it? Every time I wanted to add mages to a world stuffed full of vampires, I choked on the fact that they didnt know about each other, or even worse, totaly ignored each other for the most part. That ballance seemed totaly forced, and not at all charicter driven. How did you make it work?

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Its tricky to make it work. In the mage vs vampire situation, Id say that yes, the more alert mages probably DO know of the vampires existence. But that doesnt mean theyll drop everything to deal with this threat. Some mages may not even see them as a threat, just another form of life that theyll ignore provided the vamps dont get in the mages way. There are some mage traditions who will see a vampire as an abomination from word go (Euthanatos, Verbena), and may hunt down the ones they meet and destroy them ... if their efforts arent currently directed toward something more important. The technocracy are a different story, and it really depends on how you play them. I play the Technocrats as knowing that the vampires are there, yet also noticing that the vampires have little desire to be revealed to the world. Therefore, theyre not an active threat, sure, theyre on the Technocracys list of things to dispose of, but theyre low down on that list. As long as vampires have their Masquerade and werewolves have their Veil, the Technocracy will usually deal with other problems first. Then there are mages out there who have no clue Vampires exist because their interests and goals lie entirely outside the chance of ever meeting one and knowing it. Not every mage is all-seeing. And then there are the mages who are fascinated by the Vampires and make allegiances with them. Lets not go into the Traditions vs Tremere ... *heh* Um, bottom line is that I deal with various supernatural groups meeting and reacting in this way: NPCs arent faceless. They have character to them, personality and goals of their own. A mage isnt likely to think much about vampires if his own goals are rescuing a few of his friends from a technocrat and ducking any ensuing paradox that might smack him over the head. Just the same as a werewolf wouldnt stop to gut a leech if there was a bunch of spirals sneaking out the door behind him. Mages have their own ongoing agenda, and arent likely to give much attention to the idea of vampires unless the mage is drastically offended by the idea of it, or the vampire has been stupid enough to get in the mages face and leave a trail back to itself. So the two groups generally exist in the world vaguely aware of the others existence. Bottom line? If youre running a Mage game, then your players - if they have no Vampire lore - know nothing of the existence of vampires, and never will unless they come across them. Then they learn from scratch. And if youre running a Vampire game, should they meet a mage it really depends on how youve designed your Mage PC. That Mage can have as much, or as little, knowledge as you want. Hmm, I probably havent made much sense... KJ

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Hanrahan, I guess my gripe is that the Clan Tremere have always played a big part in my games. Some of the longest running charicters in my campaign have been Tremere charicters. I have a very hard time beliving that the Tremere dont care, or (worse) dont know about Mages. They used to be them themselves. The council is very definatly aware. Also, I dont see any good reason that the Tremere would have given up Mage powers. Even if being undead prevents them from using the arts, nothing prevents them from controlling live people who can. The third part is that the Tecnocracy is all about controlling the minds of mortals. The vampires have got an excelent way of doing that. They infest every major city, and with the powers of dominate and presence, have a fairly good chance of controlling the media, and the political establishment. Vampires must (unknoingly) be supporting the status quo, or the tecnocracy would be taking immediate action against them. The leaches power is very dangerous to them. Most mages who oppose the tecnocracy would want to co-opt that power, and sway the public, if they knew about it. Just one intense news story about Aliens landing, would give a party of mages a huge advantage. (They just have to dress up like vorlons for the evening, and make their spells look like phasers, and transporters. No paradox!) All it would take is one decent fight for the leaches to be made aware of the Mages. If the Vampire nation, turned on the tecnocracy, especialy with any understanding of their enimy, I think it would be a fairly close contest. As powerfull as the technocrats are, the leaches are very entrenched, and suffer none of the mages limitations. Why hansnt anything like this happened? Ever? Mages & vampires are competing for the same resources (IMHO). How can there not be conflict? I like mages. I think that the idea is cool.I can see ways to explaine why individual vampires and mages are ignorant, just not whole clans. Certanly not the Tremere, the most centralised, organised, unified clan. It would be _very_ high on their list of prioritys to get some kind of advantage from this situation. I can see a non agression pact working between the powers that be. But that opens up a whole new dimension for political manuvering, which is (as things are) totaly absent. What are your thoughts?

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Hmm, its a tough one. Ive played Mage and Vampire but I dont know a lot about their scene anymore. You could ask TazDevil, I know hes played Tremere in the past, perhaps he could give you more of an opinion? Although most Tremere currently existing in the world never HAD that power of the mages, thats why the founder of the vampire line is called Tremere... hed be the only one. NEver having that broad scope on the world means never really knowing what youre missing out on ... and as far as I can see Tremere do quite happily in their own brand of blood magic. I think the Tremere clan in general would know Mages dont tend to like them ... Im not sure how it would go in character, in a game, though. It depends on each individual GM. Some Tremere, and some Mages would be steeped enough in strict tradition that there is direct enmity there. On the other hand, for some it could be So my great great great etc grandad didnt like your great great great etc sire...Ive got better things to do, f$%k off. I dont know. Ask someone with more experience in vampire and mage. ^_^

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Hanrahan: You are quite correct. Most of the Tremere clan members currently serving were never aware of Mages. But still, at least two members of the Council of 7 were, and as an entity, the clan must know. While both metaplots stand alone rather well, I dont think they work together without work. Taz, youve been pointed out as a person who knows a thing or two. Opinions?

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Heh, yeah i do tend to know a little bit about the Tremere and Vampire: The Masquerade as a whole Basic premise: In the 7-900s AD, the world was hugley magical and mages were dominant and open about their craft all across the world. However, try as they might, Mages still had that one big floor... Mortality... Now they could slow the process via life giving potions or liberal use of the Time sphere, but it would only work for so long... Amongst the Order of Hermes, there were many seperate Houses that each subscribed to their own brand of Magic style. One of these was the Tremere House, led by a particularly powerful mage, called Tremere, and his two trusted advisors, Goratrix and Etreus. Tremere was studying the Vampires and trying to figure out how to get all the benefits of them (ie eternal life), without the drawbacks. Goratrix, the industrious little fellow he was, set out and captured a Tzimisce Koldun of reasonably potent generation. After much experimentation and such forth on the poor creature, Goratrix extracted enough dosage of an eternal life serum as it were, for one person. Etreus counciled Tremere to be wary and test it thoroughly, but considering how much effort it took to get the one vial, he went ahead and swallowed it whole, and turning himself into a Vampire. Now this wasnt quite the effect Tremere wanted, as he was vulnerable to all the things a Vampire was, and he lost his Avatar in the process, but it had potential. Tremere then embraced his high council, including Goratrix and Etreus, and the Tremere clan started to take shape. Tremere ended up diablerising Saulot to make his clan an official one with an antediluvian founder. and the rest, well is history with them. As a note, any of the really old Tremere (1000+) WILL have been mages in their mortal days, and Tremere still embrace from Sleepers and other Numina gifted people. So, overall, in answer to your question... Yes, the Tremere know of Mages, especially Tremere whove been around for a while. Now the Tremere and Mages get along reasonably fine, EXCEPT for the Order of Hermes mages, who tend to get a bit miffed at their expats occasionally. Just recently even, there was the Order of Hermes/Tremere war, though it really was only a minor thing. It was started by some lowly neonates/acolytes of the two groups, and as soon as the higher ups found out, it was dealt with very quickly and a nervous peace returned. As to why the Mages dont conflict with Vampires... Well, its a simple case of numbers. There arent many Mages, but there are sure a lot of Vampires. Yes they tend to deal with a similar sort of crowd, but they usually avoid each other as the conflict between the two is usually very awkward, and most importantly, very public, which is something neither group can afford. Its far easier for the two groups to simply ignore each other. Yes, the Prince could expend time and effort to remove a Mage from his city who turned his Sheriff into a deck chair cause he was stupid, but really, why waste more resources when he wasnt that good a Sheriff anyway? So that should give you a good run down on stuff for your game, if you want to include them, or atleast give you the background for why things are like they are TazDevil

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u LARPers are a busy bunch of posters aren't you?

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They are busy creating elite clubs that the common [i]non larping community[/i] are not worthy to join

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I think you had better be less cryptic if you are looking to get a reaction from a comment like that. Have you had problems with LARPers and maybe you are a little touchie on the subject? What were your experiences? A friendly larper may come along and take you under their wing (or cape) and show you not all LARPers are nasty