I am wondering about something. Kind of a moral issue. If I were really a verser, I would have no problem learning psionic powers. It's just tapping the hidden power of the mind. However, magic is another story. If I were really a verser, I think I would refuse to learn magic, on the grounds that I believe it to be of Satan. However, as a player, I know better, that it is just of the mind of MJ Young. My character would refuse to learn magic, but as a player, I wouldn't. This is kind of a moral issue to me. Should I try to learn magic because as a player I know better, or should I refuse to, because as a character I would refuse to? Does that make any sense?
Yourself VS your game character
(11 posts) (5 voices)-
JohnA1nut
MemberOn a related note, I trust MJ, so as an extension of that, I feel I would trust The Architect. If The Architect assured me that magic was in fact not of Satan, I feel I would trust him. If The Architect were trying to teach me magic, I feel I would learn it, but I wouldn't trust someone else to teach it to me. Again, it's kind of a moral issue. What are your thoughts?
Mon Sep 10 2007 7:18 pm # -
Tadeusz
MemberI'm trying here for different varieties of calling on God.
MJ's books tend to rely on what I might call 'Bibliomancy' or quote the Bible and go forth on faith. I'm not sure Bibliomancy is a good word for this.
But it does seem to me that different people have different approaches to having prayers answered...thats the wrong way to say that....because 'having prayers answered' is generally different than what MJ's heroine did.
Mon Sep 10 2007 8:50 pm # -
Graham
MemberTheomancy?
Theolomancy?Yeah, 'Magic' covers so much that you can't really nail it down with "This is of Satan." Of course satanic magic or arcane magic as you might be referring too exists, but so does holy magic like the clerical magics and such.
I mean, if a priest envokes God to pour forth his holy light and banish the ghouls, is it really inherently bad because he's taking some of God's power for his own? I think that is really where Satanic magic is bad (besides just being of Satan). Mortals were not and are not meant to wield that kind of power.
Good thing the Versers aren't mortal, huh?
Mon Sep 10 2007 9:17 pm # -
Graham
MemberI wouldn't really use the Force as a comparison since the Jedi were so stoic and passionless. With the Force, the general idea is that powers are not inherently good nor evil, only in how you use them determines the nature of the Force. However, with this, the lines between 'good' and 'evil' is quite clear.
Mon Sep 10 2007 10:16 pm # -
JohnA1nut
MemberWell, everything can be used for good and evil. I doubt even the most stoic anti-gun advocate would say that the police and military should not use guns. A gun can be used to end lives, and it can be used to save lives. Likewise, magic could be used both ways. I do see what you mean though about good and evil magic, and I'll keep that in mind in play.
Mon Sep 10 2007 10:29 pm # -
I think it may be more complicated than that.
I also think you probably should not attempt to pre-guess what your character would do, because you probably will get it wrong.
Lauren Hastings fell into using magic in much the way the Architect did. He, too, faced a world overrun with vampires, and was encouraged by a priest to use his faith against them. He first came up with the notion that his faith was very much in the words of scripture, and so that to use his faith by quoting scripture made sense. As observed, the power of God is magic, by the definition used in the game: it is power from outside the material world.
The Architect also uses arcane magic. This is not Satanic magic; Satanic magic is holy magic, just like the power of God, but that it is holy to a different spirit. Arcane magic is based on the notion that there is supernatural energy available, and just like we could build turbines to harness the power of the wind, so too we can build what amount to faith and expectation structures which will harness that supernatural energy and direct it into a desired result. In this world, I would question whether we can prove such power actually exists, and further whether we can know that we actually are controlling that kind of detached power (as opposed to being deceived into believing we are); however, in the context that all things are possible in some world, it follows that there would be worlds in which we could tap such power and could be certain that this is what we were doing.
That leaves the question of whether we should do so if we can. However, sometimes that is not how the question presents. Rather, in the vampire world, the question that arises is that you have been offered magic as a neutral tool, in addition to the magic that is attached to a supernatural being. Will you use every tool available to you, or will you run the risk that you cannot do something to save someone because you do not have the right tool?
Some versers start using magic because they want to, but most come to it because they need it, and because others are using it around them so they learn from them.
The question then is, if you have been through what your character has been through and come to the place where your character is confronted with a choice related to learning magic, what would you do? That's not the same as whether you, as you are in Columbus, would decide that such magic was good or useful, because that person has not been through all of these things and does not really know quite the same truths about the multiverse as the one you are playing.
--M. J. Young
Tue Sep 11 2007 5:45 am #
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