History TabletopGame / MageTheAscension

A few things stand between mages and the magical playground of reality, of course. First, there are the competing paradigms: Every mage understands magic in different terms, be it "hyper-advanced science," "the divine emanations of the Almighty," or "the Old Ways", so trying to get any two mages to agree on anything is tricky. But they kind of ''have'' to, because of the second reason: The Technocracy. Long ago, when the mages actually ''did'' have their magical playground, there were a few too many who became SorcerousOverlord and who made life even harder for the hapless majority of {{Muggles}}. In response, a group of other mages/scholars/knights/builders/etc decided to team up as the Order of Reason and fight the sorcerers (and [[TabletopGame/VampireTheMasquerade vampires]], and [[TabletopGame/WerewolfTheApocalypse were-things]] and [[TabletopGame/ChangelingTheDreaming the Fair Folk]], and so on) with Science/Art/Religion/''Not Magic'' to make the world better for the average Joe and Jane. Well, they won... and in the process, they went [[WellIntentionedExtremist a tad too far]], until they had largely succeeded in stamping out any other reality save the non-magical worldview they endorsed.

The basic premise is that while reality apparently has certain basic fundamentals, for the most part, the laws of reality exist [[ClapYourHandsIfYouBelieve because mankind]] ''[[ClapYourHandsIfYouBelieve believes]]'' [[ClapYourHandsIfYouBelieve it exists by certain laws]]. Each average human, or "Sleeper," perceives the world in certain terms, and their perception contributes to the Consensus of reality. The Consensus reinforces how reality works, which in turn reinforces the Sleepers' beliefs, and so the cycle continues. Mages are the exception, humans who've Awakened to their innate power: they've realized the truth of the world, and they have the ability to reshape it to their will.

In the Modern Day, the Technocracy has turned into an authoritarian and nigh-unstoppable conglomerate set on squashing any "Reality Deviants" who threaten the status of the world... and the free-will/wonderment of magic and human potential with it. And it's working, because if enough humans agree with the world you're giving them, Reality Itself changes to match that view. This leads to the final hurdle between the mages and their goals: Paradox. Do anything that's too explicitly magic, flaunt your ability to alter the way things have become, and Reality will give you a wedgie. In other words, because a mage believes he can fly, he can. Problem is, that's not what the current rules of reality say, and so it resists, sometimes even fights back. Presumably, if a mage were the last living being, they'd have near-godlike power and the opportunity to find out what the fundamental rules of reality are absent human belief. Fortunately for everything in existence, this is not the desired endgame for most mages.

* AscendedMeme: "Mages turning vampires into lawn chairs" gets a page or so worth of space in 20th Anniversary, and even happened in universe once. Of course, it's in mutated form this time; it's no longer a joke about how powerless vampires are, [[AwesomeButImpractical but a cautionary tale]]: any mage powerful enough to make this happen ought to be smart enough ''not'' to do it, both because it doesn't stick, because a frenzied vampire can tear an unprepared mage apart, and even if the mage can deal with that, other vampires ''will'' team up to exsanguinate this mage and ensure that it doesn't become common practice. It's also of course ''incredibly vulgar'', if the vampires don't make the mage regret using this spell, the [[WeirdnessCensor Paradox Backlash]] certainly will.

* AscendedMeme: "Mages turning vampires into lawn chairs" gets a page or so worth of space in 20th Anniversary, and even happened in universe once. Of course, it's in mutated form this time; it's no longer a joke about how powerless vampires are, but a cautionary tale: any mage powerful enough to make this happen ought to be smart enough ''not'' to do it, both because it doesn't stick, because a frenzied vampire can tear an unprepared mage apart, and even if the mage can deal with that, other vampires ''will'' team up to exsanguinate this mage and ensure that it doesn't become common practice. It's also of course ''incredibly vulgar''.

* SquishyWizard: Mages are by far the most powerful and versatile supernatural creatures in the World of Darkness, but since they're physically human, they're still Squishy Wizards compared to vampires, werewolves, and demons. They also need time to set up their more impressive feats, not to mention the risk of a [[WeirdnessCensor Paradox backlash]] if any {{Muggles}} see them working "magick."

* SpiritWorld: The Umbra, a world of concepts made flesh. Just be sure to avoid any [[TabletopGame/WerewolfTheApocalypse werecreatures]] prowling about. Werecreatures mostly concern themselves with the Vidare Spiritus and Middle Umbra, while mages can potentially have '''any''' of the videre and reach any part of the Umbra -- including the Astral Umbra, which is almost exclusively their purview.

* SquishyWizard: No more squishy than other humans, but in a world of werewolves and vampires their lack of a lethal soak or natural regeneration makes them rather fragile.
** Less and less true as their sphere selection broadens or deepens, by the time you hit 4 or 5 levels in a sphere, or top 5 avatar and stop needing foci, you tend to get mages that are completely immaterial, take a week's worth of actions every turn, have shielding spells that make them essentially invincible, or can simply be reduced to negative health levels without noticeably slowing. LinearWarriorsQuadraticWizards is as firmly in play defensively as it is offensively.
*** Plus, with cooperative magic and correspondence, Mages frequently don't even have to show up to engage in combat, which is one hell of a defense.