Mage OOC Talk and Questions

[Aeolus]

Great. While I don't want to step on the toes of long established rules I'm all for seeing things in context. Having rules to prevent an onslaught of new characters clump up shards is very important, but if someone was to stick around for a few weeks/months I could see them participating in shards even if they aren't officially acknowledged.

Also, the point of times without proper Councilors is also valid: personally I don't have a problem with literally any other Councilor checking Apollo for Seer affiliations and acknowledging him.

[Xander]

West or another older player can correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe he mentioned at one point the rule about needing status for shards was to cut down on loners trying to do crossover instead of participating in their venues. I believe it was an issue where people would submit and just rush to crossover if they didn't get along with their venuemates? Regardless, Apollo is locked out of them until this is sorted or the rule is removed.

The problem I have with creating or removing a house rule is that the scenario you propose (no/missing councilor) is one that already has a solution. A heirarch or a herald have the authority to grant that first dot of status to anyone and all that was needed from the beginning was to appoint one. The issue I have with house ruling this is we now know we were doing it wrong, and proposing a house rule rather then using the existing ones really feels to me like saying, "I didn't read or inquire about the rules before, I'm not reading or inquiring about the rules now, and I'd like the rules to be changed to match my current sensibilities so I don't need to read or inquire about the rules moving forward."

And I don't say that to call anyone out, I was going by memory and I was wrong too, but why create new rules when we have clear solutions with explicitly stated mechanics already in effect? The page number and everything was on the wiki under the status merit the whole time, so why not just read up and follow the existing rule set?

[Aeolus]

I.. don't think I see the problem at the moment. Apollo's player said they were fine with waiting for now. So all the talk about things to solve a situation that wasn't here was in theory. Brainstorming. There are reasons why the thought of solutions don't work? Fine. But again, the player doesn't see the urgent need to solve this right now.

There hasn't been an Hierarch since I rolled my Mage and for those 1,5 years that seemed to be the agreed upon solution and for that time acknowledgements also happened with an incomplete suite of Councilors (granted, they were done by the head of the respective Order, but there should be some way to acknowledge Apostates without going back to the Hierarch (or the other Consilium roles that have been discarded due to the amount of active characters).

Since Apollo's player doesn't have an issue with the current situation (i.e. maybe waiting 1-2 months until they can join shards), is there anything we can concretely resolve here? This is not meant as snark, but genuine interest.

[Matt]

I think resolving it for future players is worth a consideration. I'm not too bothered, but there may be others who are which may put them off playing in the venue.

I will admit I do feel a but lost, if he is not and can't be acknowledged does that mean the plot you were going to run has to wait or go ahead without him? I also have to ask the question of how Apollo sees it and would he attend another gathering / help the city when he isn't a recognised member of the city.

In ooc terms is it going to be writing glimpses for 2 or maybe 3 months while I wait.

I don't know but maybe the solution comes from an in character situation. The city has never had this situation before so the councilors need to discuss and maybe look at a solution.

[Aeolus]

I think resolving it for future players is worth a consideration. I'm not too bothered, but there may be others who are which may put them off playing in the venue.

I will admit I do feel a but lost, if he is not and can't be acknowledged does that mean the plot you were going to run has to wait or go ahead without him? I also have to ask the question of how Apollo sees it and would he attend another gathering / help the city when he isn't a recognised member of the city.

In ooc terms is it going to be writing glimpses for 2 or maybe 3 months while I wait.

I don't know but maybe the solution comes from an in character situation. The city has never had this situation before so the councilors need to discuss and maybe look at a solution.

You can participate in the Plot. You can participate in scenes of the Mage venue. You can't join shards until you are acknowledged and lack of acknowledgement can impact RP.

For everything else I'm making a judgement call now:
In the rare circumstance that neither the head of the Order, nor the appropriate Path Councilor is present (because the position is not occupied or because of RL absence) characters can be acknowledged by a different Councilor. They should meet up with the appropriate Councilor and/or Order leader as soon as possible.

Hierarchs and Heralds might be a solution that is already present RAW, but since neither is something this Consilium does atm I think this is the easiest and most direct solution.
Even IC wise, acknowledgement ist a vetting progress - it doesn't matter if the person doing the vetting is of the same Path (or else a Hierarch would have the same problem).

I hope that clears it up now.

[Xadun]

FWIW, I'm not even sure it needs house ruling - Now, I don't have the Minds Eye Theatre book Status rules are based off, but the Status page on the wiki says "Officers of the Concillium may raise or strip Status". IC I can't recall that power ever being used but focusing to the issue at hand since the only Officers we have are Councillors, I would have thought that still functions as the rules to grant the first dot and say 'yes, [name] is considered a mage in the Sacramento Concillium', rather than IC obligating the creation of a Hierarch or similar.

As a complete aside as IC thought, when we yeeted the Concillium Charter, we also got rid of any IC "official" method that this Concillium recognises new individuals, since there is no official concillium process for appointing any position outside of interpretable recognition of the Gold laws.

We have an ST decision. That's enough for me.

[Vincent]

Winter is still Sentinel IIRC.

[Xander]

Aeolus Orianna Fedup Xadun

For reference, in the past we've attached a mechanical penalty to sentences for the Tetragrammaton. I keep mentioning a three month duration IC because it would define the timeframe of the sentence if one should be passed.

You can see here the conclusion of the last major sentencing (Starting here)where we ascribed a penalty of -1 scene slots and a mana penalty for a Major Penance. The current guidelines for this particular accusation against Phoenyx is a minor penance for a lesser version of that sentence.

My 2 cents, I'd recommend the loss of all mana in excess of Phoenyx's Wisdom score. If she has no hallow, then her base pool is set to 0 for the duration of the sentence and she can only use mana acquired by scouring her pattern. I'd argue it's the most thematic given you need mana to improvise spells, and her misuse of an improvised spell is what lead to the accusation. If we pass it in concilium it could start effective April 1st.

[Fedup]

Orianna Xadun Xander Aeolus

I think the mana penalty is both too harsh and out of the spirit of a minor penance. -1 available scene and an in-game requirement for the person under the penance to do a boring chore described by the consilium (that the player may or may not write a glimpse about - we are playing this to have fun after all) seems appropriate to me in case such penalties would pass.
Especially the "no hallow" = "no mana" seems both excessive and bizarre to me; why would Phoenyx lose a ton of mana? If the task attached to the penance required 5-6 mana then it is not a minor task.

[Vincent]

Or, since she's an Arrow and it would thematically fit, have her swear by a sanctified Oath for a month.