Magi are powerful humans. Look at kings and billionaires; some are relatively good and kind, but others are notably destructive and self-centered, and magi often come from abused and traumatized backgrounds. Layer on medieval standards of behavior, and behold the childish and tantrum-prone adult.
Hi,
Me, I'd buff the Tremere house virtue to include the unique benefit of being able to benefit from helpers other than a familiar and past apprentices via Leadership.
Other magi cannot do this.
Anyway,
Ken
1 Like
15 years of servitude as an apprentice, treated as property by the parens, serving at their whim. Whar happens behind Sanctum doors stays behind Sanctum doors.
Waking up and serving the parens before they can extend the Parma Magica over you. Performing weird lab activities to another's rhythms, for a zseason or more at a time.
Then after 15 years, blessed freedom. Never again, swears your newly minted mage.
Admittedly it is probably not that way for some magi.
Interestingly enough, in some ways I would argue that the Rhine system makes this specific type of cooperation more likely (despite its many other flaws).
Specifically a magister is explicitly considered superior to a journeyman, and an archmage superior to both. Thus I would argue that the usual rule of thumb that magi acknowledge superiority to the magus they work for does not hold in the Rhine. Since Rhine magi have already been forced into a system of acknowledging superiority.
Continuing the parallel to modern lab research, it is true that there is some degree of "subordination" necessary on behalf of at least one part, since the schedule has to be agreed, and the part that understands the process is necessarily calling the shots ("dont touch that, its poison!", "put that thing over there"). But the degree to which this process is degrading is highly individual. In particular when it comes to students (apprentices), where the "master" can have a lot more leverage. In peer-to-peer interactions it is generally not degrading, simply because each person has the ability to walk away at any time.
There is some degree of acknowledging superiority involved, but highly specifically, e.g. If I go to a persons lab to do Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM), then I implicitly acknowledge that they either have the facilities to do that or that they are better than me at it. This is not seen as being a general acknowledgement that the other person is a better researcher, just that they are better in this niche. Similarly I dont think that there is any reason why e.g. a CrCo mage could not create a longevity ritual for a CrMe mage in return for the CrMe mage developing a ritual to boost one of the CrCo mages mental characteristics. With both magi helping the other in the lab. They would very much be acknowledging that the other is superior within their respective fields, but there is no reason to generalize this acknowledgement.
An irrational taboo, emphasis on irrational, makes sense for me.
In RPGs, it's logical to believe the people know about the world they live in just as well as the PCs do. Many PCs will wring out every bonus they can, so NPCs logically would also. The benefits of collaboration can be high. Sacrificing 1 season, can give benefits much higher than the lost season.
If one suggests the join or die era, where there were adult magi with no parma; those magi who are used to socialising at a net -6 with other magi, power was the king, and that stigma has never gone, that's acceptable.
I'd like to think the hundreds of years since, there'd be a drop of the irrational taboo, however, irrational taboos have a habit of sticking. The wearing suits in the middle of Summer in Australia is a great example.
1 Like
Experienced Tremere magi can already gain the assistance of younger Tremere magi (HoH:TL). Younger magi gain access to specialists, which could include Failed Apprentice lab assistants. So Tremere magi basically already have this.
Additionally, I think a lot of Tremere magi would prefer to use lab texts over doing personal invention, and that reduces their need for laboratory assistance. Their Minor Magical Focus in Certamen really slows down what they can invent in the laboratory on their own, and it's important for them to save time given they generally spend a season a year doing work for the House.
1 Like
My players are often willing to help each other out - I think it's fun when they try to negotiate 'payments' and 'debts' for that but there's usually at least one character who's self-sacrificingly altruistic.
That said, I do lean into the aspect of magi believing that power often is the secondary goal, and proving your power to be the primary. When one player helps another to get a more powerful familiar bond, it makes sense - but when that fact is found out, the 'assistant' magus is viewed as a bit inferior. When two magi trade favors back and forth, they're both viewed as individually less powerful.
But numbers are on their side, and usually the snubbing NPCs lose a fight later. I personally like the concept of a large number of covenants trying to secretly assist each other to great power without ever getting found out.
2 Likes
Unrelated to the OP, but unfortunately according to errata Failed Apprentices can no longer assist in the lab.
Another fact I haven't seen setup is that for legal protection, most laboraties are someone's sanctum. This means that sanctum owner can kill the other magus at any time with no legal repercussions at all. I would personally feel uneasy working under such conditions, even with someone I otherwise trusted. So most labs used for such a practice would have to be non-sanctum labs, which are less common to begin with.
1 Like
Yeah, said like that, I think I'll decline the invitation, but thanks for offering me a few pawns of vis. To be honest, I suspect the Tribunal may want a deeper review of a case of someone slain while helping in the lab, but until we have true peripheral code cases, that's a good enough reason to abstain.
1 Like
True that is a pretty big deterrent to working for someone else in their lab.
Though there is a somewhat obvious workaround: You can write a persons name under the sanctum marker to make them able to legally enter your sanctum (within certain limits). This would protect them against arbitrary slayings.
There is also the option to use a neutral common laboratory that many covenants have for e.g. peregrinatores.
1 Like
Legally this means nothing. Even if clearly invited you are still inside another magus sanctum.
But I don't really think the fear of being attacked is going to be the defining factor for a magus avoiding to assist someone. I'd assume you would be neither working for your worst enemy, neither perusing the other magi belongings as you wish.
Unless you have a paranoid view of the Order, you generally assume what stops other magi from attacking you is not the Oath, but basic civility.
2 Likes
More clearly, I'd change rules thusly:
a) Magi no longer get to use Leadership to get help, except from their familiar and past apprentices.
b) Tremere can.
Anyway,
Ken
1 Like
Leadership, as the rules stand, is a necessary not sufficient condition.
This is a proposed rules change, that belongs in another thread.
Hi,
It belongs right here, in the context of a conversation - that is to say, this very thread, which you did not start and of which you are not the moderator - about a mismatch between the mechanical benefits of working together versus a Hermetic culture (in many sagas) that discourages doing so.
Rules differ from expected game-world effects? Changing one or the other for one's own saga is a fine solution. imnatho
Anyway,
Ken
Given all the conflict within the Order in the past, and the very fact that a major reason for the Order's founding was to keep wizards from killing each other over magical resources ... I would consider this view less widespread than you seem to suggest.
Remember, being (non-Gentle) Gifted means almost everyone you get to interact with tends to hate you. This is hard to shrug off, even if the Parma Magica prevents the effect between Hermetic magi.
Wait up a second. You mean the average human isn't thinking all the time how they can kill someone? There goes my story hook of a 10 season long con, where I have an NPC magi make good friends with someone, to trick him in to his sanctum and kill him.
It is the internet, so just to be sure. Heavy dose of sarcasm above.
Thank you Rafael for putting up a different perspective.
3 Likes
I disagree. I think it's the opposite.
Think of the modern day outcasts. It could even be some people in this forum. People who like RPGs were often not the popular kids. When they find similar people, they are generally overjoyed.
Magi with Parma are the only other people magi can interact with who don't think "ewwwww!". Even people who know the magi for a decade or more, they are still affected by the gift, they just learn to tolerate it.
Humans are generally social animals. When the amount of people someone can interact with reasonably are under 2000 people, and they are scattered across the entirety of Europe, I'm thinking they'd get along better than the order does as written.
I know I earlier admitted petulant man-babies was an exaggeration, however, the "Enter my sanctum and risk death" is going to the man-baby territory again.
3 Likes
On the other hand kids in a group home, for example, do not find themselves overjoyed to find themselves in a setting with a number of other orphans. There is a significant difference between being outcast because of something you like and being an outcast due to life circumstances beyond your control.
That being said, while that suspicion is very likely present a the beginning of an apprenticeship, how they feel about other magi by the end of that apprenticeship likely has more to do with the attitudes they learned from their parens than their previous life experience.