10 Out Of The Box Paradigms For The Traditions In Mage: The Ascension

Mage is one of the games I’m running right now and I really love the different paradigms of magic each of my players is bringing to the table. What follows is a brief idea list of concepts, paradigms, tools/foci, and suggested spheres for characters. As the title suggests, this is only for the Traditions, as I’ll be developing a list of Disparates and the Conventions in the future at some point. What out of the box type paradigms have you seen used well in your games?

1) MAINTENANCE MECHANIC:
Suggested Traditions: Virtual Adepts, Society of Ether, or Orphan: This person has worked in mechanical maintenance for years. They have started to see patterns and commonality across the jobs they do. So much that they have begun seeing those features in everything around them.
Tools/Foci: Tool Box, Hard Hat, Diagrams.
Suggested Starting Spheres: Prime, Matter, Forces, Mind
 
2) CORPORATE SALES:
Suggested Traditions: Celestial Chorus, Order of Hermes. This person was scouted by the Syndicate but found lacking. They are a consummate salesperson, and they actually care for the people they sell to. This person to person loyalty is essential to this character, they truly see what they are selling as beneficial to the body, mind, and soul of their customers.
Tools/Foci: Cell Phone, Salesforce, Bluetooth Headset.
Suggested Starting Spheres: Life, Mind, Correspondance
 
3) DATA ANALYST:
Suggested Traditions:  Verbena, Orphan, Virtual Adept, OoH. This person loves math and the environment. They've dabbled in new age faiths or traditional magic and see the power numbers have in traditional numerology and in modern analytics. Data drives the world, and data seeks to empower and explain the universe.
Tools/Foci: Tableau, Laptop, TI Calculator.
Suggested Starting Spheres: Mind, Correspondence, Spirit

4) FOOTBALL NUT:
Suggested Traditions:  Akashics, Cult of Ecstasy: Football is life, and football has the ability to bring people together. The Football Nut keeps his body in excellent physical shape in case he ever gets a call back to play again. Beyond that, he sees football as a way to harmony and inner light.
Tools/Foci: Football (duh), workout bench, fantasy football app.
Suggested Starting Spheres: Mind, Life, Forces
 
5) TRIBAL ACTIVIST:
Suggested Traditions:  Dreamspeakers, Verbena: Working toward making life better for your people drives your life. You use a mix of social media and traditional magic to empower your people and help drive change.
Tools/Foci: Cell Phone and wi-fi hotspot, herbs, megaphone.
Suggested Starting Spheres: Mind, Life, Spirit
 
6) ACCOUNTANT:
Suggested Traditions:  Order of Hermes,  Virtual Adepts: You keep the books. Not only that, but you keep them so well that you find places to make more money. You might be friendly with the Data Analyst, but you are looking for different patterns. The good thing is that you know how to have a good time alongside running the numbers.
Tools/Foci: Calculator, Laptop, Glasses.
Suggested Starting Spheres: Mind, Matter, Prime
 
7) YOUTH MINISTER:
Suggested Traditions:  Cult of Ecstasy, Celestial Chorus: You believe in the fervent compatibility between the expansions of consciousness and religious awakening. Your fellow millennials may be running away from religion but you see the guidance from a higher power that can lead all of mankind to awakening. You are happy to listen to your peers, as their view of the world helps to provide ways to assist them.
Tools/Foci: Smart Phone, religious text, psychedelics.
Suggested Starting Spheres: Mind, Correspondence, Spirit
 
8) CROSSFIT DUDE:
Suggested Traditions: Akashics, Society of Ether: You live, breath, and die CrossFit. You want to share cross-fit with everyone. Did you know that they do CrossFit? It’s great. The amazing thing about cross-fit is that it helps the soul as well as the body. Tools/Foci: CrossFit, work-out related t-shirt, barefoot running shoes.
Suggested Starting Spheres: Life, Mind, Time
 
9) METER-READER:
Suggested Traditions: Order of Hermes, Society of Ether, Virtual Adepts:   You are the best damn meter-reader on the planet. You are always there just in time to tag someone that is over time. You also are a pretty good person though, so you look for ways to help people get an extra 10 minutes of time on their parking meter. Sometimes all it takes is a good jog of the meter.
Tools/Foci: Clipboard, Hand scanner, heavy boots.
Suggested Starting Spheres: Forces, Matter, Time
 
10) THE BLOGGER:
Suggested Traditions:  Any Self-referential humour is your speciality, even if no one else finds it funny. You change no one’s opinion with your writing, but you really hope that might change eventually.
Tools/Foci: laptop, Wordpress, Facebook.
Suggested Starting Spheres: None, but maybe if you are lucky you’ll pick up a few in Mind.
 
Sure, some of these got a bit silly, but I think you can make any paradigm work in Mage if you start thinking outside of the box. Most Mages probably have a job, or work in the real world.
 
With 17 years of playing rpgs, Josh started with Mind's Eye Theater LARPs and loves the World of Darkness. He recently launched,www.keepontheheathlands.com to support his gaming projects. Josh is the administrator of the Inclusive Gaming Network on Facebook. He’s a player in Underground Theatre’s and One World By Nights Vampire LARPs and is running both a Mage game and a Dark Ages: Vampire game. He’s a serious advocate for inclusive gaming spaces, a father, and a recent graduate from the International Peace and Conflict Resolution graduate program at American University in Washington, D.C.

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