Well.

The last Mage session I attended (after realizing the point of the game) was a failure. As was the one before it.

The main reason was the fact that the night before the first failure, I was up until 2:00 AM gaming (GMing my Apocylpse campaign). Getting to game at 7:00 and waiting two and a half hours to START actually gaming sucked. The fact that as soon as we began gaming I was left with four other PCs while the GM went upstairs was pretty lame, too.

So, since my character missed a really major adventure, I tried to ask the other players what went on. This failed because the one character who had a shot at explaining things wasn't there; the second the the GM went up to run the new PC's introduction session, James Major dragged Walker across the street to the 7-11 for snacks.

Jim's character was completely useless at conveying information whatsoever, and David's character was too caught up in the fact that he'd been forced to hurt someone to say anything other than the fact that he'd done so.

That pissed me off, I was already tired, and the entire session was looking pretty crappy to me, so I went home.

Last night's session was worse, because I was given a chance to prepare for an assault on a minor non-technocratic compound (filled with technocrats, so ... whatever). My first attempt at an extended rote was three ones on my arete roll. This is called a botch, and when you botch a magical effect in Mage, you gain paradox, which for me, came in the form of four levels of bashing damage. This gives you a friendly -2 die penalty to any action you want to perform.

Just bad luck, but it pissed me off anyway. Nothing that could be done about it. It just sucked.

Whatever. So I press on and wait for the game to start. It takes about an hour for the actual gaming to begin once everyone is around the table and actually there. We started at about 10:00, which is pretty late for me. David had summoned two amazingly powerful spirit warriors to help us out. Jim had prepared a number of super-powereful effects that were coincidental, because Jim knows more about Mage than anyone else except for POSSIBLY Sterling, and Sterling is requiring us all to perform at Jim's knowledge level, or get horribly horribly fucked over by the system.

I'm not sure if this is intentional, but Jim essentially strapped on a jetpack and flew into the atmosphere with the bar, leaving us land-bound mortals to suck exhaust.

So, my character is operating with wound penalties, has no combat skills, and nothing to bring to the party. Unfortunately, not only do other players in the party have every single sphere that my character does, one of them (Walker's character) has every single sphere my character does, AND does them all better. As well as having all of my merits (and their improved varients simultaneously as well).

The only thing my character can do in a combat situation is heal (which Walker will do before I can anyway) or cause direct aggravated damage to someone. Of course, because this is a vulgar magical effect, I'm essentially doing damage to myself to hurt someone else, notwithstanding whatever other paradox backlashes I get to experience.

Oh, and paradox damage can't be healed magically, so I'm extra screwed. Well whatever, I figure I'll press on and--

But wait! Not only is my character useless in combat, the new guy has a difficulty 5 effect that's entirely coincidental to blow people away! Why is my character even here? They've already got a medic who also has a sword of glowing holy energy, and now they've got two techies with high-powered magical rail-pistols which don't cause paradox. Jim's weapon isn't just an effect, it's a Wonder, which is the Mage equivelant of an artifact (well, not quite that powerful, but it makes my character into an even bigger joke).

This all pisses me off, but it's my fault for making such a crappy character design. The only skills and knowledges that I have, and no one else does, exist SOLEY for the purposes of making Jim's character laugh at me, James Major's character tell me I'm an idiot, and Ryan's character roll his eyes at me and walk off.

And then, when Walker electrocuted his character in the carport on accident, and was stunned, I thought, "Finally. I've been as quiet as someone as mouthy as me can be all evening. Now I get a chance to do something." So I tried to wait for a lull in the conversation, but the second Walker takes damage Jim's character goes on about how I should heal Walker.

I was really really pissed off at this point, but, what the fuck. So, now I not only don't get to do anything, when the chance to do something actually DOES come up, I'm told what to do without having a chance to do so. Which is remarkably OOC for Jim's character, as he doesn't believe in magic, and thinks my character is a psychotic crackpot, but apparently amusing roomate. Unless laughing at everything I say and treating my character like a moronic infant is his idea of showing respect (and he's got a charisma of 1, so I'll be willing to give him that, if it is the case).

Anyway. I use the effect I posted a week or so back, and heal Walker's PC. But wait! The fucking SECOND I'm ready to roll, and want to know what my difficulty is, Mike Reed starts asking questions about something (I wasn't paying attention, because I was already having a bad day), and then James Major chimes in with his typically loud, 'fuck you, I'm James Major, and the only important thing in the entire universe' way.

It was, quite possibly, the worst gaming session I've ever been in, with the possible exception of Chis Steinwinder's AR campaign sessions. But at least in those, we were united against an enemy, and it wasn't the other PCs making me feel like crap.

Anyway.

I wrote this long drawn out bitchy rant because I've decided that I whine too much to the people I know. I'm becoming more self-centered and arrogant, and that's ... just a general failure to grow as a person. I've brought myself full-circle, and am right back where I started -- in every sense of the word.

I thought that I was heading towards some spritual and mental zenith where I would just understand everything, and it'd all be perfect, and then I realized that I was managing to distract myself from actual growth.

My philosophy apparently is to make every possible mistake I can, leaving me an inevitable eventual success by virtue of no longer having mistakes to make. I guess being exactly where I started with awareness of what I did to bring myself full-circle is actually a step forward, though. I've always wished I could restart my life from the very beginning while retaining all my memories.

Ironically, I've just recieved my wish, and gotten what I deserved for being so selfish in the process.

And now we come back to self-hatred; this next cycle will be short indeed. I expect, realistically, that after a few days, I'll progress back into the genuine spritual growth phase, to be followed shortly by the realization that I was only deluding myself.

But being aware of it, maybe I can break out of it. And if not, then the NEXT cycle will be even shorter.

Hmm. You know, this isn't really so bad.

But I think I'm going to drop out of that Mage game.

If Sterling starts a new one, that'd be exceptionally cool. It'd be even more awesome if the "You must be at least this clever to play to avoid being ass- raped by paradox" rules of third-ed were toned down. As it stands, though, I've got no reason to stay, and even less reason to be there in the first place.

Right. Sleep.