#mTA system

[akadoxalis]

[dorospam]

Tiger Pen ^_^

[newx-menfan]

The Krakoan’s real BEEF is with the MTA and the 7 train running five minutes late every morning… 😐

[hyperrealcartography]

The Last Train to Jamaica: How NYC Almost Replaced Its Els

Image of Queensboro Plaza, twice as large as it is today, before unification. Undated. Image of Queensboro Plaza, twice as large as it is today, before unification. Undated. Image of Queensboro Plaza, twice as large as it is today, before unification. Undated. The New York City subway is famously made up of three formerly private railroads; three distinct networks that were planned to be…

[antiloquist]

@ me next time Venti

[quasistarjudgement]

HEY HEY LISTEN THE VOICE OF THE MTA TRANSIT SYSTEM, ALL THE ANNOUNCEMENTS ON THE NYC SUBWAY LINE??

SHE'S A TRANS WOMAN AND TRANSITIONED AT 66!!!!!! THE BACKGROUND HUM OF MY CHILDHOOD, AND SHE'S LIKE ME!!!! WHAT THE FUCK

[littlecornerinbrooklyn]

i hate kathy hochul so much i cannot believe i had to vote for her she is continuing the corruption of the previous administration (no surprise there, she was the lt. governor under one of the most corrupt govs we've ever had who was finally ousted for sexual harrasment/abuse of staff--which she absolutely knew about!!) and is incompetent and what REALLY boils my blood is the fact that so many of her policies really have a "Guys Girl" vibe to them and i hate it so much. Girlie, you're the governor you don't actually have to seek male approval anymore!!!!

[discrepancybot]

The most surprisingly cool thing I discovered in New York City is the public art at a lot of its subway stations. BTW: they call it the subway even in long stretches which are above street level.

It's true that a majority of subway stations in NYC are rather industrial looking and not particularly noteworthy. But a large minority feature some sort of art and a few dozen are worth going out of your way to visit. There's no fee to see the art other than the cost of subway fare.

The MTA Arts & Design digital guide is live and at your fingertips! #MTAArts is thrilled to join the incredible list of organizations featured on Bloomberg Connects, the free arts and culture app. Download the Bloomberg Connects app and search for MTA Arts & Design to start planning your next adventure!

The app offers MTA riders and app users anywhere in the world new ways to discover the nearly 400 permanent and temporary public artworks in the subway and commuter rail stations across the MTA network. Embark on self-guided tours using the interactive map, or explore photos, videos, and curated content from home. The A&D collection is now more accessible than ever. Special features within the guide will provide the latest information on MTA Arts & Design’s most-recent permanent art installations and temporary programming including our Digital Art, Photography, Poster, Poetry in Motion, and Music Under New York projects.

[bethanythebogwitch]

My favorite magic system from a game I haven't actually played is from Mage: the Ascension. It kind of fits as both a hard magic system and a soft magic system at the same time because there are some hard rules, but its mostly very open. To become a mage you have to realize that reality is not what it seems. In MtA, reality is whatever the majority of people believe it is, known as the consensus. The consensus in modern days is pretty uniform everywhere, with small variations based on where you are, but it used to be wildly different based on the cultural beliefs of the local people. A mage is a person who realizes that the consensus isn't true reality and gains to power to act outside of its rules. Any given mage's abilities come from their own personal view of reality, known as their paradigm. A mage's magic can do basically anything, as long as it is accounted for in their paradigm. So a mage who's paradigm includes the classic Aristotelian elements can perform magic based on that, but if their paradigm doesn't include animistic spirits then they can't commune with those spirits even though other mages could based on their own paradigm. The problem with this is that the consensus doesn't like it when you go around breaking its rules and will punish mages by slapping them with an effect called paradox. Paradox can be anything from a spell failing to getting shunted into your own personal pocket universe. Nothing generates paradox like being seen doing magic by sleepers (people who are not mages and still live fully within the consensus). Most mages either only use magic around other mages or, if they need to cast around sleepers, will disguise their magic as a mundane effect. Someone throwing a fireball from their hands will generate major paradox because the consensus is that people can't do that. However if a mage holds a lighter up to a spraycan before casting their fireball, the sleepers can rationalize it as something that exists within the consensus and not as much paradox will be generated.

In the dark ages, magic was part of the consensus and mages could openly rule over the sleepers because everyone believed in magic and therefore magic was part of the consensus. In response to the tyranny of the mages, a group was formed called the League of Reason, who wanted to introduce a new form of magic to the consensus that everyone could use. This form of magic was based on logic and reason and was called science. This led to the ascension war, where the League of reason sought to remove magic and superstition from the consensus and a very loose coalition of mages called the Council of Nine Mystic Traditions want to keep magic in the consensus. And the League of Reason won. A mostly rationalistic, scientific worldview has become the consensus worldwide, forcing the Council into operating underground. The League of Reason has become the Technocracy, a worldwide secret organization ruling the world from the shadows and trying to stamp out magic and any other form of "reality deviants" to keep humanity safe, even if they have to suppress basic human imagination to do so. Notably, the earliest books for the game very much said "Traditions good, Technocracy bad", but later books went for a much more grey approach to the conflict between them, making it clear that both sides really are doing what they think is in humanity's best interest even if their ideas for how to do so are fundamentally incompatible.

What's really interesting is that science and technology really are a form of magic and technocrats are mages, even if the Technocracy would vehemently deny this. Technology is a form of magic that everyone can use because its part of the consensus and science doesn't discover new facts about the world, It creates those facts and applies them to the world. The Technocracy's super-advanced technology creates paradox just as much as magic does because personal anti-gravity suits and mass-produced clones violate the consensus just like throwing around fireballs and conjuring demons does.

Mage: the Ascension is a super fun setting because just about any fantasy or sci-fi trope can exist here. Classic pointy hat and wand wizards can battle cyborgs armed with self-replicating nanotechnology. Anti-authoritarian punks can hack your wallpaper to spy on you because they believe all reality is part of a unified mathematical whole that the internet gives us access to. A group of spacefarers can ride the luminiferous aether to mars only to encounter Aztec shamans who asked the spirits to carry them there thousands of years ago. A powerful mage can create a time loop by convincing their younger self to obtain enlightenment through the power of sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Two people can have an argument over whether the guy they just met was an alien from Alpha Centauri or an elf from the Norse nine realms and both of them can be right. Animistic spirit-callers can upload themselves to the internet to combat spirits of malware. And an angry mage might just teleport you into the sun because they believe distance is just an illusion and therefore have the power to make anything go anywhere with a thought. It's a wild ride.

[transit-fag]

The New York Subway is cool because it is one of the the most extensive metro systems in the world and yet it is still completely terrible at servicing New York and further more the MTA refuses to start Capitol projects to improve the Subways amount of service.

[hyperrealcartography]

The Devolution of the IND Second System

[blingblingtual]

IMMM BACK HOMEEEEE

Have to go to queens😣

[prettyboysdontlookatexplosions]

four weeks down, eleven to go! i have worked for 22 days straight & came in at just over 40 hours this week & don’t really anticipate having a day off until thanksgiving… but am feeling pretty sane considering all that, i think. this week also is pretty busy and i am not fully prepped for tomorrow but after tuesday and certainly after wednesday there should be a little bit of a reprieve… also the MTA fucked up so bad that i literally couldn’t make it to bay ridge so was spared that this week, lol.

it is making a huuuuge difference not to feel any time crunch re: content development side gig… it has been so so nice to be able to go back to thinking of being on the train as being my Me Time that i can spend with my best friends Thinking and Listening to Music and Books. reading a book on the train is such a lovely little middle of my workflow relaxation…! also i do believe more with every day that the to do list system i’ve been experimenting with, which combines the fact that i like writing to do lists by hands with cure colors with the fact that i want to be able to map them out spatially across the week and move things easily if they change, which they constantly do, is the one… sorry to sound like a shill for the apple pencil but it’s really out here changing my life..

i thought i was going to get back into the writing swing of things this week but then i wound up more actually busy with work stuff than anticipated… but i did write another thousand words or so of my very silly and self indulgent queliot project. i also thought i was going to clean my room and perhaps my increasingly in need of cleaning kitchen, and well simply lol. but i also thought this week was going to be Pure Hermiting but then a friend asked around about plans to go see the substance yesterday so i did that with some people instead, and i already have a Fun Thing planned for next weekend, when i will probably also be getting my vaxes, lol. i finally ordered the stupid little adapter that always breaks so that i can use my real headphones again. i did my workouts (5 more till my mid-program break!) & hit my step goal & actually got 19,000 steps today alone bc i had two sessions in brooklyn about a mile apart and then i came home and then i had to go to forest hills 😵‍💫 i finished the collection of ishiguro shorts i started in august & read all of piranesi, much of the last stretch of which i read by iphone light while walking because i couldn’t wait to get to the train or home or bear to put it down as i walked to a student’s house. tomorrow i will start flowers in the attic for book club about which i am VERY excited. onward!

[fipindustries]

also im taking a peak at mage the ascention 20th anniversary, particularly with an eye to compare it to the otherverse because in many ways they seems to be trying to do the exact same thing.

what if magic was real, what if all magic, all folklore, all mythical creatures, were real. and we are not talking about some specific particular magical system like in mistborn or harry potter, we are talking about Magic with a capital M

both worlds seem to be based on this key idea that reality is fundamentally fluid, that there is no objective consensus on what IS, that what happens on any given moment is hammered in more by thought and feeling than by observation of fact.

but there seems to be a key difference here. MtA is internal, Otherverse is external.

in MtA you can bend reality and conjure up spells and wonders by internal will alone. by the power of your own inner belief. is just a matter of understanding that your perspective can change the outside world. that by sheer virtue of thinking hard enough you can access the underliying cogs and wires of the universe and pull them to your whims

in Otherverse it is all about external gestures, is about persuation, is about arguing your case to Others, is about defending your perspective of how the world ought to be with gestures and rituals and incantations. is all about getting the spirits of the world to reach a consensus with you, and this involves action, negotiation, appeasement.

is a very keay difference that underlies the fundamental conflict of each world.

in MtA the conflict is more internal than anything else. yes you have the technocracy and the rival traditions and the nephandi and all the other spookums. but fundamentally is about your own internal conflict with your own sanity. is all about your internal struggle of trying to reach the ascention, of surviving the paradox, of not going completly fucking bonkers and erasing yourself from the continuum

in the Otherverse the conflict is very much with the Other, is about learning to coexist and cohabitate in a world of hunger and greed where everyone is scrabbling over everyone else to survive and get ahead, about resolving conflict with creatures that have values that are fundamentally inhuman.

is all very interesting

[cavegirlpoems]

Hi, I've been in 5e optimisation community for quite a while and wondered why a bunch of veterans had 500 page "homebrew" all of which stopped being DnD eventually. All they wanted to do is to fix the damn game.

Then I started my own document. Making better wording required making as much words as DnD had and throwing away what it had

Then I spent like 50 pages making basic city rules because I loved cities and villages and hated that DM had almost no guidelines on how to make player interact with them. I wasn't close to done

Then I moved to classes. I combined GURPS and two other rewrites of DnD to make martials distinct and good(I used Targon's heroic fighter(by Targon iirc) and Mystral's classes by FadeShock). I dropped it when I was 100 pages in with only one class done. I didn't actually want to make a game, I just wanted a DnD that I could enjoy. That's when I stopped DMing, pretty much and moved most of my games to other systems. I really love MtA, btw.

I love your stuff

It's a tale as old as time: attempts to fix D&D end up totally rebuilding it from the ground up. Honestly I don't think there's anything wrong with that sort of design; if your goals for what you're making are clear, and you've got a skeleton to start from, it can work pretty well.