(Closed) Interest Check: Mage 20

Modern day seems like a good standard choice. Where will we be situated? US/Europe?

The politics are fairly easy avoid, i think, especially if we're leaning toward "enemy in our (mystical) midst" rather than "the president is a Nephandi and so is the Governor". There are a lot of other evils in the world - from mundane greed and pride to otherwordly horrors sliding its tendrils into the cracks in Reality - no need to focus on the actual painful events going on right now. Or we can simply make our own modern world, with a focus on different relevant socio-political problems. I think we all play these types of games to escape reality a little, so i'd rather keep any mentions/discussions of ongoing wars, xenophobias/bigotry, left/right ideologies, etc to a minimum.

Awakening stories might be better suited for a personal preludes, i think.

I’d prefer the USA because it’s what I know.

Depending upon inclination, that could be done as a prelude to actual play, or in-game; the rest of us either going through the same thing, or being new magi (associates of a mentor who might have suffered something unfortunate?) who have to step up and help the neophyte?
Unless you’d want one of us as the mentor figure (so probably sharing a tradition/convention); but that suggests a significant imbalance of knowledge between the two, and all the potential challenges that could bring.

We could do individual preludes as part of the game if everyone wants.

Interesting possibilities in the pitch. I'd be very interested in joining. I have decent experience in WoD, mostly from the Vampire/Werewolf side of things.

If our characters have reason to know each other, the prelude could be (partly or wholly) communal if the setup allows.

Given the spy/traitors setup i think the individual Awakenings will be a better option, making for a more varied spread of Mages.
Communal option might be something akin to that movie, 2003 The Recruit, where newbie CIA agent gets recruited by their mentor/teacher for a "secret, off-the-books" assignment, which turns out to be a mission against their own agency.

I was actually picturing the movie RED, where the female lead joins a couple af seasoned experienced agents :)

Is that the one with Willis, Freeman and Mary-Louise Parker? It doesn't reed much like a spy thriller from the summary. Actually says that it is an action-comedy. Is it any good?

Another good reference for spy thriller/betrayed from within/on the run from corrupt bosses is the Condor tv series, which in itself is based on a fairly decent Three Days of the Condor movie (wiki says that it is based on a novel).

I reckon so, both the original and the sequel; films that mobilise several very good actors in action roles that wouldn’t necessarily be expected of them, and gets sterling performances as a result. (Shame upon the synopsis that omitted Malkovitch and Mirren!) A solid gold example of the "don’t underestimate old folks because they can kick ass" genre.

As a game concept, the issue is that it requires one (or more) of the characters to be absolute greenhorns but still able to contribute, while the rest are old warhorses formerly at the top of their games, now supposedly put out to pasture. (The title originally stood for Retired, Extremely Dangerous.)
Disparate PC levels are normally a no-go with good reason, but if everyone is up for it and the newbie can still contribute abilities the others lack but somehow need, it could work.

Spread of Mage types may not be a problem; getting a bunch of dissociated magi who survive by being cagey and secretive to work together and trust each other needs to be built in somehow; it needn’t be in the prelude, of course; that would be somewhat unusual.

"The Masters tried to kill all of us, once we discovered their secret allegiance! We can't trust anyone else at the chantry/construct, since they might be either Fallen themselves or simply following orders, trying to eliminate us, thinking that we are slaves to some demon lord."

Going with a single faction would be easy in this context. Multiple would require some finagling. On that note - does anyone actually want to play Technocrats or Disparates?

I’m fine playing a Tradition mage.

To rephrase the question - is anyone married to the idea playing a particular faction? The bigger the spread, the stranger the taste.

Inserting one outsider in a group would be fairly easy, but for two or even three groups to come together would require some setup. Conflicting ideologies and goals and all that. We can go the mustache twirling global conspiracy angle - the Fallen of all 3 factions working together, but that seems a bit bland. In fact a better idea, in my opinion, would be to have them be tied to different entities, if we're going cross-faction.

I'm pretty flexible, so creating a fitting character is no problem. The Traditions would be the easiest to run this with though - cosmopolitan views, bunch of different paradigms/focuses to choose from and little baggage, compared to Technocrats "Social Conditionings" and cultural shticks of Disparates.

Not really. There are traditions/factions that I have harder to relate to than others, but that not exclude them

I'm confidant we can make anything work. That said, I'm all for simplifying our ST's work, so if we all come from one faction so be it.

If you're using the m20 ruleset, crossfaction gameplay is a lot easier. The only issue is that this edition has many contradictory rules, when we ran it in my discord group, we had to make do with homebrew ("How do you do that?" Is all over the place)

I'd prefer to play a Tradition mage myself.

Looks like you've got plenty of players, but if you lose someone I'd love to get in on some Mage again.

Invites are sent. Thanks everyone who expressed interest.