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In Mage: The Ascension, I was looking for some ideas on Arete quests (or visions, or stories, or seekings… don’t know what you call them). I usually make my players write a little story involving s/he and their avatar in some kind of metaphysical confrontation of ideas. Then I read it, we change it a bit according to the game history, and they usually end up with pretty good stuff so they increase their Arete. More or less as suggested in the Book of Shadows. But as the history grows, and we play many games, the system seems to be a bit repetitive, so I was looking for any suggestions.

Also, I normally play with Tradition mages; for Technocrats, I think it could be different, but I don’t want the "spend experience, have the dot" thing. Even further out, how could it be for the Nephandi or the Marauders?

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Could you reverse your formula? Have the character teach something to the avatar. I think this could work if you could get them started on on the right direction. They should learn while teaching. What I like about this idea is it will make the players think proactively instead of reactively.

Could you take away the avatar and making the seeking a way for the character to recover the avatar? This is a little easier than the teaching idea, but is probably something you can only use once as a monotony breaker.

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    \$\begingroup\$ I like the first idea. As the Mage grows they could teach their avatar. Although I think it's a bit out of the 'my avatar guides me to ascension' idea. But it seems a good way to make the players more active in their seekings. The second idea also seems ok, but just for a one-shoot. Thanks! \$\endgroup\$
    – Random
    Commented Dec 1, 2010 at 9:55
  • \$\begingroup\$ +1: you learn a LOT when you teach someone something. I would probably interpret this as the Avatar didn't "need" the teaching - but the act of teaching helped the mage. \$\endgroup\$
    – Ghotir
    Commented Sep 1, 2017 at 19:24
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One of the things i have done is taking things either from characters backgrounds (if they have given me any) or from the game itself that their character has experienced and challenge the players with their own moral implications in it. for example i had a player in one of my games who stated in his background that his character's parents died with his character present to witness their deaths. it was a while ago but i think his characters awakened indirectly related to it. So for one of his early seekings i made his character come to terms with the lose of his parents in a sense that it wasn't his characters fault. it was something he stated his character believe before we did this. I had to do a one on one session with him but in the end he said it was really good and he felt it gave his character a little more depth.

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