Hey, our session's Mage of Light has gone fucking crazy. He's taken over the frog breeding because he thinks our Bard of Space was being lazy about it, and he keeps doing all kinds of weird stuff to the frogs to try and "perfect" them. He says that it's our responsibility to make sure that they result in a universe without the problems of our own.
To wit, he's trying to make it so that all life in the universe is immortal (somehow without all the problems that would obviously cause?), trying to make computers in that universe run faster, trying to make it so that any planet that plays Sburb will have developed a meteor defense system ahead of time, and so on (he had a really long list, it was all like this).
A lot of his ideas sound kinda good to me, but our Space player says that it's not possible to just make changes like that, and that any fuck-ups would be catastrophic.
But our Light player is our only god tier, and none of the rest of us seem even *close* to ascending, so we can't really overpower him, and he's just not willing to listen to the Space player.
Since it's not likely that any frog he makes will be viable anyway, I guess we could just deploy new copies of the breeding equipment, but he took all the stuff the Space player *had* done already. I don't know the details, but the Space player says he'd basically be starting over more-or-less from scratch, and we're not sure we have time before the reckoning- especially since the Space player legit *is* kinda slow and bad at it.
Basically our Light player an overpowered control freak with a god complex who refuses to listen to the one person in the session who actually knows how to do anything with frogs. I mean, what the hell are we supposed to do???
This is pretty bad. Your Space player is absolutely right in that most of what this Mage of Light is trying to pull is genuinely impossible. I have no idea why he thinks he'll be able to dictate the technological progression of a civilization that doesn't even exist yet, just because he's creating the universe the civilization will eventually exist in. And that's putting aside the fact that most people who get into making the Perfect Frog concern themselves more with fixing the bug that forces replays, and not dicking with the game's progression system like he is. If anything that would cause more issues, but he doesn't even seem like he's intentionally trying to break things.
To deliver an armchair diagnosis that isn't just "he's insane", which to be fair he kind of is, I can see a few possibilities here. Light Players deal with probability, mainly in terms of good luck and favoring good outcomes. Normally a fine thing, however this constant fixation on guaranteeing the most favorable outcome can often manifest itself as a desire to force the 100% best possible outcome to come to pass, which leads to perfectionism and short-sightedness. To speak of Classes for a second, Seers sometimes act like this, as do Sages with less mental fortitude than I. However, he's not a Seer or even a Sage, he's a Mage. Cryptical classes are intended to act in bewildering ways in order to reach favorable outcomes, with the passive Mage prancing around like some sugarplum fairy, leaving "triggers" for the other Players to activate without knowing that they lead to positive outcomes.
My initial read of this is a man who, out of fatigue towards playing and replaying SBURB (join the club, buddy), is now taking direct control of the situation, abandoning his role as a Mage and abusing his aspect of Light in order to genetically engineer some sort of utopia. Between his acting like a nutter and the fact that he isn't a Space Player or even a Time Player, this frog venture is doomed to end in failure at worst and mega-cancer at best. This being said, a second possibility did dawn on me as I analyzed this. This might be part of the plan.
If he is a Mage, his role is to interpret mysteries relating to his aspect and "pass it down", so to speak. Taking over Frog Breeding and making the dumbest plans is pretty inscrutable, it's safe to say. I would say "you're weird and disconnected from reality in an unwholesome way" which is basically what Mages are meant to do. So it's possible that this is meant to provoke the other Players into action, and this action will advance his plans and the plans of the session as a whole towards a favorable outcome. I would believe this further if there was a Player whose role aligns with stopping this scheme (like a Protector or Champion), or if his fucking with the Frog-Breeding equipment leaves the Space Player in a more advantageous position once they recover it. If this is the case, then he's still bonkers because in addition to this being very straightforward behavior for a passive class, the crux is acting antagonistic and setting himself up as a "villain" to be taken down. If you do end up killing him, it could very well qualify as Just. My purpose in pointing this out is to say, you should still treat him like he's unstable, but keep in the back of your mind that he might be operating on a level higher than yours.
The nonviolent solution is to stage an intervention, of course. I would advise against the Bard of Space leading, as the Mage of Light seems to have a low opinion of them in general. But the following are threads to hit upon.
We all despise SBURB and its brokenness and its shittiness, but this is essentially trying to fix the game by hacking it. That never turns out well.
If he's still willing to listen to reason, point out that attempting to influence technological development via the Frog is flatly impossible. Liken it to planting a garden and expecting a pumpkin seed to grow and be able to speak. Once you create the Frog, things are "hands off" at that point. AND ALSO THAT CREATING IMMORTAL LIFE IS CLASSIC "hubristic bad guy" STUFF.
Whether or not he can listen to reason, let him know you all are there for him, and while you're willing to help him, he needs to listen to you as well. Basic therapy stuff, really, this might just be a very grand lashing-out.
If you strongly get the impression that this is some kooky Mage scheme, then call him on it and point out the self-sacrificial bullshit nature of acting so antagonistic. This might end things instantly if the "mystery" gets solved.
Mages are anti-explaining, so don't at any point try to make him explain why he's doing what he's doing. It might be worth re-iterating this if he tries to initiate an explanation.
If the nonviolent solution doesn't work, then you might need to try something more forceful. The fact that he's God Tier and you're not does complicate things, but the truth is that he's a Light Player. When you can manipulate luck, direct combat is doomed to fail. Your guns will jam, your swings will hit allies in the face at complete random, etc. I do know that Light-based luck manipulation doesn't generally stop oneself from getting hit in the face with a newspaper, since you don't need to be particularly unlucky for this to happen (and it's not that serious), so follow similar logic. Wrapping him up in a big hug is corny and awkward, but as long as you don't turn it into a suplex or whatever, this gives you room to talk. You could try a smash-and-grab to just take the Frog stuff away from him. In general, be thankful that Light generally lacks offensive capabilities, their main "attack" power is [Flare] and it's very inefficient at what it does. However, the luck manipulation is still strong. If he buffs his luck and starts shooting at random, he's going to score headshots. So if you're going to try and fight him, be tricky, be indirect, don't even "fight" him necessarily, but save it for Plan B if anything.
A final note, but your Bard of Space has got to get her shit together. I don't know whether or not Mage of Light's "lazy" judgement is sound or not, but by all accounts it seems like she's slow and somewhat incompetent. Combined with the fact that you're running up against the endgame when this clown took over, and it's just unacceptable. If you need to babysit her to make sure the Frogs get bred, so be it. And if she is going to take part of negotiations, it might be worth it to have her show signs of improvement or otherwise vow to set things straight, so the Mage of Light doesn't feel like they need to hijack breeding duties.
