Mage: The Awakening
Nov. 29th, 2012 04:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chuckroAtlantis was real, as were the wizards who lived there. But their hubris shattered the world, severing the mundane Fallen World we inhabit from the magical Supernal World. A select few can send their soul across the Abyss to the Supernal World and inscribe their true names on the Watchtowers. They can Awaken.
I actually played in a campaign of this years ago and my opinions of the system were pretty much set: It’s not as flexible as Mage: The Ascension, and the mythology is considerably less interesting. But I felt it worthwhile to get myself a proper library of New World of Darkness books (while getting print books was still an option) and actually give a fair shot to the new line from a GM’s perspective.
I think, upon reflection, that if Mage: The Ascension never existed, this could have been a fine game, but it would never have been ground-breaking. It lacks the charm and excitement the original game had. This edition (heck, this whole game line) pretty much removes the gothic-punk flavor entirely, but the only thing they have to replace is a nebulous “urban wonder/horror” vibe. The OWoD felt like a world, albeit a crowded and confusing one. The NWoD feels like game system with a lot of possibilities you need to think up yourself.
There are a bunch of changes that can be called improvements: This streamlines game systems and leaves less up to GM interpretations. It clarifies what eachsphere arcana of magic can do, and balances them much better. Brings it more in-line with the rest of the World of Darkness line, and makes it easier to cross-over, or pick up if you’re familiar with another game in the line. And some aspects that were always nebulous in the original are directly clarified: They’re much clearer on what a “soul” is and how magic can interact with it, for instance.
They try to make the “character battles with his own morality” aspect of the original Vampire a common theme in every game line, and make it a mechanic in every game line. In Mage, it’s Wisdom, and you transgress against it not only by doing immoral things, but in using magic flagrantly and revealing secrets. It’s an interesting approach to keeping PCs in line, but I’m not sure how effective it is, or if it’s necessary. I’m generally one for letting characters be as evil as they want, because that generally sets up many more interesting consequences for me to make plots out of. If they never kill anyone, there’ll never be any vengeful ghosts, y’know?
Honestly, even the antagonists provided here are generally less interesting. The human antagonists basically consist of the Seers (mages supposedly guided by the Exarchs, an opposing Atlantean faction who live in the Supernal Realm) and the Banishers (mages who want to remove all magic from the world). When compared against the Technocracy, Marauders, Nephandi and Infernalists--who all took different approaches to their magic than Tradition mages, had different limitations, and could have a wide variety of motivations—the new guys just seem lame and ill-thought-out. They’re bland.
The original Mage setup made the characters foot soldiers in the Ascension War, with Archmages calling all the real shots and fighting the real war in far off Horizon realms. The design theme was already shifting away from this in the changeover to the Revised (3ed edition) set: The largest seat of tradition power was destroyed, and the Avatar Storm may moving into the umbra much more difficult and dangerous, especially for more power mages—effectively cutting the far-off archmages off from the battle on the ground. This new edition makes entering the spirit realm more difficult and dangerous, removes any hierarchy that a moderately-experienced party couldn’t directly challenge, and removes the possibility of horizon realms entirely.
I think the other big change in design philosophy was that OWoD got very specific about the exact state of the world, but left the mythology very nebulous and contradictory. There is definitely a major Tradition center of power on Mars; but there are dozens of theories of exactly where “Mars” is and how it got there. NWoD deliberately leaves a lot of the specific setting and character details open to the individual GM and strongly avoids metaplot, but makes all of the mythology definitive. There’s no question here about paradigms and points of view: There really were ancient Atlantean sorcerers who climbed a real Celestial Ladder to the real Supernal Realm and turned themselves into unmistakable Watchtowers. This paradigm is correct, all others are wrong.
I think a lot of my problem with the system in this book is that their solution to the problem of too much variety / too much adjudication / too much confusion with the original magic system was to codify every single spell you could cast with every level of every arcana. A solid quarter of this book’s page count is spell descriptions! But unlike D&D, where most PCs will only have a dozen spells/powers they need to care about (suitable for cheat sheets or flashcards), mages have access to every single spell they have the necessary arcana for. Which, in turn, engenders less of the “I’m being creative with what my magic can do” that White Wolf’s preferred playstyle calls for, and more of the “Please wait, loading optimal choices” of on-the-fly powergaming.
I’m starting on the Mage Chronicler’s Guide now, it has a lot of suggestions for translating the basic game into different genres or mythology setups. That may make me appreciate it more; we’ll see.
Overall: Mage: The Ascension is probably my favorite game. You, sir, are no Mage: The Ascension.
I actually played in a campaign of this years ago and my opinions of the system were pretty much set: It’s not as flexible as Mage: The Ascension, and the mythology is considerably less interesting. But I felt it worthwhile to get myself a proper library of New World of Darkness books (while getting print books was still an option) and actually give a fair shot to the new line from a GM’s perspective.
I think, upon reflection, that if Mage: The Ascension never existed, this could have been a fine game, but it would never have been ground-breaking. It lacks the charm and excitement the original game had. This edition (heck, this whole game line) pretty much removes the gothic-punk flavor entirely, but the only thing they have to replace is a nebulous “urban wonder/horror” vibe. The OWoD felt like a world, albeit a crowded and confusing one. The NWoD feels like game system with a lot of possibilities you need to think up yourself.
There are a bunch of changes that can be called improvements: This streamlines game systems and leaves less up to GM interpretations. It clarifies what each
They try to make the “character battles with his own morality” aspect of the original Vampire a common theme in every game line, and make it a mechanic in every game line. In Mage, it’s Wisdom, and you transgress against it not only by doing immoral things, but in using magic flagrantly and revealing secrets. It’s an interesting approach to keeping PCs in line, but I’m not sure how effective it is, or if it’s necessary. I’m generally one for letting characters be as evil as they want, because that generally sets up many more interesting consequences for me to make plots out of. If they never kill anyone, there’ll never be any vengeful ghosts, y’know?
Honestly, even the antagonists provided here are generally less interesting. The human antagonists basically consist of the Seers (mages supposedly guided by the Exarchs, an opposing Atlantean faction who live in the Supernal Realm) and the Banishers (mages who want to remove all magic from the world). When compared against the Technocracy, Marauders, Nephandi and Infernalists--who all took different approaches to their magic than Tradition mages, had different limitations, and could have a wide variety of motivations—the new guys just seem lame and ill-thought-out. They’re bland.
The original Mage setup made the characters foot soldiers in the Ascension War, with Archmages calling all the real shots and fighting the real war in far off Horizon realms. The design theme was already shifting away from this in the changeover to the Revised (3ed edition) set: The largest seat of tradition power was destroyed, and the Avatar Storm may moving into the umbra much more difficult and dangerous, especially for more power mages—effectively cutting the far-off archmages off from the battle on the ground. This new edition makes entering the spirit realm more difficult and dangerous, removes any hierarchy that a moderately-experienced party couldn’t directly challenge, and removes the possibility of horizon realms entirely.
I think the other big change in design philosophy was that OWoD got very specific about the exact state of the world, but left the mythology very nebulous and contradictory. There is definitely a major Tradition center of power on Mars; but there are dozens of theories of exactly where “Mars” is and how it got there. NWoD deliberately leaves a lot of the specific setting and character details open to the individual GM and strongly avoids metaplot, but makes all of the mythology definitive. There’s no question here about paradigms and points of view: There really were ancient Atlantean sorcerers who climbed a real Celestial Ladder to the real Supernal Realm and turned themselves into unmistakable Watchtowers. This paradigm is correct, all others are wrong.
I think a lot of my problem with the system in this book is that their solution to the problem of too much variety / too much adjudication / too much confusion with the original magic system was to codify every single spell you could cast with every level of every arcana. A solid quarter of this book’s page count is spell descriptions! But unlike D&D, where most PCs will only have a dozen spells/powers they need to care about (suitable for cheat sheets or flashcards), mages have access to every single spell they have the necessary arcana for. Which, in turn, engenders less of the “I’m being creative with what my magic can do” that White Wolf’s preferred playstyle calls for, and more of the “Please wait, loading optimal choices” of on-the-fly powergaming.
I’m starting on the Mage Chronicler’s Guide now, it has a lot of suggestions for translating the basic game into different genres or mythology setups. That may make me appreciate it more; we’ll see.
Overall: Mage: The Ascension is probably my favorite game. You, sir, are no Mage: The Ascension.
