Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
Barbelith is a new kind of community (find out more)...
You can login or register.

Underground > Games & Gameplay >

MAGE: Awakening

09:57 / 05.09.05

I just got hold of the new Mage rule book. It's so shiney. Not that I tend to actually play any more, but this is the first rule book I've been unable to resist in years.

So much improvement. The background largely about a secret conflict between those who want more mages to awaken and those who want less.

Mages have a path and an order, and legacies of magic. All these things effect how they work. This means that you can have very different skills in an aligned group.

13:07 / 05.09.05

*drools*

18:20 / 06.09.05

I LOVE Mage: The Ascension. As far as I am concerned, it is the best RPG ever made because, within the confines of the rules, there is literally no (human) character you cannot make.

However, I also love the deeper underlying metaphysics behind it. It's basically a huge battle between the four elements, and the metaphysical energies behind them. I love the different traditions and such.

Can you compare Awakening to Ascension for me, to give me some idea if it will be as enjoyable to me?

12:33 / 07.09.05

*drools some more awaiting payday*
It's part of the re-jigging of the World of Dorkness, but is apparently well done. See the Mage-The Ascension thread for some more details.

16:20 / 07.09.05

i've been following the online teasers, and just saw the book yesterday. it is very pretty. the layout and art are verrrrry nice.

however, the setting hasn't really grabbed me. the paths are cooler than i expected. nicely idividual and stylized (love the watchtower art!) but the orders seem very dry and cookie cutter. i also can't really put my finger on the source of dramatic tension or conflict. there don't seem to be either a strong external enemy, or the sort of infighting between groups that you get in vampire.

i didn't read very much, but the section on magic(K?) seemed very intimidating. many, many pages of rules, and then the section on the spheres (arcana?) was almost unreadable. the three column layout was brutal and it had quite a "spell-list" look to it.

i can never buy the book, but i'm still quite interested.

is the magic chapter as scary as it looks, or am i skimming too much?

ORA ORA ORA ORAAAA!!

10:13 / 08.09.05

A friend of mine is crying at any opportunity that the new paradox system is stupid, dumb and wrong. Because, apparently, an experienced mage should have less serious consequences for fucking up than a novice.
(Paradox is based on Gnosis, the more Gnosis, the worse your paradox effects become)

My personal opinion is that by the time you're at high Gnosis, you're a known offender - the abyss is watching you, and will strike at any opportunity. It makes sense to me that way. But he hates it.

To be honest, I haven't read the system yet (too expensive), but I have glanced at this part and it does not offend me as much as it does him.

Anyone else have an opinion on this matter than I can reject out of hand or use to bolster my position?

11:49 / 08.09.05

I haven't read it yet but this an experienced mage should have less serious consequences for fucking up than a novice. is tosh as you say. Not only are you a known offender, the more experienced Mage knows not to fuck up. If a grandmaster puts himself in a checkable position in chess, is it less serious? No, he just knows better not to because of the consequences.
Paradox is like gravity, an experienced pilot falls just as fast.

rising and revolving

13:49 / 08.09.05

More to the point, the more Mojo you swing, the bigger shit you can get yourself in.

How badly can someone fuck up a house with a hammer? Pretty badly, if they consistently put their mind to it.

Now, how much faster and more effeciently can they fuck things up beyond imagining if they screw up with a pnuematic jack hammer?

Exactly.

16:35 / 12.09.05

I've got through a good bit of the book now.

Interesting things...

You can do good stuff with a single sphere. You don't need prime to make fire appear from nothing. You do need forces 5. But redirecting heat would only need forces 2. Almost all the example spells and rotes are single sphere. And there's lots of them. Like a 120+ pages.

Doing stuff at a distance still requires space 2, (was correspondance). But this is now really fucking penalised. You just ain't doing instant improvised stuff against anyone you can't see.

-2 dice if you have their blood or hair or they are a very close friend.
-4 additional dice if you don't know their real name.

Tremere are now in the Mage book. They are death-mages that steal other beings energy, not blood, to out live their natural span. Unpopular lot as they prefer mages to get energy from.

I really like the character creation rules of create a human, then do the following... It can still be munchkin'd, but what can't?

There's also the sense that mages are _rare_ - you are not going to get many in a city. And that visiting someone elses turf is something to be carefully considered first.

The "death" sphere is interesting. Level one basically makes you John Constantine. Haunted. Able to speak and hear the dead but with no control.

I also like the fact that the society you belong to does not proscribe the magical path you're on. Which gives a much wider starting set of concepts. The combination of the paths & society should begin to shape a character.

Still, I probably won't play it. I can't stand roleplayers. If I ever run mage, I'd probably either make paradox really bad, or just ban vulgar magic. It's so... vulgar.

12:05 / 15.09.05

Can I ask how does the conflict between the Mages and the Ascended Masters measure up to the Council of Seven v The Technocracy?

To be honest even when I was playing Mage way back when this felt a bit 80's (MIB's, Terminator et al) and I think was a result of a bizarre anti-science bias from one or two people at WW who couldn't grasp how technology could be magic too. Have they sorted this out now?

15:11 / 15.09.05

The first mages to ascend mostly wanted to pull the ladder up after them and stop other mortals awakening and challenging their power. (named exarchs). This created the abyss between the real world and the supernal world. The shadow world is our side of the abyss, seperated by only the gauntlet.

A few powerful ascendaed mages (known as oracles) provided watchtowers in five of the supernal realms. These provide a way for awakend mortals to pull the supernal through the abyss.

The exarchs and oracles are at war. The seers of the throne are one of the mage orgs. which work for the exarchs in the hope of reward (or being eaten last?). Their motivation sounds a bit sketchy really.

It's not clear if the exarchs and oracles are real. Maybe it's a myth or a misunderstanding.

*

16:29 / 15.09.05

Just started character creation for this. (Actually my ST is having us start as mortals and play through awakening, so I haven't gotten to see Mage character creation in action yet.) One thing I noticed is that it's now damned easy to make sure you've done your character sheet right— there is no math more difficult than counting, none of these "freebie points" that require you to put more thought and effort into personalizing your character.

I hate that there are only seven virtues and seven vices and they all just happen to be judeo-christian. The little blurb that all cultures everywhere value these same ideals is an excuse and a lie. I'd much rather have a fatal flaw than a "deadly sin" type vice, and fortunately my ST is letting me experiment with that idea.

I recognize that WW is moving (still) more towards the level playing field mode than the bigger badder monster mode of game design, and that's why character creation is less flexible. I recognize that min-maxing was a problem with idiot gamers taking tons of flaws in order to have umpteen extra attribute points and a willpower of ten or whatever. But the answer to that is not to design the system so that can't happen, and incidentally those players and storytellers who find flaws fun also can't use them to any real effect. It's for storytellers to not let that happen.

That said, I'm having a little more respect for the setting of the new Mage than I did at first. Granted I haven't read much about it, but I'm intrigued by the notion of the exarchs and the watchtowers. I think this game will go well no matter the system challenges, because I suspect I've fallen in with a really good group, so I'm looking forward to it. But I'm grouchy.

"In my day we had to count up all our freebie point expenditures at the end of character creation— sometimes by hand! And then, our storyteller had to come along and count it all up again! Just to make sure we weren't cheating! And if we were, she'd make us strip naked and run twenty miles... in the snow! Uphill! With D4s taped to the bottoms of our feet!"

14:28 / 23.09.05

shiny shiny goodness... it's so pretty... the production values have always been good but this is fabulous. The style is great too- the top of the back is a Blake quote ("If the doors of perception were cleansed...") and also includes the phrase "Your imagination is as real as your fist". Duuuude...

I love the way they've moved the metaphysics more toward the Tree of Life model and a fiveway tension rather than threeway, too. Off to read it and drool now. Never mind playing it, reading it is good enough for me.

Bard: One-Man Humaton Hoedown

21:16 / 26.09.05

Been playing it for nearly a month now on the White Wolf mod chats. Its a solid game. And a whole lot of fun.

...though you COULD use the cover and a flashlight to signal low flying aircraft for landing.

My one, and pretty much only, gripe is that Mages are, defensivly, gods. A starting level Mage can cobble together 5-6 points of Armor in a 2-3 round period (more if he took three Arcana at 2, less if he took one Arcanum at 3). If he has a round or two without being hit, he can basically make himself nigh invincible to physical harm. And do it Covertly. Without spending any Mana (if he has all three sheilding spells).

Otherwise, game play is nice. The BIG advantage of the magic system is that you CAN cast spells with 1 success.

To explain:

In Ascension Revised, you basically used your Successes-1 to build your spell. You ALWAYS lost that first success to activate the spell. The first success bought you a 1 turn duration, and basic effect. BUT if you wanted to attack someone, you needed at least THREE successes.
Success 1= Lost to activate the spell
Success 2= needed to target another person
Success 3=needed for the first pair of damage dice

Basically combat magic was useless unless you had a really high Arete or were willing to just hammer away at someone in a way they couldn't Soak. Similarly, shielding spells were difficult because it was never clear how half of them worked. DId they remove successes, increase the difficult to hit you? It was never clear.

Now, if you had knowledgable players (like me), and a knowledgable ST (like the ones I often had), the game worked just fine because everyone was willing to just run with things. But the learning curve for new players was hilariously bad.

Ascension was possibly one of the greatest RPGs ever made. But it was NOT newbie friendly.

Awakening seems to solve that problem. The system is a lot more straight forward, not to mention well defined. Its very versatile, but it patched up, resealed, and painted over most of the big cracks in the old system. Now 1 success WILL work for a combat spell. Its a magic system designed entirely around 1 sucess, in 90% of situations, being enough to activate a spell completly. Its brillaint!

14:45 / 30.09.05

Having read more, I'm heartbroken to admit... I don't like it. The best thing about Ascension was the lack of lists of rotes, this is mostly lists and lists of 'Forces 3= go invisible rote' 'Forces 3= control fire rote' and such. I appreciate there should be a bonus for using a tried and tested spell, but it seems like a way to prevent powergaming. Which wouldn't work. I don't like it.

..but it's so pretty *weeps*.

Bard: One-Man Humaton Hoedown

05:26 / 01.10.05

400 pages of pretty shiny. You could use it as a lure for ravens, and watch the poor birds break their spines trying to carry it back to their nest.

I don't mind the rotes lists. I find them helpful and fitting with the game. And I can STILL annoy my STs with questions ("Can I use Death 2 to sterilize my Mage's doctors bag, allowing him to perform surgery in any situation?"), and some of the rotes are just plain COOL. I like the fact that the rotes actually play a system-based role in the game now, whereas they used to just be spells. You didn't need to learn them, they were just different ways of thinking about using your Sphere levels.

20:59 / 04.10.05

soooo . . .

are there any cool villains?

where does the conflict come from?

what are the stories mainly about?

i am thirsty for knowledge!

17:32 / 06.11.05

So has anyone started a game of this then, hows it going?

Having read it I like the way that the various enemies of the houses are put together, the Seers of the Throne being magic quislings who fight over interpretations of what those 'on high' want them to do is a nice change to the Technocracy. I also like the Puppeteer aspect they have, they remind me more and more of the 'conspiracy' ala the Invisibles and I think the game is better for it. Nice to see the new improved Tremere about as well.

One thing I'd like to have some feedback on is how the new magic system works, I have no idea how a lot less conjunctional magic (needing more than one sphere) will affect a game. It all seems to be a lot clearer explained than the Ascension system, which I remember caused a lot of page turning when we needed to work out some rules.

14:53 / 25.11.05

Defend this game!

I used to own the previous editions of Vampire and Werewolf, so I guess I was expecting something similar in writing style and layout here, maybe even improvement.

But I can't get through the first thirty pages.

Part of this may have been my interpretation of the previous edition, which seemed like magic was a part of the world we were already in. In THIS book, it seems as though the whole point is that magic as we know it is just a bleed from some otherworldy realm the atlanteans cracked. And by 'awakening' today, you're actually leaving behind the real world, and THAT's why your parent's don't understand you and you don't have any friends.

It seems it is either intentionally or accidentaly aiming itself at an embittered goth sensibility. I understand that half the reason to play most RPG's is become somebody or something you aren't in real life, but this exclusion of the 'real world' or the 'unawakened' seems to be an attempt to put up a wall.

Before everyone hates me here, I also want to add that I hadn't played the previous Mage books, and it seems as though everybody on this thread is aquainted with the previous editions. I'm reacting to what I perceive as an editorial change in the development of their books. I am not, repeat, NOT calling you emittered goths, if only because it seems your interest in the book is part of following the successive iterations of the setting and the game.

Having a healthy interest in real-world magic, I think it chafes a bit to hear that wicca, or thelema, etc. are just pale shadows, half-truths from the REAL truth from this Atlantean Apocalypse. It seemed like you could create an enjoyable setting with what already exists in the occult, without needing to trump it with the Atlantis overlay.

To reiterate: the overlay bugs me, it seems like trumping a system that didn't need to be trumped. The editorial decisions and writing bug me, because it seems to have a focus on being different and unique, as a rationale of some kind for why 'people just don't get you.'

I'm sure there will be anger aplenty from this post, but I really wanted to like this game, and to be honest, I wouldn't mind somebody telling me why I should keep reading. At heart, I still want to like this game.

00:04 / 26.11.05

That's weird as I thought the last edition would have been more in-line of the 'Embittered Goth Paradigm' than the current one.

Compared to the last edition of Mage then the mechanics are actually a lot looser and more accomodating of 'real world magical practice' than previously. You may be trying to invoke the 'echos from the supernal world' but they're everywhere and where-ever people say they're doing magic theres a bit of truth there. This compared previously to the rather static approaches of the main traditions.

The only problem that I have with Mage at the moment is it has much less of a 'hook' to draw me in and explain the kind of games I can run with it. It really needs a GM's guide more than any of the others games to walk you through just what stuff you can do with it.

As for anger, well I'm not that wedded to WW and the NWOD to get pissed at someone dissing a system

. BTW have you tried Unknown Armies as it's the other main game that deals with Modern Day occultism that I'm familiar with, what was your reaction to that if you've seen it?

12:27 / 29.11.05

I am somewhat unsure about the new system. I don’t have any particular gripes with the Atlantis story in and of itself. Rather it feels like White Wolf has wrenched the player’s paradigms away from them.
One of the things I really liked about the WoD core rulebook was that strange tale in the intro about beings on the moon, and in particular that they quickly equivocate about it, unshackling the players from one particular perspective. On the other hand, I cannot recall any point in M:tA where they hint that Atlantis, the Supernal realms, and all that guff could just be one particular conception of magic. In one sense then, I was reading the book longing to encounter contradictions and paradoxes (certainly not Paradox!), because ultimately they would serve to liberate the reader from what is in practice such a confining world-view. Ultimately, the lack of individual paradigms is not only irritating; it clearly promotes a Eurocentric mysticism (which is also irritating). On the other hand, the mechanics are smoother and the One-Paradigm system makes it a great deal more accessible for those starting out. Laudable yes, but they really should have left the gate open wider for those who aren’t merely in the business of collecting rotes and wrestling house-pets.
What needs to happen is for another book to come out, which COMPLETELY contradicts all the background of Awakening. Then paradigms can return, and Mage might become interesting again.
I think Awakening has the potential to better its predecessor in time, but only when it’s revealed that the info given in the core-book is found to be specific to a very particular group in the world of magic.

18:04 / 30.11.05

I think you may have hit the nail there. Ultimately, the aspect of the 'better than normal people,' or the sense of 'we're all Awakened, and you all are just sleepers,' is not nearly so bothersome as the exclusivity of it. That the Atlantis paradigm is the only Truth, and everything else are refracted reflections. I wouldn't mind the orgin story so much if it was implied as whispers. "This is what our senior mages have guessed, based on fragments of legend and mystery."

Another problem I had was that just before I had purchased the gamebook, I had read this thread, which though discussing real-world occultism, made me particularly sensitive to a 'more-magick-then-thou' attitude, coupled with the 'more-important-then-I-really-am' attitude that seemed to prevail. So I may actually be just a tetch over-sensitive to those attitudes.

Was the previous edition less exclusive in it's 'origins of magic?' Or did it follow this Atlantean idea?

18:58 / 05.12.05

Having a healthy interest in real-world magic, I think it chafes a bit to hear that wicca, or thelema, etc. are just pale shadows, half-truths from the REAL truth from this Atlantean Apocalypse. It seemed like you could create an enjoyable setting with what already exists in the occult, without needing to trump it with the Atlantis overlay. Digital Hermes

I agree whole heartedly, imposing an overarching 'TRUE' paradigm was a dreadful mistake, ruining the best feature of the game for me.

Was the previous edition less exclusive in it's 'origins of magic?'

Fuck yeah, every Tradition had different creation myths and disagreed violently even within the sect about them, and every Mage had their own ideas about it (just like life). There was a kind of Joseph Campbell style metamyth (a trinary of Stasis, Dynamism and Entropy i.e. Creator Preserver & Destroyer influences) but there was no mention of Atlantis or the other nonsense about Dragons.

I'm heartbroken, I love Mage like I love my frontal lobes but this re-jigging has reduced it to just another RPG with a shiny cover and an unnecessarily detailed background. Digital Hermes, I'd advise getting hold of 2nd Edition and using 'The Awakening' as a sourcebook for single sphere rotes.

Tom Tit's Tot: A Girl!

22:47 / 06.12.05

this re-jigging has reduced it to just another RPG with a shiny cover and an unnecessarily detailed background

This is exactly why I started running a Mage: The Ascension game a while ago. It seems to me that White Wolf is doing this with it's WoD 2.0 line - taking some of the best bits of the old games and stabbing them with a rusty fork. It makes me cry, it does.

Rumor says that the Justin Achilli proposition for Changeling 2.0 went down like a lead balloon. Thank fuck they shan't be raping the corpse of my favourite game, really.

Actually, do we even have a thread for Mage: The Ascension? If not, we need one.

13:42 / 08.12.05

We certainly do, I'll bump it now and we can all reminisce about the glory days and how to pronounce Arete...