Mage: The Awakening, A Storytelling Game Of Modern Sorcery [ハードカバー]

I've run Mage: the Ascension in all three of the previous editions. I've tweaked the rules for it, including once having a huge booklet of house rules (which, ironically, were almost the exact same changes between 1st and 2nd edition.)

First, I'm a big fan of the New World of Darkness mechanics. They are cleaner, run much faster, and cause a lot less bickering with my players. Once we played for a bit, people got it.

I had to fight to prove to people that Mage: The Ascension was a playable game - but I did it.

Then came the book "Ascension," which ended the mage line, and I honestly thought it was awful. This also made it so that Awakening was going to be a tough sell for me.

The more I heard about Mage: The Awakening, the less and less I looked forward to it. But I had one on pre-order, so having already paid for it, I figured I'd give it a read when it arrived.

I've had the book for over six months now. I've been running it almost that entire time. My players range from heavy rules-lawyers types to people who hate looking into rulebooks and at most just want to know how many dice to roll so they can get this mechanics thing over with and bacl to the role-playing.

They all seem to like the new mage. As do I.

Some complaints I've heard:

1) Mage: The Awakening doesn't have Technomancers.

Tell that to the guy in my game who has been doing magic using his PDA, laptop, and various devices he's built.

2) This is like D&D magic.

Except that D&D magic doesn't let you improvise - and my players after only a few weeks were making up effects that weren't listed in the rote setions of the mage book.

3) There are no antagonists.

Except for the Seers of the Throne, the Binders, the Scelesti, and the Liches. Oh, and whatever other threats the Storyteller thinks up.

4) Magic is all westernized.

Maybe. Then again, that's a stylistic choice. Who is to say that a mage can't use Asian, African, Middle Eastern, Australian, or Native American style trappings in his workings?

5) Atlantis.

Yeah, maybe a legitimate beef. Though not one that is insurmountable - it just takes a half-minute of crativity to get through that.

What does the new mage offer?

1) Better Paradox.

Finally, Paradox is dangerous the moment you start doing something big and vulgar.

2) Clearer rules.

How much 'Mana' (quintessence) you can spend. How paradox works. What rotes do. How to resist magic. Sure, I never had problems with this when I ran the old mage, but this puts it in clear black and white so I don't have to debate every frickin' time.

3) More limited mages.

I had no problem with mages being flexible, but when you have one player who is developing a character, and another who is buying up their spheres as high as possible, the first guy felt held back and useless as guy #2 did everything magical in the game. Now, that's no longer the case. No one mage can do everything and expect to last long. I appreciate that as both a player and a storyteller.

4) More interesting antagonists.

The Seers of the Throne are just like you. They just have different goals. Their magic is the same, they view magic the same way, and it truly is just a philosophical difference between you and them.

Overall, the book is laid out well, edited fairly well for a White Wolf release, and with the exceptions of the gold specks on every page, easy to read.

As I've found out, you can't judge the game just by reading it - you have to play it to see what it truly is capable of. And having done that, it really isn't that much different from the old mage.

My fellow gamers, I've noticed, are often hidebound, conservative to a fault, and resistant to any change. Many reviewers of the new World of Darkness games reject these new ones out of hand for not being the old versions. Paradoxically, when material is similar to the old system, it's not "retained," it's "regurgitated" as if it's some kind of cheat that the company didn't change that, too. This is the same knee-jerk reactions that I have seen in every game system that undergoes a major revision, whether it turns out to ultimately be for the better or not.

Speaking as a 21-year gaming vet, and as a World of Darkness player since Vampire's first edition, I am completely satisfied with the new system and the new versions of the core games. Here is what I like about Mage, in particular.

1. Paradox makes sense. Sure, the old system was wide open, with paradigm, collective belief, who was and wasn't a 'witness' for purposes of paradox, but it was a real pain for a Storyteller at times. Not only that, but I always felt the original explanation for Paradox to be pretty lacking -- this time, as a side effect of the breaking of the world, it has an adequate explanation.

2. The paths and orders combine interestingly. Your character's political leanings now have an expression, and like everything else we humans are involved in, there are certainly factions within factions. Oddly, I find the new Mage most reminiscent of the old Vampire, with its byzantine Camarilla and its politics.

3. New antagonists. Frankly, the Technocracy always bugged me. It never worked as well as I liked to have the Technocracy as the over-arching, world-girdling, undefeatable conspiracy. Simply put, the Technocracy was simply too strong to ever be a truly defeatable enemy. On top of that, the Marauders were cartoonish, comic-book versions of 'madness', bearing about as much semblance to real mental illness as The Joker. And on top of THAT, the Nephandi (yes, they're still around... kind of) were just wretched, never believable as some kind of 'seductive' force with this irresistible allure that kept drawing in mages -- they were so obviously, cartoonishly evil that no mage with an ounce of awareness could have fallen into their clutches. This time around, you have the rather interesting Seers of the Throne, good old fashioned power-mongers; the Banishers, mages who are driven by fear and self-hatred to destroy what they are; and better, more plausible versions of both the Marauders and the Nephandi.

4. Rotes mean something. Rotes were little more than 'suggestions', with not a lot that would make them actually easier to use. Now, there's actually a game effect for something you've practiced, perfected, and done dozens of times before. I know, part of the appeal for the old Mage was that free-form system. It IS still there, but it's neither as wild nor woolly as before. For this Storyteller, it will be much easier to get along with it.

5. "Conflict" is what you make it, this time. There's no forced, product-driven, pre-made conflict that so many people seem to miss so badly. (Paradoxically, many people who profess to miss the old continuity complain that White Wolf scrapped the old continuity to make people buy more products. If that wasn't the purpose of the old continuity, what was?) Begging your pardon, but I like being provided a skeleton to flesh out, rather than a fully-formed body that only needs to be switched on. It requires more effort on the part of the Storyteller to make it go -- and that's how it should be.

6. Despite what all the disgruntled people seem to be saying, this system is not remotely like D&D. I don't know where you people are getting this. It's still flexible and imaginative, and frankly the Atlantean spin on the story is much cooler than I was expecting.

If you're a new player, or even an old player wondering about the new system, don't listen to the disgruntled fanboys. Give it a go, you won't be sorry.

I got the book a couple of weeks ago and, except for some skimming through some of the mechanics, have read the entire thing twice and returned to several sections. I kept trying to NOT compare it with the previous incarnation, Mage:The Ascension, but that's impossible. They share the same name, same company, and same ideas, so comparison is inevitable. Something about the whole game and setting bugged me, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it. Then I read the above review from G. Jensen "Belarius" that threw the whole thing into focus.

Things I don't like:

- The magickal societies. They're just not interesting or compelling to me at all. The original Mage had nine main societies (the Traditions), five branches of the Technocracy, the Marauders, the Nephandi, and a collection of unaligned groups (Crafts). They were all very diverse culturally, geographically, and magickally, with distinct histories. The new version attempts to cram all the different worldviews of magick into five arbitrary and contrived Orders that all originated in Atlantis and, as mentioned in the above review, all have the exact same "post-17th century" European occult feel to them. It's as if they made an entire game system based on the Order of Hermes. Only the Mysterium sparked any interest in me, because I like the idea of "exploring the dark corners of the Earth" and hunting lost lore and artifacts, like a wizardly Indiana Jones. (My favorite Traditions from the old system, btw, were the Cult of Ecstasy, Euthanatos, and Order of Hermes).

- The Order-specific variations on spells (or "rotes"). They seem to be an unnecessary waste of printing space to me. So what if Silver Ladder mages roll, for example, Wits+Occult+Spirit instead of Perception+Occult+Spirit for a certain rote? Whoop-de-do. I know it was done for flavor, but it tastes pretty bland.

- The symbols of the Arcana ("Spheres" in the old system). It's a minor point, but the old symbols were much more distinctive, being actual alchemical symbols. The new ones are forgettable.

- The pale gold ink and cursive font used for the rote names, among other things. It's very hard to read.

Things I do like:

- The splitting of the Entropy Sphere of the old system into the Death and Fate Arcana of the new. They were kind of lumped together in old Mage to maintain numerological consistency (9 Traditions, 9 Spheres), but they're different enough to warrant their own categories and magickal effects.

- The Fate Arcanum. A very good treatment of magick that affects luck, destiny, and chance, with a lot more variety than I thought possible from this type of magick. Very interesting read with a lot of gameplay uses.

- Prime, Mana, Tass, and Hallows. One of the most confusing things about the old system for me was the method for regaining Quintessence (now Mana) using Prime magick, Tass, and Nodes (now Hallows). Even after several revisions it still seemed kludgy and unclear. In the new system it all makes sense at last. (Sidenote for anyone who has ever been to Overton Square in Memphis: does this place not feel like a Hallow?)

- Foci. No more need for a different focus for every Sphere, and penalties for not using them. Now it's just a bonus if you DO use one.

I could add lots of things to both lists, but those are the ones that stand out to me the most right now.

I wanted to like the new Mage. I tried to MAKE myself like it, because it's obvious that White Wolf put a lot of effort into this and, well, it's Mage. The production values are great, the mechanics are well thought out and clearer than in the old system, and the whole setting is very cohesive and self-consistent, hence the 3-star review. Unfortunately it's a cohesive, self-consistent setting that leaves me cold, and I find I have no desire to actually even play it. Maybe some homemade fusion of elements from the old setting with the new mechanics would entice me, but the game as written just doesn't.