Mage: Ascension vs Awakening

[Mercule]

As others have said, Awakening has significantly better mechanics, but Ascension had stronger fluff. I'm not sure I'd call Ascension's fluff "better", though, just because I strongly dislike technomagic and the Technocracy is difficult (at best) to marginalize in Ascension.

For Ascension, with or without the Technocracy, you have a fairly compelling system for exploring worldviews, philosophy, and the nature of self using the nature of reality as proxy. As a philosophy minor in college at the time of the original publishing of Ascension, I thought it looked fairly interesting. In practice, however, it only took one player who didn't want to navel gaze to break things.

That isn't to say it's wrong to not navel gaze, just that a lot of the rules issues that were fixed with Awakening make the game more difficult to break. A lot less is left to vague questions of paradigms and "what does your character believe".

My recommendation is, if your group is fairly into character-building and open to philosophy and metaphors, Ascension would probably be a pretty fun game. Doubly so, if you want to reflect on how technology can starch the soul or how your worldview can affect the way you do things.

If you just want to play wizards in the modern world, and don't care if everyone has personalities and motivations that require some fairly deep thought from the players, then Awakening is probably a better choice. Awakening has the capability to add some of the paradigm-oriented pieces from Ascension, along with the variety of magical traditions. It just doesn't assume them. An experienced GM could probably duplicate the Ascension fluff, almost exactly, with Awakening. It'd take effort, but (IMO) it takes a fair amount of effort to hold an Ascension game together, anyway.

 

[lightgun_suicide]

Thanks for the replies.

As it happens I've acquired virtually the entire Ascension back catalogue of books from a friend (the amount of splatbooks and fluff is daunting, this campaign won't start for a while). This has effectively made the decision for me, the first campaign I run will be Ascension although having read more into Awakening I would love to run an Awakening game at a later stage. I can't comment on the mechanics but I'm new to both in any case so it doesn't matter too much.

 

[ShadowDenizen]

As others have said, Awakening has significantly better mechanics, but Ascension had stronger fluff. I'm not sure I'd call Ascension's fluff "better", though, just because I strongly dislike technomagic and the Technocracy is difficult (at best) to marginalize in Ascension.

I'm an "Ascenion"-er all the way; I think the quality of the books they put out make it some of the best of the oWoD material. And "Guide to the Technocracy" remains one of the best RPG sourcebooks [/i]ever[/i] IMHO.

This has effectively made the decision for me, the first campaign I run will be Ascension although having read more into Awakening I would love to run an Awakening game at a later stage. I can't comment on the mechanics but I'm new to both in any case so it doesn't matter too much.

Keep us infromed of your progress; it's been quite some time since I've seen someone new take up the mantle of DM'ing Mage. I'd be curious what the learning curve is for you, and how the players enjoy it,

 

[ProfessorCirno]

oWoD vs nWoD is a funny thing all around. My views:

oMage > nMage
oVampire > nVampire
nChangeling > oChangeling
nHunter > oHunter
Promethian > Mummy
Geist >>> everything else holy crap this is awesome.
Never played either werewolf herfadurf

 

[Saeviomagy]

I found Mage: the Ascension went with the approach of occult practices of various cultures that existed out there. It was about belief and mysticism, and generally took a one-sided view of technology and modern society, until they bothered to show the Technocracy's side of the story.

The funny thing is that even without the technocracy books, plenty of people I knew still saw the technocracy as the good guys...

 

[kigmatzomat]

The overarching metaplot of Ascension makes it easier to align a campaign. Awakening is, IMO, a better system. Ascension 1 had issues with flavor text contradicting mechanics and Ascension 2 seemed to nerf the power of the magi, probably after mixed-setting games.

Part of the reason I like Awakening is that it is very close to the house rules I used for Awakening in the late 90s, which had been influenced by Deadlands' magic system.

Ascension's setting is much harder to get players to buy into. The line between individuality and rigid conformation is easy to identify. And, IMO, you can run either side of Ascension. Either you hunt "reality deviants" who are out to destroy the clean, healthy, well-fed, well-educated, long-lived world that most of the industrialized world lives in, or you are fighting against a rigid shadow autocracy that is destroying individuality, spirituality, and literally killing the human spirit.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

The best mechanic that Awakening has, are the Legacies. Essentially Paragon Paths or Prestige Classes for a Mage, that gives them rotes they can do freely without getting any paradox because they crafted their souls that way. It's something that I wish Ascension had.

 

[Crothian]

nChangeling > oChangeling

You got that one wrong!

 

[Jhaelen]

You got that one wrong!

Actually, it's spot on oWoD Changeling wasn't something I'd have considered playing. The nWoD version is a lot better.

For me oWoD Mage was excellent - it's one of my all-time favorite systems.
nWoD Mage is terrible. Everything I liked about the system was thrown out. I'd rather play a pure nWoD campaign (i.e. everyone playing normal humans) than Mage.

 

[Nifft]

I loved oWoD Mage. The system could have used some revision, but the setting was awesome.

I've only read nWoD Mage, but I don't much like what they did with the setting -- to the point that I haven't really given the system a chance.

I hope Ascension gives you as much fun as it gave us!

Cheers, -- N