Mage: Ascension vs Awakening

[ProfessorCirno]

Why?

Geist is the counterpart to Wraith and Mummy (sorta)

Wraith was grim and gritty to the point of having an actual Angst stat.

Geist on the other hand is built off of Carnival and El Día de los Muertos. You've died and come back - so eat, drink, and be merry, for you've already seen beyond! Why worry about stress when you're so alive? Sure, it's about death, but it's about celebration too - less woe is me wangst, more audacious jazz funeral. The opening fiction is titled "Rum is the Drink the Dead Like Best" That's not to say the game doesn't have horror - just look at the arbiters and law enforces of the Underworld, the Kerberoi, and their Lovecraft-mixed-with-Clive-Barker feel.

 

[Hereticus]

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

What... no love for the Nephandi?

 

[Hereticus]

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!

We had an incredible old mage game going, getting to an arete of 6 and all seven players reaching one sphere at five and another four. The epic highlight of the game was when we had our three character groups (mage, vampire & werewolf) descend on Mexico City at once.

 

[pawsplay]

This is not what I'd call a positive selling point.

I haven't read all the supplementary material - I'm simply going on the basic book. It seems to me that while in theory you could have some dark stuff happening, the goofy magical system would make such seem a bit incongruous, to me. Especially the first edition - "Now, to complete my fell magics I will... make moose antlers at you! Mongamongamong!"

Talk about your vulgar magick.

 

[Umbran]

Talk about your vulgar magick.

That would be the "Flip 'Em The Bird" bunk

 

[Votan]

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

That was one of the wonderful things about that game -- there was a real sense that the technocracy was doing the wrong thing for the right reasons. It made for wonderful conflict and plots.