Mage:the Awakening is out. Opinions?

[Psion]

Made my mage tonight. Very cool.

I've never played Mage before, but this new edition has me more interested then any pervious incarnation... So I have to ask, from anybody familiar with both systems: How does Mage stack up to Ars Magica?

The way that there is a dichotomy between improvised and rote spells SO reminds me of Ars.

Of course, it lacks that verb/noun thing, but still, that one element made me very nostalgic.

 

[Umbran]

I've been reading the new Mage rulebook. While I haven't gotten through the full rules on using magic, so far I am unimpressed with the settign information.

Putting aside, for the moment that by the rules one can come up with severe mental illness for pocketing a Chapstik without paying for it...

The WoD 2.0 core book, and the Werewolf book both do a good job of telling the story of the history of the WoD. The elements are put forth in a way that tends to hold and intrigue the reader. The world picture they paint is at least interesting to read. In the Mage book, it comes across as a dry recital of historical facts - and never mind that we are told that even the Mages don't know it's true. In writing this book, they scraped down what could have been a colorful myth down into a poorly conducted history lesson.

My next big gripe is how horribly inconsistent the book is on what Mage society is supposed to be. For example:

Mages travel from their sanctums only when necessary, to seek magical power or new mysteries, or to forge the occasional (often temporary) alliance with another mage who has something they need. The entirely of teh spiritual realm may be open for their exploration, but mages usually see little of our world byond their own chosen ground

Compare this to later on the very same page:

While a rare few mages might spend their days contemplating their navels and the awesome secrets of the universe, most mages are in teh thick of things, always at ground zero for the next, great momentous event

Hm. Those who are staying at home are still always at ground zero. Right. I dont' mind a little logical hole here and there, but inconsistency regarding the groundwork of scoiety is something else entirely.

Inconsistencies like this show up throughout the setting matieral. Furthermore, Mage society is asserted to have any number of qualities that make little or no sense. F'rex: we are told that, for some reason, Mages are obsessed with keeping secrets of power for themselves - but so far as I've seen, the rules don't seem to support the idea that knowledge, per se, is particularly valuable. Power is driven by XP expenditure, not knowledge that is easily passed from one to another.

Characters are expected to join one of five Orders. While not strictly necessary, a mage who doesn't join loses benefits, with no corresponding gain elsewhere. Which is okay, except that the Orders are thoroughly unoriginal and uninspiring.

I suppose all that can be overcome with a decent GM and players, but it is still a let-down.

 

[Welverin]

Characters are expected to join one of five Orders. While not strictly necessary, a mage who doesn't join loses benefits, with no corresponding gain elsewhere. Which is okay, except that the Orders are thoroughly unoriginal and uninspiring.

This might be a general White Wolf thing, and is standard for Exalted. Just about each character type in Exalted has an aligned version and an unaligned version, with the aligned version being more powerful. Further more the various character types aren't balanced at all, some are just plain better than others and that's the way it was meant to be.

The idea that all character options should balance mechanically that exists in D&D, doesn't exist with Exalted and I wouldn't be surprised if the same is true for Mage.

 

[wingsandsword]

The idea that all character options should balance mechanically that exists in D&D, doesn't exist with Exalted and I wouldn't be surprised if the same is true for Mage.

Exactly.

The "Balance is everything, everything in the game must be perfectly balanced." is a philosophical quirk largely limited to D&D/d20, and it's completely unheard of in many other games and entire genres. White Wolf has never, ever been about Balance, they've made a point of being about telling a story and developing a plotline instead of rigorously balanced character creation systems with balanced combat systems (now, as for how some games are actually, run, that's different, but that's the philosophy they state with their games).

New White Wolf is more about balance than older White Wolf was, but just because you lose out on a perk of a free merit for not being part of an Order doesn't completely break the system because you didn't get your one dot High Speech merit in exchange for not having to deal with the politics and most of the rules of being an Order mage. Oh wait, that's something balancing the lack of that little merit (and regardless of what D&D tells you, it is possible to balance a mechanical penalty with an roleplaying penalty, it's just harder because the GM has to actually enforce the penalty).

Even older editions of D&D weren't about balance (a level 1 wizard could kill an entire low-level party, no save, with a Sleep spell).

Simply put, if you go into any other game system with the D&D 3e philosophy, you will find it's not D&D.

 

[Umbran]

The idea that all character options should balance mechanically that exists in D&D, doesn't exist with Exalted and I wouldn't be surprised if the same is true for Mage.

I think that the new WoD shows a large effort from White Wolf to introduce a lot of balance into the WoD line. Many of the mechanical changes are clearly there to bring mage power into line with the power of other supernaturals, and as I look over the detailed powers, , the various Orders seem to be on an even keel with each other.

In the new Werewolf, the option of not joining a Tribe is discussed at some length, as well as what a werewolf has to do to change Tribes, and so on. I am not sure what is said in Vampire. But in Mage, while it is said that joining is voluntary, the idea of being unallied is otherwise not mentioned as far as I've seen (except in one sentence, and I have to infer it there).

 

[painandgreed]

Bought it last week but haven't had a chance to really sit down with it much. The book is so pretty that it is hard to read. Sometimes a boring font and layout help for rulebooks so you can actually read them. Read the clan & convenant equivilants for Mage and only remember that there is nothing remarkable about them. All seem to be general sort of groups that sort of do something along certain lines but no strong archetypes.

 

[Umbran]

The book is so pretty that it is hard to read.

Agreed. The section on Arcana and rotes is horrendous from the perspective of actually trying to use it. Whoever thought those fonts and colors would work for a reference section of the book needs another course or two in layout and design.

 

[eyebeams]

In the Mage book, it comes across as a dry recital of historical facts - and never mind that we are told that even the Mages don't know it's true. In writing this book, they scraped down what could have been a colorful myth down into a poorly conducted history lesson.

That's because the Diamond Orders consider it to *be* history. Taking it to myth means being more culturally specific, since what Atlantis is heavily depends on the cultural lens you view it through. Like it or not, the choice was to present a largely Western, general outline of Awakened culture so that players can talk the talk from day one without having to buy books that present one or another cultural outline. All the same, different groups of mages use terms and stories that put their own stamps on the default. Not everybody uses Greek and Latin, for instance -- but Greek and Latin are the accepted "stand-ins" for High Speech terms.

My next big gripe is how horribly inconsistent the book is on what Mage society is supposed to be.

Not really. You've quoted it out of context. Mages act more than they contemplate things, but they don't tend to go on globetrotting missions. That's all, really.

Furthermore, Mage society is asserted to have any number of qualities that make little or no sense. F'rex: we are told that, for some reason, Mages are obsessed with keeping secrets of power for themselves - but so far as I've seen, the rules don't seem to support the idea that knowledge, per se, is particularly valuable. Power is driven by XP expenditure, not knowledge that is easily passed from one to another.

I invite you to reread the rules for rotes. It's impossible to formulate a new rote without being a Master of its Arcanum. Novel rotes are thus hard to come by.

Furthermore, rapid XP accumulation *depends* on secret knowledge because that's the source of Arcane Experience. If you don't encounter bizarre supernatural phenomena/lore, you don't advance as rapidly. Far from not being supported, this is hard-coded into the rules.

Characters are expected to join one of five Orders. While not strictly necessary, a mage who doesn't join loses benefits, with no corresponding gain elsewhere. Which is okay, except that the Orders are thoroughly unoriginal and uninspiring.

I expect support for mages with other origins will be along in time (which will probably just reiterate what any reasonably intelligent person could make up in a few minutes, as the Order bennies all use a tranparent structure for their advantages). In any event, I'd appreciate some content to your critique of the Orders, rather than a conclusion with no examples.

 

[Psion]

The rules are a lot better, but not so much better that there aren't other games out there that I'd rather play.

Well, I am a non-fan of dice pool systems. But nWoD is about as good as you can make a die pool system IMO.

But rather play has little to do with what I actually get to play.

The stars must align right for me to play a game.
- the system and character concept must be something I would be willing to play (werewolves, vampires... meh. A modern mage? Cool.)
- Someone else must be willing and competant to run it (I'm the default GM in our group.)
- And I must be satisfied with the GMs ability to run that system. The GM in question is a bit of a "canon-non-respecter". As I am not really attached to nWoD canon, that's not an issue. But I would be reluctant to play Star Wars under him again.

 

[SSquirrel]

One of the big problems I see with Mage is the magic section. I think that they would have been better off making it the last section of the book, so it's a bit easier for reference. They also really needed a better setup for breaking everything down. Original and 2nd Ed Mage had much better breakdowns for all this. Rotes were largely ignore after 1st Ed Mage it seemed like, except in the various convention books.

The big problem with the magic setup in the book is what is and is not vulgar magic. If you look at the back reference section it has a list of all the spells that are vulgar and otherwise. WHen you look at the spells in teh section there is no indicator of which type of magic it is and nothing that really shows you why it would be vulgar or coincidental.

It almost feelsl ike they tried to shoehorn the D&D setup of knowing a select # of spells etc into NWoD. I realize they say anyone can cast something they don't know, provided they have the proper knowledge, but it's harder to cast. I'm fine with that, it sort of makes sense for how they have it setup. But then, they severely limit what you can know and making new rotes, etc. Hell, if you do manage to design a new one you have to burn a permanent Willpower point. WTF!?


I like the concept of the new system, but I'm still not sure I'll ever run it. Which makes me sad b/c I've been hoping for a beter version of Mage since they tanked the system with Revised. Guess I'll just have to keep playing 2nd Ed Mage and Aberrant.

Hagen