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<blockquote data-quote="Raduin711" data-source="post: 7913765" data-attributes="member: 15303">I am a fan of the Mage: The Ascension rpg, and in my experience, it is an example of a game that only works as a character driven campaign. The scope of what a character can do is so broad in this game, that trying to come up with a D&amp;D style challenge for the players is kind of a fool's errand. You might get a little mileage out of it, but the vast scope of what a Mage can do means that whatever web you weave will have the strings cut rather quickly.Mysteries are difficult to keep secret when your players can read minds and look into the past. Things are hard to keep out of the player's reach when they can scry and teleport. Combat? If you know you are headed into a fight, most battles are over before they began. Supplies? You can manipulate fate and bet it all on roulette and win, or turn garbage into gold.I have seen Mage GM's try to run games like this, and their plots just fall apart at the seams. It's very similar to the problems of high-level D&amp;D games.So the game has to shift to the other foot; rather than asking the GM &quot;what are we doing today, boss?&quot; it becomes &quot;Alright, so you can look through time/go wherever you want/bend fate to your will/turn trash into gold/etc... what are you going to DO with this power?&quot; So now instead of the players reacting to whatever scenario you've cooked up, you are reacting to the players. I think character-driven play is difficult for low-power characters because they lack the sort of power needed to influence the game world.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Raduin711, post: 7913765, member: 15303"] I am a fan of the Mage: The Ascension rpg, and in my experience, it is an example of a game that only works as a character driven campaign. The scope of what a character can do is so broad in this game, that trying to come up with a D&D style challenge for the players is kind of a fool's errand. You might get a little mileage out of it, but the vast scope of what a Mage can do means that whatever web you weave will have the strings cut rather quickly. Mysteries are difficult to keep secret when your players can read minds and look into the past. Things are hard to keep out of the player's reach when they can scry and teleport. Combat? If you know you are headed into a fight, most battles are over before they began. Supplies? You can manipulate fate and bet it all on roulette and win, or turn garbage into gold. I have seen Mage GM's try to run games like this, and their plots just fall apart at the seams. It's very similar to the problems of high-level D&D games. So the game has to shift to the other foot; rather than asking the GM "what are we doing today, boss?" it becomes "Alright, so you can look through time/go wherever you want/bend fate to your will/turn trash into gold/etc... what are you going to DO with this power?" So now instead of the players reacting to whatever scenario you've cooked up, you are reacting to the players. I think character-driven play is difficult for low-power characters because they lack the sort of power needed to influence the game world. [/QUOTE]

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