Mage RPG discussion (threadjack from 4e Character in a 3E World thread)

[SSquirrel]

I welcome my Mage threadjacking overlords I miss Mage like crazy and I've almost completed my collection of Mage 2nd Ed (cuz Revised never happened and don't get me started on the NWoD version). I would have loved to see the freeform magic of Mage somehow soldered on top of D&D heh

I came to Mage with revised, having said that I don't really have a problem with Rev and never understood what people have against it. It seems perfectly useable for me in play. Although I'll agree with you on the monstrosity of nWoD Mage. Yes lets suck all the enjoyment and originality out of Mage and replace an almost infinate amount of paradigms with a spiritual CCG. Trade you two uncommon rotes for your rare one!

We can even start a Mage thread about this

By the way what do you think of Mage the Sorcerers Crusade?

So about that new thread...

Sorcerer's Crusade was interesting, esp as an exercise to see what things were like earlier in the setting and how it all come together into the different sides. Never actually got to play it. The problem w/Mage:Revised was that the Gauntlet and paradox were jacked even higher against the players. It really cut into the amount of well..anything you could try to do. 1st and 2nd Ed Mage was less actively hostile to the players. Paradox bit, but not as hard and you didn't ned 8s most places to cross the Gauntlet.

NWoD Mage codified loads and loads of +/- in the system that were previously ST optional stuff. The amusing thing was that they denied any comparison made to 3rd Ed D&D, but the similarities in that, plus the new hyper expansion of rotes was a big turn off. Previously Mage was very freeform with a few suggested rotes. Heck, 1st ed had rotes in the main book, 2nd Ed you had to get the Book of Shadows player's guide and splats for any rotes. Revised I have no idea as friend's copies showed me enough issues to reject it.

The only saving grace I've seen of the NWoD has been Changeling. The rework they gave that setting is phenomenal. I will say that I haven't picked up any Scion or Promethean, if I want supers from WW I'll just run Aberrant and the whole premise of Promethean seems kind of silly to me as from what I can tell it boils down to a bunch of Frankenstein's Monsters.

 

[stonegod]

Ahhh... Mage. Opened my eyes to the possibilities of what an RPG could be. I loved Phil Brucato's stuff; just went south w/ Heinig. If 80's was 2nd ed D&D and the 00's 3rd, the 90s were Mage for me.

The slow "Rote-ification" was only part of the main problem with Revised: It was the "screw Ascension" tone that killed what made Mage *Mage*. Of course, WW had the same metaplot problems that FR does...

I think EN Publishing's "Elements of Magic" had elements of Mage-like mechanics for 3E in that it allowed "build-your-spell" mechanics. Haven't looked at it in a while, so I don't remember the specifics. You can ask RangerWicket about it, though, as its largely his baby IIRC.

For 4E, I'd have to think about it, considering its mechanics are vastly different from Mage. I'm thinking Encounters/At-Wills/etc. would build up various "Sphere"-trees (though with a much larger granularity than the original Mage).

 

[eyebeams]

Monte Cook's World of Darkness may have what you're looking for if you want 3.5 + freeform magic.

 

[eyebeams]

Let me tell you a little story about working on Mage Revised.

Back in 2005 I was at the same convention as MageRev artist Christoper Shy. I introduced myself and we chatted, since we've both done work based on each other's stuff. This is how it went:

Shy: I felt a bit stung by the fans.

Me: I know what you mean.

Shy: I mean, the art director came to me and said, "It's a failing line. See what you can do." The fans had all these ideas about what they wanted.

Me: But they weren't buying any books.

Shy: Yeah, if you're just sitting around and not even supporting the game, why complain now?

Me: Yeah, they don't get a vote if they're not buying anything anyway.

Shy: Right.

The history of Mage Revised is:

1) People stop buying the books.
2) Storyline events destroy the majority of the setting.
3) Mage Revised gets written.

Note the order. Everybody said they loved Mage 2nd, yet nobody bought much of anything for Mage 2nd. Everybody talks about how Revised did this and that. Mage 2nd did most of it. The Horizon Realms blew up in like 1997, man. Phil Brucato is a brilliant guy. He killed Porthos and murdered your unicorns -- or at least, it happened while he was minding the store.

Now given the choice between making a game for people who inhabit message boards and don't buy or apparently even play Mage stuff much, and people who might just buy a retooled version, guess what's going to happen?

So as a result, the eventual plan was to shrink the setting a bit, then regrow it into something that might actually acquire a play community, instead of a proxy-philosophy community. Even after developers switched, it pretty much followed this game plan, though there wasn't enough time to roll everything out we wanted. Whole damn universe blew up.

Now, with Awakening, people play the thing. There's less philosophy. There's tons more people drawing situations from the game they were in last week. I think there could be more philosophy, sure -- but I want people to play it. It's a frickin' RPG, after all.

 

[Mark Hope]

Everybody said they loved Mage 2nd, yet nobody bought much of anything for Mage 2nd.

I did . I bought it all and played it obsessively from the days of 1e right the way through to the end of line. I'm still playing Ascension now (albeit with a couple of your house rules, lol). Wrapping up a mini-chronicle on Tuesday, as it happens.

Everybody talks about how Revised did this and that. Mage 2nd did most of it. The Horizon Realms blew up in like 1997, man. Phil Brucato is a brilliant guy. He killed Porthos and murdered your unicorns -- or at least, it happened while he was minding the store.

Very true. I could never understand all the protestations that Revised "killed" the game. Revised had one of the best developed set of Sphere descriptions and some truly killer Tradbooks. Sure, it had a couple of contradictory glitches here and there (healing magic, for example), but nothing that couldn't be sorted out.

So as a result, the eventual plan was to shrink the setting a bit, then regrow it into something that might actually acquire a play community, instead of a proxy-philosophy community. Even after developers switched, it pretty much followed this game plan, though there wasn't enough time to roll everything out we wanted. Whole damn universe blew up.

Yeah. Oh well. Still haven't gotten around to using the end-of-the-world stuff in any of my games. No big rush.

For what it's worth, as a result of the Ascension games that I have been running, one of the players (all new to WoD) has started his own Ascension group and another is looking to buy the core book as well. We've had a lot of fun with the philosophy side of things, but only in as much as it informs fun gaming. Aimless navel-gazing doesn't need a gaming system at the end of the day, and we're there to play games.

Now, with Awakening, people play the thing. There's less philosophy. There's tons more people drawing situations from the game they were in last week. I think there could be more philosophy, sure -- but I want people to play it. It's a frickin' RPG, after all.

I have a few of the Awakening books and steal ideas from the setting all the time (Red Word = teh awesome). I was also very impressed by the codification of the rules and the sound nature of the success-based magic system (which Ascension had but was never uniform across the board.) However in the end I found Awakening just a bit too crunchy. I decided that I preferred Ascension's looseness and general easy-going flow, and so stuck with that. Glad that Awakening's doing well, though. Plenty there to plunder

 

[Byronic]

I don't really see any "rotification" with revised. I mean, it has been a long time since I played it (or really read the books) but they seem quite easy. If you know a spell as a rote, then it's slightly easier to cast. It's well practised.

But you could easily just make your spells as you go. You could use quintessence or other modifiers to make the spell easier enough. And if it was a spell you used often enough then the storyteller just had to decide exactly how you learn rotes (which was never done well) but you could just give a combination of time and exp to learn one. I remember once seeing a table which showed how much time and experience it would take to learn abilities of a certain level. So if you had only a bit of exp but lots of downtime you could learn an ability or if you had lots of exp you could learn it in a shorter time.

Second edition didn't draw me in as much as Mage Revised, and there were a few reasons. I liked the Traditions more in Revised (they were explained better) and the stories seemed more about the characters themselves. It seemed to be that second edition was more about the Mage while Revised was more about the person who just happened to be a Mage. The setting in revised made it easier to make the players more powerful relatively because there was a good reason for the Masters and such to not be there anymore.

About Paradox though I've read enough to be able to make another system for paradox depending on the story. The main reason we seem to have paradox is to stop magi from showing the entire world "the truth" in one easy swoop. It allows the ST more control over the world through more plausible ways. It was perfectly normal for paradox erase a huge magical effect. We could replace it with an effect from Wraith or Werewolf and achive much the same goal. Of course this means that people can toss fireballs down the street and people will remember it as a gun fight or something later on and other things would have to change but it's possible. And it would solve the paradox question straight away.

 

[Jhaelen]

Everybody said they loved Mage 2nd, yet nobody bought much of anything for Mage 2nd.

Well, Mage was one of two rpg systems I've bought everything that they released (the other system was and still is Ars Magica). I even got the Tarot cards and dice...
So, yes, Mage definitely was one of the systems I liked most.

I stopped buying anything from World of Darkness when 2nd edition was released. I understand sales went down, so they probably did the right thing.

Still, I finally bought the WoD rules last year. They're okay. Not all changes are for the better, imho, but it's still a good dame. I also liked the new perspective. It looked like it might actually be fun to play a normal human being.

Then I bought Mage 2nd.ed. and was at first a bit suprised about the size of the book. Skimming though the book I noticed it was because of hundreds and hundreds of rotes. I still read the whole thing from cover to cover and I have to say:

It didn't inspire me. At all.

When reading the original Mage rulebooks I immediately had dozens of ideas for adventures and (mini) campaigns. But with the new edition: Nothing.

I may have to check out the new Changeling though. It was the system I liked least from the first edition: I loved Mage, liked Werewolf and Wraith, was indifferent to Vampire and disliked Changeling (both the setting/atmosphere and the rules).

Edit: I almost forgot about the most glaringly bad rule in the new Mage system:
Wisdom & Hubris. It absolutely kills the game. I have no idea who could possibly think that this was a good idea. Did anyone ever actually playtest this?

 

[Mark Hope]

Well, Mage was one of two rpg systems I've bought everything that they released (the other system was and still is Ars Magica). I even got the Tarot cards and dice...

Did you also get the ethergoggles? And the mug? And the t-shirt, zippo lighter, candles, temporary tattoos and Prime pin?

I have the original tarot (with the colour booklet, not the crappy b/w one that came with Revised), dice (unfortunately the crappy Revised version, not the cool ones that came out with 2e, boo!), the mug and the shirt. I doubt that there are many candles or tattoos left in existence these days!

Sigh. They were supposed to make a lifesize blow-up doll of Porthos, too, but it got cancelled...

 

[Umbran]

The history of Mage Revised is:

1) People stop buying the books.
2) Storyline events destroy the majority of the setting.
3) Mage Revised gets written.

Yes, and this is where White Wolf learned the major problem with games that use a metaplot - in practical play, many people go with the core rulebooks, and they only apply those bits of continuing metaplot that they like, if any at all. So, while you say that storyline events destroyed the majority of the setting, the fact of the matter is that those storyline events probably didn't happen in many, or even most, games in play.

So, when they changed the rules to incorporate those events that weren't used, of course there was griping - I think they weren't used for a reason. Forcing them on the players is then a bad idea. I think WW had a bit of a blind spot, in that regard - they should have done a little more research, and found out what was actually getting used, rather than assuming that their metaplot was actually the functional part of the game that should drive design.

Note the order. Everybody said they loved Mage 2nd, yet nobody bought much of anything for Mage 2nd.

Given that none of us have sales figures, I take this as an unsupported assertion from a random person on the internet. Without actual data, it is a terribly weak argument.

 

[SSquirrel]

Monte Cook's World of Darkness may have what you're looking for if you want 3.5 + freeform magic.

Yes and I do dig that system. I also have the EN Publishing Elements of Magic stuff, picked them all up on one of the cheaper buying days

Let me tell you a little story about working on Mage Revised.

The history of Mage Revised is:

1) People stop buying the books.
2) Storyline events destroy the majority of the setting.
3) Mage Revised gets written.

Note the order. Everybody said they loved Mage 2nd, yet nobody bought much of anything for Mage 2nd. Everybody talks about how Revised did this and that. Mage 2nd did most of it. The Horizon Realms blew up in like 1997, man. Phil Brucato is a brilliant guy. He killed Porthos and murdered your unicorns -- or at least, it happened while he was minding the store.

I really didn't care the Horizon Realms blew up, that was just metaplot I didn't bother with. I understand that not as many people bought Mage as they would have liked. I never understood that b/c it was a great game and I did buy lots of books for it. I'm just completing my collection b/c the used book stores here in Louisville have had most of it. Completing my wife's Changeling:the Dreaming collection tho...yeesh. Still have my 2nd ed tarot deck and dice too. I do know that a lot of people just couldn't wrap their heads around the freeform magic. Some of my friends read it and then told me the book make them feel stupid b/c they just couldn't puzzle it out, thus they didn't want to play. I didn't get to play any Mage from about '98 on b/c the group I had played with in Ohio ended and after moving to Iowa in '97 one of my friends ran some WoD stuff, but then he moved away and none of my other friends had any real interest in those games.

Now, with Awakening, people play the thing. There's less philosophy. There's tons more people drawing situations from the game they were in last week. I think there could be more philosophy, sure -- but I want people to play it. It's a frickin' RPG, after all.

I'm glad people are playing the game, but it was completely uninspiring to read for me. "Oh look Atlantis....ladders...riiiight." The new Mage groups felt flavorless compared to the OWoD Mage, rotes went from being largely ignored by WW to having a bigger spell listing than any edition of D&D. Yet somehow they claimed it wasn't copying D&D heh. Before the baseline assumption was that you were using the freeform magic system and you might know some rotes. Now it's that you know a very few rotes and you can try using the freeform sytem but it's much harder and good luck. The freeform magic system was what made Mage standout from everything else and the new setting and system just don't draw me in.

When the new Vampire was released I bought the WoD book and the Vamp book....had a similar reaction. It was alright, but a lot of things were changed just for the sake of change. Keep a clan name, but make it a complete opposite of what it used to be. Change names for a mechanical function that still works the same way. What was the point of that? Did someone from the old system have copyrights on some of those phrases or something? Mage came out and I ran right out to buy it and was sorely disappointed. I never cared for Werewolf, but I picked that up used just to have. Changeling I have bought everything that has been released b/c my wife was always a huge Changeling fan and this version is fantastic.

I love White Wolf's stuff...I have at least a shelf and a half of their material in my bedroom. The new system just left me behind and that's fine, just means I can save my money for other companies.