Mage the Ascension Question

[Mercule]

Mage has, imho, what ends up being both the best and the worst magic system ever created. It is the worst in that, in the hands of a permissive or unwary GM, it is perhaps the most abuseable in existance. It is the best in that in the hands of the right GM, it is the most flexible and flavorful thing I've ever seen.

Truer words have never been written. Mage is open to massive abuse and rules lawyering because the magic rules are so open and dynamic. With a GM that knows what he wants and knows what he is doing, it rocks. In other hands, well... that first step's a doozy -- but it is learnable. Having players who are really into the background helps, too. I never picked up the Revised (moved back to D&D), but it looked like it made some of the paradigm (background) issues a bit clearer.

My advice, depending on finances, is to pick up the M:tA Revised core book, but none of the suppliments. Play Mage: the Ascension for the next few months, until Mage: the Awakening comes out, then switch. The new World of Darkness/Storyteller set-up is vastly superior to the old one so far, and I expect Mage will be the same story.

One of the greatest things about the Storyteller system is the way the system can easily be pushed into the background. Also, only the GM needs to understand much about the game at all. I've run several campaigns where the players brought neither dice nor character sheets to the table -- in fact, they usually don't even know their stats. I make the characters based on player input and write up dossiers for the players. There is no other system that I'd feel comfortable in doing that. But that's a technique I don't recommend to newer GMs.

 

[King of Old School]

As for the original question, I'd go with the WW version unless you're already a GURPS 3e player. The two versions share the same setting but the games are radically different because system is a key part of Mage, moreso than any other World of Darkness game IMO. If you like GURPS 3e and the assumptions which underlie that system, then you may prefer the GURPS version of Mage but otherwise I'd stick with the system that best matches the designers' vision of the game. I'll only be discussing the WW (Storyteller) versions here.

(Also, the WW corebook may be out of print, but the GURPS version has been out of print even longer... did you just happen to see an old copy on the shelves of your FLGS? It's very old, based on the 1st edition of Mage.)

There are three editions of Mage: 1st edition has wild ideas but is largely impenetrable as a game, I'd avoid it unless you're a very experienced GM with at least a minor in philosophy. The 2nd edition is arguably the most popular and features the most open version of the setting -- perhaps too open, it's hard for many people to wrap their heads around the sheer scope and decide what to do with it. The misnamed Revised Edition (it's a 3rd edition in every meaningful way) attempts to narrow the focus of the game to enhance playability, with very mixed success that was badly hobbled by some atrocious editing and development choices in the corebook. Revised has probably inspired more internecine flamewars than any other RPG. To be fair, it's the version with the clearest writing and easiest-to-understand magic system.

All of the versions are quite challenging conceptually and I'd recommend them only to gamers with a solid GM who is confident in making on-the-spot judgement calls regarding the application of rules; the magic system would be an utter nightmare to play with a group that had a problem with rules-lawyering. It's very open and freeform, which can be a strength or a weakness depending on how you use it. It also requires that the players are willing to invest some time and effort to define their characters beyond "I'm Bob the Wizard" as the rules integrate character concept into the system (Paradigm). No uniform list of spells like D&D here, you actually have to think about your character's beliefs and how those translate into magical abilities.

If you can find it cheap and are really eager, I'd suggest getting either the 2nd edition or Revised from eBay. But if you can wait, your best bet is to purchase the World of Darkness corebook and then wait for Mage: the Awakening which is (tentatively) scheduled for a Gencon release. The new edition of the game should be dispensing with some of the more problematic cosmological bits of the old game and if the new Vampire and Werewolf games are any indication, the new Mage should work a whole lot better than the old game.

KoOS

 

[Arravis]

King of Old School wrote: "1st edition has wild ideas but is largely impenetrable as a game, I'd avoid it unless you're a very experienced GM with at least a minor in philosophy."

Interestingly enough this is the only I've run and I loved it. Of course I've been DM'ng since 1983 and have a minor in philosophy (my major was in graphic design ).

 

[the Jester]

I enjoyed flirting briefly with Mage. I really, really like the free-form magic system, but it takes a while to get the feel for what kind of stuff you can accomplish. But with a good dm, it's a really fun game.

 

[Crothian]

From RPGNow:

"Mage -- the game where a bunch of angsty goths, crystal-rubbers, environmentalists and katana-freaks join together to save the world from the evils of electric light, sanitation and mass transit."

well, it's not wrong....

 

[Rel]

My opinion is this (and others may differ): It takes a certain kind of player and GM to get the game to work well and quite frankly I doubt you'd have much luck at all with a group of much more than 4 players. I've run several Mage campaigns over the years and the absolute best one was probably the first one that I ran as a solo game. Another that worked well (though not perfectly) had 4 players, one of whom was very casual about his attendance and getting into things.

This game explores some pretty heady territory and encourages a LOT of interactions with a wide variety of NPC's. It also divides up the character concepts into some fairly distinct "traditions" that have very different goals, philosophies and motivations. The more of these you throw into the mix the more chaotic the group tends to become and the harder it is to keep them focused on both the specifics of their PC's and the issues they are confronted with in the game.

We recently ran a Mage: Dark Ages campaign and it folded after half a dozen sessions despite the GM and the players all very much wanting it to work. It was largely because of the issues I've listed above.

I'm not trying to scare you out of running it because it is great fun when it is going well. But I doubt that I would ever try to run it with the 6-player group I've got right now.

 

[Krypter]

Mage is a great freeform game if you're an experienced GM. It has a lot of flavour, great background, interesting occult tidbits and a great world-spanning conflict of monumental proportions. It's also pompous, overwrought and imcomprehensibly metaphysical.

I ran a long game of Mage several years ago and it was tremendous fun, but difficult to adjuidcate. The rules are often so vague that any university student can find some loophole. I'm referring to 2nd edition, as I never read Revised edition. Towards the end of the campaign arc it became difficult to distinguish the players from superheroes/gods. :/ But we did have some great (though sophomoric) philosophy arguments.

I recommend it, but only if you're comfortable putting the smackdown on potential rules lawyers and willing to experiment with a lot of strange magic. I mean, you can smoke this stuff, but it sure gets the creativity flowing.

Finally, yeah, most people tend to side with the Technocracy, myself included. I mean, who really wants a revolution against indoor plumbing?

 

[Tiberius]

I love Mage. It was my favorite WW game for many years, until I picked up Exalted about a year and a half ago. Having found this thread late, many of the other posters made the points I would have. For my part, I recommend mixing the setting from Second Edition with the magic system from Revised, if you can. The 2E setting is much richer, IMO, as the designers took steps in 3E to attempt to limit the game to Earth and its Near Umbra, getting rid of many of the really cool aspects of the setting in the process.

Also remember that, like most WW books, it was written with a subjective point of view. The portions of the book that go on about the Technocracy being evil, faceless, soul-deadening imaginationless automata are more or less the Superstitionists' Traditionalists' sour grapes. OurThe Technocracy's view is that they seek to protect humanity from the supernaturals who prey upon the unwary and those would would reduce Humanity to the status of serf, sacrifice, or worse while bringing the benefits of Enlightened Science to the world.

The game only really works when all the players and the ST are familiar with the rules. Tossing people in with insufficent preparation does a disservice to the more complex aspects of the game. I find one of the more problematic aspects of character definition to be getting people to come up with their own paradigm under which their magic functions. If you have any Hermetics in the group, bringing a philosophy minor wouldn't be out of line.

 

[wingsandsword]

You know how people say that 3rd Edition D&D was written so that just about anyone can GM is since it's got a rule for everything. . .

Now Mage is the opposite of that. It's probably the hardest game to GM I've ever seen. It requires an experienced GM who isn't afraid to say "No" to his PC's, and the PC's and GM should have a good understanding of what the expected power level and tone of the campaign is up front. It can be a huge lot of fun, but it's hard on the GM.

As for the "hippies and goths saving the world from sanitation" bit, that's a bit of an exaggeration. One of the main themes of Mage is that technology has gone too far, with everything being mass produced, mass-marketed, dehumanizing, oppressive, and invasive that it chips away at our privacy, freedom and sense of humanity, and the major organization the PC's are usually presumed to work for is a huge mystic society that's working to stem the tide and usher in a new age of creativity, wonder, imagination and magic. Of course, you could dispense with all that material and run whatever you want, or only touch on it, or even play one of the Men In Black defending the world against dangerous monsters and psychotic drug-using hippies trying to bring the whole system down.

I'll also agree with a lot of what's been said here, if you can get Mage: The Ascention for cheap (especially 2nd Edition) than do it and start to familiarize yourself with it, but hold on for the new Awakening game this summer. The new World of Darkness stuff has been exceptional, the quality of the game system is vastly improved, and it from what they've done so far I've got high hopes for the new Mage.

 

[AOS]

As for the original question, I'd go with the WW version unless you're already a GURPS 3e player.

Not a GURPS player, I have the Discworld RPG by them as I'm a DW fan but have never played it. Interesting to see how they rated Luggage though

(Also, the WW corebook may be out of print, but the GURPS version has been out of print even longer... did you just happen to see an old copy on the shelves of your FLGS? It's very old, based on the 1st edition of Mage.)

According to the GURPS website it's in print, although I haven't checked in the shops yet.

I'm not an experienced gamer at all, I have just started after my boyfriend persuded me to try it. At the moment we are in a RuneQuest campaign, and just about start a D&D one with a different group. But Mage looked interesting and I was hoping to give it a go at some stage. So it's ebay for me then.