Mage:the Awakening is out. Opinions?

[GRIMJIM]

You seemed to like it fine in the old Mage.

Hmm, seems that to your mind you've based Awakening partially on a personal derivation of Ascension that doesn't seem to bear much resemblence to how it was actually played.

Once something is published its no longer really yours, the players take it and run with it.

Cosmology-wise Mage was the 'universal field theory' of the oWoD. It explained absolutely everything but not all magic operated the same way. There was not one-true-way of Magic as there is now, you could believe what you wanted and the point was that all beliefs were equally valid. It was everything and nothing. Your Mage couldn't be _wrong_ all that mattered was his belief.

Now you CAN be wrong, now there is a method and knowledge interelated with the whole 'Von-Danikenesque' background that just leeches credibility from the game far more effectively than ether-fliers ever did.

So no, I think he has a point.

I have equal or greater issues with White Wolf compared to Mr Funksaw there and those are valid concerns and problems though unrelated, necessarily, to the games (though people will tend to project their personality and beliefs through their work - so there is some correlation). I may not like the nWoD stuff very much but I do like Exalted. I think it is unfair of you to attribute ulterior motives to people just because they're criticising your work and you're getting even more of a negative reaction than Mage Revised got.

Some people aren't going to like it, others are.

IMO, people who liked the freedom and scope of the old Mage aren't going to like it. It is relatively 'bland' and flavourless compared to the old. Part of that is due to the relative lack of releases and development.

People who found the old mage too broad, too 'zany' and too free will appreciate the tighter focus, the concentration on rotes and the more traditional 'wizardly' view and will like it more.

 

[King of Old School]

My view on the nWoD (and a lot of White Wolf's more recent actions) is that they are fairly poor and my perspective on the nWoD games is different to a lot of other gamers having been involved in the Cam for so long. That means it is a skewed perspective but still one worth looking at I think.

If by your own admission you can't separate your opinions on WW from your experiences with the Camarilla -- keeping in mind that the Cam has historically had nothing to do with tabletop RPGing -- then how is your perspective worth looking at? Except as an indictment of the Camarilla, that is. It would be like me saying "yeah, I blindly hate Joss Whedon because he ran over my dog and rant about him at any opportunity, but you should pay attention to my negative review of Serenity anyway."

KoOS (who doesn't actually hate Joss and liked Serenity.)

 

[GRIMJIM]

If by your own admission you can't separate your opinions on WW from your experiences with the Camarilla -- keeping in mind that the Cam has historically had nothing to do with tabletop RPGing -- then how is your perspective worth looking at? Except as an indictment of the Camarilla, that is. It would be like me saying "yeah, I blindly hate Joss Whedon because he ran over my dog and rant about him at any opportunity, but you should pay attention to my negative review of Serenity anyway."

KoOS (who doesn't actually hate Joss and liked Serenity.)

Because it is possible to seperate digust and disappointment at one thing, from another.

"Man, this rotten jam tastes bloody terrible - therefore all jam must taste terrible" - No.

What the Cam does do is 'train' you to go by canon, what is written. As I think I mentioned above, many people go by what a game could be, rather than by what it is. We all instinctively like to fiddle around with games I think, cherry pick this and that. Is that truly a review of a game though?

 

[Infernal Teddy]

How can you go by canon in a game that
A.) Keeps on contradicting itself (like oWoD) or
B.) claims to HAVE no true canon / metaplot (like nWoD)?

 

[GRIMJIM]

How can you go by canon in a game that
A.) Keeps on contradicting itself (like oWoD) or
B.) claims to HAVE no true canon / metaplot (like nWoD)?

Interchange 'Face value' for canon if you prefer.

It was a constant problem, especially with Demon coming in under oWoD and completely overturning the metaphysics of the whole situation.

With Mage at least there is 'one true wayism' now - though that has been reduced with the other nWoD lines.

Still, you couldn't mess with things. like changing the nature/organisation/goals/name of bloodlines, covenants and so on. That's canon in this case, the information as presented.

Where there were contradictions before 'the truth' generally meant the opinion of whoever was in charge at the time.

 

[Funksaw]

Canon settings and rules are important. They're important because you're not always the GM, sometimes you're the player. They're important for larger group settings. "If you don't like it, change it" is great if you can get all the players on-board, if you can spend the time doing it...

Put another way, if someone posts on the noticeboard that they're running a campaign, they're more than likely going to be running a campaign based on what's in the book. So, the setting as established in the core rulebook -- or the canon, if you will -- is important.

 

[kigmatzomat]

I ran Mage 1, 2, and SC. 1 was an incredible setting and a surprisingly flexible magic system that at times had no relationship to the setting. 2 was a closer mesh of flavor text and mechanics but with all the splats it was cluttered. You had kung-fu theater, dark brooding assassins, cyborgs, super heros, victorian war mecha, Space Trek, sky clad druids, etc, etc. There was no genre to mage, no theme. It was simply too big to be usable.

I loved, repeat, loved MtSC. The setting was good, the magic defined but still flavorful, it was beauty. But....my players wanted their fantasy from TSR/WotC. So it died quietly. In its sleep. There was no pain.

Awakening....is a little less in your face with the setting. No more victorian war machines or naked druids. Well, not necessarily. They may exist but those people are *weirdos.*

Right now the setting is a little bland because, well, there's not a lot for it. It has options but primarily within the "world as we know it" genres. The system is flexible and scalable but it takes up a huge chunk of the book.

I like MtA but as a whole game system it is still a little incomplete. There's a lot of potential but not enough pages to flesh it out.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

But my friend (who has an MA in particle physics) thought that creating an apple was a massive violation of the laws of conservation of energy, and it would produce HUGE amounts of paradox.

The laws of conservation of energy are a Technocracy conspiracy. Your friend is a dupe, and any Awakened individual knows it instinctively. Of course apples just fall out of pockets. No paradox unless, as mentioned, you happen to have an apple in a previously empty pocket a few too many times around the same person.

 

[Funksaw]

I always used the "over the shoulder rule." Sure, it may be "impossible" to make a key in a previously unchecked location, but *if* there was a sleeper witness over your shoulder, what would he think?

 

[eyebeams]

Hmm, seems that to your mind you've based Awakening partially on a personal derivation of Ascension that doesn't seem to bear much resemblence to how it was actually played.

As part of my work for Ascension I ran and played in multiple games and monitored upwards of 20 through contacts in Mage fandom. You're a guy who hates the company. One of us knows the old and new game better than the other, I think.

Once something is published its no longer really yours, the players take it and run with it.

Sure. But we're not talking about Mage games. We're talking about the text of both games.

Cosmology-wise Mage was the 'universal field theory' of the oWoD. It explained absolutely everything but not all magic operated the same way.

No, it didn't. This was true both canonically and behind the scenes of its design, both before and after Revised.

There was not one-true-way of Magic as there is now, you could believe what you wanted and the point was that all beliefs were equally valid. It was everything and nothing. Your Mage couldn't be _wrong_ all that mattered was his belief.

Yes, your mage could be wrong. Ascension''s relativism wasn't a facile endorsement of absolute solipsism and believing that was so is an example of a poor reading, indeed. Ascension's point was that all paradigms were inaccurate -- *all* of them were wrong -- and that the process of Ascension was one where mages learned to expand their beliefs to include the ultimate truth.

Incidentally, 1st Ed went even further and said that you were wrong, period, and your beliefs were fake crutches because you were too stupid to exercise pure willworking.

Now you CAN be wrong, now there is a method and knowledge interelated with the whole 'Von-Danikenesque' background that just leeches credibility from the game far more effectively than ether-fliers ever did.

Actually, now your character can be *right* to a degree that was never possible in Ascension, becase your character has a conscious handle on the genuine process of magic.

Again, I find much of the criticism in this thread of a very low quality because:

1) It evinces a poor understanding of the texts at hand, from not even knowing how you pass on magic in the new game to not knowing what the old game's text was about.

2) Two-thirds of it come from two guy who hate the company so much communities have taken formal sanctions against them for crossing the line.

3) Worst of all, it fails to bring up any of the real, cogent criticism about the game that I've read elsewhere, to do with its focus on the Western occult tradition, Platonism and Gnosticism.

Heck, since nobody's hit that last I almost feel compelled to criticise the game myself -- as I have elsewhere. Then again, I equate criticism with analysis, not the insipid good/bad dyad that people think is critique.

I think it is unfair of you to attribute ulterior motives to people just because they're criticising your work and you're getting even more of a negative reaction than Mage Revised got.

Actually, you're criticising a structure I didn't have much input in. There's a difference between writing and development. On the other hand, I think KoOS has shed the most relevant light on your particular perspective.

IMO, people who liked the freedom and scope of the old Mage aren't going to like it. It is relatively 'bland' and flavourless compared to the old. Part of that is due to the relative lack of releases and development. People who found the old mage too broad, too 'zany' and too free will appreciate the tighter focus, the concentration on rotes and the more traditional 'wizardly' view and will like it more.

It isn't designed to satisfy somebody's relationship with the old game for good or ill. Given that the old Mage had a vocal minority of people who bought the entire line so they could whine about it at every turn -- given, in fact, that people who bought every book were the *majority* of this minority -- the fact that the new game inspires the same kind of complaints (right down to people acquiring the book despite their obvious predisposition to complain about it online, no matter the content) is most heartening.

Me, I'm working on a different game, s you ought to have the opportunity to say something about my own development skills in a short while.