Mage:the Awakening is out. Opinions?

[Starman]

Why, for the love of god, is this game worth spending money on?

Uh, 'cause I like it.

 

[eyebeams]

What a strange assertion to make. Speaking as a working journalist, rhetoric-by-dictionary isn't a particularly stinging thing to toss out there. Journalists are craftsmen. They may do their trade in a workmanlike fashion or spectacularly, but it at the end of the day, it's craftwork.

This is not significantly different from any other form of writing. Quoting the dictionary is poor rhetoric and writing regardless of one's approach.

http://www.rscc.cc.tn.us/owl&writingcenter/OWL/Definition.html
http://www.iolani.honolulu.hi.us/Keables/KeablesGuide/PartThree/Letters/D.htm#dictionary

Quoting the dictionary is generally regarded as an example of poor craft and argument.

 

[eyebeams]

As for noble or admirable, I wasn't talking about what the player characters do, I was talking about the vision of the designers.

That's funny; I thought the important thing about RPGs was what the characters did.

Mage: The Ascension is about observational and perceptual reality, subjective versus objective truth, and the clash of philosophy between faith and reason.

Mage: The Awakening is about wizards throwing spells at each other.

Mage: The Awakening is actually about Gnosticism. The two games are about at par when it comes to hurling spells, except that Awakening's system math actually works.

As for conquering the universe... well, that's the problem. In short, mages in Ascension tried to change the world. Mages in Awakening merely try to conquer it, a much less original goal. It is far easier to own the world or to rule over people than to change human nature. Ascension had the loftier goal.

Actually, mages in Ascension tried to change the world by killing their enemies -- unless you're talking about a Bizarro-version of the old game that's a product of your imagination. Sure, mages *ought* to strive for something more, but that hasn't changed in the new game, where Mage PCs are enjoined to live morally -- unlike in Mage: The Ascension, where killing scads of people contained no particular moral weight.

Yes, Ascension was developed to have nasty people fighting nasty people and your characters crushed like ants in a children's sandbox. There was some things that needed revision. But, as I said, you threw out a whole mess of baby with the bathwater, and there really isn't much in the new Mage that hasn't been done before.

There isn't much of anything that hasn't been done before. Even the old Mage was a derivative work.

Hell, the gameplay of Awakening is fundamentally the same as In Nomine or GURPS Technomancer.

Except for the completely different setting and system.

The magic system is extremely similar to the one found in Children of the Sun, quite frankly.

It's also quite similar to the one used in Mage: THe Ascension. Which do you think had more effect on its design?

You keep referring to the loss of the metaplot as some sort of redeeming factor - yes, the metaplot sucked. Who used the metaplot anyways, though? People weren't brought to Mage because of Dante or Porthos but because it was an interesting, unique concept with good mechanics (that could be ported to other settings and other genres) and you've replaced it with a mediocre concept with mediocre mechanics. That's what I'm attacking here.

Well, if we want to get down to brass tacks, what you're attacking is a company you hate under a transparent guise -- by any means necessary. This was why you wished that harm or death would come their net rep. This is why you knowingly wrote a factually inaccurate review of the core, why you wrote an article about their licensing mistake for BoingBoing, why you've been involved in multiple boycott campaigns and why you're posting here, despite the fact that you don't actually game any more. This is primarily a function of your grudge and is about equivalent to Ryan Dancey's review of WFRP when it comes to honest opinion.

But to ignore this for a moment (which is a remarkably charitable thing for me to do), you're contradicting your assertion that what the characters do don't matter and that somehow, the designers feelings are what the game is about. Leaving aside the absurdity of valuaing editorial stance over how the game plays, it looks to me like you're saying that you didn't even like that about the old Mage. Given that you don't like a magic system derivative of the old game, the setting, or what example characters were like, I can only conclude you didn't like the old Mage very much. You like some game of your invention that was derived from the text of the old Mage. Given that, your unwillingness to try the same exercise with the new one is your doing -- not the game's.

But than again, you don't actually play RPGs any more, so this is probably immaterial to you, as long as you get to punish the company.

I'm saying that the basic setup of Mage the Ascension is pretty standard urban-fantasy fare - Harry Potter or Hellblazer given a paint-over - and the mechanics are your standard "To cast Magic missle, roll Stat+Skill+Mods"

I mean, that's really what you've done. Replaced creativity with standardization, replaced infinite variety with "Magic Missle."

Replaced mechanics that didn't work with those that do.

In the end, the only way you can -- and the only way you are -- justifying the design decisions of Awakening is by trying to point out all the flaws that you fixed in Ascension. You did - you fixed Mage's flaws. But in doing so, you removed anything that made Mage particularly interesting.

You seem to think I had a more central role in Awakening than I did.

So stop trying to point out the flaws in the old Mage, we're well aware of them and after years, we've learned we can work around them.

So you admit that your comparison is invalid?

Try to explain to me how this world of one-type-of-magic-fits-all is innovative.

You seemed to like it fine in the old Mage.

Why should I play Mage instead of one of the many games out there? Why should I specifically play Mage instead of the now virtually identical Unknown Armies, which doesn't have innovative magic mechanics, but certainly has an innovative worldview, or Ars Magica, which doesn't have an innovative worldview, but certainly has an intersting magic system.

Support these statements.

 

[Dinkeldog]

Okay, everyone, let's take a deep breath before posting. This should be more like a discussion and less like a debate with people trying to win points.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

This is not significantly different from any other form of writing.

Then leave the cheap shots about Funksaw's apparent profession out of it.

 

[King of Old School]

I really like Awakening much more than Ascension, and considering the latter was by far my favourite of the original WoD games, that's saying something. Awakening is more playable and more coherent -- important in a game that is meant to be played, rather than leafed through and then debated endlessly on the 'net -- and far less pretentious in its cosmology. The mechanics actually function out of the box. It doesn't render the other games in the setting a moot point. It's actually about mages, not "culture heroes" or psionic supers. As much as I liked Ascension, it was a hard uphill slog to run the game and it was a bit of a bait-and-switch for anyone who went into it looking for a game about mages (in the sense that Masquerade and Apocalypse were respectively about vampires and werewolves... Ascension was not about mages, at least not without investing heavily in a lot of supplementary material).

Malcolm (eyebeams) was responsible for a lot of what I did enjoy in Ascension, and his involvement with Awakening hopefully portends that those few problems I have with the game (mostly, the lack of depth and cultural diversity represented in the Orders) will be rectified. In all cases, I'd advise against taking seriously the commentary of anyone who self-admittedly doesn't play the game (or any games) and is instead motivated by an axe to grind with the publisher.

KoOS

 

[Funksaw]

Quoting the dictionary is generally regarded as an example of poor craft and argument.

Unless you were specifically asked to provide a definition. In which case, it's kind of a "duh" argument.

 

[eyebeams]

Unless you were specifically asked to provide a definition. In which case, it's kind of a "duh" argument.

I was obviously expecting you to construct a response in the context of the argument, rather than asking you to employ CTRL+C/CTRL+V.

 

[eyebeams]

Then leave the cheap shots about Funksaw's apparent profession out of it.

I'd have the same thing to say about a self-identified novelist or poet employing this tactic. Then again, as somebody who just churns out RPG material, I'm used to people saying all sorts of crazy, insulting things about what I do without a whit of remorse.

 

[eyebeams]

Malcolm (eyebeams) was responsible for a lot of what I did enjoy in Ascension, and his involvement with Awakening hopefully portends that those few problems I have with the game (mostly, the lack of depth and cultural diversity represented in the Orders) will be rectified.
KoOS

It's worth noting that the structure of Mage 1st was not very different from Awakening, in that the game had a strong central thesis about the nature of things. It accepted the Triat as objective, and featured a universal creation story. Everybody knew paradigms were false and that pure will was doing, and you admitted right out that your magical tool was only a crutch.

Like M:tAw, it avoided referring to real world belief systems. For example, the Celestial Chorus was originally designed as a wholly fictional monotheistic religion; members just pretended to buy into other faiths, but knew that they were all really "parts of the One." The Order of Hermes was not only separated from the Western Tradition, they were originally not even related to the Order of Hermes in Ars Magica; the Ars OoH was supposed to be a false front for the "real" Order.

So in many ways Awakening does return to certain roots. Whether it grows from those roots into areas covered by Ascension isn't for me to say.