Angel Tarragon
Dawn Dragon
I am not sure if I want to upgrade from my Mage 1.0 books to 2.0. Can someone please give me a rundown on what has changed. Also what is the good and bad in a vs. fashion. Thanks!
Mage WoD 1.0 vs. 2.0
- Thread starter Angel Tarragon
- Start date
Graf
Explorer
I’m not an expert, but I am probably a neutral party in that I’ve been interested in both and played a bit of each.
They are really different games. Two simple examples
Magic
1e Magic = belief (ala Planescape)
2e Magic is Gnostic. I.e. you can use it, but you can’t really comprehend it. Why does an iron wand help this guy work his magic…. There are reasons/theories (i.e. because he’s walked the path of the Magestos) but you don’t get to pick the reason why.
Feel
1e Grandiose (at least in the games I played) you’re part of a reality spanning conflict. People teleport cross the world, your mentor could wipe out a small city.
2e Local Horror – you’re wrapped up in politics, competing with other local mages to advance your own aims
Feel (again)
1e Magic-as-super-powers: Everybody picks their own particular brand of mysticism/spirituality/super-power shitk and then you go nuts together.
2e Virtually everybody is a wizard and thinks of themselves as such.
Main Opponents (very debatable but)
Your main opponents want to prevent awakenings (I.e. new mages from appearing) this means the game is about fighting with
1e techno-mages: Your most dangerous foes are the techonocracy who seek to produce the perfect opiates for the masses such that they never awaken or ascend.
2e Magical Slavers: Your most dangerous foes have (or think they have) the blessings of the rulers of reality. They use their own magic to control or manipulate the world around them.
Astral Planes
1e Exist outside of the mage (some other dimension)
2e Exist inside your soul (you dive “into” yourself using meditation checks to move deeper and deeper into the Gnostic-oversoul – sorta)
Also in 2e the opposition is fairly wimpy (this isn’t a bad thing per se). The technocracy was this monolithic force of godlike proportions, most of the magical strongholds were ‘off world’ in other planes of existence.
The magical slavers (called the Exarchs) aren’t all that. In the published setting books they’re just another power group in a city. Sort of powerful but not really this monolithic force (in the Chicago book it basically says that the ‘good guy mages’ could wipe them out of the city if they all got together).
So, even more so than nWoD Werewolf or Vampire, Mage is a completely different game.
Its good (I am glad I own it and would like to play) but you shouldn’t buy it wanting an “update”.
They are really different games. Two simple examples
Magic
1e Magic = belief (ala Planescape)
2e Magic is Gnostic. I.e. you can use it, but you can’t really comprehend it. Why does an iron wand help this guy work his magic…. There are reasons/theories (i.e. because he’s walked the path of the Magestos) but you don’t get to pick the reason why.
Feel
1e Grandiose (at least in the games I played) you’re part of a reality spanning conflict. People teleport cross the world, your mentor could wipe out a small city.
2e Local Horror – you’re wrapped up in politics, competing with other local mages to advance your own aims
Feel (again)
1e Magic-as-super-powers: Everybody picks their own particular brand of mysticism/spirituality/super-power shitk and then you go nuts together.
2e Virtually everybody is a wizard and thinks of themselves as such.
Main Opponents (very debatable but)
Your main opponents want to prevent awakenings (I.e. new mages from appearing) this means the game is about fighting with
1e techno-mages: Your most dangerous foes are the techonocracy who seek to produce the perfect opiates for the masses such that they never awaken or ascend.
2e Magical Slavers: Your most dangerous foes have (or think they have) the blessings of the rulers of reality. They use their own magic to control or manipulate the world around them.
Astral Planes
1e Exist outside of the mage (some other dimension)
2e Exist inside your soul (you dive “into” yourself using meditation checks to move deeper and deeper into the Gnostic-oversoul – sorta)
Also in 2e the opposition is fairly wimpy (this isn’t a bad thing per se). The technocracy was this monolithic force of godlike proportions, most of the magical strongholds were ‘off world’ in other planes of existence.
The magical slavers (called the Exarchs) aren’t all that. In the published setting books they’re just another power group in a city. Sort of powerful but not really this monolithic force (in the Chicago book it basically says that the ‘good guy mages’ could wipe them out of the city if they all got together).
So, even more so than nWoD Werewolf or Vampire, Mage is a completely different game.
Its good (I am glad I own it and would like to play) but you shouldn’t buy it wanting an “update”.
Angel Tarragon
Dawn Dragon
Thanks, Graf! I appreciate your input on the matter!
Psion
Adventurer
OMage - fundamentally inconsistent. There's been like 3 or 4 different directions they were taking mage.
NMage - they haven't had a chance to screw it up yet.
I also consider the mechanics on nWoD/nMage MUCH, MUCH cleaner than the old version, and much less fraught with interpretation questions.
NMage - they haven't had a chance to screw it up yet.
I also consider the mechanics on nWoD/nMage MUCH, MUCH cleaner than the old version, and much less fraught with interpretation questions.
Graf
Explorer
Sure, actually I was hoping to get more posts. There was some kind of pseudo-flame thread a while back between one of the uber-fanboys of the original setting and a new author where they argued. It was a bit pedantic at points but enlightening.
Psion’s (kinda cynical…) comments did make me think about something.
Personally I think that Mage is currently very unfocused.
The Mage mainbook doesn’t have much of a local feel. You’ve got the Atlantis myths, the super-humans (i.e. mages are humans with special powers, not monsters-that-look-like-men), the world-spanning organizations, powers with a huge reach (especially when you use rituals). It has some of the “you need to save reality” type stuff going on. I got a bit of Indiana Jones type feel (mages get special magical xp for going out an experiencing new supernatural phenomena, etc).
But the Boston Supplement (part of which is stuck into the back of the mainbook) is relentlessly local. It felt a lot like a vampire book actually. There is this prince of the city type guy who is really evil and he’s got this alliance with some other mages and they rule together, but uneasily and there are these Guardians (who seem to be just like the Nosferatu, they hide in the darkness and wear creepy masks instead of being ugly but its kind of the same) who want to take over the city.
People have talked about the breakdown between the kind of game that the main book seems to be setting up and the kind of game that the supplements seem to be supporting.
nWoD Werewolf, by comparison, is almost an “indy game”. The world is tightly structured and (despite a huge volume of supplements) it’s avoided ‘bolting on’ a lot of new world details.
They just stay focused on the “core werewolf behaviors” i.e. protecting your territory, policing the spirit world, fighting the pure. You can toss in a bit more (Bale Hounds, Magath, etc.) for variety but the day-to-day Werewolf lifestyle (you must patrol your territory, you must Shapechange periodically, you need to tend to and protect your locus) is very defined and it’s easy to see a tight, locally-oriented campaign fall out of those activities.
Mage doesn’t have any of that. Mages are similar to werewolves, in that they get together in groups around magical loci to share essence/mana but they don’t really do anything except jocky for position (sort of like vampires only not needing blood). I find it relatively easy to come up with fun character ideas for Mage, but relatively tricky to come up with an interesting campaign without introducing some other factor.
If you are considering getting mage you should definitely look at the online mage introduction. It won an Ennie last year (or the year before) and is very detailed an interesting (like 8 pdfs).
It’s kinda tough to find, but if you search for the mage demo on the white wolf website you should be able to dig it out.
Psion’s (kinda cynical…) comments did make me think about something.
Personally I think that Mage is currently very unfocused.
The Mage mainbook doesn’t have much of a local feel. You’ve got the Atlantis myths, the super-humans (i.e. mages are humans with special powers, not monsters-that-look-like-men), the world-spanning organizations, powers with a huge reach (especially when you use rituals). It has some of the “you need to save reality” type stuff going on. I got a bit of Indiana Jones type feel (mages get special magical xp for going out an experiencing new supernatural phenomena, etc).
But the Boston Supplement (part of which is stuck into the back of the mainbook) is relentlessly local. It felt a lot like a vampire book actually. There is this prince of the city type guy who is really evil and he’s got this alliance with some other mages and they rule together, but uneasily and there are these Guardians (who seem to be just like the Nosferatu, they hide in the darkness and wear creepy masks instead of being ugly but its kind of the same) who want to take over the city.
People have talked about the breakdown between the kind of game that the main book seems to be setting up and the kind of game that the supplements seem to be supporting.
nWoD Werewolf, by comparison, is almost an “indy game”. The world is tightly structured and (despite a huge volume of supplements) it’s avoided ‘bolting on’ a lot of new world details.
They just stay focused on the “core werewolf behaviors” i.e. protecting your territory, policing the spirit world, fighting the pure. You can toss in a bit more (Bale Hounds, Magath, etc.) for variety but the day-to-day Werewolf lifestyle (you must patrol your territory, you must Shapechange periodically, you need to tend to and protect your locus) is very defined and it’s easy to see a tight, locally-oriented campaign fall out of those activities.
Mage doesn’t have any of that. Mages are similar to werewolves, in that they get together in groups around magical loci to share essence/mana but they don’t really do anything except jocky for position (sort of like vampires only not needing blood). I find it relatively easy to come up with fun character ideas for Mage, but relatively tricky to come up with an interesting campaign without introducing some other factor.
If you are considering getting mage you should definitely look at the online mage introduction. It won an Ennie last year (or the year before) and is very detailed an interesting (like 8 pdfs).
It’s kinda tough to find, but if you search for the mage demo on the white wolf website you should be able to dig it out.
Cthulhu's Librarian
First Post
Fru, I just sent you an email re: Mage.
As one of the authors, I'll add a few insights:
Mage is a big game. I've written extensively for both versions of the game and can tell you that the old game very much suffered by lacking any grounding on how mages actually related on a day to day basis. In fact, the most detailed parts of the old setting had mostly to do with archmages and not with standard PCs at all. A book that actually talked about what mages did with their time came out quite late in line development.
The current game is a wide open field for play. There primary conflict is more subtly realized, so PCs don't have to participate in it. They can play the field locally if they like, and the game provides a structure for doing so. The idea that this is suddenly introduced in the back of the book is false.
Individual books flesh out various directions, but God help us if there's some "standard mage game," because that would be boring.
How is the Nemean "evil" exactly? He's not murdering anybody or summoning demons or anything. He also doesn't have an vampire-style "alliance" with other mages. He just belongs to a cabal. The cabal is preeminent; the book makes it clear that the Ebon Noose is where his power comes from. Contrast this with a vampire prince, who becomes the leader through gaining the fealty of elders from several clans and factions. The Ebon Noose does have a deal with another cabal and . . . something . . . but that power has little to do with the Nemean, as it's an arrangement that existed before he was even born. Vampire princes do not inherit succession this way.
One of the ironies is that the Nemean is an unpleasant character in the way a competent Kindred prince can *never* be, since the Nemean doesn't need to personally make any friends.
Go over how the Consilium works again. It's not a ported version of Vampire's government. A Hierarch and Ruling Council are more boards of arbitration than active bodies that lay down the law. That's why there are no entrenched enforcer type positions. So basically, the only similarity between the Nemean and a vampire prince is that they both are regional authorities for supernatural types.
Actually, it's noted in that section that nobody knows what the Shadow Chorus wants, as they're the cabal whose motives I left vague for proper fleshing out in your game. If you think it makes sense for them to try to sieze Boston's leadership, that's your perogative, but it's not the inescapable conclusion of what I wrote.
These comments go together really, because they're based on the same assumption that every corebook should tell you run run such-and-such a game. The center of an individual mage's life is studying and discovering magical knowledge. Mage is designed for a bunch of different kinds of games -- that's why the Storytelling section lists them off. If you need some kind of tight guidance, you might be better served by another RPG.
What I'm finding is that active play in the new game seems to be far more commonly represented than for the old game. Ascension had this problem where the most vocal elements of the fanbase never actually ran chronicles but talked about how the game should be structured, inventing several levels of abstraction in discussion that effectively kept out all signs of real play. These guys where debating grand theories of reality without noticing that the rules for magic didn't make any mathematical sense, which pretty much showed you where their priorities were.
Awakening isn't really designed for people who want to read it and daydream about the cool games they might run. It's designed for people to really run sessions. That means it doesn't have strict models for what a game session ought to be like, because real games are dynamic and cut acros several themes and activities. The setting is also designed to be functional, rather than fluffy. This time around, we figured that *you* could invent the fluff you needed if you had just the core, so everything derived from an in-game activity or niche instead of what somebody might think is cool to daydream about. If you over-analyze it before playing and taking charge of the material you lose part of the charm.
I ran Ascension continuously for about five years. It was a fantastic game. I've run Awakening on and off since late 2003 (from playtest onward), and I've found that it plays best when you have a group that can set their own goals -- you weave your story through the characters' individual interests.. Incidentally, the Nemean is a major PC *ally* in my game, as his unsubtle abrasiveness made him more trustworthy.
Mage is a big game. I've written extensively for both versions of the game and can tell you that the old game very much suffered by lacking any grounding on how mages actually related on a day to day basis. In fact, the most detailed parts of the old setting had mostly to do with archmages and not with standard PCs at all. A book that actually talked about what mages did with their time came out quite late in line development.
The current game is a wide open field for play. There primary conflict is more subtly realized, so PCs don't have to participate in it. They can play the field locally if they like, and the game provides a structure for doing so. The idea that this is suddenly introduced in the back of the book is false.
Individual books flesh out various directions, but God help us if there's some "standard mage game," because that would be boring.
How is the Nemean "evil" exactly? He's not murdering anybody or summoning demons or anything. He also doesn't have an vampire-style "alliance" with other mages. He just belongs to a cabal. The cabal is preeminent; the book makes it clear that the Ebon Noose is where his power comes from. Contrast this with a vampire prince, who becomes the leader through gaining the fealty of elders from several clans and factions. The Ebon Noose does have a deal with another cabal and . . . something . . . but that power has little to do with the Nemean, as it's an arrangement that existed before he was even born. Vampire princes do not inherit succession this way.
One of the ironies is that the Nemean is an unpleasant character in the way a competent Kindred prince can *never* be, since the Nemean doesn't need to personally make any friends.
Go over how the Consilium works again. It's not a ported version of Vampire's government. A Hierarch and Ruling Council are more boards of arbitration than active bodies that lay down the law. That's why there are no entrenched enforcer type positions. So basically, the only similarity between the Nemean and a vampire prince is that they both are regional authorities for supernatural types.
Actually, it's noted in that section that nobody knows what the Shadow Chorus wants, as they're the cabal whose motives I left vague for proper fleshing out in your game. If you think it makes sense for them to try to sieze Boston's leadership, that's your perogative, but it's not the inescapable conclusion of what I wrote.
These comments go together really, because they're based on the same assumption that every corebook should tell you run run such-and-such a game. The center of an individual mage's life is studying and discovering magical knowledge. Mage is designed for a bunch of different kinds of games -- that's why the Storytelling section lists them off. If you need some kind of tight guidance, you might be better served by another RPG.
What I'm finding is that active play in the new game seems to be far more commonly represented than for the old game. Ascension had this problem where the most vocal elements of the fanbase never actually ran chronicles but talked about how the game should be structured, inventing several levels of abstraction in discussion that effectively kept out all signs of real play. These guys where debating grand theories of reality without noticing that the rules for magic didn't make any mathematical sense, which pretty much showed you where their priorities were.
Awakening isn't really designed for people who want to read it and daydream about the cool games they might run. It's designed for people to really run sessions. That means it doesn't have strict models for what a game session ought to be like, because real games are dynamic and cut acros several themes and activities. The setting is also designed to be functional, rather than fluffy. This time around, we figured that *you* could invent the fluff you needed if you had just the core, so everything derived from an in-game activity or niche instead of what somebody might think is cool to daydream about. If you over-analyze it before playing and taking charge of the material you lose part of the charm.
I ran Ascension continuously for about five years. It was a fantastic game. I've run Awakening on and off since late 2003 (from playtest onward), and I've found that it plays best when you have a group that can set their own goals -- you weave your story through the characters' individual interests.. Incidentally, the Nemean is a major PC *ally* in my game, as his unsubtle abrasiveness made him more trustworthy.
Graf
Explorer
At the risk of stating the obvious I think that the new Mage is a good game. I'm not trying to ding anyone's work. At the same time I do beleive certain things about the game based on having read it, and one or two suppliments for it. In particular the Boston book.eyebeams said:
And that is basically that it's still a game struggling to find a compelling theme.
Obviously the old-archmage thing wasn't so cool. The new towers theme is better.eyebeams said:
The second line seems like subtle jab at the first edition but the nWoD still hasn't answered the question at all.
What -do- mages do with all their time?
I've read several books and, except for the main mage book, it's been hard to get an idea.
"search for knowledge" and "seek enlightment" isn't an answer to the question.
I largely agree.eyebeams said:
This was well executed in the main book.
eyebeams said:
Like Werewolf is boring?eyebeams said:
I think you're putting up a straw man here. You don't want to awknowledge that the Mage suppliments (or the Boston book anyway) have struggled to fulfill the promises made in the main book.
They haven't managed to evoke the dramatic supernatural elements of setting instead concentrating more on this-guy-who-is-spooky-has-forces-3.
Boston expended about half of it's pages on some fairly cookie cutter NPCs. I lost count of how many "dramatic awakenings" were X-died-and-then-they-came-back. Which is what Vampires do. It would have been cooler if it was more than "x gets hit by car, x wakes up as a mage, x is cool because they got hit by a car and then woke up as a mage".
Lots of talking about how special or interesting an NPC was, very little making them interesting and compelling.
You're making my arguement for me actually.eyebeams said:
He's identical to a "Prince". He's not evil (or more evil than a nasty PC).
But he's spooky and he rules the city and he's a jerk.
He rules the city with an alliance of another clan who don't really like him but feel obliged to work with him.
He's more sterotypically Prince-like that most of the Princes in the Vampire books.
It's an OK archetype to toss out, and there are some interesting options later on in the Boston book (but ones that would in fact, make him someone who deals with horrible demons, so I'm not sure where that comment came from)
SO... he doesn't have an alliance.eyebeams said:
Wait! He DOES have an alliance.eyebeams said:
[And it says several times that this alliance is why he rules the city. One way or another his alliance includes roughtly a 3rd of the mages in the city. etc. etc.]
This is what I'm talking about with the confused stuff.
You're writing a suppliment.
You need to pick.
You can have a sidebar that offers an option but at the end of the day you've written a story and a setting and you need to get off the fence.
Werewolf makes it clear that Max Roman wants to make a new werewolf society. That's something solid to sink your teeth into.
Nemean is just an evil guy who rules the city using his web of alliances to compell other
He rules his city through fear, but doesn't want anything except to be in charge.
Long live the Prince...
The other nWoD books have NPCs that are interesting. The Mage book offered a lot of material to do that.
I think that these sorts of things -will- be made in time, but that the authors need to get away from the Vampire meme and more toward the back of the Boston book (which had a more creative slant and seemed to be working to answer the question of "What do mages do all day?" by saying "Traveling into their inner selves to discover hidden truths".
Uh. Vampire princes are peoples friends?eyebeams said:
I feel a bit silly trying to have a debate on this subject.
That is what you're saying right?
That vampire princes have to go make friends with people?
If, after writing a roleplaying suppliment, you feel that the big way that you've contributed to WoD is by having a slightly different mechanism for ruling a city then I think you're aiming too low.eyebeams said:
And I see this as punting.eyebeams said:
If you can't come up with something interesting for them to do; and they represent an entire order which seems like a bit of a stretch, then I think you should leave them out.
If you -can- think of soemthing for them to do other than "plot in their extradimensional fortress to take over the city" then you ought to write it in.
The idea that people need the writers permission to change things in game suppliments is a bit of baloney.
And a weird exuse to trot out when you're also talking about how Mage is -already- open.
-If- people are free to do whatever they want with the Superior New Mage then why are you only writing part of a book and leaving the rest for "storyteller creativity"?
I'll leave the "if you don't get it you aren't cool enough" type comments alone. I realize my post may have hit a nerve and it's a very-good-thing to have a responce from an author, especially one whose worked on both editions.
Cool. As a supporting figure he'd be much more effectiveeyebeams said:
In a lot of DnD games I've run I find PCs respond better to having allies that are simpistic sterotypes.
It allows their characters more space to shine.
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Graf
Explorer
I know it's bad form to do two posts but just to give a 10,000 foot view.
Mage covered a lot more distance than the other nWoD books in getting to where it is now.
Unlike the other games (especially Werewolf) it dumped about 80% (completely non-scientific estimate) of it's prior setting.
That's cool. The game is much improved, etc.
WW staff/authors/etc churned out the three books quickly and I (and I think a lot of other people) were impressed.
But some of the recent suppliments (including parts of Boston) didn't manage to hit the goalposts set by the main book.
And, this has left Mage, relative to the other games, a bit lacking in terms of having a clear direction/theme.
Mage covered a lot more distance than the other nWoD books in getting to where it is now.
Unlike the other games (especially Werewolf) it dumped about 80% (completely non-scientific estimate) of it's prior setting.
That's cool. The game is much improved, etc.
WW staff/authors/etc churned out the three books quickly and I (and I think a lot of other people) were impressed.
But some of the recent suppliments (including parts of Boston) didn't manage to hit the goalposts set by the main book.
And, this has left Mage, relative to the other games, a bit lacking in terms of having a clear direction/theme.
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