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Message: <blockquote data-quote="eyebeams" data-source="post: 3251607" data-attributes="member: 9225">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.</blockquote>

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