Customer Reviews

Mage the Awakening (World of Darkness (White Wolf Hardcover))

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

I've run Mage: the Ascension in all three of the previous editions. I've tweaked the rules for it, including once having a huge booklet of house rules (which, ironically, were almost the exact same changes between 1st and 2nd edition.)

First, I'm a big fan of the New World of Darkness mechanics. They are cleaner, run much faster, and cause a lot less bickering with my players. Once we played for a bit, people got it.

I had to fight to prove to people that Mage: The Ascension was a playable game - but I did it.

Then came the book "Ascension," which ended the mage line, and I honestly thought it was awful. This also made it so that Awakening was going to be a tough sell for me.

The more I heard about Mage: The Awakening, the less and less I looked forward to it. But I had one on pre-order, so having already paid for it, I figured I'd give it a read when it arrived.

I've had the book for over six months now. I've been running it almost that entire time. My players range from heavy rules-lawyers types to people who hate looking into rulebooks and at most just want to know how many dice to roll so they can get this mechanics thing over with and bacl to the role-playing.

They all seem to like the new mage. As do I.

Some complaints I've heard:
1) Mage: The Awakening doesn't have Technomancers.
Tell that to the guy in my game who has been doing magic using his PDA, laptop, and various devices he's built.

2) This is like D&D magic.
Except that D&D magic doesn't let you improvise - and my players after only a few weeks were making up effects that weren't listed in the rote setions of the mage book.

3) There are no antagonists.
Except for the Seers of the Throne, the Binders, the Scelesti, and the Liches. Oh, and whatever other threats the Storyteller thinks up.

4) Magic is all westernized.
Maybe. Then again, that's a stylistic choice. Who is to say that a mage can't use Asian, African, Middle Eastern, Australian, or Native American style trappings in his workings?

5) Atlantis.
Yeah, maybe a legitimate beef. Though not one that is insurmountable - it just takes a half-minute of crativity to get through that.

What does the new mage offer?
1) Better Paradox.
Finally, Paradox is dangerous the moment you start doing something big and vulgar.

2) Clearer rules.
How much 'Mana' (quintessence) you can spend. How paradox works. What rotes do. How to resist magic. Sure, I never had problems with this when I ran the old mage, but this puts it in clear black and white so I don't have to debate every frickin' time.

3) More limited mages.
I had no problem with mages being flexible, but when you have one player who is developing a character, and another who is buying up their spheres as high as possible, the first guy felt held back and useless as guy #2 did everything magical in the game. Now, that's no longer the case. No one mage can do everything and expect to last long. I appreciate that as both a player and a storyteller.

4) More interesting antagonists.
The Seers of the Throne are just like you. They just have different goals. Their magic is the same, they view magic the same way, and it truly is just a philosophical difference between you and them.

Overall, the book is laid out well, edited fairly well for a White Wolf release, and with the exceptions of the gold specks on every page, easy to read.

As I've found out, you can't judge the game just by reading it - you have to play it to see what it truly is capable of. And having done that, it really isn't that much different from the old mage.

My fellow gamers, I've noticed, are often hidebound, conservative to a fault, and resistant to any change. Many reviewers of the new World of Darkness games reject these new ones out of hand for not being the old versions. Paradoxically, when material is similar to the old system, it's not "retained," it's "regurgitated" as if it's some kind of cheat that the company didn't change that, too. This is the same knee-jerk reactions that I have seen in every game system that undergoes a major revision, whether it turns out to ultimately be for the better or not.

Speaking as a 21-year gaming vet, and as a World of Darkness player since Vampire's first edition, I am completely satisfied with the new system and the new versions of the core games. Here is what I like about Mage, in particular.

1. Paradox makes sense. Sure, the old system was wide open, with paradigm, collective belief, who was and wasn't a 'witness' for purposes of paradox, but it was a real pain for a Storyteller at times. Not only that, but I always felt the original explanation for Paradox to be pretty lacking -- this time, as a side effect of the breaking of the world, it has an adequate explanation.

2. The paths and orders combine interestingly. Your character's political leanings now have an expression, and like everything else we humans are involved in, there are certainly factions within factions. Oddly, I find the new Mage most reminiscent of the old Vampire, with its byzantine Camarilla and its politics.

3. New antagonists. Frankly, the Technocracy always bugged me. It never worked as well as I liked to have the Technocracy as the over-arching, world-girdling, undefeatable conspiracy. Simply put, the Technocracy was simply too strong to ever be a truly defeatable enemy. On top of that, the Marauders were cartoonish, comic-book versions of 'madness', bearing about as much semblance to real mental illness as The Joker. And on top of THAT, the Nephandi (yes, they're still around... kind of) were just wretched, never believable as some kind of 'seductive' force with this irresistible allure that kept drawing in mages -- they were so obviously, cartoonishly evil that no mage with an ounce of awareness could have fallen into their clutches. This time around, you have the rather interesting Seers of the Throne, good old fashioned power-mongers; the Banishers, mages who are driven by fear and self-hatred to destroy what they are; and better, more plausible versions of both the Marauders and the Nephandi.

4. Rotes mean something. Rotes were little more than 'suggestions', with not a lot that would make them actually easier to use. Now, there's actually a game effect for something you've practiced, perfected, and done dozens of times before. I know, part of the appeal for the old Mage was that free-form system. It IS still there, but it's neither as wild nor woolly as before. For this Storyteller, it will be much easier to get along with it.

5. "Conflict" is what you make it, this time. There's no forced, product-driven, pre-made conflict that so many people seem to miss so badly. (Paradoxically, many people who profess to miss the old continuity complain that White Wolf scrapped the old continuity to make people buy more products. If that wasn't the purpose of the old continuity, what was?) Begging your pardon, but I like being provided a skeleton to flesh out, rather than a fully-formed body that only needs to be switched on. It requires more effort on the part of the Storyteller to make it go -- and that's how it should be.

6. Despite what all the disgruntled people seem to be saying, this system is not remotely like D&D. I don't know where you people are getting this. It's still flexible and imaginative, and frankly the Atlantean spin on the story is much cooler than I was expecting.

If you're a new player, or even an old player wondering about the new system, don't listen to the disgruntled fanboys. Give it a go, you won't be sorry.

Because White Wolf's updated Storyteller System is entirely abscent from this book, I won't speak to it, apart from voicing some mild annoyance that this book, despite being the "core" book to the game, is not enough on its own to play the game. In order to do so, you must buy a second book, whose content I won't review here. Instead, I would like to speak to the themes of the setting and the mechanics of magic specifically, as they comprise the entirety of the book.

As a "reimagining" of an earlier poduct, this book is inevitably going to be compared to its predecessor, Mage: The Ascension. That comparison is important not because of how it might bias the review (better or worse by comparison rather than on its own merits), but because the two products actually speak to radically different conceptions of magic. To the extent that the sourcebooks of the World of Darkness have tried to represent vast, cross-cultural swaths of the mythic and the supernatural, this is vital, in my opinion, to creating a quality product.

The original Mage was a very challenging setting because of its *complexity*, and a challenging set of rules because of their *flexibility.* This emphasis cannot be stressed enough. In many ways, these were a consequence of the extraordinarily diverse views of magic that exit in the real world. Creating a system and setting whereby tantric sex, blood sacrifice, weird science, and possession by the gods could all be captured by a single set of rules was daunting, but the designers were able to do so in a way that was able to explore unusual cultural viewpoints the reader may not have been familiar with.

The new Mage, however, seems to have corrected the wrong problems to some extent. The new setting is fairly rigid, requiring that "doing magic" be defined in terms of "casting spells." More to the point, it is a vision of magic that seems entirely derived from post-17th century European thinking on the occult. Thus, while its certainly open to the player to make a Hawaiian kahuna, the setting's new rigidity forces that character to "do magic" in a manner much more like a German occultist. The five "optional societies" are all European-style secret societies, reminiscent of the Masons or the Order of the Golden Dawn.

This can be explained by the new Mage's systematic avoidance of one of old Mage's central themes: consensual reality. In old Mage, things worked because of belief. Mages had the supernatural belief to bend or break the rules according to their own belief system. The central conflict in the setting was ideological, with various forces trying to "wake people up" to their view of reality. Throwing fireballs around was a bad idea because the collective view of reality wouldn't accept it. The new Mage is not at all about consensual reality. It is about Atlantis (or more generally, the idea of a Lost Civilization that perfected Magic was destroyed by Hubris, and the mages are the Psions of that culture). My issue is that while that is a fine myth, it's *only one myth*. A panoply of other "myths of the creation and destruction of magic" exist around the world, but the new Mage treats them as false and Atlantis as true in a way that is, to my mind, quite unfortunate.

At the same time, the game's new system for magic (in addition to being considerably weakened from its previous state, which is more a matter of taste than quality) has been made simplistic (unecessarily reducing its complexity) in such a way that completely undermines its original flexibility. The emphasis on specific, prepared effects (such as a spell for making a gun shoot silently) over generalized, ambiguous effects (such as the ability to have considerable influence on sound in general) reduces magic to a "bag of ticks."

Given the apparent overwhelmingly negative tone of my review, you might well ask, "well, why give it three stars?" The answer is that, for all of my specific dislikes, it is a well-crafted, well-balanced roleplaying sourcebook with high production values, quality editing, and a considerable amount of information. It's not a terrible book. But it *is* mediocre. But roleplaying games aren't about the art used, they aren't about the fonts or the spell-checking or the fine turn of phrase. They are about the ideas that drive story. Go online, or to any local used bookstore, and think about all of the old, beaten-up roleplaying sourcebooks for sale there, costing a pitiance. The truth is that many of them have excellent settings and systems, even though the art may be dated. And the truth about the "new wave" of expensive sourcebooks is that their ideas aren't necessarily better than what came before them.

Mage: The Awakening is perfect for someone who isn't interested in any culture but the one they grew up in, who want to play characters who are modern-day Aleister Crowleys or Adam Weishaupts. It isn't suited for anything else. As a setting, it has the heavy production value and frame-by-frame editting of a summer blockbuster, and will likely amuse for a short time and then be forgotten.

I recently picked up MAGE: THE AWAKENING to try a new game with my friends. I know that there is considerable controversy over AWAKENING versus ASCENSION; I can't speak to that, since I never was able to read or play ASCENSION. I hope that no one will hold that against me as I try to put down my thoughts about this version of MAGE.

To put my summary at the beginning, I think it is a great game and well set in the World of Darkness. I wouldn't call it primarily a game of personal horror (like Vampire) so much as a game of magical exploration. The characters have a lot of power and influence over this world, but their ability to use it is limited and the ability to use it well is even more limited. I think it is well-balanced, dealing with problems essential to worlds with magic (like why don't wizards rule the world and humans are their slaves forever?) and also withthe moral degeneration that comes from using magic to manipulate others for your benefit. There are also system and mechanical flaws, such as insufficient immersion in the Mage world and a cumbersome system for using magic. There's also Atlantis, which I'll get to in a moment. Overall, I've enjoyed both reading and playing the system and look forward to exploring the MAGE world more deeply.

I think that any review of an expensive book should start with the book itself. This is a massive tome as far as RPGs go, weighing in at 400 pages. The cover is very beautiful, with gilt lettering and a sort of holographic foil overlaid. The sidebars and some headings have gold ink text, which gives the corebook the feel of actually being an exotic grimoire and speaks to high production quality. Unfortunately, the art is not of the same standard (I guess you have to cut costs somewhere). The style for all the artwork is pencil sketches, being nothing but brown lines. While the style is, I think, less impressive than full artwork, it is the actual subject matter that I find ugly. Yes, most of the people being drawn are just ugly. Oddly, the quality seems to go up toward the end of the book (the Tremere character and the Nemean are well drawn and representtheir concepts well), but particularly the signature characters either look intentionally ugly or as if they were drawn by someone who had never met a properly-proportioned human being. When the signature characters look like someone you'd rather avoid on the street than play, then the art is not achieving its purpose.

The first chapter is a surprisingly brief explanation of how people come to be mages, the society they live in, and the social groups they join. The backstory for MAGE is Atlantis, that it was once a center of magical power and was then overthrown by the working of hubris. The social groups from Atlantis continue on the magical traditions in a fallen world. The Supernal realms (the source of magic) and the Fallen world (where we live) are now separated by the Abyss, a hole in reality. Using the wrong kind of magic (the kind that tries to overwrite the natural laws of this world) invokes Paradox, which is the Abyss being let in to the Fallen world through magic. This section really, depsearately, needed more development. In Vampire, this covered half the book. I felt that the atmosphere was undeveloped, and I had no clear idea of what mages DO with their time (which is, again, better defined in the other core books). Also, I feel that using the myth of Atlantis came off poorly. When I think of "Atlantis", what comes to mind is some white guy with an afro, wearing colored sunglasses and a shirt hanging open, discussing the power of crystals and positive thinking. I guess you go to printing with the corebook you have, not the corebook you want, but the idea of Atlantis is so hackneyed at this point that I am surprised it is so fully integrated into the system. Rather than release an alternate mythologies book (like for Vampire and Werewolf), the company released RUINS OF THE SECRET TEMPLE to more fully flesh outt he idea, so I guess we will all just have to accept it.

The second chapter is character creation. Like the other game lines, MAGE: AWAKENING requires the core book WORLD OF DARKNESS for the basics of character creation and MAGE adds the rules to take a mortal and make him/her into a will-worker. I really like the concept; at this point, I own 4 game lines plus the mortals book and it would really bug me to have all the chargen info repeated very time. This chapter has a very good example of making a character and also includes the explanations for the different paths of magic. Each path is determined by the supernal realm to which the character Awakens and influences which powers he/she can buy cheaply and which ones come hard. The relam to which you awaken influences your personality so that it is worth discussing what kind of people walk each path. If you are interested in more information on these paths, they are explained in the book TOME OF THE WATCHTOWERS.

The real meat of the book comes in the third chapter, which takes up 150 pages, and is on the rules for magic. There are 2 kinds of magic in Mage: rotes and improvised. Rotes are similar to D&D spells, in that there is a defined effect at a certain power level (it is not Vancian magic, though, in the sense that rotes are more like abilities which sometimes require energy but never disappear from your mind and don't require daily memorization). The dice pool is large, so your character is more likely to succeed. Improvised magic can do whatever you want, but the dice pools are smaller and the risk of failure is higher. Successes from your dice pool can be split to affect more targets, continue working longer, or covering a larger area. This seems pretty complicated to me (keeping track of all the modifiers) and i would have preferred some system easier to memorize. The rules for Paradox and mitigating its effects are included as well. Each oft he 10 arcana are described, as well as the powers available at ranks 1-5. A lot of rote spells are listed, and of course if you cast an improvised spell, the list of rotes is a good benchmark for what you can accomplish. Some examples of spellcasting are also given. This section is absolutely necessary for knowing how to play a character and most players would benefit from studying this section in detail.

The last main chapter is on Storytelling hints. The themes of Mage are exploration of the worold and the self, and the lure of power versus the wisdom of how to use it. There are some examples given of play hooks and ways to draw characters into a story (if you know much about mythology, then most of these are familiar). There are some sample antagonists from rival groups to Mages, artifacts left over from the ancient world (typing that sentence made me think of Nausicaa and the valley of the Wind. hmmmm...), and servants of the Abyss. This chapter wasn't so helpful, but the Appendices are absolutely essential. The first is on the Spirit world. If you haven't read Werewolf, you absolutely must read this chapter to be able to understand how interactions with spirits work. The spirit world is an important part of the mage/Werewolf cosmology and an important hook for many Mage games (not to mention the entire sphere of Spirit). My only thought is that this section is important enough that it should have been earlier in the main text. The next appendix is legacies, which are ways for Mages to craft their own souls, gaining innate magic powers. I didn't find any of the legacies that exciting (see LEGACIES: THE SUBLIME for better ones) except for the Tremere. However, the idea itself is an interesting one and I am happy to make my own. Finally, there is a section detailing Boston as a signature city for Mage play. There are some jaw-dropping secrets hinted at, which I found worthy of buying the city book, BOSTON UNVEILED. It also has a lot of potential for working in my Cthulhu supplements <evil grin>.

That's a lot of words, and I still haven't covered all of the interesting tidbits in MAGE: THE AWAKENING. I really enjoyed reading and playing Mage, and I guess my players have as well (since they are still coming back). The book certainly has some flaws, but I think many of them are compensated for in later supplements, making the game better over time. I find it pretty challenging as an entry into World of Darkness games because of the wide powers available to starting characters, but that is probably a plus to most people. I definitely recommend it to anyone playing magic in the modern day.

I got the book a couple of weeks ago and, except for some skimming through some of the mechanics, have read the entire thing twice and returned to several sections. I kept trying to NOT compare it with the previous incarnation, Mage:The Ascension, but that's impossible. They share the same name, same company, and same ideas, so comparison is inevitable. Something about the whole game and setting bugged me, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it. Then I read the above review from G. Jensen "Belarius" that threw the whole thing into focus.

Things I don't like:

- The magickal societies. They're just not interesting or compelling to me at all. The original Mage had nine main societies (the Traditions), five branches of the Technocracy, the Marauders, the Nephandi, and a collection of unaligned groups (Crafts). They were all very diverse culturally, geographically, and magickally, with distinct histories. The new version attempts to cram all the different worldviews of magick into five arbitrary and contrived Orders that all originated in Atlantis and, as mentioned in the above review, all have the exact same "post-17th century" European occult feel to them. It's as if they made an entire game system based on the Order of Hermes. Only the Mysterium sparked any interest in me, because I like the idea of "exploring the dark corners of the Earth" and hunting lost lore and artifacts, like a wizardly Indiana Jones. (My favorite Traditions from the old system, btw, were the Cult of Ecstasy, Euthanatos, and Order of Hermes).

- The Order-specific variations on spells (or "rotes"). They seem to be an unnecessary waste of printing space to me. So what if Silver Ladder mages roll, for example, Wits+Occult+Spirit instead of Perception+Occult+Spirit for a certain rote? Whoop-de-do. I know it was done for flavor, but it tastes pretty bland.

- The symbols of the Arcana ("Spheres" in the old system). It's a minor point, but the old symbols were much more distinctive, being actual alchemical symbols. The new ones are forgettable.

- The pale gold ink and cursive font used for the rote names, among other things. It's very hard to read.

Things I do like:

- The splitting of the Entropy Sphere of the old system into the Death and Fate Arcana of the new. They were kind of lumped together in old Mage to maintain numerological consistency (9 Traditions, 9 Spheres), but they're different enough to warrant their own categories and magickal effects.

- The Fate Arcanum. A very good treatment of magick that affects luck, destiny, and chance, with a lot more variety than I thought possible from this type of magick. Very interesting read with a lot of gameplay uses.

- Prime, Mana, Tass, and Hallows. One of the most confusing things about the old system for me was the method for regaining Quintessence (now Mana) using Prime magick, Tass, and Nodes (now Hallows). Even after several revisions it still seemed kludgy and unclear. In the new system it all makes sense at last. (Sidenote for anyone who has ever been to Overton Square in Memphis: does this place not feel like a Hallow?)

- Foci. No more need for a different focus for every Sphere, and penalties for not using them. Now it's just a bonus if you DO use one.

I could add lots of things to both lists, but those are the ones that stand out to me the most right now.

I wanted to like the new Mage. I tried to MAKE myself like it, because it's obvious that White Wolf put a lot of effort into this and, well, it's Mage. The production values are great, the mechanics are well thought out and clearer than in the old system, and the whole setting is very cohesive and self-consistent, hence the 3-star review. Unfortunately it's a cohesive, self-consistent setting that leaves me cold, and I find I have no desire to actually even play it. Maybe some homemade fusion of elements from the old setting with the new mechanics would entice me, but the game as written just doesn't.

This is not going to be a purist review in which I scream for changing my beloved Mage the Acension (though I do love it). Nor will this be a review attacking the grognard fear of change. I am comparing Awakening and Ascension though, because many people (myself included) read these reviews to see if the change is worth it. In this case, yes.

The Good:

The system is much better. A lot of people complain that it's a bunch of spells now, but that's not so. Improvised spells may or may not be harder (you used to role your Arete, usually only a few dice, against a variable difficulty. Now you roll Gnosis + the appropriate arcanum against a static difficulty).

Rotes that you are familiar with are a whole lot easier to cast, which is excellent. There's actually a bonus for it now, rather than simply having something to call the effect like the old days. Further, having the "pages and pages of spells" that others complained about is really handy for beginners to let them understand the wide variety of abilities conferred with each dot of arcana.

Foci provide bonuses now rather than being required. It was no fun lugging around nine different objects for my many different spheres. No more of that. Yay!

The new system in general is also more streamlined which results in a smoother game.

The Bad:

10-12 traditions are gone, replaced with five Paths that honestly function more like races or classes than philosophies of magic (some types of magic are actually harder to learn simply because you are a member of a path your character was randomly selected by the universe to be). And you don't even get as many to choose from. And as others have said, YES, the are SPECIFICALLY referred to in the book as "shamans," "necromancers," "warlocks," "enchanters," etc. It feels very much like I'm choosing a character class. Another review called the traditions "stereotypes" and paths more open ended. The paths are just as stereotyped, you just don't get as broad a range or as rich a spectrum of stereotypes. A pity, really. I miss the Sons of Ether and their mad science. Basically, the remaining paths are different versions of the Euthanatos, Dream Speakers, Verbena, Order of Hermes, and Cult of Extacy.

Atlantis?

There's no logical reason for half of what's in the book to be renamed. My guess it was done just so White Wolf could say, "no no, it's arcana, not spheres. See? It's a totally different mage!"

Gotta buy the new World of Darkness book to make characters.

The Mixed Bag:

The Orders. Roughly political parties for the mage community who all use magic a little differently and are seeking atlantis in mildly different ways. Kinda neat, though at times they seem like watered down traditions, but still handy. Unfortunately, you have to use Atlantis to use the Orders.

I see no reason why Entropy should have been split into Fate and Death other than to give the system ten arcana among five paths for an even two each. Even so, they did a decent job of splitting the sphere and it could work out well for you.

The antagonists are good. Very different from the old Mage antagonists, but you have to stick with the setting for them to make much sense.

Seriously. Atlantis?

Conclusion:

The book is definitely worth the purchase, especially if you are getting into new WoD. The magical system is much improved, even if the setting is all about the fall of Atlantis. My advice? Get the book, keep the setting, but use the paths and the Atlantis myth for other groups of mages. That way you can have Traditions, Technocracy, Nepherandi, and those who believe Atlantis existed. The two settings can co-exist just fine if you make the Atlantis myth just one of many beliefs about magic. Consider the book a much needed revision to the old system with a whole lot of additional setting content to use in your old Mage world.

I have to admit than the blurbs the White Wolf guys were handing out prior to the release of this book had me both worried and confused. Atlantis? Arcanum? Gnosis? I was skeptical and hesitant with this release but I decided to give it a try because whereas I found Requiem a little lacking in the versatility, Forsaken was far superior to its predecessor.

But I have to say now, after having read the book cover to cover, that Awakening is to the nWoD what Ascension was to the oWoD. They have all but completely changed the entire magic system, replacing the Sphere system with Arcanum and dividing one of my favs, Entropy, into Death and Fate. It can be a bit confusing at first as to what exactly can be done at each level of the Arcana but I've read, reread and read again the rules and think I've got a fairly decent grasp on it. Paradox has been streamlined and divided into five categories of worsening effects for your poor Mage that crosses the line. The ST is given a more definate understanding of what to offer players when they invoke the wrath of the Abyss and that was one thing that was needed in Ascension.

Yes, there are arguments in regards to the purveyance of the Arcanum and the possibilities within each level but patience and studiousness will get you what you are looking for. In Ascension each Sphere had a nifty description before each one telling you exactly what you could do at each level. Awakening, however, gives you a list of Practices used within each level and then under the Arcanum themselves they give example Rotes to show how the Practices are, well, put into practice.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading the book and am looking forward to being able to play the game with my group. I think that any fan of Ascension who buys and then reads the book while remembering that it is not Ascension will be able to have fun with it as well.

Disclaimer: I did not care for Mage: The Ascension. Frankly, I don't really care for ANY of the cWoD product line. So yes, I am biased. So is everyone else.

However, I feel it's important to point out how most of the people trashing the new Mage are Ascension fanboys, and/or are overly obsessed with the idea of Atlantis as presented in the core book. If the writers made one major mistake, it was choosing to call the primordial Awakened city by that particular name. So many of us, including myself, thanks to the slop that popular culture and neo-pseudo-pagans have fed us, have this image in our minds of Atalntis being some kind of crystal-gazing-brightly-colored-hippie village. White Wolf tried their best to whitewash these prejudices in later material, but the damage was already done.

Those of us, who could get past our initial twitch reflex to Atlantis, were rewarded with a setting of incredible depth and numerous correspondences to real world occultism. It has been an incredibly rewarding setting to run and play in, and each time I go back to any one of the books, I'm able to get something new and exciting out of it to work with.

I cannot recommend the Mage: the Awakening line highly enough.

Mage 3 has one great advantage over previous iterations of the game: simplicity. What you can do at given levels of enlightenment is clear in an intrinsic fashion that ties neatly together with the core mechanics of new World of Darkness (themselves greatly simplified). Resistances, especially, are reduced to a system that's brilliantly comprehensive even as it's simple enough to immediately use without reference materials. Standardization of mechanics also now makes having vampire, werewolves, etc. wandering into your campaign fairly trivial mechanically instead of the gigantic headache they used to create for the Game Master when the players inevitably went out looking for them. Clean, simple, and flexible -- even tricky stuff like divining the future and exploring the shadow worlds can be stuck into the system very easily. Mechanically the best RPG I've ever played.


However, Mage 3 has one great weakness with respect to previous iterations: simplicity. Where once players had an endless possibility, magic that worked exactly the way the player thought it should work, and an infinity of worlds to explore, there's now a couple alternate realities, magic that's formulaic aesthetically, and an origin story that a six-year-old would find underdeveloped and trite. The game used to be about being limited only by one's imagination -- if you decided your character believed that all his magic was the result of invisible flying ants, his magic literally was the result of invisible flying ants, and he could do things entirely different from his companion (with the same spheres) who thought that his magic worked by aetheric limbs extending from his shoulders. This, more than anything (even the Atlantis nonsense, which players are more or less free to ignore by rolling the "only good faction", the free council, which more or less thinks it's all BS as well) is what will make habitual players of earlier iterations feel like they've been boxed into a very small crate as a player, and may cause the dissolution of your game.

So, in summary, an excellent system, but with the unfortunate necessity of completely scrapping the background and building a setting from scratch if one's players are even marginally creative. Thus, 4 stars instead of 5.

Mage: the Awakening is a quasi-occult-derived storytelling game based in what is more or less the modern world, or more accurately, a modern world where redeeming social values are few and far between [hence the 'World of Darkness' moniker]. A Mage is one who exists in the here and now, yet who has discovered within themselves an inexorable link to the potent mysticism of the ancient world, characterised in this book as the Atlantean ideal. The stories presented in the rulebook usually detail a character's or group's journey of self-discovery fraught with the perils of jealous rivals, dogmatic secret orders, and power-hungry willworkers eager to rediscover the limitless wonder of the Supernal Realm. The path before these rogue demi-gods is seldom easy.

Having read the other reviews, its seems to me that most reviewers are comparing Mage: the Awakening to Mage: the Ascension, which to me seems unfair, as the White Wolf of yore and the White Wolf of today are basically two totally different companies. The new WW is a whole different animal, hungry for cash and willing to dumb down, particularly in the creativity department. Some highlights, without bringing up comparisons to previous titles, are in order.

Pros include...
- Okay, production value. A pro, yes, but nothing to blink at now that RPGs are mainstream.
- Detailed game world, with plenty of history drawn from aeons of human mysticism. They did do some research.
- A well-structured and balanced system of manifesting the Mage's will to power.

Cons include...
- Cost.
- Mage society as it is written is almost completely dominated by Western systems of belief, with some Eastern vocabulary tossed on in what seemed to be an afterthought. Characters that do not fit into this mould are left with few options.
- Over one third of the book is comprised of a list of rote spellcasting examples. This seems like a terrible waste of space, given that in the game world, Mages draw on unseen forces to "change common reality in accordance with their wishes", wishes that cannot be so readily charted.
- Finally, there is the peculiar absence of antagonists. Without a healthy imagination, characters will most likely be left with few story options other than the Orders' political guttersniping, bickering within the Cabal, or another spirit-summoning gone awry.

Mage: the Awakening is, in the end, a decent effort of its won accord, and it's clear that a lot of time was spent on its careful development. Probably too much. To me, it has the potential to tell exciting, tragic, and ultimately very satisfying stories. Unfortunately, collecting the puzzle pieces to this particular snapshot of reality seems an all too time- and money-consuming process. Caveat emptor.