Customer Reviews

GURPS Mage: The Ascension

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This GURPS supplement is derived from White Wolf's Mage game, from when that game was in its first edition. It adapts White Wolf's much more free-form magic system into GURPS mechanics. It's not really compatible with the (then) pre-existing magic system for GURPS, as this version is far more powerful, and if your GURPS game mixes genres, old-style wizards and magic-user types are liable to feel ripped off, as they will have paid more character points for less power.

I feel that this adaptation captures much of the feel of the original White Wolf game, while adding the ubiquitous game-mechanics of GURPS in an appropriate manner. Much of what makes the White Wolf version hard to play is the absence of hard-and-fast system rules. The GURPS version attempts makes up for that without eliminating the open-ended feel of the original magic. In the end, a compromise is reached. This version strikes a balance between total game mechanics-oriented and free-form story-oriented magic.

Mage The Ascension was a fairly groundbreaking game, to me. Just like the GURPS version of Vampire the Masquerade, Steve Jackson's shot at transporting a White Wolf game to their system just did not seem to measure up, which was a shame, as integrating that into other areas of GURPS would have been pretty cool. An example of an attempt that failed.

No offence to Robert M. Schroeck, but just buy the original game. The GURPS version is good, but seriously the game was designed under a COMPLETELY different dice mechanic. The original Mage the Acension is VERY good, with a huge amount of support, most of it quite good. So if you want to play a Mage game, buy the original. But if you want REALLY powerful Magick Users in your GURPS campaign get this book.