*OP Mage Tarot Deck Revised (Mage: The Ascension) (Cards)

Let's start off with some good things I found in the book. Much like Vampire Revised, the book was well written and a lot of the systems have been cleaned up. The Traditions each got a few more pages worth of descriptions, which was great. Each one had numerous subdivisions and they were discussed briefly, but concisely. There were a few changes in each Tradition but overall they remained the same. The magic systems were reworked extensively. The description of the spheres was detailed and easy to follow, for the most part. Most of the spheres remained the same with minor changes here and there. A lot of the more devastating effects have been toned down. Magical effects can be fine tuned by the mage by dividing successes on duration and effect intensities. Finally, the Technocratic Union was not painted as the antagonist. I felt this was a good move since it is really up to the storyteller and players to decide whom the antagonists are. Yes they can still be used as the monolithic [enemy] but the gray areas of good and bad have grown to encompass them.

Despite the many positive points used primarily to balance out Mages with the other denizens of the World of Darkness, there were also many problems with the book. One of the largest flaws was the lack of treatment of the Technocracy. The Technocracy had won the Ascension War but we got only two pages about it. Players and Storytellers will have to acquire the Guide to the Technocracy to flesh out this major faction of PC-compatible mages. Another large omission was information on the Umbra, Paradox Spirits, and Umbrood in general. This lack of information makes the Spirit sphere and possibly the Dreamspeakers somewhat PC-unfriendly. The metaplot had taken a front seat of the game. There was some dimensional storm that made piercing the Gauntlet dangerous and difficult, another blow to the Spirit Sphere. Most of the archmagi have been killed when the dimensional storm hit, which left most of the younger mages on Earth to fend for themselves with little experienced training. Doissetep and Concordia have been destroyed, but there was no information on exactly how these powerful strongholds went under. There was also the mention of some weird red star in the Umbra. I noticed this was mentioned in the Guide to the Technocracy, as well but there was little elaboration. Talismans and Devices were mentioned in the book but there was no information on how to make them.

Almost all of the omissions I mentioned above were discussed in depth in Mage 2nd Edition. Though the discussions were brief, they provided enough information for you to make up the rest of the information as you see fit. There was also less of a reliance on the metaplot, thus encouraging storytellers to weave any type of story they deemed appropriate. Though you can still do that, the metaplot has influenced many aspects of the game.

So is this book worthy of purchase? The answer is maybe. If you have Mage 2nd Edition, you probably don't need this book to run a good game. You can find a lot of the Revised systems in other core source books. If you are new to Mage than I strongly suggest you don't get this book unless you plan to purchase Guide to the Technocracy and the Book of the Worlds or the Infinite Tapestry. Get Mage 2nd Edition instead. So who should really consider getting this book? I would say people who want to keep up to date with the game and those who already have Mage 2nd Edition. Though a lot of the information was not new, I saw it more as an update to the existing system rather than a full replacement for 2nd Edition. It serves as an additional reference to the rules, which should clear up the sections that were unclear in 2nd Edition. Mage Revised wasn't a bad purchase for me because I had all of the supplements that adequately filled in all of the omitted information. But new storytellers should be aware that games that are run with only Mage Revised will be mostly limited to street-level survival games.

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Mage 2nd edition was a Universe spanning game. The revised edition seems to forget this. It makes the game very limited, and much less powered. The Technocracy (basically science wizards) has essentially won the war, and the Masters are trapped deep in the spirit world. This leaves only young mages around to fend for themselves, and teach an upcoming generation of mages the ropes. This serverely limits Mage in political games, and also in the spirit regions. The book neglects to mention most of these areas entirely. Especially the Digital Web.

Rule wise, this is all cleaned up. The damage system makes mages more fragile. Spheres are much better explained, and Paradox is finally something mages can fear! Gone are the days of shooting fireballs down mainstreet, and not caring about who gets hit. This servely limits power-gamers, but to what end? The story aspect of this game was largely weakend.

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WHAT DOESN'T WORK: Some art is cartoony, and the fiction is bland compared to the First and Second Edition material -- the intro piece in particular is simply an infodump without much entertainment value.

Rules on the backgrounds of Node and Wonder and the new trait of Resonance are intriguing, but should have been clarified in the core book or wholly moved to another publication. Inclusion of such vague rules introduces confusion into the core sourcebook. In addition, some of the changes to the Sphere rules change the Sphere interaction somewhat drastically, and adding a page summarizing those changes would have been helpful to Second Edition players.

WHAT WORKS: Rules for casting are much clearer, and the new rules on foci work beautifully. Putting a new emphasis on ritual encourages players to treat magic like magic, not psi or superpowers. Merits and Flaws are a welcome addition to the core book, and they include some wonderfully creative eye-openers. The clarification of rules governing Avatar, Arete, and accumulated successes are excellent. Aside from the omissions mentioned above, the rules are well-written and clear up a number of gray areas from Second Edition.

Expanded material on the Traditions provides a nice overview of the various factions and weaknesses of each Tradition. Each Tradition receives four pages of text that present an overview of the factions, group organization and philosophy, group drawback, and the usual stereotypes of other Traditions. The stereotypes possess far less attitude than in previous editions, but this is a minor personal quibble on my part. Each Tradition includes a new faction not presented in previous materials.

There IS a long-term plot cooking in the background now. In previous incarnations of MAGE, the Ascension War offered more of a framework than a metaplot. It was a formless war in many ways, and never seemed to carry over consistently between books. The MAGE universe seems a lot less static now, and I like the new sense of direction and momentum.

MAGE Revised presents a darker look at the MAGE setting. However, it doesn't seem that different than the old mood. Contrasting a more personal street-level flavor with the epic aspects of MAGE makes the magical side of the game that much more powerful. The book contains plenty of story ideas and is not limiting in the least. I highly recommend it.

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