Celebrate 20 Years of Changing Reality in Mage the Ascension
March 4, 2014 by dracs
World of Darkness is, arguably, my favourite RPG setting and soon we will once again be able to step into that world as reality manipulating mages as Mage the Ascension goes to Kickstarter for a Deluxe Edition.
For those of you who are knew to the World of Darkness or simply haven't played this one before, Mage the Ascension is part of the classic World of Darkness settings. Players take on the roles of mages, mystical beings with the ability to manipulate reality according to their traditions and loyalties.
As with the previous 20th Anniversary editions for the other World of Darkness games Vampire the Masquerade and Werewolf the Apocalypse, Mage's 20th Anniversary book brings together a bunch of material from the previous iterations and clarifies some of the rules. In its pages you will find:
• Updated profiles of the Council of Nine Traditions, the Technocratic Union, and the Disparate Crafts... with many unexpected developments.
• An epic history of magick and its factions.
• A compilation and clarification of essential and optional rules, including martial arts, vehicles, hazards, cybernetics, the Otherworlds, and far more besides.
• Overviews of paradigms, practices and tools - the focus of your Art.
• Detailed explorations of the epic concepts involved in Mage.
• Chilling looks at the Nephandi and Marauders.
• The Nine Spheres, plus their Technocratic variants.
• Old favorites and new faces from among the Awakened Ones.
• Reality Zones, Paradox, Quiet, the "coincidental vs. vulgar magick" debate, and far, far more...
• New full color original art by Michael William Kaluta, Echo Chernik, Steve Prescott, Christopher Shy, Larry MacDougall, and other classic Mage artists, as well as classic B&W pieces carefully chosen from the earlier editions.
- Mage the Ascension Kickstarter
The purposes of the Kickstarter is to bring out a deluxe edition for all you collectors. This version promises to be a leather bound, embossed hardcover, with gold edging and full colour. Essentially something to make all my fellow bibliophiles drool.
This deluxe version should look pretty awesome, taking pride of place among your collection and gathering together all the great background and rules that continues to make Mage the Ascension a popular game.
Which World of Darkness game is your favourite? Do you hope that they will bring out anniversary editions of some of the others, such as Demon the Fallen?
This WoD game is my favourite, by a country mile. A grand mash-up of The Invisibles, Matt Wagner’s Mage, and Chaos Magic. Like a lot of WW’s game’s, the mechanics didn’t support the intention, though they were somewhat innovative for the time.
The cool thing they did recently for Vampire, Mage and Werewolf were translation guides, so the old games could be run with the newer rulesets. A lot of vampire players, while fans of the older setting, prefer the more robust rules. I imagine the same could be said for Mage (it’s my opinion having run both versions of Mage).
I refuse to “celebrate” how old this game is because it only highlights how old I am.
Otherwise, yeah, this was a great game built on a really cool set of concepts. It always reminded me of the Amber RPG, which was also pretty awesome (the fluff, not the crunch. The game systems are totally different ways to approach a similar concept).
Probably my favorite RPG of all time, once you built in a few “steadier” rules on distinguishing vulgar / coincidental, when Paradox MIGHT strike, Quiet, etc. Once you got comfortable with that and your group … yeah, I honestly think this game “ruined” me for all RPGs after that. 🙂 I never really thought anything else truly compared. ONE “creative” comment, I never really fell in love with any of the Traditions. Our best chronicle took us through as “historical” Technocracy agents (Order of Reason in those days).