Mage: The Dirty Version
You got me.
Mage: The Ascension still seems to have some legs in fandom. I haven’t done much thinking about it for a while. I haven’t played it since running “Judgment” for the Ascension book and have been pretty happy with other things: writing for Awakening, Lost, Hunter and Geist in the World of Darkness, working on various other projects and running a number of homebrews, New World of Darkness games and a whole bunch of other stuff.
But you guys still miss Ascension. I respect that. You mention my stuff quite a bit, which I find flattering. Some of you want to redo the game.
Let’s face it though. The game is very 90s. (“The future is in virtual reality!”) The systems don’t make sense (throwing a brick with Forces inflicts more damage than conjuring a frickin’ nuke).
And folks, the game wasn’t about magic versus science, no matter how much you’d like a strawman to beat because of real world tensions with real fundamentalist jerks. (Plus, and I’m sorry to say it, a few of you are basically fell for the propaganda.) All the same, this is a real, relevant tension and deserves some coverage.
Postmodernism? Ascension got that wrong, by the way. Nevertheless, some aspects of the game are still relevant — and some hit the zeigeist like a hammer. (And modern steampunk, baby!)
But you got me. I’ve been considering old ideas and remixing them with new ones. The result might not be what you were hoping for, but online noise has pushed it into action. It isn’t quite an Ascension reboot, but it leans closer to it. It’s not New World of Darkness or Old. And it’s probably foolish of me to bother with — barring a surprising email from Georgia, there’s sure as hell no money in it.
I’ll be posting about factions, systems, stuff. Not sure about the order. Eight cults. Seven Spheres. Expressions, spells and rites. Maybe some fiction.
I’m pretty sure I know Mage. I know what makes it special. So I’ll be blogging about the way I’d do it. I can’t think of a clever noun. Let’s call it the Dirty Version.
Hm. Is this something that would or could be different enough from Mage so as to not infringe on WW’s intellectual property? If so, then you could build it using your Ready2Run system. Whether or not that’d be worth your time, I don’t know, but the idea seems at least a bit interesting to me at least.
This is just a “fan” effort. My own concepts for modern supernatural roleplaying and fiction aren’t quite the same, and will probably see serious development at some point in 2010.
Well, I’ll certainly be interested in seeing that when it comes.
Sounds good to me. I’ll be watching the Dirty Version with interest.
Is the “DM as God” series over, or is there more coming on that?
No, I’ll be continuing that series as well.
Hello, I just wanted to say I love your point about the game not being about Science Vs. Magic. To me, the true game was always about Freedom vs. Control. I make a argument on my journal for it, if you’d like.
http://kensan-oni.livejournal.com/571519.html
Okay, I loved Ascension and awakening was disappointing to me. I’ll start things with that. I do get your point that it was very 90′s though.
The thing that bugged me about Awakening is that they took the mystery out of magic. I understand that to have a system where PC’s can actually DO magic there has to be some transparency there, but to totally lay out the Atlantean myth bare, “write your name” on a metaphysical tower and then support that with mechanical justification was just too much revelation and it totally turned me off. It was much better when magic was an act of will and that was that.
Personally I like the idea of a nice open free-form magic system that players can apply whatever mythos to in order to justify the magic and give it flavor. If the player wants to say his Mage derived his magic from the Pythagorean Therum, then he should be able to.
So I’m definitely going to be watching your idea closely. I’m hoping you can keep the free-form magic while keeping it mysterious, and let players choose their own personal metaphysical justification. If you do that, I don’t think there’s any way I could be unhappy.
I’m cool with both Ascencion and Awakening. The 90s thing has its place. I mean, I still like cyberpunk gaming and literature and if that’s not 80s, nothing is. Hey, whatever happened to Opening the Dark? I think that might be suitable for this (for obvious reasons.)
I like both too. Re OtD people for the most part missed the whole part where I wanted them to create their own cool, nifty things in favour of representing it in a way that put me at risk of being sued.
That’s a pity. I remember the grand mad days of Anders’ Mage Page and wished for them again. But as you say, “90s”.
Hmm – I don’t know about Mage being too 90′s. I think the stuff about it being 90′s is a result of it being written at the time of the 90′s. We could argue the new WoD is too “early 21st century” in the future. Well of course – That’s when the game was written!
I’d like to see an update of the ascension universe – a classic WoD where the metaplot was just a reflection of change rather than part of some “end of the world” event. How would the Adepts deal with the fact that Virtual Reality is no longer relevant to most people?
I’ll watch with some interest, but I’ll keep in mind that it’s not meant to be a reboot of Ascension. Furthermore, Helmsman – You about hit the nail on the head in regards to one of my problems with Awakening – for all it’s talk of mystery we’re a lot less in the dark than we were in Ascension.