I thought I could share my frustration with you guys... :)

Today, I received a gift: Ninth World Bestiary for Numenera. After merely thumbing though it, I fell in love with the super-crazy creatures inside... and that made me remember how frustrating Numenera is for me. I mean, the setting is genius! I really love what Monte Cook came up with it. I'd so love to GM that game... but what stops me is the system. It's supposed to be easy, but it's not. It's actually too easy, too simplistic - and quite non-intuitive, at least for me. I really wish Cook went with something more traditional...

My other frustration is with Mage: the Awakening. Today, I was reading some Mage books I have purchased at one time and I like some of the ideas there: the various threats, monsters etc. are cool. It makes me want to play the game... but then, I go back to the main rulebook and realize that I don't like the overall setting. The whole idea behind the game - Atlantean magic, the five mystic watchtowers etc - just doesn't do anything for me. It's not scary, it's not interesting... And I don't like any of the organizations for mages, either - Guardians of the Veil, the Silver Ladder etc. They are so boring...

I wish both of these games were better! I wish there was a version of Numenera for GURPS. And I wish NWoD Mage was more like the OWoD Mage...

Just thought I'd get this out of my chest...

Just a minor thing but, if you don't like the setting for a game then you can reflavor everything. I do it a lot with... almost everything I play.

Now, I will admit, I've never actually played Mage, so I don't know how inextricably bound the mechanics and the setting are, but if it's anything like the other WoD's I've experienced then it can be done. Might require some effort, but it can be done.

Don't know what to tell you about Numenera though. No experience there.

My group had the same realization about mage the awakening after a while.

But, the 20th anniversary edition of Ascension is pretty good, so we've been really enjoying that.

But yeah, life is too short for games you don't like.  Either take the time to hack it into something you enjoy, or find an alternative and maybe add on to that if it needs it.

Wait, the 20th Anniverse Ascension is out???

One of the problems with Awakening is that only two of the five orders have a vision... the other three are just servants. In Ascension every magical tradition had a goal for the world.

Wait, I'm sorry.  Didn't mean to get your hopes up.  It's out for backers of the KS, but I guess not yet for general purchase.

I checked the M20 Facebook page and it might be out soon! :)))

Anyway...

My problem with NWoD Mage is that it... misses the point completely, IMHO. The OWoD Mage gave us mages with struggles tied to the modern world and organisations modeled after real-life mystical traditions. It felt pretty convincing as a "game of modern sorcery". Meanwhile, NWoD Mage (which *is* supposed to be exactly that "game of modern sorcery") gave us mages divided into types that had nothing to do with what a modern mystic could be like, as well as organisation tied to some mythological Atlantis. Which I really can't make myself to care about it.

In a way, it's exactly the opposite of NWoD games usually are like. I mean, NWoD Vampire did away with the made-up vampire clans of Masquerade and based its vampires on existing variations of the vampire myth (vampire as a seducer, vampire as a noble, vampire as a creepy monster). Changeling did the same: all of the changeling types are based in folklore. Meawhile, NWoD Mage threw all of the real-world mythology and stereotypes pertaining to wizards and occultists away - and replaced it with something completely made up. Something that doesn't work for me, really.

Also, NWoD Mage is just not scary. I read this book and there's not a hint of horror there. It's a just a fantasy game...

And yet, I'm tempted to play it - because some of the supplements are really cool. The Unbidden has some really cool monsters... Also, I would love to play a magic user in the NWoD setting. But I can't, as mages in NWoD have to be tied to Atlantis, Atlantean orders etc. I can't just play a simple witch in the vein of Verbena...

it always depends on what you enjoy.  I actually really don't like the owod mage organizations.  They are too stratified in real world views, which makes it hard to make your own version of a mage.  What if I want to be a Japanese Shinto sorcerer, instead of the akashic?  In a similar vein to OWOD werewolf and vampire, they're too bound up in cultural/geographical boundaries.

But, like others have said, you can always ignore the background.  Use the power systems and ignore the Atlantean orders.  I think the way magic works in NWOD is a lot better, understandable, and scaled.  But that view may be tainted by many games in years past with mages trying to bend and skirt rules to make themselves ll powerful.

I think awakening CAN be scary, in a different style than vampire or werewolf.  The otherworldly enemies are perfect for lovecraftian horror, or invasion of the body snatchers type terror.  And investigating ancient magical ruins can lead to plenty of exploration/horror.  It's just a different style of game.  OWOD mage wasn't exactly terrifying either, and neither was owod changeling.  It's a different mood and theme.

Hm. See, that's something I have a problem with Awakening - I can't fit any real-world-inspired character ideas into this game's matrix of Atlantean orders and paths. The Atlantean magic is something is explicitly distinct from real-world magic, as is the Atlantean cosmology, so... how do you fit a concept like a Shinto sorcerer into it?

I'm genuinely curious: could you tell what your Shinto sorcerer would be like? Maybe I'm missing something here...

BTW. One problem I have with Awakening is that I find the paths to be limiting because of them being tied to *two* spheres instead of one, like in Ascension. In Ascension, you could easily create an alchemist mage, because there was a whole Tradition dedicated to matter magic. Meanwhile, in Awakening, you can't have that: in this game, matter magic belongs to the same watchtower as the death magic. So, you can't have a mage whose calling is just matter magic - such a character has also to be a necromancer. There's no real-life magical tradition (or even a stereotype) like that...

Also, creating a mage tied to a specific real-world school of thought was easy in Ascension, as in that game belief equalled reality. Your mage could believe in anything, because every strong belief could be a paradigm. Also, you didn't have to play a character from a Tradition - you could play an Orphan, IIRC. In Awakening, your character *has* to belong to one of the five arbitrary types and has to subscribe to Atlantean magic with its set foci etc. I see no way of fitting new belief system into it...

well, many of the awakening books, especially magical traditions, details how real world magical traditions meld with the Atlantean watchtowers.  Have to keep in mind, quite a few mages were real world sorcerers that were awakened to the watchtowers, but they would never give up the trappings of their previous lives.  That's why the game is so open to variations on foci, items, styles of magic, and stuff like that.  They aren't set, aside from material affinities.  If your characters was a Norse runesmith prior to awakening, he'd probably still focus his magic through those same runes,  he'd just have a higher understanding of where that power comes from.

in OWOD, it just feels very stereotyped to me, just like werewolf and vampire.  All Norse werewolves are bloodthirsty, all native American mages talk to spirits, all hermetics are arrogant jerks, all Spanish vampires are handsome and like darkness, etc.  It's not really how the game works, but it often feels that way when playing.

and you don't HAVE to be tied to two spheres.  ALL of the legacies force characters to get pretty proficient in spheres outside of their tower (like ascended adepts being Obrimos, but require high levels of life) and some of them require multiple out of tower paths.  The only real limitation is that each tower has one inferior sphere.  Pretty sure it's an attempt to balance characters, so that characters don't end up scattershot, or always taking the same "most powerful" spheres.

you can be an orphan in awakening too.  one good example is the rabbi NPC, who is an obrimos who was never introduced to the towers, so he simple practices qaballah.  it just depends on what type of game you want to play.  Awakening gave mages a more coherent connection and common background than ascension.  That may or may not appeal to every player.

I feel your pain.

I love the concept of Ars Magica.

But the core rule book has a whole section devoted to recapping the formulas.

Haven't seen anything like that outside of a math or engineering book.  And, EVERYTHING has a special name.

"In this situation, you need to know your character's Snerf.  (flip flip flip flip)  Snerf is your character's Quixxim plus the Trance Bias, divided by the number of Fooplers, for each month the character has been collecting Snerf.  Unless..."


Never played it.  Never will.  Books collect dust.

Just wanted to say that if you want to use NWoD mechanics with OWoD setting, the Mage Translation Guide exists and I believe can be found on drive-thru rpg. I've used it to run a technocracy game before, and it worked great.

In reply to gladiusdei (msg # 10):

I know of the Magical Traditions supplement, but I don't think I'm ready to purchase it just to see how to make the NWoD mages feel more grounded in reality. Not enough cash :( And there's no mention of real-world magic in the main rulebook - all there is this abstract Atlantean magic...

And I don't think you can play an orphan according to the main rulebook - especially as even the beginning characters have to know some rotes from Atlantean orders...

Some time ago, I tried to create a character for an NWoD Mage game. She was supposed to be this businesswoman turned hermetic-style mystic... and I just couldn't translate it into Awakening concepts. There was no watchtower that fit her, I didn't know how to justify her using hermetic magic when the book pushed the Atlantean stuff - and the book made it necessary to make her join an Atlantean order, even though that didn't fit the whole concept at all...

In reply to Eur512 (msg # 11):

Is Ars Magica that bad? I have the 4th edition (the one that is available freely now) and it didn't seem to be so full of math...

In reply to eternaldarkness (msg # 12):

I actually have the Translation Guide :) But I didn't find it too helpful yet...

there are a lot of examples of non-order connected mages in the books.  The Free Council is technically a loose organization of independent mages that reject the Atlantean concepts (and technically, the arch magic supplement made it clear that all of the magical ideas, from watch towers to exarchs, depend on what a person believes.  It's very open for storyteller interpretation, and could easily be explained as a grand hoax put forward by a few very powerful mages).  But the magical traditions book is exactly what you're looking for.  Shows how ideologies like kabbalah, voodoo, Chinese alchemy, and even Appalachian hoodoo, can all fit into the awakened setting.  Just because someone comes along and tells your character her power really comes from a watchtower set up by Atlantis, doesn't mean that she's going to change how she works, or what she believes.  She could think the Atlantis mythos is the myth, and her view is reality.  That wouldn't affect how she'd operate, and if she was free council, no one would care.

ultimately, if you don't like the system, that's fine.  Not everyone is going to like everything.  Maybe someone can run a game for you that ignores the Atlantean connection and just uses the basis of the magic system.  Or you could pick a watchtower that has one of your ideal spheres, and just go with that.  Nothing says you HAVE to focus on both, which means other than the sphere you have less affinity with, the watchtower won't affect your game concept at all.  (for instance, if you want mind and life, you could pick mastigos and just focus on mind, and then life.  As long as you don't mind not being able to focus as much on matter, you're free to go with whatever other mix you want)

That was my impression of Pathfinder actually. Still hate all things related to D&D.

I'm running a Numenera game now, and the system seems to be working fine. I call for rolls when there ought to be one, but most of the time it's not that far from freeform. I think it might seem non-intuitive if you're coming from more crunchy systems and aren't used to just rolling the same d20 representing the same thing for everything (where it only matters whether it's speed, intellect, or might if you're using edge or effort). But I gather that that's the whole point of the design - Monte Cook was tired of crunchy systems and wanted it to be as close to freeform as possible.

In reply to gladiusdei (msg # 14):

Okay, all this discussion made me pull out the Awakening rulebook. After looking through it a bit, I can say that there *are* things I like there. The main book, as well as all the supplements I have read, have some great depth. I can only hope that Mage 20 will have the same kind of philosophical meat.

On the other hand, there are some things I find limiting. For example, the paths I find are really constraining, as they basically spell out what the personality of a given path's mage must be like. For example, the Obrimos: all of them are supposed to feel empowered by and fighting for some divine instance. Basically, it seems to be that the Obrimos have to be a bit on the fantasy paladin side... you can't make an Obrimos who is selfish and not interested in any divine mission. That's a bit annoying...

In reply to Nerwen (msg # 15):

Heh, you're a bit right about D&D / Pathfinder. I was creating a D&D character once and it involved a *lot* of tables and counting...

As for Numenera - you may be right, I simply like systems that are a bit traditional. I love GURPS and Mutants & Masterminds (2E), as well as WoD games and Call of Cthulhu. The system for Numenera is quite far removed from them and I can't wrap my head around it, really...

Another problem with Numenera is that in the book, Cook is pushing this idea of the characters always being explorers and artifact hunters. It's a bit narrow concept, IMHO...

I really think you're taking suggestions as commandments.  I know it can feel that way, I agree, but it isn't designed that way.  That's the same as saying all Get of Fenris HAVE to be berserkers.  You can be a selfish, depraved, evil obrimos.  They just tend to have a more elevated sense of self and their calling.  But that calling could be to exalt themselves above all others.

but if you're into less meat and more freeform, I don't think mage is really that way.  Awakening is very crunchy.  I guess I'd recommend taking the bare bones sphere magic system and ignoring everything else.  You'd just need to find other players who'd enjoy that type of game.

I can definitely vouch for that not being a requirement. The game I'm running is all based in one city, where the PCs are seeing different parts of a detective mystery from different directions. The offline game I was in before that was a group of PCs running a shop in one city, picking up on various missions that took us to other parts of the Steadfast, and eventually we acquired a boat and were setting up to be bigtime sea merchants. It died when the GM tried to turn it into an exploration game.

Thinking back over the one time I played in an Awakening game though, I have to agree with Varsovian. I found the whole thing to be a frustrating experience - both during chargen where my character was required to also have necromancy, and then I hated the magic system for being too constraining on the kinds of things I wanted to be able to do, and was used to doing from Ascension.

Hmmmm. You know what, guys? All this Mage talk made re-read the core rulebook and... I realized that it may be not that bad as I initially thought. Weird :)