PDA

View Full Version : Anyone here play Mage the ascension?



Shinizak
2009-07-28, 12:16 PM
I'm really new to Mage the Ascension and my group want's me to run it for them. I'm still a little fuzzy on the mechanics and I'm having a difficult time coming up with an adventure since challenges and boss fights no longer have anything to do with reducing their HP to zero.

Can I have some help?

mikeejimbo
2009-07-28, 12:42 PM
Why do they want you to run it? Do any of them have any experience with it? If so, they should be running it. If not, then your job has become a lot easier - they won't have anything to compare it to.

Unfortunately, it looks like the only Quickstart rules up on White Wolf's page are for nWoD, or else I'd suggest beginning there.

JMobius
2009-07-28, 12:44 PM
If you're coming from a more D&D like background, all I can say is that I highly recommend taking it slowly. Ascension is a hell of a lot to absorb and learn.

SirKazum
2009-07-28, 12:49 PM
*raises hand* Are you talking about old or new WoD? Old is all I'm familiar with. Also, which edition of Mage? (I'll have to check which one is mine.) Unfortunately, I haven't really had much of a chance to play or run Mage, at least not nearly as much as I'd like to. But yeah, I second that it's a completely different kind of game from D&D. Also, Mage is all about creativity and imagination, so it helps a lot if your players are good at that.

Shinizak
2009-07-28, 01:02 PM
I don't know what edition, all I know is that the book that I was using at comic con had a purple cover with a card pointing to the right.

Twilight Jack
2009-07-28, 01:15 PM
That's Ascension, all right. Old World of Darkness. Great game, but a serious hassle to run if you're not well versed in the rules. Magick in that game can quite literally do anything, so long as you can talk the GM into it.

If you're going to run this, sit down with that book and read it cover to cover at least twice. Then read the magick sections about five more times. Take notes. After that, start trying to come up with ways that you as a player could break the game, and determine how you'll handle them as a GM if they come up in play.

As far as storylines are concerned, an important factor in the World of Darkness is that not all victories need to be physical. You can play out an entire struggle against an antagonist in which never a hand is raised in anger. The trick here is in creating a good antagonist with a goal. Determine what it is your antagonist will try to accomplish, what means are at his disposal, and how he will react when the players start gumming up the works.

Also, there's nothing wrong with the occasional spot of ultraviolence. :smallwink:

valadil
2009-07-28, 01:21 PM
I'm playing in a Mage game right now. It's awesome.

This isn't the kind of game you run as a dungeon crawl though. You'll have to give your players more abstract goals than 'kill that monster.' Let them deal with these goals however they like.

Players will have an easier time relating to their characters due to the modern setting. In D&D it's kinda hard to know what a character's upbringing was like. My character is a political blogger who was raised by college professors in California. There's a lot of real world knowledge to draw from with a character shaped like that. Especially when compared with the D&D warrior whose parents were killed by orcs when he was 7.

If I were you, I'd stick with the Mage setting for now and cut off the rest of the World of Darkness. Add that stuff in as needed throughout the campaign. But Mage is a lot to digest by itself so take it in one step at a time.

Shinizak
2009-07-28, 02:07 PM
But that;s the thing, I don't have the book. I was just lent it during the con.

Gnaeus
2009-07-28, 02:19 PM
Of all the old world of darkness games, mage has the most erratic growth curve. Mages start out weak, and grow exponentially in strength with every sphere dot.

Suggestion: limit their starting Arete, which will limit their initial sphere selections. Don't give out much exp for your first few games. By the time people are breaking the world, you should have a better handle on the rules.

Curmudgeon
2009-07-28, 02:29 PM
If you're using the purple book, that's the version that skewed things so that Forces is the best sphere for most situations, and Entropy one of the weakest. 1st edition had all spheres roughly equal in power.

mikeejimbo
2009-07-28, 02:30 PM
If you're using the purple book, that's the version that skewed things so that Forces is the best sphere for most situations, and Entropy one of the weakest. 1st edition had all spheres roughly equal in power.

Which is a shame because Entropy was my favorite sphere.

In nWoD they split Entropy into two just because I was getting too creative with it. True story.

Haven
2009-07-28, 02:34 PM
Mage the Ascension is one of the best things ever.

But: why are your friends trying to get you to ST it, considering you don't own the book and know nothing about it? Sounds like your friends are kind of being jerks. One of them should do it.

Shinizak
2009-07-28, 02:43 PM
Yeah, only one person in the group knows anything about it and she's had 7 concussions (if that tells you anything)

Random832
2009-07-28, 03:18 PM
I think they should have done more with different mechanics based on the groups' paradigms - didn't one of the technocracy groups have some sort of matter/forces synergy because of it, and another couldn't access one of the spheres (i forget which)

Riffington
2009-07-28, 05:16 PM
Yeah, only one person in the group knows anything about it and she's had 7 concussions (if that tells you anything)

Her book is made of cast iron and she buttered it?

Curmudgeon
2009-07-28, 05:24 PM
Her book is made of cast iron and she buttered it?
I guess with the right paradox, that could happen. :smallsmile: