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White Wolf's World of Darkness

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Whew... finally finished the bulk of M20, skimmed over most of the rules since most of it was much of the same, save for the Magic system and unique stuff for MtAs, and the Appendices.

All I have to say is M20 is the most comprehensive MtAs book ever written. It covers, at least the basics, of everything in MtAs. An in-depth talk about the setting, Magic(k), Consensual Reality, Paradox, Quiet, etc. with the cards of the MtAs tarot deck scattered throughout the chapter.
They have the Nine Spheres as the Traditions and mystic-leaning mages use alongside with the Enlightened Science equivalents. A whole chapter on the realms beyond Earth, from the Penumbra and the Umbra to the Digital Web, the Horizon Realms and beyond. Over a hundred pages on the history of Mage society, from past to present, the Nine Traditions, the Technocracy and its Conventions, the Crafts, the Nephandi and the Marauders. In particular the latter two have been greatly fleshed out than they have been in past Rulebooks.

And sidebars throughout that talk about these groups as they are through the various editions and how those settings can be used in past of the default canon of M20.

Oh, and some of the Crafts have begun to create a loose alliance, sick of being stuck between the Traditions and Technocracy and all their fighting.

And that's less than halfway through the book!

It is certainly a big book and intimidating as hell for a newbie but damn is it impressive and comprehensive.

My hats off to Satyros Phil Brucato and the rest of the team. They created an amazing book for old fans and the new.

If you're a long time MtAs fan that missed out on the KS, get this book when in goes on sale. No excuses, get this book. It's worth it.

If you're only recently found MtAs and the OWoD, this book will be intimidating as hell but it is worth getting. You will not find a more complete MtAs book out there.
 
grommile said:
It is... fascinating to compare different people's takes on M20.
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Oooh oooh should I say things about M20?

It's a mess. It's great, because more mage, but it's a utter mess.

Good things:
-Some talismans/devices which were basically worthless now have gotten a second lease of life (the Alanson hardsuit, I'm looking at you)
-It's more oMage.
-The layout is pretty and the PDF has tons of bookmarks.

Bad things:
-Oh god the editing.
-Balance issues oh my god so many. Martial Arts is literally Brawl, but better. If you don't have Time, get the fuck out, the multiple action rules suck.
-Multiple action rules. The split dice pool rule is awful and I don't know why they went for it instead of the Revised multiple action rules.
-Do we really need like, ten pages of weapons charts, most of which are basically "like X but shittier?"
-The Nephandi are everywhere. This is, I think, the absolute worst. Both the Traditions and the Technocracy should be representing both the power of idealism and human force of will, and the dangers of power, politics, and poorly-considered philosophies. If the Traditions are making vaccines cause autism, they should own it. If the Technocracy is bombing churches, make them own it. The Nephandi should be as much excuse as actual actor. It adds to their danger and the sense of mystery-and also, it means that when the mysterious guy does you a favor, you probably aren't thinking Nephandi until it's too late...
-making Talisman regular-cost and Enhancement double-cost imbalances a fuck of a lot of things. Frankly, Enhancement has always been underwhelming for the price you pay (5 permanent paradox and 10 background points? Whee!) especially because the rules never, ever, ever, disallowed you from buying augmentations with regular Device.

The Worst Things:
The Nine Spheres as fundamental pillars of reality. No. Fuck off. Go away. Just no.
(Especially hilarious is that in Mage: Dark Ages, the time of mythic might and the dominance of mysticism, nobody ever used any of the core nine Spheres.)

And that's really just the start.
 
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To be fair Nephandic Corruption is explictly one of the things you can dial up and down for your game.

And that would be for me the best thing of M20, the writing team aknowledges not everyone plays the same game and provided options for that.
 
MJ12 Commando said:
Oooh oooh should I say things about M20?
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More Weirdness
  • Brucato needs to learn that ALL CAPS is a bad form of EMPHASIS.
  • Despite being 100 pages long, the magick rules are no more enlightening on how the Spheres are used than Revised
  • Over half a page is spent writing up turning vampires into lawnchairs as a rote, then railing against the concept
  • The Virtual Adept paradigm/foci includes "manga-inspired haircuts", "energy drinks", "dark hoodies", and similar things completely unrelated to casting magick because you believe you're in the Matrix.
  • The ST section rails against people who eat pizza during the game, because eating yucky, greasy pizza distracts from this very serious game!
  • One of the consequences of Paradox is "Burn", which is taking damage from Paradox. Another consequence of Paradox is taking damage.
  • The technocratic paradigm is dominant because it is rooted in Earthly physics, unlike other forms of magick. I was under the impression those laws of physics only existed because of the consensus...
  • Your religious belief must meet a minimum standard of public acceptance before you can power magick with it: "Despite the usual association between Faith and Christianity, your character can belong to any sincere creed with an established moral code and historical legacy. (Sorry, but True Faith in postmodern satires like the Flying Spaghetti Monster does not count.)"
  • The phrase "male, female or transgender"
  • "The so-called Holy Land burns with insane zeal – and with three religions literally hell-bent on bringing about their Apocalypse, we might still see the visions of that demented scripture played out on the global stage"
  • "The Middle East, for example, continues to be a flashpoint for humanity because large numbers of people from three different religions believe their God gave it to them… and they're willing to end life on Earth to prove that point."
  • Real-world trans people are magickal now: "And between the old associations of mystic power and the new freedom to transcend gender roles without getting burnt at the stake for it, the idea of gender identity is more fluid – and more magickal – than ever before."
 
Eukie said:
More Weirdness
  • Brucato needs to learn that ALL CAPS is a bad form of EMPHASIS.
  • Despite being 100 pages long, the magick rules are no more enlightening on how the Spheres are used than Revised
  • Over half a page is spent writing up turning vampires into lawnchairs as a rote, then railing against the concept
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[Brucato - Correspondence 3, Metagaming 2 - By channeling his reputation and history (brushing away little incidents like Changing Breeds), Brucato casts a Ban which forbids Editors from altering his text. To make alterations, the Editor must get more successes on a Willpower roll than Brucato devoted to this spell's Potency. This must be rolled every time a would-be editor wants to make a correction. Note that this is a hubristic act, and has led many mages down a dark path, producing often bloated and incoherent texts. It does also not stop the New World Order's Watchers and the Syndicate's Media Control Methdologies sending undercover agents to publicly mock the author's foibles and prose.]
 
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While I love the book, I don't think "transgender" means what Brucato thinks it means

There are magical traditions where you crossdress or try to emulate androginy but I would not describe these as "transgender".
 
Or "Playing a nephandi is bad because you put a piece of yourself into every character, and so it leads to a feadback towards you" to paraphrase him there.
And, Did you know that there is no cost to buy a backround at rank 1?
Allies 1 x7.000.000.000 here I come!
 
Scia said:
And, Did you know that there is no cost to buy a backround at rank 1?
Allies 1 x7.000.000.000 here I come!
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But Scia, don't be ridiculous! This is the oWoD! There aren't seven billion mundane mortals on earth, in between all the vampires, ghouls, werewolves, Kinfolk, fomori, shapeshifters, mages, vatclones, sorcerers, constructs, automata, changelings, mummies, hunters, Risen, Demons, fae-touched, Imbued, etc etc.

In fact, scientific studies suggest that there may be as few as 12 mundane humans left, very carefully not finding anything out about the supernatural, while the magical beasts all try to hide from each other.

(This also explains how goth clubs are still so popular in 2015.)
 
MJ12 Commando said:
Hey at least M20 makes the "k" optional. Previous oMage editions didn't.
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Nah, Revised cut it out. That saw one of the first uses of the White Wolf forum ninjas, where they went out and burned your copy of 2e. This universal act of aggression was the cause of the First Great Mage Flame War (or possibly the second or third, depending on how you judged it).

At least, that's the tale I've heard for why people didn't like Revised and its better system and tighter thematic focus. :p
 
greensun said:
Okay, could you explain that one to me? This whole conversation is kind of going over my head.
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It has to do with edition war between second and third (which was called revised). They changed from magick to magic (which was welcome), and they basically went crazy trying to make the setting more hopeless and disempowering (which wasn't).

People being people, hated and associated the two changes. Since the theme of being able to effect the world, changing it for the better was pretentious, and the theme of magic and magick being different thing (with the later being special and demanding a k) was pretentious... Well obviously if you think your character should be able the change the world you want to spell magic with a k.

Wait, no, the two have nothing in common.





There were some stupid arguments that happened during the edition change, though how defensive the developers got about it was kind of hilarious. Halfway through the line they basically had a storyteller book which tried to tell everyone they were doing it wrong by preferring second over third edition, and all you needed to do was jump on the metaplot everyone hated and kept panning if you wanted to have fun the right way. I'm not joking - they actually has what amounted to a blog post of "But things are better this way, really!"

There's a reason it basically drove Mage into the ground by the end. Revised was the most mechanically tight edition of mage, if your going to just flat out use a version of it rather then pick and choose, it's the one I would suggest (at least until I have a chance to look over the 20th Anniversary edition). But it also was the edition of "We have no idea what actually made this a successful line," and outside of some of the side books (The Spirit Way, Forged by Dragons Fire) I wouldn't use much BUT the core from revised, I would look to the second edition books.
 
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MJ12 Commando said:
The Nephandi are everywhere. This is, I think, the absolute worst. Both the Traditions and the Technocracy should be representing both the power of idealism and human force of will, and the dangers of power, politics, and poorly-considered philosophies. If the Traditions are making vaccines cause autism, they should own it. If the Technocracy is bombing churches, make them own it. The Nephandi should be as much excuse as actual actor. It adds to their danger and the sense of mystery-and also, it means that when the mysterious guy does you a favor, you probably aren't thinking Nephandi until it's too late...
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Oh I don't about that. A lot of the mention of Nephandi is all in sidebars and suggestions about how you could use them. And there's nothing new about Nephandi infiltration of other groups.

If you don't the Nephandi's tendrils in those groups than don't have them.

And honestly given the transformation of the Technocracy over the course of the line's history, from the jack-booted thought police crushing wonder and imagination to a greyer group that can be alternate protagonists, it makes sense that they are playing up the Nephandi more.

MJ12 Commando said:
The Nine Spheres as fundamental pillars of reality. No. Fuck off. Go away. Just no.
(Especially hilarious is that in Mage: Dark Ages, the time of mythic might and the dominance of mysticism, nobody ever used any of the core nine Spheres.)
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Seriously? The Nine Spheres are the bedrock of the MtAs Magic system for three editions and one historical setting. Did you honestly believe that they would discard those for the Foundation and Pillar system of DAM which came out after MtAs? That would make using material from older books harder and would require them to create Foundations and Pillars for nearly every Tradition, Convention and Craft in the book. Not to mention the Orphans that have more independent practices.

And here's the thing, the Foundations and Pillars in a meta sense are the same as the Spheres, just as a different interpretation. One that's become common among the Traditions of today. Hell one could argue that by the very nature of Consensual Reality their belief in the Nine Spheres have turned them into the pillars of Reality. Or perhaps, just like the existence of the Avatar, the mages of the Dark Ages didn't realize the full scope of Reality.

TheLastOne said:
There's a reason it basically drove Mage into the ground by the end. Revised was the most mechanically tight edition of mage, if your going to just flat out use a version of it rather then pick and choose, it's the one I would suggest (at least until I have a chance to look over the 20th Anniversary edition). But it also was the edition of "We have no idea what actually made this a successful line," and outside of some of the side books (The Spirit Way, Forged by Dragons Fire) I wouldn't use much BUT the core from revised, I would look to the second edition book.
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Well from my skimming over those areas it looks to be largely Rev Ed with some tweaks. Though its been over two years since I've played so I'm a bit rusty here and there. Though I do give the team big props for two big sidebars, totaling just over a page and a half, talking about the number one topic that causes arguments at the table, what's Coincidental and what's not. Even acknowledging HAB/HOO/HYP and RDB/PBD, a big matter of debate among MtAs fans on forums over the years.

Oh and Resonance and Synergy are now optional which I was never crazy about.
 
AkatsukiL13 said:
Seriously? The Nine Spheres are the bedrock of the MtAs Magic system for three editions and one historical setting. Did you honestly believe that they would discard those for the Foundation and Pillar system of DAM which came out after MtAs? That would make using material from older books harder and would require them to create Foundations and Pillars for nearly every Tradition, Convention and Craft in the book. Not to mention the Orphans that have more independent practices.

And here's the thing, the Foundations and Pillars in a meta sense are the same as the Spheres, just as a different interpretation. One that's become common among the Traditions of today. Hell one could argue that by the very nature of Consensual Reality their belief in the Nine Spheres have turned them into the pillars of Reality. Or perhaps, just like the existence of the Avatar, the mages of the Dark Ages didn't realize the full scope of Reality.
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I would like them to acknowledge that the Spheres exist as more or less a game balance concept to make things convenient, and that alternate spheres are entirely legitimate-like the Storyteller Guide did in Mage Revised and Dark Ages demonstrates. I'd like some acknowledgement that some Traditions or Conventions would be better off switching some features up and down the totem pole. For example, nature magi might get "Shapeshift" at Life 3, but "Better Body" at Life 4, because it's easier to become something already extant in nature than to perfect nature's bounty. Potion-brewers and Pharmacopeists might learn the "enhance others" bits of Life before they learn the "enhance self" bits. Nephandi might get some powerful destructive effects earlier because they're Nephandi fuck you that's why.

Progenitors might never ever get the weird astral projection powers of Mind, but might be able to use it instead of Spirit for resurrecting the dead. You know, changes like that. Pointing out that the praxis of magic is not as simple and universal as the Hermetics or the Technocracy would like you to think, and that everyone has variants and subtleties in how they learn, but because we want a game instead of a doorstopper, we're not writing 2000 pages on variant spheres for every player-OK faction.

Well from my skimming over those areas it looks to be largely Rev Ed with some tweaks. Though its been over two years since I've played so I'm a bit rusty here and there. Though I do give the team big props for two big sidebars, totaling just over a page and a half, talking about the number one topic that causes arguments at the table, what's Coincidental and what's not. Even acknowledging HAB/HOO/HYP and RDB/PBD, a big matter of debate among MtAs fans on forums over the years.

Oh and Resonance and Synergy are now optional which I was never crazy about.
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It uses a really weird split-pool multiple action system which is just incredibly bad because it makes Time 3/extra actions in general even better relatively speaking to not having Time 3, which is bad because Time 3 is already very good.
 
MJ12 Commando said:
I would like them to acknowledge that the Spheres exist as more or less a game balance concept to make things convenient, and that alternate spheres are entirely legitimate-like the Storyteller Guide did in Mage Revised and Dark Ages demonstrates. I'd like some acknowledgement that some Traditions or Conventions would be better off switching some features up and down the totem pole. For example, nature magi might get "Shapeshift" at Life 3, but "Better Body" at Life 4, because it's easier to become something already extant in nature than to perfect nature's bounty. Potion-brewers and Pharmacopeists might learn the "enhance others" bits of Life before they learn the "enhance self" bits. Nephandi might get some powerful destructive effects earlier because they're Nephandi fuck you that's why.

Progenitors might never ever get the weird astral projection powers of Mind, but might be able to use it instead of Spirit for resurrecting the dead. You know, changes like that. Pointing out that the praxis of magic is not as simple and universal as the Hermetics or the Technocracy would like you to think, and that everyone has variants and subtleties in how they learn, but because we want a game instead of a doorstopper, we're not writing 2000 pages on variant spheres for every player-OK faction.
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Eh, that's not new - hence the whole tenth sphere nonsense that went no where, and how each heavenly body is associated with a Sphere even thought there aren't nearly enough people believing in the sphere's for something like that to happen, and a ton of other bits that I'm not going to track down where they treat the sphere's as if they really are real.

Dark Age mages are purposefully inferior in a bunch of ways - they're not supposed to be the equal in terms of enlightenment to modern mages, so using their more limited Foundation and Pillar as a counter doesn't work.

I like variant spheres, but they work best in the setting where they clearly take the place of an existing sphere.
 
I've only recently gotten into Mage: The Awakening. I really, really like it, with the exception of the unfortunately rather important Paradox mechanic.

Call me a philistine, but the sort of lowbrow Harry Dresden-esque Vulgar magic spellslinging is pretty much the most interesting part of the game to me. Having the most interesting part of the game be hobbled the second a Sleeper wanders on to the scene is kind of annoying.

Out of curiosity, is Ascension better, worse or pretty much the same in this particular regard?
 
LastChronicler said:
I've only recently gotten into Mage: The Awakening. I really, really like it, with the exception of the unfortunately rather important Paradox mechanic.

Call me a philistine, but the sort of lowbrow Harry Dresden-esque Vulgar magic spellslinging is pretty much the most interesting part of the game to me. Having the most interesting part of the game be hobbled the second a Sleeper wanders on to the scene is kind of annoying.

Out of curiosity, is Ascension better, worse or pretty much the same in this particular regard?
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Better, because it has the Technocratic Union.
 
LastChronicler said:
I've only recently gotten into Mage: The Awakening. I really, really like it, with the exception of the unfortunately rather important Paradox mechanic.

Call me a philistine, but the sort of lowbrow Harry Dresden-esque Vulgar magic spellslinging is pretty much the most interesting part of the game to me. Having the most interesting part of the game be hobbled the second a Sleeper wanders on to the scene is kind of annoying.

Out of curiosity, is Ascension better, worse or pretty much the same in this particular regard?
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Considerably worse. In nMage, you can get away with multiple vulgar spells in front of witnesses and Paradox will give you some bashing damage if you absorb it. In oMage, if you do multiple vulgar fireball spells in front of witnesses, that's 4 paradox per fireball, so you'll wind up with a large paradox backlash at the end of the scene if you don't let it incap you and delay it, and probably catch fire or something.
 
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