The really interesting thing about M20 is that it really doesn't seem to need a lot of the wordcount. The rotes section is a particularly onerous offender.
Like, for example, their "Little Black Box" rote could be cut down to this:
Little Black Box: Like a hacker in an action movie, the mage pulls out a high-tech device of some sort and plugs it into a security system, allowing her to hack even systems she shouldn't be able to. The mage must still mundanely hack the system. Forces 2 allows the mage to manipulate electronic systems, while Mind 2 allows the mage to understand the results of her manipulation and Correspondence 2 allows her to do it at a distance.
This is 76 words. In contrast, the writeup in M20 is 199 words, and in fact tells you less-it doesn't tell you why you need the Forces, or the Mind, or the Correspondence-which means it's not useful for a player who's likely going to be doing freeform stuff. In fact, I'd pare it down even further and remove the description of how a mage does it, and go with just a short "the mage remotely hacks a electronic device," making a lot of the effects paradigm-agnostic. Players should be able to, through the examples of play, realize that they should be able to find an explanation of how the character hacks it.
I've found that overreliance on the paradigmic elements is a pretty common thing in new Mage players who don't realize that they can just bullshit the paradigm as long as they have a clear idea of what the paradigm is and what the effect they want to do is.
And then you have the one literal page taken up by the vampiric lawnchair rote, which could have gone to several useful effects. My rule of thumb would have been:
1. Emphasis on low-dot effects, like the incredibly useful 1-dot "I reduce the difficulty of my actions" effects that often set an experienced mage player apart from a newbie. Conversely a lot of the 4 and 5 dot effects are very self explanatory and straightforward because they give you a lot more apparent room for bullshit.
2. Paradigm-agnostic. If you need examples of how things might be executed in varying paradigms, make a list in the end of some of the more interesting and space-efficient methods.
3. Minimal fluff text, because (2)
4. A clear explanation of exactly what every sphere does in the effect, which is often, but not always, given.
oMage is a game of improvisational magic where player skill is hugely relevant-the magic section in this case shouldn't be considered a grab bag of random effects, as M20 treats it. It should be considered the tutorial.
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