Mage - The Awakening RPG

I finally got round to playing a game of "Mage - The Awakening", which is the New World of Darkness version of my old favorite, "Mage - The Ascension".

The game was run by the Mind's Eye Society, a World of Darkness LARP group, and it was the LARP rules that were used in the game. The rules and certain elements of the setting reminded me of two other games in particular...more on that later.

First of all it was time for character creation. I'd done some research in advance and came with ideas of which magical path and order I wanted to belong to. As is often the case with me, when it came to actual creation and discussing concepts with the GM ("Storyteller"in WoD terms), I went with one that had initially appealed to me the least! The path is all about what kinds of magic you do, and how you interpret the world magically. The order is more about your philosophy and view on how magic should be handled.

The paths are Acanthus (Enchanters who are all about luck,chance and time), Mastigos (Warlocks who work their inner demons,and other peoples), Moros (Necromancers who focus on death and material things), Obrimos (Theurgists who use raw,prime divine magic) and Thyrsus (Shamans who deal with the natural world). I strongly leaned to Mastigos and Moros before I attended the session, and ended up going with Acanthus. I liked Time magic, and playing with chance. I wanted a character who would get into trouble through gambling.

The orders are the Adamantine Arrow (fighters),Guardians of the Veil (spies), Mysterium (Lorekeepers), The Silver Ladder (Rulers) and the Free Council (Modernists). I went with the Mysterium, as I also wanted a research and investigation emphasis in the character.

The game reminded me in some ways of "Nephilim". Specifically, the five paths are aligned to Watchtowers. You have your Watchtower, the others are neutral but one is opposed..it's your weakest point. When visualized as a pentagram, this strongly resembles how the elements in Nephilim work, and how you assign Ka.

The system had a few different ways to be played, with hands, cards or dice. I went with dice, and rather than using the tabletop rules of a dice pool, instead you add the number of dots in an attribute to the dots in a skill plus a D10. Anything over 10 is a success. This is pretty much how Unisystem works, and I recognized it from running "All Flesh Must Be Eaten". It's a fast,easy way to resolve things and has me wondering about giving the "Angel" RPG a shot...

All in all a fun game and not nearly as complex as I thought it would be. I look forward to more sessions and exploring the system more.