With the end of another year rapidly approaching, I thought I'd take time to look back on the games that I played, as I line up new games for next year. Next time I'll be posting a summary of the games that I ran.
Games that I took part in as a player :
Dungeon World - This was run by +Michael Bay and through the course of various games I played several characters. It was interesting to visit the "Apocalypse World" engine from a different angle, which will help when I run "Monster of the Week" next year.
Apocalypse World - This time out +Tony Reyes was at the helm in a weird, violent (to be expected) mini-campaign. I played a cult leader who steered the group down entirely the wrong path. This game is always interesting but challenging to play, and I never envy the person who has to run it. They seem to be caught between improvised responses and not being allowed to have much influence in the setting.
Shadowrun 5th Edition - A one-shot demo of a game I'd never got round to trying before. Great setting, but far too crunchy for my tastes. I was definitely the only one at the table who wasn't having a blast, so it can't be denied that Shadowrun has a certain "something".
Mage:The Awakening - I finally got to try a "New World of Darkness" game! I thought it was great, much easier than I'd anticipated. The LARP adaptation of the rules and the tendency to stay immersed in character threw me a little, and sadly my schedule got in the way of staying with the game. I'd feel confident running this myself, but there doesn't seem to be an audience.
Savage Worlds - This was a zombie survival game, absolutely not my ideal setting, but I really enjoyed the system. It had enough crunch to make the combat satisfying, something which I feel is missing in the games that I run. Fun, and great for one-shots.
Fate Accelerated Edition - +Scott Acker ran a demo of this and aside from being a fun session, I came away feeling that I actually understood how the game works...always a good sign in a demo! I'm interested in seeing where Fate goes in future settings.
Old School D&D - +john yorio has ran two sessions of this recently and I played in both. It took me back to my childhood and was good old-fashioned fun. Simple rules, deadly opponents and a really great sense of camaraderie at the table.
So there you have it, a decent selection for the year and I didn't realize how much I'd played until I planned this post! I salute all the people who ran these games. All were excellent gamesmasters and I learned something from each of them to take forward into the games that I run.
Showing posts with label White Wolf. Show all posts
Showing posts with label White Wolf. Show all posts
Monday, December 9, 2013
Tuesday, October 8, 2013
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.
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.
Monday, July 8, 2013
Mage: The Ascension - A Retrospective.
Back in 1993 I was still living in Liverpool,England. My spare time was spent primarily in pubs and rock clubs (I was still very much in a Goth phase) with the other nights dedicated to tabletop RPGs. I was running "Ravenloft" back then but also found time to play in some other games. One of them was the first edition of "Mage: The Ascension" by White Wolf.
"Mage" was the third major gameline produced in the classic "World of Darkness" series, the first being "Vampire: The Masquerade", the second was "Werewolf: The Apocalypse". Each had its own feel and metaplot, though they all had a buildup to a great "something". This was the 90's and popular culture was full of pre-millenial fears, everything from Nostradamus' predictions to the "Y2K Bug".
White Wolf did follow through and publish official endings for each line, which cleared the decks for them to reboot the games later on, minus the metaplot.
I had never played "Vampire", a game which was massively popular with my Goth friends, though the popularity was firmly on the LARP side of things rather than tabletop. I had played "Werewolf" and while I loved the rich setting, I struggled on a personal level to play it. The animalistic aspect was too much of a challenge for me. "Mage" however, was perfect.
The central concept of the game is that reality is consensual.It is maintained,powered and reinforced by our combined beliefs about what is possible and what isn't. A Mage is someone who has an awakened Avatar (like a higher self) and understands the nature of reality from a particular perspective ("Paradigm") and can alter it. Reality,like a rubber band, will stretch when manipulated but will snap back into it's original shape, albeit slightly looser than before. This is the real goal of the Mage...to gradually tweak reality so their magic becomes more acceptable and believable to the masses, and thus easier to do. If the Mage pushes too hard, then reality hits back hard in the form of "Paradox", an unpredictable punishment.
The main opponents of the Mages are the Technocracy, an organization seeking to enforce their own vision of reality. The Mages are organized into Traditions, schools of magic and mystical paths. I really liked this as at the time I was reading a lot of Occult and New Age material. The "Verbena" tradition for example, were representative of Wiccans and Druids, all about nature. The "Dreamspeakers" were Shamen. "Cult of Ecstasy" were like a Dyonisian cult and "The Order of Hermes" were the classic Hermetic group, a nod to the games predecessor, "Ars Magica".
Magic itself is described as "Spheres", of which there are nine. Each of the nine Traditions specializes in one of the spheres, though you can learn any of them. Combining the powers of the spheres is where the fun really is, and what I liked was how the sphere would be interpreted differently depending on your Tradition. The "Life" sphere, for example, would be interpreted by the "Sons of Ether" as the elecrochemical jolt that starts your heart, whereas the "Akashic Brotherhood" see it as Chi. The other spheres are Matter, Correspondence,Prime,Forces,Time,Entropy,Spirit and Mind.
What made this special, and still to this day my favorite game, was the way this all translated into gameplay. We were playing very powerful characters, people who could tear reality apart with our thoughts, yet the threats to us were just as powerful, in terms of the antagonists and the consequences of creating paradoxes.We were also lucky to have a GM and group of players who thoroughly understood the game. "Mage" can be a hard game to understand or explain, so group composition is a major consideration if you want to do it justice. With the right group,it's something special.
"Mage" was the third major gameline produced in the classic "World of Darkness" series, the first being "Vampire: The Masquerade", the second was "Werewolf: The Apocalypse". Each had its own feel and metaplot, though they all had a buildup to a great "something". This was the 90's and popular culture was full of pre-millenial fears, everything from Nostradamus' predictions to the "Y2K Bug".
White Wolf did follow through and publish official endings for each line, which cleared the decks for them to reboot the games later on, minus the metaplot.
I had never played "Vampire", a game which was massively popular with my Goth friends, though the popularity was firmly on the LARP side of things rather than tabletop. I had played "Werewolf" and while I loved the rich setting, I struggled on a personal level to play it. The animalistic aspect was too much of a challenge for me. "Mage" however, was perfect.
The central concept of the game is that reality is consensual.It is maintained,powered and reinforced by our combined beliefs about what is possible and what isn't. A Mage is someone who has an awakened Avatar (like a higher self) and understands the nature of reality from a particular perspective ("Paradigm") and can alter it. Reality,like a rubber band, will stretch when manipulated but will snap back into it's original shape, albeit slightly looser than before. This is the real goal of the Mage...to gradually tweak reality so their magic becomes more acceptable and believable to the masses, and thus easier to do. If the Mage pushes too hard, then reality hits back hard in the form of "Paradox", an unpredictable punishment.
The main opponents of the Mages are the Technocracy, an organization seeking to enforce their own vision of reality. The Mages are organized into Traditions, schools of magic and mystical paths. I really liked this as at the time I was reading a lot of Occult and New Age material. The "Verbena" tradition for example, were representative of Wiccans and Druids, all about nature. The "Dreamspeakers" were Shamen. "Cult of Ecstasy" were like a Dyonisian cult and "The Order of Hermes" were the classic Hermetic group, a nod to the games predecessor, "Ars Magica".
Magic itself is described as "Spheres", of which there are nine. Each of the nine Traditions specializes in one of the spheres, though you can learn any of them. Combining the powers of the spheres is where the fun really is, and what I liked was how the sphere would be interpreted differently depending on your Tradition. The "Life" sphere, for example, would be interpreted by the "Sons of Ether" as the elecrochemical jolt that starts your heart, whereas the "Akashic Brotherhood" see it as Chi. The other spheres are Matter, Correspondence,Prime,Forces,Time,Entropy,Spirit and Mind.
What made this special, and still to this day my favorite game, was the way this all translated into gameplay. We were playing very powerful characters, people who could tear reality apart with our thoughts, yet the threats to us were just as powerful, in terms of the antagonists and the consequences of creating paradoxes.We were also lucky to have a GM and group of players who thoroughly understood the game. "Mage" can be a hard game to understand or explain, so group composition is a major consideration if you want to do it justice. With the right group,it's something special.
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