Shadis #27: The Edge: Mage: 2nd edition

Mage: 2nd edition

Published by White Wolf
Written by Phil Brucato & Stewart Wieck
$28.00
Reviewed by Kevin Jones

I didn't like Mage when it first came out. I felt betrayed. If you take a look at my library, you may be able to discern the reason why. I have a whole shelf dedicated to the Order of Hermes, those lovable mages from Ars Magica, and when I opened that first edition of Vampire and saw that they planned to do a series of games, one of which was called Mage, I waited with bated breath for a game of modern magic involving my favorite 11th century mystical order.

Of course, that's not what I got. At first glance, I was appalled. Ars Magica was about power and its tempting siren song. Mages in Ars Magica were always on the teetering edge of corruption, constantly hearing the diabolical whispers of Hades and its minions. In Mage, sorcerers do battle with … the power of Reason? What's all that about? I took it as a personal affront. I've always been a student of reason, and those boys down at White Wolf were telling me that I was evil because of it? What's up with that?

I dropped the book on my shelf and never picked it up again.

A couple of years later, I met two guys who had been playing in a Mage campaign for nearly two years. They loved the game and its uncompromising magic system that allowed them to turn vampires into lawn chairs and werewolves into soap bubbles. They couldn't praise the game highly enough. The clincher for me was this: one was an engineer and the other was a physicist. So, when Mage 2nd Edition was released, I saw the cool cover, glanced over the haunting black and white images inside and listened to the two "Magers" talk about the revisions to the magic system that clarified all the kooky stuff that was going on in first edition, so I decided to check it out.

Well, I've still got complaints, but they ain't many. The printing of the book is beautiful. The images are stark and complement the style of the book well. Many of the factions that were confusing and sketchy in the first book are clarified. As the designer of the first edition says at the end of the book: "Mage First Edition was not clean. It was not clear. The systems were not perfect… it was impossible to step far enough away from the project to see if it read clearly…." Well, it didn't, but 2nd Edition fixed all of that.

I should also mention that Mage has the most open ended and imaginative magic system from any role-playing game. It forces the players to be creative. You see, in the world of Mage, Magi must hide their magick from reality (which is a slightly cognitive entity unto itself), so they use what is called "Coincidental Magick." Instead of throwing fire balls and lightning bolts and flying through the sky, Mages have to be a bit more clever, lest Reality sends "Paradox Demons" their way to enforce it's strict laws. A mage is probably the luckiest fella you're going to meet. Nothing ever bad happens to him. He catches all the streetlights (2 Correspondence), always has a few extra bucks in his pocket (3 Matter) and when he gets caught in a drive-by shooting (remember, we live right next to LA out here in the Shadis offices), the bullets just seem to slide right off of him (3 Life). Sure, having a power line fall on a guy isn't as sexy as lightning bolts from the heavens, but the guys is just as dead, isn't he? Figuring out such "real" ways to create the effect you want is part of the fun of the game.

While it certainly isn't "light-hearted", Mage is, perhaps, the most optimistic of the World of Darkness games. Mages seek Enlightenment (true knowledge of the nature of reality) and seek to bring humanity to "the Ascension" when every man, woman and child will realize that all of life's hindrances are illusions, tricks of the light, just smoke and mirrors. If you're familiar with the works of Richard Bach (Jonathan Livingston Seagull and Illusions) or Robert Pirsig (Lila and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance), then you'll be in familiar territory.

Now, myself, if I ever ran a Mage campaign, I'd probably just stick to what I know and employ the Order of Hermes. I'm not hip to the Euthanatos (mages who kill folks who aren't Enlightened enough), the Verbena (a questionable take on the whole Wicca movement), the Cult of Ecstasy (I don't want to talk about it) or the Akashic Brotherhood (these are mystics and not mages, guys). But I will look forward to turning those pesky bloodsuckers into lawn chairs – which is a 3 Matter, 4 Life, 3 Forces, 5 Prime and 3 Spirit effect, I'm told, and yes, Mr. Buffett, that does include a frosty Margarita on the side.