Mage: The Ascension

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Mage: The Ascension
« on: July 05, 2010, 02:18:28 PM »
I see benhimself started a thread on world of darkness hacks, but started with vampires.  I have been meaning to get Mage in to a system I can stand for a while now, and AW seems like a great fit with some modification, so I hope no one minds if I start a thread for it by itself.

I've been thinking about how to do this justice.  My current thought is to keep most of the basic moves from AW as is except for opening your brain.  Along the same lines, weird would likely be replaced with Arete.  I would however have an overlying rule that says:  If you make a move using magick, then +arete -disbelief to the roll, and the MC get's access to magick-related moves if you miss.  In addition, I'm thinking a second clock in addition to harm called "Paradox" that works much the same way, and debilities that work with it as well.  I'm probably going to have them add descriptors to segments of the clock as well: from 12:00-3:00 water drains the other way, things like that.

But the real juice of Mage for me has always been the personification of magick: each mage in the world sees it differently, and does their magick differently because of that.  The question becomes how to reward/bring those aspects in to play?  So maybe we have a section called "Spheres", which are weapons, with descriptors and affects like in AW.  You want to do magick, you're using a weapon, and those descriptors are included.  All Spheres start with the descriptor <i>foci</i> meaning you need a foci to use it.  Those foci, being things in themselves, would also have descriptors.  Spheres would need to advance with understanding, but I'm not sure if I want to do that as part of overall mark improvement, or if I want a separate improvement track for them.

Finally, character books.  It would be real easy to make the traditions a character book each, but that doesn't capture the "PC's are unique" idea that resonates so from AW.  I think instead I'll have them as moves that can be taken, only one from this set ever.  So for an Akashic Brother, it might be something like "if you consult the Dharmic Record", or for a Dreamspeaker "When the spirits aid you in your cause."  Character books should be more.. specific. Perhaps:

The Man in Black
The Ghost in the Machine
The Prophet
The Freedom Fighter

hrm, these needs some thinking.  The WoD books are a little too unfocused, especially with Mage, to make me think of archetypes that are not just direct corollaries to traditions.

Anyway, that's what I'm thinking right now.  More musing to be done.
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