R. B. LeMoyne's Blog: Street Level Mage vs. Epic Fantasy Mage, or "This Is Gonna Get Weird."

If you've been playing/running Mage: The Ascension for as long as I have, you may have noticed a sharp tonal shift between Mage 1st and 2nd Edition (or pre-revised) books and Mage Revised (AKA 3rd Edition) books. There's even a slight tonal shift between Mage's 1st and 2nd Editions, but it's not nearly as abrupt or impactful on Mage's overall setting. And for those who have never played any of those editions, or only played one of them, let me nutshell this shift for you.

"...Not quite what I meant, but close."

In Mage's pre-revised editions, things were weird. 1st Edition kicked it off with the Book of Chantries, which introduced some pretty "out there" concepts such as animate castles housing a cult of assassins and a proto-Hogwarts of politics and power stationed on a realm tied to Mars (the planet, not the Greek god), and the first Digital Web book that introduced us to a realm where the internet was a virtual cyberpunk world unto itself. Mage 2nd Edition continued that trend with Horizon: Stronghold of Hope, Beyond the Barriers: The Book of Worlds, and Digital Web 2.0, all of which threw open the doors of possibility and invited players and Storytellers alike to take their games out of the familiar and into some truly weird worlds where anything is possible. Want to throw your mages into a video game? How about an epic battle on the deck of a spaceship against alien horrors? How about an old-fashioned trek through mystical lands filled to the brim with creatures that you've only heard about in myths and legend? All of that is doable in Mage, and more!

Then Mage Revised came along and slammed those doors shut with a heavy gust of wind from the Avatar Storm. This plot element, designed to make crossing over into these fascinating and bizarre worlds more difficult, was part of an effort to ground the game in the same gritty, vicious streets of the World of Darkness' flagship game, Vampire: The Masquerade. As a result, Mage Revised only gave us one book on the worlds beyond, The Infinite Tapestry, and that tome was not nearly as extensive as the Book of Worlds was.

Now, I like Vampire just as much as the next WoD fan, but Mage is so much more than just the cityscapes and the wilderness between them. Forcing that narrow view on longtime fans of the game felt insulting, as if we were being told that our style of play was wrong and that surviving the mean streets was the only way to really play Mage.

I'm here to tell you, both playstyles are valid.

Street level Mage is a great way to introduce those new to RPGs and/or the World of Darkness to the setting. Starting off in the familiar is not nearly as jarring as throwing players immediately into a bizarre high fantasy setting that is completely foreign to them. There can still be weirdness in the dark corners of familiar cities, and as the players become more comfortable with their surroundings, you can gradually build up to the unique and wondrous vistas that Mage is known for in 2nd Edition. Or, you can choose to ignore those other worlds. If the gritty, urban fantasy-style focus of Mage Revised is your cup of tea, that's valid, too. There's plenty of story to be told on the earthly plane without taking your player's characters out of the world they know, and the concerns of humanity are much more relevant to mages than those in worlds beyond.

Likewise, there's nothing wrong with the fantastical approach to Mage, so long as everyone understands that this is not D&D and you can't just run screaming at a dragon and expect to survive thanks to oodles of hit points. Even in its most high fantasy settings of gryphons and airships and floating castles, there's an element to Mage that drives home how human these characters really are. Despite their reality-bending powers, mages are still mortals who can be felled with one well-placed bullet, or one careless step on a rickety bridge, or one tragic encounter with the wrong creature. But they are also capable of amazing feats of resourcefulness and invention, and for centuries have crafted otherworldly vistas beyond the earthly plane. It's a tragedy not to showcase, even just once, the worlds that mages can make possible.

In the end, this should be an agreement made with your players as to what sort of Mage game they're going to be playing. It'd be upsetting to players who want to focus on earthly goals if they spend all their time exploring alien civilizations, and the same is true of those expecting a true wizard's journey into unknown worlds if they never leave their city of origin. Talk it over with them and try to accommodate their expectations.

And remember, there's no harm in letting things get a little weird for a few sessions.