Mage Character Creation, or "What cast of characters am I working with?"

So you've got players, and you've got an idea of what kind of game you're going to run for them. Grab those character sheets and pencils, it's time to crack open the rulebook and get to character creation!

My intent here isn't to rehash what the rulebook says about creating a character. Point allocation is covered pretty well within those pages. No, my goal here is to dip into the deeper meaning behind all those dots, to get to the core of what character creation really is, especially in regards to Mage: The Ascension.

In D&D, you don't really have to get deep into who a character is, beyond picking a race and class and rolling up stats. Your elven ranger doesn't need to have an epic motivation to go dungeon-delving, and if all you want to do is roll dice and kill monsters, more power to you. But the heart of Mage is the idea that their magic powers are borne from belief and the strength of will to turn an idea into reality, and that kind of information lives in a character's concept and backstory.

Now, that isn't to say that you need an essay from each player on who their character is (although the rulebook does provide several questions for the players to answer if they want to deep dive into what makes their characters tick). It does help if they can give you a brief character concept as a basis for what they want to play. They don't necessarily need to know exactly which Tradition they want to play right at the start, so long as they know what kind of character they want to play. Does one want to play a mad scientist type? Does someone want to play a Harry Potter type mage? Does another want to play a shaman, or a neo-pagan, or a martial arts master? Once they figure out what they want to play, you can help each player figure out the details of what allows them to use magic in the game.

Once concept is in place, point allocation becomes less of grabbing stuff that looks cool and more of what supports the vision of that character idea. Not that grabbing cool stuff should be denied! By all means, permit your Hollow One player to have a raven familiar and let your Etherite adventurer have his ray gun weapon. But don't allow your Dreamspeaker player to get Requisitions or Alternate Identity just because. There should be a reason behind every dot on that sheet, even if that answer is "My DJ Ecstatic has 2 dots in Firearms because her father owned guns and made sure his teenage daughter knew how to use them."

I was lucky - even though my Mage game is online, I was able to help half of my players with character creation in person. The other two who couldn't complete this step in person created their characters over voice chat with the book on hand. This took a little longer to do, what with scheduling and all, but it all worked out and each player was able to email me a PDF copy of their character sheet for reference, along with a brief history of their character. In the end, we ended up with (below, from left to right) Vhara, an Akashayana yoga instructor; Nathan, a Chakravanti photographer; Kai, a neo-pagan Verbenae; and Alina, an ex-military Virtual Adept.

And just like that, the characters assemble and we're ready to game! If you have any questions about specific parts of the character creation system, post them below or over at my chronicle's Shadownessence thread! Next up, the first game session!