Game Geeks
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 1 พ.ค. 2012
- Game Master Kurt Wiegel reviews and educates viewers on role playing games.
This episode Kurt reviews World of Darkness, Mage: The Awakening and Werewolf: The Forsaken by White Wolf Games
www.white-wolf.com/
Game Geeks
gamegeeksrpg.com/
Host:Kurt Wiegel
Intro music by & © Errol Bruckner Productions
Production: Rob Mattison
Game Geeks © 2011 PugKnows Productions - เกม
I love the honesty in your reviews.
I really like Mage the Awakening. The greatest RPG moment I have ever had was my friend using an ectoplasm type spell and mixing it with a ghost they encountered in our Hunter game. He basically barfed up an ecto-samurai that would fight from the dude's mouth. He scared the living shit out of a bunch of bikers at a bar! I about died laughing.
In role playing games, power creep is when the newer books have more power than the older books. The werewolf game was published after the vampire game, and the werewolves could easily kill the vampires. However, with further supplements, werewolves could cast spells, like the mages, and they could kill mages easily too. In game terms, werewolves were broken overpowerful. In Mage: the Ascension, the mage supplements made them unbalancing powerful also. This also occurs in collectible card games.
Kurt really should have noted that Tome of Mysteries is almost a requirement for running a Mage game. It consists entirely of material that was cut from the corebook due to page count. Though if there was ever a game White Wolf should have given "the Pathfinder Treatment" to, it's Mage: The Awakening. Also why don't we still don't get any love for Pimp: The Backhanding.
In Mage the Ascension I've always related more with the Technocracy, Sons of Ether, the Cyber-Adepts and all of their respective pro themes on science and technology than the overly pushed pro-mysticism of the games meta-plot. Likewise, the theme of the games magic felt best when viewed from the concepts in Quantum Mechanics. A good example of this is in the novel, "Permutation City" by Greg Egan via its use of the Dust Theory. While not trying to give any spoilers to the novel, this example consisted of two entities whose different views on reality literally destroyed the others through its superior consistency and laws of physics. I'd love to play as a Technocracy mage, literally fighting insane horrors to defend reality as we know it. ^^
conversely, I loved the fantasy cosmology/mythology of Mage: The Awakening and the less pushed meta plot that give a good modern day fantasy setting feel. In particular , the thought experiments and story telling potential of Imperial Mysteries was exceeding fascinating. I also felt Imperial mysteries, by virtue of its gameplay and the Pax Arcanum, brought back some of that interesting Quantum Mechanics charactersitcs of the oWOD mage.
What I really love about New Wod that people couldnt realize is that you can translate your character to new wod and build a campaign story based on old wod. If you really want sabbat and camarillah in your world go for it. if you really want the wyrm in your story go for it. you arent held to it
Power creep is the process in which older material becomes obsolete or outdated when newer stuff gets published.
Ah, I simply LOVE Mage the Awakening. It really deserves a more in-dept review.
I stay with the old version and we keep playing them
Second...
I ran a mixed game for a couple of years before I talked my group into moving into more narrative games (and I'm still pulling them further... Fiasco, I will get them to Fiasco). I've had Second Sight characters in groups with a Vamp, some Lost, Werewolves, and a Mage. It worked out fine. The Mage can wreck things in the hands of a creative player, but every template can step up to near broken. I had the most fun with Changeling by far, both to read and to run. Even ran to Lost games.
Nevermind, apparantly you foresaw my need and made one almost 100 reviews ago. Way to think ahead!
Yeah. They've made casting less freeform in the awakening but still not as strict as other systems. It's levelled the playing field somewhat as someone with a lot of imagination can take control of an Old world of darkness campaign with a mage. They're still very powerful in nWoD but less so than before.
I'm playing anWoD game alongside a couple of people playing vampires and I've agreed to a slight starting XP deficit to offset how powerful mages can be.
Very soon. Sorry for the delay.
summed up a lot of points about Mage that I agree with. Hell, I've read it 5 times, amd read Tome of the Mysteries, but as soon as I feel I've understood it I try explaining it to potential players and they run a mile.. - would be interested on how you feel on how Paradox, disbelief and unravelling effect the game (my players were mainly concerned with blowing up if they did anything - but none of them are what you might call subtle
A freak accident at the high-vacuum iso-thermo chamber machine released a high concentrated blast of crystalized I-don't-know-whats that transformed Professor Wiegel into... GEEKMAN - a new superhero for a new age!
But you've probably guessed that already, just from the ominous new opening theme of the show (which subconsciously programs the listener to storm the U.W.E.C. HQ; a last minute change to the uploaded TH-cam video by MR. NERD, GEEKMAN's nemesis).
Thanks for the review, by the way.
Mage the Ascension is my favorite RPG game, though I love Mage the Awakening as well, however the two is very different even if they use allot of the same terms.
It's cool. I just miss my game geeks vids!
thanks for the review very infomative. i was wondering if your going to do the aniversey line of old world of darkness books is they come out. also latter this year is mummy the cursed gets released. again thank u for a great show both for vet gamers and those new to the the fandom.
Wish you would have covered mage first being it has so much more stuff.
Ever thought about checking out the way smaller WoD games like Innocents and Ghoul?
A gamer AND a scientist? Hells yeah!
He did review Changeling the Lost. Episode 116.
Many Thanks Kurt! I finally got to hear what you thought about new Werewolf, have tagged you since Vampire the Reqium about just that.
Also much bigger fan of the old Werewolf the Apocalypse, but I think the New World of Darkness's game system is very flexible and easy to play. Moreover, it is easier to teach to new players than old-school World of Darkness. Thank you.
Epic Commented: "Captain Planet with fur and fangs"
LIKE BIG TIME
Please make a review of Changeling too. It is in my opinion the best add-on for World of Darkness.
The old Mage system had a much better background,One of the best I have seen as an rpg player. But the things you could do were not that clear. This new system is much better. Is more clean and you know what you can do and can't do. In and ideal world I would play "old world" "new system". Thanks for the reviews.
Geist is my fave too!
I hope you'll make a more detailed review of Mage some day. Best gamelind, IMHO.
Now can you review the OWoD lines?
When is the next video coming out???
The Shadow realm's Animism is a nightmare to run though. Maybe it's my own failing, but new and creative descriptions for my Spirits are slow in coming and usually turn out pretty lame. I can't improvise in the Shadow like I can in the Hedge. When I read the things the authors had in their Shadow realms, or even looked at some of the spectacular art, I'd feel incredibly inadequate as a GM. Animism just doesn't come naturally to me.
give it another shot, I never read old mage, but after having read werewolf the Apocalypse..Mage the Awakening is cake.
Please, please Kurt! Review the new campaign to Pathfinder: Rise of the Rune Lords, when it comes out! Looking forward to it and want to know your opinion before I pick it up at the store.
im sorry kurt, i was distracted by SCIENCE!
Is there any more than I (?) that Purchasing new MAGE, in hopes that it would be SIMPLE and less COMPLEX than the old world of darkness, but DISCOVERED after the first four readings, that it (if possible) got even worse? I have not picked the book off the shelf since I bought it at release ...
true on both accounts!
(machine hisses) Oh, excuse me.
tasteless joke, but still funny.
I really have nothing against the new "World of Darkness" games and system. It is one of the best I know. But I can not get the hang of new MAGE? I might not are plastic enough smart or occult interested in understanding the language? But I will certainly give a shot at it again ... (Y)
Kurt... get your hands on Promethean... You won't be disappointed.
Admit it, the lab equipment is for trying to make superheroes...
nooo, old music!!! Where'd you go?
Make the Spirit World Great Again.
I think it's ok to have the werewolves done up WOD style powerful. Why is it always fine for Vampires and Mages to be the most powerful character types? I have no problem with this. For a long time in games and in fiction Werewolves have always been treated like 1st level orcs. I'm cool with WOD styled Werewolves.
Science!
So lets talk about some fantasy games. Ha.
Build your own spells? >:P
Not a bad review of Werewolf, however the Mage review is sadly my least favorite of what you have done. I understand it is alot to explain and wrap your brain around; perhaps it might be easier to review specific books from Mage rather than the corebook itself. May I reccomend Seers of the Throne and Sactum & Sigils. Good Gaming to you Kurt and may the Gygex bless your dice.
Liked the review for the most part up until the part about Kurt complaining that the Mage book has a too much information for him to read. All I'm going to say you really have it tough kid. Something wrong imo about a reviwer complaining he has to read material for his review. I thought that came with the territiory. As for daring to read the book I and others have already taken you up on that dare. Maybe he should not admit to not reading a book and only the back cover. Ruins his credability.