Santa's Little Helper

So, this last weekend, my wife Rosa and I threw the 12th incarnation of this Christmas/holiday party that I've been associated ever since it's humble beginnings at the Red Lobster. Over the years the gift giving traditions have continued to evolve and a few years back we started doing what some people call a White Elephant gift exchange.

I'm sure you've tried one of these thing before, they can be pretty fun, depending on who's involved, but that's the case with pretty much any game am I right? So the basic idea is everyone throws anonymous gifts into a pile and people are able to draw and steal them based on a turn order and you know, you get the idea.

So this year my old gaming buddy Ben B. decided that he was never going to play Mage: the Ascension again and put everything he owned under the tree. It seemed like a pretty sweet haul to me, but it didn't end up moving around much (there was alcohol in play). I think that by the end of the night this pretty cool Irish guy who I had just met named Melvin ended up with the books.

Anyway, so, on Sunday morning Rosa and I are cleaning up the what remained of last night's empties and the remaining food and whatnot and underneath a pile of discarded wrapping paper I find Melvin's Mage books!

The collection contained:
Mage: the Ascension 2nd Edition
The Book of Shadows: Mage Player's Guide (essential to running the game)
The Book of Madness (really good book)
The Book of Crafts (not bad)
The Traditions Gathered vol 1 - Songs of Science (Virtual Adepts, Order of Hermes and Sons of Ether)
Technocracy Assembled - Volume One (N.W.O., Iteration X and the Progenitors)
and finally,
Mage: the Sorcerer's Crusade

I gotta say, I was pretty excited, which I found surprising 'cause I've been dogging Mage for years. There were a lot of problems with that game. For one, it felt like the Star Trek:Voyager of games, it took multi cultural political correctness to such a length that it felt dippy and revolted even a hard left liberal like myself. I also hated the whole Technocracy angle. I know this might seem like a hug critique on the game, but I felt like he game would have been better than fine without them. Remember how the World of Darkness was supposed to be about Gothic horror? What could possibly be less gothic than a freakin' cyborg jumping out of the shadows out at you? Or having to get together with your pagan wicca buddies to save the world from over enthusiastic accountant? See? It was Whedonesque to a ridiculously absurd level before there was such a thing as Whedonesque.

But, I did have lot of fun playing those old games. I had a lot of fun reading them too. And that was really the whole point wasn't it? I couldn't help but feel, as I held those old, purple soft-cover manuals in may hands (with their price tags still attached, ol' Ben never did see the point of taking those things off), a certain connection with my past that I wanted to rekindle. At tha moment I started considering what it would take to get me running that game again. And hell, it was a good feeling. In the past ten years, White-Wolf, and most of the other big game companies have done a pretty crap job of releasing anything that come close to the conversation starting, debate enraging, page turning goodness of the old World of Darkness.

So, I went ahead and sat down and flipped through a couple of the books and it didn't take long for me to realize the answer to my own question. A lot. It would take a lot to get me playing Mage again. Those books are definitely showing their age (the interior art is terrible), and I still really hate th Technocracy. In fact, I may even have less patience for the Traditions than I did 15 years ago. It's a real bummer that Mage: the Awaken was such a titanic flop, 'cause flipping through those old Ascension manuals, as poor as they were, still really gave me the bug.

But, that having been said, there would have to be some things done to really run it right, starting with finding a 3rd edition revised core book. And I really loved the Nephandi and Marauders, they were the antagonists the Traditions deserved, hopelessly sidelined during all the big plays. I'd be interested in hearing your ideas on what would make a great Mage Chronicle, old school style. I guess my first question would be: where does your optimal game take place? So, it's not off the table entirely, just yet anyway.

In the meantime, anyone want some Mage books?