Sunday, July 12, 2009

From the Attic: GURPS Mage the Ascension

During the early 90s GURPS Mage the Acension came along with GURPS Voodoo. Both had radically different magic system yet still worked within GURPS.

GURPS Mage was definitely the most powerful system. I tweak to make it the type of magic the Gods used. The mana system that clerics and mages used was a pale shadow of what is form of magic could do.

One thing I had to change was what Paradox was. In the normal Mage game Paradox occured whenever a normal person saw something that couldn't be done by science. It represents the dominant reality of reason punishing the mage for defying it.

For the Majestic Wilderlands I decided that Paradox occurred when creation was bent in unnatural ways. The world was created from chaos using natural laws. Mana is a force that can be manipulated by will. A force that was created alongside the other natural laws. Mage Magic in contrast is the very bending of reality itself. Defy the natural laws then Paradox kicked in.

One thing that prompted this post is that I am sorting all my gaming stuff after cleaning the garage. I have a dozen White Wolf books including all five of the original World of Darkness Games. I wondered why the heck I bought them. I despised the tone of the campaign they had and the mechanics were blah. Then Tim's post at Gothridge Manor reminded me.

They make some of the best damn monster manuals ever.

Excuse me as I hang garlic and load up on silver bullets. I think I hear the howling of White Wolf fans.

3 comments:

DMWieg said...

For what it's worth, the new incarnations of the WoD games are much better, conceptually. I'm still on the fence about the mechanics, but they have done away with the Mandatory Gothness. I think this was probably to appeal to a wider section of the gaming subculture.

Gabriel Reis said...

Hy, i'm form Brasil and i am one of the last players of Gurps in here.
I was intrigued by your gods magic system, maybe u can explain a little more of how it works?
Many thanks.

ps:it is in Portuguese but u can check-out my web site in www.gurpsnation.com

Tyler said...

As a fan of Mage in spite of its warts, I really dug the GURPS adaptation of the property. The chapter vignettes gave a more thoughtful, scholarly approach to the notion of modern magicians.

And now with GURPS Thaumatology, one can build Mage-style magic without doing as much heavy lifting.