The Inside Scoop on Gaming

What exactly is a Players Guide? I don't really know. None of my other roleplaying games have one. My good friend Ben owned The Book of Shadows, "The Players Guide for Mage: The Ascension", so naturally I took it from him and read it. ("Hey, Ben, we're driving to Wisconsin for Christmas and I need something to read.")

Unfortunately, after I finished, I'm not sure whether White Wolf knows what a Player's Guide is either.

The book is broken up into six largely unrelated sections. I guess I'm going to have to review each part individually, because there certainly isn't a coherent theme running through this book. I'll try to sum it all up in the end, OK?

Part Zero Compulsory Bad Fiction

All right, I lied a few sentences back. Before The Book of Shadows hits the six parts, it follows in the footsteps of mage by including a piece of bad game fiction in the front. Yup, it's game fiction. Yup, it's bad. Next!

Grade: D-

Part One Stuff For Characters OR Sucking Up To GURPS

The first actual content to greet me when reading through this book was 15 pages worth of new skills. Ugh. What concerns me is that most of them are extremely specific, and including them might require more points than in characters without them. Should you really have to spend a point for the abilities: "You don't stub your toe in the dark," "You can scale walls with handholds," "Saturday night poker with the boys," " 'Hey, your shoe lace is untied!' " or "You can tastefully plan a wedding reception?" I'm not at all sure why they included Scan when they already had Perception. "Stone Lore" stands out as possibly the dumbest skill I've ever heard of in any game. "You know the reputed properties of stones and all the magic inherent in them." "If you throw *this* rock real hard, it will hurt people!" Anyways, the new skills are either too specific or are things that anyone should have at least level one in without spending any skill points at all. Extremely specific skills are really only necessary in systems that need to cover a very wide range of settings, times and detail levels: say, GURPS. Speaking of GURPS, the good folks at White Wolf have decided that a "Players Guide" is clearly the right place to add major changes to the character creation system. Part one also includes rules for Merits and Flaws: advantages and disadvantages, for those who couldn't tell. It's another 15 pages worth of stuff that's not really necessary, but I'm a little shocked that something as important as the character generation wouldn't be entirely in the main rulebook.

Grade: C-

Part Two The Groups OR Who Needs Good Characterization When You Have Skulls And Scantily-Clad Women?

I'm really amazed that White Wolf could spend 48 pages talking about the major groups and still give me almost no new information. It truly is a wonder.

There are 2-3 pages on each Tradition, plus some stuff on the Technocracy, the Marauders, and the rest of the cast of characters.

Each section of info is annoyingly intermingled with a piece of fiction that takes up about half the space. The sections on practically all of the Traditions rehash what was said in the basic book. This is not entirely true; some are much worse. For example, both the Cult of Ecstasy and the Euthanatos have abominable artwork (see above subheading). The Euthanatos, rather than noble mages out to expel evil from the cycle of live, are portrayed as makeup-wearing, death-obsessed losers. The Sons of Ether go from being creative and intuitive scientific artists to demeaning, arrogant old men who shout at "Igor."

Thankfully, White Wolf acknowledges that the Technocracy are not necessarily the Big Bad Guys in their section, but there is really no other information. And yes, the Hollow Ones still suck.

To finish this section is the Ahl-i-Batin, the destroyed tradition. I don't really know why, since they're gone. I suppose they could be used as an alternate Tradition to replace one of the normal ones. I have a personal fondness for "sacred geometry" as a math geek myself, and I respect the "tangible manifestation of the square root of negative one."

Grade: C

Part Three Rules OR Maybe I Ought To Look Into FUDGE After All

Yup, more of the rules. Nope, they haven't changed their system. Anyways, first up is 17 pages of rehash of the magic rules: either repetitive or intuitively obvious. "Hey, guess what: you can use DIFFERENT spheres to do the SAME THING! Cool, huh?" More Umbra stuff, no more information. A whole bunch of rules about Do that I can't really bring myself to care about. "Do Skill (pg. XX)" isn't really impressive, either. I see Do as calm and philosophical, they see Do as "kick through brick walls." Isn't that what Magic(k) is for? Finally, they have rules for Certamen (mage duels) that are best described by the word "repetitive." There seem to be no actual strategies, or, for that matter, choices available to the duelist.

If I ever use Mage, I'd use a different system, so these are wasted pages to me.

Grade: F

Part Four Spells OR Wait, I Thought This Was Improvised Magic

Sixteen pages of spells. Now, sure, some are kinda interesting, but the best part of the Mage system of magic is that characters don't have limits in their spellcasting. These make OK ideas to get you started, but I'm not really sure that's necessary. Perhaps these are to help uncreative players. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt on this one and assume someone needed help dreaming up effects: the samples in the core book were more than enough for me.

Grade: B

Part 5 Parables OR Oh, No! Not More Fiction!

OK, it's more fiction, but this time it doesn't suck. It's a bunch of stories about Ascension and the Ascension War, and they aren't even acutely painful to read. As a matter of fact, they were vaguely entertaining, but they read like fan fiction and don't have any sort of usability in a game. They don't even bring up ideas for game scenarios.

And whoever's idea it was that the Hollow Ones are the key to Ascension needs to be dragged out into the street and shot. (Deathlace...name of a Mage or name of a Magic: The Gathering card? You decide!)

Grade: B-

Part Six Essays OR Why I Like Jello

Some of these are good. The Hero's Handbook is an interesting guide to bringing mythological elements, ala Joseph Campbell, into your games. Good stuff; it could easily be expanded.

In fact, I wish it had been expanded right over some of the other essays.

"Alienation of the Savior" uses the words "Gothic," "Punk," "dark," and "lonely" in the same sentence. Three words: get over it.

Finally, "Prisoners in Eden" is hands-down the worst part of the entire book. The author goes on a huge rant about how bad our modern society and how much he hates everything: technology, The Media, violence, mean people, The Government, whatever. In the closing paragraph, he asks "How does this relate to Mage?" Frankly, he should have asked himself this in the *opening* paragraph. Mr. Brown, keep your opinions out of my books.

Grade: Ranges from A to F. Overall, B-.

Visuals

The layout tends to waste a lot of space with large cryptic symbols that are never referred to in the text. Some of the art is immature and frankly a little offensive (see: subheading, Part Two). Most of the rest of it is staunchly mediocre, although there are a few good pieces (e.g.: Virtual Adepts). Some of the backgrounds are annoying and make the text hard to read. I don't know what in the world the layout person was thinking putting text over graph paper.

Grade: C-

Overall

The book was an okay read through on the first time. It was better than staring out the window for a few hundred miles. On the other hand, it doesn't really have anything else to recommend it. I don't think I would use a single thing from this book in an actual game. The usability factor is very low.

Grade: D-

I would have to say that Mage is easily playable without supplements of this quality; I am going to look very carefully at any future supplements before spending my money on them. (Thank goodness for friends who lend me books!)

Style: 2 (Needs Work)
Substance: 1 (I Wasted My Money)

The Book of Shadows
Author: Emily Barnes, Bill Bridges, Steve Brown, Phil Brucato, Brian Campbell, Sam Chupp, Beth Fischi, Don Frew, Dan Greenberg, William Hale, Harry Heckel, Sam Inabinet, Darren McKeeman, Judith A. McLaughlin, Jim Moore, Kevin Murphy, John R. Robey, Kathleen Ryan, Steve Wieck, Ehrik Winters, Teeuwynn Woodruff Category: game Company/Publisher: White Wolf Game Studio Line: Mage: The Ascension Cost: $18.00 Page count: 208 ISBN: 1-56504-119-4 SKU: WW 4050 Playtest Review by Sam Lindsay-Levine on 01/16/00. Genre tags: Fantasy Modern_day	What exactly is a Players Guide? I don't really know. None of my other roleplaying games have one. My good friend Ben owned The Book of Shadows, "The Players Guide for Mage: The Ascension", so naturally I took it from him and read it. ("Hey, Ben, we're driving to Wisconsin for Christmas and I need something to read.") Unfortunately, after I finished, I'm not sure whether White Wolf knows what a Player's Guide is either. The book is broken up into six largely unrelated sections. I guess I'm going to have to review each part individually, because there certainly isn't a coherent theme running through this book. I'll try to sum it all up in the end, OK? Part Zero Compulsory Bad Fiction All right, I lied a few sentences back. Before The Book of Shadows hits the six parts, it follows in the footsteps of mage by including a piece of bad game fiction in the front. Yup, it's game fiction. Yup, it's bad. Next! Grade: D- Part One Stuff For Characters OR Sucking Up To GURPS The first actual content to greet me when reading through this book was 15 pages worth of new skills. Ugh. What concerns me is that most of them are extremely specific, and including them might require more points than in characters without them. Should you really have to spend a point for the abilities: "You don't stub your toe in the dark," "You can scale walls with handholds," "Saturday night poker with the boys," " 'Hey, your shoe lace is untied!' " or "You can tastefully plan a wedding reception?" I'm not at all sure why they included Scan when they already had Perception. "Stone Lore" stands out as possibly the dumbest skill I've ever heard of in any game. "You know the reputed properties of stones and all the magic inherent in them." "If you throw this rock real hard, it will hurt people!" Anyways, the new skills are either too specific or are things that anyone should have at least level one in without spending any skill points at all. Extremely specific skills are really only necessary in systems that need to cover a very wide range of settings, times and detail levels: say, GURPS. Speaking of GURPS, the good folks at White Wolf have decided that a "Players Guide" is clearly the right place to add major changes to the character creation system. Part one also includes rules for Merits and Flaws: advantages and disadvantages, for those who couldn't tell. It's another 15 pages worth of stuff that's not really necessary, but I'm a little shocked that something as important as the character generation wouldn't be entirely in the main rulebook. Grade: C- Part Two The Groups OR Who Needs Good Characterization When You Have Skulls And Scantily-Clad Women? I'm really amazed that White Wolf could spend 48 pages talking about the major groups and still give me almost no new information. It truly is a wonder. There are 2-3 pages on each Tradition, plus some stuff on the Technocracy, the Marauders, and the rest of the cast of characters. Each section of info is annoyingly intermingled with a piece of fiction that takes up about half the space. The sections on practically all of the Traditions rehash what was said in the basic book. This is not entirely true; some are much worse. For example, both the Cult of Ecstasy and the Euthanatos have abominable artwork (see above subheading). The Euthanatos, rather than noble mages out to expel evil from the cycle of live, are portrayed as makeup-wearing, death-obsessed losers. The Sons of Ether go from being creative and intuitive scientific artists to demeaning, arrogant old men who shout at "Igor." Thankfully, White Wolf acknowledges that the Technocracy are not necessarily the Big Bad Guys in their section, but there is really no other information. And yes, the Hollow Ones still suck. To finish this section is the Ahl-i-Batin, the destroyed tradition. I don't really know why, since they're gone. I suppose they could be used as an alternate Tradition to replace one of the normal ones. I have a personal fondness for "sacred geometry" as a math geek myself, and I respect the "tangible manifestation of the square root of negative one." Grade: C Part Three Rules OR Maybe I Ought To Look Into FUDGE After All Yup, more of the rules. Nope, they haven't changed their system. Anyways, first up is 17 pages of rehash of the magic rules: either repetitive or intuitively obvious. "Hey, guess what: you can use DIFFERENT spheres to do the SAME THING! Cool, huh?" More Umbra stuff, no more information. A whole bunch of rules about Do that I can't really bring myself to care about. "Do Skill (pg. XX)" isn't really impressive, either. I see Do as calm and philosophical, they see Do as "kick through brick walls." Isn't that what Magic(k) is for? Finally, they have rules for Certamen (mage duels) that are best described by the word "repetitive." There seem to be no actual strategies, or, for that matter, choices available to the duelist. If I ever use Mage, I'd use a different system, so these are wasted pages to me. Grade: F Part Four Spells OR Wait, I Thought This Was Improvised Magic Sixteen pages of spells. Now, sure, some are kinda interesting, but the best part of the Mage system of magic is that characters don't have limits in their spellcasting. These make OK ideas to get you started, but I'm not really sure that's necessary. Perhaps these are to help uncreative players. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt on this one and assume someone needed help dreaming up effects: the samples in the core book were more than enough for me. Grade: B Part 5 Parables OR Oh, No! Not More Fiction! OK, it's more fiction, but this time it doesn't suck. It's a bunch of stories about Ascension and the Ascension War, and they aren't even acutely painful to read. As a matter of fact, they were vaguely entertaining, but they read like fan fiction and don't have any sort of usability in a game. They don't even bring up ideas for game scenarios. And whoever's idea it was that the Hollow Ones are the key to Ascension needs to be dragged out into the street and shot. (Deathlace...name of a Mage or name of a Magic: The Gathering card? You decide!) Grade: B- Part Six Essays OR Why I Like Jello Some of these are good. The Hero's Handbook is an interesting guide to bringing mythological elements, ala Joseph Campbell, into your games. Good stuff; it could easily be expanded. In fact, I wish it had been expanded right over some of the other essays. "Alienation of the Savior" uses the words "Gothic," "Punk," "dark," and "lonely" in the same sentence. Three words: get over it. Finally, "Prisoners in Eden" is hands-down the worst part of the entire book. The author goes on a huge rant about how bad our modern society and how much he hates everything: technology, The Media, violence, mean people, The Government, whatever. In the closing paragraph, he asks "How does this relate to Mage?" Frankly, he should have asked himself this in the opening paragraph. Mr. Brown, keep your opinions out of my books. Grade: Ranges from A to F. Overall, B-. Visuals The layout tends to waste a lot of space with large cryptic symbols that are never referred to in the text. Some of the art is immature and frankly a little offensive (see: subheading, Part Two). Most of the rest of it is staunchly mediocre, although there are a few good pieces (e.g.: Virtual Adepts). Some of the backgrounds are annoying and make the text hard to read. I don't know what in the world the layout person was thinking putting text over graph paper. Grade: C- Overall The book was an okay read through on the first time. It was better than staring out the window for a few hundred miles. On the other hand, it doesn't really have anything else to recommend it. I don't think I would use a single thing from this book in an actual game. The usability factor is very low. Grade: D- I would have to say that Mage is easily playable without supplements of this quality; I am going to look very carefully at any future supplements before spending my money on them. (Thank goodness for friends who lend me books!) Style: 2 (Needs Work) Substance: 1 (I Wasted My Money)