Don your shades, my comrades.
Since I reviewed Mage Revised last week, and mentioned the Guide to the Technocracy therein, I figured I might as well review that too. Next week will be the Book of Worlds. I must confess to not have read most of the Technocracy books to date. Only Void Engineers caught my attention. Therefore, I cannot compare what's in here to what's in the 5 individual books published previously. This review is geared towards fans of Mage who are already familiar with the setting, rather than those who've never played it before.
The Guide to the Technocracy is just that - an in-dept look at all things Technocratic. A 13-page history lesson, 29 pages of character creation, two pages for each Convention, and a whole lot of background info and storyteller tips go into this book. It is a rather large book indeed.
Good Points
1. We don't do magic. It is stressed in this book again and again that the Technocracy follows their paradigm. They simply do not do magic, even coincidentally. They never lose their need to use an Apparatus (Focus) when creating Effects. They certainly will not be chucking fireballs and throwing lightning bolts without a plasma blaster or lightning gun, and even those are considered "vulgar" and will get you Paradox (usually a severe equipment malfunction, but sometimes a paradox spirit or realm will step in). The Mage Revised rules for Foci will work well with Apparati.
2. Backgrounds above 5. Allies, Influence, Node, Resources, and the new Backgrounds Backup, Requisitions, and Spies all have ratings up to 10. This adds something for Syndicate chairmen (and women) to aspire to.
3. Newish Skills, Merits, Archetypes, and Flaws. This goes on the board as a minor good point. They aren't anything stellar, and some of them are familiar, but it's nice to see them. I'll bet this book was nearly titled "Player's Guide to the Technocracy" if not for point four below...
4. Technocratic Insights. The majority of this book gives details on different aspects of the Technocracy. The Convention Goals, Social Conditioning, Protocols (what to do if you run into supernaturals and how the Union views each type), exactly how big the Technocratic Union is (it's smaller than it looks to others), good plot ideas and themes, subgroups within each Convention, and so forth.
5. A slide away from control. A minor point, but worth bringing up. In many older White Wolf books, there has been a criticism that supernatural beings were behind *EVERYTHING*. This book drifts away from that trend, in a manner similar to SJ Games' "In Nomine" - Technocrats did not invent every technological doodad before the Sleepers did. Sometimes they got caught flat-footed, in fact. To me this is a nice change; I suppose it depends on how you run your Chronicle.
Bad Points
1. Chapter Eight There are three parts to chapter eight: Procedures (Rotes), Devices/Biotech/Cybertech, and Mundande Tech. The rotes are the worst. Some of those Rotes (especially the Entropy one that curses someone!) have no basis in science. Everything else is semi-useful, but low on detail. The weapon Devices don't say how much damage they do, and the Biomods are skimpy. Altogether not a real useful chapter.
2. Paradigm Blindness. One thing I really disliked is the explanation of how the Technocracy deals with "willworkers" (i.e. other magi) and the fact that magic actually works. The explanation in the book seems to be that the Technocratic Union sees "magic" as something that just hasn't been explained yet, and which will somehow fit into their paradigm or be destroyed. This seems wrong to me. It's hard to explain exactly how it seems wrong, so I hope that if you think about it you will find this as unsatisfying an answer as I have. I'm working on finding a better reason for my own games; one that doesn't involve all Technomancers everywhere sticking their collective heads in the sand.
3. Oh wait, there's no #3. I suppose that if you truly despise the Technocracy and intend to never use it in your game, this book is not useful. Everything else in the book, even the introductory story, is neat stuff.
Shades off, boys. What's the body count?
For Substance this book deserves a 5 all the way. Chapter Eight in no way detracts from the rest of the book (so long as you ignore the Rotes). All the information players and GM's need to create Technocrat characters and run them in a Mage Chronicle is here. I would have liked to see a bit of "crossover" material for running Technocrats and Traditionalists in the same game, but that's my In Nomine bias coming up again.
For Style the book lives up to most peoples' high expectations of White Wolf. A 5 here as well. Writing is quite clear and explicit (above the level of Mage Revised), headers look like headers, there are no weird alignment problems that I noticed, and character creation info is presented in table form (pgs. 132 to 135). The pictures are an odd mix, with some photo-edits and some cartoony, but they're usually matched up well with the text around them. None struck me as being particularly bad.
Bottom line: this is an excellent book. If you plan on running a Mage game and involving the Technocracy on more than a cursory level, I highly recommend it.
Style: 5 (Excellent!)
Substance: 5 (Excellent!)
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