The Inside Scoop on Gaming

This review was originally written in October 1999 for a site of mine which has been defunct for a while - I thought it might as well end up here.

Gaining a Virtual Adept character and wanting to use the Digital Web setting as part of my chronicle triggered me to get this. Unfortunately the Web is not detailed at all in Book of Worlds - it just says "see the Digital Web book".

I think I made a mistake. I bought Mage Chronicles 1, which includes Book of Chantries and Digital Web, rather than Digital Web 2.0. There were several reasons: RPG provision is poor here at the moment, and this was in stock; two books for the price of one; I didn't want to be tied up in the "latest developments" in the "official" game universe, i.e. "we broke it and had to start again".

I've seen some good reviews of this supplement, but am not sure I agree with them. If you have the choice, you're probably better going for 2.0 - it's £9-10 on its own, but it is the current version and you can chuck out the bits you don't want. At some point I hope to get it for comparison. Get Mage Chronicles 1 only if you're fairly sure you also want the Book of Chantries.

Good points:

Ideas! It does give you an introduction to the Web and a platform you can more or less work from, but you'll probably feel you want to do a lot of tweaking on specifics. Bad points:

White Wolf-itis: the authors were clearly full of enthusiasm and probably knew what they meant, but often don't succeed in getting it across clearly. Some of the key sections would really have benefitted from more detail, e.g. the different kinds of area characters can visit.

This is one of the earlier supplements, and it shows. The copyright date in the front shows 1997, but I have a magazine review of it from 1994 (there may have been a few revisions in the reprint, e.g. in the section on computer equipment). An immense amount has changed in that time, both in the real world of computers and the systems and background of Mage. This is pretty much a Mage 1st edition book. I don't think it even mentions the Internet and the World Wide Web (it only gets as far as BBS's), and obviously we want to know the relationship between these and the Digital Web.

A number of rotes seemed to be just wrong, in terms of the Sphere levels and their effects. Of course, most people find this in most of the books to some extent because interpretation is such a personal thing.

Inconsistencies - something stated on one page being contradicted on the next. Mage contains more abstract, cerebral stuff than most games, and this really doesn't help the reader to understand it.

SECTIONS

The book is 112 pages long.

The Prelude is a short scene with a Virtual Adept in the Web to get us in the mood, not particularly good or bad. It's main effect is to show that hackers use a different language to the rest of us.

The Introduction gives a brief treatment of what the Web is and the main players you'll meet there, i.e. Virtual Adepts and Technocracy, followed by a glossary of their Net slang. Chapter 1: Tangles in the Web holds the main meat of the book. It tells how the Web came to be (interesting and useful), the different ways of getting there (not clear enough), and the different parts of its "geography" (interesting, but more needed). There's some stuff on game systems for resolving actions, which again could have used more thought. The Computer skill is used for a lot of actions, and I would have liked to see an explanation of why - after all, you're not actually using one, and most of the Web isn't like the inside of a computer at all. I did like the rules about getting data: it appears in various forms, usually crystalline blocks, which have a weight depending on how much stuff is in them. A really big data collection may be just too heavy to take away!

A longish section on magick includes treatment of Paradox "white-outs" (just about clear enough to use - and you can crash the whole area you're in with a bad enough backlash, which should make 'em think twice) and of the various Spheres, detailing what the levels of each can do here. Some of this is helpful, some just seems wrong, and some contradicts itself. There's a section on creating Realms in the Web, which can be done at a basic level by any Awakened character, though unFormatted sectors to practice on are supposedly like gold dust. Finally, there are brief hints for crossovers with Vampire and Werewolf.

Chapter 2: The Spy's Demise is about a bar of that name serving as neutral ground for Traditions and Technocracy alike. It's a big, confusing place, but is well-known and has links to everywhere - a central, safe point for adventures in the Web. There are write-ups for some of the characters you might meet there, including John Courage (finally I know what he's about!), and a few rumours that might be picked up. It's quite appealing, and I would have liked more on it.

Chapter 3: Tale Recursion is a 15-page scenario outline focusing on getting a powerful mage out of a Paradox Realm of his own creation within the Web. Chapter 4: Deus Ex Machina is an 11-page scenario outline based around an Iteration X plot to reformat the whole Web to their own design. Both of these are OK, and could be made workable if you put the time in to flesh out the scenes outlined, but I think I would have preferred the space to be used for more detail on the main areas of the web, including the Spy's Demise.

Chapter 5: Permutations has more rules-type stuff. There's a section on computers, what they can and can't do - apparently the three main types of personal computer (PC) are IBM or MS-DOS compatible machines (also known as "clones"), the Apple Macintosh family and the Commodore Amiga. This section shows the age of the book - though to be fair the pace of computer technology means any book will look dated quickly. A couple of pages of rotes are partly helpful, partly trivial and partly mis-Sphered. A few interesting Talisman ideas, especially those that live on disk as software in the physical world but take form in the Web. The section on things that live in the Web uses the 1st ed. system of giving Arete and Spheres like mages rather than treating them as Werewolf spirits, which most of us are now used to. The section ends with a slightly suspect glossary of (mostly real-world) Net slang.

Digital Web (v.1)
Digital Web (v.1) Capsule Review by Tim Gray on 07/10/01 Style: 3 (Average) Substance: 2 (Sparse) Some good ideas, but woefully outdated in terms of computing and game system, and lacking in clarity. Product: Digital Web (v.1) Author: Daniel Greenberg, Harry Heckel, Darren McKeeman and others Category: RPG Company/Publisher: White Wolf Line: Mage Cost: Page count: 112 Year published: 1997 and earlier ISBN: SKU: Comp copy?: no Capsule Review by Tim Gray on 07/10/01 Genre tags: Fantasy Modern day Other	This review was originally written in October 1999 for a site of mine which has been defunct for a while - I thought it might as well end up here. Gaining a Virtual Adept character and wanting to use the Digital Web setting as part of my chronicle triggered me to get this. Unfortunately the Web is not detailed at all in Book of Worlds - it just says "see the Digital Web book". I think I made a mistake. I bought Mage Chronicles 1, which includes Book of Chantries and Digital Web, rather than Digital Web 2.0. There were several reasons: RPG provision is poor here at the moment, and this was in stock; two books for the price of one; I didn't want to be tied up in the "latest developments" in the "official" game universe, i.e. "we broke it and had to start again". I've seen some good reviews of this supplement, but am not sure I agree with them. If you have the choice, you're probably better going for 2.0 - it's £9-10 on its own, but it is the current version and you can chuck out the bits you don't want. At some point I hope to get it for comparison. Get Mage Chronicles 1 only if you're fairly sure you also want the Book of Chantries. Good points: Ideas! It does give you an introduction to the Web and a platform you can more or less work from, but you'll probably feel you want to do a lot of tweaking on specifics. Bad points: White Wolf-itis: the authors were clearly full of enthusiasm and probably knew what they meant, but often don't succeed in getting it across clearly. Some of the key sections would really have benefitted from more detail, e.g. the different kinds of area characters can visit. This is one of the earlier supplements, and it shows. The copyright date in the front shows 1997, but I have a magazine review of it from 1994 (there may have been a few revisions in the reprint, e.g. in the section on computer equipment). An immense amount has changed in that time, both in the real world of computers and the systems and background of Mage. This is pretty much a Mage 1st edition book. I don't think it even mentions the Internet and the World Wide Web (it only gets as far as BBS's), and obviously we want to know the relationship between these and the Digital Web. A number of rotes seemed to be just wrong, in terms of the Sphere levels and their effects. Of course, most people find this in most of the books to some extent because interpretation is such a personal thing. Inconsistencies - something stated on one page being contradicted on the next. Mage contains more abstract, cerebral stuff than most games, and this really doesn't help the reader to understand it. SECTIONS The book is 112 pages long. The Prelude is a short scene with a Virtual Adept in the Web to get us in the mood, not particularly good or bad. It's main effect is to show that hackers use a different language to the rest of us. The Introduction gives a brief treatment of what the Web is and the main players you'll meet there, i.e. Virtual Adepts and Technocracy, followed by a glossary of their Net slang. Chapter 1: Tangles in the Web holds the main meat of the book. It tells how the Web came to be (interesting and useful), the different ways of getting there (not clear enough), and the different parts of its "geography" (interesting, but more needed). There's some stuff on game systems for resolving actions, which again could have used more thought. The Computer skill is used for a lot of actions, and I would have liked to see an explanation of why - after all, you're not actually using one, and most of the Web isn't like the inside of a computer at all. I did like the rules about getting data: it appears in various forms, usually crystalline blocks, which have a weight depending on how much stuff is in them. A really big data collection may be just too heavy to take away! A longish section on magick includes treatment of Paradox "white-outs" (just about clear enough to use - and you can crash the whole area you're in with a bad enough backlash, which should make 'em think twice) and of the various Spheres, detailing what the levels of each can do here. Some of this is helpful, some just seems wrong, and some contradicts itself. There's a section on creating Realms in the Web, which can be done at a basic level by any Awakened character, though unFormatted sectors to practice on are supposedly like gold dust. Finally, there are brief hints for crossovers with Vampire and Werewolf. Chapter 2: The Spy's Demise is about a bar of that name serving as neutral ground for Traditions and Technocracy alike. It's a big, confusing place, but is well-known and has links to everywhere - a central, safe point for adventures in the Web. There are write-ups for some of the characters you might meet there, including John Courage (finally I know what he's about!), and a few rumours that might be picked up. It's quite appealing, and I would have liked more on it. Chapter 3: Tale Recursion is a 15-page scenario outline focusing on getting a powerful mage out of a Paradox Realm of his own creation within the Web. Chapter 4: Deus Ex Machina is an 11-page scenario outline based around an Iteration X plot to reformat the whole Web to their own design. Both of these are OK, and could be made workable if you put the time in to flesh out the scenes outlined, but I think I would have preferred the space to be used for more detail on the main areas of the web, including the Spy's Demise. Chapter 5: Permutations has more rules-type stuff. There's a section on computers, what they can and can't do - apparently the three main types of personal computer (PC) are IBM or MS-DOS compatible machines (also known as "clones"), the Apple Macintosh family and the Commodore Amiga. This section shows the age of the book - though to be fair the pace of computer technology means any book will look dated quickly. A couple of pages of rotes are partly helpful, partly trivial and partly mis-Sphered. A few interesting Talisman ideas, especially those that live on disk as software in the physical world but take form in the Web. The section on things that live in the Web uses the 1st ed. system of giving Arete and Spheres like mages rather than treating them as Werewolf spirits, which most of us are now used to. The section ends with a slightly suspect glossary of (mostly real-world) Net slang.

Digital Web (v.1)