There is no group, organization or faction within
Mage: the Ascension that is so difficult to comprehend and at the same time so poorly handled as the Technocracy. Thankfully, that mishandling has not really carried over to
Mage: the Sorcerers Crusade with regard to the Order of Reason, but the difficulty in dealing with it remains the same. Trying to mesh magic and science into one “magic as science, and science as magic” kind of idea is extremely difficult sometimes, and the fact that many treat the Convention as Traditions that are on the other side of the war doesn’t really help at all. Take all that and send it back several hundred years to when the idea of science
as science was just being born, and you can understand why I’ve been waiting for a good sourcebook for the Order of Reason since I first picked up
Mage: the Sorcerers Crusade. Thankfully, not we have one.
The Order of Reason can be roughly divided into three sections. First are the secrets of the Outer Labyrinth, covering the knowledge and tools of those who have just been Enlightened and initiated into the Order. Following that is the Inner Labyrinth, where the adepts and masters politic and intrigue as they decide the course of the world. Finally, the book ends with a chapter on building characters and some Storyteller advice for running Order of Reason chronicles. Normally I’m not one for dividing up game material according to who should know it or not. Trying to have a special “player section” and a “game master section” never seems to work because those players who would have read everything anyway are still going to do it. The division of the Outer/Inner Labyrinths, however, is the perfect way to arrange a sourcebook for the Order of Reason. It emphasizes how the Order is remarkably like a mystery cult dedicated to science, and it allows the reader to ease into the basic elements of the paradigm before having to wrap their minds around higher and more complicated aspects.
So what is that paradigm? Well, as the Outer Labyrinth explains, it is one of training, logic and deduction. In other words, Sherlock Holmes could have been Enlightened and the Order of Reason is finally released from the constant fetters of machines and tools. Just because a paradigm of “magick” is built on science does not mean that it needs technological devices involved in everything. The tools are the result of that science, not the science itself. Many of the examples (well illustrated in the actually useful, if briefly confusing, flavor fiction) and rotes rely on keen observation, social skill or leaps of deductive (or inductive) logic as foci. Chapter three is about thirty pages of such rotes, actually.
The Outer Labyrinth also talks about the structure of the Order of Reason as a whole, describing how cabals are formed as well as describing the tradition of patronage, which is a ready-made GM tool if I ever did see one. The inclusion of patronage and the extent to which is it covered makes it very easy for novice Storytellers and players to set up solid games built on very simple premises, answering the question of “So, what do we actually do?” For more seasoned players, patrons serve as an easy access route to politics and intrigue, as well as reinforcing the Order’s relationship with general society.
The mysteries of the Inner Labyrinth are very different, however. They reveal the true face of the leaders of the Order, showing an organization unsure of how to work together, of what to do next and even of what it believes. The Renaissance was the era that science began to take the shape of what we recognize today, but it wasn’t an overnight transformation. Just what constitutes a “proper” paradigm in the Order of Reason is still in fluctuation. The inclusion of adepts and masters writing treatises on what they believe to be appropriate Enlightened Arts, perfectly mirroring the actions of their mundane counterparts, is genius. Not only does it provide players and Storytellers with a great deal of flexibility in their own games, but it provides a perfect excuse to actually sit down and bullshit paradigm metaphysics in game. You have any idea how much I enjoy that? Well a lot, that’s how much.
The last third or so of the book provides more information for character creation and some brief advice for the Storyteller, the most useful of which is a short discussion of why you might want to place artificial caps on Arete and the effects that will have on a chronicle. The character chapter provides a few templates (I like the illustrations, but didn’t really find them that useful), a run-down of Backgrounds and what they might mean for the Enlightened and then a long list of the various factions within each Convention. Since I don’t have the other resources for the Order of Reason (like The Artisan’s Handbook), this was a welcome inclusion. I didn’t get anywhere near as much of an explanation for each faction as I would have liked, but it was enough to at least recognize the basics about them.
All this praise doesn’t mean that The Order of Reason is perfect; it’s just darn good. One of the things that I really wished it had more of was a general discussion of paradigm. I was very pleased by the broadening of the Enlightened paradigm in the Outer Labyrinth and its nebulous uncertainty within the Inner Labyrinth, but it would have been really helpful to have a simple discussion on many of the basic elements of science at the time: the fundamentals of alchemy and astrology, ideas about society and rational philosophy of the time, how medicine and technology had advanced – and all the tools and trappings of those trades. Not an exhaustive list, but just enough to allow players and Storytellers to reach into a grab-bag of foci and pull out what they need to support their paradigm. I also wish that a better relationship with Avatars had been introduced. The adversarial nature of Avatars within the Order of Reason (and later the Technocracy) has always bothered me.
The other major flaw of the book is its appearance. Sadly, White Wolf seems treated Arthaus like a home for orphaned games, skimping on production budgets. Anthony Hightower supplies a number of amazing illustrations, but Jeff Holt appears to be experimenting with a new style, with results significantly less favorable than his previous work. The other artists, Andrew Siddall and Mike Chancey who I assume collaborated because I can only recognize three styles within the book, provide work that was much too cartoony and exaggerated for my tastes. Even beyond that, however, was the atrocious layout. Every page has a disturbing amount of empty white space at the bottom. Either more text or illustrations should have been included or the page count should have been cut down. As it stands, it’s just wasteful. Yes, I’d rather see any Mage: the Sorcerers Crusade that none, even with the wasted space, but still, I don’t see why White Wolf didn’t bother to fix this. Especially considering that The Order of Reason is already kind of steep for its price.
This is still more than worth getting if you want some more information on the Order of Reason, and there are enough ideas in here to get any number of Enlightened chronicles rolling. In fact, I think it did more to help me finally assemble a Technocratic/scientific paradigm than any other book, even The Guide to the Technocracy. If you or your players are floundering regarding how to actually handle the Order, then this book becomes essential, and it should through you a lifeline you can use to pull yourself onto solid ground.
Go to forum!
(Due to spamming, old forum discussions are no linked.)