Out with new and in with the old

I had found my old copy of  revised Mage the Ascension ( I think I am the only one on the forums that liked it)  today and was reading through it. Mostly I was reading through the Orders. I got to thinking what Mage the Awakening would have looked like had they went the same rout with Mage that they did with Vampire. Meaning what if the they would have cut the orders down to 5? What if every thing else was as it is in Awakening other then the orders. Paths are there and back story everything else are present. Just the Orders are have been replaced.

I would like to present this to all of you to see what you all think. This is just an exercise of imagination.

I feel as though I need to say that I am not an Ascension  hater. Although I do prefer Awaking over Ascension I do not hate. I do not want this to become an Ascension vs. Awakening. To paraphrase; the new game may be different but its all Mage to me.

MrSandman:

Meaning what if the they would have cut the orders down to 5?

There already are five orders, and lots of people like Ascension here.

Michael:

There already are five orders, and lots of people like Ascension here.

I meant that cut down the orders that are in Ascension down to 5 and port them into awakening. Like what was done with the vampire clans from Masquerade to Requiem.

MrSandman:

Michael:

There already are five orders, and lots of people like Ascension here.

I meant that cut down the orders that are in Ascension down to 5 and port them into awakening. Like what was done with the vampire clans from Masquerade to Requiem.

Not to sound like a broken record or a naysayer:

Requiem did not simply pair down Masquerade's Clans to 5 and then port them over to the new system. The Gangrel probably remain the most unchanged, though even they had substantial differences worked into their background. The Ventrue are a distant second, with their focus and weakness made anew. The Mekhet and Daeva are wholly new, with only reflections of the old system; it is possible to make the Mekhet be the Lasombora or the Daeva be the Brujah/Toreador/Ravnos, but it you step back from your assumptions, it's like sticking a round peg in a square hole. Even the Nosferatu were largely reimagined from the ground up; the old Nos and the new Nos basically have a concept and a folklore in common, and nothing else.

I don't say this because I want to belittle you, or even debate the changes in Vampire here in the Mage forum, but just to suggest the premise for your discussion is a little flawed.

I look at the Free Council and I see equal amounts Virtual Adepts, Void Engineers and Sons of Ether. I also look at the Sons of Ether and see the Obrimos. I look at the Euthantos and see the Moros; but I also see bits of the Guardians of the Veil in there. I'm saying that about as much has been brought over from Ascension to Awakening as was taken from Masquerade to Requiem; WW, wisely, changed many more names in the transtion for Mage, which has saved no end of confusion, but a lot of the old concepts are still there. Don't be fooled though; I see these reflections because the same company built two games about magic on the same basic premesis regarding human folklore and western traditions, not because they were updated and ported over to Mage (as was also not the case with Vampire, the names not withstanding.)

Mendrian:

Not to sound like a broken record or a naysayer:

Requiem did not simply pair down Masquerade's Clans to 5 and then port them over to the new system. The Gangrel probably remain the most unchanged, though even they had substantial differences worked into their background. The Ventrue are a distant second, with their focus and weakness made anew. The Mekhet and Daeva are wholly new, with only reflections of the old system; it is possible to make the Mekhet be the Lasombora or the Daeva be the Brujah/Toreador/Ravnos, but it you step back from your assumptions, it's like sticking a round peg in a square hole. Even the Nosferatu were largely reimagined from the ground up; the old Nos and the new Nos basically have a concept and a folklore in common, and nothing else.

I don't say this because I want to belittle you, or even debate the changes in Vampire here in the Mage forum, but just to suggest the premise for your discussion is a little flawed.

I look at the Free Council and I see equal amounts Virtual Adepts, Void Engineers and Sons of Ether. I also look at the Sons of Ether and see the Obrimos. I look at the Euthantos and see the Moros; but I also see bits of the Guardians of the Veil in there. I'm saying that about as much has been brought over from Ascension to Awakening as was taken from Masquerade to Requiem; WW, wisely, changed many more names in the transtion for Mage, which has saved no end of confusion, but a lot of the old concepts are still there. Don't be fooled though; I see these reflections because the same company built two games about magic on the same basic premesis regarding human folklore and western traditions, not because they were updated and ported over to Mage (as was also not the case with Vampire, the names not withstanding.)

QFT

saves me having the same rant

Mendrian:

Not to sound like a broken record or a naysayer:

Requiem did not simply pair down Masquerade's Clans to 5 and then port them over to the new system. The Gangrel probably remain the most unchanged, though even they had substantial differences worked into their background. The Ventrue are a distant second, with their focus and weakness made anew. The Mekhet and Daeva are wholly new, with only reflections of the old system; it is possible to make the Mekhet be the Lasombora or the Daeva be the Brujah/Toreador/Ravnos, but it you step back from your assumptions, it's like sticking a round peg in a square hole. Even the Nosferatu were largely reimagined from the ground up; the old Nos and the new Nos basically have a concept and a folklore in common, and nothing else.

I don't say this because I want to belittle you, or even debate the changes in Vampire here in the Mage forum, but just to suggest the premise for your discussion is a little flawed.

I look at the Free Council and I see equal amounts Virtual Adepts, Void Engineers and Sons of Ether. I also look at the Sons of Ether and see the Obrimos. I look at the Euthantos and see the Moros; but I also see bits of the Guardians of the Veil in there. I'm saying that about as much has been brought over from Ascension to Awakening as was taken from Masquerade to Requiem; WW, wisely, changed many more names in the transtion for Mage, which has saved no end of confusion, but a lot of the old concepts are still there. Don't be fooled though; I see these reflections because the same company built two games about magic on the same basic premesis regarding human folklore and western traditions, not because they were updated and ported over to Mage (as was also not the case with Vampire, the names not withstanding.)

QFT

saves me having the same rant

okay, I'll play because I'm not ashamed to say, even though i run Awakening now due to necessity, that I'm a HUGE Ascension Fan.

5 orders, based on traditions?? well, i think they'd have to be fairly different from eachother in terms of long term goals, and since we have paths already, they wouldn't necessarily have to reflect the 5 most common styles of magick.
so, I'm going to say.....

Euthanatos: order to bring balance to the world, by cutting away the chaff
Order of Hermes: order to learn and master as much of the world and Magick as they can
Sons of Ether: order to create and invent and just keep exploring what's possible
Celestial Chorus: order to unite everyone, come together, kumbaya
Dreamspeakers: order to commune with the shadow worlds, supernal realms, and the sentient beings in them

optional 6th/non-order: Hollow Ones, uhduh, punks

The thing about Requiem is that it took the old clans and blended them between clans and covenant- especially the Tremere and Tziminscee giving birth to the Ordo Dracul.    So, this is how I see the old traditions being reborn; mostly Path, with a few order tossed in at the end:


Verbana and Dreamspeakers fit the Thyrsus very nicely;  the path is very witchy is some parts, and shamanistic in others. 

Obrimos match the Celestial Chorus and Order of Hermes.  Faith/Angels on the one hand, and your stereotypical wizard on the other.  "Hermetic" style magic is actually fairly strong in the entire setting, so you'd have to peel it back a little to just this path.

Depending on how you look at them, the Cult of Ecstasy fits under either Thyrsus or Acanthus; this tradition was a group of escatic visionaries that often appeared irresponsible.  The former part fits well into the Thyrsus escatic themes, while the reliance on visions and irresponcible luck is Acanthus.

Euthanatos snuggle well into the Moros assassin stereotype.

The Ahl-i-Batin are basically Arabic Mastigos.   Their sister tradition, the Taftâni, could fit into either the Mastigos demon summoner themes, or the Obrimos with their outrageous magics.

The last three traditions don't seem to fit into paths, but rather the Orders:  Sons of Ether and the Virtual Adapts seem to be sliding into techno-savvy Free Coucil, while the monastic Akashic Brotherhood found a new home as part of the Adamantine Arrow.  The brotherhood fits well into the honorable Arrow with its specialized Fighting Style, but the two techno groups are a little strained- I feel that the SoE and VA are really reborn in the Forgemasters, Transhuman Engineers, and Threnodists Legacies more than anything else. 

Never touched any of the Ebony or Jade Kingdom books, so can't comment on those traditions.

If I had to do a direct translation, then I would make the Paths act as the new Traditions, rather than the Orders.

When the Chronicler's Guide comes out no doubt it will include ways to play around with Orders and such.  If I were to play around wit them, I would probably just take the cap off the number of Orders and just make up Orders as I go along, merging them with Magical Tradition somewhat.  The base mechanics of an Order are basically just three Rote Specialties, after all.  It's not hard at all to make up new Orders if that's the baseline difference.  It's not like the Covenants of Vampire, which have various benefits balanced against each other.

Mendrian:

Not to sound like a broken record or a naysayer: etc

Oh, I agree completely with you, and I understand why the game is the way it is. And to be clear I like the Orders in Awakening that is not why I wrote this post.  I wanted to discuss what the setting might  have looked like if WW would have went a with a different direction with the Orders. 
 Never mind I was  bored and wanted to play a little "what if". I did not mean for it be a very serious subject.

I understand completely; I wasn't trying to dismiss the idea, just trying to make sure the discussion started on a commonly understood footing.

Well, first, the idea here is basically to throw out the Atlantean Orders and replace them with oWoD's Traditions, more or less, right? Or is the goal to replace the Paths with the old Traditions?

MrSandman:

I had found my old copy of  revised Mage the Ascension ( I think I am the only one on the forums that liked it)

Mostly irrelevant, but I was and am a huge fan of Jess Heinig's version of Mage (i.e. Revised edition before Bill Bridges took over).

Mendrian:

Well, first, the idea here is basically to throw out the Atlantean Orders and replace them with oWoD's Traditions

Kinda. The idea is to cull Ascension's orders down to five and fit them into Awakening's cosmology. The best example of what I mean is what was done with  Clans in Requiem. 

I'm not sure that is a very good basis for it. Some of the vampire clans may have similiar names but, they're actually very different, and the clans don't function in the way they did in Masquerade.

In my opinion, replacing the five Orders with five Traditions changes the setting of the game pretty drastically.  As is, the Orders don't dictate magical style, mostly just magical ethics you'd also probably end up throwing out the Atlantis story entirely, which is not a good or bad thing, just a change.

The biggest problem is that each Tradition carried with it two different associations: culture and praxis, or magical style.  When those two match up, it works fine, but sometimes you get  culture that implies a number of different magical styles, and then what is a mage supposed to do?  Say you were a Chinese ritual sorcerer who knew nothing about Hermes and wanted nothing to do with Western magical tradition, but didn't fit into the mold of the mystic Akashic Brotherhood?

I guess if I had to, I'd pare the magical styles down to:

High Ritual - Order of Hermes
Witchcraft/Shamanism - New name mixing Verbena and Dreamspeakers?
Mysticism - Akashic Brotherhood
Scientific Method - New name mixing Virtual Adepts and Sons of Ether?
Theurgy - Celestial Chorus