You will like this a lot., 26 Jan 2007
I won't fill this review with comparisons to the old game - Awakening stands on its own merits.

Physically, the book is a stonking 400 page monster. It is as sturdy and well made as one expects a WW book to be, and, on a personal note, I consider its cover the most aesthetically pleasing in my RPG collection.

Inside, it is printed in black and gold ink on thick glossy paper. The gold ink can be hard to read in some lights, and the typeface used is not always readable, but one can muddle by. As always 10% of the book is given over to genre fiction that never rises above toe-curlingly embarrassing. All of the interior artwork was done by M.W. Kaluta - this does lend the book a sense of unity and probably sounded like a good idea during the planning stage - unfortunately Kaluta, honestly, is not very good. There is no excuse for the second rate quality of the artwork in this book, and the effect of it is magnified by the decision to use a single artist.

The book starts off almost immediately with a three page lexicon of terms, and there are lots of them, though nobody is expected or required to know them all. We are introduced to the World of Darkness from a Mage perspective, the Arcanus Mundus (Incidentally, a grounding in Latin will pay dividends in reading the book and playing the game) and the way Mages fit into the World of Darkness, describing the founding, and fall of Atlantis, and the repercussions with which modern Mages still suffer.

Moving swiftly along we are introduced to the character creation process. For the sake of review space I will not describe the paths (which dictate a Mage's natural powers), Orders (Political and social affiliations) or Arcana (groups of magical effects) - all of these things can be found on Wikipeadia. Suffice it to say that Character Creation is as simple and streamlined as it could be for such a flexible and customisable game.

Chapter '3', 'Magic' is 200 pages long.

It's a fairly substantial part of the game of course, but it actually looks more intimidating than it is. Mages can perform 'Rotes' Spells worked out ahead of time and simplified to make casting easy a character can only have a limited number of Rotes (each must be bought with xp) - casting a Rote is as easy as selecting the Rote from the list on the character sheet and rolling the dice pool. Improvised Spells have the same effect as Rotes, but any character can cast an Improvised Spell at any time, provided they have sufficient Arcane Power. Improvised spells use smaller dice pools and have greater risks.

Finally Creative Thaumaturgy allows players to create completely new spells on-the-fly. The book explicitly states that Creative Thaumaturgy may not be suitable for new players, and that the Storyteller always has the power of veto, which is nice.

The book finishes up with the traditional chapter of Storytelling, and the bones of a setting - in this case Boston.

Honestly, the quality of the book is not that important - if you want to play Mage The Awakening then you will have to buy it. As for the game, it is worth the price of admission. The game gets Five Stars, the book, a mere four due to the sub-mediocre artwork and White Wolf's maddening policy of wasting my money on hack fiction.

A good replacement, 08 Jan 2006
You need to the World of Darkness Rulebook to use this book. That said, this is an amazing book!

The rules are clarified and much easier to play. The rules introduce 'Rotes' that are spells that have been researched and are easier to cast for mages, though the possibility to cast spontaneously are kept intact.
Now there are 10 Spheres, some are the same and others have been replaced.
All in all an excellent replacement for the old rules. I rate it at only 4 stars, because it should have been a standalone product, not needing to buy the World of Darkness Rulebook as well.
The other books in this series are: "World of Darkness Rulebook", "Vampire: the Requiem" and Werewolf: the Forsaken" which cover the core rules (WoD), and the other two branches of the game (V:tR & W:tF)

You will like this a lot., 26 Jan 2007
I won't fill this review with comparisons to the old game - Awakening stands on its own merits.

Physically, the book is a stonking 400 page monster. It is as sturdy and well made as one expects a WW book to be, and, on a personal note, I consider its cover the most aesthetically pleasing in my RPG collection.

Inside, it is printed in black and gold ink on thick glossy paper. The gold ink can be hard to read in some lights, and the typeface used is not always readable, but one can muddle by. As always 10% of the book is given over to genre fiction that never rises above toe-curlingly embarrassing. All of the interior artwork was done by M.W. Kaluta - this does lend the book a sense of unity and probably sounded like a good idea during the planning stage - unfortunately Kaluta, honestly, is not very good. There is no excuse for the second rate quality of the artwork in this book, and the effect of it is magnified by the decision to use a single artist.

The book starts off almost immediately with a three page lexicon of terms, and there are lots of them, though nobody is expected or required to know them all. We are introduced to the World of Darkness from a Mage perspective, the Arcanus Mundus (Incidentally, a grounding in Latin will pay dividends in reading the book and playing the game) and the way Mages fit into the World of Darkness, describing the founding, and fall of Atlantis, and the repercussions with which modern Mages still suffer.

Moving swiftly along we are introduced to the character creation process. For the sake of review space I will not describe the paths (which dictate a Mage's natural powers), Orders (Political and social affiliations) or Arcana (groups of magical effects) - all of these things can be found on Wikipeadia. Suffice it to say that Character Creation is as simple and streamlined as it could be for such a flexible and customisable game.

Chapter '3', 'Magic' is 200 pages long.

It's a fairly substantial part of the game of course, but it actually looks more intimidating than it is. Mages can perform 'Rotes' Spells worked out ahead of time and simplified to make casting easy a character can only have a limited number of Rotes (each must be bought with xp) - casting a Rote is as easy as selecting the Rote from the list on the character sheet and rolling the dice pool. Improvised Spells have the same effect as Rotes, but any character can cast an Improvised Spell at any time, provided they have sufficient Arcane Power. Improvised spells use smaller dice pools and have greater risks.

Finally Creative Thaumaturgy allows players to create completely new spells on-the-fly. The book explicitly states that Creative Thaumaturgy may not be suitable for new players, and that the Storyteller always has the power of veto, which is nice.

The book finishes up with the traditional chapter of Storytelling, and the bones of a setting - in this case Boston.

Honestly, the quality of the book is not that important - if you want to play Mage The Awakening then you will have to buy it. As for the game, it is worth the price of admission. The game gets Five Stars, the book, a mere four due to the sub-mediocre artwork and White Wolf's maddening policy of wasting my money on hack fiction.

A good replacement, 08 Jan 2006
You need to the World of Darkness Rulebook to use this book. That said, this is an amazing book!

The rules are clarified and much easier to play. The rules introduce 'Rotes' that are spells that have been researched and are easier to cast for mages, though the possibility to cast spontaneously are kept intact.
Now there are 10 Spheres, some are the same and others have been replaced.
All in all an excellent replacement for the old rules. I rate it at only 4 stars, because it should have been a standalone product, not needing to buy the World of Darkness Rulebook as well.
The other books in this series are: "World of Darkness Rulebook", "Vampire: the Requiem" and Werewolf: the Forsaken" which cover the core rules (WoD), and the other two branches of the game (V:tR & W:tF)

An excellewnt addition to the Dark Ages, 01 Apr 2003
This book is highly recommended for anyone who is a fan of Dark Ages: Vampire (or Vampire: The Dark Ages.) It gives you all the information to add mages to your chronicle, whether Players or NPCs.
The artwork is fantastic and the small stories are very atmospheric.
This book continues in White Wolf's tradition of excellence.