This looks incredible. This also reminds me of The Invisibles by Grant Morrison. One small typo: In the explanation for Audacity under the Rolling the Dice section you spelled it "Vulgar magik" without a "c" but elsewhere it looks like you spelled "magick" with a "c."
Normally L&F hacks are not designed for long campaigns, they work much better for short adventures or one shots. If I were going to handle a campaign, I imagine I would be dealing with evolution within fiction rather than adding subsystems to the game.
"Power" for Fluid Realities mages is related to their influence over Reality. If you manage to change the consensus of what is or is not real for people, the paradox starts to affect you less or not at all. This can take interesting paths...
Another, more direct and faster narrative way of dealing with improvement is the advantage rule. If the mage is in an advantageous situation, roll an additional 1d20 on the check. Therefore, seeking ways to always "have an advantage" is a common goal. How each mage seeks this varies with their paradigm.
For example, an urban shaman can make pacts with powerful spirits. A hellbender can call in favors from archdemons. A hermetic sorcerer can discover lost grimoires from Atlantis. And so on. Each quest for power can yield entire adventures.
Regarding the status of mages, this is resolved through their actions in game. As the cabal takes down enemies and spreads its influence, its reputation grows exponentially (and new, more powerful enemies emerge).
This game looks phenomenal. It does everything I find so intriguing about Mage, while being so much more accessible and honestly, more fun to read. And how did you manage to pack so much into just a couple pages and still fill the thing with personality and splash art?
It was really a challenge to synthesize Mage into such basic concepts. It's tempting to try to address metaphysical ideas and subsystems, spheres and organizations... In the end, L&F's design was the guide. Reading John Harper's microgames taught me a lot about how to synthesize ideas and I ended up using some elements that I had already used in another hack, Symphony of the Devil. Cutting text and rewriting sometimes gives my heart ache.
As for the look, I opted to make the font a little smaller to free up space for the illustrations. I left out some things like an adventure generator to make room for the layout. I love the look of the 90s World of Darkness books and I wanted to convey a little bit of the feeling I had when leafing through them for the first time. Difficult to do this in such a small space, but I hope I came close.
Anyway, thanks for your comment, Sabrina. I believe my answer shows how being synthetic is a challenge for me. ^^
Looks dope! It reminds me of Wights (polish Strzygi) which are made also on L&F and evokes owod atmosphere. If you are interested, you can find it here: https://skavenloft.itch.io/strzygi (most of supplements are in polish, but corebook is available in english)
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This looks incredible. This also reminds me of The Invisibles by Grant Morrison.
One small typo: In the explanation for Audacity under the Rolling the Dice section you spelled it "Vulgar magik" without a "c" but elsewhere it looks like you spelled "magick" with a "c."
I'm glad you liked it. Thanks for letting me know. I'll try to fix it in the not too distant future.
Looks fantastic but i have a question : A mage looks for imrpving himself, his skills, his status, his wealth,... How do manage that in your games ?
Good question, ShamZam!
Normally L&F hacks are not designed for long campaigns, they work much better for short adventures or one shots. If I were going to handle a campaign, I imagine I would be dealing with evolution within fiction rather than adding subsystems to the game.
"Power" for Fluid Realities mages is related to their influence over Reality. If you manage to change the consensus of what is or is not real for people, the paradox starts to affect you less or not at all. This can take interesting paths...
Another, more direct and faster narrative way of dealing with improvement is the advantage rule. If the mage is in an advantageous situation, roll an additional 1d20 on the check. Therefore, seeking ways to always "have an advantage" is a common goal. How each mage seeks this varies with their paradigm.
For example, an urban shaman can make pacts with powerful spirits. A hellbender can call in favors from archdemons. A hermetic sorcerer can discover lost grimoires from Atlantis. And so on. Each quest for power can yield entire adventures.
Regarding the status of mages, this is resolved through their actions in game. As the cabal takes down enemies and spreads its influence, its reputation grows exponentially (and new, more powerful enemies emerge).
Thanks for your question. Hope this helps. ^^
It does enlight me. Thx !
This game looks phenomenal. It does everything I find so intriguing about Mage, while being so much more accessible and honestly, more fun to read. And how did you manage to pack so much into just a couple pages and still fill the thing with personality and splash art?
Thank you, Sabrina! I'm glad you liked it.
It was really a challenge to synthesize Mage into such basic concepts. It's tempting to try to address metaphysical ideas and subsystems, spheres and organizations... In the end, L&F's design was the guide. Reading John Harper's microgames taught me a lot about how to synthesize ideas and I ended up using some elements that I had already used in another hack, Symphony of the Devil. Cutting text and rewriting sometimes gives my heart ache.
As for the look, I opted to make the font a little smaller to free up space for the illustrations. I left out some things like an adventure generator to make room for the layout. I love the look of the 90s World of Darkness books and I wanted to convey a little bit of the feeling I had when leafing through them for the first time. Difficult to do this in such a small space, but I hope I came close.
Anyway, thanks for your comment, Sabrina. I believe my answer shows how being synthetic is a challenge for me. ^^
Looks dope! It reminds me of Wights (polish Strzygi) which are made also on L&F and evokes owod atmosphere. If you are interested, you can find it here: https://skavenloft.itch.io/strzygi (most of supplements are in polish, but corebook is available in english)
Sounds interesting. I'll search! ^^
I wanna play Unknown Armies with this. ;)
Oh, good idea!
Awesome!
Thanks, Ricardo!