The more power they gain, the more esoteric the Mysteries they seek, until they either escape this world entirely or die. They deal with these mysteries by use of the ten Arcana, each of which controls some aspect of reality. They deepen their insight, called Gnosis, by seeking out and understanding the Mysteries of the world - the strange, the bizarre, the unknown. While they are no more than any human when surprised, they are capable of grand power when prepared. Mages have power because of this, as their insight into the true nature of the world lets them perform the Art - magic, the manipulation of symbols to cast spells.
Mages are the Awakened, humans who have unlocked the potential that exists, buried deep in every person, to see the occult symbols and magical conspiracies that influence every part of the world. So, straight up, we open with our themes: Gnosis and Mystery. As the line went on, however, the game found its feet and ended up as quite a good game, if bogged down by some poor mechanics decisions in certain areas (Mage Sight, for example) and some bad books (Free Council, for example). And when Mage 1e came out, it was met with rather lackluster feeling - in part because people were still mad about the whole oWoD/nWoD thing, but also because Mage 1e was laid out terribly, had no clear direction at the time and spent a lot of time talking about an Atlantean prehistory that was essentially irrelevant to most of play.
(Well, technically speaking, it releases tomorrow, but it released to Beast backers a few days ago and while I am not a Beast backer, I know someone who didn't pull backing before it ended, and so.) The first edition of Mage was released way back in August of 2005 - just over ten years ago, really. See, you know what just came out? A new Onyx Path game! Well, sort of. Post posted by Mors Rattus Original SA post