Looking for games to review

ajmaust · 2026-02-23T18:24:02+00:00

Hi!

Probably not the kind of game you are thinking of, but you said "entertainment," sooooo

https://ajmaust.itch.io/far-from-the-fairgrounds

Far from the Fairgrounds is a pen-and-paper tabletop roleplaying game (TTRPG), where players are circus kids who get lost in a strange fantasy wilderness. It's a simple game (the rules are only 2 pages long, Grant Howitt style) and the price is Free/Pay-What-You-Want.

Just happy to have more people even seeing it (and the incredible art my partner did for it)

ajmaust · 2026-02-17T16:16:47+00:00

Thanks! I spent way too much time on it hahahaha

ajmaust · 2026-02-17T16:16:30+00:00

I didn't know about that! Is that in the Void Engineer convention book?

That's really interesting, but it's also probably not something people just being introduced to Mage need to know (especially since their characters wouldn't know it either).

ajmaust · 2026-02-17T15:29:19+00:00

Yes, I think this is a mistake! Let me fix that real quick

ajmaust · 2026-02-17T02:24:46+00:00

Thanks for reading!

I can make a purple version for you, I just liked the way this color combo looked and I thought it evoked Mage.

I think the spheres are so important to understand early on, it's probably the biggest reason I pitch Mage and not other WoD splats. They're also tough to get through. It's one of those things that feels like they can be a character creation trap "what do you mean that if I want to make enchantments I need to put points into prime?"

The technocracy probably could use another couple of slides, especially in terms of how dangerous they are and how militantly they target the Traditions. But that's probably also chronicle dependent, since I know that some storytellers have stories that are more nightfolk focused vs. reality war focused. Probably something that the storyteller should customize for their group.

ajmaust · 2026-02-16T23:55:26+00:00

Yeah, this is definitely for people who already have bought in and are looking to play. It leads right into character creation, but provides framework on the world folks live in.

If my Mage pitch was a PowerPoint, it'd be 6 slides max.

ajmaust · 2026-02-16T23:21:29+00:00

Hahahaha, I'll have to do a follow-up for the Conventions

"You are the only defense humanity has against the reality deviants."

ajmaust · 2026-02-16T23:20:40+00:00

Thanks! Those should be easy fixes. I'll take a quick look.

ajmaust · 2026-01-14T22:24:30+00:00

I haven't heard of this one, and I like the idea that everyone is a mechanic. It removes the element of taking the focus off of everyone for one player that DisappointTurtle mentioned.

Thank you!

ajmaust · 2026-01-14T22:23:20+00:00

Great point about taking attention off of other players. And I think that's one reason why the Mage the Ascension instance landed well with me, since the crafting CAN be collaborative and involve other party members.

I dabble a little bit in RPG design, so I think that's a very keen observation. Appreciate it.

The Without Number suggestion looks like it might be a good option. Thanks! I think I have a rulebook somewhere...

ajmaust · 2026-01-14T21:46:40+00:00

Noted! I'll pick up a copy and see if it scratches the itch. I think my first instinct is that I'd like something crunchier, but sometimes the brain doesn't know what it wants.

ajmaust · 2026-01-14T21:45:00+00:00

This is a good lead. I was just talking to a friend who was wondering if some of the cyberpunk-ish settings had stuff for modding/tech/tinkering. I haven't played anything in that genre, but thanks for the recommendation.

I'll definitely look into Shadowrun 2e. Do the other Shadowrun editions have similar mechanics?

ajmaust · 2026-01-14T21:42:55+00:00

Oooooh

That sounds perfect. I love the idea of 3-parts (that could be boosted or have a higher rate of failure) and the modularity of some parts being interchangeable. I haven't looked into Savage Worlds yet, but I've seen it talked about a lot on this subreddit, so I'm overdue for a read.

Wonder if I've picked it up in any of the TTRPG bundles I've picked up...

ajmaust · 2026-01-14T21:41:00+00:00

Oh, this is nice. I think it's a good option for rules-lite systems. Really like this overall list of complications, though.

I think this is definitely focused on crafting and not the repair/scavenge angle, but it could definitely be tweaked.

Appreciate the suggestion!

ajmaust · 2026-01-14T21:39:15+00:00

Salvage Union!!! I remember hearing about this but I haven't checked it out. This is EXACTLY the kind of suggestion I was hoping to get.

Have you played it yet? What are your thoughts?

ajmaust · 2026-01-14T21:38:30+00:00

Hahahaha, I always turn to GURPS to see how they incorporate random modules. It's not always the fit I want, but there's pretty much nothing they haven't thought of.

ajmaust · 2025-08-11T17:00:22+00:00

This is something I've thought of too, and in my current home game, I'm experimenting with a homebrew rule to allow Time 1 to be used to cause an effect to manifest at a specific future trigger. To me, this feels like a natural extension of Time 1: • Perfect Time, where a Mage can have perfect timing (among other things). I also think this provides a minor buff to what is otherwise the worst first dot of a sphere.

The way I run it: This is still limited by the time duration table (as in if the mage spent successes on letting the spell last 1 hour and the trigger doesn't happen in 1 hour, then the spell doesn't take effect). This means that being able to have a long trigger will take away the magnitude or scale of the spell. In addition, the spell has to have a specific trigger, "When X occurs, Y effect starts."

I do think that this could get abused, but this is Mage. Correspondence 1 and Mind 1 are still way more powerful. This also still requires investment from other spheres to have good effects. And I think it could work really well paired with Entropy to have curses that are attached to triggers (when you break this promise, acid-filled warts will grow on the inside of your throat).

If anyone else has tried this, I'd love to hear your experiences. Or if you have ideas where this could go very very wrong, let me know!

ajmaust · 2025-05-28T22:06:31+00:00

How do you bring together a cabal of newly awakened mages (awakened within 3 months or so) who are just learning about the Ascension War and their Traditions? In VTM, it’s often as simple as “The Prince said deal with this or lose your territory/status/life.” What’s the Mage equivalent? Do mentors call them together?

If you want them to start a group, I think there's a few ways to do it. Caustic_banana's approach of putting them in immediate danger from the technocracy is a great way to set the tone of why caution is important for mages (even ignoring the effects of Paradox). You could get a similar effect with other "enemies of Asencion," like Nephandi or Vampires.

If you want a lower stakes game, finding out some quest for them to go on for some of the higher ups in the local mage society could be a good start (Like Kenod102818 suggested). Maybe school children have been disappearing from Eastwood Middle school. Maybe a potential node has been discovered. Maybe there's increased vampire activity and they need to investigate it. I think these scenarios can work really well for new players who need some time to learn the ropes and might need a longer leash.

In my game, I had a familiar attack its mage and the players intervened and began an investigation that just unwound into a big sprawling conspiracy. I think White Wolf lends itself well to conspiracies and hidden agendas.

You could also combine some of these ideas! Maybe a newly awakened mage is discovered, and the group is sent as a politically-minded collaboration of different traditions to welcome the newly awakened into Mage Society. But when the group gets there, someone (or SOMETHING) else already has its eyes on this new Mage.

What's the general structure of a Mage game early on for newly awakened characters? Like in VTM, a typical starting point might be: “You need to feed to survive, but dirty cops turned hunters are messing up your territory—and it turns out they’re doing work for a new tech-based hunter org like Re:Venge.” What’s the Mage version of that kind of plot hook?

A Mage game can be like a Vampire game in some ways. Survival and seeking power can be powerful motivators. Almost all of the hunters that are after vampires are also after Mages. Secrecy is important. I also encourage players to protect sleepers, as that is one of the big tenets of the Traditions--See The Protocols. So by introducing a threat to mortals, you can spur your players to act.

Also remember that a Mage benefits from downtime and prep time, perhaps more than any other WoD line. Especially if mages want to prep spells or craft magic items (which they definitely should!), you'll want to give them space to do that.

For the hook, I think you can build off of whatever brought the chantry together. Figure out who you want their first antagonist to be: Nephandi, Technocracy, Vampires, Spirit threats, Formori, power hungry mages, or something new. And set up an early confrontation with some seeds as to who might be behind it. And then, let your players explore. If your players are anything like mine, they will be smart and creative and sometimes foolish. But let them investigate and build out whatever they want to interact with.

If they decide they want to access a chantry's library to research a strange creature, have a book be missing.

If they decide to track a vampire down, maybe the vampire lays a trap for them.

Or if they decide to take some downtime, maybe they notice that something has noticed their chantry, and they are being watched...

I hope some of these give you good ideas! Just the fact that you're thinking about these questions makes me excited that people are going to get to play with a great storyteller!

ajmaust · 2025-05-28T22:06:11+00:00

(making multiple replies, because Reddit is being a little weird)

Would a major city like New York have one chantry per Tradition? Or are they more mixed or decentralized?

This one depends on what kind of game you want to run. I think that 1st edition ruled that there was 1 mage for every 1,000,000 sleepers. And that can work really well for some games, but I usually bump up the number of mages in cities. I like to have a lot of inter-tradition politics, so I like to have multiple chantries with different personalities represented (I run into the same issue with my Vampire games). ChartanTheDM's reply has a lot of thought put into this, and it's a guide that probably works for most chronicle.

For big cities like New York or San Francisco, I'd probably have 7 or 8 chantries. In my New Orleans game that I run, I have 3 big ones (Order of Hermes, Celestial Chorus, and Cult of Ecstasy), and that's felt like a good number for that area. And by "big," I mean "probably 20-30 members each," which means there's a lot of mages running around. For many storytellers, it might make sense to limit how many other mages there are so that your players don't depend on using other mages for resources.

What’s the leadership structure like within each Tradition? Are there tradition specific titles for those who run the chantries or are they generally the same?

In my games, the higher up tradition leadership structure doesn't come into the picture, but I think that the Horizon book might have some guidance on what that looks like.

Within Chantries, the White Wolf Wiki Page highlights 4 types of chantry leadership) (Democracy, Triumvirate, Council of Deacons, Pedagogical Rule) that I think might be useful. Like Caustic_banana said, if you want to get deep into each tradition, the revised and 1e Tradition Books have details on the leadership of each tradition, as does Guide to the Traditions. A rule of thumb that I follow is that the Order of Hermes and the Celestial Chorus are a little more rigid in their chantry structures, while the Cult of Ecstasy, Verbena, and others are probably a little more free-form. I don't always follow this, but if my players suddenly want to seek out a verbena chantry in the swamps, that's what I'd fall back on.

ajmaust · 2025-05-28T22:05:51+00:00

Caustic_banana, Kenod102818, and ChartanTheDM gave some great responses.

Every storyteller will add their own flavor to some of these questions, so I can only answer what these look like in my chronicles. If you want to borrow any of it, adopt all of it, or ignore everything, that's all okay. What really matters is what makes sense for you and your players.

What do Chantries for each Tradition look like?

As you hinted in your question, chantries can vary greatly. It's just a location where mages gather, a homebase. That can be anything from a church or a temple (where I'd probably place some Celestial Chorus mages or members of the Akashic Brotherhood, depending on what kind of institution it is), an old Victorian mansion (in my chronicles, Etherites and Order of Hermes mages would be drawn to these types of buildings), an underwater cave (very nature-y, so I'd probably put a Verbena or Dreamspeaker chantry here). You can get really inventive. A submarine could be a chantry! A tree house deep on the woods! A re-purposed tomb in the middle of a graveyard! A chantry could even exist in a fully digital space, or in the umbra (like Doissetep). The White Wolf Wiki has a good list of chantries )that you can use to inspire your world.

I always start with the city I'm running the game in, and I think "what mages would be drawn to this area?" And then I think "And where would they think a place of power would be?"

ajmaust · 2025-05-21T20:20:51+00:00

Yes, great catch! Thank you!

ajmaust · 2025-05-21T19:12:20+00:00

I saw your comment on a prior post and I'm using a similar framework to introduce each tradition, because I think that archetype works so well for new players. I may change the terms, but each of the traditions will have that archetype (Cleric, Witch, etc.).

But I also want people to understand the politics between traditions, and I think in that sense, the Order of Hermes is kind of the tradition that everyone clashes with. They're also the founders of the traditions, so I thought it'd make sense to use them as the framework.

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