Mage the Ascension: A Guide to Character Creation 

I was a storyteller for Mages the Ascension during the mid to late 90's having access to the Mages the Ascension 1st ed core book and the book of shadows, I actually took a more free form approach to character creation and asked players to be non tradition mages and allowing the players to have a wish fulfillment type of approach to Magick (still following the rules for spellcasting, avatar and paradox), since the players actually found the rules in the book a little to esoteric for their teenage minds, I informed them that for their characters Magick is basically Reality alteration and the details on what they can alter and how far they can alter is only limited by the dots on the spheres they know, then I proceeded to ask them what they believe their avatars are depending on the essence they believe matches their characters (dynamic,pattern,primordial and questing), while the foci for their magic would also depend on what they believe is closer to their characters idea on what would work, I actually had a player who adapted martial arts as a foci (which was quite close to the akashic brotherhood), the adventures I had them go thru would involve fighting the Technocracy (ala Matrix) and later on going toe to toe to a Nephandi willworker with access to a Tome (I called it the Darkhold) with rotes and knowledge lowering spell difficulties for his "evil" spells, the adventure for that revolved around a town, a haunting and a ritual designed to allow an Outsider to enter the world by possessing another mortal.

Thank you, Hipster. This overview was awesome, and I really appreciate you taking the time and effort to make this video. Cheers!

I played an character once that kept random items on him like lighters and grill igniters and ice so he had something on hand to feel the sensation of what he was trying to do (Cult of Ecstasy member). He would then use that sensation and his body would “amplify” it as the desired effect.

This is an amazing guide! I've been playing or running Mage on and off for more than a decade, but this is still useful. Helps me ask the right questions to my players in preparation to an upcoming game.

Man! Such a great Chargen video. A succinct and codified explanation of the process.

This is the first video of yours I have seen. I subscribed this helped me SO MUCH. I have been having a real difficult time nailing down some of the specifics and the examples you gave were amazing.

Good stuff! Esp. liked the James Bond comparison. Very insightful!

When thinking about my mage the ascension character for the first time I imagined his avatar would look like himself but with a metal arm & filigree patterened metal across his skin as if merged into his flesh. The end result I came up with were an Artificer style mage who used a combination of tools, materials, willpower, meditation & crafting to manipulate the spheres of matter, life & prime. For the flying question of this video my character would be unable to fly on his own magical power but with a device he crafted.

That was a fantastic guide. THX.

Well, I'm working with an Euthanatos, and she believes that the possibilities are inherently tied with clocks (yes, I know, is challenging, but, she's beginning, and her Awakening was somehow traumatic). So, she focus her Entropy in a analogic clock, because that's the time her possibilities will be true. So, time to change is exactly that.

Regards. I'm watching your content. The movies are really high quality. I'm just getting ready to run the campaign Mage The Ascension online, for my players. Thank you on behalf of myself and my players. Greetings from Poland. I wish you health for you and your whole family!!!

New to mage, really helped out. Thank you

Good guide. Thank you for sharing it!

Music ... My foci would be music and focusing within the mind... Or hand gestures... Feeling the "song of the world" but making him completely unable to practice regular magic with incantations and controlled hand gestures ... Probably be from a line of mages of both the chorus and verbena ... Combining both prime and life ... I'd say a Ring, necklace, broach, a gutted earpods with stored music via magic crystals, hand gestures, limited words/humming it would be a new mage, a bridge between nature, organised religion and being a modern child whose rebellion is looking at the modern world as his parents try to keep him from being restrained by "science"... But he is actually a math Wiz and his awakening comes from when the technocracy tried to kidnap the kid after being stupid but favours were called and kid rescued... The concept ... Myself people always used to say I lived in my own world why not play into that

A great guide. I have to admit that probably due to playing mostly 2nd edition, the foci section in M20 seemed to complex and a bit... forced compared to previous editions. I appreciate your breakdown and will link to this when I do my own character creation video.

Really great video, thanks!

How have I not found you before? :D I'm currently playing a mage based off of the character of Bayonetta :3 Trying to get the fine details down precisely and this is a great help. ^.^

Bond's jetpack is named Little Nell.

Many thanks! Finally I got it figured out. Our story teller posed the wrong questions.

What trips me up is, in my head the character I want to make... seems like you need a LOT more spheres and not enough instruments to do basic stuff. Q1: How does my mage do magic? Investigating the subject, finding vulnerabilities, and then writing code to exploit the vulnerability and escalate privileges to then modify the data. Q2: Why can my mage do magic? Because my mage learned it. Anyone with right tools and skills can code. Q3: Theme: Reality Hacker more in the vein of Lain and Digimon than the Matrix however. Q4: It would be easier to just hack a door to connect to a different threshold than to hack Gravity, since you'd need to get the math right and screwing the math might cause the force of attraction to repel you into space.... and die. Trouble is, no idea what spheres to go for aside from Data and Entropy.

I disagree that a druid with a tech specialty don't go together, techno pagans are a real thing and it's one of the coolest characters from Bufy! Awesome video tho, not actually a Mage player but I mine ideas to add to other WoD games I run

love it!

I love the lore of Mage. My main struggle with devising a character for this game is how to play the awakening and still have the character fit into one of the 9 Traditions. Most of them seem to be groups which require years and years of participation, preparation and study. How would it work with a sort of "Knock Knock Neo" situation, where a regular guy/girl all of a sudden understands that the world is much more than it seems? Also each sphere at 1 dot can only sense stuff instead of activity do thing, so a newly awakened character is basically defenseless right? :)

Lovely video, and very helpful. Quick question; what is the symbol on the shoulder of the character in the thumbnail image for this video? It's getting liminal in how much I want to recognize it and it's driving me crazy. EDIT; I found it, it's the 'endless knot'. I kept trying to find it in Celtic studies, but it's Buddhist.

Yesssss!

Ah you answered my question i was wondering if you could use the same instrument to do different effect i thought that you always had to use different instruments for each effect thankyou

Q1: How does my mage do magic? He must be in contact with an item that he considers to be lucky or related to chance. A rabbit's foot, Lucky Penny, Pair of Dice, 4 Leaf Clover, or Ace of Spades all work for this purpose. Q2: Why can my mage do magic? He is a charming fellow who is also an avid gambler who managed to awaken in a risky moment of gambling everything he has worked for in a game of poker. That was when he met his avatar, a Cheshire Cat made of poker chips. Q3: Your Mages' Theme: Gambling, Luck, Chance, Risk, and Trickery are all core components of his character. Q4: He wouldn't really need to. With Corespondance and a handy smoke pellet for misdirection, he will get where he needs to go. Main spheres are Entropy, Prime, and Corespondance in order to bend probability, amplify his magic, and get out of dodge if needed.

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got a question have you heard if they will have a mage the ascension 5th edition?

My character does fire balls....ok so you character is a bowler, ok we are going in the right direction. LOL

Where is the thumbnail art from?

Should every mage be able to fly? You said paradigms can draw limits for mages so what if mine cannot fly in his paradigm?

Which Tradition would James Bond be?

What's the music in the background?

Hey, could you run me through a game? Always wanted to try it out. I got an email if you’d like to talk more.

:)

What would be the avatar of someone who primarily complains about RU-vid comments?

Does anyone even play anymore, ive been interested in this game and honestly anything magic forever but nobody around me or online in australia has any interest ive been all over to all sorts of tabletop game shops and nobody knows what im talking about