From publisher blurb:
Twenty years ago, a game came along that changed gaming. It was big and epic and confusing as hell. It dared folks to think outside the box – to not simply throw fireballs but to really think about how and why we do the things we do. Mage challenged people to make a difference in their world. And now, more than ever, that challenge stands.
Against the epic tapestry of an Ascension War, Mage: The Ascension, then and now, features architects of reality locked in a deadly fight to see whose future will prevail.
But within that sometimes cosmic scope, Mage asks an intimate question: If you had the power of a god, what would you do with it… and what would IT do with YOU?
Above all other things, Mage is about giving a damn. While other folks are hopeless or content enough to accept what they’ve been given, mages change the picture. They disagree, often violently, about what that picture should look like, but apathy’s not in their nature. The Awakening won’t let them sit still and accept the world as it is.
Mages are power incarnate. What they Will, will be. That power can go to their heads, corrupt them, demolish everything they hold dear… but it’s there. Mage’s dominant theme, then, is hope. Things might get bad, even tragic, but the possibility of change– that one person can make a difference– never goes away.