• Critical-Hits Studios
    • Criminals Card Game
    • Sentinel Comics: the Roleplaying Game
  • Downloads & Tools
    • Critical Hits Fantasy Name Generator
    • Drinking D&D 2010
    • Drinking D&D 2011
    • Fiasco Playset: “Alma Monster”
    • MODOK’s 11 for Marvel Heroic Roleplaying
    • Refuge In Audacity RPG
    • Strange New Worlds RPG
  • Guides
    • Gamma World
    • Guide to 4e Accessories
    • Guide to Gaming DVDs
    • Skill Challenges
  • RSS Feed
  • Facebook
  • Twitter

Critical Hits

Everything tabletop gaming since 2005

  • News
  • Reviews
  • Columns
    • Dire Flailings
    • Dungeonomics
    • Musings of the Chatty DM
    • Pain of Publication
    • The Architect DM
  • Podcasts
    • Critical Hits Podcast
    • Dungeon Master Guys Podcast
  • Roleplaying Games
  • Tabletop Games
  • Game Hacks & Content
  • Video Games
You are here: Home / Archives for mage: the ascension

Project Paradigm: Making Magic

March 12, 2014 by Dave

In a game where everyone uses magic, magic becomes the cornerstone of design. This is one of the big areas that makes Mage: the Ascension different from Sorcerer from a Harry Potter RPG.

Filed Under: Critical Threats, Featured, Game Hacks & Content, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: fate, fate core, mage: the ascension, project paradigm

Project Paradigm: Some Thoughts on a Mage-Inspired Fate Game

February 5, 2014 by Dave

I’ve written before about my love of Mage: the Ascension. I even went and hacked another game system to play it in a way I really enjoyed, and have run it that way multiple times now. I’m not the only one who wanted to bring Mage back with a modern system. Ryan Macklin also wrote up the hack he was playing with. Now we’re joining forces on it.

Filed Under: Critical Threats, Featured, Game Hacks & Content, Newest Critical Hits, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: fate, fate core, mage: the ascension, project paradigm

Gen Con 2012: RPG News

August 30, 2012 by Dave

Aside from all the D&D stuff I’ve already talked about, there were a couple other big RPG developments, as well as a few that I was interested in following personally.

Filed Under: Featured, News, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 13th Age, fantasy flight games, fasa, ffg, mage, mage: the ascension, marvel heroic roleplaying, MarvelRPG, night's black agents, nwod, owod, pelgrane press, star wars, star wars: edge of the empire, the onyx path, Vampire, werewolf, white wolf, wod

Mage: The Ascension Job

March 17, 2011 by Dave

It’s no secret that I’ve been a bit Leverage RPG crazy for the past few months- in many ways, it’s a system that just flat out “clicked” with me as soon as I played it. One of the outcroppings of that is my desire to hack it into other settings. I’m a huge fan of modern settings, and while Leverage RPG scratches that itch, there’s lots of room for modern games beyond heists and capers. Enter my early ideas about combining it with Mage: The Ascension, to which I (and as I discovered recently, many other gamers) have very fond memories of.

Filed Under: Critical Threats, Game Hacks & Content, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: leverage, Leverage RPG, mage: the ascension

My Love Letter to “Mage: The Ascension”

January 4, 2011 by Dave

Dave looks back at the 2nd edition of “Mage: The Ascension,” how he got into the game, why it never stuck as a campaign, and how it rewired his teenage brain.

Filed Under: Critical Threats, Editorial, Featured, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: mage: the ascension, old world of darkness, white wolf, world of darkness

Inq. of the Week: Oh Oh It’s Magic

January 12, 2009 by Dave

While an interesting magic system is not enough to drive a fantasy setting, it does appear to be part of the main hook when getting readers. Likewise, in a fantasy RPG system, this provides an immediate appeal to playing the game if the magic is interesting enough.

Filed Under: Featured, Inquisition of the Week, Roleplaying Games, Science Fiction & Fantasy Genre Tagged With: ars magica, D&D, eragon, gurps, mage: the ascension, malazan, mistborn, song of fire and ice, sword of truth, wheel of time, WoW

About the Author

  • Dave

    Dave "The Game" Chalker is the Editor-in-Chief and Co-Founder of Critical Hits. Since 2005, he has been bringing readers game news and advice, as well as editing nearly everything published here. He is the designer of the Origins Award-winning Get Bit!, a freelance designer and developer, son of a science fiction author, and a Master of Arts. He lives in MD with e and at least three dogs.

    Email: dave@critical-hits.com

    Follow me:

Subscribe

RSS Feed

Archives

CC License

All articles and comments posted posted on the site (but not the products for sale) are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. References to trademarks and copywritten material are included for review and commentary use only and are not intended as any kind of challenge.

Recent Comments

  • fogus: The best things and stuff of 2024 on Remembering the Master: An Inelegant Eulogy for Kory Heath
  • Routinely Itemised: RPGs #145 on Review: The Magus
  • The Chatty DM on Review: The Magus
  • Linnaeus on Review: The Magus
  • 13th Age: Indexing Truths — Critical Hits on The Horizon Conspiracy

Contact The Staff

Critical Hits staff can be reached via the contact information on their individual staff pages and in their articles. If you want to reach our senior staff, email staff @ critical-hits.com. We get sent a lot of email, so we can't promise we'll be able to respond to everything.

Recent Posts

  • Remembering the Master: An Inelegant Eulogy for Kory Heath
  • Review: The Magus
  • Hope in the Dark Heart of Evil is Not a Plan
  • Chatty on Games #1: Dorf Romantik
  • The Infinity Current: Adventure 0

Top Posts & Pages

  • Home
  • The 5x5 Method Compendium
  • Dungeons & Dragons "Monster Manual" Preview: The Bulette!
  • Critical Hits Fantasy Name Generator
  • On Mid-Medieval Economics, Murder Hoboing and 100gp
  • "The Eversink Post Office" - An Unofficial Supplement for Swords of the Serpentine
  • Finally a manual for the rest of them!
  • Dave Chalker AKA Dave The Game
  • How to Compare Birds to Fish
  • The Incense War: a Story of Price Discovery, Mayhem, and Lust

Copyright © 2025 · News Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in