The Rich Bastard's Guide to Magick

Mage - The Ascension focuses on high goals, personal enlightenment, and the definition of reality. On the other hand, money seems so banal - yet it would be so easy for an experienced magician to build up riches with the diverse spheres. The Rich Bastard's Guide to Magick is therefore dedicated to the topic of wealth and money in all its facets.

First, the volume looks at the relationship of traditions, conventions, and other groups to the subject of wealth and what they can and want to achieve with it. Then it goes directly to the topic of characters. Here, the focus lies on background resources beyond the usual 5-point limit, describing not only the mechanics of the game but providing a strong focus on what that means for the character's background. With appropriate new archetypes, advantages, and disadvantages, these backgrounds can also be modeled in terms of rules. A selection of rotes for the various spheres provides additional material for players. The focus here is not always on gaining wealth, but many of these spells fit the lifestyle of the rich. Corresponding paradigms and practices complement this chapter.

That wealth is the key to entering exclusive circles is the theme of the following chapter. Various organizations, from a wellness clinic to a sector in the digital web to a club of adrenaline junkies, provide different examples. What money can buy directly - whether the perfect home, excellent vehicles, or outright magic items of all kinds - is the next topic that the book addresses. These magical treasures are not necessarily powerful items but are always exclusive and sometimes quite decadent, like a billion-dollar work of art. If that is not enough, there are ideas for a private town or a chantry.

The book concludes with tips and tricks for playing with the rich and famous. This chapter is about how super-rich characters can change the game for the whole group, and how the game master can deal with players trying to solve every problem simply with money. A few adventure hooks from the world of the rich conclude the book.

The Rich Bastard's Guide to Magick is a special book. Hardly any gaming group will really need it, but it certainly provides interesting approaches and ideas - also in the form of concrete game material. The rotes, wonders, and organizations alone do not justify the book alone, but if you are thinking about a chronicle set in the world of the rich and famous and thus have considerably more room for over-the-top and fancy toys, this is the book for you. If this direction appeals to you, you will get plenty of ideas, tips, and hooks here. However, those who focus their Mage game on the street level or enlightenment will not miss this book. In short, if you want to play your Mage game in the world of rich bastards, you'll get your money's worth - everyone else does not need this book.

(Björn Lippold)

An Onyx Path product that doesn't feel like : "you're evil if you don't think like us", it's refreshing ! Seriously, the writers have made some research on spiritaul practice and their relation to wealth and the conception of money. They gave good advice on running a game of "rich bastards". Some new rotes and magical items.

Buy to encourage good buisness practice.

I was disappointed by this title.

The 'examination of money and mage society' was superficial and to be honest, banal. The ideas of what Wealth means, suggests writers that are all under 30 and have never had any contact with actually wealth people. There are NO offerings for Primal Utility, except a weakening, in that now you can use ordinary Prime to interact with Primal Utility. If there was anything actually using the concepts of Hypereconomics, I must have missed them. The 'movers and shakers' promissed were - again - superficial and unexciting. Nothing that couldn't be made up in half an hour. The High-Ticket Items promissed, are a mix of boring Marvel rip-offs, useless, impractical garbage, and the potentially game breaking Crucible of Thig.

I was so excited when I first noticed this title. Upon actually reading it, I was in turn disappointed and bored. My only ray of hope is the knowledge that this is not the final product. It could still be saved. But I won't be holding my breath.

PS: If asked if I could recommend it, my answer would be NO!. And then the offer of this link: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/145973/Shadowrun-Corporate-Shadowfiles?term=corporate+shadowfiles - it's a better book by far.

This book does a good job of looking into the impact of wealth, but doesn't address as much how players might attempt to acheive it instead of what they would do if they had it. It has a number of rotes and items which are incredibly solid, but also is somewhat mixed with respect to consistency as to what wealth is and how it works on the largest scales. My views, to be fair, may be slightly unrealistic on the subject as someone whose degree and day job are in accounting. It's a very fair depiction from the perspective of being able to run a game for people who don't study the field.

I like the characters introduced for potential inclusion in your games, the sample chantry, and the general considerating of the impact of being rich, or becoming rich. The various clubs and organizations are a very useful resource to play in the shadows of your world of darkness. More importantly, it reminds us to look at the ways that someone without magic can change the world as much as the canniest mage. That makes for good stories.

This is a book like Orphan's Survival Guide or Masters of the Art in that it outlines an area of Mage that one can infer must exist but that we've simply not gotten information about. The open fiction outlines the world of rich and powerful mages and the rest of the book keeps on with it. This is not a book that everyone needs, but given that you're going to have money as a consideration in your game, this supplement helps a lot of the lifting.

Here's what I enjoyed:

• The fiction pieces are good. They transmit flavor in a way not all books manage to
• Every entry is a story idea. There's little space in this book for things like the loved but rarely focal Ionic Cloth so even though something may be listed as a Wonder it's really a plot hook. They wonderfully balance unexplored places in the Mage world with things we already know. It's entirely reasonable that Porthos made a grimoire and now we get information on it!
• The book brings back some of the high-energy and over-the-top bits of 2e that M20 seemingly tamped down on. An object that grants a sixth dot of Computer? Yes please. A mage country club only open to billionaires? Yes. What it's like to have your own town? Thank you.
• Good ST tools on wealth and making characters justify their resources.
• Information on how money can more or less make things coincidental.
• Details on how each Tradition relates with money. I think this is the first place that we find that the djinn are all over the financial sector along with the Taftani and that the Virtual Adepts are now rolling in it.

What I wished for:

• Iyeoka Sophia is on the cover AND MAKES NO APPEARANCE IN THE BOOK. GHAA GIVE US STATS.
• There are very few systems. At this level, you kind of need a system for Resources. I get that no one wants to necessarily talk dollars and cents but you can come up with a Resources system that simply scales or is strictly narrative but I still want systems for it. At least Masters of the Art gave us systems implict in having XP buy Arete and Sphere dots.
• The art is interesting but staid. It's fun but it's a lot of Michael Gaydos chapter fronts and I'm just done with that.
• The Paradigms are meh.

Mage the Podcast spoke with two of the authors if you'd like more talk on this book

I had forgotten that Mage books could be fun. So many of the books in the M20 line have been unrelenting misery porn and hopelessness (reaching the peak with Book of the Fallen) that this is just a breath of fresh air. A quick Chapter by Chapter review below:

This is really the main place where the book acts like the fun police, reminding you that money corrupts and all sorts of bad things. But...it's like 2 pages.

The main thrust of this chapter is to describe how the various factions view money and how it influences them. It has a little scolding, but also a bunch of great ideas, like Akashayana Action Accountants.

This chapter is a little thin, mostly it's on talking about where wealth comes from and adding some new Archetypes (and how wealth impacts old ones) and new Merits and Flaws.

Here's where the good shit really gets going. This book contains 27 Rotes, 3 for each Sphere, and they're split up to be useful. One of them is a 1-2 dot rote, one a 3-4, and one a 5, so whatever power level you're playing at there's something for you. And they're generally creative and fun. It's hard to pick a favorite, but Company in a Box has to be mine. Just...create a Primal Venture from nothing, but over time, you can make it real. Including turning people you created into real people with normal lives integrated into society. It's a wonderful plot hook in the form of a Master of Prime (read Primal Utility) rote. The chapter also includes some Focus elements, most of which are good, though I dispute the description of Cryptocurrency in the early version I've got for technical reasons.

An interesting chapter on what groups of super wealthy mages are up to, many of which cut across faction, because at Resources 6, a Progenitor and a Hermetic may have more in common than they do with the hoi polloi of the Union and Traditions.

Wonders. So many Wonders, and they're ridiculous and over the top in all the right ways. A painting made by cutting up ten masterpieces. A tactical war cloud. A Wonder that makes making Wonders easier. It's all here. I had to stop several times to show something to people, because this chapter is just...well, to be a bit on the nose, solid gold.

Suggestions for how to handle the sort of wealth this book talks about in your game. How characters can acquire it, what makes it worth opening this box, plot hooks, etc.

Overall, a solid book that I can't recommend enough, especially to counter the "Nephandi are everywhere and they've already won so what's the point?" feeling that many people have complained about throughout M20.

This supplement is one of those supplements that I've added to my collection and am able to use like right now.

There was already quite a lot of resources available for wealth and the Technocratic Union, so having a really strong resource for wealth within the Traditions and Disparates is really welcome.

Chapter 4 is a personal favourite for me, presenting some interesting super-rich clubs/orgs/communities that you can drop into a game really easily, and then give them plenty of depth by leaning heavily into chapters 2 and 3.