The best testimonial, one of my players said "Some of this stuff is very cool, there are some paradigms that I actually think fit well with my character"! what more could you want? A newbie to Mage finally getting the hang of paradigm thanks to this book.

A great book that not only expands on existing options to have practices influence game mechanics but also offers a more nuanced take on evil practices beyond 'Kill people for infernal investments.' I personally did not like how high power characters had to make a permanent choice between versatility or specialization but the idea is one I would love to include in my games after a bit of homebrewing to make it so that the choices merely cause an increase in experience cost rather than permanently banning sphere advancement.

When M20 broke Focus into Paradigm/Practice/Instruments, I was glad it made explaining how to build a Mage's beliefs and magickal style so much easier. Along comes Prism of Focus, which added a couple of extra puzzle pieces that I didn't know that I needed. Suddenly the process wass even more clear and smooth.

The first win for me was how it improved the character creation process. You can start with the new Tenets that informs the Paradigm that fits best with, or at least is close to, your core beliefs. (Of course, you could instead start with Tradition and pick one of their Paradigms, which gives you associated Tenets.) Then those Tenets narrow the list of Practices that most easily work from those beliefs, causing that choice to be made from a shorter list. Practices have a (again smaller) list of Instruments. Practices also have associated Abilities, similar to how Do is presented in M20, and they make sense for using that Practice's Instruments. The details in this book makes explicit the connections between all of these pieces.

Where Paradigms are wide and cover many different beliefs, Tenets are narrow and can directly guide some roleplay situations. Practices are now ranked with dots in a way that integrates them with the casting process, Sanctums, and Reality Zones. They are such elegant solutions the to parts of the game that were previously rule-less.

My game is a long way off from using the high-level options, but everything presented makes sense and promises to add a lot of fun to kind of game.

I consider this book an essential add-on the the M20 corebook, for both Storytellers and players, regardless of experience.

As a new Storyteller of Mage, Prism of Focus has done a lot of the heavy lifting to get me to really grock how to approach Paradigm and Practice. By breaking it all down into bite-sized chunks that are easily understood as gameable elements, Prism of Focus has made it a lot easier to explain these concept's to my newcomer player's. Also, the system for Rotes detailed in the book is great, and well worth the purchase alone. I wholeheartedly recommend this product whether you're a fellow newcomer or even an experienced Mage player; there's a lot of material to fire your creativity here.

Amazing work. Love the benefits and drawbacks of practice

Even though I was making a character for Revised instead of M20, the breakdowns of Paradigms and such helped me immensily in wrapping my head around what I was even supposed to be thinking about. With Paradigm specifically, the different sections helped me focus down on what the really important bits were for making it coherent and well-rounded. Essentially, if you're a newbie like me then this book helps alot with figuring out the fundamentals.

An amazing book that eases the understanding over one of the fundamental parts of M20. Not only that, it gives an new yet interesting look into Archmastery of spheres and what a late/high-end Mage game could look like in a fun and unique way!

A fantastic addition to M20. Essential Paradigm breakdown for any new Mage player.

Prism of Focus is a fantastic book that is useful for both players and Storytellers alike. I'll break it down to detail what's great about it, starting with the "Paradigm" chapter. "Paradigm" first introduces the concept of Tenets, which are beliefs about Magick, Reality, Self, Ascension, etc. and are each individually smaller than a Paradigm. They are sorted into seven categories, but only the first three (Metaphysical, Personal, and Ascension) are mandatory at character creation, although any character may have more (and must have more to advance past Arete 3). It then shows how each of the officially published Paradigms can be constructed by combining Tenets from each of those first three categories. I am assuming that the intent is that a character have no more than one from each category; I personally could imagine a character having more complex beliefs regarding Metaphysics that combine facets of two or more Tenets, but it might be best to simply create a new Tenet to accommodate it (More on that later).

Each Tenet has a list of Associated Practices and a list of Limited Practices. When looking at all of a Mage's Tenets as a whole, any one Association cancels out a Limitation. If the net result is Association, using the Practice has a lower difficulty; likewise, Limitation raises difficulty. Of special note here is that each playable group presented in M20 has a Specialty Practice that is always considered Associated for its members.

If you’re already familiar with the Rote rules presented in Mr. Siegel’s Enlightened Grimoire, forget them. While the cost for purchasing Rotes is similar, the way they’re rolled now has more in common with the Linear Magic rules as presented in M20 Sorcerer. Each Rote now is now assigned not only a Practice, but an Attribute + Ability combination that is rolled in lieu of Arete. This is a brilliant choice that not only allows characters to have much greater odds of success for effects that are supposed to be more tried and true methods, but also encourages them to invest more in up-sheet traits.

All in all the Tenet-Practice-Rote system serves to more clearly define who the character is and what they do than RAW or an other home-brew system I’ve yet seen does. I haven’t even mentioned the Ritual system that allows non-practitioners to assist (something sorely needed), or the new rules for Arete and Sphere ranks past six (which I honestly haven’t examined too closely). Oh, and there are rules for Sanctums and Reality Zones as well, which is handy.

An essential addition to the core M20 rules -- if you want paradigm, reality zones, and the battle between different visions of what the world means and how magic works in it, this is a supplement will make your game sing. The writing is clear and direct, the rules well-thought out and balanced, and best of all there are slews and slews of colorful and detailed examples to really breathe life into what characters and factions believe and how those beliefs interact with Sphere magic. This should have been part of the core book.

Such a great book! This does a great job of breaking down paradigms and practices into a system that makes sense Right off the bat the author uses examples from character creation to show different ways that paradigm can be explored and developed by the player. The book's system shows how using tenets (sorted into logical groups) can be used to create paradigms for characters. It also gives examples on how to incorparate practices, provides examples of corrputed practices, rotes and wonders for each practice, and even provides a specialty benefit for each Traditon/Craft/Convention for whichever practice they are most likely to use, such ad the Royal Art specialty for Children of Knowledge using the Alchemy practice. If you are trying to create or explain Focus for higher powers such as Archmages, there is a section here for that too. Overall, a well written very accessible book that is key for Mage character creation.

Not only is this a great, incredibly well-written book, if fixes one of the biggest holes the Mage: The Ascension RPG has had since its first edition: Practices.

With this, we finally get systems that mesh together Rotes, Reality Zones, Sanctums and the use of Practices in all of them.

Its also an excellent tool for players, giving them a cohesive toolbox to work with. I would recommend adding the systems in this book to any Storyteller campaign.

In sum, it meshes the ephemeral ideas of Mage with workable systems, which almost sounds like a feat of Magic by itself!