The system was certainly before its time and, like many of its kin (heh [WoD]), still holds value as a fantastic structure to weave collaborative stories with strangers & friends alike. IMHO, of it weren't for those rulesets blazing trails outside of D&D's sandbox (too often resembling a litter box, NGL), we wouldn't have so many OGs today willing to run and/or teach a different way of gaming. I'm quietly ecstatic to see the adversarial DM trope, toxic AF that it is, getting left in the dust as GMing becomes far less off-putting as people grasp how different it can be — and more rewarding for everyone, really.

But then they're too awesome to use, so you never use them and never find out the enemies can use them against you.

this is just mage the ascension

Literally, this is just mage the ascension.

Supposedly [Mage M5 is in progress](https://www.enworld.org/threads/jason-carl-on-white-wolfs-return-mage-the-ascension-plans.713655/)!

I 100% tell people "I play D&D" or answer "are you busy this weekend" with "I've got D&D" even though I haven't played D&D since COVID and even before then I had done multiple campaigns and one-shots in other systems.

aww hell...

You not a fan of that news?

W5 absolutely fumbled the representation, V5 was a mess. they're just going to completely misunderstand the setting and crack the fanbase in two.

V5 was a mess? I'll admit I've only read through the rulebook and watched LA By Night, never actually played it. But I really, *really* like the system. It feels like it strikes a pretty great balance between an amount of detail that can give you meaningful character choices, while also being really elegant and intuitive to play with. The same thing that made 5e so successful for D&D. Werewolves have never really interested me, so I never looked much at that. But I quite liked the idea behind Mage so I was looking forward to seeing what they'd do with it, both mechanically and in the metanarrative.