I am looking to start on ongoing campaign for Mage: the Ascension for my group of two players (each would be playing one character). I am somewhat familiar with running the system a decade ago, though that was a muddle of running 2nd and Revised. So I am looking for some advice (inspired by the advice for running Vampire in the 20th anniversery thread).
I will be using either 2nd edition or Revised - I believe I will want to use the rules from 2nd edition for the Spirit sphere at least, as I think that might be an interesting thing to explore. I was thinking of setting the game in Columbus Ohio, but I am not sure if I want to do a modern (2012) game or set the clock to the early 1990's as a way to avoid current (possibly volatile) political controversies.
I want this to be a campaign that can last a couple of months of playing 3-4 times a month for 4 hours (if that affects anything), with maybe a nod towards going longer if the players want it to. My main concern is that combat might be too lethal (depending on what we run into) which would really detract from getting character development going.
So, any tips, advice, things to think about, etc from people who've done successful campaigns?